Keepin pos. cash flow in individual towns

[MiniKiller]

How can I do this? I seem to always be in the whole ten fold with certain towns once the pop. grows. It doesn't make sense tho casue I'll have tax rate on very high yet every turn they are lossing more and more money. then their loyalty goes down so I'm forced to turn tax down to the minimum and they loose even more money.

Any tips?

*edit for spelling*

[Productivity]

As population increases, the share of the army they support increases. This share and the costs of it grows at a greater rate than revenue growth from population. In short, you're allways going to find it really difficult to get a positive cashflow from a large town.

Just exterminate them.

[NodachiSam]

I don't have RTW yet but couldn't you make a bunch of large units and send them to battle? Perhaps take some peasants to grow a population suffering somewhere else or transplant a population in a rebellious place?

[CBR]

You dont really have to worry about the individual cities. Large cities just have a bigger share of the unit upkeep so thats why they are in the negative and it has no effect.


CBR

[Barbarossa82]

I don't normally exterminate (unless the loyalty is awful) as more big towns just means that military expenditure is spread out thinner. Just because your newly-conquered city is running a 2000-denarii defecit doesn't mean your financial situation hasn't improved. Some of your other big cities will now be paying less in military upkeep, and the balance should be more favourable the more big cities you have.

[vale]

I FIND IT EXTERMINATE IS THE BEST METHOD TO THE PROBLEM.

[Seamus Fermanagh]

Sure that's what made Rome great, exterminate everything!

Capture a town -- kill them all. Your town rebels? Kill them all. It happens to be a Tuesday? Slay them by the cart-load. Wade in blood until you have trouble keeping your nose above the fluid level.

The only way to really win is to get your all cav army rolling and kill everything in your path. Leave nothing behind but the crying and suffering to tell the tale of your power.

The huns had it right. Malf civilization. Gore and gold a-plenty, no thought required. If you haven't burned 30 cities by the end of move 50 you're a pansy.

Seamus

P.S. As to the above...

[Spartiate]

I FIND IT EXTERMINATE IS THE BEST METHOD TO THE PROBLEM.

This does not sort out the problem AT ALL.All this does is kill off the tax paying citizens who were paying most of your army upkeep bills.It merely looks like you have sorted the problem because that town will no longer be paying most of the army upkeep.If you check your other towns you will now notice that they are all making less money.Extermination is always a short term answer.Enslavement is the way to go.You still get a bit of cash and the unruly population moves to other cities and settles down to a mind numbingly boring life of paying taxes and raising nippers to feed my armies and pay MORE taxes.

[Productivity]

This does not sort out the problem AT ALL.All this does is kill off the tax paying citizens who were paying most of your army upkeep bills.It merely looks like you have sorted the problem because that town will no longer be paying most of the army upkeep.If you check your other towns you will now notice that they are all making less money.Extermination is always a short term answer.Enslavement is the way to go.You still get a bit of cash and the unruly population moves to other cities and settles down to a mind numbingly boring life of paying taxes and raising nippers to feed my armies and pay MORE taxes.

Enslavement however, just moves the problem of squalor - extermination deals with it.

[Seamus Fermanagh]

Enslavement however, just moves the problem of squalor - extermination deals with it.

So your solution is to annhilate everything in your path aside from your capital and core cities, leaving everything else at village size or less with large burial plots?

In a strict gamesman sense, this will probably work well.

Vis-a-vis good government....Yuck.

Your strategy seems closer to something from the movie "Independence Day" than to building an empire.

Seamus

[Tricky Lady]

Well, I usually exterminate a city when I can only conquer it after a hard-fought battle. Just to make them pay. But in the long run I always hurt myself badly, as this means I have to rebuilt those (usually big) cities from scratch, which will take a long time. And in the meantime they don't earn any cash to pay my armies, so now I try to contain my first impulsive reaction and tolerate their existance. I just limit myself to enslaving rebel cities (in the worst case). In other cases I try to deal with the unhappy population for a while (bit harder to control in the first years after the conquest, but better on a long term I think).

Of course none of these statements can be backed up with figures.

[Productivity]

It works - it is efficient. Do I play the game to win, or do I play it to live out my morals. Given half the game is about trying to slaughter opposition armies by the scores, I struggle to think that morals should leak into the rest of it.

In fact looking through my array of games, nearly all of them resolve around me killing, or directing killing. Sorry - I think it's a little late to try and bring morals into it. I am operating within a limited world, that of R:TW, and I behave in the most efficient way that I can see within that world.

[Celt Centurion]

It works - it is efficient. Do I play the game to win, or do I play it to live out my morals. Given half the game is about trying to slaughter opposition armies by the scores, I struggle to think that morals should leak into the rest of it.

In fact looking through my array of games, nearly all of them resolve around me killing, or directing killing. Sorry - I think it's a little late to try and bring morals into it. I am operating within a limited world, that of R:TW, and I behave in the most efficient way that I can see within that world.

Maybe I am not doing it right, but I try to resist the temptation to build top of the line military buildings at the start. I build traders, markets, farms, ports and so forth in a priority above the other buildings. At the beginning, I will usually have one stable cranking out Cavalry, and in turn disbursing them around my small cluster of settlements. Another will have a barracks doing the same thing. If I have a third, they will have a blacksmith or armourer with everybody coming to it before going to their stations. After I have pretty well maxed out ALL of my economy type buildings, I usually always have some positive cash flow, the exceptions being when I have 3 or 4 revolts simultaneously. That will put a real damper on your cash flow until you take the settlements back.

Being of a nice guy nature, I don't "like" to exterminate. But experience has shown me this simple formula. When I first take a city, It is all based on the smiley face beside each city. You will only see it for an instant before the

Occupy, Enslave, or Exterminate card comes up, IF you see it then.

Green; Occupy
Yellow or Blue, enslave
Red; exterminate.

Although I have tried a few times to occupy and pacify a red face settlement, I have never had one NOT revolt shortly afterward, usually immediately. Extermination is a great attitude adjuster.

I don't like to do it. I would much rather have a population that I do not have to build from 401 up to 6,000 people. Sometimes, they give you no choice.

Taking a city back after a revolt, I don't play around any more. I exterminate them because they really had it coming by then.

Just a few hours ago, Thessalonica kept rioting. They had a "good" governor, two spies, a full garrison, low taxes, and those people were still rioting, damaging buildings and killing people, but I had just paid for an Urban barracks and didn't want it canceled. For about 5 more turns, I tolerated it. I merged as many units as I could, and moved out everybody not needing retraining, leaving just 3 groups in there being retrained. Those rioting people killed the governor, both spies, an assassin, hundreds of soldiers, and thousands of citizens. Finally, the Uban barracks was completed. I raised the taxes to "very high" and put the last units to retrain one last time.

I was surprised. It took two more turns for them to revolt, but when they did, I had a full stack outside of the walls, and a spy waiting. A big gray rebel army with "gold" quality weapons and armour appeared, (I couldn't get "gold" yet, how did they?) The spy is now inside, and the army is laying siege. After 3 turns, my spy tells me they are already down to about 80% of what they started with. After all those turns of murder and rioting, along with the governor and agents being murdered, do they deserve anything BUT extermination?

As I said, extermination is not something I "want" to do, but sometimes those people just don't give you any choice.

Getting back to the subject of this thread, develop your markets, farms, and ports/docks BEFORE the fanciest military buildings.

As Romans, consider this example; Roman Cavalry, Early Legionary Cohort, and Archer Auxillia are quite adequate when you have provided them with good weapons and armor, and a simple stone wall for defense. That means that you do not "need" to upgrade your stables, legion barracks, and archery ranges when you "can" upgrade your forum, farms or ports. I do not worry about building an Urban Barracks and Siege Engineer if I "can" build crop rotation or a Latifunda elsewhere. The only "large stone walls" I have, I took from somebody else. After I have built my economy buildings, then I upgrade the others.

Concentrate on your economy buildings, and you will be able to afford the military buildings in due time. If you concentrate on military buildings and neglect your economy, you will be in a deficit every turn before you know it.

Strength and Honor

Celt Centurion

[Doug-Thompson]

Re: extermination/occupation.

There is the consideration of time.

An occupied city usually needs a large garrison. This ties down your army. Now, a player could bring plenty of garrison units with his invading army, but that ties down money. It also carries the cost of having two armies when one would do.

Army A takes a city. It occupies, waits until a garrison is built up and enough happy buildings are ready, then it moves on. Army B takes a city. It exterminates, cues up one unit of peasants from the survivors, and moves out the next turn to take another city.

The economic benefits of occupation are real. The economic devestation wrought upon your opponent by taking his cities at a faster rate is real, also.

==========

The "per capita" sharing of army and agent costs is a valid point. It is reduced — and and can be offset — by the fact that big cities eat up lots of income for garrisons and happy buildings. The posters who point out the benefits of "cost sharing" aren't wrong, but the point is not as clear cut as it is often made out to be.

==========

Whether to exterminate or occupy, or enslave, is really a case-by-case decision. That's where spies can help. A spy in the city will tell what the population is, for instance. If a large city is on the verge of becoming huge, for intance, that could influence your decision, or even whether to attack it just yet.

[lars573]

The simple fact is that in RTW you can't keep a positive cash icon in all your cities. That cash number below a cities name is just the amount of salaries (genreal upkeep) and army upkeep that city is paying subtracted from the cities total income. I've done the math on that a number of times that's all it is. It is not however a picture of your financial situation at all.

[nameless]

I think it was explained in the manual or something but it noted that it means your City is simply not pulling its weight with you or something. What you do have to look at is your Financial upkeep at the beginning of each turn to see if your making money or not.

Me? I do what Khan does and exterminate the lot. The last thing I need is when I am in enemy terrority is to have the cities that I have conquered to rebel and take up arms against me. When I exterminate, I put a few mercenaries in there and head out to conquer more lands so my army can keep its momentum and cripple the opponent. In the long run I think it's best because then by the time the population is up and running you should already have enough happy buildings to keep the people happy.

Oh and it also helps pay for your campaign

I only occupy if the city is a town with a population of like 2305 Might as well keep them, upgrade the town and build up the happiness before moving out.

For overpopulation I just send in peasent after peasent against rebels.

Enslavement makes the rebel situation worse IMO from what I have experienced.

[lars573]

But 1 fort will solve the rebel problem. All the manual says about the income display is that it means the cities income isn't enough.

[Doug-Thompson]

But 1 fort will solve the rebel problem.

?!

Building a fort reduces the chances that rebels will pop up? That would be news to me, but great news.

[Mongoose]

But 1 fort will solve the rebel problem. All the manual says about the income display is that it means the cities income isn't enough.

It dosen't work for me they just keep on coming even if the province is happy and has a fort

In the end, i removed them from the game as much as i could. I just don't have enough time to fight 10+ battles with the rebels every turn.

[vale]

Exterminate them in city and auto-battle outside unless you have the though of fighting every army that are inside your country. What I do is build up a stack made up of five roman legionary calvary to go around the country side to keep watch for rebel. To deal with city revolt you will only need a stack of three cavalry units, four units of legionary cohort or light infatry, and a two unit of archer or archer auxillia. Having seige weapon or not will depend on the side of the city, then just auto-resolve since most rebel won't stand a chance again the roman army.

[lars573]

It dosen't work for me they just keep on coming even if the province is happy and has a fort

In the end, i removed them from the game as much as i could. I just don't have enough time to fight 10+ battles with the rebels every turn.

Depends on the province size. Playing as Egypt today it took 1 fort to keep Judea under control and 2 forts to keep Lybia under control.

[Doug-Thompson]

I looked at Simon Appleton's rebels thread. The jury still appears to be out on forts.

[Slaists]

Well, extermination works wonders in one way: you can have lower garrison upkeep costs... which helps the overall profitability... For a huge city: the min garrison of 16 peasant units will cost you 1600 a turn... Kill the population and you can get by just paying 300 or so per turn... A big difference... Especially, sinice the difference can be paid to support a proper army conquering new towns for you somewhere else...

[Garvanko]

Huge cities rarely make a profit, especially if they are at -1000 a turn or more. You can't really turn this around, mainly because you've built up economic structures to max or you're training high cost units round the clock.

Your main economic base should be you Large towns. Nevertheless, you should endeavour to tax as high as possible in every city, and where possible under Cultural or Financial build with unit construction turned off.

[A.Saturnus]

Huge cities rarely make a profit, especially if they are at -1000 a turn or more. You can't really turn this around, mainly because you've built up economic structures to max or you're training high cost units round the clock.

Not really. As others said, the weighted revenue isn´t such a good indicator of the economic strength of a city. If you want to know how much you get from a city, click on the trade scroll. There´s a summary of the real money the city makes. You will notice that most of the time, a large city generates more cash than a town. If you want to know whether the city is worth it, compare the real revenue with the cost of all units you need in that city (garrison, spies, governer). And note that for larger settlements, lowering taxes is a more profitable way to deal with unhappiness than increasing garrison.

[Garvanko]

Of course, the Huge Cities are making money, but because all that cash goes into upkeep, they don't make any profit. In the greater scheme of things they are economically powerful, but they won't contribute much to your piggy bank, will they? :)

Syracuse, Athens, Carthage and Memphis are obvious examples of such. Big cities with even bigger expenses.

[Doug-Thompson]

Tarus, Jerusalem and some of the other cities that are clearly programmed in the game to be more likely to rebel are the real money pits. They have great trade, sure, but tie up influential governors, demand large garrisons and usually need low taxes. They're a pain. Like Portugal in M:TW.

[Agent Miles]

The way settlement income is represented in the game is wrong. The game penalizes each settlement with upkeep of your entire military (armies, ships, generals and agents) based on the settlement’s population. A settlement with 10% of your empire’s population pays for 10% of the upkeep. However, this large settlement may not make 10% of your wealth. Three settlements with 12K in population will make more than a settlement with a population of 36K. Thus, the settlement income number is useless as represented.
Anyone with basic knowledge of a budget knows that to see a profit, your income must exceed your expenses. Thus, a settlement’s admin bonus for a governor, along with income from tax, trade, mining and farming gives you the total income for that settlement. That settlement’s expenses include the upkeep for its own garrison (with the cost of any governor, which is about 200 denarii plus the upkeep for his bodyguard), and any agents present (I try to keep a spy and a diplomat in each settlement), along with the effects of devastation, corruption caused by “distance to capital” penalty, and if you play a "civilized" faction, there is also an entertainment expense for holding games. If income exceeds expenses, then your settlement is making a profit that you can put to use. If not, then you must take action. Note that a frontier settlement (lots of corruption and far from your capital) with a huge garrison and what you thought was only annoying devastation, may be losing income (because of the high expenses), even though public order is apparently good!
What about upkeep of your remaining military and agents that are “in the field”? It is possible to build more units than you can afford, because you can get short term or “one time only” bonus income from plunder and diplomacy. Let’s assume that you have no field units, only garrisons. Since you have managed your settlements so that all expenses are met, then your end of turn report should reflect a surplus. This is the amount that you can count on every turn to pay field units. If I have a typical mix of units in an army that I use which costs X denarii in upkeep, and my surplus is 3X, then I can afford (you guessed it) three such armies. If I want many agents or lots of extra generals, that’s an extra expense for my empire as a whole. It takes some micromanaging to set up your settlements to make a real profit, but it is easy to maintain and will keep you out of budget trouble.
As for public order, I always exterminate a newly conquered settlement, unless I need to channel some slaves into an existing settlement to cross a population threshold. By paying attention to the settlement details screen and actually managing the settlements, I have never had a rebellion, even in large settlements of 36k or more.

[Celt Centurion]

By paying attention to the settlement details screen and actually managing the settlements, I have never had a rebellion, even in large settlements of 36k or more.[/QUOTE]

Oh to never have rebellion!

I build them everything I can. I put in as good of a governor as I can. I set the taxes to low. I put spies in there to "watch out" for enemy spies.

AND THEY STILL RIOT AND REVOLT, Usually when the popultation is just a few hundred short of 24,000!

The only good thing about it is that taking a revolted city back is very profitable because I put THEM all to the sword.

Yes, I can look at the settlement details scroll, but when I have done every thing short of making THAT city the capital, what can be done?

Could you please tell us some of your suggestions?

Strength and Honor

Celt Centurion

[A.Saturnus]

Tarus, Jerusalem and some of the other cities that are clearly programmed in the game to be more likely to rebel are the real money pits. They have great trade, sure, but tie up influential governors, demand large garrisons and usually need low taxes. They're a pain. Like Portugal in M:TW.

In my Egyptian campaign, Jerusalem is making 5000 denarii every turn despite low taxes. 19 units of peasants cost 1900 a turn, the governer 200. Thus I have a profit of 3000 there and loyalty is 100%.