Economic Help

[Zalmoxis]

I need help with my factions economy. I play as Brutii in medium campaign, and have some problems. At first, I was gaining a lot of money from my cities and towns, so much that soon I had 104,000 in my treasury. But something went wrong, exactly after I both destroyed the Greek Cities. I've foguht off the Egyptians, slowly taking Macedonia, but right now, I've gone from that 104k to only 53k, and money is going rapidly. I don't know what to do, I've built things to help economic growth, but nothing. Can anyone help?

[dismal]

Hard to say from the detail you've provided.

I find sometimes when I enter a big expansion phase I spend a lot building new armies and the upkeep gets out of hand. Particularly if you've got big garrisons sitting in cities that aren't producing much yet. If you're destroying and rebuilding buildings that soaks up money fast as well.

If the problem is that your army upkeep has grown faster than your income, the best thing to do is stop ordering new troops, draw down your garrisons, make new attacking armies, and take new territory. Preferably rich territory.

Rhodes is typically a big moneymaker. When in doubt, take Rhodes.

[Zalmoxis]

I already have Rhodes, but only makes 800-1000 for me. I also have the island Kyadonia. On east I have Sardis, Halicarnassus and Pergamum. I'm working on taking Thessalonica from those Macedonians now. But I think you might be right about garrisons, I have all cities in east filled to max with soldiers, mostly as a defense.

[drone]

For each town, check the "city details" screen for your financials. This should tell you what is costing you so much money. Check for corruption, troop upkeep, and lack of trade. Larger cities pay more for total troop upkeep than smaller ones, but it shouldn't be too bad across the board (troop upkeep is global, has nothing to do with the recruit location or garrison). Also check your trade routes on the strategic map. If you aren't seeing many things traveling on your roads, you may have rebels or enemy troops blocking your trade.

For garrisons, replace front line troops with peasants and town watch. Use peasants in towns unlikely to be attacked, they are the best bargain for garrisons (low upkeep, lots of men). Use town watch a little closer to the front lines. You can only get +80% order for garrisons, any more is overkill (unless you are worried about attack). Check your garrison bonus in the city details screen, and disband/move troops to eliminate the "waste". If you disband a unit inside a city, the troops join the population of the city (good way to boost pop in small towns). Just remember to check every so often, as larger population needs more garrison. Leave a few real troops around so you can put down rebels or react to an attack, but one stack can cover several towns depending on the geography.

[drone]

Also, money is "spent" when you add troops or buildings to the build queues. If you have several cities working through long build lists, the money for those items is not available, even though they are not currently being worked on. When money is tight, only put one thing on the queue. It's a pain to manage, but you have more options turn by turn.

[Zalmoxis]

Thanks for the advice, I knew that money is spent when troops or buildings are added to queues, and I check each town's stats at least once per two turns, I keep large armies in cities, for this paranoid fear of attack I got from those Greeks, so I keep large armies in just about every town. I'll have to start moving troops to front lines and train peasants soon. Thanks for that.

[Shabbaman]

I already have Rhodes, but only makes 800-1000 for me.

Rhodes also has the Colossus great wonder, which increases your naval trade with (iirc) 40%.
It's difficult to assess what your problem is, but maybe you could focus more on building economical buildings (duh), especially ports.