The RTW II Economy - Research, Tips and Strategies

I always loved to play the eco game in every TW game and I also graduated in this direction. In any case there are some new features in the game and it would be nice if we could share our knowledge and dig a bit deeper in some areas. I think it works best if you guys write what you impressions and conclusions are and then we try to confirm it by other posters. Links to hard evidence of pages in the encyclopedia are very wellcome.

Maybe this could also help other persons to write a guide. So first the rough ideas and afterwards the fine filter. It should help also myself to throw a couple of questions for myself into the room.

Personally I could not play all that much and I'm only 50 turns in my h/h Suebi campaign in which I have just conquered Silesia, Bohemia, Suebia, Germania Magna as well as Germania Minor. All in all 13 regions within 5 provinces, with 4 tradable ressources - glass, leather, timber and lead - as well as a single gold mine. I'm earning 9000+ per turn and have trade agreements with most Celtic neighbours, some Iberian factions plus Rome, the Illyrians and Athen.


So lets get started:

Trade

It seems pretty straightforward. Not every ressources seems as valuable as a trade good. The Glasswares from Germania minor are getting me roughly three times as much as leather with factions which have none of them and do neither import them. To produce more you have to upgrade your city and this causes increasingly hefty penalties on public order and food. Obviously with limited ressources those city upgrades make more sense for the player to go for the goods with a much higher return for similar? penalties and similar? monetary cost. As usually a ressource in a big province is more valuable then one in a small one!

Obviously export is more valuable then import, but it you can make some decent denarii from the latter. Trade partners with more tradable ressources and more regions are more valuable then those will less of both. But how much? Another with which needs to be checked.

I also have to investigate if your own goods are consumed at home. In my current game everything seems to get exported. Needs a check.

BTW has anybody seen a ressource in a provincial capital? I so far not and I looked at many regions on the map planner. This makes it more likely that the capital city of the province boosts the economy of the whole province. I will try to understand that in more detail later.

Overall trade works pretty much like in Shogun II apart form the fact that you have no trade nodes and more ressources in your provinces. A very important and highly valuable part of your economy.


Macroeconomics


Trade politics

I had no luck with trade agreements in the first 25 or so turns as the Suebi, later it became a lot easier, even if I had to send roughly 5x the trade value per turn to a neutral faction (yellow face) to get a deal. Some factions offered it, with a meager monetary demand. Now I seem to be a highly sought after trade partner.

Important! Trade agreements are united with a non-aggression pact an excellent stepping stone towards a confederation. I got access to the Silesian lands after offering it to my green faced friends in the east which were struggeling in a war against a Scythian faction.


Faction-wide

Obviously gold and food are faction-shared ressources. The tax level is global as well as a faction bonus, be it natural, obtained by an event a technology and possibly a leader. Needs to get checked.

A food surplus gives you a nice faction-wide bonus in growth & army replenishment, however I have no idea which amount of food if needed, possibly in relation to the number of owned regions and if there are different levels.

Provincial level

Public order gets calculated for the whole province. Effects from the provincial capital & various buildings too? Bigger provinces are certainly more attractive in economic terms, but how much? This means of course it may be wise to upgrade there first (Smaller ones, especially at the frontiers may be better for military reasons, especially due to more recruitment and relatively more walled cities with bigger garrison troops. Many effects of the military sphere work on this level, for example from temples.

So specialisation should be once again the name of the game. Germania Magna and Suebia are my large provinces and so far I have three military buildings among those 7 regions. They are relatively safe from attack and have a considerable amount of increasingly developed farms and harbours so I will switch the military tech supported by temples to the small frontier provinces and go to more cultural buildings to keep the order in check which is high but going downwards despite the dignitaries doing their work. Right now everything is calm so it should be easily doable.


Please add

Regional level

Most eco buildings deliver at a regional level. The wealth is taxed first there and then added for each province before flowing into your factions coffins.

Overall untangling the links at the provincial and regional levels will take a bit of testing and in this case the loading times are obviously a bit long. While playing they actually bother me very little.


Agents

Dignitary

Can increase the tax rate and growth and increase public order by spreading your culture while managing the civic part. They can reduce the upkeep of our stack while looking into the military business. Needs a lot of research.

General & Statesmen

Can reduce the upkeep and the recruitment costs, have an impact on public order. Need research.



I will leave it there and add more and more as my and your research goes along. Thanks guys.

Reserved for further use. Thanks

Not trying to derail the thread but if you want to use cavalry in your armies play as Averni and use Noble cav. They can beat Parthia's cataphracts and Rome's praetorian cav head on. Essentially the best heavy cav.

Not sure how much they cost though, does anybody know? I want to know if it's feasible to get an army of OathSworn and a few Noble cav with just a few settlements supporting the army.

Army units are due to their upkeep, which is the biggest cost factor of course part of the economy and their specific efficiency does play a considerable role. Still I want to focus that thread mostly one income side of things. The payoffs between occupation, sacking and razing may be of interest though. At the first sight the net gain by sacking & razing is quite high and seems to be linked to the development of the city. So far in my Suebi game I have only occupied, has the land has been Germanic apart from the Bohemian land of the Boii. I could use their buildings without any penalty - no Celtic temples - and wanted to get a couple of core provinces.

BTW, does anybody know if sacking or razing costs a building slot? Another thing to check later, I'm on a short holiday.

From my previous TW experience sacking/razing damages a building/slot, you could repair it for a small cost or demolish the building and create something else.

About 150 turns into first Roman campaign. Re looting: I've mostly been occupying regions, but entering Libya, decided to sack a few settlements to see how it would work out. I didn't nuke out the specific numbers, but following is my general impression:

Pros:
- Substantial immediate boost to treasury. Self explanatory.
- Boosts slave population, increasing factionwide economy. One doesn't get the enslavement of captives option with straight occupation.

Cons:
- All buildings substantially damaged; repair costs amount to roughly 70-80% of the initial treasury income. This isn't necessarily a big concern, however, if one intends to wholesale replace existing buildings with own-faction structures, AND has sufficient treasury to do so immediately (so all those construction sites don't turn into slums).
- Doubles the provincial unrest penalty (and therefore doubles the number of turns required to eradicate it).
- Boosts slave population, increasing factionwide public order penalties. Not exactly "factionwide" perhaps, but slave pop in all your provinces will increase, although the closer provinces' will be higher. Looting Cyrene/Augila in Libya led to high slave pop order penalties (-10 or worse) in Phazania/Africa, and lower (say, -7 to -9) in home provinces Italia, Cisalpina, etc. This wasn't ALL just from those two cities, of course. I'd been enslaving defeated armies/fleets since beginning my North Africa campaign, but definitely noticed a big boost (or hit, however one wants to look at it) upon the looting of these 2 cities.

Overall, I'd say looting is not the way to go if one wants to permanently retain a province and incorporate as a usefully-functioning economic component of the empire. The headaches of trying to restore public order and tying up one's forces in military occupation just take too long. HOWEVER:

An idea which has occurred to me is using an undesired province (or even just a region or two outside one's own full provinces) as a "training ground" for generals. Go in, loot cities, don't garrison, let public order spiral out of control. Rebel army appears, and your army general now gets to put another whopping on them for more rank boost, with no diplomatic penalties. Rinse and repeat. This might be a good way to keep providing battles to rank up generals in between major campaigns. Just take care to do this to a landlocked settlement, as rebel port cities tend to get blockaded (but not attacked) by AI factions, and permanent stalemate ensues.

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Originally Posted by Bramborough

About 150 turns into first Roman campaign. Re looting: I've mostly been occupying regions, but entering Libya, decided to sack a few settlements to see how it would work out. I didn't nuke out the specific numbers, but following is my general impression:

Pros:
- Substantial immediate boost to treasury. Self explanatory.
- Boosts slave population, increasing factionwide economy. One doesn't get the enslavement of captives option with straight occupation.

Cons:
- All buildings substantially damaged; repair costs amount to roughly 70-80% of the initial treasury income. This isn't necessarily a big concern, however, if one intends to wholesale replace existing buildings with own-faction structures, AND has sufficient treasury to do so immediately (so all those construction sites don't turn into slums).
- Doubles the provincial unrest penalty (and therefore doubles the number of turns required to eradicate it).
- Boosts slave population, increasing factionwide public order penalties. Not exactly "factionwide" perhaps, but slave pop in all your provinces will increase, although the closer provinces' will be higher. Looting Cyrene/Augila in Libya led to high slave pop order penalties (-10 or worse) in Phazania/Africa, and lower (say, -7 to -9) in home provinces Italia, Cisalpina, etc. This wasn't ALL just from those two cities, of course. I'd been enslaving defeated armies/fleets since beginning my North Africa campaign, but definitely noticed a big boost (or hit, however one wants to look at it) upon the looting of these 2 cities.

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Good to read. I have started to look more into province specialisation. It differs a bit between the factions but my original approach seems right. It pays off to look very closely at the bonus/malus a building gives.

Military recruitment is an interesting topic as well and profits greatly from detailed planning, possibly more so then in the past, especially for the Roman and Hellenistic factions. The Barbarians, especially my Suebians are starting to look a bit outmatched by the possibilities further south.

I'm on a business trip and will only come back home Sunday, so not much testing recently.

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Originally Posted by Bramborough

An idea which has occurred to me is using an undesired province (or even just a region or two outside one's own full provinces) as a "training ground" for generals. Go in, loot cities, don't garrison, let public order spiral out of control. Rebel army appears, and your army general now gets to put another whopping on them for more rank boost, with no diplomatic penalties. Rinse and repeat. This might be a good way to keep providing battles to rank up generals in between major campaigns. Just take care to do this to a landlocked settlement, as rebel port cities tend to get blockaded (but not attacked) by AI factions, and permanent stalemate ensues.

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Great idea, I am going to try this out next time I get a chance to play. Combining this approach along with having a champion in my stack should boost up a new army really fast. I might even be able to build up my general to a decent level before someone kills him off.

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Just take care to do this to a landlocked settlement, as rebel port cities tend to get blockaded (but not attacked) by AI factions, and permanent stalemate ensues

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OTOH, I could see doing this to a faraway port settlement that someone else might desperately need~:smoking:

Cheesy, but what the heck, so are a lot of other things in this game......

200 turns in, with associated tinkering of provinces, I'm coming more and more to realize that province specialization is the key. I haven't really figured out the specific formulas, but clearly it's impossible (and probably deliberately so) to fully develop a province's towns/commerce/industry AND also be self sufficient in food. With the limited slots available, just can't be done past Level III. And I don't think that's necessarily a "flaw"...it's supposed to be that way. It kinda makes sense; Rome couldn't have become Rome without drawing tons of resources from across its empire (especially food).

It seems to me that one can balance out a province with Level III buildings...but without much food surplus to contribute elsewhere. Then, introducing a Level IV building into its mix then makes the province reliant on external food...either directly because it requires a lot of food in itself, or indirectly by needing to compensate for its squalor by building other food-consuming public order buildings.

As I've said, I haven't figured out specifics, but my basic idea is that, just as there are different levels of buildings, I'm going to start thinking of "Level II-IV provinces":

Level II Province: Food producer. May not make much money. No buildings higher than Level II (other than perhaps agricultural). The province's function is to provide the food surplus necessary to support the higher provinces.
Level III Province: Self-sufficient in food. Makes decent money, but held back in development so as to not require food imports. No buildings higher than Level III. One could conceivably run the entire empire consisting of only Level III provinces.
Level IV Province: Richest provinces, fully developed with Level IV buildings, and therefore making the most money. To do this, however, the province CANNOT be self-sufficient in food.

The trick will be figuring out how many "Level II" provinces I need to hold back in order to support a "Level IV" province. Will a 1:1 ratio do it? Or will I need 1.5:1 or even 2:1? The other interesting thing is how the tech tree plays into the equation, especially in the way that Level III buildings are available early (or even at start in some cases), while Level IV buildings can take quite a long time. In my own campaign, I've developed the trees roughly equally, and am just now beginning to unlock many of the Level IV buildings. In the meantime, I've also built up my provinces to the "Level III" description, and am now realizing that I may have to "deconstruct" some of them back down to Level II in order to find the food surplus I'm going to need. It would have taken an incredible amount of discipline to deliberately hold back these provinces looking so many turns ahead. Concomitantly, I'm also realizing that the various tech trees may not be quite so independent or even "disconnected" as they first appear. They may not be directly tied to each other, but the buildings/effects they produce are definitely intertwined in developing a functioning empire. On this particular point, we as a community may have been a little prematurely critical of CA.

Note: that last point does not pertain to the ridiculously early achievement of legionary troops. Regardless of what sort of tech development or victory condition which one pursues, it just shouldn't be possible to graduate past hastati/principes/triarii decades before 200BC. Criticism of that one particular feature in the Roman military tech tree is 100% legitimate.

Once again, a very thoughtful post. And the description seems to mirror what one would expect in a RL situation.....outlying agricultural areas providing the subsistence level to their much larger, more developed cousins in the cities. Almost makes me want to go and get the game now just so I can play with the economy (econ was one of my biggest love/hate relationships with R1).

Edit: @Posts below

Seriously guys? I wasn't trying being negative. I was just making some suggestions and criticisms; and no I don't want the game right now. You may consider me too vocal but I find it perfectly normal on a TW forum, perhaps a little too silent.

I may have some repetition but each time I try to add something new, I guess nobody bothers about that too and claim that my posts are all repetitive on Ca when there's other people who post that stuff too. Is it because I'm the one who mainly posts? Is it because I'm the main one who has concerns about the game?

Why should I make up flaws too? There are bugs and gameplay issues... My criticisms are only my own tastes and nobody here has to obey it or anything. I am not convincing myself, might as well ask Vuk; He convinced me.

I have interests on this game as it's TW, one of my favorite franchises. Why shouldn't I be concerned? It is in my interests that the TW franchise is still what I think is good. (Of course it's my own opinion.)

All day long? I'm only on when I got to do exercises for spinal stuff. Getting stuck on a traction chair is boring, of course I'm on the forums for a few hours because I'm unable to do anything else! I bought a mobile device just so I won't be bored to death when being in the machine while it does it's work. If I didn't have this disability I wouldn't be roaming the forums all day. (I don't need anybody to feel sorry or anything I just want to make it clear)

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Originally Posted by Bramborough

The trick will be figuring out how many "Level II" provinces I need to hold back in order to support a "Level IV" province. Will a 1:1 ratio do it? Or will I need 1.5:1 or even 2:1? The other interesting thing is how the tech tree plays into the equation, especially in the way that Level III buildings are available early (or even at start in some cases), while Level IV buildings can take quite a long time. In my own campaign, I've developed the trees roughly equally, and am just now beginning to unlock many of the Level IV buildings. In the meantime, I've also built up my provinces to the "Level III" description, and am now realizing that I may have to "deconstruct" some of them back down to Level II in order to find the food surplus I'm going to need. It would have taken an incredible amount of discipline to deliberately hold back these provinces looking so many turns ahead. Concomitantly, I'm also realizing that the various tech trees may not be quite so independent or even "disconnected" as they first appear. They may not be directly tied to each other, but the buildings/effects they produce are definitely intertwined in developing a functioning empire. On this particular point, we as a community may have been a little prematurely critical of CA.[/I]

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Your experience pretty much mirrors mine. The best food producer seems to be the level 4 farm, which gives 15 food while causing 12 squalor. But that particular tech is in Economy 3; I haven't gotten there yet. I spent way to much time finishing out construction and most of legalism, so I tend to use outlying villages as food producers. Slot one gets a farm, slot two gets a cattle ranch, if it has a port it becomes a fishing port. How far I upgrade depends upon two major factors: do I own the provincial capital (where I can spam happiness buildings) and what buildings can I build there (I really like the gladiator school as Rome; 12 points of happiness for 4 food consumed).

I have to limit military development in order to provide sufficient foot for the empire and keep the provinces happy. But I can't go completely food/happiness or my ability to build good armies goes away.

By the way, has everyone else's experience been that the AI is just incompetent in this regard? Almost every faction at this stage of the game is either constantly having revolts due to unhappiness or can't maintain troops due to attrition because of starvation. They build too many of the wrong buildings and don't have enough happiness, food, or both.

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Originally Posted by Quillan

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By the way, has everyone else's experience been that the AI is just incompetent in this regard? Almost every faction at this stage of the game is either constantly having revolts due to unhappiness or can't maintain troops due to attrition because of starvation. They build too many of the wrong buildings and don't have enough happiness, food, or both.

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I see this in my campaign too. At first I wondered why other factions armies suffer of attrition in their own land. It is the lacking food.

The AI is totaly incompetent with balancing the building decisions, ( among uther things), what i tried in my campaign, with 57 my own settlements and 7 of my client states, is i have 4 provinces, (12-16) settlements for food and military training, with high level infrastracture and with 2 full stack armies( from a total of 12) in the area, so when a rabelion is iminent, i moove the army at the spot, with forced march if needed, crash the rebellion. and all over again.
Thwe good think is that since the rebellion, it takes at leest 2 turns for the AI to mone the rebel army, after the increase of the unit naumbers.

Besides the number of regions within a province, has anyone noticed much a difference in the food a region or province can produce? I am still trying to sort out which regions are pre disposed to be bread baskets or centers of industry. A better sense of that would go along way toward pre planning.

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Originally Posted by BroskiDerpman

Patience is key RS, you got to wait for some patches first! Or when the first expansion gets released/ Holiday sale. You'll probably enjoy the game more that way.

You'll have a better impression of the game that way too instead of waiting for the constant patches completing and fixing the game just to enjoy the game.

Plus there's other games to try out while you wait... ;)

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Are you trying to convince us that the game is not worth getting now... or yourself? You have been so vocal about it it makes me think you actually want the game but you're desperatly digging for flaws, real or imagined, to justify not obtaining it.

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Originally Posted by Myth

Are you trying to convince us that the game is not worth getting now... or yourself? You have been so vocal about it it makes me think you actually want the game but you're desperatly digging for flaws, real or imagined, to justify not obtaining it.

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My thoughts exactly.

There's a bit of a disconnect between, on one hand, professing to believe R2 not worth buying...and then, on the other hand, being one of the R2 forum's most active posters, all day long. That seems like an awful lot of interest, Broski, in a game for which you purport to hold no interest.

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Originally Posted by Seyavash

Besides the number of regions within a province, has anyone noticed much a difference in the food a region or province can produce? I am still trying to sort out which regions are pre disposed to be bread baskets or centers of industry. A better sense of that would go along way toward pre planning.

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Africa can indeed be a huge breadbasket. At Level II development (long before I started realizing this stuff), that province was pumping out a 40+ food surplus for me. I think a major reason is that all four of its settlements are coastal, therefore it has the four "bonus" port slots. Also, IIRC, one of its minor settlements (Lepcis, I think) builds as a "grain" town, which adds food directly from the city slot. This is hugely helpful; it's not a "free" city food-wise, but definitely a "cheap" one. I later built Africa to Level III with a couple of Level IV buildings, and it surplus obviously dropped, but never approached negative. Although it's going to hurt my income, it's one of the provinces I'm "deconstructing" back to Level II. I need my breadbasket back, as I'm starting to run into factionwide food surplus problems.

Edit: Just now looking at the Interactive Map (thx for linking in separate thread, Hooahguy), Aegyptus has the potential to be an even bigger food producer; two of its four settlements contain the Grain resource and will build as grain towns. Also of note, this province contains two wonders (Lighthouse and Pyramids). Hmm...I haven't taken all of Aegyptus, having been content to let that area be controlled by my client state. Looks like the Nasamones may have to take one for the team now.

I guess this makes perfect sense, as historically Egypt was Rome's main food source during late Republic. This led to its being a focus locale in the struggle between Octavian and Antony, despite its distance from the capital.

http://maps.totalwar.com/

In a more general sense, looks like resources are the key to identifying good ways to specialize a province. Grain obviously helps food production. Haven't really looked, but I suppose iron and timber probably help industry. All resources will boost income to some degree, at least through trade if not some more direct bonus.

Carthage should also be a grain source as it was the main supplier of grain for Rome itself.

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In a more general sense, looks like resources are the key to identifying good ways to specialize a province. Grain obviously helps food production. Haven't really looked, but I suppose iron and timber probably help industry. All resources will boost income to some degree, at least through trade if not some more direct bonus.

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Tapping one of the better improvements suggested in another thread...how cool would it then be to have provincial resources tied to industrial capabilities (iron>smithy; cattle>leatherworking; timber>shipbuilding, war machines; marble/stone>advanced building structures, paved roads; etc.

Tie this sort of thing together with diplomacy (I'll trade you my iron for your marble, etc.) and trade partners/alliances might actually come to be far more important than they currently are:shrug:

Indeed, later on it was also the only untouched tax base in the Western Roman Empire and when they lost North Africa everything went down the drain.

Though agriculture was starting to increase in Southern Italy after that.

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Originally Posted by Myth

Carthage should also be a grain source as it was the main supplier of grain for Rome itself.

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Yes indeed, as reflected by the grain resource in Africa (specifically, Lepcis settlement), of which Carthage is provincial capital.

Looking through the interactive map, it appears that the "grain provinces" are: Aegyptus (2), Africa (1), Magna Grecia (1), Dacia (1), and Mesopotamia (1). These seem historically sensible to me. There's also a few "fish-resource" provinces which I assume also contribute to food.

Gotta admit, I only just now clued in to the existence of these location-specific food resources. The trade resources show up on the strategic map, but I don't think the food resources do (if so, must confess I haven't noticed it). I've seen the "grain town" icons in the province tabs, but I haven't really thought about "hmm...how did they get that way?".

It makes sense for Dacia as Dobrudja is possibly added to it, and Romania itself has lots of fields.

I already wrote earlier that regions with tradable ressources tradable offer a high ROI if the circumstances like enough trade are right. They should get priority for upgrades and also for building slots. The same goes for fish, grain and gold regions, as they can offer considerable positive modifiers.

So if you need lots of food you will go down the grain farm chain and which better place to built your fields then a Grain region? Level IV is not all too often a good choice, but in those cases it's often a great city upgrade.

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Originally Posted by Seyavash

Besides the number of regions within a province, has anyone noticed much a difference in the food a region or province can produce? I am still trying to sort out which regions are pre disposed to be bread baskets or centers of industry. A better sense of that would go along way toward pre planning.

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Just a few. First is the number of settlements. Provincial capitals have almost no improvements you can build that generate food; those generally go in the minor settlements. So, a province with 4 towns has higher inherent potential than one with two. Second is how many settlements are coastal. Each coastal town gets one extra slot which can be a port, and a fishing port generates extra food. Finally there is (maybe) a resource. If a region has grain, then the town center building actually produces food instead of consuming it.

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Originally Posted by Quillan

Just a few. First is the number of settlements. Provincial capitals have almost no improvements you can build that generate food; those generally go in the minor settlements. So, a province with 4 towns has higher inherent potential than one with two. Second is how many settlements are coastal. Each coastal town gets one extra slot which can be a port, and a fishing port generates extra food. Finally there is (maybe) a resource. If a region has grain, then the town center building actually produces food instead of consuming it.

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Ok, took me a bit to see the grain resource for Lepcis on the interactive map. I still don't see it as a resource in game so I guess I can use the town center as a way of figuring it out. Of course food is hardly the only thing I was looking at. Another thing was trying decide which ports should be trading ports and which should be military. Since resources seem to be far and few between the thing I am still working on figuring out in general is specialization.

I think the AI's food and squalor issues are why we don't see huge stacks of armies and mass expansion from the AI players. It's not so much they are 'dumb' and don't want to attack you, it's due to their lack of 'understanding' of food and public order mechanics they are unable to keep large armies from starving and/or keep their populace from revolting. In my game 160 turns in, the 'best' AI's are the ones that control the breadbaskets: the Seleucids in Mesopotamia and the Blemmyes in Aegyptus. The Celtiberian Confederation would have been doing much better, but they keep getting beset by revolts every fifteen turns or so (my spies show their port settlements all having the food boosting port, so they're doing something right). Don't get me wrong, the campaign AI is still bad, but I think it's mostly crippled from their own lack of infrastructure, not because they weren't programmed right to attack people. I'm wondering if they fixed this first before they went after the campaign AI's other decision making (where to move, who to attack, who to trade with, etc), if the game would improve dramatically.

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I think the AI's food and squalor issues are why we don't see huge stacks of armies and mass expansion from the AI players. It's not so much they are 'dumb' and don't want to attack you, it's due to their lack of 'understanding' of food and public order mechanics they are unable to keep large armies from starving and/or keep their populace from revolting

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Again, you have to shake your head and wonder who did all the play-testing for CA, because if this apparent lack of understanding of how to manipulate game mechanics is a major problem source, then said play-testers should all be flogged and then keel-hauled for such an oversight. If Sega or CA needed any incentive for an open beta-test from selected community players, this would be it.



....yes I know, it's been one big beta-test since release day, but I'm talking about the future:quiet:

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Originally Posted by ReluctantSamurai

Again, you have to shake your head and wonder who did all the play-testing for CA, because if this apparent lack of understanding of how to manipulate game mechanics is a major problem source, then said play-testers should all be flogged and then keel-hauled for such an oversight. If Sega or CA needed any incentive for an open beta-test from selected community players, this would be it.



....yes I know, it's been one big beta-test since release day, but I'm talking about the future:quiet:

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Yes there seem to be many obvious issues that you notice if you play a few campaigns. The same one county nations seem to destroy everyone else. For example Carthage always gets destroyed in my game by Garamanetes(?) (They are south of libya, I've seen them in Sardinia and sicily and Sardinia and southern Italy as well as holding all of North Africa) and Cimmeria always goes on a crazy conquest of around the black sea (they seem to love destroying Pontus and Sardes). Nasamones love to conquer Egypt but I havent seen this in my latest campaign. I've also seem Syracuse conquer all of North Africa a few times and fight to the death with Gara

The major nations all seem to get destroyed or severely weakend, especially Carthage.

How this wasn't picked up I don't know

I've found 3 reasons so far to make a province a food producer:

1. Grain resource in one of the towns - settlement building there produces food
2. Coastal regions - for fishing ports
3. Conquered regions with foreign buildings with a food boost

Others have made the first two points but the last one can be useful too. In particular, Barbarian factions (celtic ones at least in my experience so far as Rome & Athens) can build agricultural buildings in the capital city of a province, which Roman & Greek factions can't (there is a food producer in the city center line but just the one). So might be worth while not rebuilding such a slot and making the province a food producer.

Related to that (if a little off topic) are the other advantages from finding useful foreign buildings in a conquered region. When I took Nicomedia in Asia Minor as Athens I found a wonderful Eastern culture building that gave me +20 to public order with no food cost at all. That was enough to make it a perfect troop-producing province since that building alone almost balanced the public order cost of 2 top level military buildings. And to go further off-topic: AI factions seem to have much higher levels of buildings than I can manage in early & middle game. I wonder if they get tech cheats or just starting positions with great buildings? Probably the latter since their military techs don't seem so advanced based on what troops they produce.

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Originally Posted by Bramborough

Concomitantly, I'm also realizing that the various tech trees may not be quite so independent or even "disconnected" as they first appear. They may not be directly tied to each other, but the buildings/effects they produce are definitely intertwined in developing a functioning empire. On this particular point, we as a community may have been a little prematurely critical of CA.

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Good point. And it made me think about the public order <-> food trade-off system as well. Their different characteristics makes balancing them more interesting than I first thought. Food is 'easy' since it is accounted over your whole empire - but 'tough' since the penalties for -ve food are great. Public order is 'easy' since the penalties for reaching -100 aren't so bad (though I like to role-play and avoid this if at all possible) but 'tough' since Public Order must balance in each province.

I found that Patch 2 has kinda wrecked my building setup. In a good way I guess; I personally hadn't seen the need to make the changes they did because I thought it should be a difficult decision whether or not you go to that Lv.4 building. I was able to upgrade 1-2 buildings in every province, and I still have about 100 food I'm floating. Time to restructure for a fourth time :P.

Level IV cities hit me surprisingly hard, I suppose I should have done my math better. Right now it is cities -> increases wealth + bonus on other buildings wealth but - food - order -> force farms -> sacrficies potteries (agrindustrial Barbarian buildings) -> lowers wealth + lowers order -> desperate for +8 temples -> scrambles for tech for headquarter -> builds up armies -> lowers income greatly. Choose indeed wisely what you want to upgrade, in doubt go against upgrading you cities and buildings to IV. New Suebian proverb: From the terror of the level IV, deliver us o Thor.

Personally I think only your trade ressource town should pretty much always get the nod up to four, as long as you have enought trading partners.

Overall big provinces should get priority for your upgrades, on every level, as the % bonus for buildings works on that level. A 2 region province does harldy justify buildings which mostly boost others, in a 3 region one it depends while in a 4 region province you can stack up big boosts. The more building slots you have the more attractive the bonus buildings become. In a poor region you have to start with things which give you direct benefits in wealth or food.

Obviously upgrading priortiy goes for your provincial capitals as well. Use those level IV capitals only in the bigger provinces, if at all, or for special reasons.

I upgraded all settlements to level 3 after the patch, since I was carrying a huge food surplus. I still think some buildings need a reduction in their penalties, mostly level 4 buildings and specifically the ones that trade food for public order and vice versa. The bonuses for most minor settlements are not worth it versus the penalties they bring, at least compared to upgrading the provincial capital.

I still prioritize food buildings in 2 and 3 settlement provinces. I still prioritize the food and public order temples over the others.

So... trade commodities :inquisitive:

Are the current prices actually displayed anywhere in the UI? You can see what you're making from each type of resource per trade partner via tooltip, but there doesn't seem to be any indication of either current value per unit or how many units you're actually trading (either in total or per faction). You'd need at least one of these to do the math... but the UI really needs to be offering a lot more here in order for players to properly manage minor settlement upgrades and trade agreements. In it's current state, the whole affair is a puzzle without enough pieces.

Here are the base values from the db table:

Attachment 10848

Glassware is indeed most valuable and textiles also look potentially interesting with the higher demand modifier. As in past games and as the table suggests, these values should fluctuate with supply and demand. In my current game, I've not seen any evidence of that yet, however I'm only at 30 turns or so. Referencing the table, I do see that all commodities are earning me even multiples of base prices (e.g. I'm trading olive oil to Sparta, Bithynia and Sardes for 24, 40 and 64 respectively... so that's 128 coin which accounts for 16 units sold @8). Keeping my eye out for fluctuations in price as well as what happens when supply thins out across too many trade agreements (since they're unlimited).

We also have the commodity_unit_names table which implies that these items are intended to be listed somewhere by quantity. There are some extras, however this table does appear to be intended for Rome specifically as you have good matches for the present resource list (amphora, logs, slabs etc)...

Attachment 10847

The only place I can see quantities of trade goods is in the minor settlement info panel, but that doesn't use these descriptors (says only 40 wine, 80 marble etc). One would assume that we're missing part of the UI, which makes this aspect of the game a wee bit frustrating :sick:. Unless I've missed some cleverly concealed tooltip?

edit: I suppose it's possible that prices don't actually fluctuate with supply as they do in some more recent TW titles. That would certainly de-emphasize the need for a UI element dedicated to commodity values.

edit: I see glassware now trading at 29 denari (+3 from the base). That's a good indication that the system isn't static.

What does baseline-price-per-unit and price-elasticity-of-demand actually mean? Baseline suggests that there can be a modifier applied to the base price? and if so, what determines the value of that modifier? And does the demand column mean that if a potential trading partner already has that trade good, they might be less inclined to trade?

In R1 I remember the trade table listing imports vs. exports with their corresponding values, but I never really understood how those values were calculated except that goods were traded with neutral factions whether you had a trade agreement or not, but those values went up drastically when a formal trade agreement was actually garnered.

Another factor in R1 that affected trade were roads. IIRC, you got only baseline values (land trade) for no roads and simple dirt roads. There was a 100% increase in values for a paved road, and another 50% increase for highways. All values for city of origin.

Land export/import did not have any apparent separator (one lump sum), but sea trade had separate values for import & export (with the import value always being 20% of the exporters income).

Trade buildings also applied a modifier to trade values; as buildings were upgraded, there was a corresponding %increase in trade values.

I also remember distance and population level being a factor. Any indication that it has an effect here? (ie. closer meant higher trade values, more population also meant higher values)

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Originally Posted by ReluctantSamurai

What does baseline-price-per-unit and price-elasticity-of-demand actually mean? Baseline suggests that there can be a modifier applied to the base price? and if so, what determines the value of that modifier? And does the demand column mean that if a potential trading partner already has that trade good, they might be less inclined to trade?

In R1 I remember the trade table listing imports vs. exports with their corresponding values, but I never really understood how those values were calculated except that goods were traded with neutral factions whether you had a trade agreement or not, but those values went up drastically when a formal trade agreement was actually garnered.

Another factor in R1 that affected trade were roads. IIRC, you got only baseline values (land trade) for no roads and simple dirt roads. There was a 100% increase in values for a paved road, and another 50% increase for highways. All values for city of origin.

Land export/import did not have any apparent separator (one lump sum), but sea trade had separate values for import & export (with the import value always being 20% of the exporters income).

Trade buildings also applied a modifier to trade values; as buildings were upgraded, there was a corresponding %increase in trade values.

I also remember distance and population level being a factor. Any indication that it has an effect here? (ie. closer meant higher trade values, more population also meant higher values)

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From observation thus far, the base price (from the table) always factors evenly into the total earned per export in any trade deal. I'm wondering if anyone has seen that change over time.

Price elasticity of demand would imply that prices do change (and affect demand), so I'm not certain. Demand does vary, but seems lower primarily where similar goods are produced by both parties. Have to play deeper into a campaign. I'd be grateful if anyone who has could report whether they see export values (per resource) deviating from an even multiple of the original base price. That would shed some light on how the mechanic works this time around.

As far as roads, they upgrade automatically with settlement size. I doubt that there's any direct relationship since upgrading the settlement already increases the quantity of whatever resource the territory produces. The only trade modifiers I've seen so far are those given by character traits. Those apply to tarrifs and don't directly affect commodity prices. No idea about distance, but economic power is a consideration in trade deals and would be indirectly tied to population. Again, I don't think that has any effect on resource prices though.

Why is so difficult to get trade agreements with every one, even is its attitude is very friendly?
No one wants to trade, no one wants to have an alliance, no one wants nothing exept from defencive alliances in exchange to huge amounts of money....

I believe a trade agreement is good for both parties, so why a one province or two province faction doesnt want to trade with a super power??

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Originally Posted by nearchos

Why is so difficult to get trade agreements with every one, even is its attitude is very friendly?
No one wants to trade, no one wants to have an alliance, no one wants nothing exept from defencive alliances in exchange to huge amounts of money....

I believe a trade agreement is good for both parties, so why a one province or two province faction doesnt want to trade with a super power??

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How many turns into the campaign are you?

Early on, I had same experience; it was pulling teeth to get a trade agreement out of anyone. After a while, however, as my empire size grew a bit, it got a lot easier.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Bramborough

How many turns into the campaign are you?

Early on, I had same experience; it was pulling teeth to get a trade agreement out of anyone. After a while, however, as my empire size grew a bit, it got a lot easier.

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Indeed. It seems that you need to get a a couple of trade ressources to look attractive in the eye of potential partners. In my Macedon campaign in which I've learned a great deal about the RTW II economy I started to get lots of offers after 4 ressources but I could easily conclude some deals a bit earlier with 2-3 after I upgraded the wine and olive oil cities of Epirus and Larissa. A similar thing happened in my Suebi one. So it should be a combination of quantity and diversity as a trade partner does only import so much of a single ressource. It is likely that exportable ressources of potential trade partners also help a bit but so far I did not verify it. The amount of imports per faction should depend on the number of provinces, with each province bringing less and less import capability.

It occurred to me that the discussion has been focused on how the player handles the economy and research, and so it should. But....

....in reading through a lot of campaign descriptions it seem apparent the the AI hasn't a clue for doing either very well. Factions rise then fall because they run out of food or get crushed by squalor. While this may mimic reality in some small sense (the ebb and rise of empires), it doesn't really present the player with that one faction that's going to be able to kick your ass (for Shogun 1 it was the Hojo Horde; for MTW the Golden Horde; for RTW it was the Romans if you were playing a non-Roman faction, and Egypt for just about everyone else; etc).

So how would you simplify development to where the AI could conceivably handle it, and yet keep it interesting for a player? or would you just have a script for an AI faction to follow?

I don't really know about programming, and nothing about AI, but I suspect you'd need a script of sorts. Before deciding what to build, make sure the new construction won't put you into negative food or public order. If it's below a certain threshold, built a new or increase an old source, then upgrade the other building.

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Originally Posted by Oleander Ardens

Indeed. It seems that you need to get a a couple of trade ressources to look attractive in the eye of potential partners. In my Macedon campaign in which I've learned a great deal about the RTW II economy I started to get lots of offers after 4 ressources but I could easily conclude some deals a bit earlier with 2-3 after I upgraded the wine and olive oil cities of Epirus and Larissa. A similar thing happened in my Suebi one. So it should be a combination of quantity and diversity as a trade partner does only import so much of a single ressource. It is likely that exportable ressources of potential trade partners also help a bit but so far I did not verify it. The amount of imports per faction should depend on the number of provinces, with each province bringing less and less import capability.

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Im in 60 BC and i own every trade resource, allmost all my cities are upgrated, i have 10 trade agreements, some of them since early game.
I have achieved the objectives for an economic victory, but since turn 120 if im not wrong the most of my trade parteners broke the aggrements with me and since then i bleed for a trade pact in axchange for a lot of money.
I think there is something there that needs to be fixed.
Best example are the client states, i have client states that do not want nothing, it is a client state for gods sake, you own it, at least a trade aggrement with them sould be de facto.
And an other example, the one province faction of egypt, a client state of Macedon for a very long time and very friendly, +204, didnt want to trade even with the ofer of 240.000 dinarii!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
So i think CA must see it, i believe thats basics.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Quillan

I don't really know about programming, and nothing about AI, but I suspect you'd need a script of sorts. Before deciding what to build, make sure the new construction won't put you into negative food or public order. If it's below a certain threshold, built a new or increase an old source, then upgrade the other building.

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Problem is that almost all sources of food and public order have a penalty to the other once you upgrade to level 3 and 4. The AI doesn't seem to know how to upgrade one without killing the other. I suspect that's the problem.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by ReluctantSamurai

It occurred to me that the discussion has been focused on how the player handles the economy and research, and so it should. But....

....in reading through a lot of campaign descriptions it seem apparent the the AI hasn't a clue for doing either very well. Factions rise then fall because they run out of food or get crushed by squalor. While this may mimic reality in some small sense (the ebb and rise of empires), it doesn't really present the player with that one faction that's going to be able to kick your ass (for Shogun 1 it was the Hojo Horde; for MTW the Golden Horde; for RTW it was the Romans if you were playing a non-Roman faction, and Egypt for just about everyone else; etc).

So how would you simplify development to where the AI could conceivably handle it, and yet keep it interesting for a player? or would you just have a script for an AI faction to follow?

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This is pretty simplistic, but one approach might be to just limit its development. Say, AI cannot build past Level III in in provincial capital slots, and cannot build minor settlements past level II. Moreover, limit AI factions to only one or two military buildilngs overall, and no more than one temple per settlement. With something like this, the AI economy would still be quite suboptimal, but could probably maintain some reasonable level of public order and support some decent-sized army stacks. When I take over enemy settlements, I usually find that the AI has way overbuilt in temples or military buildings, and/or has built a Level IV town & temples without remotely enough food to support.

Quote:

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This is pretty simplistic

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Agreed. I was simply fishing for comments on how to balance the players handling of development (which will always be more sophisticated and long-term) and the AI's. Certainly any factions development should favor units in which it has the advantage, or that makes countering by the player more difficult, and certainly some attention has to be paid to the AI being able to keep its head above water in terms of cash flow and loyalty.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by nearchos

Im in 60 BC and i own every trade resource, allmost all my cities are upgrated, i have 10 trade agreements, some of them since early game.
I have achieved the objectives for an economic victory, but since turn 120 if im not wrong the most of my trade parteners broke the aggrements with me and since then i bleed for a trade pact in axchange for a lot of money.
I think there is something there that needs to be fixed.
Best example are the client states, i have client states that do not want nothing, it is a client state for gods sake, you own it, at least a trade aggrement with them sould be de facto.
And an other example, the one province faction of egypt, a client state of Macedon for a very long time and very friendly, +204, didnt want to trade even with the ofer of 240.000 dinarii!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
So i think CA must see it, i believe thats basics.

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Two questions: first, what is the campaign difficulty level? Second, what is your diplomatic reputation? I'm at "steadfast", mainly because I don't attack anyone with whom I have an active treaty, and I always side with an ally. I've currently got 18 trade partners, down from 22 only because one of those attacked an ally and thus had to die and the others were eliminated in the course of their ongoing wars. There are two factions currently who don't want to trade with me (Caledones and Armenia), and both have horrible reputations (one is devious, the other treacherous). Perhaps one of those is the cause.

While playing on Legendary with patch 3 on, I noticed the AI supporting around 2.5 stacks in total troop numbers with a high mix of strong infantry in there. It builds units that are favoured in AR so if you want to AR your way to victory you typically have to bring an extra fullstack to even the odds. By leading however, you can make minced meat out of them.

Patch 3 reduced the killing speed of most infantry, which means that battles are 10-20 minutes long. However the AI doesn't have the luxury of my very experienced elite troops which have north of 75 morale. They basically never break unless they are up against something like 6 units of Royal Spartans (because those guys never break but also don't die and have haed their killing chance improved as per patch 3).

So while Ar technically shows you a Phyrric victory or even a Clear Defeat, especially in siege assaults, you can turn the tides around because when you clump up your elites and focus in your cav/damage dealing infantry in simple (yet effective) flanking maneuvers or taking out the masses of ranged units, you can win.

Funny thing - you can't afford to sit and ignore slingers and javelin troops. Not like in Rome 1 when at some point the armour values became so high that they virtually did nothing. Pretorians still die to slings if left unattended. Hence at least 3 units of cav per fullstack are mandatory.

Province development for the AI seems to have improved somewhat, though I still see bad choices like temples in minor settlements or 4 city centre buildings in Athens.

I build temples in minor settlements all the time. There's really nothing else to build there. I build 1 farm and 1 temple to offset the public order. I'm playing Carthage and one of the temples has food as well.

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Originally Posted by andrewt

I build temples in minor settlements all the time. There's really nothing else to build there. I build 1 farm and 1 temple to offset the public order. I'm playing Carthage and one of the temples has food as well.

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Yep, that's what I was doing as well. Over time, however, this developed provinces with large public-order surpluses, but food-deficient. I've shifted to a philosophy of building food in both minor-settlement slots (i.e., 1 farm and 1 cattle). The temple and circus in provincial capital usually keeps public order still comfortably in the green.

This is, however, from Rome perspective. With different building types and attributes, might work out quite differently for Carthage (or any other playable faction).

And it is radically different with the Avernii who can build farms everywhere and they get their cav units from them...

I too will sometimes build both farm types on Roman minor settlements and use my provincial capitol as a means to keep order up. They have the room for extra buildings and they usually come with a public order bonus.

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Originally Posted by Bramborough

Yep, that's what I was doing as well. Over time, however, this developed provinces with large public-order surpluses, but food-deficient. I've shifted to a philosophy of building food in both minor-settlement slots (i.e., 1 farm and 1 cattle). The temple and circus in provincial capital usually keeps public order still comfortably in the green.

This is, however, from Rome perspective. With different building types and attributes, might work out quite differently for Carthage (or any other playable faction).

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I looked at Rome's farms and food city-center building. They are terrible and I would certainly avoid building them past level 2, if possible. Carthage's farm and food city-center building are worth it, being 3 and 4 food higher at level 4 compared to Rome's. The livestock one still sucks, though.

Does anyone have a sensible explanation for what "wealth" actually represents in this game?

The concept is intuitive in Shogun2, Empire etc. ...where wealth is a regional value representing taxable income, property or commodities that grows or diminishes over time. Each turn, you apply taxation to that figure and derive income. Although there may be modifiers applied to tax % or to wealth, the essence of the mechanic is easily understood.

In the Rome2 economic system, however, wealth has an alternative relationship to tax. Here, tax is simply another modifier (along with slavery and corruption) to a sum of cash that you can earn in it's entirety (every turn) or even exceed by taxing at high levels. So really, the wealth figure is more like the normalized income for a region... i.e. with all other factors being 0, income will equal wealth. That would also imply that when you improve a region by adding or upgrading buildings, the related increases to "wealth" can be thought of as direct potential income.

Is this a correct interpretation, or am I missing something? How do you rationalize taxing wealth that would already seem to be in your pocket? Moreover, why would wealth be counted as income in the first place?

Here's a minor tip I've kinda picked up on the past few nights of play.


Mid to late game throw your taxes on the lowest possible setting. At the lowest setting the public order penalty is only " -1 ". Depending on how fast you expand by around turn #100 you should have enough income that a low setting will still net you around 10k + a turn.

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Originally Posted by Kurisu

Does anyone have a sensible explanation for what "wealth" actually represents in this game?

... So really, the wealth figure is more like the normalized income for a region...

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No, that seems about right to me.

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Originally Posted by andrewt

I looked at Rome's farms and food city-center building. They are terrible and I would certainly avoid building them past level 2, if possible. Carthage's farm and food city-center building are worth it, being 3 and 4 food higher at level 4 compared to Rome's. The livestock one still sucks, though.

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I agree that livestock is not worth it (unless you are using livestock to occupy a building slot that will later be built into something that you don't yet have the tech for, and you just don't want the slums).

But the higher level farm buildings are actually OK. L2 farms give 6 food for no squalor. L3 give 10 for 4 squalor, L4 give 18 for 10 squalor (and most cultures I am familiar with give a 2 food bonus per far for the bread and games edict). Since you will develop techs and capture wonders that improve po, you will have some excess po to work with. By building L4 farms, you can have 60 food coming from a single province. Do the math, and assume you will build some po enhancing temples/city center buildings. It is possible to have three.

The higher level fisheries are kinda crappy. L1 gives you 6 food. L2 gives 8 with 4 squalor; L3 gives 12 food with 10 squalor. Needless to say, I'd rather have the farm giving me 18 or 20. I rarely build fisheries, and usually replace captured ones unless I am near the floor of 20 food needed to keep my provinces growing as fast as possible.

Remember that excess food is wasted; excess po is wasted. Excess cash can be accumulated.

If you have a province designed as a food center, the food is what is important, not the wealth.

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Originally Posted by mbrasher1

L3 give 10 for 4 squalor, L4 give 18 for 10 squalor (and most cultures I am familiar with give a 2 food bonus per far for the bread and games edict).

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Roman farms give 9 for 4 and 15 for 10 at the 3rd and 4th levels. When I took Aegypt in my campaign and found L4 farms there I just left them, because they were superior to what I could build and weren't upgradable beyond that point.

I still built level 4 farms in other places; I needed the food surplus. However, by that point I was carefully balancing public order against squalor across my empire.

I agree that livestock is not as good as farm. Given one slot, I always prioritize the farm first. Minor settlements have two non-port slots, however, and building options are limited. I build very few military buildings outside my one designated army-production province. Sometimes (but not often) I'll build a temple in a minor settlement, depending on the makeup of the province whole. With a farm in Slot #1, and no city-center, industrial, or plumbing options available, that leaves livestock for Slot #2 in most cases. This isn't necessarily all-bad...livestock doesn't produce as much food, but compensates by producing significantly higher income.

EDIT: Obviously I'm talking about the livestock ranches in minor settlements. With regard to the yellow cattle-market line in provincial capital, yeah, that thing is terrible, I can't see ever building it. Tried it once or twice in first campaign, will never build one again, unless some future patch re-balance changes its characteristics or something.

I can see how to make a province making 4000/turn by focusing on cultural buildings and commerce, but I haven't seen the benefit of an industrial focused income province. There simply are too few industrial buildings, and having the bonus-giving buildings does not make sense when the base industrial income is so low. The ag bonus buildings rarely give much extra income (usually because base ag wealth is fairly low) and I don't build the farms for the cash but for the food.

Can anyone give advice on the slave trader city center buildings?

One other helpful tip is to closely look at your faction's available temples. Since each province has a high likelihood of having alot -- probably more than anything other building type -- you should know their bonuses, and especially, know which temples give you buffs for no squalor or p.o. The Hellenistic temples that have the food are way better than Roman Neptune temples, IMO.

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Originally Posted by mbrasher1

I can see how to make a province making 4000/turn by focusing on cultural buildings and commerce, but I haven't seen the benefit of an industrial focused income province. There simply are too few industrial buildings, and having the bonus-giving buildings does not make sense when the base industrial income is so low. The ag bonus buildings rarely give much extra income (usually because base ag wealth is fairly low) and I don't build the farms for the cash but for the food.

Can anyone give advice on the slave trader city center buildings?

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The Roman amphora factory is pretty potent, as it boosts both agriculture and commercial.

Have never built a slave-line city center so can't comment on that, as generally I avoid having any slaves in my economy at all. I just don't think they're worth the public order headache.

The Amphora factory is worth it if you build it in a large (3-4) settlement province with at least 3 docks in it and if you have 12 PO to spare. For example, if you end up building a Circus Maximus in Africa, you'll have more PO than you can use up, so slapping that Amphora Factory there makes sense.

The Brickworks line gives huge (600 raw) income from industry - more than what the barbs get for sure! It's useful to build that in a small, land-locked province. For example, a province with 2 settlements (1 capital, 1 minor) which will not be able to use up even the basic PO you can sustain in the main city. 600 raw income is nothing to sneeze at if you have PO to spare.

I haven't tried the culture for money approach, though it was in the back of my mind for when I get to play Athens (for historical and RP reasons). I've always felt partial to Athens.

I haven't tried the culture for money approach, though it was in the back of my mind for when I get to play Athens (for historical and RP reasons). I've always felt partial to Athens.[/QUOTE]

Yep, the Greek/successor states get some great 100% culture income bonuses that quickly make buildings cash cows.

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Originally Posted by mbrasher1

I haven't tried the culture for money approach, though it was in the back of my mind for when I get to play Athens (for historical and RP reasons). I've always felt partial to Athens.

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Yep, the Greek/successor states get some great 100% culture income bonuses that quickly make buildings cash cows.[/QUOTE]

Yup! For Carthage, the Melqart line gives culture income and a huge percentage increase to maritime commerce income. I combine that with the Tanit line that gives public order and a huge bonus to culture income. I haven't done the math but I suspect I can replace the Amphorae Factory or either of the wine/grain market lines and/or then replace the Odeon with the Melqart line. Might come out on top in terms of income.

To get great wealth in Rome 2, you need a good base income on top of which you should apply strong modifiers.

For example, in a 4 city prov, Egypt can produce 4 royal tombs giving 200 cultural wealth for the level 3 buildings and 400 for the level 4. That can equal a base of 1000 cultural wealth, which benefits from generous bonuses in the tech tree and from other city center buildings. Tech can give a further 40%, the wine trader line 100%, and your base city building usually increase it another 30-100%.

Likewise, a good 4 city coastal prov like Africa can get to 1800 from commerce (600 from local and 1200 from maritime commerce). Three Roman L3 Neptune temples and a single L4 Neptune will yield a bonus of 100% to the maritime commerce. The base city building is good for another 30-100%. The Carthaginian Melgart temple will give even higher bonuses (up to 145% of the base maritime commerce). You would have to deal with the food loss from the high level ports and Neptune buildings.

Ag wealth is less dramatic, as the base ag income is lower. Take Aegyptus, one of the best ag provinces in the game. With 3 L4 farms and a bread and games edict, you can gross 60 food. You need at least 2 Serapis temples (giving +8 po for -4 food). The farms and the cities give you about 400 in ag wealth. You can get bonuses of 120% from two Isis temples. But even with the best ag provinces, with the best ag temple line, and with the use of an edict, the wealth total is still small. A lot of city center buildings give ag bonuses, but the base is just too small to run up real numbers. Even so, I am not building farm or ag provinces for the wealth, but for the food.


Industry? Many provs have a base of 100-300 industry in the city center. You can add further to the base with industry buildings, but there are only two and they can only be built in the leading city of a prov. The amphora and brick lines max out at 750 income (600 for the brick and 150 for the amphora). So you could get to a base 1000 income solely from industry. Bonuses of up to 100% can be found at 4 temples of Hephaistos/Vulcan.

It may be possible in the late game to get 4 ports, 2 industry buildings, and 4 temples to benefit each (Roman temples of Vulcan/Neptune) in a province like Africa. The income per turn would be huge. The temples would take care of the squalor but you'd be out alot of food.

Apparently ctrl-m allows you to merge units, just in case people didnt know.

Do we know if the general/statesmen promotion bonuses apply only when the promoted character is leading an army or also when the character is in the role of a statesman?

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Originally Posted by Slaists

Do we know if the general/statesmen promotion bonuses apply only when the promoted character is leading an army or also when the character is in the role of a statesman?

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Good question. Most of the bonuses would only be useful for a general anyway, but I suppose some of the civic bonuses could potentially apply to the home province when the character is cooling his heels in the capital. I've never thought to look.

I'm pretty sure that any +gravitas bonus does continue to work. I had an other-family general that was getting a bit too high, so I decided to send him home so he'd stop getting victories. Likewise, sometimes I've parked armies on garrison duty because they were commanded by generals whom I didn't want to get any more ranks & gravitas. Neither tactic worked...they kept building gravitas regardless.

some of those bonuses have faction-wide economic implications. So, would be really nice if they worked in the capital lol.

As to AI's. I feel, the biggest problem the AI has is not what to build in its provinces (which gets done instantly by script anyway), but rather what to do when the AI gains or loses territory. Conquering a high culture, no food region tends to put the AI in the deficit and at that point it seems to starve. I guess, the script does not foresee these situations (and proper building downgrades to solve the deficit). The same problem seems to exits for cases when the AI loses some critical territory (this is especially true for Rome and Carthage; I guess, for Egypt too, but I have never been close enough to observe what happens right before they get wiped).

Once an AI faction is starving, it is a practically dead until another, healthy, AI faction (or the player) comes along. Then, it's an easy win for the newcomer since the starving armies are 1/10th strength. Then, rinse repeat: the winner probably is the starving one now...

Funny, once I saw Sparta starving (after they conquered Apollonia). I took Apollonia from them and a few turns later they came back with healthy armies.

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Originally Posted by Slaists

...but rather what to do when the AI gains or loses territory."

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As I've mostly romped through Spain & Gaul as Rome or Carthage, I've seen the same. I wonder whether it's the AI not haveing the cash to re-purpose buildings, but maybe it's the coding as releasing troops untill only a supportable number are retained is a pretty basic choice and doesn't cost anything.

When a faction looses a bread-basket province through revolt, it is interesting to see the capital and edifice of their state (armies) crumble. I like the food supply mechanic but not the fact that, again, CA have delivered an AI which isn't up to playing the game with the same set of rules and moves at its disposal as the player.

It could be that the AI tries to 'convert' faction buildings to theirs, but if its tech level hasn't reached the required one for that building level it can't. Or it could be that when it gets a province specialised in temples, for instance, it converts them to its own culture buildings, but does not replace them with buildings from another chain.

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Originally Posted by al Roumi

As I've mostly romped through Spain & Gaul as Rome or Carthage, I've seen the same. I wonder whether it's the AI not haveing the cash to re-purpose buildings, but maybe it's the coding as releasing troops untill only a supportable number are retained is a pretty basic choice and doesn't cost anything.

When a faction looses a bread-basket province through revolt, it is interesting to see the capital and edifice of their state (armies) crumble. I like the food supply mechanic but not the fact that, again, CA have delivered an AI which isn't up to playing the game with the same set of rules and moves at its disposal as the player.

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At least in the previous versions of TW games, the AI was getting considerable cash bonuses on harder campaign difficulty (my campaign is on VH for example). If that mechanism is continued here, the problem for the AI is not the cash but the food. Also, related to that issue: cash does not seem to be the problem for the AI since when it conquers a province with low level buildings, that province gets instant high level (food consuming) builds the very next turn. So the problem seems with the coding as to how to upgrade/whether it's reasonable to upgrade a conquered province. Also, what to do when a province is lost.