Economics questions

[couerdelion]

Originally posted by Thoth


Overall, a very nice summary, just one minor correction:

In order to gain the trade route the city must be linked to another valid trading city (ie another one of your cities or a foreign city belonging to a civ with which you have an open borders agreement with). There does not have to be a connection to the capital.

I beg to differ. Even if the connection is indirect (eg to a foreign city linked to its capital which is linked to your capital) there must be a link to your capital.

[uffe]

This thread seems mostly to be about trade, but since couerdelion's excellent post made me think about another economics question, I'll add it here.

Originally posted by couerdelion
Economics in brief

Each city produces a certain amount of COMMERCE. Commerce is made up of

a) Tile commerce
b) Trade commerce
c) 8 commerce comes from the Palace located in your capital

The total commerce is then allocated between science (beakers) and gold (gold). The former goes towards tech investment while the latter is needed to cover your expenses with the balance going towards your treasury. Both beakers and gold are subject to their own respective modifiers (libraries etc for beakers, markets etc for gold)

Now, I've always been mixing up commerce and gold ever since the first experiences with CivII. The above simple explanation is probably the clearest I've ever come across, but it raises a consideration for my playing style.

I've always liked to play the civ games as a "reasearcher" leader, i.e., playing a builder game until later stages of the game and having the science slider at 100% as much as possible. With this style, libraries, universities, etc. are naturally given priority, but looking at the quite above, I'm starting to feel that marketplaces, groceries and banks are almost useless to me. I mean, if I understand correctly, all of these only affect the gold output, and since I'm usually having 0% of the total commerce towards gold, am I getting no benefit at all from the multipliers that these buildings give? Or are the multipliers affecting commerce instead of gold?

Of course marketplaces are important for happiness, groceries for health (which is far less a concern) and banks needed for the Wall Street, but the value of these buildings is less than I thought, if they only affect the gold output...

[couerdelion]

If you are running at 100% science then all that markets and grocers do is allow merchant specialists and increase health and happiness. All that banks allow is for you to build Wall Street (Exception: You must obviously have cities producing some significant gold (ie not generated through commerce) so they at least should have these improvements.

I suspect that the issue you are facing is lack of expansion. If you are able to run at such a high level, you don’t have enough cities. At the other end of the scale (those running below 50% science ) markets, grocers and banks can be very useful.

[uffe]

Originally posted by couerdelion
I suspect that the issue you are facing is lack of expansion. If you are able to run at such a high level, you don’t have enough cities. At the other end of the scale (those running below 50% science ) markets, grocers and banks can be very useful.

I don't think I have a major problem with the expansion either, at least up to noble/prince levels, and I do have to lower the science slider occationally, so the gold buildings are not a complete waste. However, I tend to finance my research by selling techs (and netting the free great merchant from economics + using him to get cash), which allows me to usually run quite a big deficit.

Anyway, I'm not going to drop markets, etc. totally out of my plans, but I might need to reconsider my priorities a bit due to this learning. So, thanks for the info!

[uffe]

[SIZE=1] (Exception: You must obviously have cities producing some significant gold (ie not generated through commerce) so they at least should have these improvements.

OK, just a bit confused again about this gold vs. commerce thing. So, how do cities produce gold not through commerce? The worked tiles produce commerce, not gold, right?

[couerdelion]

Originally posted by uffe


OK, just a bit confused again about this gold vs. commerce thing. So, how do cities produce gold not through commerce? The worked tiles produce commerce, not gold, right?

Apart from using the slider to allocate commerce between beakers and gold (or culture), gold can also be produced in the following ways (probably not an exhaustive list)

a) Specialists generate a combination of hammers, beakers, gold and culture (but not commerce). Among these merchants give +3 gold each while priest generate +1 gold
b) A holy city with a shrine generates +1 gold for each city that has that religion
c) The Spiral Minaret gives +2 gold for each state religion building (gold here goes to the city with the religious building and not the city with the wonder)

[uffe]

Originally posted by couerdelion


Apart from using the slider to allocate commerce between beakers and gold (or culture), gold can also be produced in the following ways (probably not an exhaustive list)

a) Specialists generate a combination of hammers, beakers, gold and culture (but not commerce). Among these merchants give +3 gold each while priest generate +1 gold
b) A holy city with a shrine generates +1 gold for each city that has that religion
c) The Spiral Minaret gives +2 gold for each state religion building (gold here goes to the city with the religious building and not the city with the wonder)

OK, thanks. Since I'm almost always using the CS slingshot, I end up with establishing Confusionism , and I do make the point of getting the shrine also. Thus, I do get gold from b and some also from a (some priests). Sometimes also from c, but I haven't considered SM a priority, at least so far.

I think I finally get, how this gold vs. commerce thing actually works. Thanks!

[couerdelion]

And I missed some other BIG sources of gold

1) Resource trading
2) Tech trading
3) Capturing cities
4) Tribute from AI

[uffe]

Originally posted by couerdelion
And I missed some other BIG sources of gold

1) Resource trading
2) Tech trading
3) Capturing cities
4) Tribute from AI

Sure. As I mentioned, 2 is one of the major sources for my income in the early parts of the game. 1 less so, but I do sell my resources sometimes...I just feel that the 5 or so GPT you usually are able to get for, say, a happiness resource just isn't enough. Even less so for strategic resources, like iron or horses, which I only tend to trade for strategic purposes, like aiding a civ who are at war with an annoying neighbor of mine, etc.

In the latter parts of the game 4 and especially 3 form a great deal of my income, but at that stage I'm not usually running the 100% science (or even 100% science + culture) anymore.

I would say, that all this works quite well in Noble, but it is clearly more difficult to be the tech leader (at least clearly) in prince, so I guess the higher in difficulty you go, the less viable is the research-based strategy. Warring is likely much more efficient.