money

[johncmcleod]

I have found the only way I can go ahead in techs and in military sizes is to ignore money. I set science research funding on 90% and et on 10%, and I am always building military units. I lose about 500 gold per turn, but it doesn't seem to matter. I am way ahead of the computer civs in everything now. Is there a way to do that without losing that much mula?

[hannibcannib]

how did you get all that money to lose anyway!!!??

[Jaguar]

I suppose he sells the techs

[johncmcleod]

No, you guys don't understand. I have 0 gold in my treasury and it says -554 gold per turn.

[Aeson]

I heard someone say this was a feature of Chieftain games.

[Free_Mumia]

Probably on chieftain because on the rest of the difficulties you would be losing your units/city improvements. If this was allowed then everyone would set science to 100% and there would be no point in money.

[Ethelred]

Re: money

Originally posted by johncmcleod
I lose about 500 gold per turn, but it doesn't seem to matter. I am way ahead of the computer civs in everything now. Is there a way to do that without losing that much mula?

That apparently is another undocumented feature in the game. Only on chieftan which may be why it mostly goes unnoticed. It also means you simply aren't doing pretty much a single thing to make money. The AI on chieftain is heavily handicapped so you should easily outresearch them without that dubious manuever.

At a guess you aren't

Building roads
Using rivers
Building marketplaces
Building banks
perhaps even

Not building cities to any apreciable degree

Also its likely you never were behind as much as say.

Quit that game. Its just a waste. You learned nothing from it nor are you likely too with that money gimmick. It would be much better to start another.

When you start another

Build two or three warriors and send them to explore.

On chieftan you won't need to worry about defense for a bit.

Use you worker to road and mine two or three tiles around your capital. If one of the tiles has a food bonus and you can easily irrigate it then its ok to irrigate it. Don't bother irrigating grasslands without a food bonus till you have left that crippleing despotic government behind.

Personally I immediatly mine the first grassland tile with a shield bonus and then I do the road.

After you produce those two or at most three warriors start producing settlers to build new cities. Send that worker out after he improves no more than three tiles for the capital. He should then build roads to your next city site and do some improvements there.

Try to build cities near or better yet right next to rivers. But don't spread out to far doing so. To much space between cities is just a waste of land.

You should trade with other civs but you won't get much from them on chieftain as they won't have much.

Put as much into research as you can while you are still playing on chieftain. On higher levels it is often better to horde money and buy tech but on chieftain that won't work because you should easily outresearch the AI.

Pop those goody huts. Thats the half the reason for sending out warriors to explore. They can give you tech.

Try to get of despostism as soon as you are able. It really wastes production and money.

Search for Vel's strategy threads. There are three threads and all will help you but they are primarily aimed at higher than chieftan which is why I stressed the need for YOU doing the research. Be patient. Research in the Ancient era takes time. Especialy at the start after all you only have one single city.

You may want to set the research to the minumum at first but ONLY at first on chieftan. There is a 40 turn minumum so there is no sense spending everything you have if its still going to take forty turns. Move the slider around so you can see how it changes the time taken. There is a 4 turn maximum as well.

Experimentation with all the choices is a good idea so you can see how things change. If this is your first civ game I will make a hideous suggestion. READ THE MANUAL. Thats the polite version.

People have this strange idea they know everything or can figure out everything and that manuals are for wimps or door stops or perhaps they mistake it for bad toilet paper. Read the WHOLE thing. That is what bathrooms are for. Reading computer stuff.

Even read the appendix. In fact especially read the appendix. Thats where all the hotkeys are defined and you will need to know them.

Oh heck here are some links.

The whole enchilada for general reading:

http://apolyton.net/civ3/strategy/

Vels last strategy thread some it needs to be adapted to the latest patch. Oh if you haven't patched the game you should get the 1.16f or the latest 1.17f patch. Some people hate the latest patch because the AI civs trade very aggressively and they think its a massive conspiricy. I like the latest patch but the trading is a bit excessive. All right a lot excessive but it can be handled and on low levels it doesn't matter that much.

http://apolyton.net/forums/showthread.php?postid=651781#post651781

One last suggestion. Don't play a lot of games on chieftain if you plan on ever playing on harder levels. The AI is so badly crippled things you must do on that level are things you shouldn't do on higher levels. You will learn bad habits. Play chieftan only to get the hang of the game. One game maybe three if you have never played the previous civilization games. I played and lost my first game on chieftan but I still moved up to warlord. If you play a lot of chieftan games you will have a lot to unlearn. Just use it to learn the game mechanics.

[Willem]

Re: Re: money

Originally posted by Ethelred
You may want to set the research to the minumum at first but ONLY at first on chieftan. There is a 40 turn minumum so there is no sense spending everything you have if its still going to take forty turns. Move the slider around so you can see how it changes the time taken. There is a 4 turn maximum as well.

This is crucial! Quite often at the first of the game, I find that the only setting that has any impact on the amount of time it takes is 10%, which means the difference is getting the tech in the maximum number of turns or not at all. And if I have even one Scientist, I can quite often set it to 0%. So all, the money my empire earns goes into the treasury, instead of being wasted on my Science.

This really starts to show up when you get into Republic/Democracy. Turning down research just one notch has no effect on the amount of time it will take to get a tech, but it could mean an extra 200 gold per turn into your treasury.