Financial advice for RTW noob

[BFD211]

I've done everything I know how to do and scoured the manual and other forums for help but so far I am still losing money with every turn. Any advice is greatly appreciated. The nearest I can figure out about managing all my settlements is that I have too large an army. I'm playing Brutii and have conquered all the way into Egypt but I'm almost broke and every time I raise taxes I get a riot. I've tried constructing everything that will improve trade but it still looks like my army's upkeep is killing me financially. If I auto-manage every settlement and uncheck both construction and recruitment, will that stop creating new buildings and new recruits? ...and, if so, will that help my money problems?
Dear God someone please help. I play the so-called best PC games as soon as they release for years but for some reason and despite glowing reviews since its release, I never played RTW and now I've have forsaken all other games to concentrate on RTW. Soeone please help. I can't lose my empire !!

Apppreciatively,
BFD211

[Nova Roma]

Army upkeep costs can be kept down by using peasants or town watch instead of hastati or cohorts. Definitely not worth paying upper-tier soldiers to do a job (sit down in city) peasants can do just as well.

Ports and port upgrades are big piles of money, though as the Brutii you should have conquered Athens, Sparta, etc. which are the most profitable places. If you are in Egypt make sure you capture the Great Pyramid for loyalty's sake.

Raising happiness and health in a settlement lets you raise taxes while keeping the face blue or above. (Temples, Sewers, Roman Coliseums) Temples of Juno should be built at the fringes of the empire, not Mars which should be in the huge cities at the center.

Think about relocating the capital to a central part of the empire if distance to capital is causing too much unrest (and preventing the taxgrab).

High management family members can increase productivity in a settlement, high influence governors keep public order high.

And AutoManage totally sucks. Do it yourself. If all else fails, go west to exterminate carthage, raze the buildings and abandon it.

[BFD211]

That's great advice Nova Roma. I asked this same question on other forums and got a lot of percentages thrown at me. Yours is advice I can actually understand and use. Thanks !

[Warmaster Horus]

And of course, if you've got too many soldiers, then disband them.

Since you've got Greece and the area around the Nile (at least, I think you do), trading-wise (and generally income-wise) you should be fine. Those places are the cash-cows of RTW. So just keep an eye on your expenses.

EDIT: Welcome to the forum!

[Quintus.JC]

Using Hastatis and Legionaries as city garrison is the best way to drain your treasury empty, peasants and town watch does a top-notch job at keeping your citizens happy at a minimum price. Also the sea is paved with money, build ports and upgrades as soon as possible, the Aegean sea is made of money, trade, trade and trade, there's no way you can be in debt. Also the Nile dealta has the most furtile farmlands in the game. Just watch your unit upkeep and disaband any unessary units then you'll do fine.

Welcome to the .org

[Katene]

Pffff, be first to develop your economy, then raise troops, if not you will have financial issues right away(however if you are a hyper strategist which can win all battles and cap the settlements extremely fast to solve the problem so I have no idea)... At least have all ports availaible.

[Zasz1234]

What others said is great. One addition would be to disband any navy you have. Your big threats are gone and navies are expensive to maintain if you don't need them anymore. Just a few to deal with pirates. And totally turn auto-manage off, it sucks to manage all by hand but it is the only way to build stuff that is needed.

[BFD211]

Great advice. I'm gonna try that out today. It seems I just lose tons of money on every turn. How do I "disband" armieds and navies? Is there a button I'm missing.

PS ...great quote.

[Quintus.JC]

Great advice. I'm gonna try that out today. It seems I just lose tons of money on every turn. How do I "disband" armieds and navies? Is there a button I'm missing.
.

Right click on the unit portrait, then on the bottom left you should see a circle button which says disaband unit.

[Warmaster Horus]

Or select the unit(s) you want to disband, and press Ctrl+D. Useful when you have several units to disband at once.
Note that navies can only be disbanded in ports.

[BFD211]

Thanks again. Disbanded some unneccessay units last night on a few turns and it's starting to work !
Something weird now though ...the senate wants my faction leader to commit suicide or we get outlawed. WTF ?? Is that because I only completed half of their assignments?

[Jxrc]

Thanks again. Disbanded some unneccessay units last night on a few turns and it's starting to work !
Something weird now though ...the senate wants my faction leader to commit suicide or we get outlawed. WTF ?? Is that because I only completed half of their assignments?

That's cause you've become too powerful for their liking ... No way to avoid that exept taking Rome early.

[Quintus.JC]

Something weird now though ...the senate wants my faction leader to commit suicide or we get outlawed. WTF ?? Is that because I only completed half of their assignments?

Prepare for the civil war to start, as Jxrc said; you became too powerful for their liking, you've now got two choices:

1.Obey. Commit suicide with your faction leader, your heir then becomes leader; this will buy you some time until the same action will be asked again by the Senate. This is useful if your faction leader is already very old, or if he is incompetent, and it will buy you some valuable time if you weren’t ready for the civil to kick-off yet.
2.Disobey. Refuse the offer; you don’t have to do everything the Senate says. This action will get you out-lawed and you will be at war with the other 3 Roman factions, take Rome and pound the other 2 families to dust, then you should be win campaign.

[Jxrc]

If you want to avoid having to fight the civil war an easy trick is to conquer 49 regions first, gather a nice army close to Rome and put as many spies as possible in the city.

Once the odds to ghet the doors opened are good just march on, assault the city immediately and it's game over even before the other Roman factions have had the opportunity to do anything about it.

[BFD211]

I like the sound of that but I'm still busy in Egypt. Guess I'll toss the old man under the bus. Thanks !

[Omanes Alexandrapolites]

This could be used as an opportunity to destroy a few unwanted family members. Simply mark them as heirs, and let the senate order their suicides till they are all gone. In R:TW the power of the faction leader has no effect on the empire as a whole.

As a general rule, the civil war can be triggered in two ways - getting outlawed by the senate, and earning enough popular support to march on the other Romans yourself. Assassinations don't start any hostilities between Romans in v1.5 until you have had the "Chance for Power" message.

Getting outlawed by the senate obviously involves invoking their displeasure at your status and actions as you may have already done. Ignoring senatorial missions is one way of doing this, but what really enrages the senate is over extending your borders and increasing your power to a level that rivals them.

As a general rule, senate popularity will begin to gradually drop once about thirty-five provinces have been captured. When it reaches two shields on the senatorial scroll, accessible through selecting the "Senate" tab after clicking on your factions shield in the bottom right hand corner of your screen, the senate will begin threatening you with a variety of punishments for ignoring their missions. This will eventually deteriorate into a demand for the suicide of your faction leader.

If you refuse this demand, the senate declares war on you in their fury and all the other Roman factions usually turn on you as well. This isn't a rule however, and on an odd occasion a Roman faction may choose to support you in the fight ahead.

Bear in mind that all other Romans can also be outlawed in the same way. In this case you will be asked who you wish to support - senate or the outlawed faction.

The second method involves earning about eight shields of popular support (again viewable on the "Senate" tab of the factional scroll).

Popular support is easy to earn, just conquer, conquer and do more conquering and the people will end up loving you. It doesn't have a cap like senate popularity, so there are no worries relating to having it decrease if you carry on conquering.

In this case, you gain a message telling you have "A Chance for Power". This allows you to cancel treaties with the other Romans and declare war on them as you could any other faction. Failed assassination attempts on other Roman families can also trigger the civil war once this event has been enabled.

As before, bear in mind that the other Roman factions can attack you in the same way using the same method.

I don't know the full mechanics of it, but I believe there is a bug associated with the other Roman factions during the civil war in v1.5. This allows them to attack you, but you cannot attack them back. I believe it's triggered when the other Romans declare war on you before you have the sufficient people popularity to fight back. This is unproven from the perspective of others, but it's generally how I've interpreted it.

Welcome to the .Org BTW

[BFD211]

Great stuff Omanes ! ...you should have written the manual for Creative Assembly. This is the kind of info that actually helps us noobs. Thanks again.

[Warmaster Horus]

You'll want to check Froggy's great guide. Plenty of tips and info for new players.