Money Problem

[Raiuga]

Ok, I'm a noob at EB...I know that

but...

I presently playing with Koinon Hellenon and I have a constant problem having a positive income. I can't recruit any significant units because it will ruin all my economy. Then I see Epeiros and Macedonia fielding huge armies of elite units but all of their cities have negative income...How can they do that? Here does their money comes? Is this supposed to be like this? Or am I missing something?....
I played RTW original and it wasn't like this (at least not so evident)

Please help this little noob

[Moros]

Always build the buildings that improve your economy first. Disband units you don't need, and especially disband fleets you don't need. and if you ever have the ablity, build mines

The ai gets some money assistance as they tend to handle money even worse.

[Ezephkiel]

KH get super rich pretty quick, playing them at the moment.

Getting your population up means more money aswell (i believe).

Other than that, the main thing at the start is to disband most of your fleets, island garissons can be small or non existant (unless your using alex.exe i suppose, where the enemy use boats more)

Once you have a few cities though and trade buildings it shouldn't be too much of a problem.

[TWFanatic]

Ideally you should pursue one of two strategies from the start:

1. Disband the majority of your units except for cheap troops (slingers, archers, or skirmishers) who can be used with FMs as garrisons. AS KH I like to conquer Crete before disbanding my entire army there and settling down. DISBAND YOUR ENTIRE NAVY IMMEDIANTLY. Solely devote your construction to building up your economy now. Make alliances and avoid wars for the first 3-5 years or until your economy is stable enough to maintain a standing army, at which time you may set out and try to conquer neighboring rebel provinces or small factions. If you go into debt, disband your armies after conquest and once again devote your construction to building up your economy.

2. Set out immediately on conquest with the units you have and devote yourself entirely to military expansion into the richest neighboring provinces you can find. As KH, this means north to Pella (which as mines). You will initially go into debt but after conquering the wealthiest neighboring provinces try to disband your units and establish a period of peace and economic prosperity until your annual income is once again substantial enough to maintain a standing army. Set out on conquest once again. Rinse and repeat. When I get a particularly good commander, I keep him in the field for longer periods of time and don't disband his army (which becomes highly experienced). Small, highly experienced forces can reap great benefits without the impact on your treasury.


Note that KH is particularly hard in the beginning because the Lakedaemonian bodyguards have an expensive upkeep costs (all other FM bodyguard upkeep is free). Also note that it is frequently hard to pursue strategy number 1 with two hostile factions to your north. I tend to prefer number 2 as KH (whereas with most factions I use strategy number 1).

[Maion Maroneios]

I have a slightly different strategy for you, but you have to follow these steps as strictly as possible:

1) First raise all city taxes to Very High. The only city that will have some plus will be Athenai, IIRC. Don't disband any unit or any ship at the moment.

2) Send your diplomat to Epeiros and try to negotiate an alliance with them at first, then offer them map information in exchange with a grand or something close to that. Next move to the Getai and Asia Minor.

3) Use your spy in Krete to infiltrate Kydonia and hope he will open the gates for you in the first siege. Do so with Areus and his army. You should be able to take the city with not too many casualties if you have some experience with the KH.

4) After you take Kydonia, expel the population. It is important to do this, as you ge more population in your other cities, as well as some income boost in Kydonia. Remain there until you build a regional pacifiation and maybe other building like Perikatharsis Paralia (Coastal Clearing). I think that, at this time, you may have some small income or very little debt.

5) Move Areus and the spy within Kydonia (don't forget him there) along with the Sphendonetai unit in Rhodos (if you wish so) to Chalkis. This is your new target. You can even get some troops from Sparte and prepare your forces for later.

6) When you reach Chalkis, try to infiltrate it and deploy the same strategy as with Kydonia to take it and expel the city's population. Don't worry about Athenai, almost always Antigonos either sits there with his army outside Athenai or, if you are lucky, goes north to Demetrias.

7) Your next target is Korinthos. This city is going to be trickier to get, as it has a unit of Hippeis Thessalikoi IIRC and a unit of Phalangitai Deutaroi. You will have only one shot at taking the city, providing that Antigonos stays outside Athenai with his massive force. For God's sake, don't try and confront him in a pitched battle. Land your army with your navy at Peloponnesos and siege the city from the south-west, as far as possible from Antigonos. Build some good siege gear and attack the city on the 2nd turn, as Antigonos is posed to attack you. Luckily, he won't be able to reach you in the first turn. You can even bring Akrotatos from Sparte into the fray, due to his invaluable Spartiatai bodyguard.

8) After you take Korinthos, you can expel the population again, if you wish. By now you should have a steady flow of cash coming within your coffers.

9) You should now be able to focus more on fighting the Makedones and/or Epeirotai, though the latter I would propose to do afteryou defeat the former. Your army typically consists of just Hoplitai Haploi, Sphendonetai, Akontistai and maybe Hippakontistai if you want some cavalry.

Just use your navy to sink any Makedonian ones and makes raids to places like Byzantion and such. Try using some guarilla warfare to weaken Antigonos and when you feel confident enough, attack him. Next focus on Epeiros and unify Hellas, after that the possibilities are endless. Build roads, farms and temples of Apollo and money will flow like a wild river into your coffers.

Hope this proved helpful,
Maion

[Raiuga]

HI EVERYBODY!!!!

I thank you all for your answers to my problem...and thank for your advise.

[Raiuga]

Sorry but I can't take some of your advises because I'm already in the year 257...though I found them very interesting.

this was what I have done:

1. VH taxes in every town. I still had negative income but still it was minimized to the full. Economic buildings was the priority.
2. I formed an alliance with epeiros and getai to take down macedonia (getai really doesn't attack Macedonia ). Next, I arranged a cease fire with AS (not that difficult) and formed as much alliances as possible.
3. I took Crete in the second turn (not that difficult though, the AI is way to stupid)
4. I destroyed any Macedonian fleets I could find (at first I wanted to disband my fleet but I couldn't and I don't know why ). I blocked their ports but I don't know if that did something important to their economy
5. War with Macedonia was inevitable. I started a attrition war and transported all available troops to Athens (I disbanded no unit).
6. After some small scale battle with them ("pick your battles") they made the mistake of attacking Sparte. After defeating the attacking forces, in a quick move, I joined all available units to form a small army and attack Korinth. Their garrison was small and I had to seize the opportunity. After that it was just making a cease fire with Macedonia.

Now I have a relatively good income (my max was 6000 per turn and I reached 40000 denari in 48 turns). In this last turns, Halicarnassos is always revolting against AS, giving me some free troops but the upkeep took a big slice from my income. I gave away Halicarnassos to AS, war with them would be suicide at this point. At this point I have a eye in Chalkis and I'm already preparing to attack it.

I don't know if this was a really good start but its working for me...I'm playing at medium difficulty just that you know

[satalexton]

glad you made a good start =] It's true that EB's very intimidating to vanilla players at first.

remember to follow the terms and conditions and read more about real history ;)

[Megas Methuselah]

Glad to see you're picking up the pace. As for me, I always gather together my armies and conquer as much territory as possible until they die. Then I build up my economy.

Anyways, I noticed you don't know how to disband fleets. You almost always should at the start of a game, because they are HUGELY EXPENSIVE to maintain. In order to disband fleets, you must take them to one of your own ports. Fleets can only be disbanded in ports. Or you can just kill as many enemy fleets until your own fleet dies, all within the first few turns. Lol...

It is my hope that you continue to enjoy EB, Raiuga.

[Raiuga]

Thanks Methuselah. I forgot that

[Megas Methuselah]

Lol, don't worry, friend. In the game of life, we're all noobs.

[Apgad]

There's a relevant line somewhere in the FAQ: The AI has the money, you have the brains...

[Maion Maroneios]

Sorry but I can't take some of your advises because I'm already in the year 257...though I found them very interesting.

this was what I have done:

1. VH taxes in every town. I still had negative income but still it was minimized to the full. Economic buildings was the priority.
2. I formed an alliance with epeiros and getai to take down macedonia (getai really doesn't attack Macedonia ). Next, I arranged a cease fire with AS (not that difficult) and formed as much alliances as possible.
3. I took Crete in the second turn (not that difficult though, the AI is way to stupid)
4. I destroyed any Macedonian fleets I could find (at first I wanted to disband my fleet but I couldn't and I don't know why ). I blocked their ports but I don't know if that did something important to their economy
5. War with Macedonia was inevitable. I started a attrition war and transported all available troops to Athens (I disbanded no unit).
6. After some small scale battle with them ("pick your battles") they made the mistake of attacking Sparte. After defeating the attacking forces, in a quick move, I joined all available units to form a small army and attack Korinth. Their garrison was small and I had to seize the opportunity. After that it was just making a cease fire with Macedonia.

Now I have a relatively good income (my max was 6000 per turn and I reached 40000 denari in 48 turns). In this last turns, Halicarnassos is always revolting against AS, giving me some free troops but the upkeep took a big slice from my income. I gave away Halicarnassos to AS, war with them would be suicide at this point. At this point I have a eye in Chalkis and I'm already preparing to attack it.

I don't know if this was a really good start but its working for me...I'm playing at medium difficulty just that you know

Good to hear you are doing good now. The only thing I can advice you to do is keep using your navy to sink any Makedonian or pirate fleet within the Aigaion (Lemboi excell at the job of crushing the latter, btw) and of course for raiding shores, use small flexible armies consisted of skirmishers to use them as bait and/or skirmishing armies for guarilla warfare. Also, keep building economical buildings to further fill you pockets and barrackses to field more decent units.

When you decide to go on the offensive, make sure you are able to train Hoplitai (Demetrias has a native barracks that does and you can use it when you take control of the city itself) and Peltastai. Use the former in bands of 4-6 as your main battle line, either as a single line or something more flexible like leaving some gaps between them, with some Haploi reserves for example. Hoplitai on guard mode can hold back sarissai-wielding soldiers quite long, giving you the time needed to encircle their nattle line with you elite hoplitai (FM bodyguards) or cavalry, providing you do posses any unit of.

Yet again, good luck with your campaign!
Maion

[Aemilius Paulus]

Check in the settlement details if your city is losing money due to corruption. If it is, then you'll need to build a temple that gives you a law bonus (for KH I believe it's the Temple of Zeus). The law bonus (which can be from any law-bonus-giving building) will cut a portion of that corruption and the city will in turn have more income than it would from having a temple of Apollo. Temple of Apollo gives a small tradeable goods increase, which will not add much to your income. Only build the Temple of Apollo in cities that don't have ANY corruption (which are usually cities the closest to your capital or the cities that have tons of law-giving buildings/generals.) Temple of Zeus brings in MUCH more money than a Temple of Apollo.

[Maion Maroneios]

Is that so? Then, in that case, I will do the same! Thanks for the info!

Maion