I dont know if this thread was started before, but what do you guys use to start up your economy. I know the goal is to get free trade agreements with whoever you can. Do you guys intially tend to build up your towns and ports or do you instead put all money into your millitary to capture more territories. Do you slant your early tech build up to help the economy or do you focus on the millitary/science. When I played as Prussia, I put too much into my millitary because I wanted to get into some intense ground battles, but later in the game I had a hard time playing catch up and upgrading my territories to support more troops and the game fell flat after I was 3/4ths of the way towards completing the long campaign. Now that I am playing as Great Britain, I am building up my economy first by upgrading all available town/captial/ports that contribute towards the economy. Also, when you get a new town, are you more likley to slant towards science, economy, religious buildings when you get the initial choice? I find I almost always go for the economic building ( I think its some type of smith workshop).