Archaic/Classical sources of $$$

[futurehermit]

Well, after my 2nd failed emperor domination attempt which was quite miserable compared to the first one, some advice I got was to prioritize economy instead of military early on.

So, I sat down and started thinking about early sources of $$$. Here is what I came up with, please add any I've missed.



1) Found religion, farm a gp, and get a shrine. Spread the religion.

2) Improve trade routes. GLH, TOA, and Currency (and Cothon if Carthage)

3) Improve and work $$$ tiles. Cottages (especially on rivers), coastal tiles and Colossus (especially if financial), precious metals (gold, silver, gems).

4) Spoils of war (make sure it is cost-effective though not like my 2nd dom attempt)

5) Courthouses and Markets

6) Leader traits: Financial, Organized, and to a certain extent Spiritual

7) Great people? Could settle GP/GM but I think they're better off spent on other things...

Have I missed anything???

Synergies:

1) Oracle-Col for religion, prophet, and courthouses

2) GLH-Colossus-ToA-Currency(-Cothon if Carthage) for very profitable coastal cities.

Please discuss

 

[Elandal]

GP is actually quite powerful settled: 2H 5g. If you plan on early religion, then Stonehenge and/or Oracle are good ideas providing GP points - Oracle -> CoL sling is of course a classic in itself and will provide both the religion and a prophet source. First can be used for shrine (also helps in spreading the religion), further ones settled, however that soon becomes a special strategy in that each GP is one less GS, and GS is usually preferred. Bulbing GPs is situational - might go for Theo bulb but after that it's DR, which I wouldn't bulb without special strategy requiring it.

Early GM I most likely would settle. Whatever your strategy, the game will go on for a while at least, and not only does it provide gold but also food when settled - how can you say no to free food? Trade mission very early is unlikely to provide enough gold to be worth compared to settling, but lighbulb may provide good options.

Regarding the trade-synergy option: that's three early wonders, however as GLH and Colossus require a building before the wonder they might be available for quite long time (and MC sling with Oracle makes Colossus a sure grab if you want it). ToA is somewhat harder, as the AI seems to like it. Still, three early wonders is quite a hefty build order, ruling out early aggression as you need the hammers for wonders not axes. Nothing a BFC full of trees can't solve of course

 

[cabert]

I believe trading opportunities are the best way to improve your economy.
If you manage good trading, you can climb back in the game after a successful early attack.
What does it take?
- teching path : don't try to backfill by trading for early techs. When you can do it, those techs should be easy to self-research. It's much better to trade for gold (you need currency!!!!) and for good techs.
- choosing friends : if you know enough neighbours, you can choose which will give you help and which won't. Bribing for war is often a better deal than trading for a low beakers tech and if you join the war, you are going to be friendly soon enough. Friendlies are much better trading partners.


Another issue : If sueing for peace earlier (2 cities is a good goal. One major city is worth 2 cities), you can wage war with smaller armies. Smaller armies cost less. Beware of "power rating", though.

 

[futurehermit]

Few comments:

Re: settling gp. I wouldn't do it early for these reasons: 1) A GP is better spent on a shrine imo and after first GP should try for GSs as mentioned; 2) A GM is better spent lightbulbing something currency-MC-monarchy-col-CS all good techs that you need asap.

Re: 3 early wonders. Basically it's only 2 ToA and GLH. GLH is the tricky one because of the need for a lh. Basically, I think you need a coastal capital with the goal of chopping the GLH in your capital and then preferably marble in the second city (you need masonry anyways) with enough forests to chop out ToA there. Situational, but isn't everything? The reason I say it's only two is that if you beeline MC early enough you can pretty much secure colossus without too much difficulty, especially if you have copper. Yes, it rules out early war, but as Snaaty has indicatad to me, it might be better of playing peacefully anyways as long as you can secure 6 cities because then you can beeline military tradition and use that tech advantage to mop up a couple civilizations.

Re: Teching path: Yeah, after I played a recent game with no trading to backfill but instead self-researching, I've decided I'll never trade to backfill again. You're right, it's a big mistake. I thought that self-researching would put me behind, but it didn't! I was able to catch up and get tech parity with the AIs quite early actually (nice on emperor!) and then was able to trade expensive techs for expensive techs later. Much better!

Re: Currency. Yeah, it's a priority no doubt. Does trading tech for $$$ count toward WFYABTA?

Re: Waging early war. I've decided that if I can secure 6 cities and have non-psycho opponents that I will play peacefully until miltrad. However, if I can't then I will go to war with the plan of expanding just to 6 cities. I will try and do a much better job of maintaining my economy though. It's just strange. In my two critique my emp dom threads, the first one I built up a huge army to the point where I barely avoided a strike and then went in, took Monty's capital and other cities and was able to rebuild my economy to the point where I was in good shape. But in the 2nd game, I ended up in the tank!!! Just goes to show that what works in one game doesn't necessarily translate to the next as I'm pretty sure it was the fact that I had 5 civs on my continent in the first game, 2 of which I could trade with was what kept me afloat where in the 2nd game I had 0 trade partners which meant I fell behind. Not to mention that 4 civs on the other continent engaged in a lovefest where 1 or more is financial isn't exactly fun to be up against!!!

 

[cabert]

I very often settle every early GP.
Why? because early techs are cheap, and every beaker counts...
And except GS and GE, all GP give gold!
this gold is enough for one more city or maybe 2 with a market.

You say a shrine is better, but that's totally untrue :
5 gold + 2 hammers for a great propet = 7 gold if you build gold. You would need to have 7 cities with this religion in it to have a "better" output. And the next GP may come soon enough to build this shrine, when the religion has been spread using the 2 hammers for building missionaries .

Same thing for merchants, food = hammer in more than 1 way!
I also settle early Great artists, because they give enough culture/turn to overun any neighbour, and the gold/turn is just a bonus.

Re: Currency. Yeah, it's a priority no doubt. Does trading tech for $$$ count toward WFYABTA?

no, and that's the good part
I have some doubts about techs extorted for peace.
I believe they count towards WFYBTA, but I am not sure.

 

[Elandal]

Trading techs for coin does not count towards WFYABTA - the limit counts the number of techs you have received in trades, not the ones you've traded out.

On ToA - I would prefer coastal city for ToA due to Harbors (and even moreso Cothons if playing Carthage). Often your capitol is your biggest city, so coastal capitol building ToA with second city placed coastally and going for GLH would most of the time yield higher trade income than the other way.

Getting GPs and settling them (instead of getting GS'es for academies / bulbing) is indeed highly situational. Then again, so is trade route strategy, so is GM strategy.. It works best with shrine city that hopefully builds Angkor Wat later on (more GPs to follow then), but in cases I end up with GP for any reason and don't have a holy city for shrinebuilding (or have an obscure religion that never took off), settling seems the best option. Usually I end up with GPs due to Oracle and/or Stonehenge or some random GP pool pollution for whatever reason.


I'm still playing at the lower levels, so I can usually do even without GS bulbing (or rather, without as much bulbing as seems to be going on in Emperor+ level), so settled GP is fairly strong option for me. I'm not sure how much 5gpt + 2H means on Emperor+.

 

[futurehermit]

Ok, so based on the above analysis, here's what I think of in terms of economy for the different leader traits:

1) Financial: Cottages and coastal tiles. Also pottery is a prereq for MC so this favours a shot at GLH/Colossus/ToA if possible (nice synergy for capac although his early uu favours spoils of war/early aggression as well)

2) Organized: Courthouses and religion (confucianism). Oracle-CoL ftw. Best bet is to chop stonehenge for early enough prophet for confucianism.

3) Aggressive: Spoils of war. Keep a couple cities and then keep your army busy razing cities. You can pile up a lot of money razing cities. Just try and get a good balance early on so you don't wreck your econ. Ideally start with 6 units and closest non-capital city.

4) Philosophical: Helps get prophet sooner for religion approach, but also SE for lightbulbing and trading techs for $$$ and other techs. Get currency early!!!

5) Imperialistic: Spoils of war. Doesn't favour economy directly but more GGs = earlier medic 3 = faster healing for city-razers.

6) Spiritual: Usually religion or SE but no anarchy in itself helps your econ.

7) Expansive: Dunno really. Don't like this trait very much. Pottery is on the line to MC I guess and cottages. So cottages + colossus? Best synergy with industrious or financial i guess.

8) Creative: Dunno really. Spoils of war (city placement and early globe theatre) and SE (cheap libraries)

9) Protective: Dunno really. Spoils of war I guess since you can keep fewer stronger units in defence of your cities.

10) Charismatic: Spoils of war (cheaper promotions)

11) Industrious: Easier to get ToA, GLH, Colossus etc. when you get 50% bonus to production for wonders.

Thoughts?

EDIT: So I would say that the 4 best economy techs are: 1) Financial (CE/coastal); 2) Organized (religion/courthouses); 3) Philosophical (religion/SE); and 4) Industrious (ToA/Glh/Colossus). Fishing is a good starting tech for Financial and Industrious and myst is good for organized and philosophical. Good techs to support these economies: spiritual, aggressive, charismatic. Creative I'm not so sure about I flipflop on whether I think it's good or not. Right now I say not So, techs I don't think are that great: protective, expansive, creative, imperialistic.

 

[futurehermit]

I very often settle every early GP.
Why? because early techs are cheap, and every beaker counts...
And except GS and GE, all GP give gold!
this gold is enough for one more city or maybe 2 with a market.

You say a shrine is better, but that's totally untrue :
5 gold + 2 hammers for a great propet = 7 gold if you build gold. You would need to have 7 cities with this religion in it to have a "better" output. And the next GP may come soon enough to build this shrine, when the religion has been spread using the 2 hammers for building missionaries .

Same thing for merchants, food = hammer in more than 1 way!
I also settle early Great artists, because they give enough culture/turn to overun any neighbour, and the gold/turn is just a bonus.



no, and that's the good part
I have some doubts about techs extorted for peace.
I believe they count towards WFYBTA, but I am not sure.

Ok, nice to know trading for $$$ doesn't count toward wfybta. That will help my thinking as I adapt to a new build approach.

Re: settling GPs. Yes, it is better in the shortterm, but the shrine spreads the religion itself and in the long term I believe the shrine will be better. I only usually plan to build 1 GP so I would rather use it on the shrine and then switch to generating some other form of gp.

 

[cabert]

Ok, nice to know trading for $$$ doesn't count toward wfybta. That will help my thinking as I adapt to a new build approach.

Re: settling GPs. Yes, it is better in the shortterm, but the shrine spreads the religion itself and in the long term I believe the shrine will be better. I only usually plan to build 1 GP so I would rather use it on the shrine and then switch to generating some other form of gp.

what I learned from deity/immortal threads is short term > long term

 

[Obormot]

1) Found religion, farm a gp, and get a shrine. Spread the religion.

IMO you should only spread religion to get the benefit from religious civics and perhaps happiness, not for the money. Paying 40 hammers for just 1 coin per turn is way too expensive. (So it is usually wrong to spread more then one religion, unless you want to win by culture). The shrine income is just a small extra bonus. Also, it is almost always better to get some other GP instead os the prophet. I don't think I ever farmed a prophet for a shrine. I build a shrine just once, when I got a prophet instead of a scientist with 10% chance. It is nice to capture a shrine though.

2) Improve trade routes. GLH, TOA, and Currency (and Cothon if Carthage)

All this is nice, but not really important IMO. Currency is prioritised highly by the AI, so you better trade for it. GLH is nice indeed on maps with lots of water. TOA is not very good IMO. Comes too early, building an expensive wonder at that point hurts you too much, and the benefit is not that great. Harbours are nice, but not in the early part of the game, there are much more important things to build.

3) Improve and work $$$ tiles. Cottages (especially on rivers), coastal tiles and Colossus (especially if financial), precious metals (gold, silver, gems).

Yes. This should be the main source of money/beakers.

4) Spoils of war (make sure it is cost-effective though not like my 2nd dom attempt)

Yes!

5) Courthouses and Markets

Courthouses - yes, markets - no. 25% is just too little in most cases to justify an expensive builing. And usually you'll have your sicence slider at 50% or more, so a market gives a 10% boost at best.

6) Leader traits: Financial, Organized, and to a certain extent Spiritual

All leader traits are nice, except protective.

7) Great people? Could settle GP/GM but I think they're better off spent on other things...

The default use is lightbulbing in the early game and Golden Ages in the late game, for the immidiate benefit. Only go for the long term gain when it is really huge, like an academy in a bureaucratic capital with lots of developed cottages, etc. Settling is almost always wrong.

 

[lilnev]

I second Obomot's suggestions: shrines, markets, ToA aren't worth the effort. GLH is situational but can be worth it. Once you get Currency, selling techs and resources becomes a big revenue source. Until then, commerce tiles and capturing cities.

One $$ source that hasn't been mentioned is pillaging tiles. Not something I've done a lot of either, but the other day I had Shaka. My offensive campaign went badly, and I was left with just a few axes and impis, clearly not enough to take a city. I split them into shock axe + impi mini-stacks, and walked around burning farms, mines, and cottages, collecting 5+ gold per turn per pair of units. While wrecking his economy. Clearly the impi is the best at this; typically you would need to add a chariot to pillage every turn, at which point the profit margin is not as large. But it is a tactic to keep in mind if you have an opponent you aren't going to completely dominate right away. Especially a cottage-loving neighbor.

peace,
lilnev

 

[johnny_rico]

Ok, so based on the above analysis, here's what I think of in terms of economy for the different leader traits:

1) Financial: Cottages and coastal tiles. Also pottery is a prereq for MC so this favours a shot at GLH/Colossus/ToA if possible (nice synergy for capac although his early uu favours spoils of war/early aggression as well)

Interesting, I think HC's UU screams for economic development. They're cheap and defend well against barb archers. Because of this, you can get by with a few of them until 1000-750 BC (once axemen appear - monarch). You can solely focus on economic improvement laying a great foundation provided the real estate is right. With HC, I like the idea of GLH and the Colossus getting the most out of coastal tiles early later developing cottages once Emancipation has kicked in.

Remember, the GLH is good until corporation, it lasts a long time. The benefit from the colossus is a little more short lived but I would prefer heading for democracy out of liberalism rather than astronomy for two reasons.

1. You kill the colossus (obvious)
2. Most civ's on the other continent (presumptuous, you might not be playing continents) will be running mercantilism when you meet them and will not switch to free market for a while.

There are a lot more options here. The bottom line, HC is one of the civs I war with the least. His UU allows you to focus on laying down a dynamite economic foundation.

 

[DaveMcW]

Cottages for the win.

 

[futurehermit]

Cottages for the win.

i'm starting to work them into my games a bit more

 

[50_dollar_bag]

One other way to get $$ although it's a little bit unreliable is to beg for dosh, every 10 turns or so I check the F4 screen and see who's got money, if they're pleased or friendly I'll ask, if they're cautious or below I give it a miss unless I'm a lot more powerful.

 

[carl corey]

I haven't seen these things mentioned (or I'm too tired to see it):

- if you're Industrious or have the resource that gives faster production for a specific wonder you can even go for a partial build of that wonder. When you don't get it you get the cash instead. I've done it while waiting for something to build and not wanting to build more units

- with Currency you can build gold. If you start having lots of cities once you get the Courthouses in them you can make them instantly viable by building gold. This allows you to keep waring even if you capture and keep small sized cities (for their resources or position for example)

 

[Mutineer]

Please note, that first priority should be commerce from resources. It could be mean gold/silver/gems, but it could mean wines, dyes, other callendar commercial resources.
Do not undesrestimate them, they often give more money immidiatly then town with out correct civics.

 

[cabert]

One other way to get $$ although it's a little bit unreliable is to beg for dosh, every 10 turns or so I check the F4 screen and see who's got money, if they're pleased or friendly I'll ask, if they're cautious or below I give it a miss unless I'm a lot more powerful.

you need currency for this!

The wonder trick is very powerful if you have more than one production city :
- you start stonehenge for instance in city 1
- you bring it to a degree of completion there, then start something else and remove stonehenge from the queue
- you start stonehenge in city 2...
- rince and repeat...
if you want the money, you finish it in a city (fastest finish obivously) and the others will give you 2 gold per hammer invested.

If you only have 2 production cities, it's not that great a trick.

 

[futurehermit]

Great thoughts guys!!!

My play is improving from all your tips I came close to a domination win again last night. I'll get it yet

 

[Snaaty]

Please note, that first priority should be commerce from resources. It could be mean gold/silver/gems, but it could mean wines, dyes, other callendar commercial resources.
Do not undesrestimate them, they often give more money immidiatly then town with out correct civics.

I second this. When using FE backed up with some cottages (centralized in capital as Mulineer mentioned in another thread or one or two for each city you build) you should be able to get up a decent economy.

About building market places:

Build them (=whip them) when you have some resources that increase happines with markets (either in your territory or via trade). Then they are really strong because they give happy and money