Religious and Expansionest= worthless ability?

[RogueNine]

I'll answer #2 first:

Your tax income IS your income generated from land squares. When a citizen in a city works one of the squares in a city radius (lets say its working a grassland with a road) it produces certain resources. (In this case, 3 food and 2 trade... assuming your a republic/democracy) That 2 trade goes into your 'trade pool'. Your trade pool is just an accumulation of all the trade you get from worked squares. When you press F1, you can decide how you want that trade divided. (You can set percentages for Science, Tax Income and Luxuries). Your Banks and Marketplaces give you a boost for the % of trade that you have set for Tax Income.

The answer to #1 is no, you dont get income for gold outside of your city radius. Even when the gold IS in the city radius of a city a citizen from the city must be working it to gain the income it provides.
The only thing gold does is increase the amount of trade a square produces by 3. So yes, gold increases your tax income, but indirectly. If you have your Science at 40%, Tax Income at 30% and Luxuries at 30%, then only 30% of that gold square [and every other square] goes to your Tax Income. I hope that makes sense.

#3: There is no maintenance for terrain improvements. I guess its assumed that when you build a mine, the mine is owned by a company or something and it maintains it. Afterall, most governements dont own the farms and mines in its country.

#4: Since there is no maintenance costs on roads and such this question is void, but my recommendation would be to play a commercial civ since they get bonuses for 'trade', which in turn affects your research AND tax income.

If your losing money, just hit F1 and set the slider on tax income to a level where your not losing money. If its at 100% and you're still losing money, either lose a few city improvements or scrap some of your army units. (In Republics or Democracies all units cost 1 gold piece a turn. In Despotic, Monarchy and Communist govs there is a certain amount of units that is already paid for (Hit F3 to see what I mean) but a large army will still cost alot.

I can't imagine that with your slider at 100% to tax income you'd still be losing cash though, so get back to us and let us know if you can get your income under control!

 

[Phantis86]

Thanks, that really helps me out.

I will go give it a try right now, I just hope I don't get too hooked and end up playing until 5 AM.

Thanks again!

 

[Phantis86]

OK, here is what I got from the Domestic Advisor:

Income: 255
Expenses: 263

My expenses are below:

• Science: -61
• Entertainment: -21
• Corruption: -89
• Maintenance: -92
• Unit Cost: -0
• To other civs: -0

I have the slider set to:
30% Science Spending
20% Entertainment Spending
50% Treasury

I am running a Monarchy for my government type.

What I am figuring is that my corruption is way to high and I need improvments to lower that. My maintenance cost is high because it almost all my cities I have a large number of city improvments such as a Barracks and Temple.

By unit costs, I am figuring that I have enough cities to cover my army. (Which isn't very big now since I wiped out 7 French cities.)

To lower my corruption I can change my government to Democracy and get some technologies which will lower corruption. I will also get a 150% work rate from my citizens.

Am I missing anything here? Thanks for your help!

EDIT: Also, I am going to give India a try. It seems that I will be able to do better with them than with Germany.

 

[jon78]

Originally posted by Phantis86

2.) Does the marketplace and the bank only affect what you get from tax income or from both tax income and the land?

hmm. study the manual on this one. COMMERCE divides up in TAXES, SCIENCE and LUXURIES. you set the rate on this one at your foreign minister (F1).

if you lose gold, either raise tax (thereby lower your science) or add more tax collectors.

so, the marketplace and bank improvements add the commerce AFTER the divideup (see above).

also, keep on eye on that pesky corruption (build courthouses everywhere, those are often much more important than marketplaces and libraries!)

 

[Agent Roo]

getting back to the point:
expansionist as is isn't that great. however, using the LWC mod by Plutarck, the standard settler is replaced by a pioneer (M=2) for expansionist civs, making them much more valuble.
religious is brilliant! anything to cut down time wasting, faffing about until the new government type is ready. i usually make 3 changes: Despot>Republic>Democracy>Communist (when all techs are mine and i'm ready for global domination)

 

[Phantis86]

Thanks guys, I understand now.

 

[Stravinski]

Expansionistic can be usefull in the beginning. It can give you, through goodie huts, a lead. But when you are playing at a higher diffucultylevel, it still can be a hell of a job to keep up with the AI. Later in the game the expansionistic feature is useless. I usualy don't choose an expansionistic civ.

Religion can be very handy. When unexpected pulled into a war, you can change easily of govrement whitout losing any shields. It can give you just that extra units that decide the battle.

 

[Mapache]

The expansionist trait is certainly the worst.

 

[petey]

Expansionist truly is a crappy trait.

If you want to have a fun game, go into the Editor and change the Iroquoius to Military/Religious. Then you lose the worthless trait and still get the Moutned Warriors for early battles/good upgrades

 

[Kill-O-Byte]

While I agree that the Expansionist trait needs something added for middle/late in game play, it can be very good early. Depending on the map…

In two of my last three games (playing as Iroquois) my scouts gave me a good advantage. The first was on a huge map and I was able to get 8 or so free techs and cut off my two neighbor’s expansion in my direction. In the third, a standard size map, I only got two techs from goody huts but I was able to find a large land mass connected by a single tile that no one else had seen. I ran a settler up there and built a city on this tile. Because of early scouting, I was able to control almost double the landmass of my opponents. What happened in the second game you ask? Heh, it turned out to be an islands map. Can’t say much for the Expansionist trait on that one…