Economies in ruins!

As many of the others have said, I cannot stress the importance of founding a religeon and building Stongehenge are. That ought to bring in much gold, once you get your great prophet in and build that shrine, which, if you build Stonehenge , ought to come in around the Classical period.
Also, since you're a rapid expander, try one of the financial civs, and build your cities along the coastlines. Make sure you equip them with lighthouses and workboats where needed and you ought to see a huge amount of money flowing in.
 
joasoze said:
Dont listen to people claiming they can run at 100% science and be successful. They are either:

Playing on a low difficulty setting
or
Not expanding fast enough

If you want to be among the top civs you must expand relatively fast and your science will drop below 100% for most of the game. That is not a problem since 70% of a large empire is more than 100% of a small one :)
On warlord i can take 100% for 15 turns
 
I always expand really quickly. I stop when I get down to 100% of money spent on paying my stuff (cities, units, whatnot). I end up nearly twice the size of my neighbors. Then I do a crazy industrialization. Get a useful tech (forge tech, civil service, state property) use its benefits, and trade it to everyone. Sooner or later I'll catch up in techs by trading and my superior economy. By the mid to late game I'm usually the dominant power with nearly all my cities power houses.

BTW- I play on Prince and monarch. Don't particularly use cottages. I found a religion (Judaism) if I quit expanding pretty quick (tiny, small, standard, and sometimes large maps). Otherwise I just don't found a religion. I can always use my military to steal it :)
 
I can Run 100% for at least 100 turns then I might drop to 90% for another 100 turns and so on. I just don't settle to much and I don't worry about scores, religions or wonders. I tend to be the most industrial, most powerful, & most ecanomic. It just takes careful planing, & worrying about resources & hammers. I rarely build a city in a recamended place because the computer worries about food & might give a spot with 2 hammers. I normaly get around 10 hammers per city and plenty of food.
P.S. I normaly am one of the most advanced to.
 
Here's what I always do to handle :gold::
1. Build a barracks and then auto :hammers: in all of my cities until there is no more room for expansion, then turn off auto :hammers:,
2. when I have the :science: Feudalism, Civil Cervice, and whatever you need for Pikeman and Catapult, I upgrade all my Warriors, Axes, Spears, and Archers and make sure I have 3 of each in all cities: Pikeman, Longbowman, Maceman, and Catapult.
This helps to have good defences but not too quickly. Also, never demand gold from opponents, it will kill you're reputation.
 
Later on in the game, I have found that selling technologies to non-hostile countries is a great way to build a very large treasury and then run a 100% research rate. This tactic has worked so well that I sometimes think that technology selling is overpowered. Also I always play with 18 civilizations, so their are many potential buyers. Is this a popular strategy? If not, why?
 
Marshall Thomas said:
Later on in the game, I have found that selling technologies to non-hostile countries is a great way to build a very large treasury and then run a 100% research rate. This tactic has worked so well that I sometimes think that technology selling is overpowered. Also I always play with 18 civilizations, so their are many potential buyers. Is this a popular strategy? If not, why?

Indeed, I find this to be viable. However, I take great care, as I'm sure you do, about when to trade. For instance, I might trade a tech to Ghandi for cash, but not if Ghandi has a higher score than me :). Also, I almost NEVER trade a military tech, even to a peaceful A.I., unless I am two relavent military techs ahead.
 
Marshall Thomas said:
Later on in the game, I have found that selling technologies to non-hostile countries is a great way to build a very large treasury and then run a 100% research rate. This tactic has worked so well that I sometimes think that technology selling is overpowered. Also I always play with 18 civilizations, so their are many potential buyers. Is this a popular strategy? If not, why?
You will NEVERwin space race that way.
Am I the only one who uses sizes?
 
There are two key strategies to eliminate the expansion problem:

1) Turn off barbarians and limit troop construction to one per city (unless next to another civ).
2) Research early religion first. Pick opponents who are not religious (until you have mastered the start) and build a religious wonder(s) to generate a leader to build your religion's wonder. If playing without barbarians, try using workers or settlers found in huts to explore for cash huts before planting new cities.

At Warlord level, I can manage to build all wonders and upwards of 50 cities without difficulty. At the same time, I can stay ahead in tech.

Other "tricks": reload huts and regenerate map. The first 30 turns or so shape the entire game, so take your time. next, stop building unnecessary buildings. I can manage to get through most Warlord games without building a single temple (before cities reach population of 16 or 17). Try playing Gandhi... or Asoka... easiest civs to learn with. the workers have a movement of 3 and using them like scouts can give you an advantage which is obscene. Furthermore, if you use them on a tropical map, you can more easily expand into tropics because they can move into the square and start cutting down jungle.
For more help, send me a line. aarvaead@hotmail.com. I can send you some sick advantages. I should be playing at a far higher level, but I play civ to relax... not to get frustrated. lol. I usually play Noble.
 
This thread has over 102,000 views. :dubious:
 
Everyone gave every possible good tips but in different orders, and no one is listening to eachother. Its not like we really want to help that guy so much. And every post is well written and received a good amount of intelectual work from its writer, so this cant be counted as a trolling-happy topic. This is a rare case of forum insanity :)

It can keep going forever.
 
I'm new to this game, but not this style of games and it seems to me that we all assume the first few things that everyone builds out of their cities are the same based on what we think is the best, but assuming that could be why someone's strategy might not work for another. Expansive people tend to build 2-3 warriors/archers and then a settler. While industrious tend to build a warrior, archer, and then a worker, and a wonder being stonehenge or the pyramids in a flexible order.

I found that like what Aarvaead said that the first 30 moves shape the game and is the most crucial part to master. I find that maybe by chance or other fate that when playing games on a single continent where nations don't touch each other right away that buddhism and hinduism tend to fail and as such end up being a waste of the first 10-14 turns trying to research meditation or polytheism. I find it easier to research techs which fit you're needs. For example bronze working if you have many forests to clear or animal husbandy if you are lucky to have your city next to cows and such.

The point of this is to build a worker before you build your next city, which was my mistake for a long time because by building a worker and having them improve tiles before you try to grab a wonder or build a settler normally you can build the wonder AND the settler in in half the time it would've taken to build the wonder.

For those of you who don't see where this leads to economy, having a capital city of around 6-7 working on cottages is more effective than a city of around 3-4 still trying to grow while you are also trying to raise another city. This allows you to never lose your original tribal hut money running at 90% or annihilating the AI when it comes to research running at 100%.

BTW if you founded stonehenge it is ridiculously easy to found christianity even if you don't research a single religeous upgrade until you created the wonder, and you will enter the classical era around 1500 BC, be almost garaunteed to get the sistine chapel, and be the first to have a theocracy which is imo the best civic for having a strong early game army.

I play on Noble-Monarch depending on how stressed out I am.
 
Ereiid said:
Even on Chieftain, I find that Hinduism and Buddhism are a wash unless I have the good fortune of starting with Mysticism. Judaism seems to be pretty reliable to score.

At the outset of the game research Mysticism then polytheism before you do anything else. The AI generally are fighting over Buddhism and you can get Hinduism 9 times out of ten.:)
 
I've had problems in the past with my economy and overexpansion. Try and get Code of Laws quickly. My economy can go into negative but if I get courthouses in my cities, my economy rockets up to be the best by a long way. Because you hve so many cities with less maintenance, you can catch up with and overtake other civs in technology until you're unstoppable.
 
Does ANYONE know how to prevent it? Or at least minimize it? That causes my ecenomy more problems than anything else.
 
I'd say economy management is the key to Civ IV. The OP is clearly expanding too fast, but if you ask me, the idea of crazy high maintenance for cities is arbitrary. I know the reasoning was to streamline the game, and I remember Civ II and III games where it seemed like I was just a bystander as the game played itself going from city to city forcing me to choose what to build, sell or disband. But going bankrupt after four cities doesn't make a lot of sense either. I've gotten to the point where Prince is easy now and I follow a few rules for early expansion:

1. Build when you can afford to build. I know Civ is complicated, but this part isn't rocket science. Choose a science/gold ratio that you can live with and until you are a few gold in the green, don't build another city. I think 70% is a good compromise between fast tech and maintenance. But remember the ratios can be changed, and if you want to get that military tech a few turns sooner, you can turn it up for a while--if you save up some gold ahead of time.

2. If your economy is tanking, then emphasize commerce. Manage your own fat cross and check the city any time it grows to arrange things according to your present needs. Of course, emphasizing commerce depends on having some commerce, and it is common to have very little potential commerce if there are no water tiles to work. That's where cottages come in. You need to decide where you are going to put your cottages and build them as soon as possible. There really is no other way to deal with the gold crunch than effective use of cottages. Well, you can try for a specialist economy as is debated frequently here, but that's a lot more complicated and I for one haven't tried it.

3. Once you can build courthouses, build them in cities where maintenance is high. Try to be smart about it. For example, you could probably better use the hammers in your capital for other things, since maintenance will be comparatively low there. Courthouses should allow you to have a second round of expansion to pretty much stake your claim to your corner of the world.

4. When marketplaces, grocers and banks are built, even more expansion opportunities will open up. But in order to use them, you can't have your slider at 100%. There are countless advantages to keeping your slider at 60%-80% instead of 100%. Unit upgrades is one example as are expensive spy missions. Spending some on culture will help expand your borders and keep your proletariat happy as well.

Of course my experience is based on a peaceful builder type game and being financial helps a lot. I'm toying with the idea of going into the XML files and overhaulling the horribly broken economics in Civ IV. There is just too little gold available, except by selling techs to the AI, and since I think tech trading is cheesy, I usually turn it off. Unit upgrades, rushing, spy missions and most other things are usually prohibitively expensive even if you are doing well and playing financial.
 
Aelfred said:
One thing to say: Overexpansion.
If you were playing on Noble marathon you'd end up bankrupt and without units to defend yourself. I usually keep it to 4-6 cities until post 300-500 AD. I focus on building up those main powerhouse cities and the necessary wonders. I don't understand why people talk so heavily about cottages. They are useful, but not the end all to win. I focus on production in all my main cities, and I am able to keep 100% research throughout the entire game. You should never have to go below 100% research for any reason. If so, you are doing something terribly wrong. I am always able to sell a couple lesser techs to the AI for enough money to continue my research at full strength.
Get Stonehenge, found a religion, (I prefer Judaism) build the holy site, and on marathon w/ 18 civs.... reap in the gold. Go with cheap civics - Representation (Pyramids are a MUST HAVE), Bureacracy, State Property (later in game), and Pacifism. You will find yourself with thousands of gold. On marathon Noble as Elizabeth, without too much focus on cottages, I was pulling in 100+ gold per turn. When I reached rifling, I had over 30,000 gold. it's not hard, just don't overexpand.
Good luck and cheers.

Because on more difficult settings tech leads are harder to come by and the comp doesn't usually carry as much cash in it's coffers. Running with less than 100% research isn't that big of a deal.
 
Willem said:
Just don't extend your outer ring too far. Put it out just enough that a single cultural expansion lights up the interior, along with Capital's cultural boundaries. You'll never have a problem with Barbs in your interior again.
or just put 1 or 2 units in the inner ring with the sentry promotion


hohoho
 
RedWormCharlie said:
This is all so laughable. Every redicuous reponse comes down to balance. There are three thing to balance in civ, do you know of which I speak?


Whats "redicuous" mean? Its bad enough that people spell it "rEdiculous", but its even more ridiculous for you to call responses ridiculous and not even get the common mispelling right.:eek:

This link may help you in the future.
 
Top Bottom