Medieval Total War Economy

[Matador]

Economy about to go into terminal melt down
Limited field armies
Large opponent with huge land mass and massive armies

I welcome any thoughtful insights

I agree with Martok, use your armies. However I would like to add a tip (which you may already be doing). In your provinces that are not bordering another country only garrision enough troops to keep the province loyalty up. That way the mojority of the troops you have are for invasion forces, which earn their wages. Good luck.

[Marcus Caelius]

For me, my greatest ever victory in MTW (Hard, England, GA) was completed with me 1,000,000 florins in debt! Classic way, really, I'd failed to adequately protect the sea-lanes and overbuilt my armies. A catastrophic naval war left me massively in debt with my huge army stuck in Jerusalem and no way to rebuild a new fleet. I was a long way from winning at that point, and several factions were ahead of me points wise. With never building a single new unit, I had to eliminate with my one huge army every other contending faction and give their provinces to the mongol horde. For the final turn (yes it was 1451 or whatever) I had to bring my remaining ship to the eastern med to convoy my remaining few soldiers to Cyprus to eliminate the Polish King and Sons in a final battle.