Number of Cities

[cpbama1]

6 Civs, Noble, Continents, Germans.

How many cities do you have initially? How big is too big?

I got off to a great start had my capital on a river (commerce city) had my second city surrounded by hills (Production). Third city also on a river. Then I start expanding, I guess to much. I get up to about 6 cities and take over 2 barbarian camps. I build the Parthanon in my second city and get a great artist. (The Americans and I are the only ones on the continent) I send him to a border city and drop a culture bomb by building a great work. 2 to three turns later I have taken over his city. I have a good size army at this point and I am ready to attack him. I take over Philadelphia.

Here is the problem. It is around 1080AD, I have 10-11 cities and my research is down to 30% and I am losing 20 gold per turn and falling way behind. I have tried to build cottages everywhere. Nothing is working. I have built a barracks in every city and a library in a few.

Do you build 4-5 cities and then attack? In prev Civ games it was expand, expand expand. I guess I have to unlearn what I have learned?

 

[Dyvim Tvar]

Expansion is no longer the easy key to victory in Civ IV. Of course, in the
long run bigger is normally also better, but you must grow more slowly. The maintenance cost of your government increases depending mainly on three factors: your chosen civics, your number of cities and the distance of the cities from your palace.

So to expand to 10 or more cities you require:
-> courthouse (50% maintenance cost!)
-> decent trade income with neighbors
-> currency (increases # of trade routes per city)
-> forbidden palace or versailles
-> great lighthouse or colossus (when many cities on the coast)

Also, you don't have to capture all the cities you take.
Raze a few. A couple powerful cities are better than many
weak ones...

 

[Dyvim Tvar]

Oh. And an important addition:

Buildings no longer require upkeep as they did in the previous versions of Civ.
So build as many as you can. *g*

 

[Wodan]

You can recover from that. Keep in mind your production isn't affected by your financial woes. So, you should be able to build marketplaces. From your tech level, it seems like you should have Courthouses too.

I've been down to 0% before on Monarch level in a similar game to yours, and came back. Don't worry so much about the AIs getting a half dozen techs you don't have.

One thing you CAN do is to make sure all your cities are maximizing commerce. Click the little coin button on the automation symbols. The default has for the AI to maximize food or produciton or something... you'd be surprised how much it might change if you do this.

Wodan

 

[dirtyparrot]

I agree, you have to be alittle patient. Let your cities develop and you'll be able to increase your research. -20gpt is nothing that you can't recover from, though i would not build anymore cities for a while. Cottages take awhile to develop, so patience is key.

 

[biratets]

Also remember to build cottages!

edit. dirtyparrot was faster

 

[dimebolt]

6 Civs, Noble, Continents, Germans.
Do you build 4-5 cities and then attack? In prev Civ games it was expand, expand expand. I guess I have to unlearn what I have learned?

You have to unlearn blind expansion. They key is that new cities (be it cionquered or settled) do not pay for themselves. Therefore, if you expand to quickly, you end up with a large amount of un-profitable cities that cripple your economy. After a wave of expansion, you should pauze a bit to get the economy running in your new cities.

6 Civs, Noble, Continents, Germans.

Here is the problem. It is around 1080AD, I have 10-11 cities and my research is down to 30% and I am losing 20 gold per turn and falling way behind. I have tried to build cottages everywhere. Nothing is working. I have built a barracks in every city and a library in a few.

Cottages are nice, but a size 1 city with 20 cottages in it's area still produces hardly any commerce. Are your cities big enough to work all those cottages? Besides cottage tiles, is the city also working high food tiles to grow faster (and work more cottage tiles later)? Did you build a granary to double speed of growth? Did you build those libraries in high commerce cities? Did you build markets and other financial buildings in the high commerce cities? Did you build courthouses in high maintenance cities? The upper left corner in the city screen is your friend, it tells you exactly how much beakers, gold, commerce and maintainance a city has, from which you can deduce which building would yield the most.

Another very useful screen is the financial advisor. It states where your money is going. In peace time, there usually are three expensive categories: unit upkeep (you have way more units than the unit limit, try disbanding some old ones), civic upkeep (if you are running expensive civics, you could switch to cheaper ones), city mainainance (you have many, or very remote cities, build courthouses, forbidden palace and versailles).

Also don't forget trade routes. Make sure you can trade with remote civs and sign open borders with them. In large coastal cities, build harbors to boost income from these routes.

Finally, did you found a religion, built a shrine and actively spread it? In my current Monarch, large, continents game I found hinduism and get about 150 gold per turn just from the shrine (spread hindu to about 50 cities + 200% from market, grocer, bank and wall street in holy city) and another 60 gold per turn from priest super-specialists (4 Great Profits = 20 gpt + 200% from the improvements).

 

[cpbama1]

Thanks for the responses.

 

[MyOtherName]

Here is the problem. It is around 1080AD, I have 10-11 cities and my research is down to 30% and I am losing 20 gold per turn and falling way behind. I have tried to build cottages everywhere. Nothing is working. I have built a barracks in every city and a library in a few.

Are your cities big enough to work many cottages?

Cottages take time to mature -- if you just built them, you'll have to wait a few dozen turns before you're raking in the cash. (And if you have big cities working many cottages, then more of them will mature)


You said you have some libraries -- when you're in extreme economy woes, you should use scientists to do your research. (Unless you're giving up a ton of commerce to use the scientist)


But you really need to build the economy-building improvements, as the others have mentioned. Courthouses have been mentioned, In your better cities, marketplaces are good too.

 

[Glinka]

Here is the problem. It is around 1080AD, I have 10-11 cities and my research is down to 30% and I am losing 20 gold per turn and falling way behind. I have tried to build cottages everywhere. Nothing is working. I have built a barracks in every city and a library in a few.

Begin the game by grabbing villages with scouts. Settle for money, if you don't get techs. Go up the literate path, so as to grab The Great Library, and immdiately go after Currency right afterwards. Banks are your best friend. It wouldn't hurt to get Bureaucracy and the Pyramids, too, so as to maximize production. I'd suggest Organized Religion, but if your funds are hurting that badly, you might want to completely pass on it.