I need money!

[Emilion]

Hi, it was a long time ago I played civ and now I have forgot a lot of things.

I had no problems to expand my civilisation, but soon my money begin to dissapear, and when I try to sell expensive things like colloseum I just get civ disorder.

What should I do to get money, and still no annoying civ disorders?

And where should I plant my cities for more income?

 

[funxus]

Your cities produce trade, they look like 2 orange arrows. In the city screen, you can see a small map of the territory around your city, and on that map you should see which squares produce trade. The larger your city is, the more squares the city can work. To the right of the map you should be able to see how much trade you get each turn, and how much goes to corruption. (To reduce corruption, switch to monarchy). These trade arrows are turned in to gold, science and luxuries, and how much goes to what is set in the tax-screen (Shift-T). When you open that screen, you should see how much money you make, and how much money all your improvements cost. Make sure your income is alrger than the costs, and then divide the rest of the trade on as much science as possible. Spend on luxuries if your citizens are unhappy, but should not be used until your cities has grown larger. In each city you can see how much gold, science and luxuries they produce. By building a Market place, you get 50 % more gold, and luxuries, and with both a Market Place and a bank you double the amount of gold and lux, and with a Market Place, bank and a stock exchange you add 150% to the gold and lux. The same is for science, but with libraries, universities and research centers.

So make sure you build roads around your cities (because they give you more trade), and also make sure you work these squares in your cities. Build markeplaces. Make sure your income is greater than the costs. Also check out the costs for all your improvements before you build them (e.g. colosseums are expensive), and don't build them before you need them.

 

[TimTheEnchanter]

Without more information about what you're doing, it's hard to tell how much of this you already know, so forgive me if I state the obvious. Funxus makes some important points about the importance of trade arrows within your cities, and how the city improvements (markets, etc) and terrain improvements (roads) can impact them. The way to avoid cash - and other - problems is to manage your trade well.

Representative governments (republic, democracy) produce significantly more trade than earlier governments, but you must also spend luxuries to manage your happiness so there is a tradeoff here, but in the long run it's usually worth it. Democracy eliminates the nasty corruption that eats away at your trade in republic, so it is much nicer.

Another thing to look at is delivery of trade goods caravans and freights. Delivering these to cities will give you a cash and science bonus upon delivery (more if the city demands that item), but it also sets up a trade route which can add even more arrows to each city, thus allowing the city to make more cash on an ongoing basis. This is the key to happy, growing cities.

Go read around the forums and especially look at the threads about trade, republic and democracy. Some of them are fairly detailed and in depth so you probably won't immediately grasp everything they talk about (I am still learning from many of them), but just try to get a general understanding of how to get trade working in your favor. When you start to understand these techniques you'll probably wonder how you ever had a cash-flow problem!

 

[ElephantU]

Another thing to mention is that some improvements and units can change the trade you reap from the terrain around your city. For instance, a Settler or Engineer can build a Road fairly quickly on Grass or Plains. If you work one of these without a Road you get no Trade; if you work it with a Road you get at least one Trade, an extra trade if there is a River, another Trade if you are in Republic or Democracy, another Trade if you have the Colossus wonder in your city, and another Trade if you have built SuperHighways. Also making your city Celebrate (WLTxD) will give you extra Trade if you are in Monarchy, Commy or Fundy. Another idea would be to build a Harbor, which lets you work Ocean tiles, where you get two Trades each. It does not add to your Shield production, however. Each of these improvements comes with a tech discovery, so you need to investigate what techs you have and what you need to get the ones you want.

Welcome to CFC, by the way, and welcome back to Civ!

 

[Alice]

Also, some wonders also affect your money income. Some directly, like the Colossus or Adam Smith's TC (one of my favourites, pays the maintenance costs of city improv with an upkeep cost of 1, can save a lot of money); and som of them don't affect your income in such a direct way, but the effects on it are equaly great, like JSB Cathedral or Michelangelo's Chapel (with these you will end up spending very little on happiness).
Good luck!

 

[Dark Ascendant]

Don't let your cities get too big. Size 12 is not good when you only have 5 irragated, roaded or mined squares. Also, don't build all the improvements, balance the cost and profit to gain a good profit margin.