Economy help

[Gith]

I apologize if I'm missing an already existing thread on this topic, but I'm having a lot of problems generating income. I did read the two threads in the FAQ about merchant use, and so I'm trying to work on that

My current campaign is m/m as Sicily. I own 8 provinces (I'm on a school computer now, I can update with very specific numbers later on). I only have 1 castle and all my cities have the highest available amount of trade routes and I've upgraded my markets as much as I can afford to. I've got a few merchants headed to timbuktu and one merchant hanging around Milan and Venice pushing around their merchants whenever they pop up. I'm at war with the HRE, though we haven't fought a single land battle and mostly they just refuse to accept a ceasefire and I'm actively fighting the Venicians though only in one area by Durazzo and I have only one large stack.

Basically I can't make any money. I had this same problem in my short campaign as the HRE. I never had this problem in MTW1 or RTW. It seems like no matter what I do I can't get much higher than 3,000-4,000 florins in my bank, even when I focus on not spending money on buildings and reducing my army sizes. And when I do get 6,000-7,000 florins saved up, it takes 1, maybe 2 buildings to drop me right back down to nothing for the next 5 or so turns.

Cliffs: my income is pathetic, I've only got one real army stack and its pretty weak, and I need florins.

Is there something I'm missing?

[Doug-Thompson]

I spent most of my Russian campaign as broke as you. It's possible you're doing OK under the circumstances. I hope that's not true, but we'll see. How many turns has this campaign had.

[Shahed]

How do you know what is the maximum trade routes available ?

[Dr_Who_Regen#4]

What is your taxation level...I think this only adds marginally to income (especially when you have all that trade).

For large cities I think you gain less income from high taxes then you use to pay your upkeep to garrison the city with extra units to keep it at a satisfied popularity level.

[Whacker]

How do you know what is the maximum trade routes available ?

IIRC, this is defined by port size, and a certain supplemental building that controls how many trade fleets one can have. IIRC again, the max is 3 trade fleets.

@ Gith

I found this thread awhile back, it may help some with your merchant use. Props to Davemeister for this one.

https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showthread.php?t=72609

[Shahed]

Thanks. And what about land routes ?

[Whacker]

Thanks. And what about land routes ?

This I believe is controlled by road size, and neighboring provinces, self-owned or other factions. If self owned, I think your ability on how much you are able to trade with them is controlled by their building tech levels. If another faction's, it's the same but you have to have a trade agreement with them. I don't think you're able to trade more than one resource with another province though, regardless of method. therother and crew might have done some research on this already that I'm not aware of.

Cheers

[Quillan]

Well, assuming you don't have ports currently blockaded, start with the finances screen. Look at income and expenses breakdown, and see what's costing you a lot. Garrison units cost money, aside from up to 6 militia units in cities. That will eat up a lot. If your expenses don't seem unreasonably high, then I'd have to guess the problem is trade rights. Trade routes make more money trading with close neighbors than they do with far away factions, so if you're at war with your neighbors, you're losing out on money. You don't make as much money trading with your own cities as you do trading with foreigners. You're at war with Venice, so that's one of your trade partners. What about Milan, the Papal States, France and the Moors? Do you have trade rights with them? Have you taken Cagliari and Ajaccio yet? Rhodes? Capture them if you haven't, turn them into cities, and build ports as soon as you can.

Eventually the size of your empire reaches a certain "critical mass", beyond which point you do ok economically by trading with yourself. Up until that point, it can be very difficult being at war with your neighbors. You need to have one or two close neighbors where you have trade rights.

[Doug-Thompson]

Somebody should mention farming, the least spectacular but steadiest way to produce income. The whole "farming leads to squalor" idea needs another look.

[Hashashiyyin]

Short answer: territory

You need a lot of it. In a Turkish campaign, I've built little save for roads and ports but have about 10 territories around turn 20 and make around 4k a turn. Within 5 more turns I should have another 3-4 territories and between the loot from sacking and the new territory income I should be good.

Another thing I found helpful is only concentrate building to 1 major town and 1 major castle. Other then roads and ports, keep your other territories small and not that advanced. This will allow for minimal garrisons and keep squalor down to a minimum. It seems if you try to build your small territories too fast (through farming, trade buildings, etc.), it causes a lot of squalor and corruption which ends up causing them to buckle under their own weight if grown too fast. Another positive to this is that you can really give your 2 major troop producing settlements (the castle and the city) a huge boost in technology.

In the Turkish campaign from above, I could produce Saracen militia at my capital on turn 18. In another Turkish campaign where I tried to build up all my provinces, I could not produce Saracen militia anywhere in my empire on turn 60.

[Kanamori]

Well, trade makes tons of money. Good port cities are nice to have. I usually get communal farming, and that tends to pay for the garrisons in cities.

Territory is another one, the more terrirtories you have, the more profits you will make. I have noticed money being more tight in M2TW too. My solution has been to seek the large enemy cities, and then to sack them. In Egypts area, if I am a catholic faction, I use my ex-crusader armies to run around sacking cities and forget about holding them until they are at least 50% catholic.