Budgets

[Obadiah]

Here's an idea I haven't heard raised- In M2, the screen at end of each turn showing how much money you had, had spent, and would have next year was completely screwy. I recall when it first came out, people did tests to try to see if they could figure how it was working. If I remember right (always a dubious proposition), the general conclusion was, "its f*&^%, just ignore it". So each next turn was a bit of a surprise.

Now, I see one of the screen shots

[URL="http://pc.ign.com/dor/objects/958390/empire-total-war/images/empire-total-war-20090224035237604.html?page=mediaFull"]

again seems to be telling you how you're doing on staying cash flow positive. What's the expectation it'll be remotely accurate? Personally, I'd love to be able to rely on it, b'c I'm kinda nerdy that way..

[MStumm]

What? I find the screen quite accurate. It does say projected profits. I think its ok if trade and harvest fluctuate a little bit. I hope you do look at it at the turn's end?

[A Very Super Market]

Elaborate on why it is screwy?

[Megas Methuselah]

:inquisitive: It always worked fine for me. I enjoyed it more than the old RTW one, where it showed your large, capital cities developing a negative income, due to a reason I do not want to explain.

[Obadiah]

Maybe I wasn't clear- I like a rampaging military victory as much as the next guy, but I tend to balance that with working the details of getting the most bang for my gold coin. My experience of M2 is that in the very big picture, the gold in my account and how I was doing would correlate. But if you ever tried to really manage your economy by what the year-end "revenues and expenses" screen said, you'd be left scratching your head. As I noted in my original post, I recall a thread where some people ran tests, trying to figure out how it worked.

The E:TW screen shot I referred to in my original post, looks simple, logicial, and accurate. I hope it is! My question is simply does anyone really care about how (whether?) it calculates accurately in ETW?

My sense, based on the lack of feeback to this thread, is "no".

[Megas Methuselah]

Well, I wasn't left scratching my head. I was left with a clear understanding of my Income Statement.

[quadalpha]

Maybe I wasn't clear- I like a rampaging military victory as much as the next guy, but I tend to balance that with working the details of getting the most bang for my gold coin. My experience of M2 is that in the very big picture, the gold in my account and how I was doing would correlate. But if you ever tried to really manage your economy by what the year-end "revenues and expenses" screen said, you'd be left scratching your head. As I noted in my original post, I recall a thread where some people ran tests, trying to figure out how it worked.

The E:TW screen shot I referred to in my original post, looks simple, logicial, and accurate. I hope it is! My question is simply does anyone really care about how (whether?) it calculates accurately in ETW?

My sense, based on the lack of feeback to this thread, is "no".
Okay, hold on. What exactly was wrong with it? Does it show the wrong numbers? Can you give examples?

[A Very Super Market]

I felt that the RTW finance system was fine, and I doubt its that much different from M2.

[Sir Beane]

Medieval 2's budget reports are completely fine and entirely accurate if you know how to use it. 'Projected Treasury Total' is always correct.

[IlDuce]

What interests me about the budget is that it was recently revealed that National Debt could be researched. Makes me think we can run a defecit economy, which would be cool as I'm going to need a lot of money to wipe France off the map. Or it might be simplified and just give you a percentage increase in income or something.