Workers on Strike!

[Peacefield]

I just got Civ 4 for Christmas and sat down with it for the first time today. I'm having labor troubles that I don't understand. Workers across my entire civilization are on strike and not producing anything. I have many more happies than unhappies and my health is pretty good. What's the cause and remedy? I haven't been able to find anything about it in the manual. Thanks.

[ghen]

Strike happens when you have too much debt and not enough money being produced by your empire. This overwhelmingly occurs when you have too many cities.

Civ4 isn't as expansion oriented as previous games. You can still do well early if you delay your first city. Also, as a general rule, expanding past 9-10 cities is a bad idea because expansion costs go through the roof. A great empire can be built on as few as 6 cities until you start getting good money flowing.. usually around the time you get currency and courthouses (I forget the tech for the latter)

[snafuc4]

Originally posted by ghen
(I forget the tech for the latter)

Code of Laws

[Blake]

Strikes can also happen from running Pacifism, for small empires with large militaries it REALLY bumps the costs up.

[Majstor]

Ok, I have the same problem. But how to deal this situation? I dont understand why I cannot trade with anyone, their`s options for trading is always red?? Why is this happening, because in Civ3 I used to trade in early days...

[Quillan]

Do you have the required techs/trade network? One party has to have Sailing to be able to trade by sea, but only along the coast, and all the coastal tiles between your coastal city and theirs have to be revealed. Any black area in the way prevents sea trade. Trading by road is possible as long as the road network connects your capitol to theirs. Trading across ocean squares requires Astronomy, and a revealed path to that civilization's coastal cities. You cannot trade with someone while you are at war with them, either.

[Boppo]

If you hover your mouse over the item, it will show why that leader will not trade that item to you. Most likely he/she does not like you enough.

[joncnunn]

In Civ IV, money issues even with poor science -> too rapid city expansion.

So, yes, slow it down.

But there's some additional things you can do so you can evenually support 9-12 cities, be it via peaceful expansion or military.

1. Build cottages in tiles that will be worked so they grow. The #1 choice for this is flood plains, followed by grassland along a river.

2. Found a religion (or two or three; in fact as many as reasonly possible) Give all your holy cities their shrines.

3. If planning to run a state religion, spread it everywhere you can, and make sure you get 100% of your empire running it.

4. If you found other religions, spread them within your own borders as well. But generally don't send them outside until you adopt free religion unless you want to make a victim civ the enemy of you and your religious brothers.

Say you only have 2 religions that you founded, by having them both in every city, you get 2 GPT for every city in the holy cities MULTIPLED by gold increasing buildings.

So if you go a conquering, capture opposing holy cities as well and make it a high priority once the resistance ends to rebuild those multiplers.

5. Build court houses to get down your costs; this includes FP and if you are industrious or else have the resource to Versellis, that as well.

[homeyg]

I've never heard of workers going on strike - do they look the same when unhappy and refusing to work and on strike and refusing to work (that same symbol in the specialist box)?

[Majstor]

Originally posted by Quillan
Do you have the required techs/trade network? One party has to have Sailing to be able to trade by sea, but only along the coast, and all the coastal tiles between your coastal city and theirs have to be revealed. Any black area in the way prevents sea trade. Trading by road is possible as long as the road network connects your capitol to theirs. Trading across ocean squares requires Astronomy, and a revealed path to that civilization's coastal cities. You cannot trade with someone while you are at war with them, either.

I just noticed in the big picture that I can trade for gold only if I discover currency, am I right?? If that`s true I am a little bit dissapointed because, I can not trade for gold in early days. Some of my opponents are annoyed, maybe that`s the reason why their tradings are red??

[MadDjinn]

Originally posted by Majstor


I just noticed in the big picture that I can trade for gold only if I discover currency, am I right?? If that`s true I am a little bit dissapointed because, I can not trade for gold in early days. Some of my opponents are annoyed, maybe that`s the reason why their tradings are red??

you can trade resources as soon as you have trade links. (via whatever techs that you need)

Alphabet is for Tech trading, Currency is for money trading, Writing is for Open Borders, etc...

[joncnunn]

I think on the lowest difficulty levels, instead of having units disbanded to make ends meet when you run out of cash, your workers go on strike.

Now the unhappy workers is Civ IVs replacement for the city entirely shutting down in privious version of civ.

Originally posted by homeyg
I've never heard of workers going on strike - do they look the same when unhappy and refusing to work and on strike and refusing to work (that same symbol in the specialist box)?

[Majstor]

Originally posted by MadDjinn

Alphabet is for Tech trading, Currency is for money trading, Writing is for Open Borders, etc...

I dont like that, and I think it is very stupid to make that kind of limitations

[WoodenTaco]

Originally posted by Majstor


I dont like that, and I think it is very stupid to make that kind of limitations

I think it adds depth to the techs, and makes ones like Alphabet and Writing worth more than just being prerequisites. It helps make the early game more realistically violent, as well.

[joncnunn]

I strongly like the ideas, but please move the Alphabet up in the AI's tech priority. It's absolutely ridious how long the AIs stay in the dark if you refuse to trade the Alphabet to them.