How are insufficient funds allocated?

[Grenzer]

Several Questions, all related to building on a budget:

1:
Is there any way to see what your total scheduled building and infrastructure costs are going to be for the next turn?
If I interpret the mechanics correctly, clicking the gold coin button gives you a breakdown of projected income and the expenses on maintenance of your existing troops. Is there any way to tell what the cumulative total cost will be for all of the building/infrastructure, training for the following turn? (Or do you just have to go province by province and add it all up in your head.)

2:
When you have insuficient funds, and lots of pending infrastructure and troop training requests, how does the computer determine where to spend the money? If you have requested a castle to be built in two provinces, but only have money to afford one, which will the computer choose to spend the money on? Is it the one which has been in the queue longest? The one closest to the capital? The least expensive? Does troop training take preference over buildings?

3:
Are the costs for building a building/infrastructure all accrued in the first year, or are they spread out over the time it takes to construct the building/infrastructure?

4:
Why do I continue to get insufficient funds messages when I still have money in my treasury? Is it simply because the least expensive thing I want to build costs more than what is left in my treasury?

Thanks

[Lord Xeen]

I'm new here, so sorry if I'm wrong ^_^

1) I'm pretty sure that Total Expenses when you click the gold coin includes both upkeep and new building/training.

2)No idea. I would presume it does it by the order you put them in que.

3)Good question ^^

4)You can still have money, but if it isn't enough for whatever you wanted to build... its insufficient. If I am right about number 2, then this is not nessasary insufficient money for the CHEAPEST thing you wanted, simplest the OLDEST.

[Knight_Yellow]

ok cant be bothered about the first 3 but no4. i can answer.


ull get that message even if ur able to build 90% of ur units/buildings but u dont have enough for the last one or two hence the saying u r unable to commence all training/building in ur provinces

hope that clarify's thyings a bit

[RunAway!!]

1. There is nothing at this time that calculates the total expense of everything that will be built in the next turn; so if you want to check, get out that calculator.

2. The computer first builds the cheapest things and works its way up; if two provinces are trying to build the same thing, I have no idea how it chooses between them.

3. If I remember correctly, they're bought all in the first year.

4. You get insufficient funds if you don't have enough money to pay for everything you're trying to build in that turn.

[desdichado]

I don't know about the computer building the cheapest things first. Playing as English and after I had taken over all of Spain but with no money in the bank and insuficient funds to cover all building/training - the queue seemed to go from my homeland first and then spread outwards and hence could not build or train anything in outlying provices ie. Spain. Even though was cheap buildings & units.

I personally would prefer it if the cost of a building was spread over the construction time. Who would buy all the stone/metal upfront for a fortress that takes twenty years to build??? That way if you were low on cash you could at least get the thing started and finish it when you had more money. Thay way if the enemy invaded you might have to try to keep him out of a half finished castle which would make sieges more interesting - for me at least.

Also imo, a list of breakdown on upkeep, capital and training expenditure would be good. When low on cash I routinely go through every province and cancel all building/training and start queue from scratch again but its hard to keep track of when you hold a lot of provinces.

[Gregoshi]

Just to add to the confusion on #2: it is my observation that training/building starts with the northern provinces and works its way south until you run out of florin. I have a devil of a time getting anything built in my southern most provinces because of this. The florin seem to run out when I get to the Alps.

[Mr. Juice]

When the florins run out, its time to bug the neighbors.

[G_Love]

I just started playing my first campaign last night (English, early, easy, just to get the hang of things). One thing I found that helped me get out of this situation was start assigning titles to people with decent acumen (3 or more). My income jumped up quick after that. Of course I made the mistake of auto-assigning titles for a while, and I think that hurt me more then helped. It assigned some guy with 3 acumen to be the governor of Flanders when I had a guy with 5 acumen I wanted to take over it. Oops.

Great game though...I'm mad hooked. I've still got lots to learn, but I must say so far, very cool.

[Lord of the morning]

I would agree with Gregoshi on that it seems like the northernmost provinces are prioritated above the southernmost, and regarding the constructioncosts I would be rather sure that they are distributed over the years, this since I rather often gett stuck in the middle of buliding a structure that is some years when Im low on cash, some buildings (generally those to the south) dosent progress in their construction.

[Hermann the Lombard]

I'm pretty sure that all building and training costs are assessed in the first year, so you can estimate *exactly* what your costs will be by adding that total to the maintenance costs in your econ screen. Note that the reported surplus on the econ screen arrives *after* your building and training, so the limit is the amount of cash on hand, not the net revenue. Darned cash flow problems...

[LadyAnn]

Let me take a jab at it. I am not totally sure of what I say, some of this may be conflicting with what you read earlier. I may be wrong.


1:
Is there any way to see what your total scheduled building and infrastructure costs are going to be for the next turn?

No. You have to do it yourself.


2:
When you have insuficient funds, and lots of pending infrastructure and troop training requests, how does the computer determine where to spend the money?

My observation is it goes alphabetically I am not so sure about this yet, may need to conduct an experiement.


3:
Are the costs for building a building/infrastructure all accrued in the first year, or are they spread out over the time it takes to construct the building/infrastructure?
All first year.


4:
Why do I continue to get insufficient funds messages when I still have money in my treasury?

It goes like this.

When you click next, the amount in your treasury is the starting point. Intuitively, you would think that

old tresury + new tax collection - salary (maintenance costs) - new building costs - new training costs = new treasury

But it is a bit different.

1. Salary is immediately deducted from old treasury.

2. (a) If your treasury goes negative, the insufficient fund is reported. No new building or troop training. New tax is collected and added back to treasury. That's why you may see insuficient fund when you have 2000 bucks in the bank.

2. (b) If your treasury is positive after paying salary, you go through the building/training list one province at a time, in a particular order.

3. The fund are spent until the treasury goes negative or there is no more to build/train.
(a) if fund is negative, insuficient fund is reported, stop all remaining building/training, new tax collected added back to treasury.
(b) if there is no more to train/build, add new tax to the treasury.


My suggestions are:
1. watch regularly your salary obligation and how much you have in treasury. Build only with the difference. Note that this has nothing to do with the profit report you see. Why do that? because you may want to have control over what you are building/training. You can postpone building a castle (cost you 2000 bucks) for a year or two, but you may not want to postpone training troops to reinforce your war machine.

2. When build, scatter the building time around. Don't build expensive buildings in many provinces at once and wait for all of them finish. It's better to build a bit some of something each year.

Annie

[R3dD0g]

Quote[/b] ]My observation is it goes alphabetically I am not so sure about this yet, may need to conduct an experiement.

I'm not an expert by any stretch, but I'd have to agree with LadyAnn. The A provinces always get built while the S just languish. I cycle through the provinces on a regular basis to see who's getting the short end of the stick.

[Gregoshi]

A double and welcome to G_Love and R3dD0g.

I think we have reached the point in this thread where we can declare total confusion on the build order issue. We need a champion to step forward and slay this beast Who will take the challenge?

[R3dD0g]

Hey now and thanks for the welcoming

Who would be the person to conduct the definitive test? How would a person conduct that test? Wouldn't they have to be able to set the Florins and then the build queues?

How would they set the Florins?

[Gregoshi]

Anyone with the time and willingness to do such a test could do it.

Unless I missed something, the two conflicting theories are north-to-south and alphabetically. To test this, find 3-4 provinces you own such that they are north or south of each other and that alphabetically, they run south to north. Then you'd need to buy enough buildings to over-spend your florin. An east-west vs alphabetical might be interesting too.

To test the buy-at-the-beginning vs equal-yearly-payments, buy a building that will take a few years to build. Then in the following years, buy units to spend as many forins as you can. Ideally, spend every last florin you have. If buildings are paid for via equal-yearly-payments, then some of the units you paid for would not get trained (or construction on the building would halt).

Maybe whoever does this will think of other ways to test.