Economy problems on Prince

[Popvox]

Hi

I''ve not posted in a while, but I've been having a few economy problems on prince recently. In a previous game as Montezuma, I kept myself afloat using shrine income, but otherwise i probably would have found myself in tech hell.

Anyway In this current Japanese game my dconomy is in pretty bad shape and happiness is a huge problem (tropical climate, so food all over the place and big pops).

Couls someone please help me get my ecomomy back in shape. I have reached my limit of free units (or may have even exceeded by one I can't remember now) and so would only commit to a millitary plan if I was sure I could win with relative ease, or if it was a dogpile (which Im hoping will happen with charlie in his unpopular relgion)

Also which city location is better on the Western Island, X or Y. I can't decided between the two but I want to get better at city placement and so would like to know more expeirienced players thoughts.

 

[Siran]

You really should post some screenshots. Not everybody has Civ BTS installed on the pc thei're using to go on the internet.

I'm playing on prince, too, so take my suggestions with a grain of salt.

The way I see it, your cities are just way to big. What do you need a population of 8 if 3 people are on strike? Stop them from growing and use specialists if you don't need them to whip something.

In your game you have 39 beakers per turn in 870 AD. That's bad. In my last game I had five times that in 700 AD. Your enemies are outteching you.

I can't really understand why you are researching calendar. You don't have currency, what would allow you to build wealth and give you an extra trade route. You don't have monarchy what would allow you to change to heriditary rule and give you the happyness you need to make your big cities worthwhile.

This is what I would do:
Trade mathematics away. After you have priesthood you can use build some temples in your big cities. Whip them. You'll get one more person that will work for you after the unhappyness of whipping is gone. Stop them from growing. No growing beyond the happy cap. Use them as scientists and priests. Priests aren't that good, but every bit helps.
Finish calendar and try to trade it for monarchy or currency. If you can get one of them and alphabet, great. If not, bulb alphabet with your scientists. After that you can get your cities to build beakers to get you to curency faster. After you have currency start building markets.
In my opinoin you don't that lighthouse in the southeast. The city has enough food and is near your happy cap.

You can forget about a mlitary plan in the near future. All your enemies have twice your power and are researching faster. You don't have the money, the resources or the time to build an army to win a war. Build some units after you get monarchy. They help your happy cap and your power rating. After they kill Charlemagne you are a really nice target for them...

By the way, could you post your starting save? I'd like to have a go at it.

 

[Ghpstage]

tropical climate, so food all over the place and big pops

Your pops aren't all that big at all, and your problems would easily had been solved by researching Monarchy 1000 years ago!

I have to ask why you are building so many Missionaries, as Charlie is in a religion he founded himself turning him to Judaism is going to be close to impossible. Expect a war from him unless you can find a way to bribe the other 2 to attack him first.

To fix this I would suggest,

• Brennus is Pleased, if you ask him to give you Priesthood for free he will gladly oblige!
• Then put a turn of research into Monarchy, this will let you trade Maths for Monarchy off Sury.
• Finish researching Calender and trade it for Alpha and whatever else you can get.
• Build Research in some cities and go for Currency
• Beg for up to 200 gold every 30 turns from Brennus and (If he's Pleased by then) Sury to help fund your

 

[futurehermit]

Monty and Toku aren't exactly known for their economies. They're both excellent warmongerers though.

Be careful not to overexpand early and work on your economies--build more cottages!

Once you have a decent economy, you should be able to destroy any opponent, assuming tech parity.

 

[shyuhe]

Tried playing a bit. Diplo side is very easy on this map and tech is gradually catching up. I hate medieval warfare but still probably the best bet here. Should catapul overflow the GT and build the HE and NE somewhere (no idea where though). Liberalism is strangely still open, and may be even possible with another GS

 

[Popvox]

Thank you for your responces

@Siran I see now that I underused the whip too much. I was teching calender to hook up sugar and insence and also for a trade for alphabet. I traded mathematics with Brennus and got preisthood and poly - under par trade but I think he had put some turns into math as I got no "fair and frothright" modifier. I took advice on the lighthouse and have decided to leave it until hereditary rule or sugar/insence combo

@Ghp stage Thanks for the tip on putting that turn into monarchy, the trade came off a treat and happiness cap has been boosted. I was building missionaries because I didn't couldn't build any buildings, and can't bear to just build and delete millitary units. Thats one reason I was keen on getting alphabet. Also, don't know if it was different for you but brennus wasn't keen on letting me take priesthood for free, but I got it in a trade with him as mentioned above

@futurehermit and Shyuhe I had a look at Shyuhe's game and see he's cottaged mucgh more than me. Looking back I should have done this from the start, although I usually only like to do a cottage spam on river cities. In the monty game I got by with shrine income from Mecca and Cuzco (two early accquistions) This basically allows me to have a large empire and a massive army without too many problems. I am hoping to emulate Shyluhe tactic and leverage samurai to their full effectiveness.

Anyway, what were people's thoughts on city X or Y?

thank you again for the feedback

 

[shyuhe]

I don't like cottage spam, especially planting them down after 1 AD without emancipation. I only did it because you had too many workers running around doing nothing, and I didn't get CS until pretty late for chain irrigation. So they had nothing better to do than to chop and plant cottages. Now they're all busy developing Charlie's land so I can't chain irrigate -_-

City X or Y doesn't matter much - neither provides a very powerful city so I wouldn't concern yourself too much with it. Given that Brennus and Sury both love OR, I would try to get into OR earlier to push them up for friendly. Having two friendly allies allows you to catch up in tech very quickly since you don't have to worry about WFYABTA.

 

[Popvox]

Ok thanks for the tips, didn't get round to playing it today but I will implement some advice tomorrow.

Siran, I havn't saved the start, however it may stil be in the autosave files (I don't know how far back it saves, bear in mind I will have played over 100+ turns sice then) If it is in autosave then someone will have to tell me how to reach it as I don't know how

 

[TheMeInTeam]

I don't like cottage spam, especially planting them down after 1 AD without emancipation. I only did it because you had too many workers running around doing nothing, and I didn't get CS until pretty late for chain irrigation. So they had nothing better to do than to chop and plant cottages. Now they're all busy developing Charlie's land so I can't chain irrigate -_-

City X or Y doesn't matter much - neither provides a very powerful city so I wouldn't concern yourself too much with it. Given that Brennus and Sury both love OR, I would try to get into OR earlier to push them up for friendly. Having two friendly allies allows you to catch up in tech very quickly since you don't have to worry about WFYABTA.

IMO a grass cottage is better than a spec if the latter won't generate a great person. If worker turns are short and the city won't have trouble with health, working non-riverside cottages seems to be the best thing you can do with that kind of land until chain irrigation or strong workshops. However, early wars that successfully acquire a lot of land really delay civil service...

 

[shyuhe]

The situation was the reverse - too many worker turns available and lots of trees left without CS available. The cap went up pretty quickly with calendar and some trading etc. so I would have preferred more farms to cottages but there was no fresh water available for most of the tiles. I played this game on a bit more for fun till around 1700 AD - liberalism for astronomy and now mowing down the starting continent. I'll post a save later but I won't finish it.

 

[Siran]

Ok thanks for the tips, didn't get round to playing it today but I will implement some advice tomorrow.

Siran, I havn't saved the start, however it may stil be in the autosave files (I don't know how far back it saves, bear in mind I will have played over 100+ turns sice then) If it is in autosave then someone will have to tell me how to reach it as I don't know how

If you haven't started a new game, it should still be there.

MYGames/BTS/Saves/Single/Auto/InitialSave (or something like that).

 

[Popvox]

sorrry, started an elizabeth game since then, i found the autosaves but it didn't go back that far