Out of money - Am I doomed?

[palladia]

I have a scenario where I expanded too quickly. I have a large number of cities, so it quickly dried up my money. My workers all died off because the lack of fund. My science is at 0% because all the money is going to upkeep. So what do I do now? Is there anyway to recover from here?

If I try to build more workers, they die off immediately. My research is going backwards, and so I can't count on newer techs to help me. The whole empire is at a standstill because there's no money to do anything!

[Fajita Jim]

Pull out of a few cities and declare war on your neighbor. Bonus if you can get some troops in his territory and do some pillaging to get your bank account started.

Or maybe you can gift a few cities to your neighbor? Not sure of your exact place in the game.

[Calder]

You can survive through an early crippling economy due to overexpansion, but you'll need to be prepared to be a long way behind the technology rush, especially if the economy is in ruins prior to code of laws. (This will be less severe the lower your level difficulty.) Just make sure you know pottery, because cottages are your life saver. Build them, and lots of them. Get your governor to emphasise commerce (important!) so your cities will work the cottages, even when there just layed down. Your production output will suffer greatly, which is where you'll need to have the slavery civic to rush happiness or health buildings when required. The most important building you'll need is the courthouse. Rush them ASAP. It will take time, but gradually you'll be able to creep your research back up. Things to watch out for is to minimise the number of troops outside your cultural borders while at peace to avoid those extra costs. If there's an opportunity to build a wonder, even when you know there's no chance of winning it, build it. A large lump sum gold payout can be good for at least 2 quickly researched techs. And eye up those barbarian cities - that's free money.

[deanjack]

This is what i personally would do

1. give one city away at a time. Try only to give one city per person or if you must give more make sure that they are seperated. Also try and make them your not so good cities.

2.Gift resources for cash per turn if you have currency.

3.Build lots of cottages.

P.S If you gift cities you can either take them back by war later or make them culture flip.

Hope this helps.

[palladia]

I have no money to support workers or troops, so how do I build cottages or wage wars with the neighbors?

[potatokiosk]

Originally Posted by palladia

I have no money to support workers or troops, so how do I build cottages or wage wars with the neighbors?

You can't, you must follow their other bits of advice and get rid of some cities. If that's not possible, your game is probably over.

You might try making each city produce as much commerce as possible.

Specialists might help you. If you have a religion, build temples and use priest specialists to get a great prophet so you can get a holy city shrine. If you have writing, you can build libraries and use scientists to do your research so that you can reach the crucial technologies of Code of Laws and Currency.

[Swedishguy]

Yes, you're doomed. You might as well resign.

[kristopherb]

no don't resign
convert to slavery and use the anachary to move your troops to pillage AI cottages.

[Cristoval]

This is why the game should be able to allow to raze your own cities. It's been done in real life.

[Tavenier]

Originally Posted by Cristoval

This is why the game should be able to allow to raze your own cities. It's been done in real life.

True. Not sure if it was with economcal reasons. I know some rulers razed cities, because they knew the cities would fall into enemy hands anyway. Russia comes to mind, for example.

BTW look at the names of the last two posters before me and the locations...

[feldmarshall]

Originally Posted by Cristoval

This is why the game should be able to allow to raze your own cities. It's been done in real life.

i think city razing (which means massacring your own population) is rarely done in real life because it would cause a lot of unhappiness. I prefer ability to abandon city (i.e. the city fall into barbarians)

[Yakk]

And abandoning to barbarians allows for slow city razing in any case. Abandon, invade, abandon, invade -- repeat until the city has been destroyed.

[bardolph]

Disband units.

[axident]

All is not lost. I hadn't played civ-style games in ages and got Civ IV vanilla, and my first game I was on a small continent with Alexander. Being Roman, I naturally felt inclined to take his cities. Unfortunately I didn't know anything about distance penalties, etc. at the time and those Greece cities were far away, plus I didn't always raze barb cities, and soon I fell into the same pit that you are in. I won anyway and later invaded the big continent nearby.

First, I got currency, which took ages because I could only use science specialists and was at 0% research rate briefly, with no gold either as my units were taking anything left over after maintenance. The extra trade route kicked in for immediate relief. I started researching at a less-abysmal rate, and I got Code of Laws after that and built courthouses to finally put me in the green. After that, the game was easy. Romans are Organized for half civic maintenance which made it easier for me than it may be for you, though.

If you really must, try abandoning your least useful cities to barbarians. Also disband any units, including workers, that you don't need. Also trade resources away for gold per turn and renegotiate deals when the AI gets more gold per turn.

[Thorrez]

You have to many cities!

Try to forget the tactic from old civ version to always have as many cities as possible. It does not work i Civ4, it will just cripple you!

So next time, build only the cities you think you need, land can always be claimed later in the game when you push for the win and make more money. It is amasing what you can get out of 5 good cities!

As for this game:
See the tips about, all will give you more money. And in addition, how many troops are garnison each city? Most core cities can do with just 1, it is not not uncommon that I play a full game with just a warrior protecting the capital the whole time (use a mobile stack to fight of invaders/barabarians).

[Doomed_UK]

I HAVE money and I'm Doomed.....

[weasel77066]

What a stobborn lot you are, in this thread.. LOL
One thing I find myself forced to do, is disband old units untill my financial advisor is breaking even on military upkeep. Try to keep all units INSIDE your borders to avoid spending support costs..
If you have currency, you can trade things you have for any cash to get a direct flow against your expenses. If you have plenty of health (or happiness) then you can even sell things you are otherwise using. AI will be limited on cash per turn, so get what you can, then check again later (they may have revamped their management)
Also after currency, you can build wealth in some of those cities. That turns hammers into gold, and goes directly into treasury to pay for expenses, ie. it doesnt split with a percentage going into research. What I would do, is build wealth in my extra cities, chop nearby trees (these hammers should store for use later, for a real build) replace forests with cottages and begin working them. Every few turns switch production to courthouse or market or whatever, so the builds get in progress, then switch back to wealth...
When in trouble, I have a habit of switching to beaurocracy and "building" wealth in my capitol. This will give you a GIANT leap into your treasury per turn. Might be you can run your capitol this way, untill courthouses are built and you can stay afloat.
Any way you do it, youre going to suffer badly in tech. I would heave the save into the trash bin and fire up a new game, myself... but thats just me

[gamedude107]

why do people always expand far too early?

i can get half way through a game still with 3 cities!

[bardolph]

Speaking for myself, I expand for a simple reason:

Because I can.

Civ 4 definitely gives expansion a cost, and when your economy crashes, you are forced to deal with it.

All is not lost, however. You just have to spend some time repairing your economy. There are still plenty of things you can do to improve your economy:

1. End your wars.
2. Bring your troops home.
3. Get rid of unhappy citizens.
4. Switch to more profitable civics.
5. Disband units that are costing you money.
6. Trade resources for gold.
7. Build and work cottages.
8. Build Courthouses/Markets/Grocers/Banks.
9. Build Shrines. Spread Religion.
10. Build Wealth.

Once your economy is repaired, you can go back to world domination.

[Yakk]

So what is the cost to maintain a single military unit?

I'm wondering if monarchy is a trap when you are in a cash crunch, or if it is a way out.