help me im a noob.... anyway.... when i start off playing im usually doing fine with expanding and building and technologically advancing and getting gold. but usually once i start getting into a game i lose money and i end up with 0 money and -300 or something per turn. how do i prevent this from happening/get more money if this does happen? oh and is it bad that it was like, 2020 when i finally got to the industrail age? how can i advance quicker?
Do read some of the articles in the War Acad. The problems you discribe are very common. It stems from not getting your empire to use it's land properly.
First you surely have too few workers in the earliest part of the game. A tip off is that you have citizens working tiles that have not been improved.
Second, consider not placing towns so far apart that they do not have any overlapping tiles. This seems attractive at first, because you will have the full 21 tiles to use. This is not always so productive.
The reasons are that you cannot use 21 tiles without either Shakes wonder or a hospital. Hospitals are a long long ways away and you may elect to not even research that tech, let alone build one.
You will have 9 tiles that cannot be worked for a large portion of the game. These tiles will none the less require at least a road at some point. This mean worker turns for no production increase.
There are other reasons, such as defense and distance travel and corruption as well.
Have workers do the most important task first and keep their travel to a minimum. That is to say, do not mine moutains when you have grass tiles to work, without a good reason. Same for hills, but they are not as bad as moutains for time to complete a task.
Check your pop to insure it is growing, if possible and that they are working the best tiles. That could be ones that generate extra food or extra gold or shields, depending on what is needed at the time.
Get contact ASAP and make wise trades, try to sell to all once you sell a tech. try to get a monopoly tech. Do not hold a tech until it depreciates in value. Try not to deal techs on the AI's turn.
Be wise about structures. Too many cost you later in the game as the maint cost rises. You do not have to build something, as soon as you learn how.
So temple may be build, but not until you need it for happiness or culture and not until it can be build reasonably time wise. IOW do not start it at 1 shield per turn, wait till the town has grown and has those improved tiles.
Do not build things like Cath or Coll, you do not need them, you only like them.
Do not start wonders all over the place. Yes they are fun to have, but learn to live without them and take care about when and where to build one.
You do not want to take your best settler city out of action for 30 turns while land is still waiting to be settled.
Do not build lots of units, if you do not intend to use them right away. Then only build vets after the first few warriors. Make attackers, not defenders, unless you have a real need to defend some places.
If you are in a non MP government, do not keep units in places that are not going to see action.
Watch you research to reduce over runs once you get close to a break through.
(The War Academy is not just about war)
