What the? Where did all my gold and amenities go?

[TheBossInTheWal]

So two civs declared war on me. I had at least 200g saved and about 65g per turn after the war was declared. However after two turns at war I'm being told my units are disbanding due to lack of gold and some of my cities that had at least +1 amenities now have at least -4. I did not lose any luxury resources via the war declaration(according to the resource report screen). So I assume its due to the war, but I've never experienced war wariness like this, especially after two turns of being at war. I am confused.

If no one seems to know and you feel like checking it out the save game is here:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/b8vz1685ynjpxxs/PHILIP II 328 1907 AD.Civ6Save?dl=0

 

[AppleDumplingHead]

There's quite a bit that can go south when you're balanced. Maybe they're suzerain of city states from which you now get no income because you're at war. Maybe tiles switched up to provide for food, out of tiles (if you didn't have them locked) which would have provided income. Maybe some cites were captured from them and yearn to rejoin the former motherland. Maybe trade routes are disrupted. Maybe you weren't being entirely careful watching your amenities and this came at a particularly inopportune time. Maybe trade deals with non-warring opponents ended recently.

I'm not sure anyone can look at a given turn you've uploaded and make exact guesses why you're where you are. What's probably best is to hit load game, click autosave, look at what was going on, and when they declare war again, do what's necessary to slot better policies that provide income and resistance to war weariness.

Don't call it cheating. Just chalk it up to a learning experience.

 

[TheBossInTheWal]

There's quite a bit that can go south when you're balanced. Maybe they're suzerain of city states from which you now get no income because you're at war. Maybe tiles switched up to provide for food, out of tiles (if you didn't have them locked) which would have provided income. Maybe some cites were captured from them and yearn to rejoin the former motherland. Maybe trade routes are disrupted. Maybe you weren't being entirely careful watching your amenities and this came at a particularly inopportune time. Maybe trade deals with non-warring opponents ended recently.

I'm not sure anyone can look at a given turn you've uploaded and make exact guesses why you're where you are. What's probably best is to hit load game, click autosave, look at what was going on, and when they declare war again, do what's necessary to slot better policies that provide income and resistance to war weariness.

Don't call it cheating. Just chalk it up to a learning experience.

I've checked most of this. I did not come to this state unwittingly. It literally happened from one turn to the next. Amenities did not change, city states did not join the war, I lost two trade routes out of 14 and I put those right back to work. No captured cities. Etc. Like I said it wasn't a slow build up to disaster. I'm not looking for strategy advice. I mentioned the saved game because of the drastic change from one turn to the next. It has nothing to do with long term negligence. Possible a bug. Thank you for responding though.

 

[Wilde]

I've run into this once before (before the December patch). I reloaded two or three turns back and it didn't reoccur. I assumed it was a bug but could have been my play style/game play. I have never recreated it to say it's a bug for certain. Sorry that I don't have anymore details but I have seen what you described.

 

[Karmah]

post a savegame prior to the bug and after.We'll have a look.

 

[gimper42]

I had something similar happen in my current game as Gorgo. I'm not sure exactly when it started, but at some point my gold income went from about +40 per turn to about -16 per turn without any visible reason. The status bar at the top of the main screen showed that I still had over 40gpt coming in, but the city reports page showed (down at the very bottom) a net negative income. That second negative number turned out to be the correct assessment of my income. This was confirmed by clicking to the next turn and watching my treasury dip by that amount. This bug continued for about 20 turns, through several policy card changes, until it finally resolved itself after I finished researching one of the Ren Age civics AND I again changed a policy card. After clicking to the next turn my gold income went back up (mysteriously) to what was being reported at the top of the main screen and those numbers matched the city report summary.

My best guess (assuming it is not a bug) is that Medicci was spying on me and stealing gold? Is that even how it works?

 

[TheBossInTheWal]

I went back to an auto save, turn 325. I played up to turn 328. My income continues to decline despite having positive income. The amenities are back to normal though. However my civ's borders as well as all others have disappeared.

If you want to try to figure it out:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/e9ongotmmvoumeb/PHILIP II 326 1905 AD.Civ6Save?dl=0

That is turn 326, the original post contains turn 328.

 

[liv]

There are two spies (at least) in Madrid. They are stealing money from your commercial district. I placed the spy that you have in the commercial district and caught them and you did not lose your money.

 

[TheBossInTheWal]

There are two spies (at least) in Madrid. They are stealing money from your commercial district. I placed the spy that you have in the commercial district and caught them and you did not lose your money.

Don't spies steal all at once? Not just over time?

 

[liv]

There is a steal on turn 326 and another on turn 327 or 328. If you do not have your spy in the commercial district and catch them everything else will go down hill.
So do what I did when I played those turns - place the spy in the commercial district on turn 326 and cross your fingers.

 

[RealAntithesis]

Shouldn't there be a notification that a spy is stealing funds from you (even if you hadn't revealed the spy doing it)?

 

[Halcyan2]

There is a steal on turn 326 and another on turn 327 or 328. If you do not have your spy in the commercial district and catch them everything else will go down hill.
So do what I did when I played those turns - place the spy in the commercial district on turn 326 and cross your fingers.

Impressive that you were able to go through another player's saved game and identify the problem. Kudos to you!

 

[Plumfairy]

Shouldn't there be a notification that a spy is stealing funds from you (even if you hadn't revealed the spy doing it)?

Not necessarily. You know how sometimes (although not as often as you'd like) you're able to pull off a tech steal or gold steal w/out being detected? Well, same thing can happen for the AI, and when it does, you don't get any notifications at all.

It's pretty irritating. Personally, I'd like to receive an appropriately vague notification. (i.e. "Sir, someone somewhere has stolen X gold!") The way it's currently implemented I'm never sure if it's a bug, an undetected spy, or a mix of above-the-board factors that happen to hit all at once. (i.e. 2 trade routes were destroyed, 3 towns slipped into negative unhappiness due to war weariness, and 2 trade city states that had been contributing to my coffers are now at war with me, all of which changed my income from +120 gold/turn down to -1 gold/turn.)

 

[sp00n]

I think the whole espionage system plain out sucks. It's like it was designed for a 4 city empire with no districts... (pun intended)
There's just no way to cover all of your cities resp. districts with counterspies right now, and when you don't even know that an enemy spy has done something, confusion is perfect as can be seen in this thread. That's just bad game design.

 

[need my speed]

confusion

How to sum up Civilization VI in one word.

A mess lacking any accuracy or clarity, in the UI, in the Civilopedia, in basic game mechanics...

 

[bladex]

Shouldn't there be a notification that a spy is stealing funds from you (even if you hadn't revealed the spy doing it)?

usually the dumb ai will stay in the same city and keep doing the same action. so if you get a message saying you've lost gold in a city send a spy to that city and put them in the com zone you'll soon catch/kill the little sob and your spy will get a promotion. the one you want to get is the +2 level boost to all spies in your cities.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

I had something similar happen in my current game as Gorgo. I'm not sure exactly when it started, but at some point my gold income went from about +40 per turn to about -16 per turn without any visible reason. The status bar at the top of the main screen showed that I still had over 40gpt coming in, but the city reports page showed (down at the very bottom) a net negative income. That second negative number turned out to be the correct assessment of my income. This was confirmed by clicking to the next turn and watching my treasury dip by that amount. This bug continued for about 20 turns, through several policy card changes, until it finally resolved itself after I finished researching one of the Ren Age civics AND I again changed a policy card. After clicking to the next turn my gold income went back up (mysteriously) to what was being reported at the top of the main screen and those numbers matched the city report summary.

My best guess (assuming it is not a bug) is that Medicci was spying on me and stealing gold? Is that even how it works?

It is indisputably a bug and even if Firaxis says otherwise they're wrong unless they want to claim intentionally lying through the UI. That is the only credible way anybody could claim this is "WAD", but UI lying being WAD would open up some other cans of undesirable contents.

If you are losing money while the game indicates a net income, the user interface is lying to you. If, through the in-game interface, you can't discern why that is, you have a broken implementation on your hands. In this case, it probably is spies, but then why show two different income values depending on where you look? That presentation is very sloppy.

I wish this genre wasn't held to such pitiful standards by its fanbase .