Suggestions to increase gold

Drizzid · 03-30-2008, 10:55 AM

Hey guys, I have everything I need to colonize but I seem to be struggling to make enough gold. I have about 4300 in gold right now. Anyone have any suggestions on how I can make more gold and still continue to advance my city? Marble is my main resource but due to the shortage TG has had in the east I have been trading it to other TGers and other people in order to get other resources I have needed. I have tried to pillage abandoned towns near me to gain gold and resources but I haven't gotten much out of doing that and I don't want to attack active towns as it seems most people around me are minding their own business and I don't want to start any trouble right now. Any thoughts or suggestions? thanks for the help

Trooper · 03-30-2008, 11:00 AM

how big is your army? That is a big gold taker right there. And get a crystal colony if you can, those make some nice cash.

Drizzid · 03-30-2008, 11:12 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Trooper

how big is your army? That is a big gold taker right there. And get a crystal colony if you can, those make some nice cash.

1 Phalanx
1 Swordsman
7 Slingers

No navy yet

**AirTransRanger** · 03-30-2008, 11:53 AM

I made close to 10k yesterday just selling crystal. Expand your market and start trading. There's some serious dough to be made there!

**Tarenth** · 03-30-2008, 12:12 PM

If you want peaceful cash then play the 'trade game'. Trade your marble for something in high demand like wine, sulfur, or crystal then put it on the market with a relatively large trading post. My trading posts are all level 3 because the leveling to 5 is 'pending'.

Watch for what people are buying at and if you don't like it then put your goods up for sale at a price you're comfortable with. I've bought sulfur for 2g each and sold it for 50g to make a nice tidy profit.

If your neighbors are minding their own business and you have a good reputation with them (if you pull your weight with wood donations they're more likely to leave you alone because doing so means you'll keep donating). Then your focus should not be on a land army, but a naval one. You can't be pillaged if there are warships in your harbor on defense because the cargo/troop ships can't land to for the units to disembark.

Otherwise my suggestion is to go for rapid growth with museums and high level taverns because the larger your city is the more 'excess citizens' you'll have left over to tax.

Drizzid · 03-30-2008, 01:07 PM

Thanks for the great advice. I will give that a whirl!!

Nero · 03-30-2008, 01:46 PM

Positive gearing.

Max out your population on wood and marble collection, then sell the wood and marble. This may mean that your gold income goes below 0. But as long as you sell at wood >5gold and marble >9gold you will make more gold than if the citizens were just sitting around at 4gold/hour (2 citizens/marble = 8gold/hour).

Realistically, when I'm really desperate for gold I'll sell at these low prices but if not desperate I sell at comparative market values ie wood at 8-12gold and resource at 15-25gold (depending at what prices other people are selling at).

This method is called 'positive gearing' in the financial field and usually relates to people taking out low-interest loans to put in investments with higher returns. This is how you can do it in Ikariam. It sounds irrational, but it works, I've built 3 colonies in 6 days using this method.

AND pillage, pillage, pillage!

**Sir-Nerd** · 03-30-2008, 02:29 PM

You could just pull all of your people back into the city and fire all the researchers overnight to have a tidy profit, but it halts all of your production.

**draeh** · 03-30-2008, 02:39 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Nero

This method is called 'positive gearing' in the financial field ...

AND pillage, pillage, pillage!

Also know well throughout the financial field!

Nero · 03-30-2008, 03:25 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sir-Nerd

You could just pull all of your people back into the city and fire all the researchers overnight to have a tidy profit, but it halts all of your production.

The Wall Street Journal says this is the safe route, it will get you guaranteed but slow returns.

But, if you want faster gold use the positive gearing method I mentioned in the above post

You want to max out production and sell the produce at a higher return, higher risk higher returns.

**Kulmar** · 03-30-2008, 04:35 PM

Uhm... just keep upgrading your town hall, make sure it doesn't get capped at any population. With your marble lux it should be easy. Also, get a tavern so you can get a high growth rate.

I have 3k income, with 401k gold from doing this in 3 different colonies.

**KillDaddy** · 03-30-2008, 05:34 PM

wait level 5 trading posts are useless?

then why am I trying to upgrade?!

**Shiner** · 03-30-2008, 05:40 PM

I definitely follow the max growth method.. More citizens allows you to still have plenty free earning cash while still maxing the mines and driving profits via trading.

**Tarenth** · 03-30-2008, 05:55 PM

A larger trading post increases the range that YOU can purchase resources and the amount of resources you can reallocate from your warehouse to your trading post for sale on the open market. It does not affect the distance other people can search out your sales because that's dependent on how big their trading posts are (1 extra island every 2nd upgrade).

Positive gearing (I'm edjumakating myself with business terms!) will net you an income HOWEVER it will be the lowest possible income of the trading market. That's because you are selling goods in a market already saturated with that good (selling marble on a marble island not too good). Prices will fluctuate and at times you'll get into a competitive down pricing with your neighbors because you'll all try to sell the same goods. That's why I suggest trading it abroad for something you aren't producing. If you're trading your marble for something like sulfur or wine then you open up your potential customers to everyone on your island AND the neighboring islands (remember level 1 post is only 1 island away of possible purchases, 3 is 2, and 5 is 3), you'll have less competition, and you can demand higher prices.

Of course if you start selling sulfur to a sulfur dry area you'll run into the arms dealer conundrum. Hopefully they won't think of using that sulfur to build up a military to attack you. ^_^

Drizzid · 03-30-2008, 08:31 PM

A question about trading? do I have to physically ship off any resources that I sell through my trading post? or is it automatically taken out of my reserves when payment is recieved. Thanks