Selling Buildings and disbanding cities

[orange]

Anyone know how to do these things?? I can't find it in the manual anywhere. I'm assuming it's possible only because it has been throughout the civ series.

I'd been working on some of the higher levels with raging barbarians and I found myself pumping out tons of units to fend them all off. When I finally did so (and captured a few of their cities) my empire was in economic ruin. I actually got my tech percentage all the way down to 0% and was still operating at a loss (as much as -11 at one point!) I attribute this to A) having too many units, B) having too many low level cities at once, and C) having too many buildings that perhaps weren't necessary. I was so early on in the techs, however, that I couldn't set my production to anything that wouldn't cost me coin.

It took nearly 500 years for me to pull myself out of the depression, and I've since learned a lot about how to avoid such problems in the future (I ended up having to disband 90% of my Level 3 and 4 army, emphasizing commerce, and falling waaaaay behind in my techs to do it)

All in all an excellent baptism by fire for the harder levels of Civ 4 (and actually quite a fun challenge), but it would have been a LOT easier if I had been able to disband some of those cities or sell off some of those buildings. Is it possible?

[Smellycowsquid]

You can no longer disband cities- I believe there has been a mod on this. For selling cities, I am not sure.


Check Here

[Sabre2th]

Low level cities were definitely your big downfall. Buildings themselves don't cost you anything to maintain, but once you exceed your maximum number of cities, maintenance skyrockets. Without a strong economy (ie. lots of cottages and/or specialists), you will quickly fall behind

City disbanding and selling buildings are both things of the past now.

[orange]

Ah, that makes things a lot more clear. Any idea where I can find articles or threads on the new economic model for Civ? Obviously any pre-Prince levels it's a non issue because of how easy the game is, but once I get into the higher levels I find it really perplexing. For example, in a recent game I played as Persia I had only four cities. One level 8, two level 6, one level 5. Again, raging barbs and AI that favors war, so I was depending a lot on units.

I had several axemen with Woodsman II upgrades defending the forests/tunda south of my empire, and lots of Immortals and Macemen with City Raider upgrades and some gallies. Russia and China were really getting on my case, and dropping colonies on my continent (nevermind how level 1 cities far away don't seem to hurt the AI at all!) so I was constantly at war with them. Finally sent my guys in and destroyed a few cities and kept two or three of theirs (one, a Russian colony set up by some Sugar, was very far away and no courthouses yet)

AI was way ahead of me on techs (I started out alone on my snakey archipleago). I had lots of resources though and I was fairly well developed with cottages near my cities...but even with emphasized commerce my nation started going into economic ruin again. I was down to 20% tech and just breaking even, yet my cities (even the foreign ones) were level 3 and up. Plus, China had easily 10-12 cities, as did Russia, some of which (because of thier poor locations) which weren't high up in tech. They also had tons of units, like me. now I know the AI cheats, but it's infuriating to have to choose between letting the AI and Barbarians rule your continent while you sit on 4 main cities or sending your nation into economic ruin by doing something about it.

This is on marathon and snaking archipelago, by the way. Don't know if that makes a difference.

[Dauphin]

Play the OCC.

I am lead to believe that the AI doesn't suffer from maintenance costs associated with empire size. Play against civs with the Organised trait as it is close to useless for them.

[orange]

Yeah, I doubt it as well. It also seems as though part of my problem was starting on a continent by myself in the arctic. Both the Russian and Persian games were like that.

I tried another one as the Chinese (all the same specs) but this time I started between the English (in the arctic) and Russians to my south in the Jungles. I had a nice temperate climate with lots of resources (Wheat, Corn, Wine, Fish, Crab, Copper, etc..) and ended up doing really well. Barbs were still a problem in the early stages (Axemen are rough!), but i was able to fend them off enough to develop. If I get stuck in the arctic by myself again I'll try to shoot for cottages earlier, but it's really tough to build them and keep them functional with raging barbs

[Urban Ranger]

Hey orange.

Computer players get all sorts of bonuses on a level higher than noble.

Okay, you can look at your maintenance cost by calling up the financial advisor. Don't forget, units require $ in Civ 4 too, so it's not only cities.

Playing raging barbarians edge up the difficulty level factor a notch and so are warlike AIs (they talk to each other but not you). So you may actually be playing a level or two higher than you think.

You can post a savegame up here so others can look at it.