Unless you get material as starting bonus like the later faction. Level 1 goody hut can give you also some material.

So it isn't right that you MUST build a workshop everytime

Guys, if you're concerned with 1 gp/city being too much if players spam cities, then how about 1gp/turn from your Sovereign? You'll never have more than one Sovereign.

Like other people here, I also find having zero gold income in the beginning to be problematic.

The OP's point was that issue X removes all choices in situation Y.  Obviously having a lack of choices in a game is a bad thing most of the time.  Reading the thread, I really don't know if OP is correct, and I think he could have stated it in a much more professional way, but that's hardly an excuse for a childish, passive-aggressive remark like this.

You could have explained the income situation (I'm personally rather curious), quickly stated that this is by design and won't change, or merely left the post alone.  Now I'm wondering if "listening to the community" equates to "listening to people who agree with us and mocking the rest."

To be fair, the OP began with "This is unplayable.  Farewell."  That's at about the same level, even though subsequent posts made the point much more effectively.  I'm personally very happy with any level of communication and interaction with the community - far better than anything else out there. I think you need to cut them some slack given the long hours...

And on topic, I much prefer the requirement to build a merchant - it means *more* choices, because you in fact can get on just fine for the first 10 or so turns without gold income if you think about your spending.  A bigger problem to me is that in that time you can't recruit any NPCs if you want to do anything else - they just eat up your starting gold a bit too quickly unless you're really lucky.

I agree, though, with the later post about wages - why are they the same regardless of the quality of the unit? And definitely a clearer explanation of income sources (especially caravans, which still confuse me) would be useful.

Yes, my first post was probably too aggressive. But it's how I felt. If some players try the game, start it, play 10 minutes and feel so frustrated they want to quit, then maybe there's an issue that needs addressing.

Right now the gold income curve from cities goes like:

Phase 1) irrelevant - must earn all through adventuring

Phase 2) balanced

Phase 3) overflowing, partly due to caravans - hard to say whether it's unbalanced considering there's no oppo to see whether you really need gold to buy units to wage war.

I think phase 1 is an issue, and phase 3 may be one too.

I think OP could definitely have worded his concern much better, but if you just go ripping on the customers every time you're stressed out (this isn't the first time I've seen an emotional response from Brad about criticism to his games), you're just going to alienate people who have concerns and possibly even good ideas.  Most customers are a pain, and if you're going to interact you have to learn not to take things personally.  I've been a strong supporter of SD for a very long time - OP has even longer.  I was all over the forums when Twilight was in beta and post-release, and I saw a lot of people's bitching turn into some really great changes to the game (disabling tech brokering, for instance!).

But at this point, people are just getting the wrath of the devs when they say something unpopular.  "Timeline is too short" gets the proverbial bird; this suggestion about money problems minimizing early-game choices gets mocked; and at one point during Twilight of the Arnor, there was some kind of really immature response of "no more free updates" because a vocal minority wasn't grateful enough about a piece of free content.

I personally don't feel like voicing anything that isn't a cut-and-dry bug.  Will I stroke enough egos to avoid being mocked or told off?  Will my criticism of the current system be so enraging that the ideas for improvement don't even get looked at?  Just not worth wasting my time, really.  I'll just watch and see what happens.  I do hope I didn't just blow $50.

I haven't been able to get caravans, sadly (every time I get too far in the game, some adventure or another awards me some armor set that seems to have the hidden ability of a 100% CTD rate ).  But wouldn't this suggest that the city income is never balanced?  If phase 1 sees city income as irrelevant (which so far I agree with), and phase 3 is overwhelming only because of caravans, then city income alone is never a useful thing.  Looking over the buildings I've ever been able to get, I have to agree - I can't see any way to get a city producing more than a small bit of gold per turn.  Dozens of turns in, I still have a capital producing 8 gold per turn, and most of that is from a gold mine....

Unless I'm just totally missing something (which I think needs to be better explained), cities have no real point in terms of gold production.  In which case, why bother having gold-producing buildings?  Why not just make gold a caravan-only kind of system if that's the direction you want the game to go?  In which case, that makes early-game turn from producing market to researching and producing caravans, which is again a nearly-forced "choice"....

I totally agree here, city gold income increases need to be much more evenly distributed.

Its basically nothing, then palace, then great theatre, then all the gold I could ever need.

Adventuring gold is far too random.

And how am I supposed to be hiring adventurers in the early game, when they cost 150+guilders each, while my gold income is 1-2 per turn?

Select Diplomacy on the 2nd turn, then wait till it completes, 3-4 turns, BOOM you have Caravans.

And now who has the thin skin. Your all worked up about a response meant surely to be in jest. I know Brad awaits today and the release of SC2, he Beta'd fcol.

As to the starting Gold issue. What is yoru hurry. I think that perhaps the chap that stated RTS's have spoiled some folks is more true than not. What is the hurry. The enemy cannot do anything when it is your Turn. It isn't like they are making 40G/turn after Turn 4.

And besides, as noted the AI is not fully functional, not is the final 1.0 balance in. Would 200 starting Gold be enough? 300? How much do you think you really need early on?

A Peasant cost 1G/1M and if you make a bunch, they are as affective early as a Champion later on. Try it, it works.

As for Balance, last night a Level 7 monster, some yellow demon, had 1400 def. I met a Champion who wanted 124,530 (100K + yes) Gildars to Hire. I hired a group of 4 for a reported 1500G (all I had) and when the transaction went through, got a bill for 3000G. I simply built up my Cities and eventually ate the -1500 and at around turn 350 was producing Companies that cost in excess of 3300G each, and made 3 before turn 500 which ended that game in a Conquest victory.

6 Cities total and I Razed the enemy ones to prevent breaking the Bank. Lots of Gold to be had, just not in the first 10 turns...

But this is exactly the problem.  City income is meaningless if you don't have any choice but to just jump to caravans or else putt along for dozens of turns with a constant income problem.

I will try out rushing to caravans, but if that does indeed fix my money problems, then that is just proof of a problem.  Remember, the problem stated isn't lack of ease getting gold - it's that you have choices A, B, C, and D... but if you don't choose C every single time, you are getting punished.  Fun games offer tough choices.  Bad games make the choice for you or make it clear that one choice is always the best.

Alright then, what are possible solutions (given that the release is close)?

Best regards,
Steven. 

Yea i reckon it should be automated as it gets monotonus otherwise

A suggestion; bump up the gold income of merchants, pubs and inns by +1 gold each, so they are 2, 2, 3 instead of 1, 1, 2.

All the % economy bonuses in the world don't help if the only thing they boost is +1 gold.

Similarly, its far too random whether you happen to start near gold mines or not.

Honestly, this game has awesome potential, but I would be amazed if the gameplay could be redesigned to a good reviewable state in less than a month.  I know about all the shelf-space contracts that make it very hard to push dates, but I worry that this game will get mediocre reviews (and thus sales) if reviewed in an incomplete state; reviewers aren't likely to take into account Brad's record of far superior post-release support.

The thing is your don't have to RUSH to Caravans. Caravans are only useful when you have a second city. Why are you dropping a City in a place that may not be optimal. A SoV can survive a bit of roaming around by himself. You got a Club at least right?

You start with 100 Gold. Why not utilize it as best can be done and then start your plan for Global domination shortly after that. What is it exactly that you want the money for? An instant Army? 5 quick Cities? I am not seeing the need to RUSH right out of the door.

Granted, a Bonus to Gold starting at 1 does creep up slowly but with 1 hut, your get an upgrade and that opens a boat load of additional Gold producing options...

I have not yet had any problem making money.. i usually make 2 cities fairly soon or I concur the second one.. I also have always had at least one gold spot at my city or a location i make or take the second city.. add in the gold made adventuring and although I have had some slow starts i have finished every game with thousands of gildar sitting in the bank. I have played dozens of games right through to the end.. sounds to me like the OP had a real bad start.

I find it tough to get gold every game so far, but then again, I'm very new to it.  Could be I just don't know the right strategy.  Thing is, though, I worry that there is too much based on luck unless you rush in one particular direction.  If you're saying I should wait on my city until I'm near a gold mine, that could take a very long time.  If I should hope to get gold in adventures, well, that's just not realistic.  I see a good number of adventures and notable locations that offer nothing or very little (+materials are far more common than +gold for me).

Dunno, more play will be needed.

I think alot of it right now is based on the AI's lack of interest in doing anything exciting. When that gets rectified, and surely it will, we may also get a Cash incentive bonus to prevent overly aggressive AI early on.

The Balance in .92 is non-existent, so we can certainly keep feeding input to try and find a great middle ground for all involved.