Whats your financial master plan??

I gotta admit I find myself broke all the time. I'm thinking I need to look at my finances in this game in a completely different way, and asking for help. I hear of people having 50k+ florins in their bank and I don't remember the last time I've ever managed to keep a surplus greater then 10k for a few turns.

Some question...

1.) What is your building strategy?? Are you constantly building things in every settlement, just to keep progressing? focus only on a few?? Does it bother you when settlements stay idle for long periods of time?

2.) Can you do ok financially by "turtling"?? Or is it pretty much a given that you have to continually conquer new territory.

3.) How big are your garrisons?? Obviously its a tradeoff since more = stability = higher tax rates, but less = low tax rates but also less upkeep. Where is the sweet spot??

4.) I heard somewhere merchants have no upkeep. Is this true only of merchants, or all diplomacy units?? (assassins, spies, etc). I think an assassins upkeep was something like 200, 100 for a priest. This seems an absolutely insanely high cost to me, almost an entire stack. Anyone else think so, and not build these?? Or are they definitely worth the cost??

5.) Are small towns "better" for making $$ then large towns?? I seem to remember this was the case in RTW, in MTW2 I can see two sides of the coin.

Anything other advice one can add???

Keeping money coming in was my first problem in MTW2 as well. My first two campaigns were a nightmare on this matter.

I've learned my lessons, I'm not Rotschild, but now I manage.

I limit castle numbers (usually one for every "country" - that is one for the British Islands, one for France, one for Italy and so on)

I always favor economic buildings and check (by mouse hovering in the settlement detail scroll) profit when building is completed - and pick the juiciest one.

I try to upgrade cities immediately when possible (otherwise squalor goes up and so the need for law/fun buildings that don't get you cash - sometimes even spend)

I keep low garrisons wherever possible and disband expensive mercenaries after use

After the patch, merchants work correctly and get me a nice amount every turn

If possible, I target and take rich enemy cities (Cairo, Alexandria, Venice, Firenze, Constantinople, Aarhus are good examples)

Usually I keep a solid 20 K florins in reserve that help in times of need

Turtling works, providing you don't have to pay more in maintenance than you currently make. It also only takes you so far. Early in the game, when the major buildings cost 2400 florins each, it's easy to get by with only 2-3 provinces. When you need to shell out 9600 florins on that huge stone wall or 15,000 florins for that Royal Barracks, you need the income of a lot of places to amass that money quickly. More territory of course means more military needed to defend it, which leads to increased maintenance costs, leading to more income needed, so it's a cycle. I recommend concentrating on economic development once your defense needs are done. Many buildings increase your trade and therefore income. Build those as time and money allow.

There's no one specific cure for it, but if you build a basic trade infrastructure in every province you'll do ok. Make sure all coastal provinces have ports. Make sure all provinces have roads.

1) Can't STAND Idle settlements. Screw troops, I want stonemasons :) I usually make farm, farm+1, basic roads, basic church, basic market as a base. After that, it depends on which guilds I want there, and what the city/castle role is regarding overall strategy. This town makes siege engines and only that, this one builds ships etc...

2) Yes and no. You can definitely turtle up, but you have to make sacrifices. No heavycav, not even the free one you get from missions. Speaking of missions, forget those that give free troops, most of the time the upkeep sinks my finely tuned economy. Build farms ASAP, squalor is managable, and the earlier you make those, the earlier they pay for themselves. Then mines. Then wharfs. Then markets.
If you really, really need money, rely on the AI to attack you, destroy his attacking stack, take a few of his towns, sack them, sell them back. The problem is that if the same faction attacks you again, you can't do it again without serious diplomatic consequences (BIG rep drop for taking back something you gave them)

3) For castles, 2 peasants + 2 archers. For cities, all the free upkeep spots taken + 2 units. Usually a total of 20% Merchant Cav / 40% melee militia / 40% missile militia. I take archer militia over Xbow because archers can set rams and towers on fire.

4) Only merchants have no upkeep, all the other agents have some (from the top of my head : priest 100, spy 100, diplo 150, assassin 200, princess 250. Not accurate at all, I have a bad memory for numbers, but these are reliable ballpark figures.).

Merchants are certainly worth their cost, if you don't waste them in nonsensical competition fights and have -n% to agent creation leaders. A couple of provinces are real cashcows for merchants - the Levant and Timbuktu for the Catholics, England, Denmark and Russia for the Muslims. One poster had merchants in Timbuktu netting him 3k per turn.

Priests... Well, they can become pope, which is a good thing on many levels, and help up your religion to >90 faster so that you won't get annoying Pagan Magician ancilliaries anymore. They also squash heresy (bad because it spawns inquisitors who'll kill your generals) and witches (bad because they give horrid traits). I usually have as many of them as I can.

Spies are definitely needed everywhere, if only to catch the AI spies who'll make your cities' happiness plunge big time. There are also uber siege weapons early on, when city/castle walls don't have so many towers yet.

Assassins are give or take really. You can certainly play without them. A high level assassin is really efficient though, to kill high stars generals and pesky inquisitors/merchants/imams/priests/diplomats/princesses, as well as for sabotaging ballista/canon towers before an assault. Are they worth their upkeep ? Probably not in most cases. But they're fun :yes:

5) Definitely not. Bigger towns means bigger roads/wharfs/markets, hence bigger trade IF you're at peace with your neighbours, or it's a coastal city. Bigger taxes also, of course. Unrest, squalor and distance to capital have been lowered a lot, and free upkeep + more happy buildings also mean it takes much less cash-per-turn to keep a city busy and orderly at all times than in RTW, and also you can keep taxes high in most well planned situations.

6) In the early turns, always make two-turn negociations : first sell trade rights for 1000, then alliance for 1500. This helps you build farms+1 everywhere early on, and then it's just a matter of keeping your military spendings in check.

The master plan, as it were:

- Most important economic principle in the game: Border cities lose money, internal cities make money. You want a good economy, you need internal cities. I usually have about 3-4 militia units in a non-border city, and a decent garrison (at least 10 units) in a border city. Add up the maintenance of a full army and it's probably 5000-6000 easy. Look for opportunities to shrink your border. Taking another city without adding to the size of your border (i.e., adding an internal city) is worth 2000-3000 per turn.

- A bigger empire means a lower ratio of border cities to total cities = more money. Unless you expand willy nilly, empires of a certain size with a well-defined border begin chunking off lots of cash. In my last Spain game, when I hit 50 provinces, I was netting about 60,000 per turn. It only takes 8-9 armies to control 50 provinces.

- Focus on economic upgrades in cities. Roads first, then markets, then ports. Sea trade is where most of the money is. Mines are fine investments too, and slip them in when you can afford them. Build order buildings when you have gaps in the queue. These allow higher taxes, and eventually you'll need them to keep order. Churches count as order buildings. The bang for the buck tends to be higher on the lower cost projects, so build two 1600 cost ports instead of one 3200 cost port if cash is tight. After a while, this process becomes self-sustaining as you have enough cash to keep all your building queues active all the time. Though those 9600 florin projects sometimes require a good sacking.

- I use farms in cities that need a kick start to population growth only. The amount of money they make is relatively small, and you're setting yourself up for squalor in the long run = low taxes on lots of trade (caveat: I assume farms still do this in M2TW)

- Keep your ratio of castles to cities low. One castle for every 5 or 6 cities seems to be about right.

- Don't make troops you don't intend to use productively.

Great advice so far!!

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Originally Posted by dismal

- I use farms in cities that need a kick start to population growth only. The amount of money they make is relatively small, and you're setting yourself up for squalor in the long run = low taxes on lots of trade (caveat: I assume farms still do this in M2TW)

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One question .. do farms intrinsically cause squalor (through simply existing) or extrinsically, by increasing the population growth?? I've never thought of them as being a detriment and usually build them everywhere.

Thnkxs !

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Originally Posted by dismal

- I use farms in cities that need a kick start to population growth only. The amount of money they make is relatively small, and you're setting yourself up for squalor in the long run = low taxes on lots of trade (caveat: I assume farms still do this in M2TW)

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Nope. Well, yes and no.

Higher population still means higher squalor through pop growth (not intrinsically, to answer OP's question) BUT said squalor is half that of RTW, and it is capped at 80% so it will always be manageable by a garrison (a well managed city will never ever revolt out of pop alone), and there are more ways to counter it, and capitoldistance as well. Walls and town_halls quell it. Temples quell it. Inns and cultural buildings quell it bigtime, but give bad traits to governors so you have to wonder wether you have good governors available (then get order through garrison, do not get bad traits, and let +order/+trade/+tax/-construction traits offset garrison upkeep) or you don't, and then it's probably more cost-efficient to build inns+culture and keep govs away.

All of this means that this time around, farms are pure good, because even a superhuge city with 0.5% permanent growth is manageable, while still giving out more taxes by the turn. There is a point beside which pop doesn't matter anymore, orderwise.

So, basic farms buy themselves in crop cash alone in 10 turns, farms +1 in 20, farms+2 in 40 and so on, and of course these numbers do not take the pop growth (=tax baby :beam: ) into account. You can't lose out on farms. They're low yielding investments, but if you build them early, nothing beats them cashwise.

Ok.. another thing.

I know that there is a direct relation between population and income.

Also, there is a relation to settlement improvements and income.

However... assuming identical population, and identical improvements, with no governer, ie absolutely everything being the same, do some settlements just plain "make more money" then others??

How would one go about finding this base cash$$$ production??

Awesome points so far -- but to add to Kobal's point: Farms = super good for your economy. My first campaign, I was hesitant to build them, still worried about the squalor/pop issues from RTW. But in my second I spammed farms early in the game and it made a 100% difference in my economy, much earlier in the game. Personally, I think land clearance & communal farming are better economic investments than ANY of the merchant buildings. (You should still build lots of those too, but AFTER you've got the farms.)

Other things that can help:

- Sacking is a good quick cash infusion, but generally a bad investment in the long run. Occupy unless you absolutely can't afford it! (Castles are somewhat of an exception, and you should ALWAYS sack Citadels!)

- Plan a long term campaign strategy EARLY in the game! What settlements do you plan to hold to get your 45 settlements? Occupy them. If there are enemy or rebel settlements near your boders that ARE NOT in your master plan, then you can use these as revenue generators, by sacking/re-sacking several times! I know alot of players do this with Crusade targets in the holy lands.

- If you can't tax a settlement at the very high tax rate without a revolt, a public order investment is usually better than another economic one.

- If your are maxed out on Free Militia in a town and have Public Order problems, it is a much better investment to build for public order than have extra garrison. Generally, having extra units for public order purposes will cost you more than it's worth, so it should be a last resort. Garrison troops in cities only when they are in cities that might be attacked.

- Don't be afraid to disband units in a bad location if they aren't needed. Marching a half stack across the map for 8 turns can cost you a lot, you are often much better off just building units where you need them. (The exception is with super experienced & well-armored units... ) Pay attention to the ratio between upkeep and cost - if a spear unit costs 310 to create and 125 upkeep, don't march them 4 turns to another town when you could just create them there 4 turns later. You'd save 290 fl this way, so you can see how this adds up if you'd otherwise be marching a half stack somewhere that's an 8 turn trip.

- Specialize your cities, and concentrate on making your coastal towns economic powerhouses. Inland towns are better for troop producers, spie/assasin producers and priest factories.

Russian Winter -- just saw your latest post. Have you looked at the trade summary window that's off of the settlement details screen? Some cities just have better resources and can do trading for much more money -- Antioch and Constantinople for example. Other factors are farming and mining income.

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Originally Posted by RussianWinter

However... assuming identical population, and identical improvements, with no governer, ie absolutely everything being the same, do some settlements just plain "make more money" then others??

How would one go about finding this base cash$$$ production??

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Well yes, but it's because absolutely everything is never the same. Settlements have regional factors that affect them economically. The two I can recall off the top of my head are:

1. Base farming level
2. Presence and composition of resources

The farming level varies settlement to settlement, and it's directly tied to income, so there you go. Also I think it affects the farming upgrades (i.e. upgrading a settlement with higher base farming level gets you a bigger boost from the upgrade).

As for resources, they're tied to trade. You can trade by land and by sea, and the value and quantity of resources in a given city's province affects how much and how valuable that trading is. I also think your relations with potential trade-nations affect things, as war can end or hurt trade (I think) and trade rights increase your trade income with that country.

As the Turks, I'm also having trouble keeping my economy under control. I'm posting profits of 30,000-60,000 each turn. There seems to be far fewer corruption traits than in RTW, so maybe it's not such a problem, but I still like to keep my treasury around 70-100k, and right now it explodes to 300k+ in just a few turns. I'm jut building every single building I can in every city I have to keep my treasury down. The strategy that led to such large profits:

1. In my first campaign as Sicily, I also had a hard time keeping my profits up. I was too used to RTW where money was like water once you took a few territories, so I built big armies right at the start. With the Turks, I had heard it was a difficult campaign and that I'd be counting every florin, so at the beginning I took all the horse archers I started with and made three armies: one for the Byzantines, one for the southern rebel cities and Egypt, and one for the Russian steppes. I trained just a few more horse archers to round them out, and then sent them out. Christian nations don't get decent horse archers, so you'll just have to make do with beating your enemy through strategy, not numbers.

2. I converted everything to cities. I don't have a single castle in my entire realm. This is probably the biggest part of my success. I was about 40 turns in when I realized that city walls and racing tracks could train Sipahis, my main unit, and Janissary Heavy Infantry, Archers, and eventually Musketeers all came from cities as well. Those three are really the only infantry I'm interested in, as I conquer with full horse archer armies, so it was easy to pass up on Ottoman Infantry and the weak castle-trained Turkish spear units. I have to admit that I'm missing out on two powerful units this way, Naffatun and Qapakulu, but the former is a luxury that depends on the situation to succeed and the latter would be nice to guard my horse archers but isn't necessary. I'm using horse archers to expand my empire and Janissaries to defend my rear from the Mongols. Obviously this is more difficult for Christians, who need castles for their heavy knights, but maybe you have a few castles you don't really need anymore.

3. Merchants can be a very nice supplement. Timbuktu/Arguin have lots of ivory and gold, as well as Dongola south of Cairo. With mid-level merchants on all of those resources alone, you can bring in 5-6k. This has tipped my Sicilian campaign into the profits section several times.

Basically, I try to make sure that my trade/taxes equals my army upkeep, and farming/merchant trade goes toward profits. I like to keep about 3-6k profits per turn, before construction.

it depend it you are a land power or a sea power. controlling sea trade is very profitable too.

farm doesn't always work well, they generate very little money, add to population growth which can cause your population to balloon in late game without anyway of destroying them. for growth, try to get a general with high chivalry! it is the better than any building and you can move him to the next town!

market, road and port are the main money makers. growth can be generated by trade too.

lastly, in late game, the main problem is corruption. keep your capital in the center of the richest region can cut corruption by a large percentage. always keep track of where you are earning the money and expand around it as your center.

Another thing: try to keep the taxes as high as possible. If the population "face" goes to yellow they're content which is good enough for me (around +85). I'm always a harsh ruler :P It could cost you public order buildings to make, but you'll pay it with those high taxes you get.

If, at some point, you're getting lots of income, I'd put the taxes down to normal or high (depending on public order) so that they're happy, preventing you from getting discontent citizens. This would probably also give your faction leader certain traits, but I didn't really go deep into that.

Sack, sack, sack.

Build all the money-making buildings.

When a settlement's population gets to around 5000 or more, I'd stop building better farms, even if there's a poor harvest. You're not there to serve them: they are there to serve you. (Ain't I harsh?) :P
The more food, the more population growth, the more squalor in the end, and possibly the plague (which can be good 'cause it takes down the population, and you can use spies to infect other settlements).

If a settlement riots at some point, or just becomes difficult to control move out your garrison, put taxes to Very High, and watch the poor schmucks revolt. Then, when they've become rebels, besiege them and retake the joint, EXTERMINATING the place. You'll get less tax money, but it'll take care of order, and by this time you should be having enough income already from other places.

Make trade agreements with everybody you can. Personally I wouldn't establish them with soon-to-be enemies or bordering factions. If you do, it means: not just more money for you, but also for them.

Making money is all about location. The best money making area in RTW was Greece and Anatolia, and then sea trade between the two. The concept: acquire wealthy provinces near one another. Sea trade income decreases as teh distance between provinces increases. The killer: adjacent provinces can't sea trade.

So you have to choose your areas wisely. For instance, in my Sicily campaign I took both Italian Islands and Florence. They are so close there is lots of money, even if the former has few trade goods. Then take Tunis, and voila.

The best trade area seems to be the Dutch/Belgian coast, England, and parts of the Danish territory. You create the English Channel trade, which is the best, and trade between East England and the Danish provinces. The Baltic is also an attractive option, since the distances are very close and Sweden is a trade god. Marseilles is excellent due to its central location.

Unlike MTW, the Egypt-Jerusalem-Antioch strategy isn't very lucrative, since the distances are farther and especially without Cyprus. Also, Spain used to be great, but since it's round and every province borders one another it isn't so good any longer. The Adriatic isn't as lucrative since you have that strangely shaped province of Dalmatia taking up the whole eastern Adriatic.

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Originally Posted by Kobal2fr

Higher population still means higher squalor through pop growth (not intrinsically, to answer OP's question) BUT said squalor is half that of RTW, and it is capped at 80% so it will always be manageable by a garrison ...

All of this means that this time around, farms are pure good, because even a superhuge city with 0.5% permanent growth is manageable, while still giving out more taxes by the turn. There is a point beside which pop doesn't matter anymore, orderwise.

So, basic farms buy themselves in crop cash alone in 10 turns, farms +1 in 20, farms+2 in 40 and so on, and of course these numbers do not take the pop growth (=tax baby :beam: ) into account. You can't lose out on farms. They're low yielding investments, but if you build them early, nothing beats them cashwise.

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Total agreement here. Farms will always repay the investment (unless you lose the province) and their revenue is far less variable than trade income.

Somebody should mention that farm improvements are also available for castles, so it's an improvement you can make anywhere.

Definitely a big farm fan here. Level 1&2 farms are a must for any settlement.

Turtling isn't a good economic strat. You lose out on huge one-time cash infusions from sacking as well as tons of income from controlling more territory. Sure, trade rights is good but all your cities automatically trade with each other and you don't have to worry about it being canceled.

Also, every army you aren't using to attack is burning up cash in upkeep. To create a viable deterrence, you need a sizeable force. If you have a sizeable force, you might as well attack.

Most of the points mentionned are good. However, merchants "wasted in competition fights"? That can't be further from the truth. Attacking merchants usually have a bit of advantage. A successful acquisition usually brings in at least 1k which is more than enough to pay for the merchant himself. Train your merchants up by parking on resources and then send them out in wolf packs to take down rival merchants. They can help keep your economy rolling when you are out of cash.

Another thing is that Merchant's Wharf is a very special building. It can jump income by 400-500 or more. This means it pays for itself in 5-6 turns. You simply will not get this type of returns on any other building. Make this a priority.

Finally, build lots of cities and focus on economic buildings/happiness buildings. If you get enough happy buildings, you would find that it's perfectly possible to keep the city happy using only the number of free upkeep militia units.

Road/small church/land clearance/communal farming/grain exchange/port/town guard/brothel is usually my first round of builds.

Learn to fight with peasant archers/spear militia in concert with your general's BGs. This will be the low cost early game conquering force for the budget conscious regent.

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Originally Posted by katank

Most of the points mentionned are good. However, merchants "wasted in competition fights"? That can't be further from the truth. Attacking merchants usually have a bit of advantage. A successful acquisition usually brings in at least 1k which is more than enough to pay for the merchant himself. Train your merchants up by parking on resources and then send them out in wolf packs to take down rival merchants. They can help keep your economy rolling when you are out of cash.

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Yes, yes I know that. I'm sorry, I was being unclear, I meant wasting them as in sending merchants on 30% chances missions, trying to acquire merchants of equal or higher Finance, or trying to acquire right out of the prod queue. A successful competition strategy is indeed a good cash source, but you have to think it through. It's not worth it to pump out 3 550 florins merchants to try and take out that 3 Finance merchants sitting next to the town, and exping HIM up through your failures.

As you say, better to exp them a bit on a secluded, if unprofitable, ressource, try and get those GoodMerchant, monopolist and worldly merchant traits, THEN come back home and Electronic Arts' your neighbours to death :yes:

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Finally, build lots of cities and focus on economic buildings/happiness buildings. If you get enough happy buildings, you would find that it's perfectly possible to keep the city happy using only the number of free upkeep militia units.

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That's a toss-up, really - happy buildings are all very well, but they give bad traits to governors, so it's not always the best thing. I usually don't build them in cities I intend to keep governed at all times, as good governors will have chivalry/dread/+law/-squalor to make up for the lack of hookers/artists in town.

My technique:

1 castle to every 5-10 cities maximum. If you're in an area with well defined borders (Turkey, Byzantium, Spain, Portugal, Moors... basically any faction that can easily take an area with choke point borders...) then only put castles at the borders. Otherwise just put one castle in a central location, surrounded by cities. The reason for this is simple... You're not going to put ANY troops in your cities except for the free upkeep ones. You will maintain a full stack army in every castle instead.

If another faction attacks you, you will simply bring out your army from the castle to lift any sieges or retake the city. Generally the AI, especially in the early game, will not march with siege engines, so they need at least one turn of siege before they can assault. I use this against them.

In this way I can make the maximal amount from each city, and still maintain security by having my big defensive army in a central location.

Get trade rights with everyone. Even if you expect to fight them later. Exchange it for map information or for money, doesn't really matter which.

Merchant zerg. The first building you build in every settlement should be the grain exchange. It increases the value of the city and it gives you +1 to your merchant limit. Get your cap worth of merchants immediately, producing them all from the same town (You WANT the merchant's guild) and put them on the best resources in the immediate vicinity. If you're like me, and think it's a valid tactic, build a fort on the best resource spot in the immediate vicinity and send all of your merchants into that one fort. The purpose of this is simply to skill them up, so even if you're in a relatively resource poor area, don't send them far afield.

Once they've built up sufficient skill, send them to the silks around Constantinople, the amber around Riga and Vilnius, or the Gold and Ivory around Timbuktu and Arguin.

The Timbuktu/Arguin area is the richest area in the Old World. My advice is to let the moors take Timbuktu and get trade rights with them, or purchase the territory from them for maximum profits. My personal preference is to buy Timbuktu and fortify the resources, and flood them with as many merchants as you can build.

Naturally if you get a chance you should also acquire enemy merchants, but that's secondary.

Build order in towns... As I said earlier I build the grain exchange first and foremost. The best approach, in my opinion, is to build all the cheap buildings asap, grain exchange, dirt roads, port, all 800 or less and will give you a fast boost to your economy. After that I go for the cheap happiness buildings (Because your tax rate should be at very high all the time, and we're going to try and keep it that way).

Pretty much follow that pattern at each cost tier, but remember to build up your barracks too, because you want to be able to keep decent militia in the town, and we're only going to garrison free upkeep militia.

So basically at each tier it should be: market, roads, port (at first tier, at subsequent tiers it will be the maritime merchant building), mines if available, church, town hall, brothel/inn/whatever, any faction specific happiness building, barracks, in that order.

Ignore everything else, siege engineer, armor upgrade building, everything, unless you've build all of the above and are stuck at the current tier due to population.

If you've got the game modded so that farms don't hugely boost population growth, then you should build them too. Otherwise, leave them alone, because they will screw you in the end.

Well, that's pretty much my system, and I maintain a pretty good cashflow without constantly being on the attack and sacking settlements (Which I think is lame).