While waiting for civ 4 I picked this one up cheap.
Like the first (and all Paradox games for me in fact) I find it very confusing.
I could start a million topics on what I have trouble with but I'll keep it at one.
Money. Gold. Moola.
I always run out of money and go bankrupt. Again to try and make it simple, if someone could give me one thing, that is great for making money for your country what would it be? A building or a tip maybe? BTW I finally figured out that putting a lot of money into the treasury with the slider is self-defeating because of inflation. But what else can I do?
Halp!
"If there is no struggle, there is no progress. Those who profess to favor freedom, and yet depreciate agitation, are men who want crops without plowing up the ground. They want rain without thunder and lightning. They want the ocean without the awful roar of its many waters. This struggle may be a moral one; or it may be a physical one; or it may be both moral and physical; but it must be a struggle."
It's been a long time since I've played, but if I remember correctly, there's almost no way to actually make money early on unless you lower your army and navy maintenance down to it's lowest level. Hopefully that will allow you to build up a cash reserve so that if/when war breaks out, you can raise it without having to go bankrupt. Unless you're playing Spain that is. Spain has all that gold flowing in from the New World so money isn't really a problem for them. But then they get hammered by inflation. Other than that, build colonies/trading posts wherever you can. Controling the centers of trade is huge too. It's a really complex game. I'd be willing to be that even the developers know how to play it well.
I was doing the colonization thing and then someone declared war on me. So in order to fight him off I had to buy some troops and all of a sudden the computer starts taking loans. So now I have like -16 loan expenses every month and I don't see how I can pay off the loans without minting money (treasury) and we all know where that leads. Inflation. So to pay off the loan seems impossible to me without going into backruptcy, cause I don't want to deal with that damn inflation. So it seems to be either mint money which means inflation or just wait for bankruptcy, sigh.
Some choices.
Maybe now that the war is finally over those colonizers and trading posts can go to town, and create some trade income. Oops spoke to soon, natives wiped them out.
Anyway thanks for the tips. Tough game, not exactly for noobs.
"If there is no struggle, there is no progress. Those who profess to favor freedom, and yet depreciate agitation, are men who want crops without plowing up the ground. They want rain without thunder and lightning. They want the ocean without the awful roar of its many waters. This struggle may be a moral one; or it may be a physical one; or it may be both moral and physical; but it must be a struggle."
The thing about inflation is that it's inevitable. If I recall correctly, it doesn't matter if you keep your economy under control or not. Inflation will still get you. If there's just one country that is experiencing high inflation (usually Spain), that inflation spreads to everyone else. Granted, it's not as bad as in the country of origin, but it still spreads around. The key is to grow your economy faster than inflation is eating away at it. Man, I need to fire that game up again. I wonder if I can find the cd.
Keep inflation as low as you can for a while (it will grow, but random events will keep it manageable) and, as suggested, lower upkeep on any troops you're not using.
For the first long while, money will be hard to come by. Keep expenses low and invest in the infrastructure and trading techs - you want to get monopolies as soon as you can.
Stay at positive stability as often as possible. Getting out of negative stability costs a lot of money.
When you can afford a manufactuory, build it. Very expensive but well worth it.
