Late game money problems

[alangr]

I am in late game (AD1000) and progressing well but suddenly my 'costs' have gone through the roof. I have been building markets and grocers where possible but am now swamped with costs.

Apart from specific changes, are there any holistic reasons for this - or, better, ways to deal with it?

A great game!

 

[Noble Zarkon]

A save game would be ideal, although screenshots would do.

Are you running any corporations? How many cities do you have? Have you built the Forbidden Palace and Versailles in strategic locations?

 

[AcaMetis]

You can check the Financial Advisor (F2 as a shortcut) to see an overview of your empire's total income and expenses, as well as an overview of your total commerce income and what it's generating based on your sliders. As mentioned without screenshots or, ideally, a save file it's hard to say exactly where the sudden spike of expenses comes from.

That all said, generally speaking, Markets and Grocers aren't (necessarily) the best way to resolve financial problems. How Markets, Grocers and later Banks work is that they give a bonus to the amount of converted into when you're running your // sliders at less than 100% total. If a given city doesn't produce much in the way of a Market/Grocer/Bank won't generate much more in turn, and ideally you want to be running your beaker slider as high as possible anyway, which would reduce their effect even further since less of the you do produce is actually put towards generating . The best way to combat financial shortages is selling techs/resources to AIs for gold, building Wealth in cities (failbuilding wonders is also an option, but a slightly more advanced one), and possibly building/whipping Courthouses in cities that are particularly expensive to maintain (which is influenced by your total empire size and distance to the nearest Palace) if the State Property civic is either far away or not a viable option.

Obviously that's just scratching the surface, but it's a starting point at least.

 

[elmurcis]

Might be building too many cities overseas probably? Colony costs (if game has vassals ON and have many cities on other landmass) can be astronomical for example.
Or just too many far away cities (number of cities + distance + inflation that kicks in later in game can be expensive).
(without any further details things that come in mind)
And welcome to Civ4 - last game you will ever need

 

[alangr]

Thanks for the comments, I will see what I can do to remedy matters! it is not always easy to see the way ahead!

 

[ArchGhost]

-Civic costs increase as your total empire population grows
-City maintenance scales based on population of the city
-Adding more cities also scales maintenance in all cities unless you are already at the difficulty's cap (i.e. 8g is the "per city" cap on Deity, paid in all cities)

So your expenses will just naturally increase as you expand and grow your cities, which happens organically as you tech and/or trade for more happiness and health.

Inflation is also an expense that factors, and it scales based off your current total expenses and is incremented by the turn. So the later the game goes, the more you pay in inflation, making things gradually more expensive just by advancing turns as well.

Also note that the civics you run have different costs. Some of them can be very expensive depending on your empire, while others can be live-savingly cheap.
Expensive civics:
Police State
Bureaucracy (with many cities)
Organized Religion
Mercantilism (you lose all foreign trade routes, which is a major commerce hit!)
Vassalage

Cheap civics:
most of the default civics such as Paganism
Bureaucracy (can pay for itself and then some if you are small and run a cottage-capitol)
Nationalism (especially in big empires)
Pacifism
Free Religion
Free Market (with no corps around the +1 trade route is very good)
State Property (the mack-daddy of cheap civics -- if you are not very small)


Then there are several dynamic factors specific to any individual game, which are not always in play but they can happen:
-Difficulty level modifies the static "per city" cap on maintenance; the cap is higher on harder difficulties, making any new city cost your empire more.
-City distance from the palace increases maintenance unless in State Property civic, so as you naturally add more cities away from your capitol as the game goes on (logically you'll expand to closer spots first in general and then continue on assuming there is still land) those cities will be more expensive for the empire
-Cities on distinct continents start paying additional "colonial expense" maintenance once there are two or more cities on another continent from the palace, and it scales with each new city
-Corporations, if present at all in any city, cost the city's owner expenses in the form of corporation payments. Doesn't matter if the corp is yours, or if the AI spreads it to you (do they even do that? I never see it), the presence of the corp costs gold unless you are in State Property
-Trade route shenanigans. AIs love to adopt Mercantilism once they start teching Banking, which creates a window of the game where they shut off all trade route income to you when they use the civic. Since foreign routes are worth more commerce, it can start to strain your economy if you are trying to pay expenses with only domestic commerce sources.
-There can also be shifts in trade route dynamics based on diplomacy and empire sizes: If you go to war with someone, or stop trading (due to demand), you lose open borders and routes; AIs will also more rarely close borders at random when they dislike you. If your empire starts getting bigger than most others, more of your routes will start becoming domestic as foreign cities can only ever trade with one other foreign city, but there can be any number of domestic routes to accommodate the number of routes per city you currently have unlocked.
-An even rarer scenario is an AI having all their foreign routes going to other AI's cities. Since trade routes automatically calculate based on the highest potential value when selecting target cites (based on size, distance, being to a foreign city, and things like being on another continent or sustained peace) this would only come up realistically if other AIs were all bigger than you but their cities were also larger and further away from each other than yours, and in enough number to suck up all the trade routes first...something which could actually happen on harder difficulties like Deity, though generally there are so many routes per city this is unlikely to happen, and if you are forced into this scencario you would be small enough to not really be relying on trade route income to fight expenses

 

[alangr]

-Civic costs increase as your total empire population grows
-City maintenance scales based on population of the city
-Adding more cities also scales maintenance in all cities unless you are already at the difficulty's cap (i.e. 8g is the "per city" cap on Deity, paid in all cities)

So your expenses will just naturally increase as you expand and grow your cities, which happens organically as you tech and/or trade for more happiness and health.

Inflation is also an expense that factors, and it scales based off your current total expenses and is incremented by the turn. So the later the game goes, the more you pay in inflation, making things gradually more expensive just by advancing turns as well.

Also note that the civics you run have different costs. Some of them can be very expensive depending on your empire, while others can be live-savingly cheap.
Expensive civics:
Police State
Bureaucracy (with many cities)
Organized Religion
Mercantilism (you lose all foreign trade routes, which is a major commerce hit!)
Vassalage

Cheap civics:
most of the default civics such as Paganism
Bureaucracy (can pay for itself and then some if you are small and run a cottage-capitol)
Nationalism (especially in big empires)
Pacifism
Free Religion
Free Market (with no corps around the +1 trade route is very good)
State Property (the mack-daddy of cheap civics -- if you are not very small)


Then there are several dynamic factors specific to any individual game, which are not always in play but they can happen:
-Difficulty level modifies the static "per city" cap on maintenance; the cap is higher on harder difficulties, making any new city cost your empire more.
-City distance from the palace increases maintenance unless in State Property civic, so as you naturally add more cities away from your capitol as the game goes on (logically you'll expand to closer spots first in general and then continue on assuming there is still land) those cities will be more expensive for the empire
-Cities on distinct continents start paying additional "colonial expense" maintenance once there are two or more cities on another continent from the palace, and it scales with each new city
-Corporations, if present at all in any city, cost the city's owner expenses in the form of corporation payments. Doesn't matter if the corp is yours, or if the AI spreads it to you (do they even do that? I never see it), the presence of the corp costs gold unless you are in State Property
-Trade route shenanigans. AIs love to adopt Mercantilism once they start teching Banking, which creates a window of the game where they shut off all trade route income to you when they use the civic. Since foreign routes are worth more commerce, it can start to strain your economy if you are trying to pay expenses with only domestic commerce sources.
-There can also be shifts in trade route dynamics based on diplomacy and empire sizes: If you go to war with someone, or stop trading (due to demand), you lose open borders and routes; AIs will also more rarely close borders at random when they dislike you. If your empire starts getting bigger than most others, more of your routes will start becoming domestic as foreign cities can only ever trade with one other foreign city, but there can be any number of domestic routes to accommodate the number of routes per city you currently have unlocked.
-An even rarer scenario is an AI having all their foreign routes going to other AI's cities. Since trade routes automatically calculate based on the highest potential value when selecting target cites (based on size, distance, being to a foreign city, and things like being on another continent or sustained peace) this would only come up realistically if other AIs were all bigger than you but their cities were also larger and further away from each other than yours, and in enough number to suck up all the trade routes first...something which could actually happen on harder difficulties like Deity, though generally there are so many routes per city this is unlikely to happen, and if you are forced into this scencario you would be small enough to not really be relying on trade route income to fight expenses

Well... Many thanks for all of the detailed comments - they do provide many ideas on how best to go forward. There will be no quick solution here but very many thanks for insights on how to handle/cope/prevent the problems arising.

 

[Noble Zarkon]

I've been reminded about this thread which is worth a read, especially part 9 which is very relevant for your situation.