What is up with this latest upgrade to Civilization 5?

[civnoob13]

I'm going to say what I always say: Puppets, puppets, puppets.

Puppets = Gold.

Take a few cities, trade post every tile you can and sit back to watch the gold roll in.

Once you hit economics, you'll have more gold than you'll need.

Also, sell your lux to the AIs. Build some happiness buildings and then sell your lux. If you work it right, you should profit, even after building maintenance is considered.

Sell open borders too. Open borders is obviously a commodity the AIs want, so meet that demand with supply.

This might be an effective strategy, but it sure is extremely boring. Anyway, puppets don't mean gold. All puppets mean are unhappiness. Gold focus and building gold related building means gold. That's why I really hate the mechanic that new cities = dramatically higher culture limit. It is a boring and stupid idea which forces you to puppet, which is excessively dull.

 

[StarEye]

Well, I'm mostly impressed that he's played Civilization since the 80's, before the series even existed.

 

[bhavv]

I've played since Civ 2, and it really wasnt hard at all to get stuck right into to prince / king difficulties in Civ V.

Civ V is actually a lot easier than 2 and 4 were. 3 I didnt like and I hardly played it.

I dont get why ayone would spam roads on every tile if they dont do anything but drain your cash. This isnt Civ 2 where you needed a road on every tile for commerce.

 

[TPQ]

This might be an effective strategy, but it sure is extremely boring. Anyway, puppets don't mean gold. All puppets mean are unhappiness. Gold focus and building gold related building means gold. That's why I really hate the mechanic that new cities = dramatically higher culture limit. It is a boring and stupid idea which forces you to puppet, which is excessively dull.

Well, boring is a matter of opinion and after all, "Mace the Ace" wanted to know how to get more gold, not how to have more fun .

I have to disagree with you when you say "puppets don't mean gold". That's exactly what they mean, well, that and land, science, culture, score and all that good stuff.

If you're having difficulties puppeting and keeping happiness high, you might need to take a look at how you manage happiness. I've never had a problem with it personally. I just prioritize all the social policies that either give happiness, or detract from unhappiness, prioritize city sites (both for settling and puppeting) that have lux before any others and build the relevant buildings. It's not all that hard really.

Also, if you trade post the heck out of puppets land you can often get them to stave down quite a bit to reduce unhappiness. Trade post forest and hills first and they should (at least they did) work those in favour of food tiles.

Maybe you enjoy settling all your own cities more than just a few and then puppet through war? I can understand that. I found the puppet concept a bit bland when I first started playing Civ5, but it's not going to go away any time soon, so I just got on with it and learned to enjoy other aspects of the game more.

Maybe there's a mod than get's rid of puppets you might enjoy?

Anyway, I stick by what I said. Puppets surrounded by trade posts are the best way to get high, consistent and reliable gpt. Selling lux/OB etc is fine, but AI attitudes can change and prices can fall. Puppets are always a good source of cash and if you manage your happiness well, they end up contributing to happiness and culture too by building the relevant buildings.

 

[doctorfork]

As has been mentioned several times-don't build roads everywhere. This torpedoes your economy dramatically. I've found lately that I don't even connect cities if they're not close-I'll just wait and setup harbors, then build roads as necessary. I haven't quite done the math, but there's a certain point where when the distance between cities is greater than x tiles, a road costs more in maintenance than the trade route will compensate for.

I've only started one game post patch-and on turn 3 as Spain, I found both the Great Barrier Reefs-immediate 1000 gold! So I haven't been able to experience any problems with economy.

 

[Sonereal]

This might be an effective strategy, but it sure is extremely boring. Anyway, puppets don't mean gold. All puppets mean are unhappiness. Gold focus and building gold related building means gold. That's why I really hate the mechanic that new cities = dramatically higher culture limit. It is a boring and stupid idea which forces you to puppet, which is excessively dull.

lolwut?

Puppets are great at pumping gold for me.

If anything, the only downside to puppets is that you can't choose what they build and it increases unhappiness.

@OP

Build less roads. Only connect your cities. Roads to all, railroads to your largest cities. All of them if you can afford it.

 

[gingerbill]

i build roads to connect when a city reaches size 6-7 . You certainly will go bankrupt building roads everywhere .

also compared to previous civs your army will be smaller as armies are the biggest expense in the game , and this inlcudes workers. Keep the smallest army u need and keep them alive and promote , dont chain build units like previous civ games.

Money isnt a problem in CIV5 once you get to understand it , its a problem if you try and play like in CIV4.

 

[Mace the Ace]

I started a new game and had a more successive game.

I think the previous problems were a result of my civ not expanding enough to maximize the gold intake. The AI civs, moved far quick than me and block my expansion plans.

 

[bhavv]

Rexing 4 cities by 2750 BC is always a nice way to grab initial land and get a few good cities placed down and built up. I then fill in any other city sites I have in the late BCs / early ADs.

 

[seasnake]

Get and trade luxuries, connect your cities with a road (not too many, but trade routes help) beeline Mach Picchu or Colossus, reduce your units if you have a lot, take policies that increase gold from buildings, beeline techs that improve trade posts.

I usually play on King or Prince, and I can usually manage my economy this way.

Oh, and consider playing as Arabia for a bunch of gold/luxuries or Germany to reduce troop maintenance. Or the Inca save a lot of money on improvements, so that's nice too.

 

[Drago Askani]

Money doesnt ever seem to be an issue in the new patch. At least for me. Last game as Babylon I had 22,000 gold sitting in the bank in the late 1800's which I then used to field an army of Giant Robitic death for giggles while letting my last space ship part sit in my capital to launch at my leasure.

 

[bhavv]

The only time money is a 'problem' for me is temporarilly while I am teching for Education before currency, and still setting up my trade routes around this point. I get 4 free temples from Legalism, and build Watermills to boost growth + production (Build a watermill, use the free food to swap a citizen to a mined hill = +4 production for 2 gold maintenance).

But the negative income is very temporary and easily handled by selling resources and getting my cities connected.

 

[Agent Cooper]

IMO, there's not much difference in getting gold post-patch. The same strategies you played by pre-patch, are still valid. Sell luxuries, only build roads between cities, don't build units you don't need, build TPs.

I've changed one aspect of my approach though. I'm annexing more cities than I used to but that's for building happiness buildings and to get more population + production for the mid/late game. For this, the Notre Dame is a must as well as the best happiness SP's in Tradition and Liberty.

I'm having my 2nd go at Germany, emperor level. I'm planning to grow my 10 city empire to be a production powerhouse when I hit the Industrial Era and hit the rest of the world with Panzers. What I find amazing is that now you can rush civs with swordmen as your best city crasher unit. I didn't have Longswords and Knights until I was finished with taking out 2 civs. I also used Legalism to get 4 free operahouses by building the temples first, which is the first time I've ever tried this.

The biggest 'cost' to my play post-patch is that I'm considerable more behind the time-schedule compared to the days where the NC was rushed with Writing and longswords ruled the early battleground. Babylon is the only civ with which you can use the free GS to get the NC built old style in a timely manner. Otherwise, now I prioritize the HG and GL first.