How can you expect to play a decent game when everything has such high penalties?

[Stiefel]

It's just plain ******ed how much everything costs in this game. I played this game on prince mode and by ~500 bc my entire army (of only 10-15 units) and my workforce of about 5 workers costs over 40 gold. Add the ~15 gold from building matenence and the ~15 gold from roads and I barely have enough to spend for the constant wars I have to fight and to combat the asinine amounts of unhappiness that I have from population growth and city building. In Civ 4 you could prioritize your economic and productive focus according to the situation, which is realistic. Since everything in Civ 5 is a separate entity, it's rediculous to manage. The only way to win is to send over 9000 units to conquer the world asap before the penalties of unhappiness take their toll.

 

[Malkaviel]

having 15 units by 5 workers by 500bc is overkill. 3 workers is more than sufficient, and if the military units are your highest tech, 6-8 are powerful. 4 swordsmen and 2-3 ranged will kill just about anyone, taking a couple cities here or there.

speaking of cities you really shouldn't have more than 4 by 500 bc. this game's just different than civ 4. don't play the 2 games the same.

 

[Stiefel]

Being at war with several civs at once makes for a high military demand.

 

[CrimsonEdge]

Being at war with several civs at once makes for a high military demand.

Diplomacy works.

 

[Malkaviel]

Being at war with several civs at once makes for a high military demand.

well that's a sarcastic, and while you believe redundant, untrue statement. your cities fight as ranged units with decent health unto themselves even if you have no unit in them. putting a ranged unit or 2 outside, but behind from the attackers, and a melee or two flanking it pretty much assures they're going to get shredded coming in.

 

[Stiefel]

Diplomacy works.

Not well.

well that's a sarcastic, and while you believe redundant, untrue statement. your cities fight as ranged units with decent health unto themselves even if you have no unit in them. putting a ranged unit or 2 outside, but behind from the attackers, and a melee or two flanking it pretty much assures they're going to get shredded coming in.

But I do need more units to prevent them from pillaging my stuff and to beat them into agreeing to peace.

 

[bobbyboy29]

Remember when you were a week into playing Civ 4 and you were asking yourself questions like:
"Why has my economy crashed? I've founded all the religions and built three cottages but this stupid distance maintenance is killing my cities! Also I can't build anything, I'm saving my trees for lumbermilling and slavery is cruel. Also my cities are all small yet still unhappy!"

Ok so maybe you weren't as bad as I was But the point is that yeh, you may struggle a bit when you first start playing the game (just like all civ games). Especially when there's no super experienced people around to tell you exactly what you need to do. But guess what, you'll improve!

So yeh, units and buildings seem pretty expensive at the moment, but its pretty comparable to the maintenance cost per city you incurred in Civ 4 (and way better than corruption in previous versions). I'm certain that there are plenty of strategies to be found that haven't been properly explored yet that will allow all players to improve drastically and adjust to the new game.

And if not... here's hoping it gets patched to balance it back again!

 

[Nutteria]

Honestly this is the first topic I find someone strugling to maintain stable economy.I agree with the happyness factor tho.If you see you happyness drop below -15 you should make everything possible to stop the wars otherwise it is very very hard to come back from the depression afterwards.

Another thing to add is that having 15 units is a overkill.My highly specialised 8 unit army was more then enough to maw down the two nearby civs and the citystate that blocked me from linking my empire borders.

Just a general rulre of thumb - Don`t build excess stuff be it units workers citys or buildings.As soon as you realise this , the sooner you will see that you can manage the game pretty well.