Overextended myself, crippled my economy: how to recover?

[Galumphus]

Tiny game, Highlands, Noble.

I expanded like wildfire, taking all the nearby resources. I have pretty much all the important resources of the early game. I blitzkrieged the Incas with swordsmen and axemen, and destroyed them. It's now 920 AD, I have 12 cities, and I'm losing 14G/turn at 20% research. I should have code of laws completed in, oh, about 35 turns. Luckily I do have currency.

The Romans are the only other civ. I'm way bigger than they are, but they are fare ahead technically.

How the heck do I recover from this? I am thinking of declaring war on the Romans and using my surplus axemen and swordsmen to pillage the sh*t out of their territory. Then I will focus on markets and libraries in all my cities.

Sound good? Any other advice?

edit: oh crap. Even on 0% science I am losing 11G/turn...and I only have 350G. I think I am going to pause a while until I hear what you guys have to recommend.

 

[Galumphus]

Well, I saved and kept playing.

It's now 1310 AD, and I'm back on 20% research and only losing 3G/turn (I have 150G). This is with a couple of my biggest cities producing wealth (they already have markets and libraries). I think I'm going to come out of this okay.

You know, this has the potential to be a seriously powerful strategy. I mean, I own at least 40% of the map in my culture boundaries now, and once all the 'gaps' get filled in I'll probably be over 66%. Plus, I'm destroying the Romans in every demographic except income.

 

[MightyMac]

What difficulty are you playing at?

 

[Galumphus]

Noble.

I'm at 70% research now, with +8/turn. I seem to have weathered the storm, and I'm speeding through all the early techs. The Romans are ahead of me in score, but it's got to be purely due to tech, and I think I'll largely make that up in maybe 30-40 turns. I might declare war just for kicks.

 

[Supreme Shogun]

Yeah you can nearly cut off your research entirely expanding that bad.
How to recover? Courthouses, cottages, markets, harbors anything for a little extra trade. Oh and workers to develop it up.

 

[Shillen]

Generally in that situation courthouses make the largest difference by far. Setting all your cities to emphasize growth and commerce is second most helpful. Third is building markets (or banks if it's later in the game). You might consider disbanding some units and/or switching to cheaper civics as well. Organized religion for instance is killer in upkeep costs...of course if it helps you build courthouses/markets quicker then it's worth it, but only if you have your religion spread well.

 

[Gufnork]

In those situations there's only one thing to do. Whip up some Courthouses.

 

[Gr3yL3gion]

It depends, but you'll recover pretty soon without involving in wars.

But be careful about civs that are techs ahead of you. They most propably aiming for space victory now.

 

[weasel77066]

Im at the latter half of the same type of game. Epic/standard/noble- disabled space rrace and activated P. alliances.
I wanted to try and over-expand to see what would happen. I soon found myself in the same pickle jar as you. Im on a large island to myself, and I squoze 10 or 11 cities on it, then two more on little islands nearby. Maint. killed me, I fell back on science and lost most of the early wonders.
I built courthouses in most cities, and got the forbidden palace prematurely (by my taste) Then I concentrated on building money/science buildings. Markets, banks, etc. I managed a great merchant and used him to get 4000 gold from a trade mission, all other GP I stuck in (learn tech)
Got into an aztec war and captured a far city, but in the process I made a strong ally with russia, and pressed it for tech and gold. By 1850 I was caught up in strength (domestically) with all the other civs, and had run up to second place on the scores. Strangely enough, I was behind militarily. I thought in over-expanding I would be able to dominate with massive armed forces, and although it happened at first, at the beginning of the industial age, I was falling behind.
Well, now its 1930ish and this little experiment is shot, because three civs have joined a permanent alliance across the world and cancelled ALL trade and treaties. To stove off the inevitable I signed permanent alliance with russia. Now the two alliances are neck to neck in score, Ive caught up in running for the wonders and have been getting the newest ones. (rock n rock, hollywood, U. nations)
So although the experiment is inaccurate now (due to permanent alliance) Im noticing now, more than ever, that I have 8 good cities, with six medium cities for troops and ships. I can run 7 wonders at a time if I have to, and one of my cities builds nothing but spies and subs. Im in the lead culturally, and I have the United nations, so that will help with a diplo win. Note; that if I had the space race enabled, I wouldve lost a while ago.
Next game, Im not gtoing through this hassle, and Im gonna expand a little slower. It was like a roller coaster ride. I'll finish it this afternoon and it'll go down in the books as one of my favorite games. I wish there was a replay mode yoou could save.

 

[Grogs]

I usually expand to the point where I'm just barely feeling the pinch. My research typically drops to ~50% while running a small defecit. I have overexpanded a couple of times, mainly due to capturing a few barbarian cities early. There are a lot of things you can do, for example:

- build roads. Every city needs to be connected to your capital for trading purposes.
- build cottages. You may lose a little bit of production, but potentially you can make up for that using pop. rushing.
- get open border agreements. Most of my trade routes double from 1 to 2 when I first establish open borders.
- build port cities. These tend to be short on hammers in most locations, but they usually bring in a good bit of gold. Put a harbor in the city to increase the value of its trade routes.
- Build the Colossus and/or the Great Lighthouse. These wonders can bring in a lot of early gold.
- Courthouses (once you're able.)
- Banks/markets/grocers
- Libraries. This doesn't affect your income, but it gives you more research, partially offsetting the low science slider setting. Also, the Great Library may help a good deal in the early stages of the game.
- Happiness 'improvements.' These may be luxury resources, temples, or troops stationed in cities (under hereditary rule.) The more your cities can grow, the more tiles each can work and (potentially) the more commerce they produce.

 

[weasel77066]

I would also mention that if you have founded a religion, make full use of it. I built missionaries and sent them everywhere non-stop. after a while I was raking in a good chunk of tithe money.

 

[Ray Patterson]

so what I was wondering about... can you actually go broke, like still losing money after all your units are disbanded?

 

[weasel77066]

so what I was wondering about... can you actually go broke, like still losing money after all your units are disbanded?

Holy Smokes! No, I don't know what happens then. Never seen it. Ive had units disbanded, but have always picked up out of the slump. I imagine that if you were that bad off, where all your units were in the unemployment line, then a handfull of civs would come and "help you out" by liberating your destitute people.

 

[dar]

This happened to me once with Rome. 35 turns to Code of Laws with 10% research. By sheer luck I was almost finished the Pyramids in my capital when someone else completed it. The refund was enough to fund my research to CoL and get my economy back on track. So start any wonders you can and hope the AI beats you to them.

 

[Andorim]

Cottages are really great to have, and the earlier you build them - the better. Cottages produce gold. I build them on almost every square.

If you explore your neighbours country-side, you will likely notice that there are an aweful lot of cottages. The AI knows that they produce wealth. I think it is very easy to underestimate the importance of cottages.

 

[Gr3yL3gion]

Holy Smokes! No, I don't know what happens then. Never seen it. Ive had units disbanded, but have always picked up out of the slump. I imagine that if you were that bad off, where all your units were in the unemployment line, then a handfull of civs would come and "help you out" by liberating your destitute people.

Well, I'm in this situation in my last game. I overextended myself that my gpt is -7 and most of my units get disbanded. Construction is taking 206turns to get researched at 0% research and is waiting for the liberating wars from the AI.

 

[Abaddon]

wack out a load more citys in any gaps within your teritory

 

[Ray Patterson]

Well I set up a broke-going civ in the world builder and the answer is: no, you can't go broke. When you have one unit left per city the strike goes on but units are no longer disbanded. Tech progresses really slowly and your capital keeps building. Don't think it provides for a viable strategy though but who knows...

 

[Astax]

Actually I got a better Idea, try trading your boarder cities to romans for tech :O

 

[Tauro]

I've just completed my first victory on prince with Romans in a small map. This happened with domination at 1830 AD, very crappy score, less than 27.000 :/
After destroyed USA and Persians in 1100 AD I had to stop for four centuries!!! One RANDOM, not thinked great merchant saved me with about 900 gold that helped me to reduce the tecnological gap. It was hard to fight against red jacket of UK with medieval units and still a very good working skilled praetorians.
I had nothing to pillage couse Ciro and Roosevelt hadn't any cottage, and the last opponent Tokugawa had the usual behaviour...
Market, courthouses, value, great merchant and pillage are the only way to win the aconomic crisis?