Money becomes a problem

[eXeel]

In my last game, I played vs 3rd hardest AIs. Whichever that is called.
My problem appeared in the middle to late game, where my money flow was negative.

I had 7-9 cities, with the Policies that makes buildings cost less maintenance and the same for roads, and the wonder where trade routes yields 20% more or what it is.

Still I was constantly in the negative, except for gold ages or if several cities only focus on gold.
I had 7-10 units counting workers and military, before I went for the all out last wars.

1) Is is true that I shouldn't build every +science, +tax, +production building in each city (if the base output is good and worth it)? Can you build too many buildings? I left barracks and other +unit production buildings unbuilt, so I didn't build EVERYTHING.

2) Did I have too many cities? It doesn't seem like way too many, I think.

3) I only had roads/railroads directly connecting my cities.

4) I even let the workers automate, to see if they could fix it.

5) I was build next to several ressources.

I am trying 2nd hardest now, currently with 4 cities in the early age and going to see how this works out as I expand/conquer more.
But I need tips or directions about when to hold back on building buildings and units (cant have less than 5-8 military, if I want to defend myself).

 

[Trickster7135]

4) I even let the workers automate, to see if they could fix it.

You need to manually control your workers, because the only thing you need to build are trade posts. Other than 'one' production city, everything else gets trade post spam, building all science and gold buildings in them.

 

[Slowpoke]

I wouldn't ever waste a hill on a trade outpost, though.

If you have roads all over, you can make do with 3-4 military, preferably mounted, for defense. If you're playing defense that is.

 

[Trickster7135]

I wouldn't ever waste a hill on a trade outpost, though.

If you do that though, you lose out on gold during golden ages. If you want to build mines or lumber mills, only build them on riverside tiles.

 

[The Pianist]

You have to carefully think about what buildings your going to buy and where they will have the most impact. Don't buy expensive buildings if you dont have the gold to support them otherwise your economy will crash.

 

[dannythefool]

Still I was constantly in the negative, except for gold ages or if several cities only focus on gold.

Having cities that focus on gold is a good idea. Focusing your cities on specific tasks is generally a good idea, too.

1) Is is true that I shouldn't build every +science, +tax, +production building in each city (if the base output is good and worth it)? Can you build too many buildings? I left barracks and other +unit production buildings unbuilt, so I didn't build EVERYTHING.

You can build all the +%gold buildings like markets, banks and so on, because they don't cost maintenance (there is a low opportunity cost in hammers if you could build something more useful instead, but you'll know when that happens ). Science buildings do cost maintenance but they are often worth it. I think someone did the math somewhere and the outcome was, always build libraries, but be more conservative with the other science buildings. For low production cities, you may also be better off optimizing them for cash generation and buying the buildings.

2) Did I have too many cities? It doesn't seem like way too many, I think.

I find that the number of cities you can have does not have a limit imposed by cash flow. You can make every city pay for itself. For a net loss you basically need to build buildings that cost more maintenance than the city generates cash, which can be avoided. And if you have cities that focus on generating cash, those can pay for your military.

3) I only had roads/railroads directly connecting my cities.

Ok, but they are quite expensive. Income from trade routes depends on the population of the city that is connected to the capital only, not the population of your capital. So below a certain population, a trade route will yield less gold than what you pay in maintenance for the road. There was a thread doing the math somewhere here too, sorry I don't have links, I didn't bookmark them.

One optimization is if you have coastal cities on the same ocean, you can link them via harbours. They cost less maintenance than roads.

4) I even let the workers automate, to see if they could fix it.

Don't do that. Worker AI is nowhere near as good as they kept saying it would be before release. (Worker AI was one of the features they boasted about. They were wrong.)

5) I was build next to several ressources.

What resources? Food bonus resources aren't worth it, they have a high opportunity cost (you can't put a trading post that generates money and science on a deer tile, for example). Gold and silver, on the other hand, are great, especially if you have more than one and your city has a mint.

But I need tips or directions about when to hold back on building buildings and units (cant have less than 5-8 military, if I want to defend myself).

In general, don't build buildings if you don't need them. Also if a city doesn't generate enough gold to pay for its own buildings, look if you have another city that can pay before you go on a building spree.

 

[CrispyCritter]

The other point that often gets overlooked is that workers are expensive! Each one of those workers you have is costing you up to 8(?) gold per turn in support. Workers (and stockpiled Great People) are units, and each one costs just as much as a military unit.

Note that unit costs come in pairs for some reason. Disbanding a unit will have either 0 gpt change or twice as much as the average cost, depending on whether you have an odd or even number of units.

 

[UncleJJ]

Ok, but they are quite expensive. Income from trade routes depends on the population of the city that is connected to the capital only, not the population of your capital. So below a certain population, a trade route will yield less gold than what you pay in maintenance for the road. There was a thread doing the math somewhere here too, sorry I don't have links, I didn't bookmark them.

Each road tile costs 1 gold and each citizen in the city adds 1.25 gold for the trade route. So if the city needs a 3 tile road you could connect it once it is size 3 and make a very small profit 3.75 - 3 = 0.75. I usually try to link up cities when they get to size 4 as that adds to mobility for my troops when defending against the barbs or if an AI declares.

On the OP's original question about gold, then city size matters. Try to grow your cities bigger and they will give more gold from trade routes and your citizens will be able to work more tiles. This is economic as long as you don't have too many expensive happiness buildings to build. You can view your global happiness as potential gold income.

If you grow your cities by say 8 pop in total (outside your capital) spread across your empire then you will gain 10 gold in trade income. If those extra 8 pop all worked trade posts in cities with banks then they would generate 24 gold as well as extra beakers (boosted by libraries and universities this would be 18 beakers). So 8 spare happiness is worth 34 gold and 18 beakers per turn once you turn it into pop working trade posts. Also you can see the value of adding a couple of coliseums; they cost 300 hammers and 6 gold to run each turn but once you grow the pop to take advantage of them they pay back far more than they cost.