Quick Economy Question

[PsychopathicWarmonger]

Just a quick question regarding my economy in a certain game I'm playing right now;

Spoiler :

(Left out a 4th Gold there... will rework that)

I'm playing as Ramses, and spawned beside Cyrus of Persia. I researched Animal Husbandry and was pleased to find I settled on a Horse resource.
- So I rushed Persia with War Chariots. I've been having bad streaks recently with my conquest goals and wasn't entirely sure I'd beat him, but I smacked 'im gud and annhilated Persia from the face of the Earth.

I quickly set my War Chariots to fogbusting the map, and crushed a Barb camp that popped up. I pumped out a Settler in Persiopolis and settled due North of the former capital.

My question here is what's causing my economy to crumble here? Is it the maintenance of my new cities? My fogbusting War Chariots? My lack of Cottages? (my capital had 2 crappy plains-river-tiles...)
I don't feel experienced enough to point out with certainty in the economy-advisor which one is crippling me.
I feel it's the city maintenance.

I feel in hind-sight though that if I knew I was in semi-isolation before I flushed Cyrus out I would have simply razed Persiopolis. However it was a good city, I didn't want to get rid of it.
Perhaps I should have settled one of my planned Gold sites? I felt they were too far away and the I'd pick up with the Gold would be counteracted by the city maintenance cost.

My plan here was to chop libraries and run Scientist specialists in my capital and maybe another city or two to push me through to... well I didn't really think it out too well.
Should I maybe roll back a number of saves and raze Persiopolis? I didn't know I was in isolation so I kept it, not wanting another AI to settle right on in there. :/

 

[Berks]

Hi PW (not sure I like calling you psycho, LOL)

You definitely oversettled, this is the main problem.

I took a look at the save. Here are the things that stand out to me, in no particular order:

(Capital was settled 1N of the original location?) - I would have preferred to SiP, the site you chose is really hammer poor. At 4000 BC, you would assume a 2nd city can easily pick up the elephants;

I don't like Hunting before AH here, although given your settle location, you were almost forced into it. If you met Cyrus and were planning to WC rush him, you want to hit him as fast as possible. Its not a huge mistake, but marginal at best IMO.

No Ivory is hooked up yet.

Sailing is a mistake. You should have finished the road to Memphis to get the extra +2 commerce instead. I would have gone for straight for Writing after AH. You can skip Pottery I feel, Multiple golds can get you through the early techs.

You have some super food sites, can use these as GP farms

You razed 3 cities, but spent 450H on Heliopolis, Elephantine and Alexandria. All of these cities are a drain on your economy at present. Those hammers should have been going into Libraries.

No golds have been claimed yet. I realise they are not in great spots, but I would have settled my third city 2N of your planned triple gold site. Work 2x Oasis and 2x Gold at size 4.

More workers are needed.

Pottery should have been teched instead of Mathematics to recover your economy faster. Switch now and turn research off once you get Pottery, until you get a few libraries up and running. Build some cottages to slowly recover the economy.

From there, suggest Mysticism, grab the Marble site (see image below), tech Lit and build GLib + NE in Persepolis. Head for CoL to run many Scientists.

I would use the Galley you have to fogbust the copper spot E of Memphis.

Do you have the 4000 BC save? I don't normally play Epic, but I would be happy to try a 2 city WC rush on Cyrus. and post a shadow to 875BC.

 

[elitetroops]

What difficulty?

Settle the one tile island east of the continent asap. It will double your current trade route income. At currency it would be good if you found another offshore city. Any more islands in sight? Great Lighthouse would be a decent choice here.

Capital would have been much better 1S, as Berks said. Heliopolis would have been better 1N on the elephants to be coastal. The gold+cow site should have been settled a long time ago.

 

[Fippy]

Yup, Elephantine stands out as really bad settle ~~
Putting Helio 1N would give the cow, and no need for another city just for them.

The double Oasis & gold spot of @Berks stands out as must settle, no question there.
For such cities it's not important what they can do later (not much, stagnate at size 4), but they give a huge economy boost when you need it.
Or you can settle cow, oasis and triple gold..just saw Elite's post.
Probably even better, but settling for gold in some form should be automatic, asap.

 

[Kouvb593kdnuewnd]

City maintenance cost you 18 gold per turn which is a alot. The problem is that you have a large amount of cities with very little population and underdeveloped tiles. You need more workers as every turn you work an underdevloped tile you are wasting a turn. You need larger population per city because as currently you pay around one gold per turn per pop, it would be much easier to pay that 18 gold per turn if you have 5 times the population you currently have now.

The capital have quite a few grasslands you can build cottages on which will help bring in some commerce. You should have settled the 1S oasis tile next to the 3 golds and cattle as that city would bring in some very needed commerce, far better than Elephantine.

After you have gotten the needed gold per turn you should look at using your food rich cities to farm out some great people. Go caste system and try to get a religion so you can make use of pacifism. With some bulbs and technology trading you should be at a decent position.

I would not worry much, just some economy management and the game should be pretty much in your hands. Science may be slow right now but it will quickly speed up as you get the economy in shape and a few great scientist should bring in some good techs for trade so any tech advantage the ai has should be something you can purchase.

Scientist (assuming you will get great scientist) will give you alot more science than cottages for the first 10 great scientists or so (for the same amount of tile useage) which is why I say you should farm tiles instead of building cottages. They till you get free speech and emancipation.

 

[Archon_Wing]

Can't open that save, but you definitely wanted to get a library up; that lighthouse won't help much either. The northern 2 cities are definitely costing you too much and not contributing-- should have grabbed the gold site already. Heliopolis should be on the coast at it won't be able to work all those ivory tiles any time soon

When you capture another capital like that, keep in mind that you'll definitely have higher distance maintenance costs and need to grab $ or science asap. That's either library or a high commerce tile.

 

[lymond]

lol..all the worker turns on that road ...all you need is a road to Alex.

running 10% research is pointless. 0% and collect gold. (I thought I'd explained to you before how to manage slider early game)

I think keeping Pers is fine and Alex needed for trade route, but you can always delay the settle until things are setup for that.

Iso presents some problems. GLH would really have helped here, but otherwise you really are going to need to focus on cottages in those river cities. Perse and Helio can work cottages to boost income.

Granted, you did not know you were semi-iso but unless the neighbor is unruly, it can be better to keep them around for trade routes, and maybe some trading..although semi-iso trading is very limited until you get them to Friendly.

Delete any units you don't need other than for mp and sufficient spawnbusting.

some of your settling patterns and dotmaps are rather poor

 

[Anysense]

Unlike Hatty Ramesses is not creative, most of the dots should be modified with that in mind. Heliopolis should be 1NW so it has cows in the first ring. Elephantine is quite useless. It cost 100 and now it does not even generate enough commerce to compensate for maintenance.
Slowteching math was a huge mistake. Do not start a research unless you can finish it keeping slider at 100%. Otherwise there is a good chance you will waste all the invested.

 

[PsychopathicWarmonger]

I don't like Hunting before AH here, although given your settle location, you were almost forced into it. If you met Cyrus and were planning to WC rush him, you want to hit him as fast as possible. Its not a huge mistake, but marginal at best IMO.


Do you have the 4000 BC save? I don't normally play Epic, but I would be happy to try a 2 city WC rush on Cyrus. and post a shadow to 875BC.

I knew I'd be working the Ivory in the future - I was told in the last playthrough I done that it's worthwhile to tech one of the optional techs before your main one (eg. Agriculture/Hunting - Animal Husbandry) if you know you'll be using it. That way it saves

Uploaded the 4000bc save (I have it on auto, I'm constantly going back to rework things.)

Settle the one tile island east of the continent asap. It will double your current trade route income. At currency it would be good if you found another offshore city. Any more islands in sight? Great Lighthouse would be a decent choice here.

But what good will that site be for, other than that extra commerce? It has no , so even the Maoi would be a pain to set up there if I managed to get Stone.
Or perhaps it's the quick that makes it worthwhile? I believe Lydmond said before elequantly - 'more stuff sooner = more stuff later more sooner'

I would not worry much, just some economy management and the game should be pretty much in your hands. Science may be slow right now but it will quickly speed up as you get the economy in shape and a few great scientist should bring in some good techs for trade so any tech advantage the ai has should be something you can purchase.

Scientist (assuming you will get great scientist) will give you alot more science than cottages for the first 10 great scientists or so (for the same amount of tile useage) which is why I say you should farm tiles instead of building cottages. They till you get free speech and emancipation.

The game is savable? I might've given up in a situation like this. I figured that because I have no cottages around growing, that my economy would take a very long time to pick up/ never pick up at all, even with the scientists a few of my cities would make.

Unlike Hatty Ramesses is not creative, most of the dots should be modified with that in mind. Heliopolis should be 1NW so it has cows in the first ring. Elephantine is quite useless. It cost 100 and now it does not even generate enough commerce to compensate for maintenance.
Slowteching math was a huge mistake. Do not start a research unless you can finish it keeping slider at 100%. Otherwise there is a good chance you will waste all the invested.

Yeah I should've thought about that site a bit more, in hindsight. It's a horrible spot. XD
I think my reasoning was to keep my maintenance costs lower. I didn't want to flail out with too many cities away from my capital. I should've taken the gold spots earlier, it's too much to push off until later.
The Marble too. I should have prioritised that sooner too.

I've been having bad luck recently with my capital spawning sites. I'm looking for inland rivers but all I seem to be getting are 1-3 river tiles by the Coast with Clams, in a cool climate. So I decide not to make Cottages, because I have no river tiles, and instead work a number of Scientists.
Do Scientists contribute as much as Cottages do? From what I've gathered Scientists > Cottages early game, but Cottages thrive more late-game when they develop fully.

How about the University of Sankore? How does that +2 for religious buildings hold up? I've found myself neglecting the religious aspect of the game for a while but it seems to have more use than I thought (Pacifism, UniOfSan)

Should I be in any hurry to settle the rest of the island? I don't want to find myself mid to late-game still settling spots because I'd rather be cautious and take it easy.

Thanks again for the advice everyone. I don't seem to be picking up this game as much as I've wanted to.

 

[elitetroops]

But what good will that site be for, other than that extra commerce? It has no , so even the Maoi would be a pain to set up there if I managed to get Stone.
Or perhaps it's the quick that makes it worthwhile? I believe Lydmond said before elequantly - 'more stuff sooner = more stuff later more sooner'

What good? Currently your trade route income is 7 and total commerce output is 32. The very second you settle a city on that island the trade route income from your mainland cities doubles to 14, add +2 for the trade route from your new island city and +3 for the city center and working clam. This increases your total commerce output from 32 to 44. An instant 37.5% increase of your total commerce. The gold city is very good as well, but it takes time to grow onto the gold mines. Settling the island is a much faster way to get out of this hole.

Later the city has at least one clam, which means some whipping power. Or just build a lighthouse and grow onto a lot of 2c water tiles. It doesn't really need to produce anything but granary and lighthouse. The workboat from the clam should be built in one of your mainland cities and improve clams same turn you settle.

 

[Kouvb593kdnuewnd]

But what good will that site be for, other than that extra commerce? It has no , so even the Maoi would be a pain to set up there if I managed to get Stone.
Or perhaps it's the quick that makes it worthwhile? I believe Lydmond said before elequantly - 'more stuff sooner = more stuff later more sooner'

It is considered to be its own continent so that will give any trade route to that city a +100% modifier.

The game is savable? I might've given up in a situation like this. I figured that because I have no cottages around growing, that my economy would take a very long time to pick up/ never pick up at all, even with the scientists a few of my cities would make.

Cottages are not that good before renaissance as they are 70 turns for only 4 commerce. A great scientist bulb for a base of 1500 science. This can be less if you bulb a cheap tech but its is often alot more then you factor in tech trades that bulbs allow. Anyway taking the ratio of bulb gain by great people point cost we can get a rough value of how much science a sceintist generate per turn.

Let say our great scientist cost 1000 gpp bulb give us at minimum 1500 science and we have pacifism. Then each gpp is worth 1500/1000 = 1.5 science so our sceintist generate 3 science and 6 gpp which we then convert into 6*1.5 = 9 science so a total of 12 science per turn. If the gpp cost is 500 then your scientist will be worth about 21 science per turn. This math is not completely correct as I have ignored multipliers to science but it is a very easy way to understand why specialist are such good investement in the early part of the game.

Two grassland farms or one floodplain farm can support a specialist, 3 to 2 cottages (same pop) can at best give 8 to 12 science per turn (without multipliers) in the early game but remeber that it take 70 turns to grow these. So for the 10-15 great people specialist are between far better to around equal compared to baseline cottages assuming you use pacifism. By the time you get the cottage booster you should already have farmed out your great people and thus a switch to cottages will not be particular painful.

For specialist it is very important that you can actually get a great person otherwise you are wasting the gpp which basically make them a waste. So food poor cities should stick to cottages. You generally want some cottages for the gold per turn but scientist should be the main source of science during the early part of the game. Cottage the capital and bureaucracy should probably bring in enough gold to run your empire and great scientist will keep your tech in world leauge.

Anyway that you lack cottages should not be a big deal here and the game is very winable.

Do Scientists contribute as much as Cottages do? From what I've gathered Scientists > Cottages early game, but Cottages thrive more late-game when they develop fully.

That is what emancipation is for, the 100% growth rate make cottages far less painful to grow and if you have emancipation you should also have access to free speech, printing press and universal sufferage. At the same time great people should have gotten very expensive making specialist far less valueable while cottages have gotten alot more powerful.

Early game cottages as the math above tell us are far inferior to farms and specialists, food not commerce should what bring in your science during the early game.

Yeah I should've thought about that site a bit more, in hindsight. It's a horrible spot. XD

Always as the question: Will this city contribute to my economy? In that case the only reason to build that city would be for the copper but you already have a good unit in the war chariot so you had really no reason to get the copper. So basically you wasted 100 hammers on the settler to get a drain on your gold per turn.

Should I be in any hurry to settle the rest of the island? I don't want to find myself mid to late-game still settling spots because I'd rather be cautious and take it easy.

Yes you should settle the island and the gold spots as quickly as possible to get needed commerce. Build cottages in your capital, farm other cities and get caste system for infinite scientists. These I think should be your current goals. Finding the other civs and start tech trade should also be prioritised.