Constantly Lose Money

[DonLB]

No matter what I do, no matter how many goldmines I open, no matter if I assign tax collectors (then the population starts starving) I ALWAYS get to the point where I start losing money.

After that it's hermhorrage, hemhorrage, hemhorrage for the rest of the game. I can find no way to improve things.

Is there a way to change the tax rate? Not in the manual AFAIK. So where am I getting so frustrated?

Thanks.

Don.

 

[Gothmog]

Try this: more roads, less units.

Marketplaces are also good, remember that improvements cost gpt.

Check your advisor to see where the gold is going.

 

[Hades]

Adjust your tax rate in the Domestic Advisor screen.

 

[billindenver]

Originally posted by DonLB
No matter what I do, no matter how many goldmines I open, no matter if I assign tax collectors (then the population starts starving) I ALWAYS get to the point where I start losing money.

After that it's hermhorrage, hemhorrage, hemhorrage for the rest of the game. I can find no way to improve things.

Is there a way to change the tax rate? Not in the manual AFAIK. So where am I getting so frustrated?

Thanks.

Don.

Yes, of course. It's the unused difference between science and luxury spending. In other words, if luxuries is set to 20%, and science is set to 60%, then your taxes are only 10%, so you need to set science down or luxuries down.

There are lots of other causes.

Don't assign taxmen in the city unless your city is above size 21. Use the luxury/science sliders.

Building mines doesn't increase gold, it increases resources. Roads increase gold.

Marketplaces increase gold, as do banks.

Despotism sucks. Get into Monarchy, then Republic, then Democracy ASAP. Corruption will take 1/2 or more of your gold. On your F1 screen, see how much gold you collect, and how much is lost to corruption, maintaining military units, etc.

Be sure to build the Forbidden Palace. It reduces corruption losses dramatically.

Be sure to build Courthouses to reduce corruption.

 

[DonLB]

Originally posted by Hades
Adjust your tax rate in the Domestic Advisor screen.

I can't find any "live" links or other ways to adjust tax rate, other than adjusting luxuries and science.

I assume that if I put science lower than 70%, I will fall behind the other civs.

Thanks.

Don.

 

[cgannon64]

What level are you on? If you are Chieftan or Warlord, and you fall behind in tech.... Anyway: road every tile in your usuable territory. Everyone. If you do this, get marketplaces/banks in half/all of your cities (especially major ones) and don't have a massive standing army, I'll need to see the save. That is all I can say.

CG

 

[civ_steve]

The Domestic Advisor is started by hitting the F1 key. As stated earlier, the Tax rate = 100% - Science Rate - Luxury Rate. You set the science and luxury rates and the tax rate is whatever's left over.

Don't assume you have to maintain a 70% science rate. Even if you fall behind there are several ways to catch up. You can buy techs from the AI for the gold you accumulate as taxes, you can build the Great Library, you can go to war with a civ, beat it up, and then as a condition of peace insist on getting any techs it has to give. You have to set the science and luxury rates as appropriate for your circumstances.

Other things mentioned here are good: build roads everywhere to generate commerce, work tiles that are adjacent to rivers, work coastal tiles, work gold and luxury tiles, advance to Republic when possible (which adds an extra commerce arrow to each worked tile.)

Something else: see what is eating your treasury. If you build unit after unit you will overwhelm your early empire. Each government type supports a certain number of units for free with each city built (for Republic and Democracy that number is 0). If you exceed that ratio, each unit over costs 1 gold per turn. Don't build too many units. Similarly city improvements have a maintenance cost. Don't overdevelop your cities if they can't sustain the maintenance cost. The F1 key tells you how much is being spent in each of these areas.

 

[Tassadar]

If you look into domestic advisor screen , you will see where your money go, units support, building maintenance, corruption.

Under despotism, each town support 4 units for free so dont exceed this # units per city ( 2 military police + 2 worker per city, 2-3 warrior in the filed , thats it ).

Most of the time by doing this , you can set up research at 90 % ( dont forget to lower it when it is only 1 turn from discovery, you can save money without losing a turn)

Despotism time is to found city and build worker to built road, that give infrastucture to allow you to switch to republic.

Once in republic, no more free support units, so disband non veteran warrior ( previously use as military police), spend about 10% of your budget on units. With marketplace and bank a city size 12 give a lots of money.

 

[Corkmaster]

Other things that generate or save gold are
Building any of the Wonders that give you an improvement in all your cities that you would otherwise build and pay upkeep for. eg Pyramids; Sun Zu's; Hoover Dam (only if you going to build factories though.
Build Adam Smiths Trading Co and the small wonder Wall Street.
Make sure you are linked to all the available Luxuries so you can turn Luxury spending down. Building any of the happiness making Wonders eg Sistine has similar benefits.
Trade excess resources with the AI.
As said above main thing is building Forbiden Palace in right place and in my opinion as soon as possible. Also getting into more advanced government.
I usually try and build the Great Library. I take a chance and turn research off completely in CivIII while I am building it and store up gold. If you build it rush of techs for free. Make sure you have contacted quite a few AI or this will not work. If you dont get it just have to try and catch up by buying techs with the gold you saved!
I dont do any more research until the Great Library expires. As beakers expire with each change of reseach objective you lose them if you the library gives you the one you are researching.
While you are not researching you are saving gold.

 

[PersianImmortal]

Contact your governor and set him up to Emphasize Commerce in a particular city or all cities.

 

[Raijer]

The suggestions above all are outstanding, so I'd simply like to reiterate something that, for me, is the key for maintaining a positive cash flow. I visit my Domestic Advisor EVERY SINGLE TURN!!

It's amazing what playing around with your tax rate can do. For example, in my current game, I'm playing China. My ultimate goal is to win by space race, so I've got to keep my science rate relatively high without going broke doing it. Now, I had just spent a wad o' gold updating most of my spearmen to pikeman, so I had a mere 42 gp left. At the same time, I was in a bit of a tech race with the Americans - we were both dashing for Newton's College.

So straight to F1, my Domestic Advisor. If I pushed my science rate to 70%, I would get the Theory of Gravity in 4 turns, however, at this rate it would cost me -34gp per turn! Not good! But I HAD to have the tech, and fast, so I let it ride. The turn ends, and now I've only got 8gp.

On the next turn, it's back to the advisor. I now have 3 turns until I get TOG, and I'm still set to 70% which costs -34gp. Now I play with the lever, and behold! I drop the science rate down to 60%, but the number of turns to discovery Theory of Gravity REMAINS AT 3 TURNS! The difference is that now I'm taking in +19gp!

I've often found, though it doesn't happen every time, that when you have only 1 turn left before discovery any given tech, that you can lower your science rate as low as 10%, without effecting the number of turns it will take to discover that tech - it remains at 1 turn. I think you may be shocked at just how much gold you can make off of this one turn alone. !!

Good luck!

 

[Lkysam]

Why do people say gp? What does that stand for? Why not just "g" for gold?

 

[Lynx]

Economy is your primary concern, because if youre loaded, then you can do almost anything you want, provided ur not and idiot, so science is needed too. Just disband,-upgrade crappy units, and get a forbidden palace far from ure capaital, and u will get rich really quick.

 

[DonLB]

Thanks for the many suggestions. I will have fun trying each one.

I must say, tho, that simply making sure I have lots of roads seems to have helped a lot. As suggested by Gothmog first and then others.

Thanks.
Don.

 

[dayfax]

Make sure you connect all of your cities right off the bat -- they trade with one another + this generates commerce (afaik). I usually have at least one worker at the start of the game dedicated solely to connecting new cities.

 

[Gothmog]

Originally posted by Lkysam
Why do people say gp? What does that stand for? Why not just "g" for gold?

Well, I use gpt to mean gold per turn, and gp (in my case at least) is a hold over from my old Dungeon & Dragon gaming days - gp stands for gold pieces - one could certainly use g for gold though.

Connecting cities does not generate extra gpt beyond working the road itself but it is extremely useful for distributing luxuries and resources. For this reason I also make it a top priority to connect all my cities.