How to make lots of $?

[bigvic]

Just curious how others go about making big bucks. Talked to a friend the other day, who sacrifices tech early to make money. Don't know about that one. Tried it when I first played, but ran into problems. Figured out the playing w/ the science spending thing, then noticed that a great way to become mega moneyman is to, ironically, build loads of science improvements. This reduces the amount of $ you have to spend on tech, thereby increasing profits immensly.

[notyoueither]

Set science to 0 after you have contact with 2 or 3 other civs. Use money to buy contact and techs, in that order. The more civs you are in contact with and who have the tech you want to buy, the cheaper the tech is to buy.

[Skanky Burns]

Set one population to scientist, never spend any money (during the early game) on science. You get the best of both worlds, and only lose 1 population to achieve this. Even better, it works during anarchy (or did before 1.21, haven't checked with latest patch) and can work in otherwise purely corrupt cities.

[Jamski]

Keep building and selling "worthless" improvements. (This only really works if you're a peaceful type) For example aquaducts in desert towns. If you have enough cities doing this you can produce quite a turnover, or so I've found. Probably should be building something useful instead...

-Jam

[Tuberski]

Originally posted by War of Art
Keep building and selling "worthless" improvements. (This only really works if you're a peaceful type) For example aquaducts in desert towns. If you have enough cities doing this you can produce quite a turnover, or so I've found. Probably should be building something useful instead...

-Jam

That something useful is called "wealth".

[Jamski]

True, but I fell just SOOOO awful when I can see twenty cities producing wealth. I think it looks kinda bad or something.

-Jam

[Tuberski]

The biggest problem I have with it, is when you DO have something new to build, you have to cycle through each city to start to get it built.

Of course, all CIVs have been this way.

[bigvic]

Well, constant monitoring of science spending, keeping science improvements plentiful and utilizing trade proactively all work for me. Seen some good suggestions, but pretty happy w/ what I do. Course, good old fashioned extortion/conquest gets big bucks too.

[MiloMilo]

Don't underestimate the value of gold.
In an early game, I once had a lot of gold in my cities, and was psyched that I could try to corner the gold market. Later I realized that it's just a terrain bonus, not a tradable luxury. In any event, my science and gold production in that game far outstripped the AIs, even though they were democracies and I was a monarchy. It's very worth it to build an otherwise useless city if it has a couple hills with gold within it's radius.

[Arrian]

A couple of other things will really help the cash flow:

-Democracy, or at least Republic for a government
-marketplaces, libraries, banks, universities
-selling other civs things
-Wall Street

-The Colossus (smaller the map, bigger the effect)
-The Great Library (set science to 0, get free techs up to and including education)
-Sun Tzu (free barracks in every city, more effective the bigger the map)
-Leonardo (1/2 price upgrades. Better 'n better the bigger the map). This can be HUGE. The difference between upgrading 20 horsemen to knights with versus without Leos is 800 gold.
-Coperincus/Newton/Seti - all wonders that boost science, which means you can lower the science budget. Better the smaller the map.
-Sistine/Bachs - depends on the situation, but having these big boys may mean the difference between needing luxury spending and not.
Adam Smith's - no upkeep on markets & banks. Obviously better the bigger the map.

[Arrian]

(*#*(%@#(*(@#%&!!! double post.

[MiloMilo]

Yes; to be more specific, according to the good example set by Arrian:

In addition to finding gold, here are some concrete tips. I play on Regent these days, and am consistently the richest nation on large maps, though rarely the most powerful.

-The AI always buys everything it can, so is usually down near zero gold. As long as you're getting one or two gold per turn, you'll be ahead of the curve. Set you science as high as possible without incurring a loss (usually like 70% early on).

-Build cities near rivers. Roads EVERYWHERE. And later railroads.

-Watch your armies. Prune (that is, disband) any units that aren't vital. In despotism or monarchy don't go far above your allowed free units. In republic or democracy try to keep the same standards (5 or 6 units per city total, including workers).

-Lots of wonders can help you be rich. Pyramids and Sun Tzu's save you improvement maintenance costs. The colossus is great if you have lots of rivers and roads in that city. Copernicus's or Newton's should ideally be built in the same city as the colossus. Adam Smith's is incredibly good, it can potentially save you 4 gold per turn per city (!). And Wall Street (SW) usually affords an extra 10% to be allocated to science or luxury output. Usually if I get three of these wonders I can remain financially competitive as a monarchy with all the republics and democracies out there.

[Arrian]

I totally forgot one very important thing: the tax/tech slider. As you know, there are caps on how quickly (4 turns) or slowly (40 turns) one can develop a technology. Even if your civ produces enough commerce to discover something in 2 turns, the game will not allow you to get it faster than 4. Accordingly, setting science to 100% would be wasteful.

Here's what I do, once my economy is up and running (this is not counting my pre-conquest buildup, which is basically all about hoarding cash while developing a few specific military techs):

I set my science rate such that I can discover a tech as fast as possible while not losing a lot of money. Example: astronomy, I can discover it in 5 turns while gaining 15 per turn, or 4 turns losing 20 per turn. I will chose 4, but on the final turn (1 turn to go), I will check the slider to see if I can adjust it and still get the advance on the next turn. Often, I can drop the science rate to 10 or 20%, rake in enough cash to offset my earlier losses and then some, and still get my precious technology on time. This occurs because of the 4 turn cap. My civ didn't produce enough commerce to discover the tech in 5 turns while turning a profit... it's more like 4 2/3. But that 1/2 will be wasted unless you adjust the slider. No "beakers" are carried over to the next research project. So, basically, keep an eye on the tax rate, and play around with adjusting it - you'll get the hang of it pretty quick.

-Arrian

[MiloMilo]

I too use that exploit Arrian, but I wish it wasn't there (ahem, FIRAXIS (does writing their nam improve the chance that they'll see this thread?)). They should make excess beakers carry over. It would fix the exploit without changing things too much.

[Harovan]

It ain't an exploit. The # of beakers needed for a tech is a constant. Just if you set your science rate high enough, there are less beakers left to research for that last turn, than you could with your current rate. Instead of wasting money on unneeded beakers, you can save them for other purposes. If it was possible to adjust science more accurate (in percents instead of 10% steps), all this would not be necessary.