Running a deficit of -50 gold/turn, what to do?

[Gary King]

I'm new to the game, although I've been playing Civ. IV for years, usually at the Monarch or Emperor level.

In my current game, I'm at around 1700 and am at about -50 gold/turn, because I have a LOT of cities; about five were settled, and another five were conquered.

I thought that if I'm more than -5 GPT, then I will lose units? Even at -50 GPT I don't lose units though. Also, although my gold is usually at 0, sometimes it jumps up to 50 for some reason. Why is that?

How do I increase my gold production? I'm already producing gold at some of my cities, and I've got some military units so rather than disbanding them, I'm using them to attack city states. I'm already going for the social policies, buildings, and technologies that are gold producing. But I've still fallen significantly behind the other civs in terms of technology, but I still think I can catch up.

I made the mistake of expanding too quickly early on in this game (I haven't played ANY civ in years) but I want to finish this game up anyway since I will learn something useful.

 

[mrwho]

Trade routes are extremely important in BNW, and you haven't mentioned them. Assuming you don't have them, get as many cargo ships or, if not possible, caravans, and send them to cities to get the most gold you can. Cargo ships are strictly better than caravans for trading, but of course can only be used in coastal cities.

Remember in Civ 5 that each road tile costs 1 maintenance. The cities you've conquered probably have a lot of roads connected to each other, but not connected to your capital. They'll be a massive drain on your economy, costing 1 gpt each to do absolutely nothing. For now, you should get rid of the roads with your workers to massively reduce maintenance costs, unless it's feasible to very quickly connect them to your capital. To build up your economy after this, connect up the cities you want to keep ONLY if the cost of the road tiles is less than the money gained from a road connection, which is 1.25*population (of the city you're connecting to). Build harbors instead where possible. This is a useful general rule when connecting up your cities with roads. Gold gained from trade routes is 1.25*population, so don't connect cities with roads that are more than 1.25*population tiles away from a connected city.

Don't attack city states either, you'll probably have to disband your units.

I'm not sure why your units aren't automatically disbanding, but I don't believe it happens immediately. If you're sporadically getting gold sources (possibly from ruins, from pillaging, meeting city states, barb encampments), that might be why nothing has been disbanded yet. But it doesn't seem like you can fund your military, and to fix your problem you'll probably have to get rid of some units for now.

Just as an FYI, a save file or screenshot would be useful. We can only say so much without actually seeing what's going on in your game. Also, this is probably better suited to the strategy and tips subsection.

 

[LoneRebel]

Yeah, you probably don't have any trade routes, do you?

 

[Browd]

Obviously, the first consequence of a gold deficit is to reduce your gold balance/treasury, which you can partially address by supplementing your treasury with pillage gold. Since you can't pillage THAT much, once you have zero treasury, your gold deficit is funded from science. Since it's fairly late in the game, your base science output is presumably well above 50 beakers per turn, so what you are experiencing is lagging science. Only once science is reduced to zero do you start seeing units being disbanded.

 

[Gary King]

Okay thanks for the tips guys. In that first game, it was tough to form a trade route because I eliminated almost all the opponents on my continent, except for one (which I was at war with). And the other civilizations were on a different continent, and I still had not discovered their coastal cities since I didn't have Astronomy yet.

That game was disastrous, so I started a new one. Now, I am swimming in Gold. I'm at +150 GPT, although I kind of lucked out because I ended up on a continent all by myself and ended up with a ton of coastal cities, so coastal trade was burgeoning.

 

[Sagax]

Okay thanks for the tips guys. In that first game, it was tough to form a trade route because I eliminated almost all the opponents on my continent, except for one (which I was at war with). And the other civilizations were on a different continent, and I still had not discovered their coastal cities since I didn't have Astronomy yet.

If that was domination you could consider keeping puppets (they focus on gold) and spamming Trading Posts on their territory. Also invest in the Commerce social policy. Instead of attacking those city states, establish trade routes to them.

 

[Gary King]

If that was domination you could consider keeping puppets (they focus on gold) and spamming Trading Posts on their territory. Also invest in the Commerce social policy. Instead of attacking those city states, establish trade routes to them.

Yeah I was going for a Domination victory (if that's what you meant). I almost always went for Domination in Civ IV, but I think in Civ V I'll be going for Space more because combat seems to be weakened, I guess to balance the other victory conditions? (Good ol' Stack of Doom.)

I was already making all conquered cities as Puppets and spamming Trading Posts. I think that I either got the Commerce social policy, or never had enough culture/tech to get there, I don't remember.

Yeah, maybe I'll be more diplomatic with city states now. Although I was thinking it was just easier to manage the cities when they are under my control, because otherwise I'd have to constantly check my relationship with city states to ensure they were still good every so often. The larger the map gets, the more relationships I'd have to maintain, etc. Right?

 

[Sagax]

Yeah, maybe I'll be more diplomatic with city states now. Although I was thinking it was just easier to manage the cities when they are under my control, because otherwise I'd have to constantly check my relationship with city states to ensure they were still good every so often. The larger the map gets, the more relationships I'd have to maintain, etc. Right?

Don't touch City-States unless you want the entire world to hate you. Or you are Spain drooling over that juicy Natural Wonder worked by CS.


City-States don't compete with you and give much more bonuses when not occupied. There is no real benefit from directly attacking them. And it's not like maintaining good relations with them is too hard or something.

 

[Gary King]

Don't touch City-States unless you want the entire world to hate you. Or you are Spain drooling over that juicy Natural Wonder worked by CS.


City-States don't compete with you and give much more bonuses when not occupied. There is no real benefit from directly attacking them. And it's not like maintaining good relations with them is too hard or something.

Okay I'll do that then. In what case should I attack a city state though? Very rarely?

In my current game, there's one city state with tons of Coal. I'm his Ally but still can't get the Coal. They probably don't have the tech to see Coal yet? Even if there's a Mine on it?

 

[Novalia]

There are really only three instances when taking a CS makes sense. First is when they are simply in the way of your path to domination and second is when they are allied with someone you are in a long war with (and in the way). Third is you are the mongols. You're going to kill everything anyway... Everybody is going to hate you... So why not?

Otherwise it makes no sense starting a war and killing a CS. If you DOW two CS in a game all the CS will be wary of you and influence with friended or allied CSs will deteriorate more rapidly. The best way to use a CS (war-wise) is to declare war on one near your city early on (between turns 20-30) to steal workers from. You can DOW them, steal a worker, and make peace in one turn.... Or you can stay at war and every now and then go back to steal another worker.

 

[4N4C0ND4]

Okay I'll do that then. In what case should I attack a city state though? Very rarely?

In my current game, there's one city state with tons of Coal. I'm his Ally but still can't get the Coal. They probably don't have the tech to see Coal yet? Even if there's a Mine on it?

If you can never attack a city state, and if you do almost NEVER conquer the city because the game handled it as you destroyed a whole civilisation -> everyone will hate you till the end of the game. It's actually the same wipping the whole 50 cities from Russia and to invade Mombassa

If you want a new ressource and your ally CS doesn't improve it, you can pay 200 gold to them and you will get it immediatly (usually happens when you outech CS)

Don't forget that you can snap ressources from CS with well placed citadel too (though they will get pissed off for a good reason!)

 

[Gary King]

I don't think I can pay for a tile improvement because the CS still hasn't researched Coal yet though, so they don't know it is there. The pay for improvement option is red. I think I have to wait until at least one other civ gets the tech necessary for Coal, since CS gets all the tech that are researched by at least two civs?

 

[Browd]

If the CS's resource tile already has the required improvement (e.g., mine for coal, aluminum or uranium), you don't get the option of making a gift to pay for the improvement (since the tile's already improved). Once your CS ally has the required tech, you will get the resource -- no need for a gift at that point.