Tricks for getting more money

[Decebalus]

Hey,

It seems like most players end up being warmongers, so development and commerce past basic army upkeep requirements is rearely considered. Myself, I'm more of a Machiavellian CIV player. That is I love conquest, but simply to further my well being, and on a limited basis. The satisfaction I get out of a game is not necessarily that I've conquered everything in sight, but that I've conqured enough, and that all my cities are large works of art, and my bank account is huge! I like becoming a superpower not just militarily but economicaly and with respect to population/territorial size as well.

I would like to see what kind of tricks people use to increase their income. What I'm looking for is not obvious things such as make sure you build roads on worked squares, or don't build improvements to cities that don't need them. Nor the again obvious ones such as build Colosus or other wonders that help income.

I'll give a couple of examples as to some little tricks I use.

1. The mountanous cash cow.

I try and put a city at the foot of a range of mountains, hopefully within reach of a river so you can irrigate early, and again hopefully with some gold on one of the mountains. I try and put it in such a way so that about 1/2 of the city squares are moutains/hills, and the other 1/2 is plains and other. I irrigate all non mountain/hill tiles, and build roads everywhere including the mountains.

The benfit of this is that your irrigated fields can support workers on the mountains. And mountains with a road and cold on them give you more gold than another tile. These cities usually never make it past about 6 in size which means they have more than enough room for all workers to work within the 1 square initial cultural border, and you can pack a couple of them each 2 tiles appart on one side of a mountain range.

The only thing I usually build in them is a courthouse, and temple sometimes if I don't have luxuries to keep them happy. When not building anything I leave it on the wealth.

2. The Coastal Cashcow

Same idea as with mountains, but placed in those useless deserts or tundra areas. I try and place a city right on the coast this time with as much water as possible in it's working area, and simply just work the water squares. Eventually when possible build a harbour. This way the city will grow till all water squares + 2 land are worked. These cities rarely grow more than 4 or 5 I noticed. Again, I build only courthouse and only if needed a temple, and put the work order on wealth. Helps to have a hill to mine so you can get some extra shields for building the harbour and courthouse.

Also if you get lucky and there's a resource inside the city radius again it's more money, and you can string these out side by side as well two squares appart since they'll never need to work outside their immediate influence.

3. The Desert Delta Cashcow

I love this one. It takes almost no work at all and has huge income. Just place the city so that it covers as much delta as possible and put roads everywhere. The delta gives a TON of food, and gold, and the river acts as an aquaduct. So you can quickly get a very large size 12 city with one hell of a gold income for nothing. Problems obviously are corruption, and with such a big size unhappiness. I usually definately build a temple, a marketplace to distribute those luxuries, and if needed even a coloseum. A courthouse is also really beneficial, but not as important as the others simply because this will produce more gold.

Later in the game, I might build a sewer system and possibly a cathedral for happiness and let the population skyrocket. All extras I make into taxmen. Usefull as well are banks and stock exchanges and by the end of a game one of these cities can be incredibly profitable.

4. Making Opponents Rich so you can steal their money.

This too works wonders. There are often one or more CIVs that are either isolated or just small and no threat at all. They usually lack some resource, or want some luxury bad. What I do is I usually either gift or take very little for trading them techs such as currency/banking/economics. What seems to happen is that once you do, they get fairly rich fairly quick and you can trade a luxuries or resources with them later for a ton of money. 20+ or 30+ gold per turn. And if it's a resource, they rarely want to cancel the deal after 20 turns so you have an almost constant and reliable income.

5. City in the middle of nowhere

Now I haven't done the research on this too well, so not sure if it's really worth it instead of just using the wealth instead. But it's a way to turn shields into money. There are sometimes those cities you capture, that are really corrupt, and in the middle of nowhere so no chance of developing well. I usually try and setup the workers to get the biggest shield count, and build something simple in them such as walls or barracks. When it gets built, I sell it and build it again. Do this over and over and over again. It's not much, but it's an income. Again, might be more profitable to leave it on wealth, but I haven't looked into that if it truly is on a shield per turn basis.

Any other ideas, I'd love to hear.

 

[MAS]

I'm not sure I understand you but I have 2 points to make:

1#To get the most commerce possible, you just need to road every tile and make sure every tile is worked by a citizen. To work every tile without hospitals you pack your cities close to each other, they won't grow to size 20 this way, maybe not even size 12, but all tiles will be worked.

Get control over enough lux resources and you can set the lux slider to 0%, with cities not above size 12, and thus not needing to build any improvements that cost gpt upkeep.

Guess what , this is exactly what the average warmonger in Civ3 does.

2# Machiavellian, as I understand it, tells the prince to do whatever is best to gain more power, this may be war, or it may be peace, it depends on the situation.
But due to the way Firaxis balanced civ, warmongering is the best way to increase your power, land area, and thus commerce. (in civ3 anyway)

So I'd argue the warmonger is usually making the most possible commerce.

 

[vorlon_mi]

Decebalus, which victory condition do you usually go for? Spaceship?
Diplomatic? Cultural?

The reason I ask, is that a couple of your techniques for generating cash
remind me of tips I've read here for maximizing science. Esp. the fishing
village -- instead of turning the extra citizens into taxmen, set them
to scientists. Ditto for the newly conquered cities, that are so corrupt
that they only deliver 1 spt. Irrigate all around them, set the to wealth,
and use the extra citizens as scientists. As you might guess, this is
more important for SS victories.

For diplo victories, too, one needs to enter the Modern Era, so having a lot
of science to make it thru the Industrial Ages is important.

I would like to have a big bank account, but I keep spending it!
I hate losing captured cities to culture flips, so I use my cash to rush
a cultural bldg in captured cities (after the resistance ends, of course).
And rush a barracks, to allow units to heal faster. And for upgrading
cannons to artillery, riflemen to infantry to MechInf, and tanks to MA.

 

[Decebalus]

2# Machiavellian, as I understand it, tells the prince to do whatever is best to gain more power, this may be war, or it may be peace, it depends on the situation.
But due to the way Firaxis balanced civ, warmongering is the best way to increase your power, land area, and thus commerce. (in civ3 anyway)

So I'd argue the warmonger is usually making the most possible commerce.

Well Machiavelian tells to war when war is profitable for the benefit of the state and to keep the prince in power. ALL out war howerver and warmongering in generaly not profitable all the time and eventually leads to the distruction of the state. Pleantly of examples here in Earth's history, any millitary states, dictatorships, war dedicated governments, rampaging hoards, etc. eventually die out, or get distroyed. (Napolean France, Nazi Germany, Communist Russia, Imperial Japan, Khanish Mongolia best example, and the list goes on).

But I agree, warmongering in CIV3 is the best way to keep rich and get richer. Too bad I don't like all out war all the time.

Vorlon and to answer your question, I usually go for whatever victory presents itself, often space race simply because it fits well with the way I like to develop. But usually I play a game long after a victory condition.

I just like building and seeing all my cities reach the 20+ mark, and have my bank account be larger than Bill Gates! I love reseraching everything, and being able to afford all improvements for each city, and being able to support an army large and diverse enough to if needed take out any rival on land, sea and air. I don't like constant warfare though. I like development and growth.

And money and science is very closely related in CIV3. More money you get per turn the more you can slide that science slider up.

 

[Abegweit]

5. City in the middle of nowhere

Now I haven't done the research on this too well, so not sure if it's really worth it instead of just using the wealth instead. But it's a way to turn shields into money. There are sometimes those cities you capture, that are really corrupt, and in the middle of nowhere so no chance of developing well. I usually try and setup the workers to get the biggest shield count, and build something simple in them such as walls or barracks. When it gets built, I sell it and build it again. Do this over and over and over again. It's not much, but it's an income. Again, might be more profitable to leave it on wealth, but I haven't looked into that if it truly is on a shield per turn basis.

Wealth is much better. Don't forget to irrigate everything and hire specialists.

 

[pol1]

Hey,

1. The mountanous cash cow.

The only thing I usually build in them is a courthouse, and temple sometimes if I don't have luxuries to keep them happy. When not building anything I leave it on the wealth.

i would add market.
the other thing You might consider are specialist farms in hopelessly corrupted regions. they don't really need any improvements (town size) and bring You 7+gpt (size 5 on irr+rr grass)

2. and 3.

lack of shields - i find it being biggest problem - cause if the corruption is small enough to consider investing in improvements then i would really like those shields there.

4.
yes, selling stuff for gpt can bring huge amounts into You account and make AI spending last penny to pay his debts.

 

[nc-1701]

Hey,

It seems like most players end up being warmongers, so development and commerce past basic army upkeep requirements is rearely considered. Myself, I'm more of a Machiavellian CIV player. That is I love conquest, but simply to further my well being, and on a limited basis. The satisfaction I get out of a game is not necessarily that I've conquered everything in sight, but that I've conqured enough, and that all my cities are large works of art, and my bank account is huge! I like becoming a superpower not just militarily but economicaly and with respect to population/territorial size as well.

I would like to see what kind of tricks people use to increase their income. What I'm looking for is not obvious things such as make sure you build roads on worked squares, or don't build improvements to cities that don't need them. Nor the again obvious ones such as build Colosus or other wonders that help income.

I'll give a couple of examples as to some little tricks I use.

1. The mountanous cash cow.

I try and put a city at the foot of a range of mountains, hopefully within reach of a river so you can irrigate early, and again hopefully with some gold on one of the mountains. I try and put it in such a way so that about 1/2 of the city squares are moutains/hills, and the other 1/2 is plains and other. I irrigate all non mountain/hill tiles, and build roads everywhere including the mountains.

The benfit of this is that your irrigated fields can support workers on the mountains. And mountains with a road and cold on them give you more gold than another tile. These cities usually never make it past about 6 in size which means they have more than enough room for all workers to work within the 1 square initial cultural border, and you can pack a couple of them each 2 tiles appart on one side of a mountain range.

The only thing I usually build in them is a courthouse, and temple sometimes if I don't have luxuries to keep them happy. When not building anything I leave it on the wealth.

2. The Coastal Cashcow

Same idea as with mountains, but placed in those useless deserts or tundra areas. I try and place a city right on the coast this time with as much water as possible in it's working area, and simply just work the water squares. Eventually when possible build a harbour. This way the city will grow till all water squares + 2 land are worked. These cities rarely grow more than 4 or 5 I noticed. Again, I build only courthouse and only if needed a temple, and put the work order on wealth. Helps to have a hill to mine so you can get some extra shields for building the harbour and courthouse.

Also if you get lucky and there's a resource inside the city radius again it's more money, and you can string these out side by side as well two squares appart since they'll never need to work outside their immediate influence.

3. The Desert Delta Cashcow

I love this one. It takes almost no work at all and has huge income. Just place the city so that it covers as much delta as possible and put roads everywhere. The delta gives a TON of food, and gold, and the river acts as an aquaduct. So you can quickly get a very large size 12 city with one hell of a gold income for nothing. Problems obviously are corruption, and with such a big size unhappiness. I usually definately build a temple, a marketplace to distribute those luxuries, and if needed even a coloseum. A courthouse is also really beneficial, but not as important as the others simply because this will produce more gold.

Later in the game, I might build a sewer system and possibly a cathedral for happiness and let the population skyrocket. All extras I make into taxmen. Usefull as well are banks and stock exchanges and by the end of a game one of these cities can be incredibly profitable.

4. Making Opponents Rich so you can steal their money.

This too works wonders. There are often one or more CIVs that are either isolated or just small and no threat at all. They usually lack some resource, or want some luxury bad. What I do is I usually either gift or take very little for trading them techs such as currency/banking/economics. What seems to happen is that once you do, they get fairly rich fairly quick and you can trade a luxuries or resources with them later for a ton of money. 20+ or 30+ gold per turn. And if it's a resource, they rarely want to cancel the deal after 20 turns so you have an almost constant and reliable income.

5. City in the middle of nowhere

Now I haven't done the research on this too well, so not sure if it's really worth it instead of just using the wealth instead. But it's a way to turn shields into money. There are sometimes those cities you capture, that are really corrupt, and in the middle of nowhere so no chance of developing well. I usually try and setup the workers to get the biggest shield count, and build something simple in them such as walls or barracks. When it gets built, I sell it and build it again. Do this over and over and over again. It's not much, but it's an income. Again, might be more profitable to leave it on wealth, but I haven't looked into that if it truly is on a shield per turn basis.

Any other ideas, I'd love to hear.

This is the way I like to play also. However there are much better cash tricks available they are;

1. Get ahead in tech then sell it to the AI for ridioculoss amounts of gpt.

2. build marketplace/bank/stock exchage/library/university in EVERY half decent cuty these multipliers really help.

3. Republic or prefferably deomocracy is a must.

 

[Decebalus]

Yes I use the least treaded tech path way too. Or more specificaly killing mayself to get to a good one first (running on deficit when possible). I find Literature extreemly profitable among others.

Republic/Democracy is good and bad. It's good because of extra gold, but it's just awful in terms of support costs if you do it too early. I sometimes get republic a early as possible, before I have enough "towns" and "city" sized cities to properly support units, and when I switch my gold per turn drops to -30 or something. Also, if you have no luxuries and you switch to it, I gurantee way too much unhappy and rioting people. So you have to play with the luxury slider, and you have to make workers into entertainers and so you tend to loose a lot of the extra income benefits.

 

[archimandrite]

This is the way I like to play also. However there are much better cash tricks available they are;

1. Get ahead in tech then sell it to the AI for ridioculoss amounts of gpt.

2. build marketplace/bank/stock exchage/library/university in EVERY half decent cuty these multipliers really help.

3. Republic or prefferably deomocracy is a must.

A definite yes to 1 and 3. That is really what it's all about, no question. In fact a tech lead can easily more than double your total gpt income on a large pangea on the higher levels. (Interestingly it's better on the higher levels because then the AI amounts to something and can actually pay). And of course Republic is pretty crucial to a tech lead on those levels in the first place.

Not sure about 2. In my current game, following Draken's post on Deity building, I religiously built banks and whatnot since that's what he said to do. I'm now left scratching my head a bit because most of the time my science slider is at 100%, so the banks and stock exchanges (apart from the five needed anyhow for Wall Street) aren't actually doing much. So it depends on whether you intend to switch to a brokering strategy at some point or maybe decide to cool the science rate because you're getting too far ahead and want to slow it down. (That's more likely on Demigod than Deity for me, anyway).

What's quite fun, and that's where the Machiavellian strat comes into play, is keeping the AI's alive precisely so they can pay, and also undercutting any AI "superpowers" that may be pressuring the rate of advance or about to swallow up your debtors. In fact Draken recommends very frequent visits, so the trading and wrangling gets pretty intensive.

 

[Decebalus]

How fond are people of courthouses by the way?

I've just done a little study in my latest game and found something rather interesting. Normaly when conquering or settling a new city far off from your capital or the forbidden palace, most people, including myself till now, probably don't build anything in them and just put it on wealth.

In the latest game what I've done is actually build a courthouse in each as the first thing. I was kinda surprized to see that most, especially the larger cities will produce quite a lot more income, with the corruption reduced, then they would with just wealth. So I now practicaly have a courthouse in every city but the capital.

I'm in the early 1000s AD and with about 30 cities I'm racking in nearly $100 a turn, way more than usual for that number of cities at this point in time. Mind you my army is a bit smaller than usual, but still not bad. But I do have more libraries and universities in core cities than usual.

 

[vorlon_mi]

How fond are people of courthouses by the way?

I've just done a little study in my latest game and found something rather interesting. Normaly when conquering or settling a new city far off from your capital or the forbidden palace, most people, including myself till now, probably don't build anything in them and just put it on wealth.

In the latest game what I've done is actually build a courthouse in each as the first thing. I was kinda surprized to see that most, especially the larger cities will produce quite a lot more income, with the corruption reduced, then they would with just wealth. So I now practicaly have a courthouse in every city but the capital.

I'm in the early 1000s AD and with about 30 cities I'm racking in nearly $100 a turn, way more than usual for that number of cities at this point in time. Mind you my army is a bit smaller than usual, but still not bad. But I do have more libraries and universities in core cities than usual.

Courthouses get a mixed review from the folks who post here.
Some posters have done a return-on-investment (ROI) calculation,
looking at the number of shields required to build courthouses, and the
number of turns required to get those shields in highly corrupt cities,
and then draw conclusions about whether the return is good enough.

IMHO, the ROI -- and whether it is high enough -- will be different at
different points in the game. When one can build horsemen or knights,
the ROI is probably better to build units. When one can build cavalry
or infantry, the comparison between building one CH and one cavalry
is more even. IIRC, their posts usually assume building the CH directly,
requiring many turns for a newly-founded town with 1 spt,
rather than cash-rushing or partial-cash-rushing to reduce the turns needed.
By using the cash generated by less corrupt cities, the CH can be
built faster.

Another factor is the game itself : Civ3 vanilla & PTW, or C3C.
Since the corruption model is changed for C3C, the number of cities
affected by corruption and the effectiveness of courthouses is different.
Which are you playing?

 

[AutomatedTeller]

And things change once you get replaceable parts. You can then build a courthouse in much less time, and perhaps a policestation, with civil engineers.

It really depends on the rank of the city - sometimes, all a courthouse does it turn a 90% corrupt city to an 80% corrupt city. Sometimes it turns it into 20% corrupt city.

If you have a size 12 city, on a river, with a gold mountain, in republic, and another commerce bonus, adding a courthouse and running all citizens working tiles might well be more helpful than specialistsl. Or may not.

 

[Jazzmail]

Hey,

4. Making Opponents Rich so you can steal their money.

This too works wonders. There are often one or more CIVs that are either isolated or just small and no threat at all. They usually lack some resource, or want some luxury bad. What I do is I usually either gift or take very little for trading them techs such as currency/banking/economics. What seems to happen is that once you do, they get fairly rich fairly quick and you can trade a luxuries or resources with them later for a ton of money. 20+ or 30+ gold per turn. And if it's a resource, they rarely want to cancel the deal after 20 turns so you have an almost constant and reliable income.

This is the best. There's nothing quite like earning 900 gpt at 100% science and not knowing what to do with the 5000 gold already in your coffers.

Gifting the AI is a tactic that is easily overlooked.

In the late middle ages I can often do deals in the 100 gpt range. That's more than cities there would net you when you conquer a distant land, for many turns.
A strong AI civ can be a great help aslong as you have something to trade.

Trying to find a balance between waiting for the AIs to save more money, and trading/gifting just before the AI might discover the tech themselves (and trade it among eachother). All the while leaching of them to fund my tech lead.

I try to limit my wars to 1 civ at a time. I prefer to pick the civ with the least spare cash, often a civ like the zulus.
Then I gift techs to other weak civs, after I trade them first with the stronger civs. Wealthiest civs first. Let the weaker civs get back in the race and make money for you.

Gifting extra luxuries, that can't you get anything worthwhile for in return, is good too. Let's the AI reduce the lux slider, pick fewer clowns, earning more gpt, for you.

 

[Decebalus]

Another factor is the game itself : Civ3 vanilla & PTW, or C3C.
Since the corruption model is changed for C3C, the number of cities
affected by corruption and the effectiveness of courthouses is different.
Which are you playing?

I'm playing C3C., and in this game where I tried this the majority of my cities are at least size 6. Some newly conquered are lower, but growing fast, and most of the others I've held for a while that were very corrupt are 12 or just getting there. I'm in a republic too.