Workers and your budget

[Kool Keith]

Many CFC veterans have been saying that you want to have 1.5--2 workers per city in your empire. This is something that, for whatever reason, I just haven't been able to get through my skull.

So last night I started a game, and I truly made an effort to keep the workers coming. And guess what. It crippled my budget. Between workers and my military, my research spending became non-existent, I fell behind in techs, and my military became obsolete.

Does anyone have some tips on how to manage this?

 

[Aabraxan]

Having tons of slaves helps. Having lots of cities helps, too. Were you in Republic? If so, how long had you been in Republic? How far along in the game are you talking about?

 

[AutomatedTeller]

I'm assuming you are in republic.

Fewer defensive units is a start.
Disband MP's, like regular warriors.
You need lots of citizens producing lots of commerce so big cities. You need cities on fresh water or with aqueducts, so build aqueducts.

 

[Kool Keith]

Here were my vital stats from my last save, per CAII:

Date: 210 AD
Cities: 21
Citizens: 79
Workers: 21
Slaves: 11

I actually thought I had more workers than that. Roughly speaking, in about 300 AD, I took my stack of 15 swords, 5 horses and 5 cats to go wipe out my neighbor, Henry. At that time I had just made it to the MA, but I had to turn off my research because of my budget. Henry had built up a pretty sizeable empire, and somehow I only managed to take 3 or 4 of his cities after culture flips. At the start of the war, Henry had IW, but his iron wasn't hooked up. By the end of the war, he had Feudalism, Monotheism, AND Engineering plus upgraded military, and I still didn't even have Feudalism. This is important because I was India and needed to get some War Elephants. After I took a few of his cities (including his capitol) he still would not give up any techs. So I was behind in techs, had no cash for research, and a military that couldn't compete with Henry's pikemen. And this is after like a 500 year war. I have no idea how I managed to eff this up so badly. Severe frustration.

 

[Kool Keith]

Oh yeah, and I was in Rep.

 

[garyg]

The slave thing is key.
More than half my work force are slaves.
They are slow but free so that improves their performance.
Early on I will trade for workers if I can.
Also in war I usually raze captured cities which will add a few slaves.

 

[garyg]

What's your infrastructure like?
In Republic you really only need marketplaces in cities over six, aqueducts in towns without fresh water, barracks to pump units and grainaries to pump settlers and workers.
The key in Republic is to lean and frugal with your cities and to get them as big as you can as quick as you can.

 

[Kool Keith]

I had two granaries and two barracks. No aqueducts, no libraries, no markets.

I realized now that what I did, was I was using most of my cities to produce a worker every time I got to size two. So most of my cities did not have much population. Which cost me some dough.

 

[garyg]

Yeah, you need alot of size seven cities for Republic to be of value.

 

[Aabraxan]

One thing that I noticed is you've got 21 cities and 79 citizens. That's an average of almost 4 citizens per town. If you're in C3C (& I'm assuming that you are), support is 1/3/4. So 21 cities, each at size 4, supports 21 units. OTOH, 21 cities, with 3 at 7+ and the rest at 6 or less, will support 27 (someone check my math, please). See if you can get a few of cities up to size 7 for support. And as the others have said, weed out unnecessary defensive units and either disband or upgrade obsolete offensive units. How's your road situation and are your citizens working roaded tiles?

Edit: I see that you've got two granaries. Consider using one for a worker pump and joining those workers to smaller towns to increase pop.

 

[Sashie VII]

Aabraxan's right. So basically KK, you have the government but not the infrastructure to benefit from it. You have a lot of workers, but your cities (towns?) aren't developed enough to be productive.

 

[Desertsnow]

Markets. Build markets in wealthy, productive towns. I have found that these help immensely if a switch to Republic is overextending the economy.

 

[sercer88]

Markets. Build markets in wealthy, productive towns. I have found that these help immensely if a switch to Republic is overextending the economy.

Yeah, in one of my games (the first one I have used some of the strategies explained on this forum,) I had a BIG TIME negative economy after I switched to Rep. After the first market I built, I was able to go from 10% science, to 40% science without losing gold per turn

 

[RFHolloway]

The thing to check that no one has so far mentioned is how many non roaded tiles you were working. If you are in republic then you need to make sure that you road every tile you work. That will also help with the cash.

 

[Sashie VII]

And MM a bit for every city. For instance if a coastal city is 3 shields away from a library, you can readjust so that it gets just enough shields and shift other citizens to tiles with more commerce for that turn so that you maximize what you get out of that city.

Sounds stingy, but every bit counts eh