Problems making money

[South90]

I must be the worst money maker in the history of Medieval Total War 2. With Sicily, im only in about three turns before i've gone negative. With Scotland, ive taken over the majority of england in a few turns, but have like twenty bucks. The first Grand Campaign(long, H/H) i ever finished was with England, and when i finished it was NEGATIVE 80,000 dollars. Yes, -80,000. In DEBT. 80,000. Whats the secret to making money? (And please don't say taking land cause thats pretty obvious.)

[Carl]

Don't have any more unit in cities than you have free upkeep slots unless you have money to burn, and if your losing too much money, disband any non-free upkeep troops you do not absolutly need. Strictly speaking you need eithier 1 or 2 armies ealy on. 1 to guard inside your borders, and one to go on the attack. If necessery, disband your attacking army until you get enough income to afford to keep it.

Likewise, don't have a bigger navy than you need.

Lastly, get as many trade agreements and ports up as you can, they give at least half my income normally.

[ArneHD]

I think the secret is to ALWAYS specalise cities for trade, and to keep your armies small. Keep ONLY the bare minimum of troops in any one location. In the late game you get three requritment slots, so you don't have to worry to much about defence. Keep your troops at the border to disuade any attack.

Also, you might want to look at getting a mod that increases merchant trade, if you are a European faction, that gold in sahara can REALLY make you some money.

[sapi]

Build up a big army; pick an enemy and sack their cities.

Immediately build troops (until you make a -ve profit)

Eventually you'll have a big enough army for a 3 front war and from then on you'll be rolling in the dough

[Mithradates]

Apart from Sahara is there any point in using the merchants it hardly seems worth using them when all they bring in is about 12 gold.

[Carl]

Their are plenty of other places where you can make a lot of money. The Amber in Stocknholm is worth 600+ a turn to the english and scottish merchants if you can get them up a few levels. Same with the Amber near Kiev too.

[grapedog]

which is funny, as the Scot's, I have too MUCH money...i can't get rid of it fast enough. I suffered early on troop wise not having any castles, and having all cities...but I now own all of the British Isles plus Caen(sp?) just south of london over the channel. Nottingham and Caen are my two castles, all the rest are cities and I am just bulging with cash even though I have every city building pretty much every building they can save brothels.

My keys for cash early on were getting the ports up and running as soon as possible, and getting two diplomats out and roaming the other countries setting up free trade agreements. I had one Diplomat head south for Spain/Portugal and tagging every country in between. I had a second diplomat heading east to Denmark and Russia then down to italy later on again tagging every country in between. Playing as England or Scotland, just west of London there are two nice resource nodes you can sit merchants on, and also a nice silver mine west of dublin.

[grapedog]

Apart from Sahara is there any point in using the merchants it hardly seems worth using them when all they bring in is about 12 gold.

yes, they are definately worthwhile to get up and running if you are not making enough cash. While something might make you 12fl a turn with a rank 1 merchant, as you get better and better merchants those numbers start to go up add up.

[rookie7]

Sorry for the piggy back post...but could someone please tell me how do I find out what is the maximum number of free upkeep I get in a city? Looks like it varies from cities to cities.

Thanks

[Carl]

When you click on a city you can get a list of buildings dwon in the bottom of the screen where a unit list appears for a feild army. The first building on the list should be a wall of somekind. Right-Click on that wall and it will list it for you their.

[TevashSzat]

I believe that it is 2 free upkeep at the highest level wooden walled city and then increases by one for every level you get higher on

[rookie7]

Thank you for your prompt help guys.

[EKKM]

Good advice above, thought I would I would add a few things I have noticed (as a newb). You need to be really careful at the start of the game not to blow your entire wad in the first round on units. The upkeep will kill you until you build up your infrastructure.

Make sure you don't have too many castles. The Iberian penninsula has 4? in total. You really only need one in any isolated geographical area. In unisolated areas, go for a ratio of 1 to 4 (or 5 if your nation has good city units).

Build your population up with farms. More people = more taxes, bigger cities and therefore better trade upgrades. Squalor can be managed with the various inns and townhalls.

Send diplomats/proncesses everywhere to obtain trade rights. Once you build ports your revenue will jump markedly.

One of the first things you build in every city is port. In the Iberian pennisula every province has a port (except Cordoba maybe?). This should be either preceded or followed shortly by roads.

Get your merchants experienced close to home by sitting on a decent tradeable item for 5-10 turns. Then put them on a boat and send them to Antioch, north africa or some of the other areas mentioined above. It is important to upgrade them forst so they are not easy takeover targets.

[IrishArmenian]

My normal recipe for getting a lot of money (In my experience, very cost effective, one gets a large output for less input)
Dirt Roads--400 fl. 1 turn
Ground Clearance--600 fl. 2 turns
Port--800 fl.(?) 2 Turns
Grain Exchange--600 fl. 2 turns
Those should get you going. Also, look for silver and gold provinces. Dub linh, Timbuktu, Arguin, Vienna, and a few more, those are very good. Base level mines are about 2000. The payout from a base level mine is about 240. It pays for itself within 9 turns and give you some profit.
A good approach is to think of things that way. How long until it pays for itself?

[sbroadbent]

There have been several things that have been mentioned, and here is what worked for me.

Whenever possible, upgrade farms and trading and build up ports. Farms will increase your population growth which means less time to get to the higher settlement levels, and less time needed to get the next upgrades for your ports and markets. Higher population will mean more taxes. You can deal with squallor by building happiness and health improving buildings. I find squallor to be much easier to deal with than in RTW. Was it BI or a patch that capped squallor at 80% for RTW. There seems to be many more buildings or bonuses in M2 to maintain a positive happiness factor, without having to garrison the entire 20 slots in your largest cities. I rarely have more than the free upkeep slots filled, and it's only because of enemy spy induced penalties that have caused problems.

In addition, only train the necessary troops that you will need to expand your territory and persuade your neighbors to choose a different target. That will keep your costs down, and allow more money to be spent on economic improvements.

You probably have alot of castles, but very few cities. You'll want to consider converting some of your castles to cities. Cities bring in alot more cash than castles, and they are necessary to fund your military. With that said, it is important to have a few castles in strategic positions. I got to the point where I needed troop production asap and only had Caen and Nottingham, and I was as far south as Marseille.

In my England campaign I often had the building queues stalled in the early years. Eventually though as I increased the number of cities under my control, and improved the economics, and minimizing the warfare to mostly skirmishes, I had more money rolling in, than I could spend. I believe that was assisted by a 130+ turn peaceful alliance with the French, so I could focus on the Danes and Milan.

By the time the Black Death rolled through, I had about 50K+ florins, and was able to weather the devastating effects. I ended up going to -20K before my economy recovered, and it only took a few turns with 10-15K profits rolling in to the point where I could continue to expand. Unfortunately the loss of income during that time meant that the building queues had caught up to my income, and I spent several years with stalled building queues, but it's all better now.

In summary:
- Trading and Farm upgrades
- Cities
- Avoid over training of troops.

What can also help is to train spies and assassins. Send them after your enemies in mass numbers. Take out their economics and you slow them down, and take out enough happiness buildings and you can cause a settlement to go rebel. Even if they maintain control of the settlement, if they wish to continue to benefit from their buildings, they need to spend money. If they are continually spending money then you can keep them under control. I forced the Danes into hibernation as I elimintated their ships and hindered their economy. They only recently reappeared.

When a settlement does rebel after being infiltrated with enough spies and have their buildings taken down, then you can invade without worry of being excommed. Your spies can then open up the gates when you decide to attack allowing your units to charge inside the castle, meaning fewer casualties, and a quicker end to the battle. If you have the necessary number of spies to give you 100%+ chance of opening the gates, then that means you can attack right away, and when you do take the settlement, that is an extra turn or two you benefit from the economics of the settlement.

[dumas]

Personally, I find that building up a navy in the beginning is a big drain and unnecessary. The AI normally lifts the seige to your port in one turn. You only need one cheap ship to transport troops as long as that ship always stays in harbor. When you actually need a navy or can afford it, you can build it up in a turn or two from several cities. There're a few exceptions like if you absolutely need to block land bridges in Iberian Penn or Constantinople, but even that is rather unnecessary in the early game.

Besides that, it's good to remember that you don't need every type of building in every settlement until you can afford it: One brothel line of buildings in an area, one diplomatic line in an area, one siege line in an area, etc.

[wzup]

Spend money on things that generate money

[Whacker]

I don't remember what the resource is... it's either gold or ivory, I think it's gold. Anyway, you'll need 6 merchants to corner the market. The 6 spots are all in Africa way towards the bottom of the map. The first 4 are all directly south of Spain in Africa, at the very bottom. Park your first 4 merchants on those. The other 2 are in Egypt, almost at the bottom, plop your last two down there. If you see enemy merchants get close, strike first. You have a much better chance on the offensive than the defensive when it comes to merchants. I was pulling in multiple thousands each turn doing this. Good luck!

[Jund23]

one other small thing to mention is the re-loading bug.

if at any time during your turn you find you have to reload (not that anyone reloads if something doesnt go to plan!), there is a bug in the game that means all the incomes from resources are skewed.

If you are in this situation, you have to make sure that before you end the turn you change your capital to any old city and then rechange it back to you actual capital city to reset the dstance to cpaital bonuses on resources.

this can make a big difference from getting 20fl, that turn, off a resource or several hundred florins off that resource.

[Carl]

one other small thing to mention is the re-loading bug.

if at any time during your turn you find you have to reload (not that anyone reloads if something doesnt go to plan!), there is a bug in the game that means all the incomes from resources are skewed.

If you are in this situation, you have to make sure that before you end the turn you change your capital to any old city and then rechange it back to you actual capital city to reset the dstance to cpaital bonuses on resources.

this can make a big difference from getting 20fl, that turn, off a resource or several hundred florins off that resource.

If you have the patch this is supposed to be fixed however.

[dismal]

Personally, I find that building up a navy in the beginning is a big drain and unnecessary. The AI normally lifts the seige to your port in one turn. You only need one cheap ship to transport troops as long as that ship always stays in harbor. When you actually need a navy or can afford it, you can build it up in a turn or two from several cities. There're a few exceptions like if you absolutely need to block land bridges in Iberian Penn or Constantinople, but even that is rather unnecessary in the early game.

I've been toying with the idea that you don't need to maintain a navy in the later game either.

Since I invest heavily in the latest docks for trade purposes, I can almost always muster a fleet larger than anything else out there in a single turn. Three nearby cities, three ships each and you've got 9 modern ships in a turn. Since most unit have maintenance about 1/3 to 1/4 of their cost, disbanding ships you aren't going to use for a while is a pretty quick payout.

On the downside, you don't get XP or admiral stars this way, but shear numbers can make up for that easily enough. You're also a turn or so slower to react.

Of course, you have to money enough to order a bunch of ships when you want to as well.

I suspect I will contunue to have 3 or 4 fleets in the late game anyway a) for the sake of convenience and b) because at the point this becomes relevant I'm not that short of cash anymore.

[DukeKent]

M2TW is about the money. One simple trick is to always focus on Economics first each turn. Do the buildings first. Always focus on building that generate money first(ports, roads, merchant buildings, mines, farms). Then look to the rest. You need a strong economy to afford a strong military. Don't buy the expensive toys (er units, and military buildings) until you can afford them. In M2TW most of my armies are primarily militia. Most of the rest of the troops come with castle upgrades. You just don't need any better to beat the AI militia armies until way later in the game. Even then you should be able to beat the AI with an inferior militia army. Excepting the Mongols and Timurids. They have a much better AI in my experience. I have actually had a couple of good battles against the Mongols. Did I say its about the money

[holycow]

I don't think you're using your merchants to their max capacity. You will generate more $$ by acquiring other merchants than sitting on a resource, unless it's gold/amber. side query why is amber so expensive? you get more from amber that silver? go figure.

anyways, march your merchants along with a spy a few provinces away to skill up your agent to about 4 and then march into Milan area - it seems that merchants like to congregate there and acquire other merchants. depending on their level should generate anywhere from 500-2k.

as mentioned earlier the gold and amber are easy and rich resources, but if you are able, also target the spices and silk in Middle East - should generate 700-800.

Lastly, how do you get -80k at end of game? I normally play English and by the time I take out France, I'm pretty much rolling in $$.

[dumas]

side query why is amber so expensive? you get more from amber that silver? go figure.

It's kind of offtopic, but silver is much more abundant(and therefore cheaper) than most people think. And it's also much easier to extract in mass quantities comparied to amber, especially with low tech.

[Memnoch]

I just noticed this...I'm having problems making money too. But how do you end up with -80000? I thought the game didn't let you run deficits?

[Taiwan Legion]

I think the secret is to ALWAYS specalise cities for trade, and to keep your armies small. Keep ONLY the bare minimum of troops in any one location. In the late game you get three requritment slots, so you don't have to worry to much about defence. Keep your troops at the border to disuade any attack.

Also, you might want to look at getting a mod that increases merchant trade, if you are a European faction, that gold in sahara can REALLY make you some money.

how do you specialize cities for trade?

[gardibolt]

I just noticed this...I'm having problems making money too. But how do you end up with -80000? I thought the game didn't let you run deficits?

It's very, very easy to run deficits if you build an army bigger than you can afford. When the Black Death hits and your taxpayers all die (as well as your trading partners), you can easily end up with a huge hole in your bank account.

[grapedog]

how do you specialize cities for trade?

Well, a city specialized in trade would be high growth, high profit, not a lot of soldiering. So, you kind of skip the troop producing line of buildings and stick to farms, ports, mines, roads...anything to get your cash output up. Ports can be huge, definately keep those up to date. get your diplomates out and about securing trade rights with anyone you can. The muslim factions like Egypt, and a lot of the kingdoms in and around Italy can provide a lot of cash from water based trade routes.

Also, as a side note, keep your citizens happiness levels up. More happiness means it's easier to tax them more.