Methods to get the best Economy possible

I dont know if this thread was started before, but what do you guys use to start up your economy. I know the goal is to get free trade agreements with whoever you can. Do you guys intially tend to build up your towns and ports or do you instead put all money into your millitary to capture more territories. Do you slant your early tech build up to help the economy or do you focus on the millitary/science. When I played as Prussia, I put too much into my millitary because I wanted to get into some intense ground battles, but later in the game I had a hard time playing catch up and upgrading my territories to support more troops and the game fell flat after I was 3/4ths of the way towards completing the long campaign. Now that I am playing as Great Britain, I am building up my economy first by upgrading all available town/captial/ports that contribute towards the economy. Also, when you get a new town, are you more likley to slant towards science, economy, religious buildings when you get the initial choice? I find I almost always go for the economic building ( I think its some type of smith workshop).

One key in the beginning is to keep taxes as low as possible to encourage economic growth that later in the game you can tax when you need the funds. Basically anything that creates wealth is good to have and this includes lowering taxes. Making a bigger pie means you get a bigger piece later. I essentially focus on the economic buildings as you suggested, which is also a good reason to have lower taxes as you run into a lot of clamor for revolution because of the industrialization affects.

Other than that overseas trade is essentially the best way to get ridiculous sums of money. Seeing as trade is so important I think good relations with GB are essential or they will just sit on your trade routes raiding your money before you get your hands on it. I am not sure how see ports work in your capital but I think that it is a waste to build anything other than a trade port in your capital as those ports determine how many sea trade agreements you can have.

Seeing as you are playing as GB you can probably just use your navy to take over the majority of the trade spots overseas and once you have them in your possession you will not lose them meaning as long as you keep your trade routes open you will bank.

I'm using the low hanging fruit strategy on research. I start with techs that will research future techs faster then research other cheap techs that have what I think has the best current benefit to me.

I do the same thing for economy/military. I either pick off easily conquered provinces/neighbors or focus on my economy first. I'm using a payback model when looking for town improvements.

Build as many univiersities as possible, and research as much industrial tech as possible. It makes your farms, ports and plantations much more profitable. :2thumbsup:

Take India and South America if you can. They have gem and gold mines which can make you a pretty penny without much effort.

Lots of Indiamen on the trade spots in the trade theatres & no enemies blocking/raiding.

I actually turned most of my schools into churches or weaversmills then since the populace was so happy and catholic I taxed the heck out of them. Got to 1757, and still have 70% approval with really high taxes.


Also as others say colonies are a good way to make good money. Try not to piss to many people off early tho. I did, and that combined with territory expansion means it's pretty difficult to get or keep any trade agreements.

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Originally Posted by Polemists

Also as others say colonies are a good way to make good money. Try not to piss to many people off early tho. I did, and that combined with territory expansion means it's pretty difficult to get or keep any trade agreements.

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i was curious bout this, how does 1 make colonies? how do they function do u like construct them on the spare bits of land in america that are wilderness? or am i misinterpreting colonies?


as to answer the question, playing marthras trade is my biggest thing, although truth be told taxes make up 50% and trade the other 50% trade was the be all and end all at the start of my game, i got trade rites with all the major factions, now i have about 7-8 trading partners all giving over about 3k a turn :) russia is giving me the most at about 9k per turn :D dont wanna go to war with them :p

Cheers Knoddy

Colonies are not really any different your main provinces. Let me give you a example.


As Austria I was given Lower Louisana in return for the French getting Wutemburg in Europe.


Once I got lower Louisana it was just like any other city. Regional capital builds buildings, ports trade resources.

There are 4 major differences tho

1. All colony growth is from people unhappy in your main country. The idea being they get on the ships being fed up and move to your new colony. This makes your colony have a higher unhappiness then your normal cities, but also limits your revolts and uprisings as the unhappy people now have a place to go. So the more unhappy your people are in Europe the faster your colonies grow.

2. You get a govenor. A govenor is like any other minister, he is given a set of stats and traits and will act to keep your colony is order. You can only get two. One for the Americas. One for India. No matter how much land you take, it is still one colony. So even when I had Lower Louisana, Florida and Georgia, while they were all invidual provinces, they all had one Govenor.

3. Trade. Colonies have specific resources called plantations. Plantations do not generate wealth but rather generate commodities. These commoidities may be Cotton, Tabacoo, or Fur. As they upgrade they create more. So you may see a lvl 1 Planation does 15 bushels of cotton a turn, etc. As the market changes the price of the commidity changes and that depends on how much your colony earns for you. You need trade ports to sell your commdities.

4. The units you can build in colonies are generally different then the units you can build back home slightly. The exact unit list for each faction I don't know.

All I can think of.

ok so in my marthras camp. when spain traded me milan and mexico i automatically got colonies in europe and america? these can take some of the unhappy pop from my indian provinces to europe and america? or does it not work that way. ima assume it does since i already knew i had a european and american governor :)

Do people migrate to your colonies if you have no port?
As for economy, trade is your friend. As the Dutch, with only my original provinces and two full stacks, I am still making 5-10k a turn due to good trade tech, agreements and infrastructure.

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Originally Posted by knoddy

ok so in my marthras camp. when spain traded me milan and mexico i automatically got colonies in europe and america? these can take some of the unhappy pop from my indian provinces to europe and america? or does it not work that way. ima assume it does since i already knew i had a european and american governor :)

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If the populace resettlement not only works from but also to Europe (which it should, could someone playing the Indians check that?) you could arrange for the weird situation of the USA conquering Britain and having unhappy citizens moving there :dizzy2:

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Originally Posted by Darth Venom

If the populace resettlement not only works from but also to Europe (which it should, could someone playing the Indians check that?) you could arrange for the weird situation of the USA conquering Britain and having unhappy citizens moving there :dizzy2:

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if theres a way to check let me know ill see