Economic woes

While this isnt in my "official" job description...this needs to be talked about.

Currently we are running 20% research...losing gold per turn. IF we drop to ZERO % we will be losing 4 gold per turn. Our economy is in the tank and until we can develop some buildings( courthouses?) or cottages. Our only research is coming from cities converting hammers to beakers.( currently 4 or 5 cities).

Looking at the Financial breakdown
Income...66gpt
Expenses....67gpt
Unit cost......6gpt....10 units too many--we have 7 workers
City Mainteance.... 38gpt....23 distance; 15 # of cities
Civic ....19gpt...( as low as it could be)
inflation.......4

Hindsight is 20-20 but stopping the Mongolian war WOULD have been the better choice. In addition despite having "too many" troops..we are 7 in soldiers and look to be a ripe target to the AI. Our population is also way down on demographics and is why we can only support a small number of troops...we need to reproduce quickly.

So I urge all citizens and officials to figure out ways to increase our gpt. Currently we are number 8 in GNP which is our science rate. We need to grow to drop our unit cost and we need to cut maintence costs.

When i as playing yesterday i noticed this too. Something needs to be done.

I'm still disconnected from civ, thanks for opening this.

What civics are available to switch to?

What are our research choices?

Can we MM to use more cottages, at the expense of production and food? Can we expedite building more cottages? Can we MM to work resources which provide gpt? Can we build wealth (don't remember what tech gets you that).

Any cities have unnecessary and sellable buildings? Don't remember myself, are we even allowed to sell a building?

Can we pop rush anything which will improve the economy?

I'm not necessarily advocating any of these items, right now just need input.

RE: Civics... Switching from Heredity rule has no effect. Switching from Slavery has no effect. Teh Civics are as low as they can be right now.

Re:Research
We are working on Currency and at 0% it will take 35 turns with almost all of our cities producing research( except for the new ones and the mongolian cities. I didnt look into the other choices...(not my area and we have a good Minister of science)

Re:Selling building...Nope not allowed. Units will disband but not buildings. We have 204 gold so running at bare minimum gives us 200 turns. Running at 20% gives us 50 turns.

Re:Cottages
We could double or triple workers building cottages but we might not have the population to work them..depends on teh cities. Our low population and the need to run Specialists to keep people happy or research is hurting us.

Reop rushing...nope. I dont see anything helping except lighthouses and then switching to a "Sea based economy" which would be a very good idea in the former Mongolian capital. In fact once that comes out of anarchy we should be able to gain a bit of gold by working the clams there depending on its costs since it isnt costing us anything right now in anarchy. So this situation could get worse.

The bad news...I have played many games that ended up like this none were winning games. Once you start on teh 0 % science its almost impossible to be equal on tech so your potiosn for winning become lower. One way around that is to go for domination and simply start killing off all the Russians and German cities and switch to a "War economy" based on Pillaging. Then hope that new Civs move in and we can start on them or go out looking for them. I am not sayign this is the way to go or that this game is loss...but my gut tells me that this game is a very close to being loss right now.

robboo said:

RE: Civics... Switching from Heredity rule has no effect. Switching from Slavery has no effect. Teh Civics are as low as they can be right now.

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Sorry, I wasn't clear. I'm not talking about the cost of the civics, I'm talking about the effects of the civics. Please post the civics we're allowed to switch to, if any, and their effects. Some civics give gold back or allow us to do other things which give gold.

Another way we can dig out is to get a Great Person (or several) by having specialists.

ahh.. OK. We can only switch back to the base civics out of heredity rule and Slavery both of which dont help. No other civics are available at this time.

Great people would help but we can only get an Artist or a Scientist which dont produce any gold as a Super specialist but can be used to get a tech. Am I missing something with the Great People?

Dave...I just finished looking at the save again. If we move tiles to work thsoe that produce gold in all cities we can be breaking even at 20%. In addition we have an unhappy citizen in both BW and Abydos which should improve once we get another luxury from Russia. If we can do this and continue to increase population we should be able to move out of this economic slow down. Then with the addition of courthouses, and markets in the hopefully not to distant future we should be able to resume a normal research rate.

robboo, there won't be unhappyness when the war weariness is over
Currency will take 23 turns
Code of Laws 25

Currency will give extra trade routes and the option to build wealth and the option to build markets. We can manage researching Currency with our current amount of gold and I guess we will be relatively save once we have it.

Second on the research list will be Code of Laws

We have a lot of small cities in the jungle, if we can develop them to commerce cities with our 7 workers (7 workers on 10 cities) our income will be higher.

Some bad news: when the resistance in Karakorum and the other Mongolian city stops we need to pay more upkeep costs. (btw Karakorum has an academy!)

When I was looking at the save yesterday I noticed our economy was really bad too. I think cottage spamming is the way to go right now.


(btw good we're talking about the game again, not the constitution)

MM: In Boaring Wallow, we aren't building anything. Switch from working the Mine (1F 3H) to working the Town (3F 5C). This takes 3 turns off our science time.

Auda City: Work a water tile (1F 2C) rather than a plain tile (1F 1C). This will delay the lighthouse by one turn, but it is already +5/turn Food. Having the Lighthouse out one turn early will only create 1 extra food for one turn. But doing this will reduce our research turn by one.

I have just dropped our Currency research from 27 turns to 23 turns. edit: if dutch is correct and 4 turns are dropped from not being at war, that should drop us to 19 turns.

Ning-Hsia has two floodplains just asking for cottages.
Turfan: we are currently building a cottage on a plain tile. There is a grassland/river tile that needs one, plus two jungle/river tiles that can take some also.
Beshbalik has two grassland farms. One or both should probably be changed to cottages.

Cottages should become first priority, above building roads. It might be better in the long run to build a few more workers instead of Research to help the cottage spam. Also, when Beshbalik finishes it's Theater in 8 turns, we can build the Globe Theater (eliminates from the city it's built in). If we build the Globe Theater in BW, and then build a granary and aquaduct BW can quickly grow to size 12. Spam cottages in that area and we have a major commerce city. (We can build it elsewhere, I just didn't look around right now. BW was simply chosen for this example because it's the capitol.)

So, should we start the Globe Theater in 8 turns? (We can discuss where after we discuss whether we will do it.)

all turns I list are on 20% research as it was when I got the save, we were losing 10 gold a turn, with 200 gold in our treasury and about 23 turns researchtime, this seems logical, but I didn't check the effect of MicroManaging

True that war weariness is the cause of unhappiness...however, like I said we are close to the happiness limit in a few cities so the extra luxury( asuming trade with Russia) wil help also.

The only problem with all the micromangaing for gold is we slow down production and our army is still adequate for defense but that can change soon.

I haven't seen the save but I suggested putting Mic's Gate on the 2 cottage tiles and a coastal tile. Once the city grew it could be put on a plains cottage tile (not sure how this happened...). The city needs some forests to be chopped for more grassland cottages.

There are a few oddities in the save...a worker that is "fortified " near BW for instance. I hope everyone looks at teh save before the next TC to "fix" things.

All this sounds great. We're not in good shape, but maybe we can stay afloat long enough to get permanent fixes in place.

Don't blame people for the worker's moves. That is the responsibility of the MoI, who is not present. Once we have a MoI the workers should become more productive.

GeorgeOP said:

Don't blame people for the worker's moves. That is the responsibility of the MoI, who is not present. Once we have a MoI the workers should become more productive.

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But George why are we operating without a MoI? If the turnplayer can't move workers then we may as well halt the game. If this is because of the judiciary then we need to figure out how the judiciary doesn't destroy the economy, no?

If u want more Pop. just dont use slavery and build more farms

The DP moved other workers is all I am saying. I dont know if that one got "fortified" by accident on a previous save or not. Not placing blame on anyone just want it noted and addressed.

I didn't say the player didn't or shouldn't move the workers. I just don't want people blaming the player for the worker's actions. There were no instructions, so I didn't want people to blame the workers on the last TC. Most of the workers are building cottages, just not in spaces that I personally would have picked first. So I applaud the player for using the workers to help get the economy going.

Hello, everybody!

Even during my busy time with my diploma thesis I came to see how our great nation is evolving ...
and what I see! Our nation decided to take the Mongols in one hit and now is going through economical crisis (month ago I warned about it).

Well, the situation is not that bad yet, but it near the collapse. Don't forget that in 4 turns Karakorum will "wake up" and cost in maintenance 5-6 gpt more. On the other hand it will probably pay for itself (3 citizens on the ocean=6commerce+1(under city)+1(trade route)=8) and even add 3beakers(2+50% from Academy) to our research. But on the other hand as it becomes active it might rise the "maintenance from number of cities" also in other cities ... so it might be bad.
Probably one more city would sink our economy copmletly.

So what can be done. First, next turn (as the war is over) the war weariness will be our, so we'll get two more working citizens.
Well, even if we want to research Currency as fast as possible, don't forget that "building research" only converts 2 hammers into 1 beaker! So it's much more effective to go for commerce ... means work cottages/towns ... as then we can pay the maintenance easier and increase science rate!
So for example in BW they shouldn't work the mines! They should not work the pigs ... they can afford lose some stored food. As well there should be 2nd scientist (as it produces 3 beakers while mined plains hill (w/4hammers) only 2 beakers)! Well if I sum it, they should have 2 scientists and work the cottages/towns along the river and after the war weariness is over the last citizen should work the lake.
Abydos similarilly, make 2 scientists, work the 2 hamlets, farm and horses. The last citizens (after war weariness is over) can work forested grassland. They can afford losing 1 food even for more than 20 turns.
If similar steps are taken in all cities (ex. Auda City can work sea tiles even without lighthous because of the pigs they have), then the sci-rate can be increased at least to 50% and get the Currency in 10 turns (or even less). That should help a lot. Then build Market at least in BW and go for CoL and courthouses which should finally normalize the economy and start the growth!