Balancing the budget - how do you guys do it?

For the most part, those are very good points Adembroski. I however must disagree somewhat with the following:

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Originally Posted by adembroski

Don't waste time with military buildings in cities. You need to constantly produce income and happy producers. Don't neglect the happy! ~:) =:2cents:

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Especially depending on your faction, you may have your best or at least a large percentage of your good military units produced in cities. Most factions at least have gunpowder units that become useful when that is invented, and they require very high level city military buildings in order to be produced. So at the least it makes sense to give a few big cities the high level military buildings in preparation for the advent of gunpowder. Militias are also not as bad as many players assume them to be, and can be a great and cheap addition to your field armies, provided you build the military buildings to get to the better ones. Again this depends largely on your faction, but typically you'll have numerous viable militia units produced in cities that are worth getting to with military upgrades. The military line boosts public order which is another useful benefit or building them, and similar in function to the happiness buildings. The law bonus to PO can't cause growth like happiness can, but it still does grant order that keeps the city functional. Utilizing law PO instead of happy building PO also avoids a lot of really economically terrible traits for governors, and the ability to keep and groom a good governor in my experience is far more advantageous than not having one but building the happy buildings. I would suggest as a compromise that you choose a number of very promising cities to give governors as appropriate, and avoid building happy buildings in them. For the rest, of course you should milk the happy buildings b/c they can make your growth boom a lot, and thus provide similar benefits to a governor (though in my experience not quite as good).

As turkey I'd have to agree with others about the navy. Its not necessary to have a large fleet. A small fleet in the Black Sea and a small one in the Medditerranean is all you need. Just big enough to fight off pirates and enemies that try to blockade. Small fleets are enough to transport troops to the islands like Crete, Cyprus, Rhodes, and any landings against Black Sea communities as well. Otherwise move troops via land.

Just to update - I managed to get my budget under control thanks to a lot of the suggestions above. Specifically:

1. Cut down my navy. I think I managed to save about 10K florins just by doing this. I have one half-stack in the Black Sea, one in the Central Med, and one in the Atlantic.

2. Interior provinces have JUST militia troops, up to the limit. Interior castles have one defender max.

3. I dumbed down a lot of my army. Where I had expensive troops (eg Sipahis, Ottoman Infantry, etc) I replaced them with a next-level down troop type (eg Sipahis --> Turkomans, Ottomans --> Turkish Archers, etc). I tried to leave "frontline" troops (eg the ones involved in my European expansion) at the top level if possible.

4. Focus on population and economic buildings. I stopped making things like ballista makers and focussed my building efforts wholly on economic and population buildings (eg farms, warehouses, etc).

5. Merchant trading costers. I used the fort trick (justified it as a corporate "office") and put one on the ivory resource in Dongala. I now have about 10 merchants each making about 700 florins/turn.

As a result I was (until recently) "netting" (to use someone's terminology) about 20-30K a turn, which meant that I could construct many more buildings than I could. I still ended up spending pretty much all my discretionary income per turn as buildings get more expensive as your cities grow. I did manage to build a "war chest" of about 80K florins though.

Unfortunately the influence of the accountants in my empire meant that I was ill-prepared for the Mongol invasion. They came in around Yerevan and Baghdad, like they did in my Danish game. In my Danish game they ambled around for many turns without attacking anything; in this turn they went straight to Mosul, about seven or eight stacks, and sieged it.

I'd had about a couple of turns to frantically churn out some javelinmen, naffatuns and Turkish archers to try and man the walls - I think I had about half a stack in total. Unfortunately I went overboard on the missile troops and ran out of time to build any infantry. The Mongols had a couple of rams (good for them, as I destroyed one), broke down my gate, and took the city square. They didn't even need their second army as their first routed me fairly easily.

They didn't hang onto the castle, but sacked it and moved on to Baghdad - a huge city with many defenders. I'd had some forewarning and had recruited some Janissary Heavy Infantry, Halberd Militia and Spear Militia, as well as a number of Sipahis and Turkomans. Unfortunately I had no missile infantry (I can't recruit Janissary Archers yet) but I did have ballista towers. I managed to destroy the siege tower with my ballista towers and the Mongols were forced to come through the gates, where I had all my infantry. I routed the first army (led by the Khan, no less) but the second overcame me in a battle of attrition - my last soldier died trying to fight the last 5 Mongol HAs that had taken the city square. I'd never seen so many bodies piled up behind the gates.:inquisitive:

Anyway the net effect of that is that I've now thrown my budget out the window, executed all the accountants, and have been raising armies in my heartland with total disregard for cost (Janissaries and Hashashim from Antioch and Damascus, Sipahis from Aleppo, Ottoman Infantry and Javelinmen from Caesarea and Acre, Sipahi Lancers from Gaza, and Saracens from Adana and Edessa. I've had to put a temporary halt to my efforts to destroy the Portuguese to get rid of these Mongol pests. As soon as I'm able to, I intend to call a jihad and turn my eastern armies into jihad armies (as I'm now losing about 15K florins a turn apparently).

Bloody Mongols.:laugh4:

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Unfortunately the influence of the accountants in my empire meant that I was ill-prepared for the Mongol invasion. They came in around Yerevan and Baghdad, like they did in my Danish game. In my Danish game they ambled around for many turns without attacking anything; in this turn they went straight to Mosul, about seven or eight stacks, and sieged it.

I'd had about a couple of turns to frantically churn out some javelinmen, naffatuns and Turkish archers to try and man the walls - I think I had about half a stack in total. Unfortunately I went overboard on the missile troops and ran out of time to build any infantry. The Mongols had a couple of rams (good for them, as I destroyed one), broke down my gate, and took the city square. They didn't even need their second army as their first routed me fairly easily.

They didn't hang onto the castle, but sacked it and moved on to Baghdad - a huge city with many defenders. I'd had some forewarning and had recruited some Janissary Heavy Infantry, Halberd Militia and Spear Militia, as well as a number of Sipahis and Turkomans. Unfortunately I had no missile infantry (I can't recruit Janissary Archers yet) but I did have ballista towers. I managed to destroy the siege tower with my ballista towers and the Mongols were forced to come through the gates, where I had all my infantry. I routed the first army (led by the Khan, no less) but the second overcame me in a battle of attrition - my last soldier died trying to fight the last 5 Mongol HAs that had taken the city square. I'd never seen so many bodies piled up behind the gates.

Anyway the net effect of that is that I've now thrown my budget out the window, executed all the accountants, and have been raising armies in my heartland with total disregard for cost (Janissaries and Hashashim from Antioch and Damascus, Sipahis from Aleppo, Ottoman Infantry and Javelinmen from Caesarea and Acre, Sipahi Lancers from Gaza, and Saracens from Adana and Edessa. I've had to put a temporary halt to my efforts to destroy the Portuguese to get rid of these Mongol pests. As soon as I'm able to, I intend to call a jihad and turn my eastern armies into jihad armies (as I'm now losing about 15K florins a turn apparently).

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The Mongols are the one time the whole weak intierior goes out the window i'm afraid, (well them and Tirmurds~;p). You just got caught out.

Well, I managed to cut about 15K florins from my army costs immediately by calling a jihad on Baghdad, which the Mongols just sacked. I converted about six 3/4 stack armies into jihad armies and turned them into full stacks with Ghazis and Mutawwis, which all of a sudden cut my army costs.

But...I've just marched the first of my armies within range of the Mongol vanguard, and apparently jihad armies can't attack "fellow Islamic factions". I thought the Mongols converted to Islam AFTER sacking the Islamic cities of the East, not during?:inquisitive:

Memnoch, as far as building for a good mid game economy ( and this is more for western european powers than eastern perhaps b/c of mongols), I offer the following advice.

1) DO build up your roads and farmland as quickly as possible
2) DO NOT be afraid to turn newly conquered castles in towns. they will generate much more income, and with a little planning, you can have castles mostly on the borders, and rich, fast growing, high trade cities on the interior.
Pick a the castle's that you will upgrade and keep, for purposes of producing your best units, based upon location on the campaign map. No province should be too far from Heavy Cav/Heavy Inf should the worst happen.
3) The fort with merchants in it, as far as i'm concerned, is an exploit. I wouldn't recommend it.
4) Its a shame that you are roleplaying :) and cannot sack cities. It is a fantastic source of income. Ransoming the troops back was a standard practice at the time though, perhaps you are willing to do that?
5) keep a minimal necessary garrison, and don't expand past your ability to control provinces. I usually conquer a region with cav, and sit them in the city till infantry can be produced to hold it.
6) finally, when conquering non-your-religion-regions bring hefty supply of imams/priests etc to quickly convert the non believers! a few turns with 6 or so holy men will bring about quite a few converts!

hope this helps m8!

Very interesting topic, here, I am learning some very nice things thank you all.

I dont have M2TW yet (this week end), but usually, I just eliminate the economic issue all together by moding my game and starting with a few million coins. :P

I play this series since Shogun and what I really Love about it is the Tactical and Strategic as well as Diplomatic aspects of it, but I really am not a financier..so I let that to role play and assume any vassala treasuries are put to the war effort.

The game is more enjoyable for me like that, and I dont have to break myhead with such issues. I rather think about how to plan an invasion campaign where to move troops what to build where etc, than hope each turn turn is enough to be able to build a couple of things here and there.

I still play Rome till I get M2TW, and I have made some changes to it to suit a lesser huge starting treasury.

I added many building bonuses to various buildings, Happiness to Walls, law to Barracks, Trade bonuses to ports, groth moved to farms instead of health buildings etc.

Also reduced unit upkeeps but left initial building costs untouched, It costed lost to train units back then but not to maintain them.

All that permitted me to somehow "balance" the economics of ROME and for the past couple of months I have been able to play this with the regular 5000 starting treasury without going under.

I am looking forward to see what M2TW holds in store in that regard. But from what I am reading here from all of you, looks good :) I am excited!

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Originally Posted by Suraknar

Very interesting topic, here, I am learning some very nice things thank you all.

I dont have M2TW yet (this week end), but usually, I just eliminate the economic issue all together by moding my game and starting with a few million coins. :P

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Glad my misfortune has been of benefit to someone anyway. :laugh4: As for modding the game, I don't think you need to do that - I think you can just add money to your faction via the console (though I'm not sure if you can do it for a million).

Hmmmm in all honesty, i never understand how u cannot make money.

Usually playing i can have about 1 million florins in the bank by 1200. even with giving lots away as gifts, and brides, and generally sticking my nose in everywhere it's not wanted.
Yes so i gain my borders as per history usually, then turtle up.

I usually do the following,

NAVAL.

Black Sea. 5 Ships
Sea of Miramar/aegan entrance 6 ships. Stops the unwanted gaining entry.
east Med, 8 ships
Adriatic 8 ships
Libyian Coast 8 ships

Army, if u have Constanitnople, just set an army up there.
Another in the north georgian Lands, and another in the sth facing egypt.
Then a reserve army, which travels a lot.
and then I usually have 2 or 3, 6 unit armies for internal use.


Played as the turks a little while back i own all roman lands to north crimea, to judea, and all east. Caned the mongols.
I was at war with nearly everyone, except the moors and still making 83k net in 1267AD.
money in bank means i can produce an army in 1 turn, group it usually in 3.

When someone rocks up with 20units, i defend with 12. But thats me, i like the challange.

When u build something in a city, check to see exactly what is needed. and build according, I usually never attack a province that my priests or imans have not been in for a while.
get them into your nieghbours, they spend more time looking after their back yard than trying to look over the fence.
Also an army is better on the border, than the best alliance relationship thing.
It's u kill me i wipe u out. MAD, mutally assured Destruction.
be stuffed if i am giving money for nothing to another faction that may or may not use it against me.

anyway thats what i do in general.


fenir

I can't understand how you can't make money either;)

Bar russia, everyone has a ton of money; even moors are ok after storming spain.

1. navy; 1st thing I do at the start of a game(vh/vh) - fire the navy. If it's a sea where I know there are pirates, kill as many as I can without reinforcing the navy, then fire it.
The comp. barely manages to blocade 1 port every 10 turns or so; later on I have the best navy, just for the sake of it.
2. convert territories in advance. Spam priests/imams in the region you're about to conquer. I don't roleplay, so I sack/exterminate cities.
Converting them to castle usually doesn't work, since you can't convert cities after stone wall to castle; definitelly you can't convert constantinopole as it starts with stone walls.
If you roleplay, your guy should have high chivalry; that means high gov. bonus, so you shouldn't need a boatload of army for order maintenance. If you need, then spam miltias or whatever holds 75 ppl/unit and has low upkeep.
3. interior regions - only free upkeep units. The ai is so dumb he won't attack around your front line in 1 millenia. With 50 years before mongols arrival, start building army if you're one of the nations possibly threatened by it.
4. going along the "Germany 1st" us doctrine in ww2, I say "econ. 1st". Econ. buildings are 1st to be built; spiced up with law enforcing ones to tackle corruption.
I'm not a fan of farms btw; however, the 1st 2 upgrades are high priority. The income from taxation is low; very low in regions with high trade(20% at best). Trade is the place where money is. But the 1st 2 upgrades have an awesome roi. Walls - 1st priority with townhall line; ports - 2nd priority; roads - army movement speed is vital; especially outside europe; markets; farms(1st 2 lvls, eventually 3rd if you're in a low fertility region). Rest... up to you and the given situation.
5. don't sack armies; ever. At most, go "suicide" them somewhere; try inflicting heavy casulaties in the process too;)
Even if, with the current ai, it's very hard to actually lose a battle, strive till you succed:p
6. Caucasus sucks;) East Russia provinces suck;) Bagdad/Mosul - they are in caucasus even if you don't notice that;)
By that I mean they have low trade; low trade is little income; little income means low priority in capturing them.