G&K to BNW - early gold probs?

[b7fanatix]

I've not used the BNW expansion much, but 800 hours in i'm starting most of my games that way.

The biggest adjustment i'm noticing is the renewed importance of Gold.

TBH Gold was low priority for me before Brave New World, it definitely came after food (science) and production (buildings, wonders). But I'm noticing how short it is all of a sudden.

Early game, the best way to get gold seems to be trade routes, but you need military to stop them being pillaged. And military units take upkeep - so what's the break even point for a trade route?

It seems the map size and number of civs/city states is critical. If you're on a pangea, with plains/forest and not much in the way of gold tiles, and >15 hexes away from your trade partners, you're in trouble. Barbs spawn everywhere and keep pillaging caravans, you can't afford enough military to cover the routes, you can't produce any buildings or units because you can't pay the upkeep, and you can't sell luxes to the AI because they are in the same boat - out of gold.

I find myself settling new cities along trade routes to try and cover the dead zones.

Once you get Markets built in all cities, things look up. Maybe now this is the tech you're supposed to beeline, instead of Civil Service or Education.

 

[myclan]

Tradition is OK for you have monarchy, Liberty start lacks gold so much even markets in every cities don't help much, they provide so little base gold！

 

[b7fanatix]

In a way it makes for an interesting challenge. Have a large map with only 4 civs and 4 city states, pangea, and raging barbs on. See if you can survive or grow at all.

I gave up on a game around turn 70 because things were so messed up - could only afford 2 units, couldn't keep the barbs out of my city with just 2 units, 3 tiles pillaged and needing repair at all times. None of the AIs were doing better, none had gold or luxes or had managed to found cities, visited one with a scout and he had no workers, all tiles burning etc. Barb camps were full of workers and settlers stolen off the other AIs lol.

 

[shaglio]

In a way it makes for an interesting challenge. Have a large map with only 4 civs and 4 city states, pangea, and raging barbs on. See if you can survive or grow at all.

I gave up on a game around turn 70 because things were so messed up - could only afford 2 units, couldn't keep the barbs out of my city with just 2 units, 3 tiles pillaged and needing repair at all times. None of the AIs were doing better, none had gold or luxes or had managed to found cities, visited one with a scout and he had no workers, all tiles burning etc. Barb camps were full of workers and settlers stolen off the other AIs lol.

That actually sounds kind of fun. Like a post-apocalyptic, Mad Max type world where everyone's struggling to survive and rebuild civilization. I can picture myself running my warrior around trying to recapture lost Workers/Settlers (my own or the AI's) and get them back to the relative safety of my territory before the barbarian hordes bear down and recapture them. It would be a good change of pace when I get sick of the same old civ game. Can you rebuild a civilization to stand the test of time?

 

[b7fanatix]

That actually sounds kind of fun. Like a post-apocalyptic, Mad Max type world where everyone's struggling to survive and rebuild civilization. I can picture myself running my warrior around trying to recapture lost Workers/Settlers (my own or the AI's) and get them back to the relative safety of my territory before the barbarian hordes bear down and recapture them. It would be a good change of pace when I get sick of the same old civ game. Can you rebuild a civilization to stand the test of time?

I've actually spent the last 2 hours on just such a game. Modified my expectations a bit , i'd normally quit in disgust at being into turn 150 and still only 3 low pop cities, no wonders to speak of, and still in classical era. But the demographics show that i'm actually in the lead. A bit repetitive and exhausting.

Chose USA for +1 sight on land units , helps to bust fog. Prioritizing gold and happiness techs. Cities are only 4 tiles apart, minimum separation, and i'm using features like sea and mountains to shut the barbs out. Just founded my 4th city and got the great wall, things are starting to look up.

I opened the Honour tree for bonus fighting barbs, the culture boost when killing barbs (getting a LOT that way) and free intel on location of barb camps. Nixed the ones closest to my city. 3 in Tradition, for the Monarchy gold + happiness boost. 2 in Commerce so i can have wagon trains - reduced gold costs on roads.

Civilization is starting to get the upper hand, we now have sufficient gold, sufficient units to defend my locality, just founded the 4th city, and Brazil is finally touching my border at one corner. Still nowhere near safe enough to run a trade caravan with them though, barbarian horsemen have just started to appear. Wonder if we'll ever have secure enough borders to run caravans, or whether he'll get annoyed at how close together we are first and start fighting me!

 

[Tabarnak]

Try to sell horses and iron for 2 gpt each.

 

[shaglio]

I've actually spent the last 2 hours on just such a game. Modified my expectations a bit , i'd normally quit in disgust at being into turn 150 and still only 3 low pop cities, no wonders to speak of, and still in classical era. But the demographics show that i'm actually in the lead. A bit repetitive and exhausting.

Chose USA for +1 sight on land units , helps to bust fog. Prioritizing gold and happiness techs. Cities are only 4 tiles apart, minimum separation, and i'm using features like sea and mountains to shut the barbs out. Just founded my 4th city and got the great wall, things are starting to look up.

I opened the Honour tree for bonus fighting barbs, the culture boost when killing barbs (getting a LOT that way) and free intel on location of barb camps. Nixed the ones closest to my city. 3 in Tradition, for the Monarchy gold + happiness boost. 2 in Commerce so i can have wagon trains - reduced gold costs on roads.

Civilization is starting to get the upper hand, we now have sufficient gold, sufficient units to defend my locality, just founded the 4th city, and Brazil is finally touching my border at one corner. Still nowhere near safe enough to run a trade caravan with them though, barbarian horsemen have just started to appear. Wonder if we'll ever have secure enough borders to run caravans, or whether he'll get annoyed at how close together we are first and start fighting me!

I was thinking about trying it with the Aztecs. Honor opener plus UA would be even better for SP acquisition and the Jaguars are a helpful early unit for this type of game.

Out of curiosity, does the Great Wall slow down barbs as well, or just the AI? I never paid much attention to that before.

 

[danaphanous]

Yep, I have the same problem. My solution is usually to look for gold-generating tiles in new cities and keep a very small army. I have no idea how the AI manages to field such a large army early. Trade routes and deals are the only way I've found to field any army above 3 units. Recently I've taken to selling all my extra resources when I first get them bc the AI always seems to have gold on hand that I don't.

I accidentally found that this really hurts them long run though and you can abuse it. They are willing to over-buy your resources and then go negative in gold if you pick gpt during their golden ages. You can also sell them the resources for iron or mounted units then revoke it for war and they get huge combat penalties...they should be smarter about that...

And as for your question why gold suddenly seems more short in BNW: the reason is they nerfed some tile yields to make caravans more relevant as gold sources early. I used to get 1/2 of my city gold from cities on the ocean bc of the gold from water tiles. Now you get nothing unless it's a specific resource AND developed. There are very few tiles that give any gold before you improve them with a few exceptions. Only downside of this change is like the guy above said, if you spawn away from cities so caravans can't be established you're screwed for a while. This happened to me 2 games and I had no gold until I founded a second city closer to a CS. Then suddenly my economy ramped up when I was able to pop 2-3 routes all of a sudden and had 30 extra gold to play with. It teaches you a lot about money management.

 

[danaphanous]

I opened the Honour tree for bonus fighting barbs, the culture boost when killing barbs (getting a LOT that way) and free intel on location of barb camps. Nixed the ones closest to my city. 3 in Tradition, for the Monarchy gold + happiness boost. 2 in Commerce so i can have wagon trains - reduced gold costs on roads.

just wait till you finish the honor tree! You'll be raking in gold when you kill them too! probably an extra 20 gpt or so!

A few cultures would make this great too:

As Celts picture this: culture + gold + faith per barb!
As Aztecs: culturex2 + gold
As Songhai: culture + gold + triple gold upon disbanding each encampment
As Bismark: culture + gold + free unit - they usually suck but if it's a brute you can kill it with archers until a better unit spawns in the encampment, then attempt to capture it for free spearman or archer. Later if you keep a few around you'll get free pikemen & musketmen--you'd start making progress fast and build a whole army out there to keep the hordes occupied while your cities focus solely on the other stuff.

 

[joncnunn]

It's supposed to be a struggle in early game BNW since it takes a DOF to get full price for either resources or luxaries.
(Without DOF, best you get get for a surplus luxury is 7 GPT; and that's if the AI has that much cash.)

Largely just down size your expectations for the first 100 turns.
And be careful about both buildings and units in ultra early game.

 

[b7fanatix]

Largely just down size your expectations for the first 100 turns.
And be careful about both buildings and units in ultra early game.

You have to build something. You can reassign the worked tiles to maximise everything else at the expense of production, but you haven't researched the tech that allows you to convert hammers to gold, and you can't afford mx on any more units or buildings. I suppose just keep cranking out caravans, to replace the ones that get plundered.

 

[b7fanatix]

Try to sell horses and iron for 2 gpt each.

On underpopulated maps, the AIs are all negative gold as well.

 

[reddishrecue]

You can sell better to AIs in the more difficult levels since AIs get more spoiled in gold.

 

[black8]

build many military units so that they can protect your caravans.if you have many resources trade them for gold per turn or build trade routes with enemy capitals.and for techs,go with currency-banking and build at least east india company,taj mahal,petra if you are in desert.easy way to win with tourism is if you pick morroco cause they get more gold than the other civs from trade routes.

 

[Tabarnak]

On underpopulated maps, the AIs are all negative gold as well.

You can sell better to AIs in the more difficult levels since AIs get more spoiled in gold.

Well it's logical. If you play at low levels you don't need extra gold because the AI isn't really a threat. And vice versa. But some people have probably noticed that some AI civs can actually have some gpt in production for the turns between 20 and 50 before it goes into negative for a while, from chieftain to emperor level. Faster you connect these tiles, better are your chances to sell them. Early and aggressive exploration is a must. Or you might lose some deals.