City improvements when there's nothing really needed...

[WackenOpenAir]

Build units, units and more units !

To keep unit upkeep at bay, use them to conquer your neighbours. You will both lose units and gain free upkeep by the captured cities. Also add some extra cities of your own in the captured area. The AI spaces them much too wide.

 

[Fried Egg]

Build units, units and more units !

To keep unit upkeep at bay, use them to conquer your neighbours. You will both lose units and gain free upkeep by the captured cities.

This doesn't work in Democracy or Republic as unit support is zero.

 

[mastertyguy]

In rubbish outer cities, just build workers, use them to irrigate the land, and turn them into specialist farms. Two irrigated grassland = 6 food, allowing 1 citizen to be turned into a specialist. Uncorrupted gold or science.

Certainly not under despotism.

 

[WackenOpenAir]

This doesn't work in Democracy or Republic as unit support is zero.

It works in Republic. Believe me it works.....

 

[Renata]

If you're falling behind in tech on warlord, even if you're in monarchy, what you probably lack is cities and workers. So build more settlers early on instead of all those temples, and keep building workers until you literally have no idea what to do with them all.

Renata

 

[Renata]

This doesn't work in Democracy or Republic as unit support is zero.

In C3C, Republic supports 1 unit per town, 3 per city and 4 per metropolis. Above that the cost is 2g per unit.

I'll second Wacken anyway, though, even in vanilla: each additional town you take or settle brings in a minimum of 1gpt. If you set it on wealth immediately, that's 2gpt. If you set the single citizen to be a taxman and you're playing C3C, you're up to 3 or 4 gpt. (Can't remember if the original one gold coin stays or goes when the citizen isn't working.) If it's in flood plains or has a bunch of irrigated grasslands, you can let it grow a bit first then set specialists and get even more gpt out of it. The units really do pay for themselves. Provided you use them.

Renata

 

[eldar]

You automatically get a minimum extra 5gpt from founding the city (C3C-flavour Republic):
+2gpt because you no longer have to support the Settler.
+2gpt for the additional unit now supported by the new town.
+1gpt to the treasury (more if less corrupt).

 

[chris88]

Thanks everyone so much for your help - gives me some real pointers to work on in the games I'm playing.

Just wanted to answer a couple of questions posed earlier in the thread if it adds some clarity to what I'm doing...

I get to a stage where I fall beind in tech research. I try to trade techs with the AI and am only partially successful. So because I am trying to research these techs, I don't have a lot of money.

At what stage? How many contacts do you have? What map type are you playing?

Usually it starts to happen early to mid middle ages. Have lots of contacts, keep them all pretty happy because of tech trading early on, etc. Map is usually standard or large (lots of civs), can be either pangea or archi ... but on archi I do have a couple more issues (probably because I don't meet enough civs as quickly via sea compared to via land.

On MP, What type of government are you in? MP means you are either still in depotism or Monarchy, try switching to Republic.
Less support for units and NO MP, but much more $$ for research.
Also did you road + Mine/Irrigate every tile? Particularly road....

Am going to switch/in the process of switching to republic. Will ahve to switch back I guess if war starts again! I do mine the green and irrigate the brown as a rule.


Thanks too for the tips on what to build ... if I have certain towns for product, and certain ones for food or for settler/workers, what are the best improvement to build in each. I know I had a list somewhere, but I've lost it!

Thanks again!!

Chris

 

[chris88]

I suspect that Chris's problem is that he is not expanding enough (i.e. building enough cities). If he is keeping up (in technology) at first but then falling behind, that is a symptom of building too few cities. If you expand enough early on, the reverse tends to happen (in my experience): You fall behind at first but then catch up and then rocket past.

I think that's a pretty fair call as well fried egg. I expand well early, but then slow a little once I have "borders defined" because of other civs, etc etc, or if I reckon that building any more towns will be a waste due to corruption (despite building a FP)

Maybe charging off to war to get some more room once I've filled my own space is an answer to this ... are there other peaceful answers as well?

 

[Sadan01]

Maybe charging off to war to get some more room once I've filled my own space is an answer to this ... are there other peaceful answers as well?

A much slower, but more peaceful way would be to build up your culture so much that you will capture the AI's border cities (and eventually possibly even their core cities). However, if you are playing on a higher level, this becomes almost impossible due to the AI having a lot of culture in most cities - in fact, I've found that on much higher levels, it will happen to YOU more so (if you are not careful) than you take their cities via culture.

Edit: You would need to have "allow cultural conversions" (i think that is the correct name for the option - I cannot check either seeing I am at work ) ON in the options for city flips to take effect.

The other way would be to demand the AI civ give you some of their border cities that may be small. This will lead to war though and generally the AI will tell you to "go jump..." anyway. It does work however after you've been at war with a civ for a while and you are making gains on them in terms of capturing or razing their cities. They'll do almost anything for peace.

I do think war is probably the best answer to gain land quickly when all has been taken by passive expansion. Make sure when you declare that you dont have any troops (or workers) in their cultural borders at the same time.

Just my 2 cents...

Sadan01

 

[namliaM]

What kind of city placement do you keep? Do you overlap tiles for cities a lot or not?

Republic: I have had extensive waring while in Republic, without problems.
I usually even never research Monarchy.

Oddly enough I play monarch and emporor games now, but I have NEVER run out off things to build. Or atleast untill I get banks everywhere, (and get Smiths if I can) which is deep into the MA. I allways find myself torn between the question, More units or Improvements?

Dont be affraid to war in Republic.
Dont be affraid to put 10% lux on the slider.
When in war, take the war to them. Dont have them take it to you.

For "precise" advice on what may be wrong post a save, or a screen shot of your "core" in a game.

It will probably be one or more of below
- Not enough workers
- Not enough cities
- Not enough territory
- Not enough roads, or "land improvements"
- Wrong city improvements (eg to early courthouses and many temples + Granaries, stick to 'my order' and skip temples/caths/Colloseums)
- To many clowns/entertainers

Only build granaries (early) in food bonus/settler building towns.

Also skip Monarchy, dont even research it! Go straight thru Alpha-Writing-Code of Law-Philo-Republic

9 out of 10 you get Republic for free (if you play Conquests that is).
Else it might be smart to put Literature in there first.

Try to aim at having say 10 (or more) towns by 1000 AD! And atleast a worker per town.

 

[morchuflex]

There is one good thing about Wealth (at least in C3C): it always produces at least ONE GPT, even if the shield output is lesser than 4.
So, even a fully corrupt city will produce at least 1 gpt. Good to know when (like me) you tend to build cities on those very distant small toundra islands that MAY contain oil...

 

[Gyathaar]

Try to aim at having say 10 (or more) towns by 1000 AD! And atleast a worker per town.

I hope you mean 1000BC