Growing Income

[Lacker]

New to the page, old to the game.

I have beat the game all the way through twice as the British (hey I saw that, I LIKE the Brits) once on easy and once on Expert, and once on hard as the Italians.

I'm now playing it on Expert as the Brittish again and I've come across an interesting situation. My income is EXPLODING. I have lots of provinces (all along the far West coast, the isles, spain, and all the Egyptian provinces) and my income is topping 11,000 flourins a year, which has NEVER happened before.

I guess my question is, I recently started paying attention to Accumen and which general I give the province to. I tend to never give a province to a general with less than 4 accumen, and save the exceptional ones for the richer provinces (Castile Constantinople etc). My income seems to have nearly trippled in this game and I can't spend my money fast enough. I'm building everything I can think of and still making mad cash....
can Accumen alone do that?

Thanks for the help
A

[Doug-Thompson]

Absolutely, especially since high-acumen governors are likely to get things like good steward virtues.

[Mysterium]

Hey, there you are again Another welcome Glad you finally joined in

The rule of thumb for acumen, I believe, is 10% for every feather. 1000 florins from a province becomes 1500 with a 5 acumen governor.

So, I guess in answer to your question, no, acumen alone won't triple your income. But it'll sure get a whole lot more florins comin' in for you.

[ShadesWolf]

Acumen is a very interesting concept.

I also only give titles of provinces to govs with 4+ acumen.

Also something that you might not have noticed.... Some of the other titles also give an acumen increase, ie Archbishop of westminster, so by giving that title to a General as well as the province title gives him a double bonus. His acumen can jump from his initial 4 to 6. Hence a lot of money.....

Add to this the trading buildings, shipping etc and the province really makes loads of money....

[Voigtkampf]

Ah, reinforcements Welcome to the Org, Lacker

Acumen does it, but the trade rules ultimately. We had some bigger discussions about that some month or two ago, do a quick search and you'll find many things. Actually, I didn't believe how high the income can be if based on trade – I played way too much with HRE only – but then I tried the Spanish and had some 30.000 to 40.000 income per year, all thanks to trading and keeping a low profile But when the total war phase begins and as you conquer more and more of the map, less trade income you will get. Save that money for rainy days

[Ragss]

Wow I really loved to hear all this I have been playing all these other RTS's over the years where its rush or be killed...I always hated doing it but it was the fact of the game. So in MTW i rushed ASAP and was doing pretty good except im at war with the hungs and italians and my eastern front stretches from the danes to the boot, very hard to keep. But now i hear that i can build up a great economy with small landmass and a fair army?? This is awesome Before, whenever i used to get low in cash id just invade a few provinces. I guess ill have to start a new game and just lay low for a few decades to try this out....


Also, i never payed attention to any general rating excpet command and dread...so what, exactly, is acumen and how do i get it better? I noticed that 95% of the provincial titles only give +1 loyalty...

[PseRamesses]

This is why I farm govenors and NEVER go below 5 accumen. Ok, dread is good for rebellious provinces and piety for crusading provinces but NEVER under 5 accumen anyway. That´s why I always use peasants for govenors and in order to get high accumen govenors about 70-80% of them get disbanded.

[gaijinalways]

I have almost never seen 5 acumen governors (though I have had a few 7 plus ones). I too have played a few games where trade was not a factor. As the Italians now, I have built up a bank to 100K after 200 years(which now is depleted more or less) on trade but I have never hit the numbers some people have managed so it's a combination of which faction you started with and which good trading provinces you can grab early without causing a major partner to go to war with you (at war= no trade).

Now in the current Italian campaign I have almost no trade as the last faction declared war on me (I think only the Pope is hanging back, but he did just excommunicate me) so I am trying to build up my farming and run my mercs around to raise plunder and use them up ( nice thing about dead soldiers, there upkeep is dirt cheap, zero) and at the same time damage my enemies' economy if I can't or don't want to hang on to some of the turf I've overrun. It is usual and all this in a general achievements game.

I am wondering though, what do players do if you start in late or high period where you have less time to wait?

[R'as al Ghul]

Try to play the muslims and get hold of the holy land.
In one of my current campaigns (xpert/turk/early) it's about
1215 and I have fortresses(?) in Edessa, Syria, Tripoli, Antiochia, Egypt etc. My Navy controls the Med and my cash is around 250.000 Florins with about 15K to 20K plus coming in every single turn. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/biggrin.gif
I stopped here though, because it was boring. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/handball.gif
If I'm gonna continue this I'm gonna bribe the whole Horde and send them to conquer the rest.... http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/bigthumb.gif
Cheers

[maestro]

In all of my campaigns, all on expert, one of the first things I do is build boats - as SOON as possible. Get a few provinces churning them out and then build ports and the highest level traders/merchants you can afford on all of your coastal regions with tradable goods. Before you know it you'll have trade links with the whole board and your income will soar. I usually have between 2 and 5 boats in ALL seas by the time the 1205 marker comes along.

Concentrating on getting your boats out early helps as you can keep a low profile and be at war with only one or two factions. This way you can milk the whole board of tens of thousands of florins per turn and build up a huge bank account of up to half a million before you finally make war with the rest of the folk.

The economy is always what I give most attention to throughout the game. After all; money = power. Anywhere that has no tradable goods which is on the coast is a good place to build boats, and concentrate on building armies and spies n stuff in your inland provinces.

As for acumen: In anywhere that has high farming or tradable goods, I never use anyone with less than 4 acumen. In the inland provinces, building up troops, you can concentrate on using other factors like dread and piety for their own benefits.

A strong economy is an absolute must to any successful campaign.

Al'

[fruitfly]

Playing as a faction like the Turks, Egyptians or Byzantines, you can generate stupidly high amounts of money from trade. By conquering from Egypt up to Constantinople you only need to maintain three border armies (one in Egypt, one in Georgia and one in Constantinople) and have four of the richest trade provinces in the game, all of which can get you over 5000 florins a year with good governors and trade links. You'd be amazed how quickly the cash accumulates when your income's around 40-50,000 per year.

In my last Turkish game (early, expert) I had 1.5 million florins by the time the Horde showed up. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/eek.gif

It helped a lot that the Catholics were all too busy killing each other to crusade against me, so I was at peace with the rest of the world (rebels included).

As far as I know, controlling the south-eastern provinces like that is the most economically viable way of generating a massive income, but playing as the Sicilians (it helps to start relatively small to keep the AI off your back) and taking Antioch, Tripoli, Egypt, Constantinople, Venice, Sweden and Flanders will give you an absolutely MASSIVE income. You'll have more borders to defend that way though.

[Lacker]

Quote[/b] (Ragss @ Feb. 12 2004,02:16)]But now i hear that i can build up a great economy with small landmass and a fair army?? This is awesome Before, whenever i used to get low in cash id just invade a few provinces. I guess ill have to start a new game and just lay low for a few decades to try this out....
Also, i never payed attention to any general rating excpet command and dread...so what, exactly, is acumen and how do i get it better? I noticed that 95% of the provincial titles only give +1 loyalty...
As far as I understand it, Accumen is their ability to handle money and economic affairs. I too farm my generals whenever I conquor a new province, this may take time as your armies build but if you read my original post it seems to be well worth the effort. It also makes sense to plan ahead. Any general with over 4 accumen should be saved for the really wealthy provinces you plan to attack later on to make the most of their talents.

Another tactic I learned recently is simple pillage and burn. Most people here have probably heard tons about it but I figured it out about a week ago that if you can send an army into an ungaurded province (usually by attacking a nearby province with the bulk of your forces to pull the enemy that way) and take control of it, you get cash from pillageing, you can destroy the buildings there (selling them for pittance compared to what you made initially)and sometimes if you pull out bandits will take control of it making it difficult for the enemy to get it back. The other option is to send your army on a suicide trek through the heart of the enemy, attacking anything they can, selling it off and moving on. you probably wont get your army back but sometimes, economically, thats a good thing.

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

The kicker is once they do, there's nothing left to build off of. I did this to the Almohaads in spain on nearly all the provinces except Castile and Cordoba. Carefull not lay waste to provinces you need to defend later.

A