Is it possible to recover an economy?

[Lord_Zath]

Maybe you can post a gamesave or two? that could help people play through your moves and analyze everything in your situation...

 

[xfactor99]

Beeline for Currency so that you can set all your cities to produce wealth, and as soon as you can, start producing workers and Markets in all your cities (workers get disbanded too). Slowly but surely you'll be able to remove your cities from producing wealth and rebuild your economy.

Of course, if it's taking a long time to get Currency, that's going to be a major problem

 

[ShannonCT]

Not good advice. Often, the maintenance costs of your military, plus the "foreign soil" cost is what's tanking your economy in the first place.

Use your attacking force wisely, but don't be afraid to sacrifice units to capture important objectives. Losing units will only ease the burden on your economy, and it's far better to go down fighting than to disband without a fight.

Ummm... how is it bad advice if we're saying the same thing. Don't let your attacking force get disbanded. Make sure they get a chance to attack the enemy. Many will die but if you can capture the enemy capital, your economy will be saved.

Disbanding the last defender of a city is usually bad advice, and should only be considered as an absolute last resort. The immediate penalty may give you unhappy citizens, which are a DRAIN on your economy. The best way to get out of Strike is to put citizens to work on productive tiles, preferably cottages. Taking the attitude that you can "whip a defender later" is probably going to get you into trouble. Population is the SOLUTION to your troubles, and you should not be whipping your population unless you are in danger of breeding unhappy citizens, or you are whipping out buildings that yield immediate economic benefits, like Courthouses, Markets, or buildings.

Disbanding the only defender is fine if the city has several extra happiness. If you read my post, I suggested disbanding defenders in small cities that could afford the happiness hit ... i.e., those that would not have unhappy citizens without a garrison. It depends on the level he is playing (how many free happies?), how much fog is left for barbs to spawn, and how much the AI can still threaten the city, but there are plenty of times where going without a garrison is the right move.

 

[ezwip]

Don't forget that you can switch cities to wealth and stick a great merchant in them if you have caste. This will quickly rebound your economy and allow room for taking the remaining cities.

 

[shed]

Well, I gave it a go last night, taking everyone's advice on board.

The Good News:

I got his capital! It was pretty close though, I only had one unit that had not been used after I took the city. The RNG was quite kind to me as well, I won 2-3 battles at 30% odds, one at 20% and only losing one at 70% or over.

I made peace and he gave me Alphabet for it too.

My economy is slowly recovering. I can run at about 40% now and with a couple of cities on research, my Tech rate is getting back to a reasonable level. I've just got COL too so courthouses were being built en masse when I saved it.


The Bad News:

Although I took his capital, the Iron is still within his borders and he's connected it up again. Despite me building every cultural building I have in Lisbon the tile hasn't flipped to me and it's only 1 south of the city. I guess it will eventually, but for now he can pump out plenty of Swordsmen and Axemen for when I come at him again.

It's now about 1000AD and although I don't really pay attention to my tech rate relative to the year (just against my rivals) I get the feeling just having researched Code of Laws is somewhat slow I'm going to play on but I think this is going to be one of those 'Chalk it up to experience' type of games.

 

[Neo Guderian]

Don't park your army in their territory while you are waiting to attack. this will cause them to spam defensive units in that city, making it harder to capture as well as cost you alot of extra gold in unit supply costs.

If you can't capture an enemy city rapidly, move your forces to friendly territory. Then when you are strong enough, assault. This will save you money.

Only danger to this is that they will try to hook up iron again.

 

[bardolph]

Ummm... how is it bad advice if we're saying the same thing. Don't let your attacking force get disbanded. Make sure they get a chance to attack the enemy. Many will die but if you can capture the enemy capital, your economy will be saved.

Maybe I misunderstood you. I thought you were saying "don't fight with your main force because you might lose units." My point was that losing units in battle is a *good* thing because it reduces maintenance costs.

Disbanding the only defender is fine if the city has several extra happiness. If you read my post, I suggested disbanding defenders in small cities that could afford the happiness hit ... i.e., those that would not have unhappy citizens without a garrison. It depends on the level he is playing (how many free happies?), how much fog is left for barbs to spawn, and how much the AI can still threaten the city, but there are plenty of times where going without a garrison is the right move.

Fair enough. I believe that cities get their "we want protection" penalty at size 3, which is reached pretty fast.

Usually, by the time I have extremely high caps, my economy is in decent enough shape that I don't need to abandon city defense just to save 1 gpt in maintenance costs.