Economy Help

As the HRE I was sending an army against Naples and then suddenly my economy collapses. I saw the cause and it said I lost money from army upkeep:furious3: ! How do increase my economic output to cope with this. Please Help!:help:
Alstjublieft Helpen!:help:

Which game are you playing? MTW or Medieval 2?

Medieval 2

Well, build farms, mines, roads, markets, ports. All those buildings that just generally increase your income. If you're close to Naples, just sack it. That'll give you some cash.

Might I also suggest cutting back on
1. Armies
2. Castles

The fewer armies you have, the less upkeep required per unit (duh), and the more money you retain. I would suggest an army of 10 men or so in a tri-province area, or you could have militia forces (2 or 3) in every city, then combine them with a general and a few professional units to meet any rebellions.

The less castles you have, the more revenue that you can make. You don't always want 30 castles out of 32 provinces. A couple (4 or 5 for the HRE) are all that you need to pump out knights and mailed sergeants.

:knight:

While this may be old-hat, you definitely need to improve your relations with everyone. While you king may have the angst of a teenager, that doesn't mean you should be declaring war nilly-willy.
Also, keep an eye on your cities happiness. Elevate the taxes to levels that you feel safe with, sack a couple cities, disband a few units, convert a couple cities, build some merchants, you got yourself made.

If you have many family members and generals, instead of having them concentrated in one area, or sending them all off to war, have them govern your cities and castles. This will reduce your need to have more units in certain cities or castles since governors are a huge help in keeping public order.

I also suggest you keep your specialists limited. Though assassins, spies, and diplomats can be useful, they need money for upkeep. And don't forget to keep your provinces in good religious order. Religious unrest can cause devastation.

Don't build too many navies or ships. I keep one navy, of about four to six ships for every four to six ports.

Use your diplomats and your princesses. Establish trade and relationships with other nations.

i haven't played HRE, but most factions are best with a city to castle ratio of at least 3:1, then you make sure the cities use their free upkeep militia for garrisons, and only use a limited number of field armies to fight your battles. this has the biggest impact on upkeep costs

in terms of building the economy, build roads, at least the first two levels farms, ports and markets in cities, early on. in the early game, i even minimise taxes to boost growth so that when i actually do go a-conquering, my economy can support it.

Dank u Wel
Yeah turned out I had around half of my regions as castles. My economy just collapsed after I turned some places into castles to protect my border. Then I went back 2 turns and changed them back and turned some of my castles into cities. Palermo makes a lot of money as a city

Also, do an audit of your garrisons. Disband any unnecesary merc as they have high upkeep and dont keep large garrisons in your heartland as it is redundant. Finally, if you have some governors with really bad traits, just send him off to suicide and hope for better governors.

Remember, dont build the brothel line of buildings if you want competent governors

Sometimes when you send a bad general off on a crazy mission they succeed and become amazing generals. Good for crusades. Not so smarticus

I had this problem with the HRE too when i was attacking France.:wall: :wall:

Also don't forget that militia units in a City can, up to a point receive free upkeep. Get the Faust, find out which ones and garrision cities for Free.

The HRE is somewhat different from the Byzantines but I find that the 3:1 city-castle ratio gives you too many castles. I try not to have more than a 4:1 ration and maybe less than that.

Example out of an empire of 31 provinces:
Zagreb
Budapest
Raggusa
Durazzo
Sophia
Bran
Bucharest
Corinth
Thessaloníki
Constantinople
Nicaea
Smyrna
Iconium
Trebizond
Cesarea
Tbilisi
Yerevan
Mosul
Baghdad
Edessa
Aleppo
Antioch
Adana
Nicosia
Iraklion
Rhodes
Acre
Damascus
Jerusalem
Alexandria

I have only
Ragussa
Bran
Cesarea
Acre
Tbilsi
Mosul
as castles which is a 5:1 ratio. Of those only Ceasarea is not on or near a border.

But, if you do that kind city/castle ratio you MUST build up the drill square in the cities to get whatever pale and barely adequate HRE equivalent to the Varangian Guard is. Otherwise you will probably not have access to enough good troops