Too MUCH money!?

S

shandar

Chieftain
Joined
Jun 23, 2009
Messages
2
Only started playing CIV about a week ago, but damn I am hooked on this!

So, my first question here! For the past couple of games an interesting thing has happened to me: I have a ton of money. Last game I played on Noble (still a rookie remember? :)) I had 6800g and about 70g income per turn by 1900 AD. And I have no clue what to spend it on! Most other civs hated me so I couldnt trade money for research with them (although I was by far the most advanced civ re research) and there is only so much construction you can rush.

In almost any situation in real life too much cash is a sign that something is not entirely right with a person/company/government's economy so I assume it's the same in CIV. What exactly do you do with your cash? What have I missed?
 
Well, for starters you could boost the Science slider, Espionage slider or Culture slider to 100% and run a negative gold income for a while. Which slider you use will depend on your game objectives.

Rushbuying is a fantastic way to use up the gold. Preferably try to limit your rush buying to cities that have hammer-multiplying buildings though, else it may be quite inefficient. For example, in your Heroic Epic city you should be rushbuying almost every second turn (don't rush on the first turn of building something as the penalty is quite severe). In other cities you should have a forge, factory and power plant as the first builds. After those are done just rush buy everything. In an ideal world you should have the Kremlin to make the cost of rushing things even cheaper again.

Upgrading old units can also use up a big chunk of your cash reserves. Modernise your army and then attack your weakest neighbour.:D
 
Welcome, shandar! I've been citicized once myself for hoarding cash by a fellow Civver, but +70 per turn by 1900 AD doesn't seem excessive to me. I usually get rid of plenty of cash by upgrading units and rush-building if I can afford it. If you feel you have too much of it, you ofcourse can also increase Espionage ratio. I'm sure other players will offer alternatives they prefer.
 
Quick replies! First of all, the science slider is already at 100%. Is there a way of having 100% science and say 50% culture (overspending somehow)? Also, what is the Espionage ratio? :blush: Never mind, forgot to mention that I'm playing the "normal" CIV for now, no expansions yet!
 
shandar said:
Quick replies! First of all, the science slider is already at 100%. Is there a way of having 100% science and say 50% culture (overspending somehow)? Also, what is the Espionage ratio? :blush: Never mind, forgot to mention that I'm playing the "normal" CIV for now, no expansions yet!
Click to expand...

Espionage ratio is just the ratio of the enemy's invested :espionage: against you to the :espionage: you have invested against them. If the ratio is greater than 1 then they have spent more than you.

As for the sliders, by definition it would be impossible to run two sliders so their total was more than 100%. The slider actually determines what percentage of your commerce (:commerce:) is converted to each type (go into each of your cities and examine the top left part of the screen). So it's a bit nonsensical to have more than 100%.

EDIT. Ok never mind the espionage ratio then, if you don't have BtS yet.
 
If you have too much money it's usually a sign you haven't been expanding enough. And get BtS, you won't find it quite so easy.
 
Willem said:
If you have too much money it's usually a sign you haven't been expanding enough. And get BtS, you won't find it quite so easy.
Click to expand...

Or it might be time to step up a level. Or stay at the same level and play a larger map.
 
Have you considered running as US and buying a bunch of troops to kill them all?
 
I like to keep a lot of cash handy too. I like to have the slider where I'm still making a little cash unless I'm racing to a tech like liberalism. Usually I blow a couple of grand in the mid-late game by upgrading all those CR axes and maces into infantry. I had a similar amount of gold coming in on my most recent game but it soon went on upgrades to my navy. Still outteching the AIs though. Maybe it's a sign that you did so well it's time for Prince?

Also, if the other civs all hated you. With all that cash it's just begging you to switch to US, rush buy tons of units and go conquering.
 
Earning 70+ gold on Noble is fairly common. I've had it over 150 with the science slider at 90% and I'm sure other folks can beat that. As everyone mentioned, I would rush-buy & conquer more, upgrade units, move up to Prince, shift your sliders, bribe other civs into warring w/ each other.

Excess gold can always be converted into other forms of commerce, production, or barter.
 
You could always end up with more cash. I ended up with four great merchants produced near each other, and when I conducted the trade missions I ended up with about 28000 gold. I recommend uprading your units and investing in the Death Army of Doom and Destruction.
 
Like a woman I knew said ( she was a BIG spender :p ), you never have too much money, you might be in situations where you aren't spending enough :D

In civ IV the money serves mainly :
-To pay troops and workers ( upkeep )
-To pay to scientists, artists or spy department to work ( sliders )
-To pay those corrupt public servants for making bridges to nowhere ( city maintenance )

If you already have the slider maxed in 100% and you still have money coming in , the best way to solve it ( sic ) is to get more troops and/or more cities ;)
 
thats not excessive money

between 200,000 - 400,000 in holding and over 4000 gold per turn income year around 2050 and iv already gold rushed everything i can except troops (i have little intrest in finishing games quickly)
that is the most recent game iv played.
 
That isn't too much $. I usually have over 100k by 1200-1300AD and sometimes over 250k. I've spent over 30k in a single turn just upgrading my melee and gunpowder units to mech inf.

I wish the game had financial markets for stocks, bond, currencies, etc so that we could grow our pot of gold or wage economic warfare on another economy.
 
I don't know what's up with these posters saying that it's good or even OK to have a lot of reserve gold, because it isn't. The AIs will beg for it (demerit for refusal), and you can convert that gold into tech a lot more efficiently than you can convert it into unit upgrades or rush buying. If you're banking that much gold and you're not in a situation where you're just screwing around in mop up...you're doing something wrong! Build more cities initially or use military to capture more of them.
 
In my last noble game I had over 30 cities, and +200 GPT with 60% :beakers: and 20% :culture:, and dropping down to 40% :beakers: gave me around 4-500 GPT. I were playing as Khmer, so no economic bonuses, but I had 4 golds, 2 wines and 2 inscence to get me off to a great start and mid game economy.

What happened was I tech for Democracy after Liberalism, Astronomy and Economics. I swap to universal sufferage and drop my science slider down to 0% with no more than 20% left on culture for happiness. I then go crazy with rush buying courthouse, harbor and customs house in every city, then raise the science rate up while keeping a high GPT and move onto banks.

By the time Im done I am rich =D.

Doesnt work so well on higher difficulty though because you can fall behind.
 
PreLynMax said:
There's no such thing as TOO MUCH MONEY in this game.
Ignore TMIT. He's wrong. Warring is not always the answer.
Click to expand...

I only mentioned war as ONE option to dealt with income at 100%. Obviously if you're in OCC then you're quite likely to make gold no matter what you do with the slider, but for normal play making gold at 100% in the first 5000+ years is a bad sign. Sometimes it's not war that's the answer, but rather clicking on "worker" and "settler".

The output of additional cities overtakes their maintenance cost quickly if you know what you're doing (aka < 20 turns), even if you just settled them.

Once you have research multipliers in place, deficit research is definitely worthwhile, in fact every high level player I'm aware of uses deficit research.

OP has a clear picture that something is wrong...don't mislead him. He just needs more cities, or if it's that late in the game possibly just $$$ buy production modifiers, switch all tile improvements to hammers, and finish his space ship.
 
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