I love the Civ5 Economy

[Semmel]

It can be really dangerous to gave a strong growing population. First you get too many people so your empire gets unhappy. Than you start to build lots of happiness buildings. Than the maintenence kills your income. Than you start to build almost everywhere money buildings. In the end, you have many many buildings to build. It is really great and it needs a lot of experience to balance it so you dont have too much of everything and forget your military.

In my first game as Japan, I found my self in a powerful lead in science and military. But I couldnt go and conquer my neighbors because I just didnt had the happiness to support more cities and population. I wonder what strategy you have to use to build a large empire. I guess that must be really hard.

Btw.. puppet states almost killed me because they started to build every damn building. I had to annex them to stop this from happening. Also they grew like crazy.. Its really weired. In Civ4 I would have owned half the world in a similar situation. In Civ5, I cant go warmongering as I would like. There must be some tricks to increase the economy and get it going right. Im looking forward to find them

Btw.. a little negative there is as well.. Its a lot of work microing your cities to prevent population overgrowth. I dont want to waste food by ticking the "avoid growth" button. And I have to balance my income and production for more income..

 

[Ultimate_Waffle]

Hey, I'm happy to hear that you are enjoying this game. As for balancing your cities between food, income, and production, might I offer you a little tip? If there is a maritime city state nearby, you could try allying with them. If you are allies with a maritime city, they provide free +4 food to your capital and free +2 food to the rest of your cities for as long as you are allied with them. This frees up extra citizens to work more worthwhile tiles and could probably reduce the micro-management.

 

[coe]

Why do you worry about unhappiness? It generates little to no problems after you have massed large enough army to raze every city to ground and annex the ones you need for buying more units.

Only penalties from major unhappiness is 30% combat strenght, no city growth and 50% hammers. You still get maximum gold and science flow even with -300 unhappiness. So alot of trade posts and with right policy, trade posts don't only give you gold, but +2 science also.

 

[ahcos]

Why do you worry about unhappiness? It generates little to no problems after you have massed large enough army to raze every city to ground and annex the ones you need for buying more units.

Only penalties from major unhappiness is 30% combat strenght, no city growth and 50% hammers. You still get maximum gold and science flow even with -300 unhappiness. So alot of trade posts and with right policy, trade posts don't only give you gold, but +2 science also.

although it works, it's (at least for me) no fun and will get fixed for sure. although there needs to be a fix about the ability to achieve a domination victory otherwise, because if you want to balance happiness and still want to conquer the whole world it's pretty much impossible or will take FOREVER.

 

[Pegasos]

I love the economy system as well. Although I think that the price of certain key buildings (monument, market, public school, factory) should be lowered and some more special ones' increased (harbor, opera), the system works fine. Most of all, it doesn't leave you much room to make military units, which really gives it a certain difficulty that cIV didn't have. I managed to conquer two of my fierce rivals in the middle ages, but I found myself lacking in markets, theatres and universities and some civs in other continents that had under half my size were very close to me in scores, thanks to their science, economy and wonders.

 

[jauggy]

In my game (King) I also got less citizens to work the tiles when in unhappiness.

 

[Thyrwyn]

Surround your Puppets with Trading Posts - hammer starved cities build fewer buildings. Puppets like culture and happy buildings first anyway. Plus, they earn more gold - so it's a win-win

Also, when you are just unhappy it appears that your city managers go into stagnation mode - you puppets grow much more slowly.

PS - I like the new economy, too.

 

[Gozert]

Some numbers still need to be tweaked, I think, but I really love it as well. People are usually complaining that everything's been dumbed down, but I find it MUCH more challenging to keep a large empire profitable. It's a constant loop of having enough citizens, happiness and income that apparently has little margin for error.

 

[Pinstar]

When that "select new construction project" prompt hits me, and I literally have 6 different things I want to build 'right now', I know the complexity has not the series and I am happy.

Balance will come in patches.

 

[Gaizokubanou]

It's harder to maintain growing empire's economy, but it's also too neglectable because with like 6 units you can win the whole world.

So like coe I feel like any effort to balance out your happiness when you go into war is bad idea atm. If you can win the war, wipe off the entire continent first then try to grow what you won through war.

 

[Mathew952]

I took more of a roman approach to conquering, which was to raze the cities and build new, roman ones on top of the ashes.Cruel, but effective. Also, courthouses in former capitals is a must, as well as interconnection of all cities by road or sea.

 

[jaycuhbbb]

I took more of a roman approach to conquering, which was to raze the cities and build new, roman ones on top of the ashes.Cruel, but effective. Also, courthouses in former capitals is a must, as well as interconnection of all cities by road or sea.

This seems like not a good idea to me because each city YOU build increases by 30% the cost of your social policies (+costs of a settler, culture, infra, etc.). However, puppets do not increase the cost, you still get all the resources, tile yields, and territory from that city... just surround them with trading posts and they will be profitable. The only downside is happiness problems but the AI seems to prioritize happiness buildings if you are struggling in that area so it works out. It is kind of amusing to me that the punishment you get for puppet cities is having to let the computer control the city for you. Last game I made like 6 core cities and the rest were puppets, never had any problems.

When that "select new construction project" prompt hits me, and I literally have 6 different things I want to build 'right now', I know the complexity has not the series and I am happy.

Priority lines for me... Happy>Gold>Research>Culture only because culture and research can be compensated for with relationships to city states. IMO city states are the most unbalancing feature in the game at this point so gold is very important.

 

[mattpilot]

I'm also quite happy with the new system. Was conquering my continent while just having a few extra + happiness points. I usually raze the cities not close to me and let either some weaker AI settle there... i just don't like having cities very far from my main sphere. Anyhow... Was whooping washingtons arse and he offered peace with 6 of his cities, among other things. I accepted. My happiness nosedived to -40. With a huge lack of luxury resources on my continent (as i later found out the neighboring continent was hogging them all ), i didn't know what to do. -50 production penalty & combat penalty i was royaly screwed. I razed 2 cities far from me and tried to build happiness buildings + picked social policy that gave me +1 happiness per garrisoned city. Got my happiness to around -5 after many, many turns to remove the huge penalty and i could beginn to look forward again. But wasting all those turns building happiness buildings at -50% ment i couldn't build sience buildings that i wa sneglecting and i feel very behind in the tech race.

So you really gotta plan ahead a lot more. There is no more easy 'slider' system that fixes everything in an instant (and i would lie if i said i didn't initially cringe for not having that while faced with my unhappiness problem )



I'm really loving the new systems

 

[Tennyson]

I love happiness. In the last game, Golden Ages jumped my profits from +50 to +400 per turn. For most of the game, I had every luxury resource except one, because I had 6 incense to trade along with gold and silver deposits. That plus cozying up to city states had me at +60 happiness at times, just counting turns to the next Golden Age.

 

[cembandit]

maritimes are worth every penny

 

[TheMeInTeam]

You can somewhat steer puppets via what technologies you research.

I'm doing a youtube LP of an emperor game where I basically just mow down 3 civs and 6+ city states to attempt to control a continent. I have 2 USA cities and 10+ puppets, with minimal unhappiness issues and positive (and growing) income. My units of choice are 4 horsemen units backed by a GG from honor. I avoided ironworking and other techs for a while to tech currency and am now closing in on banking around 700 AD which should be another jump in income. With trading posts, good resources, and a bias toward gold buildings thanks to tech path, puppets can contribute impressively.

When I get through a couple social policies I should be able to afford a ridiculous city count.

 

[cembandit]

the computer seems to specialize some cities, i love finding one surrounded by trade posts mid game

 

[cembandit]

oh yea, and looking forward to the Let's Plays!

 

[Enerzeal]

As someone has already said, burn everything you take, burn it all. Keep all capitals on puppet aside from one working on a courthouse, that should help with the happiness situation. If you want a huge empire sprawling across the map then take Piety, I think your aiming for the theocracy policy which cuts unhappiness due to population in cities which arent occupied by 20% I think, but it does cut it by a significant figure. When you hit Industrial era grab the policy which cuts Unhappiness in cities by half. Those two together will give you more happiness than you knew what to do with. If you empire is huge then you will have spare resources galore. Try and sell as many spares as you can to enemy civs. Aim for 1000 gold from each.

I am on a large continent map on marathon setting. I took out everything on my map by 1200 AD and have multiples of so much luxury that it all goes towards those left on the other continent. I sold as much as possible and used the gold to buy happiness buildings all over the place. Think I have 30 cities now, I dont have the Order policy tree open yet so when I do my 15 unhappiness will go. I have started to war on the new continent however, russia and france are nearly delt with, they have both lost there capital cities which are affecting my happiness quite a bit.

Its an interesting map as I have an entire continent to my self, they are yet to sail across and investigate, don't think they have the tech. On the new continent the romans have a massive empire, about as many cities as I have, there crushing poor india into the ground and I am clearing up france. In about 50 turns it seems me and the romans are going to have a disagreement and what should be an interesting war (well it would be if the AI wernt such pushovers).

 

[Teejvan]

So alot of trade posts and with right policy, trade posts don't only give you gold, but +2 science also.

Except in all my games I don't get +2 science, I only get +1 science? A bug maybe?