SAVING MONEY

[Juan Madsen]

I have seen in many posts people making reference to the money they have in the "bank" at a certain stage of one of their games. Also some advises like: "develop an income of at least 2.000 florins per year and when you have savings of 80.000 fl. start building up your armies and go for the Turks (or whomever)".

I do not follow this style of game. I tried to develop my economy as much as possible and as soon as I am making 800 florins per year or more I inmediately increase the strength of my regular army, or modernize a division. Therefore I maintain my army in the best possible condition and ready for war at all times. This however slow down the development of the provinces and I have been recently considering, in those strange periods of peace, to reduce the size of my forces, something like licensing the weakest and older units.

How do you guys do it?
Do some of you maintain low number forces and make as much money as possible and then build up extensibily in time of war?
Do some of you on the contrary maintain large forces "in full alert" at all times?.

Please comment.

http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/smokin.gif

[troymclure]

hmmm, well generally i'd say i just maintain "border" forces. About a full stack in each border province, I might also have a couple of "spare" stacks ready for when war starts to either reinforce or do some "offensive defense". And yes i'm one of those people that end up getting large amounts of money in the bank... though i do spend alot on province upgrades.

[Knight_Yellow]

just build farms in all ur intial provinces from the start and once uve got them kill off 1 faction then concentrate on upgrading ur troops and then kill off another etc. etc.

[Panther]

Well i like having lotys of money in the bank when war comes because usually they have a navy and will sink your ships and blocde you and if they are christian the others will launch crusades which means there is no trade so money will drop ALOT which means if u have big bank account you will be ok untill you crush the enemy and destry crusades and have peace again.

Summary: same as above have border frces to stop attacks and keep buiding up army but do away with obselete units so you dont waste money oon wothless units and use spies to increase loyalty http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/smokin.gif

[Shahed]

http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/flirt.gif to buy my girl diamonds & pearls http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/flirt.gif

[Juan Madsen]

I was pretty happy with my own system, which basically seems to be quite similar with what you are saying here. However, never tried to save money for the bad times and it is true that when I am at war I always have problems with money and I normally finance my wars with ramsons, plundering in enemy provinces and conquest. The method have worked more or less right so far but it is unstable and obligues me to act in search of money instead of being able to play some sort of "well planned strategy".

[andrewt]

In most of my games, I'm able to build buildings non-stop especially after a few turns have passed. I usually build farms first so that helps explain why. I generally only garrison provinces with peasants since they are the cheapest cost and support wise. I reinforce my border provinces with enough troops to hold off attacks. Using factions with choke points like Spanish or Egyptians, the money flows easily.

I usually have a few extra troops in a border province or two but generally only make lots of troops when I'm ready to attack. Either that or I have teched enough to the units I like to play with. After that, I usually have around a stack ready. Once I get stuff like arbalesters, gallowglasses and such, I use them to garrison some provinces. Usually, I keep many obsolete units as border defense and use the newer ones for attacking. High valor obsolete units can be as good as new ones. You can usually combine them into fewer stacks once they get depleted but should disband them when they get too few.

[Sainika]

Agree with Panther.
Solid bank account lets you to quickly raise big armies when you need it. It is vital when you leave your domestic provinces without big garrisons. AI uses naval invasions and it can be real pain in ass when e.g. 8 000 of almos attack your defenceless provinces and quickly expand on continent. So you can raise full stacks in one or two turns and stop almos (or whoever) before they crash your empire.

[A.Saturnus]

besides from that what is said here... it just feels good to be a filthy rich bastard http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/cool.gif

[kataphraktoi]

As a byzantine player I save this money to bribe and buy off enemy units that are good. That is a believe the true byzantine nature of diplomacy and war, why waste men why florins will suffice, you can always replace florins but men(good experienced men with valor) should be saved unless necessary.

Plus all that money is nice for a war of attrition or in a civil war.

[wordsmith]

"what is the purpose of saving money" - Life will not be easy for you http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/rolleyes.gif
-jk
on a serious note, the purpose of saving money *primarily* is because the loss of trade income can really slam your yearly income and put you in negative numbers FAST. This is expecially true when you go to war with some one who has a large navy and/or has many coastal provinces. You will be getting blockage from the navy and wont be getting trade income from the costal provinces of this new enemy.

In extream cases this has caused me to go from 5k yearly surplus to a negitive 10k yearly loss. Luckly i had hundreds of thousands of dollers in the bank so i could still spend freely to build up my navy and army.

now HOW you do it is realitivly simple. first of all you dont just go conquering any thing you can get your blood stained hands on. Expecially stay away from conqouring all the costal provinces early on, you want to keep the trade income. the egyptians for example can easily take constenople, khazar and expand across africa. This leaves them with only 3 boarders to defend. so 5 army stacks would be plenty to defend that empire. Use elite units as well, they cost more initially but often times are equal to or cheaper then inferior units in upkeep costs. A very good long term investment for any empires portfolio. A balance of gold stocks and saving bonds will insure you against stock market crashes and the argiculture buisness is always looking for wealthy investors. A couple hostile take overs and your portfolio will allow you to live comfertably in retirement.
http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/wacko.gif

[Syterion]

Money is always useful. Whenever I end up with a large surplus of money from trade, I always start to use it. Once I was the Turkish, and I had Constantinople, Tripoli and Antioch, and I had a surplus of 400,000 florins, So decided to defeat the Novgorods by bribing 3/4 of all their armies in one turn. Once I decimated them with all their own units, I destroyed all the buildings in the provinces I didn't need(Sometimes for buffers) and made them rebel. Then I built up the coastal one for more ships and trade, which means more money. Altogether I spent 320,000 florins or so, but it let me make much, much, more.