Confusing Financial Reports

[Didz]

I really don't like the methid used for financial reporting in RTW.

As player I want to know two things about my faction.

1) How effective is each of my cities?

2) How much expenditure am I committed to?

The current report which divides expenditure pro-rata between cities according to population prevents me easily determining either.

What I would have preferred is a:

City Finance Report which showed the TOTAL CITY INCOME less LOCAL CITY EXPENDITURE (e.g. cost of maintaining buildings). This would enable me to see the net city revenue per city at a glance and easily determine which cities were cash cows and which needed attention.

Plus
Central Treasury Report, which would show the net income from each of my cities and then deduct central expenditure such as Military Salaries, Recruitment Costs and bribes etc. This would help me plan my total expenditire to match my budget.

The current system actively works to make such planning difficult if not impossible and the unexplained fluctuations which occur just add to the problem.

[andrewt]

Buildings don't have maintenance costs.

All maintenance costs in the game are central as there really are no costs that are specific to a city. You could probably consider garrison costs to be specific but that's it.

[Didz]

Buildings don't have maintenance costs.

All maintenance costs in the game are central as there really are no costs that are specific to a city. You could probably consider garrison costs to be specific but that's it.

That's rather simplistic.

Is that why the designers decided to try and make things look complicated by dividing outgoing pro-rata according to city population?

I would have assumed that city maintenance costs were assigned directly to the city. As things stand all the expenditure reports do is prevent the player easily determining the income from each city making it unnecessarily difficult to manage them properly.

[Oaty]

Maybe its a bit historically acurate as Rome was never able to pay for itself. They made other cities pay for there endeavors. People are taxed and people are money. Its just that a big city has to spend more money on itself than it can spend for other things. To keep Rome thriving just think of all those bigwigs they were paying to help keep the city in order. Then another bigwig comes along and wants some denarii too. The pot of gold in Rome became so small in Rome and yet more want to take take a dip in the pot. So the only way to keep this pot full is to make someone else put something into it. The pot gets more input and yet more want to get there greedy hands into it depleting it quicker. So the Romans pick on some more barbarians and get a bigger quota to fill the pot and yet the pot loses money even faster. So they find someone else to fill the pot and yet it gets drained even faster. So a big city is making you money can supply you with unlimited troops but because of the mob you cant pay there paychecks so you cant recruit them then the Goths come along and sack your city sending you into the dark ages.

Egypt couldn't control the world, Persia couldn't control the world, Alexander couldn't control the world, the Romans couldn't control the world, All those other short term uprisings/conquerors couldn't control the world the holy Roman Empire couldn't control the world, the Mongols couldn't control the world, the British couldn't control the world, Napoleon couldn't control the world, Germany couldn't control the world(proven thrice), Japan couldn't control the world. Russia never got a good grip and everyone is pissed that the U.S. is trying to control the world and yet the mob is never pleased.

And yet the pot is so big but can support so few. Empires were always meant to be, but never too last. Everyone wants a dip in that big pot and so many are excluded, and only when has that pot exceeded it's potential will it lose it's bottom, so few try to keep so many out of that pot that when the so many get in does that pot decay and there is noone else to fill that pot does it become meaningless.

End story big cities make you money but not a profit, and I'm sure you do'nt want a rathole in the middle of your empire only to deal with later, so as a big empire goes take the stench elsewhere. They are making you money just very little. So Whisky Tango Foxtrot makes you think it should be so easy to control the world when all listed above have failed

[Didz]

Its certainly NOT historically accurate. It is doubtful that Rome had any idea how many people actually lived in the Empire let alone how many lived in each city and village. Indeed taxation itself was not really invented in the form defined in the game for nearly 1,000 years.

For that matter I very much doubt that Rome had any idea how many troops it had under its command many would have been locally raised and not part of standard legion system.

I'm more inclined to beleive that the designers chose this reporting system to try and hide the simplicity of the finance system as it certainly makes it almost impossible to work out whats going on from the way that data is presented.

[Oaty]

Your right Didz Rome did not fall from within