Seriously, the script is not at fault here. In the first 20 turns of the game, the script awards hefty monetary grants to any non-player faction controlling fewer than 4 settlements and with a treasury less than 3000 mnai.

After that, a flat amount of money is given to all non-player factions - a tiny fraction of 17,000 mnai.

Cataphract_Of_The_City, I can't explain what you're seeing. All I can say is that money will be more scarce in the 0.81 release. Changes to base farming levels make population growth and farming income lower.