Treasury - how bad is it to be rich?

Hello,

I've read a couple of strategy articles before undertaking my first campaign with Rome:TW (patch 1.2), notably frogbeastegg's . Being a newbie I'm playing on easy and so far it's going quite well, but I'm earning tons of money. Normally this wouldn't be problem but having read that it's imperative to keep your treasury below 50,000 I was wondering how bad it is not to?

Currently I'm giving away 5,000-10,000 denari every turn/every other turn while building units and expanding my cities and it's a bit tedious, so how bad is it to be filthy rich?

Will all my governors turn into raving lunatics or what exactly?

You wont get to heaven! ~:cool:

When you have a large treasury your govenors tend to get traits which are negative with either Manegment or bringing in money. It isn't terrible no, with such a large income, you really don't need govenors with super good manegment, and you will oft have enough gained from retinues (from say an acadamy or some such building) that it will offset those negative traits.

In my experience it depends on which faction you're playing. When playing Carthage, Egypt and Eastern factions, my family members tend to get bad, money related vices much more often than when playing Barbarian, Hellenistic and roman factions. I have, for instance, never had any greater problems with wildly extravagant barbarians, greeks or seleucids, while my Parthian and Carthaginian family members seems to aquire these at an alarming rate.

Actually, being rich is good, because you can afford the best and most high quality troops, which means you don't have to care about how good your generals are.

Being rich is only a problem if you rely upon governors to run and keep control of your cities. At 50K, 100K and 150K there are checks for about 6 or so bad vices. So if you have 150k+ then every governor is getting 3 chances to pick up one or more of those bad vices. Usually doesn't take long before the governors get bad enough that having them in the city isn't an improvement over not having them in the city. Sometimes they can actually be worse.

So if you don't generally rely upon governors, then the amount of money you have is irrelevant. Besides, if you have the amount of money needed to start getting the bad vices checks, then you can generally afford to move your governors out and simply use garrisons to keep the peace in all but the newly conquered territories.

Well, since i rely on governors in my greek campaign (i own alot of large provinces, which are far from my capital, and i own some places in Northern France on the other side of the map), that means i should be screwed, because at one point i had 7.5 million in the bank. But hey, the empire didn't fall apart. It's still in one piece.

Exactly, which is why I didn't say someone would be screwed for using governors if over 150k, only that they usually aren't any better off using them than they would be not using them. ~:)

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Originally Posted by Tue

Normally this wouldn't be problem but having read that it's imperative to keep your treasury below 50,000 I was wondering how bad it is not to?

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Oh no, pay no heed to the penalties. Just keep building and improving your economy. If you amend your Governors with good retinues, the penalties can be easily offset! Do not keep your treasury below 50,000! Who cares about the penalties if you are making 150,000 denari net (note, not gross, but after deduction of the costs)!

Just pay attention the really bad governors (the ones that actually can't offset the penalties). Use those bad governors as generals and use all available family members (except the heir) as governors.

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Currently I'm giving away 5,000-10,000 denari every turn/every other turn while building units and expanding my cities and it's a bit tedious, so how bad is it to be filthy rich?

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Yeah, just like MTW, CA made it so easy to build the economy. The buildings are way cheap as well, and quick to build (just like MTW).

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Will all my governors turn into raving lunatics or what exactly?

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Of course not! ~;)

Welcome to the ORG btw! ~:)

edit: Tue Do say hello at the Hail New Members (introduction) thread. So the others can greet you. ~:)

Thank you all. It seems I was a bit too worried about their traits plummeting given that academies and scriptorums (havn't reached the last level yet) are very good at boosting the governor's retinues and traits. So from now on I'll just keep the money in my treasury until I need it. ~:)

@Quietus:
I'll be sure to stop by and say hello.
Why shouldn't I use the heir as a governor?

Well, the issue about corrupting your governors is one thing. As others have pointed out, it won't break your empire, just make it a bit less efficient.

But the really bad thing about being rich is that you're wasting your money. It does nothing for you sitting in the bank - you ain't earning interest on it! Whereas if you spent it on more troops, they could be getting out there conquering more territory faster and earning you more income. And if you spend it on improving your cities, your cities will generate more population and more income for you as well.

Financially and militarily, you'll do better in the long run by spending your money than by saving it up for 'when you need it'; as long as you make sure your troops are earning their keep and not sitting around idle. Besides, what are you going to do 'when you need it' that you can't do now?

This thread discusses similar issues - might be of interest.

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Originally Posted by Aesculapius

Well, the issue about corrupting your governors is one thing. As others have pointed out, it won't break your empire, just make it a bit less efficient.

But the really bad thing about being rich is that you're wasting your money. It does nothing for you sitting in the bank - you ain't earning interest on it! Whereas if you spent it on more troops, they could be getting out there conquering more territory faster and earning you more income. And if you spend it on improving your cities, your cities will generate more population and more income for you as well.

Financially and militarily, you'll do better in the long run by spending your money than by saving it up for 'when you need it'; as long as you make sure your troops are earning their keep and not sitting around idle. Besides, what are you going to do 'when you need it' that you can't do now?

This thread discusses similar issues - might be of interest.

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Thank you for the link.

As for spending money I'm not that keen on ultra rapid expansion - just a personal preference - so I tend to build slowly but steadily. Currently I have 3 armies in the field which is enough to wage on two fronts with 3 more in strategic reserve/rebel hunting. All my cities are building continuously, I'm bribing diplomats to join me and faction armies to disband while building up a rather large navy. Could I spend more? Absolutely. But it doesn't suit me to have massive armies all over the place. I like to keep my armies smaller than my opposition to increase my chances of getting those nice crossed swords. ~:)

When do I need it? I don't know which is sort of the point. I like knowing that I have enough money to bribe just about everything if I have to.

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But the really bad thing about being rich is that you're wasting your money.

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Not entirely true. In fact, in most cases i'd say entirely untrue. If your faction is in control of a large amount of provinces, then there is no reason why you shouldn't be filthy rich. Even with a steady recruitment process in place and all towns expanding you should still be raking in the profits. It is actually quite difficult to spend , unless of course your the mass producer, you know the type, the ones who just build armies and fling them at any and all opponents(not saying theres anything wrong with this), with the "screw the casualties, just smother the bastards with numbers" attitude.
Of course, bribery becomes quite the bottomless pit.
All in all though, a little strategy will go a long way. With all your provinces building and recruiting, there is no reason why you should not be rolling in the green.

Constant building production is all you need. This does not even use up 1/10 of your cash later on.

Constant military production is a sign of inexperience. You need very little military production. 90+% of my units built are peasants thus garrison.

Money is best used to be gifted to AI factions through hefty regular tributes.

This nicely beefs up their factions and is automatic, thus less microing. Makes you fight more interesting opponents later on. Quite nice.

You can of course bribe a lot.

For me, the sad part is Mikeus is right. You don't need to have good traits, just money to buy the best troops possible. In STW once you got Monks, you were done with infantry so now it is up to your tactics, but those fellas were target practice for archers and fairly easy for HC. Here...once you get your super infantry, unless the AI can match you (which I have NEVER seen) uber-unit to uber-unit, you can just say charge and the AI is hosed.

Wow...I did not realize it was a rant....

Azi

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Originally Posted by katank

Constant military production is a sign of inexperience.

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Really?

Why?

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Constant military production is a sign of inexperience.

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Originally Posted by Aesculapius

Really?

Why?

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I wouldn't even bother with that one mate. It seems a rather ridiculous statement, a viscious little jibe even.
If you have the money, then spend it.
Each to their own. If building massive armies and conquering by sheer weight of numbers is your thing, then thats a sound, fun way to control the known world.
If micro management, designated armies for particular tasks, a strict retraining schedule and peasant garrisons is your thing, then hey, go for it. Both are fun and very effective ways of winning the game.
To say that you are inexperienced because you like to send numerous armies to all the corners of the world and keep a constant supply of fresh troops available is just plain ....hmm.....silly.

Gifting: Lowering your treasury and increasing the AI treasury to give them crappy traits. Me like!

Just my opinion or may gameplay style. I never bothered with traits. Right now I'm playing RTR 5.41 and as long as I have governors in town/city I'll be happy. The extra general I have is the one leading an army , even a newbie with no star. That makes my game/battle more difficult I guess (I'm playing Emperor/Emperor).

Never been in debt (except the few first turns) but never totally rich either.

~:cheers:

Here are the triggers for the reference.
And few or these traits are also good, or mixed blessing like Aesthetic or Epicurean.

Code:

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Trigger corruption1
    WhenToTest CharacterTurnEnd

    Condition EndedInSettlement
          and Treasury > 50000

    Affects Corrupt  1  Chance  3
    Affects Aesthetic  1  Chance  3
    Affects ExpensiveTastes  1  Chance  3
    Affects Epicurean  1  Chance  3
    Affects BadAdministrator  1  Chance  3

;------------------------------------------
Trigger corruption2
    WhenToTest CharacterTurnEnd

    Condition EndedInSettlement
          and Treasury > 100000

    Affects Corrupt  1  Chance  3
    Affects Aesthetic  1  Chance  3
    Affects ExpensiveTastes  1  Chance  3
    Affects Epicurean  1  Chance  3
    Affects Embezzler  1  Chance  3

;------------------------------------------
Trigger corruption4
    WhenToTest CharacterTurnEnd

    Condition EndedInSettlement
          and Treasury > 150000

    Affects Corrupt  1  Chance  3
    Affects Aesthetic  1  Chance  3
    Affects ExpensiveTastes  1  Chance  3
    Affects Epicurean  1  Chance  3
    Affects Embezzler  1  Chance  3

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If you start piling so much money that you can't spend it, the good thing to do is to start brining.

While bribing is very expensive post 1.2 patch, you can't really do anything else with the money can you?

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Originally Posted by katank

Money is best used to be gifted to AI factions through hefty regular tributes.
You can of course bribe a lot.

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Yup, this is how I have fun with my treasury. Right now I am funding all of the wars between the remiaining factions on the map against each other (on last that this would be the bretons vs. germania, juli vs. spanish, bruti vs. thrace+dacia, egypt vs. parthia, selucids+scythia vs. pontus+armenia.)

Also any time where I see one side badly loosing a battle, i pitch in by bribing away a good deal of the opposing side's army (ai has a bad tendency to march armies and generals seperatly, and i don't like bribing generals).

To further spice things up go bribe or buy random cities and then give them to the sentate. Watching those dogs having to march their duffs out of the comforts of Rome all the way into scythia or some other god forsaken place to defend a dinky rebellious colony is a reward in itself.

Good idea gneeheeheee...
~:cheers: