Producing Nothing

[wilhelm13]

If you have to use that mod, then you're just not playing right... cities should always be producing something.

I agree absolutely and my nubliness bows down to your superior Civ skills!

…but I thought it was nice of the person that posted the mod to directly address my question instead of speculating on what manner of Civ incompetence resulted in my going on strike in the first place

And

You do not have to fully produce a unit to 100%, you could just get then up to 1 turn before completion then switch production to another unit, your previous production will be saved and can be resumed later (it will decay after awhile though)

That is a new one for me; I am sure I will find that useful just… in general!

One more

I forgot to mention. If you have Code of Laws, but not Currency, you can try switching to Caste System and assigning Merchant specialists.

Haven’t really messed around much with Caste System but I will try this at some point I am sure.

Once again thanks for all the replies and advice!

 

[s.bernbaum]

I asked about how to produce nothing because I have done it by accident before, looked at a city after a few turns without doing so, and noticed a big black blank under the city name, i.e. producing nothing. I can't get it to do this on purpose though, only by accident!

I play vanilla, so I don't know if this works in Warlords or BTS. However, I also had it happen once by accident, so I experimented to see why. After the initial building phase of the turn (where you choose what to build), during the movement phase, open the city screen where you want to build nothing. Click on whatever it is that is being built, so it is deleted from the queue. If there is anything else, repeat the deletions until the queue is empty. Exit the city screen. You will be building nothing in that city. You will continue to build nothing in that city turn after turn, until you reenter that city's city screen and choose something to build. So, don't forget that you are building nothing there.

That said, I would not do it. Try some of the other ideas that have been offered instead. I am currently playing my fourth game at Prince. I have played for all the victory types at each of the lower levels without losing a game. Occasionally, I did manage to get into a situation such as yours but was always able to find a way to increase income without building nothing, and go on to win. (OTOH, I do admit to having lost my first two games at Prince, while striving for a cultural victory, before finally achieving a cultural victory in my third. Lost the second time by one turn.)

 

[Inky]

I think the build-nothing trick was fixed in Warlords or BTS. The pop-up to select production will come up if the build queue is empty. You will get empty builds for some cities on the turn after you win the game, if you pick "play just one more turn...", but I haven't seen it show up in a normal game in BTS.

Another way to make money is production overflow. Chop a lot of forests down for a city which is building something which gets a production bonus (walls for a protective civ). The excess hammers are converted to gold. You can make money from overflows from anything, but the more you can overflow the better, so doing it on a cheap item with bonuses gets the most.

If you have a shrine, make lots of missionaries. It won't quickly get you out of the hole, but it lets you build something which makes money.

Optimize all city production for commerce, to maximize gold output. This might seem obvious, but it can make a difference.

One last popular method is the Mongol horde strategy. Just go out and conquer, pillage, and raze. You want to use your military to make money, not grab territory. It's possible to conquer the whole world this way.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

This is still going on? If you really want to commit this tactical atrocity just make units and disband them the turn they're made. You don't lose gold till you click "end turn", so you are functionally building nothing.

If you don't like that, optimize the tech path a bit, because that is basically what building nothing equates to .

 

[Siesta Guru]

Ive always wondered if workers cost maintenance, if not you could always build tons of those, sometimes they can actually pull you out of a economic disaster.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Workers do cost maintenance if you go over the "free unit support" given by your cities.

 

[LateGameWarMong]

I came close to having this problem last game, my research was down to 20%. Had no choice but to pump out units, putting me closer to needing to go to 10%. I went to war with the units I was pumping out- before they became obsolete.
raze/caputre cities, pillage like crazy, get gold for peace, tech to currency or building research. Then I was able to build courthouses, and the palace, and one of my wonders got converted to gold (would rather have had the wonder)
I'm back up to 90% or 100%, 2nd on the scoreboard, first among my continent, and the only one with astronomy.

Sounds like you need to go to war imo.
Can you sell any techs?

 

[btgwynn]

Seems if your goal is building nothing you might broaden your approach to just shutting off the computer...

Jabs aside, there has been a lot of talk about building partial wonders for gold, is it equivelant to gold that would be built by selecting produce wealth? Why I ask is my recollection is that "build wealth" describes the result as "turns 50% of production into gold" or something like that, and I am curious if the ratio of hammers to gold is the same for partial wonders.

 

[GooglyBoogly]

I am pretty sure the to converstion rate of wealth is 1-1, not 2-1. However, wonders often give you more than that, as they are 1 hammer to one gold, and since many wonders have a +100% resource bonus, you will be getting a much better deal (if somewhat delayed)

 

[dm04]

If you have to use that mod, then you're just not playing right... cities should always be producing something.

And why that? I have pretty much the same problem. Im quite safe on my "little" island, no barbarians, no animals, powerfull navy to protect me against other civs. I do not have cash problems, though I have not researched currency(or commerce whatever) yet. I have build everything available (wonders included). Now I have to train units and disband them all the time because I dont need them. Well at least until I hit the next "stage"... thats annoying. So and why should a city always be producing something?

 

[Wolfshanze]

And why that? I have pretty much the same problem. Im quite safe on my "little" island, no barbarians, no animals, powerfull navy to protect me against other civs. I do not have cash problems, though I have not researched currency(or commerce whatever) yet. I have build everything available (wonders included). Now I have to train units and disband them all the time because I dont need them. Well at least until I hit the next "stage"... thats annoying. So and why should a city always be producing something?

It's called "playing to win" not "playing to be mediocre"... I can assure you the AI is not producing nothing. If you can't think of anything better then nothing, you're not playing the game efficiently and need to change your strategy.

This question is also about being "forced" to produce nothing because anything else leads to automatic disbandment... I've been so far ahead where I probably could produce "nothing" and still win, but I don't do that, and that's not what we're talking about here.

 

[dm04]

If "playing to win" is only win by conquest, then yes I play rather mediocre and I prefer to play this way.

 

[stee]

Is there a way to get your city to produce nothing at all? For when your economy is tanking, science rate is at 0% and you are losing money... would be nice to just make nothing instead of having to delete everything as soon as it is made over and over.

Well why don't you just produce wealth???

 

[Gwynnja]

Well why don't you just produce wealth???

Seems like you could have read 2-3 replies to the op to find your answer. he doesn't have currency.

 

[Joshua368]

If "playing to win" is only win by conquest, then yes I play rather mediocre and I prefer to play this way.

No one said that. "Playing to win" means trying to win by conquest, domination, space race, cultural, diplomatic, or time. Basically you want to play better than the AIs, whichever path you choose.

There is simply never a good reason to not build anything... first of all some of you people make this lack of production options look like a big deal, but to be honest the window is really small, once you learn either alphabet or currency it's gone and there's always wealth or research to build. And before that point there's usually at least something you need to get build, be it workers or settlers or axemen or libraries or courthouses... if you have nothing to build you probably need to reorganize your tech tree so you get the key structure techs faster.

To be honest my cities always have something they need to build for almost all the game, be it structures or units... the only time I actually ever run out is by the end of a space race... and I tend to have already researched alphabet or currency by then.

 

[dm04]

Someone already said it, it do not happen often, but it can. And it happen to me quite often in the early game. If not to you, then be happy. Im either doing something terribly wrong, or good to have "Nothing to do".

 

[TheMeInTeam]

If "playing to win" is only win by conquest, then yes I play rather mediocre and I prefer to play this way.

What wolf is (correctly) alluding to is that if you're producing nothing, you didn't plan your techpath + earlier production correctly based on the map. Even if you start isolated and *never* get into a war, building nothing is suboptimal, and you'll improve your play considerably by realizing this and adjusting the rate you tech/expand/etc accordingly.

It's actually possible (and strong play) to NOT have to produce nothing even if you whip in all of your cities as soon as whip cools off. There's a LOT of production to be had this way.

Conquest has nothing to do with producing nothing or not - wanting to produce nothing is clear-cut proof that you've made a mistake.

 

[Siesta Guru]

What wolf is (correctly) alluding to is that if you're producing nothing, you didn't plan your techpath + earlier production correctly based on the map. Even if you start isolated and *never* get into a war, building nothing is suboptimal, and you'll improve your play considerably by realizing this and adjusting the rate you tech/expand/etc accordingly.

It's actually possible (and strong play) to NOT have to produce nothing even if you whip in all of your cities as soon as whip cools off. There's a LOT of production to be had this way.

Conquest has nothing to do with producing nothing or not - wanting to produce nothing is clear-cut proof that you've made a mistake.

True, but the games where you can pull yourself together and win at the end even though youve made some stupid mistakes at the start are some of the best games, you shouldnt just retire if youve made a mistake.
I remember a great game in which i couldnt control my own strenght and ended up rushing a entire continent (half of the world) before currency, i accidentally captured a capital I shouldnt have and with no way of getting rid of it my economy was horrible. Running a deficit at 0% with nothing to build left and no enemy to defeat is well awesome .. Once i finally teched my way to currency (around 500ad) using 1 or 2 scientist specialists the game really started and with a complete continent and a financial leader I managed to get back on rails and I discovered liberalism first at 1500 ad After which i destroyed the other continents with infantry fighting against muskets and longbowman. One of the best games ive played.

 

[stee]

Seems like you could have read 2-3 replies to the op to find your answer. he doesn't have currency.

If you couldn't tell, I dont like to read.