Economic hard ships on prince

I've been playing my first game on prince today. Usually on noble I totally destroy my opponents. I've been playing pretty much the same style I always play but this time I am experience HUGE economic hardships. While at war I hardly noticed as my income dropped all the way to -4 with only 10% on the science slider! I have fallen far behind in tech but my overall score is still in a close second. I have managed to build my economy back to 50% science by building cottages, markets, and micro managing which tiles my citizens work by sacrificing food and hammers for gold.

I'm not sure why my economy is taking such a blow or really what else I can do to bring it up any faster. If any on has any suggestions or ideas that would be great. Here is the save if anyone wants to check it out. http://forums.civfanatics.com/uploads/62045/Kublai_Khan_AD-1180.Civ4SavedGame

sorry I can't open civ on this computer, but my guess is that you're conquering/building too many cities. As you go up in level, you'll notice that you're going to have to start razing more cities so that your city maintenance doesn't shoot out the roof. Some courthouses may also help, especially in the far out cities (you can whip them pretty fast, especially if you're organized). Hope that helps.

I think the problem is partly your technology path, partly your civic choices, and partly your overexpansion, with a little bit of Wonder-addiction thrown in.

Civics and Related

Too few workers. Six Workers for ten cities is too few - even with Serfdom, or looking at it another way 'especially' with Serfdom. If you're running this civic (which I think is not the best choice here) you would want an army of Workers to make quick improvements to your terrain before switching to Slavery (needed here) or the Caste System.

I would leap into Slavery and start whipping Courthouses. You've recognised this in that two of your ten cities are now working on Courthouses. Whipping them will decrease your costs through smaller populations and the decreased costs through the building itself. Cities with unhappy citizens (there are some) will lose these unhappy citizens first.

You are also running the expensive civic 'Vassalage' yet you're not in war and have only one military build at the moment. If you plan to get Knights and attack Mansa with them, that's fine, but otherwise if it's peaceful-development then I'd forget Vassalage.

You are in Organised Religion (good) but there are several cities without Hinduism. The spread of this religion will help their building production through the civic, improve happiness, open up new building opportunities (Temples and Monateries), and add a little through shrine income. Your capital is building a Galley, but I'd start churning out Hindu Missionaries so your cities can benefit from Organised Religion.

Technology

You've made science and city management very low priorities in your technology path. I can see that you want to embrace the Mongolian warmonger philosophy, but it's killing you in other ways.

• 250AD - Writing
• 740AD - Currency
• 1070AD - Alphabet!
• 1090AD - Code of Laws

This is 'really' late for these technologies, and the result is that Hatty and Mansa have run away technologically.

Wonders

The Wonders that you've chased are not bad by and large, but I would think about what the opportunity cost was. Stonehenge for a Creative civ isn't totally useless, but the benefit of this Wonder is helping non-Creative civs to get their first border pop. It was there, it's cheap, and you have Stone - I can see the temptation, but I'd skip it. The Colossus is only so useful when you've got very few coastal cities who aren't working many coastal tiles, and generally haven't got commerce-oriented infrastructure (Libraries aside). The Oracle I can see - but did you use it for Monarchy? The Hanging Gardens is a pretty handy Wonder and would have been cheap given that you've got Stone. Health shouldn't be a big issue at Prince level, but it's still an understandable choice.

From Here

Now that you're getting your empire together better, I would re-think your civics, and if you're not planning to muster up a lot of Knights then swap out of Vassalage (> Barbarism ... if nothing else it's cheaper) and Serfdom (> Slavery). Once in Slavery, use the whip.

More Workers, more Courthouses, more Hinduism spread (and given that you've also got the Confucian shrine, there's some low-priority opportunity to get that religion spread too).

With enough Courthouses you should also build the Forbidden Palace that will trim your costs further. You can gear up for further warfare when you have access to better units - perhaps Grenadiers and Cannons, although you could do more than OK with Knights and Catapults (Machinery > Guilds)? I think that your empire at the moment is a 'sleeping giant', and could dominate your continent come the Industrial Age.

overexpanded...

The slider always the checking measure for your expansion...
I heard they raze cities when they can't afford it....
I "heard that" because most of the time I struggle to get more living space. ^^ totally different path.

Without playing brilliantly (I won't post my version of your game) I was able to get the economy back on an even keel and destroy Mansa and Huayna Capac by 1665AD.

After quite a while in peace, Mali to the south fell largely to Mongol Knights and Catapults, although Mansa had snuck a city up to the central west, and would go on to found a second city in that area. After Guilds I beelined the technologies necessary for Cavalry and Grenadiers. The army moved north, and I upgraded about half a dozen Knights to Cavalry, which with Catapults easily dealt with the Incan Longbows. In hindsight, all of the effort to get Cavalry for these two tribes was overkill, but handy if we were to go after the big fish to the north.

Aside from several National Wonders, I built the Taj Mahal. Only two Great People - a Great Scientist founded an Academy in Beshbalik and a Great Merchant went on a trade mission to Thebes (1,500 - lightbulb was Banking which wasn't a high priority).

In my game Egypt is only marginally ahead of Mongolia in most regards (score, power, landmass, population), while the other tribes on the other continent are a bit behind both. With Education and improved civic choices Mongolia could turtle up and go for a surprise space race win through a combination of a focussed technology push and developing cities - it would not be bad for a tribe that just learned its A-B-C's in 1070AD! Otherwise the option could be to research Steel next, crank up the military machine a notch and try (with some difficulty I'd imagine) to cut down Egypt with Cav's, Cannons, and Grenadiers.

Best of luck!

Thank you very much!

Now lets just see if Ill get a chance to try your suggestions before I have to visit my family

edit: theres one thing though, this may be a very stupid question but, What am I going to do with all my workers? My cities are already too crowded and unhealthy (I think), and most of my chances to improve tiles would be chopping a forest and putting up a watermill (I want to keep up production) I suppose if its next to a river ill get a net gain on that tile of 1 gold. But im really not sure what my workers should be building.

one more thing: Where would be the best place to put the forbidden palace? Should I be planning its location based on future expansion possibilities that may or may not happen in the future?

civaddict098 said:

Thank you very much!

Now lets just see if Ill get a chance to try your suggestions before I have to visit my family

edit: theres one thing though, this may be a very stupid question but, What am I going to do with all my workers? My cities are already too crowded and unhealthy (I think), and most of my chances to improve tiles would be chopping a forest and putting up a watermill (I want to keep up production) I suppose if its next to a river ill get a net gain on that tile of 1 gold. But im really not sure what my workers should be building.

one more thing: Where would be the best place to put the forbidden palace? Should I be planning its location based on future expansion possibilities that may or may not happen in the future?

Click to expand...

I also played your save, by whipping courthouses immediately and returning the troops home i had the science slider back to 70 % in 2 turns. Beelined for optics asap after that, caravel to the other continent while researching paper and education, By the time i won the liberalism race i was first in tech and the empire thriving, there i stopped.As for the workers, personally i prefer farms and specialists but you can also cottage most of the tiles checking that you have enough food to work them all (build a few farms). Later on after researching guilds chemistry and eventually communism workshops and watermills are great, i usually put workshops and watermills (better if possible) on every plains square and sometimes on grasslands if there are no or few mines.

To over-expand successfully you need only lots of cottages and currency, the ability to build wealth allows you to cover maintainence costs easily. Alternative ideas included getting mercantilism (not vital) and running caste society (that is as markets/grocers costly) so each additional city has a merchant and so will in most circumstances cover its maintainence costs.

courthouse really isn't that important to revive economy. I only start them in industrial age and my economy never suffered much before that. When you play on harder difficulty, especially emperor+, overexpansion is the real killer. You can't just grab all the land you can. you got make sure the cost of new city vs. the income it brings is positive. When you build or conquer a new city a few expense increase, civic upkeep, city maintenance, military cost. If you have lots of coast and you manage to get great light house built. you can build as many costal cities has you can, because the gold from extra trade routes is almost always more than the expense. Its the cities you build inland you need to watch, before you get currency, limite cities to under 6. Once you get currency, calendar and built all the improvements, you can support about 12. Once you get economics, The more cities the merrier.

City numbers are based on huge maps. Thats the only size I play.

What is it about currency that makes it useful?

Noob question, yes, but I'm never sure if its markets and merchants, trade routes ,or selling things for gold , or build gold that people are happy to get access to . All of the above of course, but which one is the most crucial if you're loookng to help out your econ short term?

mice said:

What is it about currency that makes it useful?

Noob question, yes, but I'm never sure if its markets and merchants, trade routes ,or selling things for gold , or build gold that people are happy to get access to . All of the above of course, but which one is the most crucial if you're loookng to help out your econ short term?

Click to expand...

trade routes, new cities has nothing but trade routes generate money early on. It also helps to sign as many open border agreements as possible. Calendar is important for plantation, things like dye, silk, so you finally get some high commerce tiles.

Don't ever underestimate the power of trade routes, they are the driving force of your economy before your cottage become towns. Some people seem to prefer inland city for production. that just doesn't work at higher level. Coast cities rack in enormes amount of commerce. Especially if you built great light house. You can have 3 trade routes generating around 15 commerce before you even get currency.

This is also a stupid question but how do you make more/increase income from trade routes? I know where to see how much they are bringing in but what effects that and how do I establish trade routes with more cities?

civaddict098 said:

This is also a stupid question but how do you make more/increase income from trade routes? I know where to see how much they are bringing in but what effects that and how do I establish trade routes with more cities?

Click to expand...

computer automatically selects the optimal cities to trade with from civs you have an OPEN BORDER agreement with. You don't have direct control on trades route. but if you sign more open border agreement, it gives computer more cities to choose from, thus better chance of increasing trade route yield. The factors that influence trade route income seems to be, your city size, city size of the city you trade with and distance. OUt of all the factors, it seems your own city's size has the biggest weight.