How do you thrive financially?

[l3asu]

I have a problem that arises in my campaign when I have worked my way to about 200th turn for example in my recent Egypt campaign when I will run up against a number of adversaries and even though I can beat them down with so many factions besieging me I become poor and get into debt that I can't get out and forcing me to stop the campaign.

Since I rely so much on the income of my front line cities and cities i sack to provide money for my big army.

I was thinking that If I could make my capital cities and home base settlements economic powerhouses that'll provide money for my army.

any suggestions on managing my economy so i don't have to stop my campaign?

I play on VH/VH

[joe4iz]

One word. Merchants.

There are a couple of Ivory and slave spots at the castle down at the bottom of the map. By the way, I changed that castle to a city in the beginning. Make sure to start your all of your merchants from a town with a merchants guild.

Also you should be Jihadding like crazy. As Eygpt, you can Jihad on turn one and I keep doing so the whole game.

Take out the Byzantine Castle on the island west of Acre. Put watch towers up to keep track of ship movements in the eastern Mediterranian.

I kept Acre, Adana,Mosul and the castle next to Cairo a castle (can't remember the name).

Any castle that you don't need to produce units ,change into a city for production. In those cities build only the necessary items for pacification of the populace,making money and build nothing else except at one or two cities that should create most of your units. Those towns should specialize.

You should try to capture as much as you can as the Mongols arrive at around turn 80 and they can cause you major problems. Take out the Turks. Those good for nothing infidels are worst than the infidels....er sorry, got carried away. But I never could make peace with them. They tended to attack me first.

Others may have better advise but this is what worked for me.

[hoetje]

hmmm.... Quite weird problem you have,I never have money problems late game because my cities are so well-developped...Maybe you should focus a bit on trade and farms and stuff instead of building military buildings?

[Per Ole]

dude.... Seriusly... how can people *not* be rich in late game?! Don't have hundreds of armies, two highly developed is enough. And for gods sake build farms and markets, and get merchants guild where you don't need anything else! (Cities, except maybe capital where you can have assasins guild)

[Captain Pugwash]

Build cities and only the odd castle/fortress for you creame troops. Suggest regions with little resources ie Acre, gaza for this as it will not impact a great deal on income
Bulid roads ports markets and docks. start with the cash rich places like cairo and whatever is south. Head to Antioch quickly and secure.
Pump merchants out from wherever you get your merchants guild. Building the above structures will get it quicker. So start with cairo or wherever you fancy.
Place them in areas likely to attract maximum profits. Constanople, Timbuktoo, anywhere with gems and gold. Timbuktoo is a finacial cash pot and has about seven resources in the area. potential income there can be 7000 per turn

my problems with cash is having too much and going corrupt. cannot even give it away

[Ramses II CP]

Most people who run out of money do so because they aren't converting castles to cities, or because they're maintaining very large standing armies in unecessary areas. You really only need one or two castles per war front, everything else can become a city. In particular provinces on the ocean, even resource poor ones like Acre, make a lot more money as cities with the port line of buildings put up. Before you convert a castle to a city sell off the military buildings that won't convert.

As far as armies, if you're on turn 200 you've gotten past the Mongols and Timurids, so you shouldn't need anything more than your free garrison units in your backfield, and 2-3 standing field armies on the war fronts.

:egypt:

[mor dan]

I have a problem that arises in my campaign when I have worked my way to about 200th turn for example in my recent Egypt campaign when I will run up against a number of adversaries and even though I can beat them down with so many factions besieging me I become poor and get into debt that I can't get out and forcing me to stop the campaign.

Since I rely so much on the income of my front line cities and cities i sack to provide money for my big army.

I was thinking that If I could make my capital cities and home base settlements economic powerhouses that'll provide money for my army.

any suggestions on managing my economy so i don't have to stop my campaign?

I play on VH/VH



i can run into the same problem sometimes because i get carried away with army building. make sure you are taking advantage of free militia units in your cities. go through your army and make sure you aren't paying a bunch of half sized armies that could combine into one army. make sure your forces are the size they NEED to be for defending and attack and not just supreme a-- kicking power houses all over the place for no real reason. smart recruiting is just as essential to victory as smart use of the units at your disposal in battle.

lastly, make sure you aren't putting yourself into a position to have to battle on too many fronts. this can make your army swell to an unreasonable size for your income to keep up with. this means utilizing your ships in a way you don't need one off every coast to protect your seaside states. bottleneck your enemy into having to follow one or two paths to attack your kingdom. don't let yourself be open to attack from every possible angle.

[l3asu]

Ok I play LTC now the latest version where buildings are expensive and take longer to produce.

Which making quick takeover of different factions and rebel areas near by due to putting so much money into buildings.

How do I deal with this?

[IrishArmenian]

Simple path to financial success:
Send out your diplomat/princess to gain trade rights
First turn, develop roads.
Second turn, develop land clearance.
If not pressured, develop the first level market. Recruit merchants
Whenever an upgrade becomes available, and you are not pressured to build something else (like military structures), upgrade your roads and farms.
Try to control as many ports as possible, they will rack in money!
Especially early in the game, sacking towns isn't neccessary, if the loot is not to high just occupy it and you can financially hit the ground running. That works a lot, and your reputation will go up much higher with other factions, making them more likely to agree to trade rights and alliances. Also, build the town hall buildings to get public health and order bonii so that you may tax the public a little more. I only raise taxes without governors because I like to keep them high in chivalry.
Sea Trade buildings are good, but only in the long run.
As Egypt, go Jihad-mad! No upkeep with a sizeable army will really boost your economy. I believe some old American said it best "Money saved is money earned".
If you do find yourself with a lot of money, mines are good. You may scoff at a fl 3000 mine for a mere fl. 150 output but that is putting money in the bank!

[andrewt]

Ok I play LTC now the latest version where buildings are expensive and take longer to produce.

Which making quick takeover of different factions and rebel areas near by due to putting so much money into buildings.

How do I deal with this?

The problem is that many buildings in the game are really not worth it. For example, take the trader line of buildings. With linear growth, you get diminishing returns for each upgrade you build. Trading post is worth it, but everything beyond that is of questionable value. If you build the 9600 florin level, can you make that money back before the game is over?

[uruk-hai]

i know a great way to make money all you need to look out for is the mongols and timurids.take over all holy lands.with the holy lands under your power you will most likely never run out of money even agian unless you build many many many armys.i have seen the holys lands make a lot of money even more if you have alot of trade rights .

[GFX707]

Merchants, in my experience at least (which is almost none because they seem like a waste of time to me) don't seem to justify their cost.

On spices, slaves and ivory, my average merchants make about 200 per turn....I think my total merchant income is 2000 per turn with all that micromanagement, whereas plain old trade gets me 60000 per turn from just building up ports and bazaars etc.

Can someone let me in on the tricks?

[BadGenome]

Merchants, in my experience at least (which is almost none because they seem like a waste of time to me) don't seem to justify their cost.

On spices, slaves and ivory, my average merchants make about 200 per turn....I think my total merchant income is 2000 per turn with all that micromanagement, whereas plain old trade gets me 60000 per turn from just building up ports and bazaars etc.

Can someone let me in on the tricks?

It probably depends on which faction you're playing. I personally play Venice a lot and find that I can make a killing off of merchants, as northern Italy is pretty much a merchant free-for-all. If you manage to monopolize the textiles there long enough to get the monopolist line of traits and also go aggressively after the early low level AI merchants (who often have zero financial ability, due to being trained in settlements without town halls), you can usually have three or four nearly maxed-out merchants by turn 20ish. Then these moguls can acquire pretty much any two-bit trader that stumbles into their range, thus making you piles of money. But yeah, it is a bit micromanagement intensive.

[icek]

if you play england you can concentrate on building income giving buildings in cities and army in castles, especially after you conquer much of britania.

[Seabourch]

There is path that will give you unlimited money. Simply use cheat codes. I expect to get blasted after posting for using the dark side

[Patricius]

A good merchant on spices will get 600+. The problem with some factions in the Middle East is that a lot of castles and troops are needed to hold back the Mongols. I concentrate development on one or two areas. A navy is rather important to keep trade open. I try to reduce one area entirely to my power, so garrisons there are barely needed. Development, clear trade routes and expansion is a key. Concentrate on maintaining cost efficient armies. e.g. Varangian guards cost only around 150 per turn and fight well. It is helpful that unlike MTW trade is internal as well as external, as in my current Byz game every other faction (except Portugal) is at war with me despite a high (for me) reputation of deceitful. The Moors went to war after I gave them two useless provinces.