No Money

[Prussia]

I've noticed a pattern with my Warrior and Cheiftain games, it's that I can never make enough money, and when I make money it is all depleted insanely fast with upgrades and such.

Also, I've noticed how disproportional the cost of upgrading units can be. What can I do to change this?

Suggestions?

[rjwoer]

You can change the upgrade cost in the XML files. I believe it's in the CIV4UnitInfos.xml file. I know I've come across it somewhere.

As for the money problems. One of the things CIV 4 implemented was steeper maintenance costs for cities, and their distance from your capital. If you expand too quickly you can easily go broke. Perhaps this is why you're running into the money problem? Do you tend to expand and settle new cities right away?

You could also try using a leader with the financial trait. That might help a bit, but the city costs can still easily break the bank.

[Prussia]

Thanks for the XML tip.

No, I don't think I expand too quickly, I make enough money to keep me going and living, but then I upgrade a warrior into a spearman and I've lost half my bank!

[Forbidden palace is my life]

[rjwoer]

Yeah, the upgrade costs are kind of ridiculous. If you have trouble finding the XML stuff let me know and I'll search around too.

[Six Thousand Year Old Man]

I asked a similar question (about money) on the strategy forum recently.

To raise cash the ideal way - build lots of cottages, and don't expand too fast.

The less than ideal way - sell stuff. AI Civs will pay good money/turn for surplus trade goods like sheep and clams. I managed to get Huanya to give me 22 g/turn for Spices. And a little exploit - when you see that your trade partner has more cash coming in, you can cancel the trade deal and renegotiate it for the higher amount, with (apparently) no penalty.

Selling techs is do-able, but not recommended by many.

And you can also bully enemy AIs for money, and ask your friends for cash, too.


As for upgrades: I think that it's good that they're expensive, because if you could instantly go from, say, Axemen to Macemen, the game would get unbalanced and be over quickly. I'll selectively upgrade key units with less than 11 XP, keep the older veteran units for mopping up lesser enemies, and use older green units for garrisoning my backwater towns. Or just disband them.

[rjwoer]

All good points.

[Prussia]

Originally posted by Six Thousand Year Old Man
To raise cash the ideal way - build lots of cottages, and don't expand too fast.

I guess this works, but I don't have enough people working the land for all of those cottages to do much.

Originally posted by Six Thousand Year Old Man
The less than ideal way - sell stuff. AI Civs will pay good money/turn for surplus trade goods like sheep and clams. I managed to get Huanya to give me 22 g/turn for Spices. And a little exploit - when you see that your trade partner has more cash coming in, you can cancel the trade deal and renegotiate it for the higher amount, with (apparently) no penalty.

Obvious, but it doesn't work in the beggining of the game because everyone is as poor as me.

Originally posted by Six Thousand Year Old Man
Selling techs is do-able, but not recommended by many.

And you can also bully enemy AIs for money, and ask your friends for cash, too.

I hate giving away techs, it ruins my advantage.

Originally posted by Six Thousand Year Old Man
As for upgrades: I think that it's good that they're expensive, because if you could instantly go from, say, Axemen to Macemen, the game would get unbalanced and be over quickly. I'll selectively upgrade key units with less than 11 XP, keep the older veteran units for mopping up lesser enemies, and use older green units for garrisoning my backwater towns. Or just disband them.

Yes, it's fine that they are expensive, but just unproportionally so. It would be reasonable to have to pay 1000 gold to upgrade, lets say, a spearman to a tank, but it's unreasonable to upgrade a warrior to a spearman for 200 gold, when that's your entire bank!

[Six Thousand Year Old Man]

In that case, I don't think there's an answer short of modding it. In the early game I never upgrade units, for that reason - I just build new ones.

This may even be historically accurate. :hmm: If you gave a Mongol hordesman a crossbow, he might use it to throw at you.

[Prussia]

Originally posted by Six Thousand Year Old Man
This may even be historically accurate. :hmm: If you gave a Mongol hordesman a crossbow, he might use it to throw at you.

Amen.

[Blake]

Warriors are "unreasonably" expensive to upgrade, since they are A LOT cheaper than an Axeman.
Upgrade costs are based on the hammer difference. Axemen cost 20 hammer more than a warrior, Riflemen cost 30 hammers more than a Musketmen.
Thus it's nearly as expensive upgrading Warriors as it is upgrading Mustetmen.

The thing is when you're upgrading Warriors... you don't have that kind of cash around.

Solution? Don't upgrade warriors. Use the whip to get new axes/spears, disband warriors if you don't need them for H.Rule happiness. Upgrading is really only a novelty until later in the game when you can get heaps of cash.

[Urban Ranger]

Also don't forget to found a religion or two.

Once you build the holy shrines you get a good money racket going. A $$$ city is a city with two (or more!) holy shrines with all the income enhancers (market, bank, Wall Street, etc.).

Spread your religion(s) far and wide. Each city that practises your religion will give you 1g per turn.

[Virtual Alex]

Upgrades should be based on the A/D/M difference. Spearman is 1/2/1, warrior is 1/1/1 so the upgrade should cost 1 "unit" more (50 gold maybe?) so a 4/4/1 unit should cost 300 gold to upgrade from a 1/1/1 warrior, because it adds 6 total points to it's A/D/M values.

not, I do not own this game yet, I am mac user eagrly waiting for it. I hope there are still A/D/M values... just seems like a more reasonable way to manage upgrades.

[Urban Ranger]

In Civ 4 there is only one combat value, not two (attack and defense).

[Blake]

I think that in the early game it SHOULD be unreasonably expensive to upgrade. Ancient socities weren't exactly cash economies.

[Urban Ranger]

Also remember it goes both ways. If you cut the upgrade cost the computer players will also need to pay less.