Economy troubles

[nosoup4crr]

I was just playing my first game at Prince difficulty as Cyrus. I'd expanded and reseached pretty efficiently, and spread my empire to about 8 cities (w/ 2 more in the works). It was about this time that my city maintenance started going up, and my taxes stayed the same. Before I knew what was going on, I was so far in debt that I had to go down to 40% research just to stay even. Obviously, things went south from here.

I'm thinking that this was due to my automating my workers. I think they should've built cottages with more fervor, although I'm not sure about that. Maybe I was simply overproducing units or spreading out my civilization too much. Anyway...have you notived any consistent pitfalls in economy, and what one must do to stay afloat? I would greatly appreciate the help.

 

[Tawkys]

I think you have too many cities. Since cities cost upkeep and not units, the city spamming doesn't work as well in Civ 4 as in Civ 3... my opinion and I suck though.