Economics questions

[damarcus]

Another question I have is "inflation costs." Does anyone know what causes inflation and how to minimize this cost?

Also, what does a "+1 trade route" do? There's a civic that allows the cities to gain +1 trade route; and another one that allows the cities to gain a specialist worker. Which is better for which circumstances?

Also, can someone tell me a useful economic way to use the Lighthouse wonder?

Thank you.

[Metaliturtle]

off the top of my head, lighthouses are great if you want to make a fishing village (little-no land 2+ fishing resources) The lighthouse will give you one more food per sea tile I believe.

[UnOrthOdOx]

Trade routes.

Alrighty.

When you open a city screen, there is a list off to the left. You'll see a couple of city names and a gold coin icon with a number. This is that cities trade routes, and how much they are making. The computer assigns these automatically, so don't worry about messing around switching cities.

Anything that gives you +1 trade route, will add another trade route to that city, it will connect to another city and get another little coin and number icon.

So, Great Lighthouse adds trade routes (2? can't recall off top of my head), which increase your gold income. Increase how much comes from your trade routes by building harbors.

I'm sure one of the more builderish folks could give you some graph or spreadsheet of just how much you can make in given situations, but I just know more trade routes = more money and it works for me.

[Tattila the Hun]

Originally posted by Metaliturtle
off the top of my head, lighthouses are great if you want to make a fishing village (little-no land 2+ fishing resources) The lighthouse will give you one more food per sea tile I believe.

Naa, Great Lighthouse.

[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)

Trade income therefore makes up a part of the commerce figure and gets adjusted in several ways

a) By acquiring more valuable trade routes (general foreign ones)
b) By increasing the number of trade routes to your cities
c) By increasing the “trade value” of the cities

If you can increase b) separately from a) and c) the effect will be multiplicative (twice as many routes earning twice as much will multiply a cities trade fourfold).

Each city gets one trade route to start with (though must first be linked to your capital to get any trade. After that, it will acquire more trade routes as follows

a) +1 after acquiring the Currency tech
b) +1 from a Castle (Warlords) obsoleted by Economics
c) +1 from the Carthaginian Cothon (Warlords)
d) +2 for all coastal cities for the civ that builds Great Lighthouse
e) +1 with the free trade civic
f) +1 after acquiring Corporation tech (but this obsoletes the Great Lighthouse trade bonus)
g) some UN resolution also gives +1 trade route
h) airports give +1 trade route

A city improves its trade value by growing but also with the following buildings

a) Harbour (+50%)
b) Temple of Artemis (+100%) - Obsoleted by Chemistry

The question of using Mercantilism (Free Specialist in every city) and Free Trade (+1 trade route) depends on the relative amount of trade you are getting. Generally, a large civ that is at war will have fewer foreign cities with which to trade so the specialist bonus may be better. But bear in mind that this also means that trade income will be much lower for the existing trade routes since foreign trade is stopped. For a smaller civ or one which has lots of overseas trade, Free Trade will give a tidy boost. Mercantilism also has good synergies with Representation and Pacifism.

Personally, I’d test these out in different situations. Run a test on changing from Mercantilism to Free Market and note the change in two factors (from the Finance Manager screen)

1) The amount of money invested in tech
2) The net gold going to the treasury

Note also that there is also another hidden factor to compare here – the extra GPP that the specialists generate in your cities. Crudely you might value these as something like

2 gold per extra GPP generated in the main GP generating city
1 gold per extra GPP generated in the next two GP generating cities.

[Flhaus]

Excellent primer!

[joncnunn]

You'll always want a Lighthouse when your working any sea tiles.
This generally means that there's any sea resources within the city radius, or else your city site currently is limited in food (such as no food bonuses and lots of hills pre tech allowing Windmills, and/or lots of flat plains not adequent to fresh water pre Civil Service.)

Originally posted by Metaliturtle
off the top of my head, lighthouses are great if you want to make a fishing village (little-no land 2+ fishing resources) The lighthouse will give you one more food per sea tile I believe.

[Kuciwalker]

a) +1 after acquiring the Currency tech
b) +1 from a Castle (Warlords)
c) +1 from the Carthaginian Cothon (Warlords)
d) +2 for all coastal cities for the civ that builds Great Lighthouse
e) +1 with the free trade civic
f) +1 after acquiring Corporation tech (but this obsoletes the Great Lighthouse and Castles trade bonus)
g) some UN resolution also gives +1 trade route

Correction:

You get +1 with Economics, too, but this obsoletes Castles (not Corporation).

[ben04]

Re: Economics questions

There's a civic that allows the cities to gain +1 trade route; and another one that allows the cities to gain a specialist worker. Which is better for which circumstances?

If you are isolated then Mercantesim is the best. Free Trade is near to worthless in that case. Combine it with Pacifism and Representation to max out the effects.

If you have lots of open border agreements and those civs have big cities then Free Trade is probably a better choice.

However State Property beats both in nearly all situations.

[couerdelion]

Originally posted by Kuciwalker

a) +1 after acquiring the Currency tech
b) +1 from a Castle (Warlords)
c) +1 from the Carthaginian Cothon (Warlords)
d) +2 for all coastal cities for the civ that builds Great Lighthouse
e) +1 with the free trade civic
f) +1 after acquiring Corporation tech (but this obsoletes the Great Lighthouse and Castles trade bonus)
g) some UN resolution also gives +1 trade route

Correction:

You get +1 with Economics, too, but this obsoletes Castles (not Corporation).

Not in my book. The Extra trade route from Economics comes with the adoption of the Free Trade civic (e).

But I'll have to take your word on the Castles thing. It sounds more reasonable to not actually lose a trade route when discovering a tech (all that happens is that cities with castles don't get another one)

[Quillan]

Airports give +1 trade route also, but are very late in the game so they make little difference at that point.

[ben04]

Originally posted by Quillan
Airports give +1 trade route also, but are very late in the game so they make little difference at that point.

But especially in the late game trade routes bring in some money. I'd say that each trade route in the end game in a big city and when you have enough open borders brings at least as much commerce as a town, not counting harbour effects.

As you can spread airports over your whole empire this should have a noticeable but not game turning effect on your economy.

[Kuciwalker]

Originally posted by couerdelion
Not in my book. The Extra trade route from Economics comes with the adoption of the Free Trade civic (e).

I checked and you're right. I almost always switch to Free Trade so I associated the +1 with Economics. OTOH, I'm right about Economics and Castles

[Thoth]

Originally posted by couerdelion
Economics in brief

Each city gets one trade route to start with (though must first be linked to your capital to get any trade.

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.

[Krill]

Sometimes it is just better to rely on alot of cottages than on trade routes though...