What to do when your economy is horrid?

[ajsciri4]

I can't seem to figure out how to keep my economy balanced when expanding.
I'm at 50% science rate and getting 1 gpt. It's driving me mad.
Recently, something gave me about 300 gold (can't remember what it was...) so I bumped it up to 90% to catch up.
I'm isolated on my own continent with all other five civs on the other one.
I'll post my save game in case you want specifics.
The difficulty level is on Prince.
Thanks for helping!

EDIT: I want to try an isolated start again but I don't want to keep rerolling to get it. Does anybody know how?

 

[MarigoldRan]

Run specialists.

Library with two scientists means six research beakers and Great People Points, regardless of your research rate.

Post screenshots and a save.

 

[ajsciri4]

I did.
Thanks for responding!!

 

[MarigoldRan]

Yeah, I took a look at it. It's pretty bad. 680 AD and you're researching Currency. Normally that's researched in 1680 BC, if not earlier.

Ok:

1. Never set your citizens into working un-improved tiles. If the tile doesn't have a farm, a mine, or a plantation on it, don't use it. And if there happens to be a fish, like next to Spanish Lisbon, get a workboat onto it ASAP.

2. Get more workers. You should have a 1-1 ratio of workers to cities at the minimum. I think you have 4 workers to 12 cities. That's too low.

3. Set your non-productive citizens: the ones sitting around and working BAD un-improved tiles into either:

a. Becoming scientists and generating research
b. Whip them away with slavery and build a library and a granary in every city.

Most of your cities should look like this:

Either

1. Build tons of workers and spam cottages like a madman. You'll have lots of larger cities with lots of cottages.

Or

2. Stop your city growth at like pop 5 with 3 people making food, and two people as scientists making science. The advantage of this method is you don't need as many workers allowing you to spend the production on something else.

Go and visit the strategy forums. You'll learn a lot there.

Play the NC-Noble game with Suryamon of the Khmer. It's one of the recent threads at the strategy forums. Compare how you did with others. Learn.

Of course, it's Beyond the Sword....

EDIT: Link is here: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=449118

 

[TheWilltoAct]

Plains tiles are almost as bad as deserts, so only settle those areas if there are ample resources. Spanish Lisbon would be well suited to running specialists as MarigoldRan suggests.

Seville is not a good city site to have settled without Calendar (to work the spices). An aqueduct is a poor choice for a healthy city; you might be surprised to learn that a granary is the best building for a city 9 out of 10 times.

Gold (looks like ) is a form of commerce (looks like ) and is generated by cottages, among other things. Madrid and Cordoba are begging to be covered in cottages, all the green grassland tiles are well suited to this approach.

EDIT-
One concept you do seem to grasp is fog-busting.

 

[obsolete]

I can't seem to figure out how to keep my economy balanced when expanding.

Buy futures contracts...

 

[God-Emperor]

Buy futures contracts...

Invite the other civs into a sure fire money making scheme run by your merchant specialist, Mr. Charles Ponzi.

 

[ajsciri4]

Buy futures contracts...

Invite the other civs into a sure fire money making scheme run by your merchant specialist, Mr. Charles Ponzi.

This is an honest question.. I understand it's "noob" but I still need help, so I don't appreciate answers like these...

Plains tiles are almost as bad as deserts, so only settle those areas if there are ample resources. Spanish Lisbon would be well suited to running specialists as MarigoldRan suggests.

Seville is not a good city site to have settled without Calendar (to work the spices). An aqueduct is a poor choice for a healthy city; you might be surprised to learn that a granary is the best building for a city 9 out of 10 times.

Gold (looks like ) is a form of commerce (looks like ) and is generated by cottages, among other things. Madrid and Cordoba are begging to be covered in cottages, all the green grassland tiles are well suited to this approach.

EDIT-
One concept you do seem to grasp is fog-busting.

Thanks for your response. I like to wait for machinery and put workshops all over plains tiles. But thanks for the tips. You got it.

Marigold, thanks for your analysis. It really helped. I want to try an isolated start again but I don't want to keep rerolling to get it. Does anybody know how?

 

[God-Emperor]

This is an honest question.. I understand it's "noob" but I still need help, so I don't appreciate answers like these...

The question was already answered pretty well. Condensed version: more workers, use them to mostly build more cottages (and work fewer unimproved plots in general), build more granaries to help increase your population faster, then build libraries and use some of that growing population to run scientist specialists and the rest to work cottages, and build fewer buildings you don't need yet.

Thanks for your response. I like to wait for machinery and put workshops all over plains tiles. But thanks for the tips. You got it.

Workshops do pretty much nothing to help your economy. Production is nice, but having lots of production to make longbows and such when everyone else has, for example, rifles or better is not going to help you much.

Once you discover you are isolated, you can reduce the priority of the military techs and increase the priority of those that will improve your economy.

Helpful enough for you?

And you could also inform each of the other leaders that someone has left large sum of gold, about 50000, unclaimed and you could give them a 30% share if they will send you a small amount of gold, just 1000, to pay the legal fees to get it released. The AI is dumb enough that at least half of them would fall for it.

 

[MarigoldRan]

This is an honest question.. I understand it's "noob" but I still need help, so I don't appreciate answers like these...



Thanks for your response. I like to wait for machinery and put workshops all over plains tiles. But thanks for the tips. You got it.

Marigold, thanks for your analysis. It really helped. I want to try an isolated start again but I don't want to keep rerolling to get it. Does anybody know how?

World-builder. Spoils the map a bit though.

 

[Kesshi]

Go into your financial screen, and learn what everything means. That piece of advice single handedly moved me up from monarch to emperor.

 

[lymond]

OP - If you want iso starts, try the Lonely Hearts Club series in S&T forum

 

[s.bernbaum]

Another idea for isolated starts. If I recall the map script description correctly: If you use the Continents map script and select the same number of continents as you have civs in the game (using Custom Game start), each civ will get its own continent. I have not tried it but it is in the text of the map descriptions from the War College.

 

[Tristan_C]

There is an ISLANDS script start too, but it's sort of droll. Each player spawns on his own island, and they're checkerboarded to ensure isolated starts. Other than something like that, you will have to use the worldbuilder.

Another point that wasn't brought up is that it's OK to let the economy crash during expansion. It's just part of the game. If you push a bunch of cities and crash to zero percent science, you pull out of it quickest making workers, cottages, and Wealth. Everything is situational, but I am generally skeptical of building more than one library in the early game just to pop a GS. ...Or frankly, making anything other than a granary in most cities, because once alpha or currency come in, the civ gets along faster by putting directly into . Buildings are a slow return, and (except things like Oracle or Taj) wonders are doubly slow — so think carefully about buildings. Wealth might be better.

 

[twansalem]

Another idea for isolated starts. If I recall the map script description correctly: If you use the Continents map script and select the same number of continents as you have civs in the game (using Custom Game start), each civ will get its own continent. I have not tried it but it is in the text of the map descriptions from the War College.

You're referring to Custom Continents. In theory it's an interesting map script, but it doesn't work very well. For one, even if you choose one civ per continent, you're severely limited to the number of civs you can have per map (6, I think, could be wrong). Even worse, the script has a serious bug in which it has a tendency to place civs on a one tile island just off the coast of their continent.

 

[s.bernbaum]

It sounds like Custom Continents would not be a good choice in that case! Like I said, I never tried it, just read about it. (Me, I usually use Fractal. When I don't do that, I use Archipelago.)

 

[krikav]

EDIT: I want to try an isolated start again but I don't want to keep rerolling to get it. Does anybody know how?

It can't be done.
There are tricks that make a isolated start more likely.

I would look at the LHC (Lonely Hearts Club) series of games, there are alot of games in isolation, and others have played them as well, providing you with valuable information.

This is the latest one:

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=449080

 

[Tlalynet]

Hemispheres\4 continents\small size\normal continents\normal water level will almost always generate 4 isolated civs.

6\standard will often do the same thing, though it has a pretty fair chance of sticking 2 civs on one continent and leaving one open making the game a bit imbalanced.

4\large will create 3 contenints with 2 AI and one with 3, you can compstop your neighbor and play in otherwise isolation 75% of the time.

Hemispheres is good for isolaotion.

 

[Skallagrimson]

If you're not FIN:

..early game: SPECIALISTS and by specialists I mean scientists, which in turn means Writing and libraries. The bulb path of Great Scientists tend to lead you along the way to liberalism.

..mid game: TRADE TECHS. Like a madman. Even most trades that are at a disadvantage or seemingly so, can help you catch up most of the way toward those irritating financial AIs like Hannibal or Darius. And armies can take you the rest of the way by wiping them out (just build more units than they have, and be patient with more losses since their units will be higher tech).

..post liberalism: Use liberalism for MORE tech trades. Get to Democracy sooner rather than later, and start converting over to a cottage economy. Cottages grow faster in the later game and the civics tend to benefit them more than specialists. The age of specialists if over and the age of cottages has begun. A full town has +1 hammer in ...either US or FS I forget which. One of those Democracy civics. Anyway...

That's in addition to the other good advice given here: 1:1 workers to cities in a "regular" map, and 2:1 workers to cities (or more workers) in a map with lots of jungle. Avoid unimproved tiles. Farm all tiles that can be farmed and cottage or mine the others. Chop most (I like to leave 2 or 4 so long as they don't sit adjacent to the city--a little extra health in tiles you don't have to work is a boost).

One tech trade can be as good as an Oracle or Liberalism slingshot in some cases, so do it early and often.

 

[TheWilltoAct]

A full town has +1 hammer in ...either US or FS I forget which. One of those Democracy civics. Anyway...

Universal Suffrage, that's the one.

Chop most (I like to leave 2 or 4 so long as they don't sit adjacent to the city--a little extra health in tiles you don't have to work is a boost).

You don't like to leave adjacent forests standing because... the defense bonus could be used by invaders? Just wanted to clarify that point.

I don't chop as much as I should; like you I value the .5 bonus, one centrally located forest can spread its benefit to multiple cities through overlapping BFC's.