Gold is power?

[Ibian]

I dont hear a lot about gold. The general consensus seems to be "enough to keep science maxed and no more".

Is that the best way to go about it? Gold has a lot of uses in diplomacy. Consider the following scenario:

Standard game, except one city is devoted to churning out and settling GM, with the occasional scientist for academies in science cities. Science can remain at 100% the entire game (or in any position you would like it in for that matter) and the extra food turns the city into a GP mecha, making it easy to generate whichever kind of person you need at any given time.

What to do with all the extra gold?

Gold equals diplomatic options. It doesnt have much use on its own, this is true, but the AI civs love it.

With gold you can buy resources, tech, make an entire civ your hired muscle and other fun things.

One advantage of buying techs instead of trading for them is that it essentially converts gold into beakers, a different version of deficit research in other words. Meanwhile, the AI has to spend valuable turns researching techs on its own instead of instantly getting one.

The advantages of denying health, happiness and military resources to rival civs are obvious.

Am i missing something here? With even half a dozen cities, letting one high food city produce enough gold to buy a few civilizations at a time doesnt seem like a bad trade for a minor science hit. Why dont i ever see things like this discussed?

 

[PimpyMicPimp]

There are GM economies, but I really don't know enough about them to comment much more than that. I think one of the main problems of buying techs is that you don't get them first, so no free great people on certain techs, no real shot at wonders, and the AI has to be willing to sell them. It clearly has some advantages, though, as buying a Civ's army in war is always nice, but I don't know if that's worht giving up teching on my own.

This is just my speculation, I really don't know enough about what your doing to do much more than that

 

[Ibian]

The AI has to have techs first before you can trade your own techs for them too. This method just denies them access to your techs, and doesnt stop you from beelining for whatever key techs you want.

It does slow research somewhat, mostly depending on how many science cities you have, but for anyone who likes diplomacy at all the extra options probably make up for it. And as noted earlier, it indirectly cripples the AIs through resources.

 

[Refar]

First of there are better (more, cheaper) multipliers for beakers than for gold. So basicly it is easier to make lots of beakers via slider, than to make lots of gold via slider.

Also there is Representation with enhances your specialists with beakers. No such thing for gold. To rush-buy stuff you need to go inot Universal Suffrage - which means you are not in representation... US does not help you much early in the game (assuming you have acces to in anyway - the mids) as it does enhance Towns, which you might not have yet...

 

[dankok8]

Having a lot of gold is good except it is wasteful to use it in tech trading .. the AI's will demand so much; I tend to use it to keep my army upgraded.

 

[PimpyMicPimp]

The AI has to have techs first before you can trade your own techs for them too.

I guess, but I'd still rather trade techs for techs, as I can dictate my own research path and I'd be hesitant to give gold to certain leaders, since the AIs cheap upgrades make gold go much farther for them.

 

[Gooblah]

Gold is very useful:
1) Use it to keep your slider maxed out, even when running a deficit, by having a lot!
2) Use it to upgrade units (10 gold per hammer or something...)
3) Use it to rush-buy random stuff in Universal Suffrage.
4) It enables new options during BTS Random Events (A tornado hits a Farm, pay to have it replaced)

The way to get more gold is quite easy; Have a Holy City w/ Shrine, use Great Merchants on trading missions, etc.

 

[Gliese 581]

Sure gold is great, but the best use for it is researching at a deficit and expanding your empire more..

 

[Ibian]

It just seems like a very narrow use when there are a lot of other options is all.

I went ahead and tried it and it seemed like it could work, but being stuck on one continent with 4-5 other civs, among others Shaka and Mao, i just got overrun before i could get things up and running. Gonna give it another try one of the next days.

 

[Dan Quale]

Lategame gold is power, sure future techs are nice, but are they as nice as 12-15 units per turn. Earlier on its good for upgrades, and deficit research, as well as random events. Gold is the most versatile resource available.

 

[obsolete]

Why dont i ever see things like this discussed?

Ohh I can see a major reason why....

Gold won't let you rush or even build projects.

The hammer, does both.

Incidentally, you can also convert a hammer into gold (or even science).

The hammer, is mightier than the gold.

 

[PimpyMicPimp]

Ohh I can see a major reason why....

Gold won't let you rush or even build projects.

The hammer, does both.

Incidentally, you can also convert a hammer into gold (or even science).

The hammer, is mightier than the gold.

That about sums it up. I remember a poll back awhile ago about what is most important, production won easily. Hammers in Civ4 are the most important thing to your empire, if you're leading in production, you'll probably win, just because you can turn those hammers into anything you want.

 

[Ibian]

Obsolete, are you saying you turn all your cities into production cities or am i reading too much into it?

 

[Gliese 581]

Obsolete, are you saying you turn all your cities into production cities or am i reading too much into it?

No he basically use THE CITY for production.

 

[The Rook]

I dont hear a lot about gold. The general consensus seems to be "enough to keep science maxed and no more".

Is that the best way to go about it? Gold has a lot of uses in diplomacy. Consider the following scenario:

Standard game, except one city is devoted to churning out and settling GM, with the occasional scientist for academies in science cities. Science can remain at 100% the entire game (or in any position you would like it in for that matter) and the extra food turns the city into a GP mecha, making it easy to generate whichever kind of person you need at any given time.

What to do with all the extra gold?

Gold equals diplomatic options. It doesnt have much use on its own, this is true, but the AI civs love it.

With gold you can buy resources, tech, make an entire civ your hired muscle and other fun things.

One advantage of buying techs instead of trading for them is that it essentially converts gold into beakers, a different version of deficit research in other words. Meanwhile, the AI has to spend valuable turns researching techs on its own instead of instantly getting one.

The advantages of denying health, happiness and military resources to rival civs are obvious.

Am i missing something here? With even half a dozen cities, letting one high food city produce enough gold to buy a few civilizations at a time doesnt seem like a bad trade for a minor science hit. Why dont i ever see things like this discussed?

I never give the AI any gold if I can avoid it. I'd much sooner offer them some dead end tech than something useful to fund their future research or upgrade their armies. Plus, the AI will never accept a fair deal (at higher levels anyway). The good thing about tech trading is that you can whore the same tech to lots of AIs, you don't lose anything in each transaction.

In contrast, if I ever see the AI with a stash of gold (missed a wonder perhaps), I will often try to trade for it, or even grovel if the AI is friendly enough.

 

[Benford's Law]

<<<<Winks at avatar>>>>

Gold is power, darnit!

~Benford's Law

 

[Err0l]

Did you play Civ3, Ibian?

THE drawback on this strategy is that at some point the AIs stop trading techs because they fear you are becoming to advanced.

 

[MrCynical]

Buying tech for pure gold (rather than for a chunk of gold and a slightly cheaper tech) is not effective. The AI will often refuse to trade a tech for any plausible amount of gold, and even when they will make the trade you're paying way beyond the beaker cost of the tech. Finally there's WFYABTA which will mess you up if you're essentially trading for every tech rather then researching some of them yourself. The old Civ 3 approach of buying every tech is horribly inefficient in Civ 4.

In the early stages of the game gold is a necessary evil - I can get a little benefit from random events and boosting tech trades, but mostly I only keep a small amount in the treasury, and run at break even level. The exception would be for a mass unit upgrade. This changes with the arrival of Universal Sufferage, when you can finally do something useful with gold - build stuff quickly. In BtS you get corporations around this point though, so gold tends to become extremely abundant anyway.

Gold equals diplomatic options. It doesnt have much use on its own, this is true, but the AI civs love it.

With gold you can buy resources, tech, make an entire civ your hired muscle and other fun things.

One advantage of buying techs instead of trading for them is that it essentially converts gold into beakers, a different version of deficit research in other words. Meanwhile, the AI has to spend valuable turns researching techs on its own instead of instantly getting one.

The advantages of denying health, happiness and military resources to rival civs are obvious.

Thing is that you can trade for tech and hire a civ with other tech, and you get much better prices most of the time. OK you can't trade for resources, but you can't deny a rival health, happiness or military benefits of a reource by trade, since they refuse to trade the last (and only relevant) source of the resource. Even in BtS, where corps make multiple resources relevant, the AI will not trade a resource away if it weakens it's corps. You can only buy resources which are essentially useless to the AI.

 

[Artichoker]

I find it quite easy (and useful) to trade excess resources for a pretty good amount of gold per turn. Even though I don't need the gold directly, I am then able to move up my Science rate one notch higher than I would have without the new gold.

In fact, I have seen a pattern come into play: I build up military, and then attack a rival civ. Because my focus has shifted from economy to military, I incur a gold deficit, but I keep my Science rate the same.

Once I take over the new territory, I gain new resources in the process. I can then trade my excess resources for extra gold per turn. After the war ends, I catch up on my infrastructure, and my Science rate is no lower than it was before.

 

[Ibian]

Did you play Civ3, Ibian?

Just Civ2, a lot. But that was years ago and i seem to be having trouble adjusting to Civ4.

The AI will often refuse to trade a tech for any plausible amount of gold, and even when they will make the trade you're paying way beyond the beaker cost of the tech.

This has not been my experience. In fact i pay less gold than the beaker cost, 10g for an early tech, 450 for a 600 beaker tech etc. I guess they get more greedy at higher difficulties?

OK you can't trade for resources, but you can't deny a rival health, happiness or military benefits of a reource by trade, since they refuse to trade the last (and only relevant) source of the resource. Even in BtS, where corps make multiple resources relevant, the AI will not trade a resource away if it weakens it's corps. You can only buy resources which are essentially useless to the AI.

The point was to deny them my resources. Gold doesnt make their cities healthier, but fish does.