Understanding the economy

[radiospace]

On my first game I'm having one really glaring problem that is disrupting my success and thus enjoyment, and that's understanding/managing the gold income.

What I'm seeing as a player is that I will be building up my economy until I'm turning a profit of perhaps 12 gold per turn -- not easy to do in my current game, requiring a lot of marketplaces, banks, trade improvements on tiles, etc. Then, suddenly, one turn I hit END TURN and my net gold the next turn pops up as -33 in the red each turn. So over the course of one turn I've lost 45 gold per turn, and I can't figure out where it's going. The only thing that might have changed is the addition of a single or at most two new military units that finished building. I go over all my trade agreements, open borders, etc., and can't find any changes.

Is there some limit to the size of your military that if you cross it, your upkeep explodes? Not that my military is particularly mighty, but it just seems like the main variable that I can recognize that might be causing these dramatic shifts in the economy. This has happened at least twice in my current game, the second time, don't know if I can pull out of the spiral because I'm all banked out in every city.

 

[Megajames75]

End of golden age, and/or change in happiness seem possible.

Or your bankers caused a recession

 

[SMA333M]

Maybe too many new cities ?

 

[KrikkitTwo]

Decreased input (from lack of golden age)

Increased output (from completing multiple buildings/units on the same turn)
Building/unit maintenance is Expensive

 

[radiospace]

Hey guys,

Thanks for the ideas. The happiness thing was one of the first that occurred to me the first time this crisis happened in the game (even though I don't fully understand the effects of happiness yet, it seemed reasonable).

As it turns out, I am able to load up an autosave of the turn before I stopped playing, so I've got turn 299 and turn 300. Having just examined both files what I discovered is that the difference is in City Income (Not trade routes). In one turn the city income fell from 129.75 to 92.75 -- a loss of 37 gold per turn... a substantial one.

Total happiness in both saves is 4, so it isn't that, and I didn't found a city on either turn 299 or 300 (or anytime in the past 50 turns, actually), so I don't think that's it either.

If I look at the city-by-city gold production from one turn to the next, it looks like this:

Rome ...... 51 30
Antium ..... 40 36
Cumae .... 25 16
Neopalis ... 8 6
Ravenna ... 4 4

Antium and Cumae are in We Love the King days in both saves. I don't *think* I'm in a golden age but is there a way to check that definitively? I didn't make any technological discoveries between turns, either.

 

[radiospace]

OK, this is weird, a new wrinkle...

I loaded back up the save where I am losing 33 gold per turn and clicked on the city of Rome in order examine in detail its gold production. (Previously I was getting those figures from the national economic report).

As soon as the Rome window opened, my balance per turn changed from -33 gold to -12 gold per turn. I decide to do the same at Cumae (because its gold fell from 25 to 16), and now the balance per turn changes from -12 to -3.

It's as if the AI is reassigning my workers when I open the city to generate more gold? Just a guess but that's what seems to be happening. Could it be a bug that caused it to reassign my workers in a non-optimal fashion (or even to have had them 'unemployed')? Could it have something to do with the fact that it's turn 300 that is triggering such an abnormality?

 

[radiospace]

Another little update --

it won't "fix" the city if I get to the city by cycling to it from within the city display. (I.e., using the right arrow after opening Rome to view the other cities). I have to exit the city I'm in, then when I click on the name of the next city on the map, it changes the income from that city.

So by entering the Rome city view through the back door that way, I am able to document that the problem is that only 10 of the 15 citizens of Rome are working tiles before I click on the city name in order to cause the AI governing the workers to reset the workers and put everybody back to work. (AI set to default for placing workers, btw). The 5 missing workers are not listed as unemployed -- they've simply disappeared. If I click on RESET under the worker/governor section, it finds the missing workers and puts them to work.

I think this is a (pretty bad) bug.

 

[radiospace]

OK, I found the five missing workers - they are in "Specialist Buildings". But why did the AI take a significant part of my working population and put them in specialist buildings on Turn 300 all over my kingdom, bankrupting me? Why does it put them back to work when I click on the city name to open the city display?

I'm assuming at this point it is simply a bug and there isn't a logical explanation but if you can think of one that makes sense I will be all ears.

 

[radiospace]

And I hit "End Turn" and the AI automatically reassigns an even greater amount of my workers to Specialist Buildings, I lose 50 gold on the turn, and have to go back into every city and do it again. Obviously Specialist Building placements are completely screwed and you need to keep that in full manual mode (which is NOT the default).

 

[Wulf38]

Try setting your cities to "gold focus".

 

[cavilier210]

this may be a bug man. very interesting.

 

[radiospace]

Wulf -- I don't want my cities set to gold focus, though, I want them set to default, but to have all 15 workers working the tiles, not just 10 of them. The only way to do this -- maybe starting at turn 300 -- is to forbid the governor from putting any of them in specialist buildings. Maybe it is just coincidence, but it seems like a nice round number, 300, when the AI started insisting on moving 1/3 of the workers into specialist buildings at the end of every turn.

 

[MarkJohnson]

I found this thread while looking for a way to manually assign city workers like I can with specialist. But I don't see a check box anywhere. Maybe they forgot about it? Or maybe they don't want to give us control?

 

[Stalker0]

Did you happen to just complete the wonder that 33% more Great person pointS? Or perhaps got teh social policy that makes specialist consume only 1 food? Maybe the AI found a reason that specialists are the way to go. It still could be a bug, but might help explain the behavior.