Couple question: Economy, religion...war

[thecoffeeguy]

So, I have been playing this for about a week now and have to say, very rich (instead of complex) and lots going on.

I feel like there is quite a bit to learn and absorb on this game and it only gets richer and richer as the game goes on.

But I was hoping I could ask a few questions here to help me get started.

Economy:

I have read a few strategy sections on how to get the economy going. Makes sense really, but I seem to be struggling getting the hang of it.

I am trying ME2, just the normal campaign and started as the French.
I have conquered a few surround towns and occupied them.

The biggest thing I think I get stuck on is, what to build in a village? What to build in a castle? The use of Merchants.

I have tried using a couple of merchants but the AI always seems to 'overtake' my Merchants.

I seem to be doing ok on battles, but I have a question on whether a tactic I am using is 'cheap' or not.

I attacked a Spanish General.
The balance looked pretty good.
When the battle started, they were in the woods, I was in the open and had to advance on them.

The battle did not start out well for me and m spear men took some serious damage (i had 2 archers, 2 spearmen, 1 calvary and the bodyguard...early game battle).

Anyway, when I saw that my spear men were getting their butts handed to them, I hit the withdraw button on both of them to pull them back.

In the meantime, I still had my archers fire at the crossbow men.
While this was going on, I brought my cavalry up (both of them) and flank the Spanish bodyguard and the crossbow men.

When the SPanish spear men saw this, they raced to their General, which allowed me to bring my spear men back in and attack from the side.

I thought i was loosing the battle, but when i did this (using withdraw), I was able to swing the tide of the battle in my favor. I was able to kill the General (which was why I attacked the Spanish bodyguard).

This a cheap tactic? or just sneaky?

Anyway, love the game, but the economy and religion thing has me stumped a bit.

Any help is great.
Thanks,

TCG

[Polemists]

The biggest thing I think I get stuck on is, what to build in a village? What to build in a castle? The use of Merchants.

Only going to take econmic side here one step at a time.



Castle v Village


Depending on who you talk to there are a plethroa of strategies on this, two of the most common are the Frontier strategy and the scattered.

Frontier
Frontier is where you build castles all along your borders with enemies and let your "safe" zones turn into cities. This lets you get troops and defenses to your front, and earn income.

This is useful for facitons like SPain, denmark and others, where you can really create a wall between the rest of your cities and the enemy by only turning a handful of cities into castles.

Scattered
If your France or Germany or Byzantines or another large empire, then you can't really create the so called border, it may prove to costly and time consuming. In this instance you are just gonig to scatter based on what you need.


A important thing to remeber is while castle troops and defenses will own the first 200 years of the game, the last 200 city defenses will surpass them, do to cannon towers and the like. Plus city troops will get better as time goes on.


Merchants:

This is purely a choice, I always use them, some people don't. You have to use them though to get anything out of them, just having them sit on resources will get them taken quickly.

Merchants after a turn or two on a resource go up to 2-3 finance, and then you need to send them out to take other merchants. Try taking ones with lower amounts, but if you can't it dosn't matter try taking them, even if you lose your merchants.

Every time your merchant tries to aqquire another pushes you towards the merchant guild. Once you get the guild your merchants will really start to improve. Just keep them active. They truly can generate thousands of florins a turn if used right.

[Ratwar]

Building thing:

Really managing Settlements of all types in the game is just a matter of prioritizing. Basically you start out with several goals in each city. For example:

Marseille's Goals:
1. Make Money: Port city, can make plenty of cash
a. Get a Merchant's Guild to improve trade and produce Merchants that are worth buying.
2. Grow Fast: As your only starting Port city and potentially your most profitable settlement you want this place to grow fast.
3. Happy Populus: Essential for making money via taxes and needed to keep a large city in line.
4. Decent Defense: As a city on the border of Milan, it may come under attack at some point.
5. Safe to Governor: As a major piece of my future economic plan, I want Marseille to be able to have a governor without him becoming Prince Lou-Man of the Clap.

Then you build based on these goals. In Marseille's case, I'd follow the basic build order of any City-Level Upgrades, then any trade buildings. Following this up with a basic amount of farming followed with. The next three are pretty easy to combine as a lot of buildings are duel purpose (Barracks provide good troops and a order boost, building the townhall line and churches boost popularity and give govenors good traits). Finally it also means that I'm going to avoid building any brothels, since they have a bad tendency to attract bad Governor traits.

In General terms, I want all of my Towns/Cities to make money. After that usually I choose a Guild for them to work towards (Usually the inland cities are the unique Guilds while the coast just gets merchant ones to increase trade).

A sample Castle's priorties for Angers:
1. Cavalry Troop Specialization: Inland, roughly central to France as a region, if not as a Nation yet. Calvary are fast moving and can thus reach borders quicker, so creating a single major cavalry depot in the Center of your Empire has advantages.
2. Fast Growing: The fast it grows, the fast you'll get access to more powerful cavalry.

In the early going, Merchants are useless, but once you've got a Merchant's guild, they can become very fun.

As for your single player strategy, that is simply good tactics.

[Quintus.JC]

The biggest thing I think I get stuck on is, what to build in a village?

Realistically a village is pretty useless, and it would be ideal to try to upgrade them as soon as possible. In villages and towns your priority should be building farming upgrade, this improves the settlement’s income but more importantly adds a nice population boost to your meagre little settlements.

As for a normal settlement (not particularly tiny) the best stuff to build is most definitely roads (and paved if possible). This stuff improves trade by a great deal and also improves the movement distances for your characters and armies, which could prove invaluable at times.

As ratwar stated, ports are absolutely money making machines when it comes to trading. The sea is paved with money, and not fully taking advantage of this could prove costly. Get as much trade agreement as you can and your ports could make you an extremely healthy amount of profit.

Markets are the standard trade building within a settlement, so build them obviously.

Other additional stuff such as Merchant’s Wharf and Banks are all nice, build them if you can.

Quoted shamelessly from M2TW FAQ by Econ21

What to build in a castle?

What to build in a castle depends on the strength of the faction, or at least this rule applies earlier in the campaign. If you have superb ranged units then always go for Bowyer and upgrades, if you have excellent infantry then barracks will be your priority, and stables for cavalry. In the case of the French I suggest you try to build a Drill Square as soon as possible, these give you the ability to train Armoured Sergeant, which is pretty much the best you can get within castle level. Once advanced into Fortress you are almost spoilt for choice, as you get both mounted and dismounted Feudal Knights. And as you progress into Citadel you should be quite invincible.

The use of Merchants.

Merchants are tricky to use for relative newcomers to the game. Merchants basically stands on resources and make money for the mother faction, the more finance they have the more money they will make, and the more chance of success they’ll have on acquiring other merchants’ assets.

Four ways Merchants pick up more finance:

Random chance – Merchants can have high finance by random chance, it is possible for you to recruit 3+ finance merchants in simple towns, though the chance is low. Also retinues help finance, but they are random chances as well.

Experience – Merchants standing on the same trade resources for a substantial amount of time will gain more finances.

Acquisition – Merchants putting other merchants out of business will gain more finance. This is best done to use higher merchants to prey on weak merchants with low finance. A 3 finance merchants should have no problem acquiring 1 finance merchants, this will also gain your merchants finances, this would drive the opposition merchants out of business for good. But the AI merchants can do this to you as well, and when they do it is very annoying indeed.

Guild – Merchant Guilds are good for boosting the settlements’ trade. But they also give a significant boost of finance to your merchants. Merchants guild and master merchant guilds are good for any merchants trained in the settlement with that guild, this will normally give your merchants a 1-3 finance boost. Merchant HQs adds a significant boost to your merchant, and will ensure you that every merchant trained will have a 5+ finance, and they also have global effects as well.

You attract merchant guild by your leadership style. Marseilles is an ideal destination for a merchant guild, my advice is to keep on recruiting all of your merchants in Marseilles, when it reaches city level the merchants should probably offer you the chance to have merchant guild in the settlement, then its plain sailing from that point.

This a cheap tactic? or just sneaky?

William I of England applied the same tactic in Hastings, and he'll always remembered as a cheat.

Cheating is the only cheap tactic; everything else is considered legal and justified.

Hope this helps.

[thecoffeeguy]

Only going to take econmic side here one step at a time.



Castle v Village


Depending on who you talk to there are a plethroa of strategies on this, two of the most common are the Frontier strategy and the scattered.

Frontier
Frontier is where you build castles all along your borders with enemies and let your "safe" zones turn into cities. This lets you get troops and defenses to your front, and earn income.

This is useful for facitons like SPain, denmark and others, where you can really create a wall between the rest of your cities and the enemy by only turning a handful of cities into castles.

Scattered
If your France or Germany or Byzantines or another large empire, then you can't really create the so called border, it may prove to costly and time consuming. In this instance you are just gonig to scatter based on what you need.


A important thing to remeber is while castle troops and defenses will own the first 200 years of the game, the last 200 city defenses will surpass them, do to cannon towers and the like. Plus city troops will get better as time goes on.

Good to know.
I am trying out France right now and so far, have managed to take back what is Modern day France.
But I have a pretty good idea of what you are saying. I will continue to test things out.

Merchants:

This is purely a choice, I always use them, some people don't. You have to use them though to get anything out of them, just having them sit on resources will get them taken quickly.

Merchants after a turn or two on a resource go up to 2-3 finance, and then you need to send them out to take other merchants. Try taking ones with lower amounts, but if you can't it dosn't matter try taking them, even if you lose your merchants.

Every time your merchant tries to aqquire another pushes you towards the merchant guild. Once you get the guild your merchants will really start to improve. Just keep them active. They truly can generate thousands of florins a turn if used right.

I can really see where Merchants are powerful. I tried doing some things by getting trade rights with another faction and having my Merchant sit on some resource. However, my merchants always seem to get "taken" out by another merchant, yet I cant do it back to them.

I recently was able to setup the Merchant's Guild in Paris. I am still learning this, but what does the purpose of the new unit (Merchant Unit of some sort)...help with? I wasn't sure on how to use this unit.

Thanks for your help.

TCG

[thecoffeeguy]

Building thing:

Really managing Settlements of all types in the game is just a matter of prioritizing. Basically you start out with several goals in each city. For example:

Marseille's Goals:
1. Make Money: Port city, can make plenty of cash
a. Get a Merchant's Guild to improve trade and produce Merchants that are worth buying.
2. Grow Fast: As your only starting Port city and potentially your most profitable settlement you want this place to grow fast.
3. Happy Populus: Essential for making money via taxes and needed to keep a large city in line.
4. Decent Defense: As a city on the border of Milan, it may come under attack at some point.
5. Safe to Governor: As a major piece of my future economic plan, I want Marseille to be able to have a governor without him becoming Prince Lou-Man of the Clap.

Then you build based on these goals. In Marseille's case, I'd follow the basic build order of any City-Level Upgrades, then any trade buildings. Following this up with a basic amount of farming followed with. The next three are pretty easy to combine as a lot of buildings are duel purpose (Barracks provide good troops and a order boost, building the townhall line and churches boost popularity and give govenors good traits). Finally it also means that I'm going to avoid building any brothels, since they have a bad tendency to attract bad Governor traits.

In General terms, I want all of my Towns/Cities to make money. After that usually I choose a Guild for them to work towards (Usually the inland cities are the unique Guilds while the coast just gets merchant ones to increase trade).

A sample Castle's priorties for Angers:
1. Cavalry Troop Specialization: Inland, roughly central to France as a region, if not as a Nation yet. Calvary are fast moving and can thus reach borders quicker, so creating a single major cavalry depot in the Center of your Empire has advantages.
2. Fast Growing: The fast it grows, the fast you'll get access to more powerful cavalry.

In the early going, Merchants are useless, but once you've got a Merchant's guild, they can become very fun.

As for your single player strategy, that is simply good tactics.

Lots of good help here. Much appreciated.

Cheers,

TCG

[anweRU]

Good to know.
I am still learning this, but what does the purpose of the new unit (Merchant Unit of some sort)...help with? I wasn't sure on how to use this unit.
TCG

That should be Merchant Cavalry, which is simply a light cavalry unit, same as Mounted Sargents, Alan Light Cavalry, Hobilars, etc. It isn't a very good unit (as you can't see from the stats). Turks get Sipahis, which are much better cavalry. IIRC, the Egyptians & Moors should get Arab Cavalry.

[thecoffeeguy]

That should be Merchant Cavalry, which is simply a light cavalry unit, same as Mounted Sargents, Alan Light Cavalry, Hobilars, etc. It isn't a very good unit (as you can't see from the stats). Turks get Sipahis, which are much better cavalry. IIRC, the Egyptians & Moors should get Arab Cavalry.

Ahh...ok....so really, its about getting the Merchants guild than?

[thecoffeeguy]

Building thing:

Really managing Settlements of all types in the game is just a matter of prioritizing. Basically you start out with several goals in each city. For example:

Marseille's Goals:
1. Make Money: Port city, can make plenty of cash
a. Get a Merchant's Guild to improve trade and produce Merchants that are worth buying.
2. Grow Fast: As your only starting Port city and potentially your most profitable settlement you want this place to grow fast.
3. Happy Populus: Essential for making money via taxes and needed to keep a large city in line.
4. Decent Defense: As a city on the border of Milan, it may come under attack at some point.
5. Safe to Governor: As a major piece of my future economic plan, I want Marseille to be able to have a governor without him becoming Prince Lou-Man of the Clap.

Then you build based on these goals. In Marseille's case, I'd follow the basic build order of any City-Level Upgrades, then any trade buildings. Following this up with a basic amount of farming followed with. The next three are pretty easy to combine as a lot of buildings are duel purpose (Barracks provide good troops and a order boost, building the townhall line and churches boost popularity and give govenors good traits). Finally it also means that I'm going to avoid building any brothels, since they have a bad tendency to attract bad Governor traits.

In General terms, I want all of my Towns/Cities to make money. After that usually I choose a Guild for them to work towards (Usually the inland cities are the unique Guilds while the coast just gets merchant ones to increase trade).

A sample Castle's priorties for Angers:
1. Cavalry Troop Specialization: Inland, roughly central to France as a region, if not as a Nation yet. Calvary are fast moving and can thus reach borders quicker, so creating a single major cavalry depot in the Center of your Empire has advantages.
2. Fast Growing: The fast it grows, the fast you'll get access to more powerful cavalry.

In the early going, Merchants are useless, but once you've got a Merchant's guild, they can become very fun.

As for your single player strategy, that is simply good tactics.

Excellent information here.
I think I just need to test things out a bit, learn the game.
Knowing what to build is probably a huge part of the game.

THe building browser....how do I figure that thing out? I think I have it figured out, then I dont.

Thanks!

TCG

[thecoffeeguy]

So, what about religion? I was testing out some stuff at France and the pope was really mad at me.

I thought I was doing ok, had churches in most of my areas and had Priests around. GUess not. I had some inquisitors trooping through my lands. Not good. I had two bars in favor from the Pope.

I think I was focusing so much on building my economy, I overlooked that.

I thought if I could jumpstart my economy, I could build other things later.

And upkeep of troops. That can be expensive. Only militia are free when garrisoned?

Do most people take their generals out and cruise through the lands? IF you take your General out (or your leaders), you cant build some structures correct?

Thanks!

TCG

[thecoffeeguy]

Realistically a village is pretty useless, and it would be ideal to try to upgrade them as soon as possible. In villages and towns your priority should be building farming upgrade, this improves the settlement’s income but more importantly adds a nice population boost to your meagre little settlements.

As for a normal settlement (not particularly tiny) the best stuff to build is most definitely roads (and paved if possible). This stuff improves trade by a great deal and also improves the movement distances for your characters and armies, which could prove invaluable at times.

As ratwar stated, ports are absolutely money making machines when it comes to trading. The sea is paved with money, and not fully taking advantage of this could prove costly. Get as much trade agreement as you can and your ports could make you an extremely healthy amount of profit.

Markets are the standard trade building within a settlement, so build them obviously.

Other additional stuff such as Merchant’s Wharf and Banks are all nice, build them if you can.

Quoted shamelessly from M2TW FAQ by Econ21




What to build in a castle depends on the strength of the faction, or at least this rule applies earlier in the campaign. If you have superb ranged units then always go for Bowyer and upgrades, if you have excellent infantry then barracks will be your priority, and stables for cavalry. In the case of the French I suggest you try to build a Drill Square as soon as possible, these give you the ability to train Armoured Sergeant, which is pretty much the best you can get within castle level. Once advanced into Fortress you are almost spoilt for choice, as you get both mounted and dismounted Feudal Knights. And as you progress into Citadel you should be quite invincible.



Merchants are tricky to use for relative newcomers to the game. Merchants basically stands on resources and make money for the mother faction, the more finance they have the more money they will make, and the more chance of success they’ll have on acquiring other merchants’ assets.

Four ways Merchants pick up more finance:

Random chance – Merchants can have high finance by random chance, it is possible for you to recruit 3+ finance merchants in simple towns, though the chance is low. Also retinues help finance, but they are random chances as well.

Experience – Merchants standing on the same trade resources for a substantial amount of time will gain more finances.

Acquisition – Merchants putting other merchants out of business will gain more finance. This is best done to use higher merchants to prey on weak merchants with low finance. A 3 finance merchants should have no problem acquiring 1 finance merchants, this will also gain your merchants finances, this would drive the opposition merchants out of business for good. But the AI merchants can do this to you as well, and when they do it is very annoying indeed.

Guild – Merchant Guilds are good for boosting the settlements’ trade. But they also give a significant boost of finance to your merchants. Merchants guild and master merchant guilds are good for any merchants trained in the settlement with that guild, this will normally give your merchants a 1-3 finance boost. Merchant HQs adds a significant boost to your merchant, and will ensure you that every merchant trained will have a 5+ finance, and they also have global effects as well.

You attract merchant guild by your leadership style. Marseilles is an ideal destination for a merchant guild, my advice is to keep on recruiting all of your merchants in Marseilles, when it reaches city level the merchants should probably offer you the chance to have merchant guild in the settlement, then its plain sailing from that point.



William I of England applied the same tactic in Hastings, and he'll always remembered as a cheat.

Cheating is the only cheap tactic; everything else is considered legal and justified.

Hope this helps.

Wow..that is an awesome post man. Tons of information there. Much obliged.

THe more I play the game, the more complex I see how it is. Very rich.
I will try and make Marseilles the way suggested.

Cheers,

TCG

[FactionHeir]

Please cease double posting and re-quoting whole posts you already quoted.
Thank you.

[Old Geezer]

To have just 2 pips on the PopeMeter you must have been doing something more than just ignoring the Pope, I think. Did you get several warnings for attacking catholic nations or not go on crusades or ignore a mission that the Pope requested? I have seen excommunicated factions with 2 Pope pips.

[thecoffeeguy]

Please cease double posting and re-quoting whole posts you already quoted.
Thank you.

That was my fault. I accidentally did that, but could not find the delete post function.
Sorry.

[thecoffeeguy]

To have just 2 pips on the PopeMeter you must have been doing something more than just ignoring the Pope, I think. Did you get several warnings for attacking catholic nations or not go on crusades or ignore a mission that the Pope requested? I have seen excommunicated factions with 2 Pope pips.

Possibly because I kept fighting the Spanish?

[Quintus.JC]

Possibly because I kept fighting the Spanish?

Did you ignore Papal warnings for a ceasefire?

Any refusal to join a crusade?

The Inquistors are possible punishments, but they also could be random ones that just walks about for no reason and burns any low piety generals.

[Ratwar]

Possibly because I kept fighting the Spanish?

Yeah, that is probably it. Even if the Pope doesn't ask you to stop attacking, he generally dislikes you for doing so. He'll also dock you a few points for exterminating or sacking Catholic cities in my experience.

Also, on your question about being able to build things without Generals, there should be an option when your choosing the faction and difficulty of the campaign called 'Manage all Settlements' if this is selected, then you can build in settlements without needing a Family member or General. Alternatively, you can move a single General or Governor around to multiple cities and use the time spent between building and completion to make your 'rounds'.

[thecoffeeguy]

so, I just played around on the ME:II Kingdoms Brittani campaign playing the Danes. That was cool.Love the strength and might of their units. Very impressive.

I really just wanted to get a feel for more of the game, what to build and test out. I have a few more questions.

Looking at my money expense, to things jumped out at me:

1) Army upkeep. It was pretty high. ANyway to get that down?

2) Saw something about corruption?

Anyway, in this campaign, played about 18 rounds. Did pretty well on the battlefield. Tested out blockading ports a lot.

On the economy though:

I did have a lot of cities to begin with, so I tried to see what I had and start from there.
I tried to focus on building things like farming and ports (when available) as well as roads (roads help on a island?)

I guess my strategy has been to try and get the economy going first, then work from there.

It seemed for about the first bit of the game (up to 10 or 12th round), that when I would start a new turn, I would only have 1000 gold pieces, maybe a tad less. I am guessing, this is probably pretty normal in the first part of the game. Takes awhile to get the economy going, correct?

I was offered the Explorers guild. Since I was testing this one out, brought it on anyway.

Build ports when i could, even built a shipwright in one of my cities. Only had 2 merchants to start with, and didn't build any grain exchanges to get more (probably should have).

I have always been a RTS fan, so this game is making me learn different tactics. :)

Oh ya, and how do you read the building browser? I dont get that.

Thanks!

TCG

[cathartic]

When you right click on a unit and bring up it's information scroll, an upkeep cost is shown. This is the amount that unit costs you to keep each turn. However, you don't play upkeep for the first few militia units in a town or city (the unit's portrait has a blue background when this is the case).

If upkeep costs are too high, then you should disband a few units (there's a disband button in a corner of the unit's information scroll). Normally you should follow a strategy similar to:

1) For any city that isn't on the front line, keep as many militia units as you get for free upkeep.

2) For any castle not on the front line, only man it with one or two cheap units

How many units you place in front line cities partly depends on your style. Many people play aggressively, only placing a few units in front line settlements, so they can afford to field large mobile armies, that attack and defend as needed.

Any expensive unit that isn't close to the front should generally be disbanded. It's often cheaper to build a new unit close to the front than pay for a unit to travel all the way across the map (exception - if the unit has lots of experience then keep it around).

And grain exchanges are well worth building. Not only do they allow you to build an extra merchant, but they increase the income of their town.

[scipiosgoblin]

so, I just played around on the ME:II Kingdoms Brittani campaign playing the Danes. That was cool.Love the strength and might of their units. Very impressive.

I really just wanted to get a feel for more of the game, what to build and test out. I have a few more questions.

There are several good guides on this site. I don't have Kingdoms but I can give you a few ideas maybe.

Looking at my money expense, to things jumped out at me:

1) Army upkeep. It was pretty high. ANyway to get that down?

2) Saw something about corruption?

Do you have higher tech/upkeep units that are behind the lines? If so you can move them to the front where they are usable or downgrade them to something cheaper.

Corruption is a factor of how far the city/castle is fom your castle. The further away = more corruption. Move your capital.

To do this select the city you want to make your capital then open the settlement scroll. At the bottom is a small button that has a star on it. When you click it it will move the capital.

I did have a lot of cities to begin with, so I tried to see what I had and start from there.
I tried to focus on building things like farming and ports (when available) as well as roads (roads help on a island?)

I guess my strategy has been to try and get the economy going first, then work from there.

I tend to concentrate on economy first too, though expanding into rebel territories helps broaden your initial base. I only build farms after I've built all of the other economic buldings and the population control buildings. Farms increase population. If you don't have churches / town watch and any other entertainment buildings built and the population gets too big, you will have a problem with the city. Castles have massive amounts of population control so I usually don't worry about them.

I was offered the Explorers guild. Since I was testing this one out, brought it on anyway.

I tend to find the Explorers Guild completely useless. I get 1 Theives Guild (usually taken from another player) and one Theologians Guild (to help with heresy control). All other cities get Merchant's guilds because they boost trade and therefore money.

Build ports when i could, even built a shipwright in one of my cities. Only had 2 merchants to start with, and didn't build any grain exchanges to get more (probably should have).

In my opinion, grain exchanges are the most important buildings in the game. Each allows the recruitment of a merchant that can eventually make you $1000 - $2000 per turn. The more the merrier.

Oh ya, and how do you read the building browser? I dont get that.

Left click on the building you want to see. Right click to see units they can produce. Change tabs to view the difference between Castle buildings and City buildings.

Hope this helps. Definitely check out the guides on this forum. They are in depth and chock full of GOOD info.


SG

[Ratwar]

so, I just played around on the ME:II Kingdoms Brittani campaign playing the Danes. That was cool.Love the strength and might of their units. Very impressive.

I really just wanted to get a feel for more of the game, what to build and test out. I have a few more questions.

Looking at my money expense, to things jumped out at me:

1) Army upkeep. It was pretty high. ANyway to get that down?

2) Saw something about corruption?

1. Well, in the Kingdoms Brittani Campaign specifically, you can store military units in forts to get free upkeep. In the vanilla game there's not much you can do besides only having units that you need. I'd suggest taking a look at your naval forces if you're facing a financial problem. Ships cost a pretty penny, and they're often unneeded. Personally, I allocate about 50% of my income to army upkeep.

2. Basically as the distance from your capital increases, so does corruption, so by the time you have a large empire, the outer reaches are only breaking even due to corruption. The mechanic is actually nothing more than a method of lessening the power of large Empires so they don't become too powerful. I think that improving the amount of 'law' in cities (via Town Halls or Governors) may lower corruption, but I'm not totally sure.

[Quintus.JC]

If you're playing the Britannia campaign then you should try to get your hands on Frogbeastegg's Britannia guide, its like a Total War bible. follow its leads and you're sure to succed.