Having some financial troubles as the Julii

[Derfasciti]

Hey guys,


I've now tried playing several long games as the Julii and each time i've played, no matter how seemingly careful I am, I eventually start ultimately losing money, from slowly getting less income, to downright negatives during the civil war.

Now, usually, I focus on taking the Britons, the Germans, Gauls and the Spanish. This time around i've done it a bit different and I currently control all of Gallic France, northern Italy, Switzerland, as well as some Dacian territories, a slice of the north western Balkans, and two Thracian cities on the Black (or Caspian, I always forget) Sea. IIRC, it's somewhere around 240 BC and i've been trying to take things slow, monitoring my economy much more often than in the other games and aiming towards building more financial buildings.

Still, after reading the guides i've yet to be able to turn anything more than a 7,000 denarii profit each turn. And now it's shrinking.

Any general or specific tips that could help me turn a nice, large profit while still being able to conquer?


Thanks.

[Omanes Alexandrapolites]

The Julii does seem to be a bit of a problem on the monetary front. Poor and primitive settlements out of the key trading area doesn't really assist in helping with the key problems.

Firstly, look at your "End of Turn" scroll or, if you can't find it, click on your faction's shield in the bottom right hand corner of the screen to bring up financial income and losses. You can monitor this scroll throughout the game to see changes in your financial situation and ensure that things continue looking upwards.

One thing you can (and in some cases need) to do, however, before considering all other options, it a mass reduction in spending. Reducing spending is, in most cases, free and easy and can result in profit improvements within the turn.

The most significant expenditure is usually military upkeep. Minimising the size of costly military forces is key to improving profit margins in times of economic depression. Go through every single force and city in your empire and disband all excess troops. You can do this by right clicking on a unit's card, and selecting the "disband" button on the left hand bottom side of the scroll.

A second easy to do thing you can perform is, if corruption is showing up on your scrolls, is move your capital to a more centralised location in your empire. This removes distance to capital penalty which, as well as increasing the levels of corruption, adds to unhappiness in the settlement in question.

Another simple thing you can do is increase taxes. Simply go around every settlement and up the taxes to the highest level possible without happiness going below 60%. 60% is the point at which the population begin to riot, which is why the population's level of dissent shouldn't really go any higher than that. You can set the computer to automatically set tax rates as high as possible by clicking on your faction's shield in the bottom right hand corner of the screen and then ticking "Auto-manage Taxes"

Wise usage of the money you have got is also a key part of keeping your finances manageable. You can do this by monitoring the effects of what you choose to construct in your settlements, as well as minimal recruiting of military forces.

You can check the effects that each building will have on settlement profits by opening up the settlements details scroll. You can find this by double clicking on the selected settlement and using one of the buttons on the bottom left hand side of the scroll to activate the relevant scroll. You will know you have found it when you see a list of pictograms on the page.

To see the effect a building will have on the settlement, drag it down onto the build que (although ensure it is alone on the build que and not combined with an additional (set of) building(s) - if this is the case, their effects will be counted as well).

You will be able to see the benefits on the scroll - bonuses the building will add should appear as faded icons in the "+" section of a relevant pictogram, while animated fading out icons in the "-" section show penalties the building will remove. Hover your mouse over the faded/fading icons to see the value which will be added/removed. Combining this data with the value of the building will allow you to estimate the time the construction will take to pay you back - as a general rule, the lower the payback time, the better value the building in the short term. Bear in mind that when trying to boost finances, the short term should be the focus - not the long term.

Of course, in some cases, it's best not to build at all. If no available building is going to be worth much to you in a settlement, it probably would be best to simply not build it rather than waste money on something which isn't going to be much of an aid in boosting profits.

[Quintus.JC]

A second easy to do thing you can perform is, if corruption is showing up on your scrolls, is move your capital to a more centralised location in your empire. This removes distance to capital penalty which, as well as increasing the levels of corruption, adds to unhappiness in the settlement in question.

Wow! Omanes just answered your question in every details you need. It's worth mentioning that the building of Temples of Jupiter reduces corruption as well. Seems that you have got some of the poorer lands in the game but this shouldn't stop you from hitting the 10K mark.

[Darkvicer98]

Also may i point out that the Julii don't have a very good ship trading area. Their ports are based on the west of italy and southern france. Whereas Brutii have eastern italy and western Greece as well as the Scipii to the south to trade with. Scipii have Sicily,North Carthage and Western Italy to trade with. Sicily is a high trade income area.

[Omanes Alexandrapolites]

Just to add to what I/others have already said, another thing that you may find useful to do in times of an economic downturn is set up a colony in richer areas.

As the Scipii I typically end up with a poor economy after the defeat of Carthage and use this method to gain new wealthier lands. This is expensive at first, but exceedingly profitable later on.

Typically, I go to the town of Kydonia on Crete and, from there, use that as an outpost into Asia Minor (Turkey). You do often end up having to finance massive armies to control these regions and keep the enemy (usually Egypt) at bay, but the wealth in the area is large enough to be capable of supporting them.