Making Money - What's best way during middle ages

[cbeck5]

I am in the Middle Ages, and trying to figure out how to increase my cash flow. I haven't seen any other threads that really answer the formulas for increasing your gold production, and could use help.

For example,
What effect does a BANK or a Marketplace have on a cities gold production?
Does making a tax collector always produce only 1 gold, or what factors apply?

In short, how does commerce of a city apply to my overall GPT?

 

[Dwarven Zerker]

Taxmen only produce 1 gold per specialist (as does Scientist for science.) The best way to increase income during any age is to road the tiles worked in each city radius. Tiles next to rivers and water tiles produce 2 gold for unroaded and 3 for roaded. Landlocked tiles produce 1 gold for unroaded terrain and 2 gold for roaded.

 

[Darkness]

Bank and marketplace each increase your base income of the city they'e built in by 50%....
Marketplaces also increase the effect of luxuries...

 

[TheNiceOne]

As said, a taxman only generates 1 gold per turn, so it's not of much use, but there are two examples where it is useful.

One is in totally corrupt citiees, since specialists isn't affected by corruption. Irrigate everything around the city, turn as many citizens as possible to taxmen, and you'll get 5+ gold per turn from your total corrupt city.

The other is if a city has just one unhappy citizen too many (probably one more unhappy than happy). By making one citizen a taxman, you remove one of the unhappy, stabilizing the city and getting 1gpt at the same time.


Marketplaces and banks each increase the base income after corruption by 50%. So if you have a base income of 10, you'll get 15 with marketplace and 20 with marketplace + bank (minus the support cost). Marketplace is a must, since it increases happiness as well. Another important improvement is of course the corthouse which increases the income by reducing the corruption.

Note that if your reasearch + luxury tax comes close to 100%, then your marketplace/bank becomes almost worthless. If your net income of 10 in a city gets divided with 70% to research and 20% to luxury tax, then there's only 1 gold per turn left for marketplace/bank to increse, so they only give a total of 1 additional gold per turn, less than their support cost.

 

[BillChin]

To increase gold, build marketplaces, aqueducts and granaries. Granaries help a great deal for river cities (no aqueduct). Someone calculated that a city gets to size twelve, fifty turns earlier with a granary (vs. no granary).

Luxuries help--less need for happiness improvements or the luxury slider. Being a Republic helps but needs luxuries to boost happiness.

On higher levels, Emperor, Diety, players often set research to zero and buy and trade techs. On lower levels, Regent and below, players often run near max research and science improvements (libraries, universities) are more useful.
+ Bill

 

[TerraHero]

Trade..by selling Luxuries for $$$. It is the best way

 

[betazed]

The science broker strategy also can give you tons of money. However, it only will work in certain circimstances.

 

[elpadrino87]

Dwarvin Zerker, you've got your numbers wrong. Rivers add one commerce to every adjancent square, so an unroaded tile will produce 1 commerce, and 2 if it has a road. The numbers you gave are if you're a commercial civ.

 

[bewareofgnomes]

commercial civs only produce 1 extra commerce in the city iirc. otherwise, it woul be like having a colussus in every city

 

[Ben II]

Markets and banks increase your output of money by 50%, so if you have 2 gold coming from the city you will get 3 gold

 

[Dwarven Zerker]

Originally posted by elpadrino87
Dwarvin Zerker, you've got your numbers wrong. Rivers add one commerce to every adjancent square, so an unroaded tile will produce 1 commerce, and 2 if it has a road.

I believe that is correct for despot. I think my numbers are correct for republic. I'm not sure about Monarchy as I've only played one game in which I used Monarchy. I just spend some extra time in despot and go straight to republic.

The numbers you gave are if you're a commercial civ.

However, this is incorrect. I've only played as Persia which is not a commercial civ and as noted earlier commercial gives that bonus to the city square only.

Thank you for the correction.