Adam Smith Foundation: Gaining money in expense of the AIs

[Shiber]

Fellow citizens,

We are reaching a point in the game where money is given a new meaning. As more civs are turning into new forms of government that allow the use of money to rush projects, money is becoming more valuable then ever.
Soon our glorious civ shall switch to Monarchy or Republic (the majority and myself think Monarchy is better at the moment, but that's irrelevant for this thread) and we will be able to use our monetary resources to rush the construction of city infrastructure and the assembly of military units.
We must prepare for this next phase in the game by discussing the best ways to achieve the following two goals:

* Increase our treasury as much as possible so we have a lot to spend once we are be able to use paid labor.
* Decrease the AI civs' treasuries as much as possible in order to delay any AI attempts at boosting their infrastructure or military.

This discussion thread is a place for all citizens to suggest plans to increase our treasury over the expense of the AI civs' treasuries.

[Shiber]

*bump*

[Spiffor]

I think we should sell our excess luxuries (dyes, and soon incense) to any Civ we can, without holding back. The AI doesn't profit that much from the luxuries (they play at Regent level, and thus their cities can get to size 6 with 2 troops and a Temple).
But they'll pay big money, esp if they have many cities. Greeks, Aztecs and Romans (and maybe Russians) should be our favorite markets once we're connected to them.

To increase our income we'll also have to build marketplaces pretty soon. In APolyton, a marketplace would bring 3 more Lytons per turn (2 more Lpt if you substract the upkeep of the marketplace, that's 10% of our total income), despite our small population and our lack of commerce bonus.

[Shiber]

If we get or destroy Rouen, Amiens and Dijon or sign a RoP with France after the war is through we will have a sea route to Russia. All we need to do is to build a harbor and hope that the Russians do the same or that they already have a harbor.
Also, a harbor would let us trade with Persia if they build a harbor of their own. I suspect they already have a harbor in either Gordium or Tarsus (or both) so they could benefit further from the fish tile in Gordium or/and the whales tile in Tarsus.

[civman2000]

I agree with spiffor

[Spiffor]

Shiber :
IIRC, the map auto-updates when a harbor is built in a foreign country : you immediately see the harbor icon on the city, even if it's under the fog of war.

[Shiber]

I didn't know that, but now that I think of it it makes perfect sense.
Thanks for the tip!

[trickey]

Marketplaces are essential, for the extra lytons, and the happiness.

Also, we shoudl trade all of our excess luxeries. I know its simple, but alot of people forget, that is we trade our luxeries to a civ, then delare war, our rep. will be ruined. Just make sure we think hard about who we are going to trade them to, and if we plan to declare war after the french campaing.

[Shiber]

* double posted, sorry *

[Shiber]

Marketplaces are important, but if you ask me we should not build marketplaces until we've secured our 3rd luxury and a marketplace can gain us an additional happy face. In the mean time it will only increase commerce output by 50% and there are other things to build first, like libraries for instance (which will save us more money in the long run IMHO, making techs significantly cheaper).

[GhengisFarbâ„¢]

I agree, libraries then marketplaces. I do think we should look at monopolizing luxuries. For example the only other dyes outside ours are the ones in Russia. If we are ever at conflict with them that area should receive extreme attention from our forces as the AI will HAVE to deal with us to get dyes.

Several AI may potentially monopolize luxuries we need (furs, gems, and silk) so this power could be useful in negotiations for those luxuries.

[Donal Graeme]

Good point, especially later in the game, when everyone is a Democracy or Communist state. When a Democracy, they need luxuries to go to war, and as a Communist state, need them to make ppl happy after pop rushing. The best method for getting money is to go for control of dyes, and maybe ivory if possible.