I'm having economic problems, any advice?

[Lorenzo_H]

Being an inexperienced Medieval 2 Total War player, I am enountering economic problems proving to be a hindrance in my current Spanish campaign. Currently I am trying to destroy the Portuguese, having taken Zaragosa, and besieging Lisbon with a small and battered army, and just spotted a mammoth Portuguese stack 2 turns away. I would send reinforcements, but my economy currently stands at -875 florins and losing about 300 per turn. All my cities say they are making money but I appear to have a lot of maintenance costs. I currently have Toledo as a Fortress, Leon as a Large Town (I think) and then Zaragosa is a castle, Valencia (or whatever that eastern Spanish city is) is a town. Could someone come to my rescue with advice? Please??? Pretty please with a squirt of whipped cream and a dash of cranberry sauce, and maybe a christmas cracker?

[mrmarquez]

Disband mercenaries if you have some :)

[Shahed]

Some whisky and smoked reindeer would be prefered over the "stuff" that you mentioned, for my service.

1. You only need one castle right now. Convert the rest to cities.
2. Destroy buildings you don't want.
3. Reduce military to absolute minimum.
4. Disband mercs.
5. Build all farms, markets, mines, ports, series.
6. Train merchants and go for gold in Timbuktu.
7. Sack the next city (Lisbon) you conquer, and be quick about it.

You will have to count on tactical battlefield victories rather than fielding a large force in the current situation. I would assault Lisbon with victory being the only option. What are your chances ?

[SJ_cookie]

Some whisky and smoked reindeer would be prefered over the "stuff" that you mentioned.

1. You only need one castle right now. Convert the rest to cities.
2. Reduce military to absoluteminimum.
3. Disband mercs.
4. Build all farms, markets, mines, ports, series.
5. Train merchants and go for gold in Timbuktu.
6. Destroy buildings you don't want.
7. Sack the next city you conquer, and be quick about it.

You will have to count on tactical battlefield victories rather than fielding a large force in the current situation.

What he said....

In the short term, I usually get big in battles rather than disband troops...get them killed off.

[Shahed]

Point taken. That way they serve a purpose.

.... and max taxation (which you must be doing obviously).

[Spark]

I usually build lower tier farms first, to boost growth and taxes, followed by dirt roads and then whichever building of the port/market/bank lines can be built the quickest. I keep building up the port/market/bank lines like that, since they start getting diminishing returns higher up. Whenever public order doesn't let me tax high/very high, I build the town hall lines to improve public order (the higher tier town halls help public order a lot) and later taverns. Make sure your religion is predominant (90%+) in your lands.

Also, make sure your port outposts are cities and not castles, since sea trade is very lucrative. Sack settlements for the cash, garrison cities with upkeep-free militia, don't use too large garrisons in castles/cities not on the front lines, build quality armies (instead of quantity) and try to win with few casualties by choosing your battles/battlefields carefully.

[Lorenzo_H]

Disband mercenaries if you have some :)

I have none.

[Hamburglo]

Then start disbanding your armies.

With factions that begin with a large military (for example: HRE campaigns), priority no.1 should be the disbanding of armies that aren't likely to face a threat in the near future. That means any inland city garrisons should be chopped to a bare minimum and your building priorities should be the Barracks buildings in order to get the free upkeep units. It makes a huge difference at the start of the game. Once you've done that, concentrate on farms, roads and trade. Its unlikely you'll need an army bigger than 5 units for the 1st 10 turns.

[Basileus]

I recomend you use only high taxation if you have govenors in those cities, with high your govenors wil get the best virtues. If youre losing money it means you have to large armies so use what you have to fight your enemies and be more careful of what you build, try not to have to many castles and only militias to defend cities and the good troops to fight wars. You should not need to have bigger armies to beat the AI though if youre using auto calc when fighting battles its understable but try to fight them your self usualy works best early on.

[Basileus]

Edit:tripple post, forum was acting up :(

[Lorenzo_H]

Thanks everybody and MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!

In my game I seem to be out of financial trouble. I have started breaking even and I just sacked Lisbon (destryoing those dastardly portuguese!) which gave me in excess of 8000 florins - yay! The first thing i did was to change Pamplona and Zaragosa into Towns (from castles). I will most likely spend the money on financial buildings in all my Towns.

[Basileus]

I recomend you use only high taxation if you have govenors in those cities, with high your govenors wil get the best virtues. If youre losing money it means you have to large armies so use what you have to fight your enemies and be more careful of what you build, try not to have to many castles and only militias to defend cities and the good troops to fight wars. You should not need to have bigger armies to beat the AI though if youre using auto calc when fighting battles its understable but try to fight them your self usualy works best early on.