my settlements suddenly start losing money

[solypsist]

is there a reason why? i'm building upgrades, don't have an excessively big army (they only pay part of the cost anyway), yet one turn I'll hav an income of 120, next turn i'm at -300, etc.

ideas?

[Oaty]

Greedy governors or rebels scorching the earth outside your city, or if you just lost a rich province this one is picking up the bill. Multiple reasons. First if there is a general look at his vices and retinue plus if the general just died thats almost definately the answer right there. Next check if there are any free roaming rebels running around. Then next thing to do is check the cities financial overview look if there is an excessive amount of corruption. There are other possibilities but those are the ones that come to mind for me.

[Thoros of Myr]

Income from farms and trade fluctuates no?

[Quietus]

Your population may be exploding. Double click on the said province. Click on the details. There you will see how much you are paying for in terms of your share of your population and army, etc.

Your province is still making a lot of money but it pays for a bigger share of your whole empire. You may notice the smaller provinces earn a lot since they pay only a fraction of what you do pay in terms of population.

Another reason is that you are losing money when your trade is disrupted (and you see blinking icons). Reasons for this is still difficult to pin since there are no blockades or armies sitting in my trade routes. Right now, I'm looking at riots or sabotage ( an assassin has this ability but I haven't used it yet so I'll check it soon).

To remedy population explosion however, Build only the bachus shrine and build the farm upgrade last for every tech level (military buildings notwithstanding). Another thing is when you "Enslave the population", they get dispersed in governor cities, so that could be a reason for a major population bump. Thus, you can move around you governors to where you want the population to grow for the next tech level.

[Kraellin]

keep an eye on squalor levels also. this one can eat up the profits in no time by forcing higher levels of troops to maintain the dissatisfied populace.

K.

[Dorkus]

keep an eye on squalor levels also. this one can eat up the profits in no time by forcing higher levels of troops to maintain the dissatisfied populace.

K.

more cost effective to use governors with high influence and other order characteristics/retinue, and to build structures, especially the hippodrome and arena.

Garrisons become diminishingly effective as pop goes up, since the required garrison for x% order is proportional to population. I forget the exact ratio, but i calculated it a while back.

Edit: just to clarify, what this means is that it'll take more units to get an x% order increase as pop goes up. On the other hand, the temple always gives +x% order bonus (x varies with temple, of course).

I'm actually not sure about the hipp/arena, but I believe that they take a set percentage of your revenue away. I know in carthage it costs me around 3-400 a turn to get a 20% order increase.

[Dorkus]

to answer the op, negative returns in the in game feedback do not necessarily indicate a "money-losing" province. Each province receives a chunk of your expenses proportional to its population.

Say you ahve two cities.

A has 4k revenue. B has 1k.
A has pop 9k. B has 1k.

Total empire expenses are 10k.

Then the ingame feedback will tell you that city A is losing 5k (4k rev - 90% of 10k expenses = -5k), , while B is breaking even. This is extremely misleading. A is still the far more productive province.

[econ21]

Going slightly off-topic, Dorkus, have you thought of writing a short guide to the economics of RTW? Even just a side of A4 would be valuable. Or maybe something more general on undocumented features of RTW?

[Dorkus]

Going slightly off-topic, Dorkus, have you thought of writing a short guide to the economics of RTW? Even just a side of A4 would be valuable. Or maybe something more general on undocumented features of RTW?

heh. I do so much research and testing for myself, i might as well compile it so it'll be useful for others. I'm actually supposed to be working on a paper at the moment, but maybe in the next week or so.

[Sjakihata]

seems you have a good feeling of how it works, would be awesome!

also, is there someway to check a city's income BEFORE expenditure is calculated, a net-income?

[Murmandamus]

If you put your mouse over each of the icons on the trade summary screen it gives you the exact amounts for each factor.

One other thing that may have happened to make you suddenly start losing so much money is having a good govenor die. Easy to miss.

[Sjakihata]

I know! But i want everything calculated together: a total income for a settlement before expenditure!

You can see most of it under settlements details -> trade -> total income, however, it isnt a total income, taxes and other factors are missing out.

the way it is now, I feel i have now control over my economy, hopefully this changes when/if we get more solid info

[Dorkus]

settlement details and mouse over the various revenue icons (admin is income generated by your governor) in the third row.

don't have the game in front of me so i forget if they give you an aggregate. but there are few enough items (trade, farm, tax, admin... that's it?) that a quick addition will get you the relevant sum.

[Sjakihata]

I know I can check that, but, for every icon of trade for example, it differs, does that mean I have to add those together or what? if so trade sometimes exceeds 2000 denarii, but not under the specific trade info.

also, all these posts, taxes, trade etc, I know how to check them SEPERATELY, how hard can it be to make a quick summary of it together, before expenditure? I dont want to add the together manually.

[Dorkus]

Not sure what icons you are referring to. In my exp if you mouse over trade it always gives you the same figure. same with farming, admin, and taxes.

There's some question as to what the blinking icons mean (and when you mouse over them, they do give a different and greater figure). I have yet to see a good explanation for them.

tbh, it's only 3-4 numbers. it's not that bad to add them in your head real quick. (though i agree it would be far better if the game told you)

I know I can check that, but, for every icon of trade for example, it differs, does that mean I have to add those together or what? if so trade sometimes exceeds 2000 denarii, but not under the specific trade info.

also, all these posts, taxes, trade etc, I know how to check them SEPERATELY, how hard can it be to make a quick summary of it together, before expenditure? I dont want to add the together manually.

[Jacque Schtrapp]

Did you accidently change capitals? I did that by mistake and started losing around 10k per turn. It took me half a dozen turns to figure out what I had done.