How to improve gold production?

[Leravi The Hyena:33]

So I haven't played in FOREVER and decided to try playing Indonesia 9n normal on the archipelago map

And God I'm struggling to stay above water with my gold at a constant dance of - and bare minimum + to the point its clear I'm just screwed while all my rivals are having great success

What am I doing wrong?

[stvlepore]

First, don't look at AI rivals, it can be depressing.
Not sure there will be one answer. Look at trade routes, ocean going have a better return than land routes. No extra roads, no useless building drain, number of units. Balance happy and $$ with your trade routes, if you have happy, trade for gold.

[DerEider]

Are you playing Civ5 without the G&K and BNW dlc's ?
Those DLC's make it easier to generate Gold than in the base Civ5 game.
Don't know why.

[Damsteri]

In vanilla and G&K gold comes from A) riverside or coastal tiles (yielding +1 gold), or B) from city connections between cities using roads, railroads or harbors (called "trade routes"). Trading posts were important to boost riverside gold input.

In BNW riverside and coastal tiles don't yield gold anymore. Main gold input comes from A) trade routes made with caravans and cargo ships. There is still gold from B) city connections, with that new name. Trading post are not that effective, but can be used if there is no other way.

You are probably lacking city connections. On water map that means you need to have either capital on coastal (you really should have that) and harbor in the capital, or capital connected with a road to a coastal city with harbor. Then you start getting gold from cities from other continents (if they have harbor).

[Matthew]

Can't be direct without more information. Do you have naval trade routes going? That will be your primary source of income on archipelago.

If it is still early on (no trade partners, few to no places to send trade routes) then you just need to avoid spending any gold where necessary. Disband any military or workers you don't need, don't build unnecessary buildings. Gold eventually lightens up later in the game.

[Quyzbuk]

Like others said, more info needed here:

- Are you building military units and being buried by upkeep?
- Are you expanding too quickly onto areas with no natural gold generating tiles?
- Did you establish any trade routes or deals?
- Did you forego economy techs?
- Did you construct buildings in your city that you aren't actually using that also have maintenance expenses?
- Did you connect your cities to your capital via road or harbor yet?

[Si]

Don’t compare yourself to A.I, not without the “no cheating AI mod” anyway.

They will have -500 gold per turn and still be churning out massive armies with seemingly no penalties.

[Leravi The Hyena:33]

Originally posted by DerEider:

Are you playing Civ5 without the G&K and BNW dlc's ?
Those DLC's make it easier to generate Gold than in the base Civ5 game.
Don't know why.

i have them all

[Leravi The Hyena:33]

Originally posted by Matthew:

Can't be direct without more information. Do you have naval trade routes going? That will be your primary source of income on archipelago.

If it is still early on (no trade partners, few to no places to send trade routes) then you just need to avoid spending any gold where necessary. Disband any military or workers you don't need, don't build unnecessary buildings. Gold eventually lightens up later in the game.

i do but im only getting food from trading with my cities

[knighttemplar1960]

For plain vanilla, that's what trading posts are for.

[Matthew]

Uh. If you send trade routes to your own cities, you either get food (with granary) or production (with workshop). If you send it to another Civ or city-state, you get gold.
One naval trade route should give close to 15-20 gpt to another Civ capital. I can't imagine you are running more than a -20 gpt deficit.