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

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."

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 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"....

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...

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

Best regards,
Steven. 

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.

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 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.