how do you guys increase your faction's income?

[guineawolf]

how do you guys increase your faction's income?

except build market,dock,trade caravan,roads and temples,how do you guys manage to get high income for your faction?

for me,i used to keep my public order above 100%,that means lot of garrison upkeep to spend on.Now i maintain my public order above blue face(above 80%),i save up to at least 600 denarii a city(i use peasant as garrisons,and all the regulars join the attacking army,since i only attack from my frontal cities,that means i need no worry about my defenses).Perhaps you will say,how we gonna deal with those brigands?Use your cheapest(cheapest upkeep) cavalry to wipe out those brigands,dun bribe them,it won't worth!Then the devastation that cause by those brigands,you still profit from low garrisons upkeep for the long term.

for roman factions,well use the entertainment,for huge city with 24000 populations,while monthly games or monthly races that cost 400 denarii can provide 20% public order(PO),4 units peasants that cost 400 denarii can provide only 10% to 15% PO.Becoz of roman entertainment,i save up a lot of denarii to spent on my mighty legionaries.

[The Wandering Scholar]

It is all about keeping a bare minimum of military and garrisons, I find 2/3 units of town watch are adequate garrison and I use 1/2 stacks for legions. Also if you feel the need, kill off useless generals to save on their 500ish upkeep/ wages.

[Quintus.JC]

I don't think you need to save every penny/denarius. I used to, but it only brought me bad traits for my characters. of course you need to save money in the early game, but when you reaches huge cities then there's no need to recurit peasants anywhere in the game.

[carbz]

trade. Upgrade the docks, try and get the colossus, build a decent navy to prevent blackades and piracy.

[Quirinus]

Yar. I've found that trade solves many things. Especially if you're a maritime faction or just a faction with a coastal province, try to make treaties with peoples across the sea from you, so that the possibility of them declaring war on you in less. This way, you are guranteed some trade income every turn until you've expanded enough, at which point it probably won't matter that much. (Obviously this doesn't apply to situations like Greece and the Brutii, though.)

I disagree with using entertainment though. I tend to use garrisons as much as possible because I view entertainment as a contingency plan-- in case something drastic like the plague or the death of an influential governor happens.

[Quintus.JC]

Building an arena or it's upgrade could start an gladiator rebillion. I don't want my generals to run into Spartatus and his buddies. They get elephants as well. Scary.

[Quirinus]

It's pretty rare, though. Besides, you can always bribe them back, as these gladiator rebellions mostly happen in the late-game.

[Omanes Alexandrapolites]

As said, fine tuning the military is probably the most important aspect of financial management - military upkeep almost always is the largest strain on any factions' coffers. Disbanding units no longer needed and minimising garrison sizes is often critical to optimising financial situations for the better.

On that note, if you have a city suffering from terrible public order, peasants, in R:TW, are better garrison troops than town watch. This is because of a combination of a higher number of men in the unit, henceforth higher happiness bonus, with a lower upkeep cost. In BI this is not the case though - peasants provide less of a bonus than higher class units.

Another key method of improving income is simply avoiding the construction of unnecessary/less economically worthwhile structures. Although some may think that building anything and everything is a wise move, one often has to consider pay back time and, most importantly, whether the construction is actually worthwhile in the first place.

In the settlement details scroll, the one with the pictograms, a settlement's financial gains/losses are shown on the screen. If the player selects to build a new building, the bonuses provided are shown as faded out items on the + pictogram, while negatives which will be take away are shown as fading out icons on the - pictogram.

Holding the mouse over these fading/faded icons shows the value of the addition/subtraction per turn. Comparing that with the cost of the building shows the potential of the scheme each turn versus the initial cost.

If you really are in financial hell destroying buildings to get back their cash can be a must. As the WRE in BI, this is pretty much the only early tactic which can actually get you past the early phases.

[ThePianist]

How is it that peasants are less good as garrison in Barbarian Invasion?

[Omanes Alexandrapolites]

How is it that peasants are less good as garrison in Barbarian Invasion?

It's due to the "peasant" attribute in the text files.

This reduces the effect of units with the attribute have on public order in settlements by a fairly significant amount. As you may expect, peasants have the attribute assigned to them. All other units, as far as I know, don't have the attribute, so don't have the reduction.