[BTS] Need help building strong economy around my cities

[Phoenix Master]

I usually do okay in the early game because the only improvements you can build (besides roads) are farms, cottages, mines, and pastures. When the medieval era arrives, I'll build windmills, but no workshops and very few watermills. Can anyone give me some good advice on how to keep up economically with the other civs for the entire game. By the way, I am playing on a standard-sized, continents map on normal speed on noble difficulty.

 

[Tecumseh1]

Grow your cities. Avoid whipping away good cottage tiles unnecessarily unless you're preparing for an attack. Tech trades for cash. Just be cautious who you're trading to. You can trade same tech in the same turn to multiple AI to maximize trade value. Build wealth. Avoid building too many units (prebuild them in city queue with 1 turn left until needed). Continue to acquire happiness resources via trade. Your happy cap should get to 10+ in middle ages.

 

[antimony]

Watermills are workshops are not that good until you get communism (state property), so you only want to mass build them when close to that. Windmills are not that good until electricity. Otherwise the economy is mostly cottages and sometimes coast (especially financial leaders on the coast).

Besides always working your cottages so they grow, you want to avoid too much maintenance costs, so don't mass units outside offensive wars like Tecumseh said, settle close to your capital first and expand outwards, prioritize sites with good commerce like rivers.

 

[civac]

Windmills start to become very good with Replacable Parts.

 

[Core Imposter]

Terrain improvements can only take you so far. You'll need trade and commerce, larger cities and infrastructure, technology and civics. Many times when newer players have problems with economy it's because of early over expansion. Too many cities can cause maintenance to skyrocket. On the other hand too little expansion can mean isolation leading to limited trade and commerce. One thing I try to do is specialize a few cities for unit production which allows some vertical growth in others for economic purposes. Every map is a little different but the basics of getting a good core group of cities laid out is a key fundamental.

 

[soundjata]

*Boom* is the name of the game.
Accelerate towards your goals,
Cottages
Growth
Golden ages