Making bags of cash in Rome

[Despot of the English]

I am still a relative noob when it comes to Rome and one of the things that frequently halts my vision of complete domination by House Julii is money. I still haven't got the hang of how it works. In MTW it was pretty easy and straightforward: get yourself a load of merchant buildings and lots and lots of ships and bingo! you are making a mint.

My empire currently includes 9 settlements (one huge city and several cities). I have roads wherever and whenever I can build them (damn expensive!) and a number of farms and a couple of mines. Is my problem just having a small empire? Or have I got to upgrade every road to a highway and farms to crop rotation? Have I got to go for total extermination when conquering settlements? (done that a couple of times and made more money than I can hope to churn out in years.)

Thanking you for some sage counsel .

[Suladan]

Most of my income seems to come from trade. So you are on the right track with building roads (also upgrade your ports for trade income).

My secondary source of income is from pillaging/exterminating cities when I capture them. I primarily do this to keep population/squalor low, but the piles of cash are nice too. I would recommend you do a lot of exterminating as well (especially larger cities) to combat population/squalor.

I would recommend *not* upgrading any of your farms ever. I know this seems counter-intuitive, but you do not have the option of ever destroying them, and they increase your population growth. As you play more, you will see that controlling population growth and squalor are very important.

Good luck.

[USMCNJ]

Since you're still small inslave people for now you get more money in a long run. As the cities get farther away/bigger/or you empire get bigger exterminate (to avoid revolts). Upgrade your port everywhere you can. Upgrade your farms too (when the population becomes hard to control later on, just pull out your armies, sell the city to your enemy, and move the army back in, exterminate, all in one turn).
Upgrade rouds if you have the cash. Best thing you can do is get trade agreements with everyone.
Keep passents as garrison, and just keep taking new cities. I've noticed that my cash slow/stops when i just sit around.

[Despot of the English]

just pull out your armies, sell the city to your enemy, and move the army back in, exterminate, all in one turn).

I've done exactly that. I gave the huge city of Patavium to the Germans (population of 30,000 plague-ridden inhabitants) and then moved my army back in to reclaim it but not before slaughtering half its population. Although it was the easiest 30,000 denari I have ever made it does feel like I've exploited the game. However, maybe the powers that be decided that exterminating the population was the best way to prevent the spread of the plague? I wouldn't exactly want to make a habit of doing this.

[Indigo_Slam]

Diplomacy seems to be a great way to make some cash on the side, if you haven't already go check the guide regarding using diplomats. Selling maps has made some peeps up to 24k, & don't forget if you happen to be beating a faction go & ask for a ceasfire, & demand a payment/payments. I got the greeks to pay me 10k over 20 turns, (slow cash but every little helps).

Finally if you have a city go negative, you can always let them rebel then go in & squash them, wipe out all the inhabitants & the military cash burdens is shifted to another city, at least for a while.

[Vlad Tzepes]

Diplomacy seems to be a great way to make some cash on the side...don't forget if you happen to be beating a faction go & ask for a ceasfire, & demand a payment/payments. I got the greeks to pay me 10k over 20 turns, (slow cash but every little helps).

Yeah, sure... I'm still waiting for this to happen. I'm beating the c**p out of Gauls, Spaniards, Germans and (recently) Britons in my Julii campaign. I always like to give a last chance to an enemy, before attacking his last settlement. They all laugh at me, refusing ceasefire. And IF they accept, it's like: "Nope - YOU give us X city(cities) AND so much tons of cash (because we think you didn't notice we are hopeless, anyway, and we wish you won't understand that we have no reason to refuse ANY kind of arrangement that would postpone our annihilation" - should be added). Tried all kinds of diplomats and arrangements... Didn't work. Off they go from the map.

On the other hand yes, the map info trading goes very well indeed, I get tribute from lots of factions just for revealing to them portions of the world they will never get to (at least not until the XX century, hehe).

In this campaign (normal/normal, Julii, the first I'm playing) I now have 22 provinces and a good flow of money. I'm not rich, I could spend more if I had where from, but I managed not to get negative at all. I relied on ports, roads and forums/markets. I tried not to start wars just because the Senate asked me to. I try not to have large armies that just sit on their fat a***s, consuming money for nothing. I try to chase the rebels away from my trade routes as soon as I notice them.

It wasn't easy in MTW, at the beginning, to understand how it works, but then I never had trouble with money anymore. RTW is clearly much more complex, as financial system, so it's just a bigger challenge...

[Despot of the English]

I'm beginning to realise how vital diplomats are, especially to the more cash-strapped barbarian factions. My German diplomats have managed to secure thousands of denari by offering trade rights, map information, and ceasefires. While trading is still important, of course, it does need to be supplemented by good diplomacy. Diplomats should always be active and talking to factions in order to get the cash; never leave them idle for long!

[Slaists]

As Julii: travel around a bit with your emissaries: exploring the map and selling it to other factions (frequently packaged with trade agreements and aliances if appropriate) can yield you quite a bit of cash...

[Despot of the English]

Selling map information is something I've yet to try yet. Thanks for the advice. I've been upgrading my ports and it definitely has started to pay dividends .

[Sunfire]

Start a new game with the Julii and thake Greece first
No better way to get tons of cash (exept to go for Carthage, same thing there, exept that Corinth has the Zeus Wonder).

With Greece secure you safely can take care of the barbarians

[Sleepy]

For coastal cities ports are a major cash cow, farms produce a small amount of income but can cause problems later with population booms/discontent.

The Julii are limited in that the barbarian provences are not very rich so no matter how much you develop them you wont get that much money in return compared with other provences.

There is a drop in tax revenue when a population exceeds ~8000 and does not recover till the population exceeds ~15000 You may be in this gap.

[panchoamd]

I conquer gauls, spanish and britons, and remain 1 provence of germans.
I hold 18 provences and i have 45000denarii of income each turn.
Of this 45k, 30k goes to pay the armys salary, and the rest is benefit.
When i conquer a provence, i enslave the settlement population and build a paved road an betters, markets-forum-g forum-, academy an dock-shipwhright.
Of course, i am ally of the other roman factions, and other many factions.
Because i think if you no have allys, the sea trade is useless.
I think that the income is produced by the number of provences you have conquer.

[Spuddicus]

I'm at about 215BC, Brutii long campaign, with about 700K in the bank and roughly 30K profit per turn. Definately try to focus on your econ buildings. You don't really need highways yet; I'm just now starting to build highways (about 1/3 of my provences have them at this point). Build docks and forums (and their upgrades). Try to stay away from farms unless your pop growth begins to stagnate (always build forum/forum upgrades before farms). Use your diplomats like mini Donald Trumps early to raise cash and make deals as others have pointed out. That gives you the early cash flow boost to build those econ buildings (and a supporting army; but try to avoid all out war early).

[Despot of the English]

One of the problems I had was that very early on the lard arses in the senate wanted me to blockade the Greeks, which I attempted to do. Unfortunately they had a very large navy and sank my ships and I have been at war with them ever since. The same goes with Macedon. And then Carthage decided to have a go against me too. My empire really is impoverished compared to some of the ones I read here; it is pretty big but not making much cash.

Oh well, just two more provinces to conquer now and I'll have won the short campaign and will start the game again with a non-Roman faction .