English cam.

**jedi121212** · 10-09-2009, 01:14

hmm the money not really defending I had a trade route but the sicilians took out half it and I am trying to make more ships at the moment.

**gollum** · 10-09-2009, 01:19

This is the disadvantage of trade - although it has the highest return than any other source of income/investment it is temporal (this mechanic is actually very nice imho and quite underrated). When you go at war the enemy's fleets block your trade lines - at that moment you have to decide whether you will try to keep the ship production in an effort to clear the seas (which might take a while and hence be expensive in the long run and hinder your development as you will invest in ships and not higher level castles, buildings etc) or alternatively try to conquer more land to compensate which is another risk. The last option is to defend passively and wait until your enemies calm down and eventually accept a ceasefire - but this might also take a while.

**jedi121212** · 10-09-2009, 01:23

I am going to try to get a ceasefire with the italians and sicilians. The only one I attacked were the french. They only have 4 provinces left.

**gollum** · 10-09-2009, 01:33

Usually the Italians and Sicilians dominate the seas early in early campaigns - they start with ships, ports and shipwrights IIRC.

Indeed the French are your primary enemy - the one you have to erradicate and supplant before doing anything else.

Remember that the cost of maintenance of ships increases linearly in direct proportion with their distance from a home port.

For example if your only port is say in Flanders, a ship in the English channel costs 20 flrns. A ship in Bay of Biscay 40 flrns. A ship in the Spanish cost 60 florins etc. This means that for really long chained networks of ships the cost can rise very quickly. The best way to reduce it is to conquer ports on the way to whatever provinces you are trading with.

With the above example in mind, if you have a port in say Leon in the Spanish cost (ie having conquered Leon and captured/built a port), the ship in the English Channel will cost again 20, the one in Bay of Biscay 40 but the one in the Spanish cost 20.

If you do the math for really long trading distances, say Flanders to Egypt you'll see that conquering say ports along the way for example in Malta or Crete or Sicily, radically reduces the meintenance costs (and hence increases the profits) of trade.

Also notice that all trading goods aren't of equal value - some are far more valuable than others, such as silk and spices as opposed to hides and wood.

**jedi121212** · 10-09-2009, 01:35

Yeah. If I lose this campaign that is ok. It is my first one. I am more used to RTW than these but they are still awesome. I have played M2TW but It cant play worth crap on my computer.

**gollum** · 10-09-2009, 01:41

Dont worry - all things new take time to learn - dont worry so much about winning and losing just remember always to have fun with the game; for me discovering its nuances was part of the fun when i was new to it.

You can check out this guide in economics, its a good piece of work
https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showthread.php?t=32726

Eventually you'll get a new pc/upgrade and be able to have fun with M2TW and its many mods.

Speaking of mods, there are many interesting ones for MTW too. Some on the Medieval theme (XL, BKB, MedMod), others in different ones, such as the Napoleonic Era (napoleonic tw), the Renaissance (Pike and Musket), the Sengoku jidai (Smaurai Warlords), the Classical Antiquity (hellenic tw), and even fantasy ones (the silmarillion tw, conan the barbarian tw).

You can find mods here;
https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/forumdisplay.php?f=40