I dont know what the problem is honestly, I have no problem getting enough gold. My capitol alone produces 100 gildar per turn. Perhaps it is because I am kingdom and not empire but I really don't think there is much of an argument here.

Classic. 

Personally I don't think the economy is broken, just go find the resources you need on the map and multiply the hell out of them. I wouldn't mind some more (well actually a lot more) economic complexity and depth, but I guess their design vision is to try to keep it simple and not a micro-management nightmare, which I can appreciate, although the current implementation hasn't got it quite right yet.

One thing for sure, the game does NOT need more gildar sources.  I can easily rake in 100+ per turn by turn 200 in most games, though large armies will of course suck off a third or more of that.  One key to getting easy gildar is to constantly attack those nuisance critters that crop up all over.  I build squads of fast cavalry with maces or warhammers to go out there and clobber them.  A movement rate of 4 is sufficient to get them where they need to go in a hurry.  I build one for every two major cities, depending upon distances.

Gunnergoz: That was the OPs point though - there are only two sensible ways of making gold currently, either gold mines buffed up with the stacking multipliers, or killing monsters as you advise.

Having only two viable ways of making such an important resource as gildar is pretty poor so I think you can make a very good case for the game needing more gildar sources. At the same time the current sources, particularly monsters, should be toned down.

I like the idea of making monsters drop items for champions more and gold less.

revjwh ahile there are problems with the game, this is not one. Play better.

To get gold.

Gold mine. There is an adventure tech that will guarantee you another one.

Kill enemies.

Adventure tech for quests and locations is the way to get big bucks quick.

Buy equipment for your heroes and heroins, get rid of the stuff real quick.

The problem isn't that it is too hard to get gold.  The problem is the economy is completely unbalanced.  Way more gold can be gained from killing monsters and finding quest locations than from the economy of several cities.  For example, spiders shouldn't drop more loot than a gold mine can produce over many turns.

In the mid and late game there is a big excess of resources.  Costs of higher end items and units could be increased or the availability of resources should be decreased to balance that out. 

At a minimum reducing monster loot and location rewards would help give more strategic options instead of always having to take the same single path to victory.

Same here, obviously the OP doesn't know how to MINE stuff or plant new cities by gold resources. He just wants to be yet another troll who whines to Stardock about the game. My dad always used to say "If you can't say anything GOOD about the GAME, then don't say anything at all". My dad was a smart man.

Rossanderson = pathetic troll who always comments about others as trolls while never adding anything constructive.  What a tard.

To the many others who got the point (some clearly didn't and just stated the obvious about farming monsters) thanks for a discussion and thoughtful posts.

Dude. Chill. Not that I'm defending Ross because unlike you, I've not gone to many of his recent posts and replied simply to call him a Troll so i don't know if he is in fact trolling.. however.. your behavior your last few posts seems awfully Trollish of you. 

Pssst... Isn't this "Rossanderson = pathetic troll who always comments about others as trolls while never adding anything constructive." EXACTLY what you've been doing your last few posts?? Geesh, really?

Pot, meet Kettle. 

How the hell do people make "more gildar than they can spend"?  My economy is usually humming along well, but I have no problems whatsoever spending every piece of gildar I have, regardless of how much. 4000 gildar in the bank?  I'll blow it on outfitting my champs with magic items & equipment, or training squads of units.  Gildar in the bank is useless unless the game is paying you interest.

The problem is, that you can ignore gold mines and just make money with monster hunting and have enough. Thats quite one sided, especially if you want to have a game where your Sov is not build for hunting at all.

A Trader makes 0.2 gildar a turn. Thats 5 turns for 1 gildar and about 40 turns before you can start building a peasent. For non hunting Sov's thats just boring.

Economy needs balancing IMHO.

Someone said 1 gildar per city level, and i think thats a quite good idea.

Before entering this thread, I was sure your complaint would be that money is TOO EASY to come by....

Not too hard.

I don't mind with Monster Economy, really. But, Evil Faction Economy as well? It just happen to my game where I get hundreds of gildar by destroying enemy (other Faction) party.

You just get an amount of money commensurate to what the game perceives the enemy level to be, regardless who is controlling them.

OP you are doing something wrong. Build your market places. Find gold minds. Making gold in this game is not hard unless Ridiculous mode penalizes you in the gold making department. I've only played on normal mode

Currently money doesn't come from the cities... you find some money from monsters, but you find the most money from level3 or higher notable locations(chests).  Also being at war brings a good chunk of money not only from the kills, but just ask an AI opponent about going to war with somebody they know and there's a couple hundred gold. 

Currently the key to winning is spamming cities yet I believe the devs are working to fix this micromanagement painpoint.

I had the same problem the first couple of times I played this game until I figured out how much money can be gotten from the wandering monsters. It's my 5th or 6th game and I have about 4 groups that are dedicated monster killers only. Each of these has a couple of champions with both magic ability & outfitted with longbows. They also each have, 2 to 4 4-man archer groups and 2 to 3 4-man mace groups.

I have no problem raking in 2000 gold each and every turn, guranteed. In fact, I have so much gold that I can afford to buy crystal from a neighbor AI in trade even at the ridiculously over-inflated price of 3000 gold for 100 crystal which is what that scaliwag charges me. In this game, you need a lot of gold becuause the item shop stuff is so damn expensive 100 gold for great helm, 196 for ceder longbow, 300 for talisman of life. I easily spend 2000 outfitting one single champion with enough stuff to get his/her defense stats in the 30/40 range and longbow attack stat in the 10/20 range.

So, the way to make money is improve your military to at least 4 man squads which requires research. Have at least one or two good champions with good stuff (need to research equipment & magic enough to get to the good items), then create monster-killer groups that do nothing but fight wandering monsers for income. I might add, this has the added bonus of constantly increasing your champions abilities to the point that they're damn near unstoppable. I don't risk my champions as melee units, because they tend to die that way, but as super crossbowmen you can typically take out those ranged monsters that do magic damage at range (like the demon elemental, can't remember its name right offhand, and the earth shrieking spider that rains boulders). I got to the point where I can kill these in 1 or 2 rounds with archers. In fact, I typically kill most of my opponents with archers wihout even having to waste spells (mana regerneration is too damn slow in this game). It takes longer & makes for tedious battles that are the same every single turn, but it gets the job done of getting me plenty of income. In fact, I'd go so far as to say I don't even need gold mines anymore .. I could just create 6 monster killer groups and rake in 3000 gold every turn.

I don't see this as an element of the game that needs to be fixed, since the item shop stuff is so over priced the money you get from monsters is spent there & equalizes. I don't know what you mean by "farming for income", that's a new one on me.

You're forced to keep some dedicated monster-harvesters in this game if you want to outfit your champions, buy more expensive troops, and pay over-inflated prices to neighboring kingdoms in trade .. nothing wrong with this, it's just a little different in this game from other games in the strategy genre. If every game worked the same way, they'd all suck.

You are doing somethign wrong.. I have 14k just sitting there in gold in my current game..

Do half of you posting even take the time to read and comprehend what you read?  I never said MAKING GOLD WAS TOO HARD in a general sense in the game - i.e. monster farming, notable locations.

THE POINT: monsters provide 20+ turns of income at the drop of a hat.  That, imo, is beyond stupid compared to an entire kingdom's economy.  Oh, you have 8 level 3 cities?  Well, I just killed a spider so pffft.  That is what is ludicrous.

Yeesh, at least understand before you post especially if you critique.

The point: would be nice for those who want to play as a strategy/wargame to have 1) a monster frequency option at the very least b/c even with quests/notable locations turned off the frequency is insane in terms of gold production and 2) city improvements (or the option to change what improvements do with an option bar?) that make economics based on your city/expanding far more than killing a Great Dread Evil Spider that drops 800 gildar.

Get it?

I play primarily Empire so don't know if this is vastly different compared to Kingdom - but it wasn't about hard/easy gildar it was about balance and WHERE the gildar come from.

Sigh.  (Slaps forehead) ....

Yeah serious reading comprehension fail by many of the people who posted on this page.

It isn't about whether you can make money, it is about how unbalanced the ways of making money are.

Killing Monsters >>>>> Gold Mines >>>>> Everything else

revjwh, I understand the concept you are trying to get across and agree completely. They say it's a strategy game with RPG elements but it's more like D&D with Civ 2 elements tacked over it.

In some ways the game economy models the "post apocalyptic world" a little too well: in an environment with little or no fertile land you can't effectively develop the food surpluses needed to sustain the specialized division of labor you find amongst city-dwellers. The game throws in the monster loot as a sort of labor-intensive (on the part of the player) subsidy for you civilization.

What we should have is technology research --> better food production --> bigger cities --> city populations pay more taxes (gildar).

Gold mining would be a parallel source of income, with quest loot towards the bottom. I would drastically reduce the monster spawning and eliminate the gold rewarded from everything but believable opponents like bandits. Bandits probably have money. Spiders shouldn't.

But that is exactly what you were saying..

"I have 4 cities, all level 3.  I am making... wait for it.... 2.6 gildar a turn.  Between a few soldiers to hold off the hordes (Epic pace, all AIs on Ridiculous, Large Map, Max # of opponents)...

WOW I get to build one thing every 50 turns or so.... how FUN."

You stated, 4 cities lvl 3, making 2.6 gildar a turn, you can build one thing every 50 turns, how FUN.
Duh.

As for your sub-replies, many of us have better things to do than to read every reply and every refinement of your original point. Edit the topic instead before you act like an ass to people who read the topic and tried to help. Expand near a gold mine or your 4 cities wouldnt make 2.6 gildar a turn. Which is the only thing you talked about.
>_>

The problem with this is you'd have to alter the whole item store price scheme & trade item price perception. If you're going to reduce the gold gotten from monsters then the prices at the store need to be changed as well: 300 gold for amulet of life, 195 for ceder crossbow, 100 for great helm, 2700 for kwarazami (whatever the hell it's called) magic  sword. These are all way over-priced.

I disagree with the initial precept that the economic system needs to be "fixed". It works as-is. Sure, in the big picture, 100 acres of crop or gold mine are going to produce a whole lot more income than some ivory tusks, but also the items in the shop would not be so expensive in relation. Frankly, I don't really see a need to rationalize a fantasy type game' economic system; you can rationalize that the skin of troll or giant spider venom is "worth its weight in gold" hence justifying the large loot/booty gotten from "monster harvesting".

In my opinion, scaling the game to get more income from mines (especially when it's hit and miss as to if and when you can find them) would more than likely unhinge the AI tremendously, even more than it is now. Imagine the AI that can't find a gold mine .. iow, it'll just create unecessary additional problems just for the sake of seeming "realistic" which frankly is not worth overhauling the economic system for that reason. Ultimately, it only matters that it "works", and the economic system does in fact work. This is not what needs to be fixed in this game.

My experience has been this: all that additonal cash I get from "monster harvesting" just gets spent outfitting champions. You can spend 2000 gold easily outfitting one single guy with all the armor, amulets, medical pack, longbow, etc .. also the other AI kingdoms ovecharge for their goods, I've not been able to buy 100 crystal for less than 3000 from neighboring AI, again justifying the need for lots of extra cash from "monster harvesting". The only thing I don't like about it is that it gets tedious turn-after-turn fighting the same type battles over-and-over.