I always run out of money

[Zarkonnen]

After some time away from the game, I decided to give Civ 4 another try. I would like to like it, but what happens in almost all games is that I irrevocably run out of money. Then my units are disbanded and the barbarians pick apart my civ's bloated corpse.

Where does one pick up money in this game?

[joncnunn]

One source is goody huts.

Another source with BTS if random events is on is some random events (but there are others that cost money)

The primary sources though are:

1. Religious Shrines; especally when combined with all money multiplers.

2. Planting cottages which grow up to evenually become Towns; (this replaces roads in previous Civ game)

3. Merchants & Priests add gold as well.

And Courthouses reduce city & civic upkeep.

In addition, playing an Org civ would reduce your upkeep and provide cheaper Courthouses and a few other buildings while playing a Financial Civ will give you an extra gold in every tile already producing 2+.

[LordBiff]

[SIZE=1]
1. Religious Shrines; especally when combined with all money multiplers.

I would like to add to this, you need to have founded a Religion, and used a Great Prophet to build a building in the city that founded the religion. It's a great money maker if the religion has spread to a lot of cities. I didn't get this right away and had the same money problems.

[LordBiff]

[SIZE=1]
1. Religious Shrines; especally when combined with all money multiplers.

I would like to add to this, you need to have founded a Religion, and used a Great Prophet to build a building in the city that founded the religion. It's a great money maker if the religion has spread to a lot of cities. I didn't get this right away and had the same money problems.

[LordBiff]

[SIZE=1]
1. Religious Shrines; especally when combined with all money multiplers.

I would like to add to this, you need to have founded a Religion, and used a Great Prophet to build a building in the city that founded the religion. It's a great money maker if the religion has spread to a lot of cities. I didn't get this right away and had the same money problems.

[LordBiff]

Come on. I didn't post all these. the web site locked up and i tried to stop the post and post it, since my browser was just spinning it's wheels.

[Willem]

I would like to like it, but what happens in almost all games is that I irrevocably run out of money.

That's probably a combination of expanding too fast and not building enough Cottages. In the early game you need a lot of those. And you are aware that each city you build costs your treasury a maintenance fee don't you? That cost goes up per city with more of them and also as they get further away from your capital. So you want to be careful at first that you're not expanding faster than your economy can support the new cities.

[Ming]

One of the first questions you need to ask yourself when you start a game is... where is my money going to come from. Look at your land and traits and make a decision on what might work best.

Are you going to go the Religious/shrine route... Cottages... Specialists... Sea based economy... The Wealth System... Each method or combination needs to be started early, and be a strong goal in all future decisions. The trick is to have a game plan and stick to it. Examples:

Religion
Found an early religion
Force a great prophet by building a wonder that gives GP points and have a priest specialist... you should do everything in your power to make your first great person a prophet
Then spread your religion to all your cities and all your neighbors that you have open borders with
Make sure your shrine city builds all the buildings that multiply money

Cottage Economy
If you are financial, this one can be very effective. But even if you aren't, it provides money to help you expand and field an army. Just build cottages early and often where ever you can. However, you need the right kind of land for this work.

Specialists Economy
The trick here is to plan for as many specialists as you can in your cities so that it no matter what percentage you are using toward science, you still generate tons of science points. This works the best if you have a lot of food specials. Just farm everything you can so that you can have tons of specialists. Go for the pyramids early and caste system, and you will be shocked how you can run your economy at a 20 or 30% science rate and still generate tons of science points

Sea Based Economy
If you are along the coast... this way can really be effective. Focus on building as many of you cities as possible on the coast. Race to Great Lighthouse and try for colosuss. It's amazing how much money you make this way. I've done this and actually had my money go up when creating a new city on the coast

Wealth Economy
In this one, you race to currency. And then you set up one or two cities that only produce wealth instead of building things. One or two cities with lots of production can fuel all your money needs. Sometimes when I'm at war and have a large army in the field, I will do this with a city or two to keep from totally trashing my economy.

No matter how you do it, you have to remember to go for the key early sciences as you move into the game.

Sailing... to get better trade routes
Currency... Extra trade route and markets
Code of Law... Court Houses
Guilds and Banking later on to get the money multiplier builds

The whole trick is to decide early what you are going to do, and just do it.
You have to balance expansion with the ability to pay for it. You can still grow big if you have a game plan.

I'm sure other people can offer up even more ways to do it. These are just some of the basic ones.

[Blaupanzer]

Note: Ming's methods can be used in some combinations as well. CE and SE are somewhat mutually exclusive but could be combined in that one city builds cottages, while the other farms and creates specialists, undsoweiter.

[Jaybe]

The primary requirement (aside from all the others mentioned) is to not expand too quickly, and be okay with lowering your science slider. If you examine your financial advisor (F2), you will see how as your number of cities and their sizes increase, your city maintenance and civics costs will increase.

Your initial city expansion is funded by goody huts (that initial exploration is IMPORTANT) and later by booty from captured cities. As time goes on you will need to lower your science slider somewhat, and then augment your gold with courthouses, markets, etc. as mentioned by others.

Recognize that lowering your science rate may not lower your total science output compared to how it was when you had one or two fewer cities.

[Dinner]

After some time away from the game, I decided to give Civ 4 another try. I would like to like it, but what happens in almost all games is that I irrevocably run out of money. Then my units are disbanded and the barbarians pick apart my civ's bloated corpse.

Where does one pick up money in this game?

It sounds like you're expanding to fast and building to many units.

[self biased]

or not realizing you can adjust the science/tax rate.

[joncnunn]

Science rate is auto reduced when there is no money in the treasury; if he's having units auto disbanded his slider is already down to 0%.

Agreed though it's generally a mistake to wait for your slider to be forcibly changed.

[-Jrabbit]

Agreed. It's been difficult for me to get into this habit (keeping my income neutral or positive when building early cities), but it's well worth the reduction in science IMHO. Focusing on finances early seems to carry over nicely to the midgame. If you let your gold run down to nothing, the recovery is a long, arduous process.

[Arrian]

If you play with random events on, as I do, it really pays to keep a surplus in the bank. If you're constantly at or close to 0, you cannot afford simple things like paying to save your forge, your mine, etc. Or paying extra for a far better benifit from an event.

-Arrian

[rah]

Yeah, its always a killer in an MP game when all your neighbors start with scouts while you have a warrior. They get all the huts and you don't get any coinage to start. You hate dropping your science rate just to get a positive flow so you can afford the event driven things that Arrian mentioned. I like having a few hundred surplus for emergency upgrades or taking advantage of events.

[zakubandit]

Kind of a surprise to me is my current game. I am Mongolia and I started pretty good, got a lot of huts before my neighbors did. I didn't expand too large too quick as to drain myself out, but I was making a ton of gold every turn without having many exports. Currently at 100% tech I still got a +100 per turn, about 25 is from exports, the rest is from my civ.

[skolapper]

Running just fine on mine. You will want to get MGE, as all the modern scenarios run on it. Theres a patch that restricts Civ II from using to much processing power, put that on your list. Also, you might want to try out Civ 2: Test of Time too. Dont let the graphics put you off, the Scenario League has plenty of fixes for that.

[Blaupanzer]

Not that Skolapper is a bot, or anything.

[shilpaworld3]

No matter for me

youtube friend adder

[rah]

The irony is amazing on that one.

[Titanboss]

I always end up with no money as well. Its usually because i expand too fast and then eventually run out of money.

[Calanthian]

The key is to keep the number and distance of your cities low until you at least have discovered currency.
Furthermore courthouse are essential and build cottages.

A good number of cities in the beginning is 4 to 5, and after currency and courthouse start expanding quickly.
As soon as a new city brings in more cash via trade as it costs on maintenance then you have a good thing going.

[ebondfrancisco]

I played Civilization back in the '90s, the 1st versions. Loved it. Got hooked on Civ IV with the $4.99 from the Apple Appstore. Appreciating all the comments, but one #1 money maker has always to create a Great Merchant and send him off to some far off corner of the globe to create a trade deal. You have to build a city that fosters a Great Merchant, but it's a huge money maker!

[alecs76ro]

I play Civ from '90s too. I had never problems with money because I chose quality over quantity. At the start of the game you don't need many cities (5 is maximum) so you have to focus on them and specialize them as quickly you can. After Currency you can think about building more cities.
Any way, it is a good start if you can put your second city close to the sea if the capitol is not. Also the great merchant is a good idea but the problem is that you will experience this when you will not need money but hammers. I use that money for upgrading the obsolete units.
In this game the money problem is at the start of the game and in wartime where you should build more units than you can effectively sustain.

[ebondfrancisco]

I play Civ from '90s too. I had never problems with money because I chose quality over quantity. At the start of the game you don't need many cities (5 is maximum) so you have to focus on them and specialize them as quickly you can. After Currency you can think about building more cities.
Any way, it is a good start if you can put your second city close to the sea if the capitol is not. Also the great merchant is a good idea but the problem is that you will experience this when you will not need money but hammers. I use that money for upgrading the obsolete units.
In this game the money problem is at the start of the game and in wartime where you should build more units than you can effectively sustain.

Excellent, thanks for those insights. I'll try that strategy next game.

[Netherlands (DoB)]

Another good way to build money is with good tile manageing. I always work the water tiles when money is tight and go to Currency quick and Monarchy quick so you can keep growing and working the water