Always run out of Money!

[Hector Achilles]

OK, I play a lot of Warlord and an occasional Noble game w/ BtS. I usually pick a leader that has at least one or both of the following traits...aggressive, expansive, financial, industrious, or creative. But no matter who I pick I always seem to go BROKE early on in the game. This leads me to fall behind on tech building as well. On Noble this is DEADLY. I can't imagine what would happen to me on higher levels.

I LOVE to build a STRONG military and I'm always in the top 2 of ranked civs. I don't necessarily go to war all the time, but I want to be prepared if some unruly civ wants to penetrate my borders. I guess I understand if I do have a prolonged war why my civ goes bankrupt, war costs money. Am I not allowed to have a large military and bountiful treasury at the same time however? I can never find a happy medium.

The noble game I'm playing now I have the 6th largest military out of 10 civs, and I AM BROKE! The AI is taking away my units, because I can't pay to maintain them. This happens to me in most of my games.

I have been building wonders in my capital and one other city as well. I have put libraries in all of my cities, 7 of them. I found Judaism and it has spread it to other civs as well as all of my cities. ALL of my cities are connected on the trade route either via roads, river, or by sea. Maybe I expand too quickly? I have a boat load of cottages in all of my cities, but I wonder if I have enough of them? Whenever there is a resource I build up that resource. Where there is fresh water, I usually build a farm. Where there are mountains I will mine. Should I just build cottages everywhere? Forget farming and mining????

I really don't know what else to do. I am always broke. I will say however, that I may be broke most of the time, but I have never been wiped out by invaders. However I want to be RICH AND POWERFUL!!

 

[cdcuase]

Being broke early game isn't necessarily a disadvantage. In my last noble game I had conquered my neighbor and taken all of his cities by 1ad, effectively doubling the size of my empire. But the number of new cities were putting a strain on my economy, so my research slider was as low as 10% and I was making barely 4g a turn. I understood from tips in this forum that I could get away with that as long as I'm building the infrastructure that will, by the middle ages, return my economy back on track (so I built cottages like crazy). In the meantime I had to make sure I had at least one city producing troops so that my military power slowly grew back to top form. On noble having a strong military deters the AI civs from picking war with you.

 

[JonathanStrange]

With a large enough military, one's thoughts turn to war and having the troops earn their pay.

 

[guenzak]

Do you use money to upgrade older units? If so you may want to scale back drastically on that. I found by waiting till it is absolutely necessary to upgrade some old units you can avoid spending money that you may not need to.

Where are your sliders? usually about 1/3 into the game I pull my tech or culture slider back a bit and start banking some money for future use.

I don't play on noble yet (not good enough ) so things might be different for you but I try to keep my military about middle of the pack and with "a boat load" of cottages I cna usually bank some good money. Then when I need my military for defense or offense I can rush and upgrade and quickly I'm one of the top militaries.

 

[6K Man]

Some suggestions:
- you may not have enough cottages. Don't farm fresh water unless the city won't grow otherwise, or if it has tons of food and will be a dedicated GP farm. Riverside cottages with Financial start with 3 commerce, not 1.
- consider whipping things like courthouses (reduce maintenance) or libraries (can run scientists and research with slider at 0 science). Smaller cities also have lower maintenance.
- a strong military is wasted if you aren't invading anyone. Either start a war and pillage/raze for cash, or disband some of your more obsolete units.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

You need a balance of tile improvements, and you need to expand at a proper rate and choose the proper techs.

You're much better served with walkthroughs than asking here, unless your question is specific (it isn't).

Edit: city maintenance is usually your greatest cost.

 

[Xellos-_^]

Some suggestions:
- you may not have enough cottages. Don't farm fresh water unless the city won't grow otherwise, or if it has tons of food and will be a dedicated GP farm. Riverside cottages with Financial start with 3 commerce, not 1.
- consider whipping things like courthouses (reduce maintenance) or libraries (can run scientists and research with slider at 0 science). Smaller cities also have lower maintenance.
- a strong military is wasted if you aren't invading anyone. Either start a war and pillage/raze for cash, or disband some of your more obsolete units.

You need a balance of tile improvements, and you need to expand at a proper rate and choose the proper techs.

You're much better served with walkthroughs than asking here, unless your question is specific (it isn't).

Edit: city maintenance is usually your greatest cost.

that is why i like playing with a organize trait leader. the saving in maintaince in the early game is quite helpful.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Traits can become crutches...over-relying on one can slow down development of skill.

But, I also like organized . I also like creative, PHI, CHA, EXP, IMP FIN, and SPI a lot .

 

[Agent327]

OK, I play a lot of Warlord and an occasional Noble game w/ BtS. I usually pick a leader that has at least one or both of the following traits...aggressive, expansive, financial, industrious, or creative. But no matter who I pick I always seem to go BROKE early on in the game. This leads me to fall behind on tech building as well. On Noble this is DEADLY. I can't imagine what would happen to me on higher levels.

I LOVE to build a STRONG military and I'm always in the top 2 of ranked civs. I don't necessarily go to war all the time, but I want to be prepared if some unruly civ wants to penetrate my borders. I guess I understand if I do have a prolonged war why my civ goes bankrupt, war costs money. Am I not allowed to have a large military and bountiful treasury at the same time however? I can never find a happy medium.

The noble game I'm playing now I have the 6th largest military out of 10 civs, and I AM BROKE! The AI is taking away my units, because I can't pay to maintain them. This happens to me in most of my games.

I have been building wonders in my capital and one other city as well. I have put libraries in all of my cities, 7 of them. I found Judaism and it has spread it to other civs as well as all of my cities. ALL of my cities are connected on the trade route either via roads, river, or by sea. Maybe I expand too quickly? I have a boat load of cottages in all of my cities, but I wonder if I have enough of them? Whenever there is a resource I build up that resource. Where there is fresh water, I usually build a farm. Where there are mountains I will mine. Should I just build cottages everywhere? Forget farming and mining????

I really don't know what else to do. I am always broke. I will say however, that I may be broke most of the time, but I have never been wiped out by invaders. However I want to be RICH AND POWERFUL!!

The key to being powerful IMO is being rich. I.e. if you plan to have a strong military and then do not use it, you're basically spending resources and then wasting them. I suggest going to war if you already have a strong military. This will add to your treasury while also adding to your power.

Personally I prefer focusing on research: discover a religion early (enhancing the chance to be able to build the cash generating minor Wonder for it) and each time I'm 1 turn away from a discovery, I set the research as low as it can (and keeping the 1 turn to discovery limit). This generates additional cash with most discoveries (although early on, decreasing the tech rate will give no cash, just a delay in tech discovery). I also tend to lag in military ranking, but keep a keen eye on being able to build a defending force if necessary and crush an invader or recover a city lost by a surprise attack, making peace ASAP. My strategy is not to lead militarily, but simply scorewise. (I play on Warlord difficulty, striving for Noble as a standard level in my games.)

Ah, almost forgot to mention (if it weren't obvious): I never go broke.

 

[Xellos-_^]

i think he is better off extorting money form weaker civies. If he keeps running out of money running his own city bring in battle damage cites form conquest would cost him even more money on the short term.

 

[Ramesses]

Traits can become crutches...over-relying on one can slow down development of skill.

I only have two crutches: SPI and IND. Unfortunately I'm too weak to walk without them, so some little bastard can knock me over and run off with one, forcing me to call a ride home.

 

[Razzlesnaff]

My trait crutches are Financial and Aggressive. Some people don't like Aggressive very much, but I like warring as of late and I'm not the best at it so I do use that trait as a crutch.

Anyway, how many cities are you building? Building lots of cities will crush your economy for awhile. I still do it as my favorite part of the game is the beginning. Establishing borders and obtaining new resources.

 

[Gorey]

work on getting your wall street to be a better money machine.

in my games that one city alone is funding almost everything by the time i build wall street (and usually doesn't have a cottage in sight in it's BFC).

lots of merchant specialists, quite a few settled GM's, (hopefully a religion), ALL of the money multiplying buildings, and a corperation or two if you make it that far.

even if im at 100% science later on in the game.. i usually still get a + into my treasury (unless im overextended and have too big a military).

basicaly.. the trick is to decouple your money from the slider. wall street should be generating gold from means "other" than commerce (mainly merchants). if it rely's on commerce to do it's job.. the amount you get from it is totally dependant on your research slider.

so yeah, build every single gold multiplier possible in wall street city.. and use every means available to get GOLD for those buildings to work on.

merchants, religions, corporations etc.. all generate GOLD, not commerce.

you only get a good amount of GOLD from your commerce if you research is set low.

 

[sydhe]

Gorey: I think he's a long way from Wall Street.

I'd be careful about getting more than five or six cities until you've researched Currency and Code of Laws. Usually at that point I'm taking out Barbarian cities.

 

[Agent327]

I prefer 7-8 cities, giving me a stable core empire. Seems to work every time, no matter if I'm playing straight or modwise.

i think he is better off extorting money form weaker civies. If he keeps running out of money running his own city bring in battle damage cites form conquest would cost him even more money on the short term.

Attacking weaker civs may also result in favourable peace terms, bro. But the essence of my post was not: "Go forth and attack thy neighbours."

 

[Izanaki]

Settle near a dozen gold resources

 

[Hector Achilles]

Thank you for the responses and your guidance to my dilemma. As it turns out, it looks as though I do not "cottage" enough. I think I worry too much about growing/expanding, and therefore I have an over abundace of farms most of the time.

Last night in my game I had my little worker "army" tear down the farms and start replacing them w/ cottages. I started working all of the tiles w/ cottages I could. It seems to be working. I now have my Tech slider up to 40%, and +7 a turn. I'm still in second place point wise, and have increased on the demographics rating page as far as income goes.

Luckily the continent I'm on, I have the whole southern half to my self w/ the northern part connected by a thin neck of land which of course I have blocked off . There are 5 civs up there battling for land and for the most part have left me alone. As of right now I don't have to worry so much about being attacked because of my location so I can concentrate on developing cities and working all of my cottages.

I have dedicated my capital city to producing nothing but military since it has all of the buildings that are possible at this time w/ 3 wonders thrown in. This strategy of one city creating the military and spreading the troops around seems to be working. I know I can't produce too many, don't want to head towards bankruptcy again, but I think I'm headed in the right direction.

This is actually the first Noble game I've played that I can remember being in the top 3 score wise even w/ all of my money problems. I'm going to continue ruling, hoping for the best!

Thanks again all for your help!

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Gorey: I think he's a long way from Wall Street.

I'd be careful about getting more than five or six cities until you've researched Currency and Code of Laws. Usually at that point I'm taking out Barbarian cities.

With some decent commerce or ORG or whatever 10 cities by 1 AD is pretty reasonable even on high difficulties (immortal and below, below is much easier). The trick is getting to a trade tech ----> on emp+ aesthetics, below that usually alphabet (which the AIs get pretty quickly on high difficulty, which you can then trade for using aesthetics and pick up more on top of it).

With just alphabet, you can build research your way to currency/col while needed (in addition to running scientists), which means as long as you're not striking, you can get respectable by claiming land. Once courthouses are built/whipped you can bump the slider or alter accordingly. Once you have currency, wealth is usually superior to research if you have more libraries (and an academy) vs markets (or any time your multipliers outweigh multipliers).

 

[Elite]

I usually build up my military and then I invade, I like to have vassals to make my empire great.

the downside is: I'm usually broke, but I do a lot of tech trading and such so that eases my economic woes.

 

[blitzkrieg1980]

It sounds like you need more than just economic advice.

When your game loads and you have a scout (or warrior) available to search around, make sure they act in a circular manner around your city. This ensures that you have a lay of all the land that surrounds your capital. You're going to need to plan your future cities during this initial exploration phase. While exploring, make note of the resources around you and the land in general. You can get a pretty good idea of what kind of economy you should be running by the land that you will soon be settling into.

A good general rule to remember is that each population point requires 2 in order to stay out of starvation. So when you are figuring out where you want to put cities, make sure you count the food. Farms add 1 but can only be placed on fresh water tiles (until Civil Service). If you mouse over food resources, the lower left portion of the screen will tell you what kind of yields (+3 ) the resource will yield when improved and what tech is required (if any) to work it.

My personal rule of thumb is when I see stone and LOTS of food resources (including floodplains) I'll be going for a specialist-heavy economy. If you see okay food resources or lots of grassland, this is a good signal that cottage economy is in your best interests. This is even better if you have a FIN leader (since every cottage you put down will have 1 more than non-FIN leaders).

During the exploration phase, I like to turn on the view tiles option (CTRL-T). This is how to best decide where your next cities will go. You can judge what the city BFC will look like with the tiles turned on. This is also when you can decide what kind of specialization your new cities will have. For example, if you see lots of hills and some plains near river grassland or good a food resource, that's an ideal PRODUCTION city. It will garner a lot of and should be used to produce military units. Lots of grassland near rivers (or better yet, floodplains) is ideal for putting cottages down. A FIN leader putting cottages on riverside tiles is great. Riverside tiles get 1 automatically, so putting a cottage down (+1 ) gives 2. For FIN leaders, any tile with 2 or more, automatically gets a bonus . So take that into effect.

Now, if you don't see abundant food resources everywhere on your immediate surrounding land, you're still going to want to set up 1 city as a Great Person Farm. This city usually has 2-3 food resources and lots of freshwater grassland. This is because specialists need to be fed (each specialist requires 2 ). The more specialists you work, the more Great People Points per turn you get, the faster you pop out Great People.

Okay, now that that's all been said. You should start building a settler after a worker. Once you have a few cities, you'll notice your gold per turn dropping and you may need to lower your slider. Teching towards Currency (+1 trade route per city/trade gold/enable markets) and Code of Laws (enables courthouses) will help you recover from this. Code of Laws is especially attractive if you have tons of food and have decided to use a specialist heavy type of economy because it allows you to switch to the Caste System civic. Without caste system, you need to build certain buildings to be allowed access to certain specialists (IE library allows 2 scientists). HOWEVER, with caste system, you are allowed to have as many specialists as you can feed.

As soon as you have Code of Laws, start building courthouses in your outer cities. The ones close to your capital require the least maintenance and so they can wait until later for courthouses (especially at levels Prince and below).

At this point, your heavy city should continuously be pumping out defensive units (which includes some axemen and spearmen to counter enemy swords/chariots/horse archers). Send them to your cities that are near other civs.

If you chose a specialist economy, have your best food cities run as many scientists as the cap and allows. If you were able to build the Pyramids (access to stone or IND leader), have a couple cities devoted to merchants. My usual ratio of scientist:merchant cities is 2:1. These guys will provide pure and the city they are in should build a market. Most of your cities will have lots of food (since you went with a specialist heavy economy), but some will not have much food OR production. These are good candidates for cottage cities. The cottages will provide a slight boost to research and gold, but mostly will be able to provide for when you are at war and espionage points to make sure the AI doesn't have an edge on you there.

Caste system gives 1 extra for workshops, so plains tiles become more attractive for production cities in a Specialist Heavy economy. Again, make sure you have 1 really nice production city (or 2 okay production cities) for those defense units.

If you aren't running a specialist heavy economy, then it becomes easier to explain. Make sure you have at least 1 production city for units, 1 city for specialist/Great Person farming, and the rest cottages! Make sure you will have enough food to feed all the good tiles (2 per tile), mine the hills, and put cottages everywhere else. Even on plains. Of course, if you capture or settle land that is incredible hill-heavy, you can make that into a production city as well... but this is just to get you started on a better foot.