How to make money?

[Foz]

For the Citadel do this:

1. Build farm level 1.
2. Build port/shipwright series to maximum.
3. Build Farms to level 3.

I'm assuming raods are already at maximum.

fenrir If the intention is to maximise income quickly I think a good way to go is build roads +1, then farms +1 -> ports +2 -> farms +3 -> markets +2 -> roads +2 -> roads +3 (modded highways from RTW) then everything else. This is a proven way to maximise income, you can read about it in the 1st link I posted. This will neglect religion and law, but will boost your income. The way you posted is the more balanced way.

How on Earth does Roads-1 always end up so early on the economic build list? Has anyone actually judged the in-game effect against what the description says it should do? I have never seen Roads-1 affect my income in any significant way, and it's almost certain that its effect is bugged (it provides no bonus to trade income, regardless of what its description may tell you). If there's a real reason to build it so early, I'd love for someone to explain why.

Concerning what economic buildings are best, here's my take:

Farms: Generally, a farming upgrade will add 50 or so florins to your income. This means the 600 florin farm turns a profit in 12 turns, at which point it begins producing 50 florins of profit for the settlement. It was doing that for the previous 12 turns, of course, it's just that for economic purposes we consider those turns to have been spent paying for the farm, so profits begin on the 13th turn. The 2nd farm, 1200 florins, will already take 24 turns to pay itself off, which is a lot as we'll see from other buildings. The first farm level turns over pretty decently, but the later ones are really long-term investments, and will primarily be used to promote growth (and thus taxes) as opposed to direct economic gain.

Mines: IIRC, mines usually produce at least 200 florins, and cost 2000. Thus, they begin making profit after 10 turns usually, less if they rake in more than 200. So they turn profit earlier than farms, and it is typically much more profit too, being > 200 generally. Mines are key economic buildings.

Ports: The port series grants export routes to the settlement, which are worth 100 florins and up generally. It also adds a base trade bonus. As a result the 800 florin Port generally pays for itself in 8 or less turns, turning a healthy 100+ florin profit every turn thereafter. This series is the basis of all trade, and should always be built before any other trade-increasing buildings available. Note that the settlement details scroll lies to you about how much income they will generate - what it displays is only the result of the trade bonus, and doesn't include the far more substantial benefit of the new trade route it will grant.

Market & Wharf series: They're really 2 separate lines, but do about the same thing - they increase base trade. Generally they compete with farms for status as least-favored economic building, as the benefits are even less than equivalent-cost farms in the early game. They'll get built eventually, but generally should not be until other superior economic options like mines and ports are exhausted. Note that the first level market lets you train merchants and grants +1 to the merchant cap, so if you intend to build merchants early you'll have to sacrifice the more sound early-game benefit of other options to do so. Also note that the first farm building is probably a better economic investment than the first market building, but as soon as you get some reasonable trade going the market buildings will generally do better than same-cost farms. You can queue them up and check the appropriate area of the settlement details screen to figure out which is currently better if you need to.

Roads: I'll be waiting for a reply to my earlier comment about these before I delve into them.

[Shahed]

I've not managed to find a way around that bug, but I've modded (removed the ";" ) so roads, paved roads and highways increase tradeable goods. It's working for me just fine and I have no complaints about the positive impact on my economy or the AI's. I think since anyone with an unmodded game is in a financial priority roads are also a priority, because what little army they have will need to deploy at best speed. if you read the 1st link I posted, the first thing you do is disband excess troops and maintain only minimum troop levels (for fiscally challenged empires). I'm not saying it's the best way but it works for me. Then again I've never really been fiscally challenged, but I do apply a militia only early conquest strategy, usually, and specially for Catholics. As England I had mostly militia till 1102 (IIRC), I'm playing 2 turns per year. No defeats, but that's easy as you know.

EDIT Added a few comments.

[Foz]

Ahh, that explains it then. Roads +1 would give a 20% trade bonus in that case. As the roads are cheaper than a lvl 1 market (which also gives 20% IIRC), they would then beat that. I guess that leaves them in contention with farms +1 for early priority, still very clearly behind the mine and port buildings which turn such high profits.

So for a player using modified roads, the ranking of economic buildings looks like this:

1. Mines
2. Port
3. Roads +1
4. Farms +1
5. Market +1

Of course skip anything you can't yet build. The mobility of the roads is nice, but getting the really big income generators first is an absolute must when possible.

Without modified roads (i.e. they do nothing economically) the order would look like this:

1. Mines
2. Port
3. Farms +1
4. Market +1
5. (or lower) Roads +1

Here the mobility is still something we want, but the roads don't even do anything economically. There's just no way to justify the economic setback of putting the road any higher in the build order, since the economic plan has such a huge impact on the early turns of the game.

Note that several other buildings can be considered economic buildings sometimes. In the case of any building that grants public order, they have the ability to push (or keep) the settlement into a higher tax bracket, which especially in the early game can make a big difference, since so much of your income is from tax. A well-timed town hall can have a bigger economic impact than a market. The barracks series not only gives PO, but also opens up new units to be free upkeep. If you have a garrison, but none of the soldiers count for free upkeep, you can often save several hundred florins per turn by simply building the correct barracks building so you are actually able to utilize the free upkeep slots. Though they're not really economic buildings, it is very important to analyze the potential economic impact of each building you can buy to figure out which is actually the best, because it's not always the most obvious one.

[Doug-Thompson]

Re: Mines.

Different types of mines produce different incomes. For instance, a new gold mine produces 360 florins a turn while a coal mine (I think) produces 180.

So it's definitely worth right-clicking to find out how much your new mine would produce.

[Sentinel]

Are there and financial benefits to building the road / market series on an island that has only one settlement?

[Doug-Thompson]

Are there and financial benefits to building the road / market series on an island that has only one settlement?

I don't know about roads, but markets increase trade goods and those can be shipped by sea.

======

I wonder: Do low taxes have any effect on trade?

[Sentinel]

I seem to remember that in RWT upgrading markets and / or ports increased the number of routes / places the settlement traded with, and therefore increased revenue.

On an island there are no neighbours to set up land based trading routes with, so does upgrading the market or roads have any effect?

Increasing number of goods to trade is useless if you have no one to trade with.

If you look at the roads on an island, there are carts going from the settlement to the port, but does this mean the market is trading or just the port?

[Fußball]

So for a player using modified roads, the ranking of economic buildings looks like this:

1. Mines
2. Port
3. Roads +1
4. Farms +1
5. Market +1

Of course skip anything you can't yet build. The mobility of the roads is nice, but getting the really big income generators first is an absolute must when possible.

Without modified roads (i.e. they do nothing economically) the order would look like this:

1. Mines
2. Port
3. Farms +1
4. Market +1
5. (or lower) Roads +1

So currently in the vanilla M2TW roads provide no bonus what so ever? That seems very foolish if CA intended roads to provide an economic bonus, yet they gave them no bonus. But then again I have noticed many other things CA has not had the time to fix, has left out or simply has not made possible.

And one other question which is slightly on topic. Which file do I open to rewrite this value and what do I rewrite it as to remedy the problem? Please excuse the noobish question as I have not had time to devote to modding and working with the game.

Tschüß!
Erich

[Foz]

So currently in the vanilla M2TW roads provide no bonus what so ever? That seems very foolish if CA intended roads to provide an economic bonus, yet they gave them no bonus. But then again I have noticed many other things CA has not had the time to fix, has left out or simply has not made possible.

And one other question which is slightly on topic. Which file do I open to rewrite this value and what do I rewrite it as to remedy the problem? Please excuse the noobish question as I have not had time to devote to modding and working with the game.

Tschüß!
Erich

Check out your export_descr_buildings.txt file in the main data folder. If you haven't unpacked, you'll have to do so to get at it.

Then if you do a find for "road" you should jump right to the entry for city roads (there is a nearly identical one for castle roads right after it though lord knows why, they could easily be combined). It should be easy to see each of the two road levels in there. Each should have (IIRC) a commented out ability (comments are denoted with semicolons ;) that looks something like this:

;trade_income_base_bonus bonus 2

I don't remember the exact wording, but that's probably close. If you simply remove the ; from each of the 4 lines like that (2 for city roads, then 2 after that for castle roads), your dirt roads will grant a 20% trade bonus, and your paved ones will grant 30%. Easy-peasy lemon-squeezy.

Roads/Ports define how many routes you can get I think it was.
Markets/Wharfs determine the income amount you get for each resource.

Remember in RTW Ports giving you extra trade fleets?

That's a shame, because the vanilla roads sure suck a lot compared to what they could be (they could be like ports). As it stands, it looks to me like a settlement always trades with its connected neighbors by land provided they are owned by you or not at war with you - i.e. no building is responsible for granting land trade routes. I just checked in on one of my saved games, and a settlement with no roads or markets had the most land-based trade routes in my empire, lol.

Port can be higher than mine if you're capturing a new city with a sizable population. For smaller cities, I go mine first since port income takes a while to develop. Port income definitely goes up as population goes up, might be tied to city development as well, aside from the population of the city.

That makes a lot of sense. I had noticed the trade was constantly going up, but never really thought about why. A larger population would require larger quantities of the imported goods its using, and could also produce more of its exports. It also may involve the population of the settlement's trade partners too, since they would have similar supply and demand effects from their own population level.

[Tusk]

I don't remember the exact wording, but that's probably close. If you simply remove the ; from each of the 4 lines like that (2 for city roads, then 2 after that for castle roads), your dirt roads will grant a 20% trade bonus, and your paved ones will grant 30%. Easy-peasy lemon-squeezy.

Is this addressed in either of the 2 patches? If so, is it 1.1 or 1.2? Just want to know how much trade I've been missing out on...

[Foz]

Is this addressed in either of the 2 patches? If so, is it 1.1 or 1.2? Just want to know how much trade I've been missing out on...

It doesn't appear to be. I stand corrected about the comments, too: I just looked at my freshly-extracted 1.2 export_descr_buildings.txt (EDB), and there are no such comments in it. I'm not sure if they were there in 1.1 or not, just don't remember. It's possible they come from the highway mod I have installed. In any case, here's what the text looks like in my EDB modified to add highways and make roads grant trade bonuses:

building hinterland_roads
{
    convert_to hinterland_castle_roads
    levels roads paved_roads highways 
    {
        roads city requires factions { northern_european, middle_eastern, eastern_european, greek, southern_european, } 
        {
            convert_to 0
            capability
            {
                road_level 0
                trade_base_income_bonus bonus 2
            }
            material wooden
            construction  1 
            cost  400 
            settlement_min town
            upgrades
            {
                paved_roads
            }
        }
        paved_roads city requires factions { northern_european, middle_eastern, eastern_european, greek, southern_european, } 
        {
            convert_to 1
            capability
            {
                road_level 1
                trade_base_income_bonus bonus 3
            }
            material wooden
            construction  2 
            cost  1200 
            settlement_min city
            upgrades
            {
		highways
            }
        }
	highways city requires factions { northern_european, middle_eastern, eastern_european, greek, southern_european, } 
        {
            convert_to 2
            capability
            {
                road_level 2
                trade_base_income_bonus bonus 4
            }
            material wooden
            construction  4 
            cost  2400 
            settlement_min city
            upgrades
            {
            }
        }
    }
    plugins 
    {
    }
}
building hinterland_castle_roads
{
    convert_to hinterland_roads
    levels c_roads c_paved_roads c_highways
    {
        c_roads castle requires factions { northern_european, middle_eastern, eastern_european, greek, southern_european, } 
        {
            convert_to 0
            capability
            {
                road_level 0
                trade_base_income_bonus bonus 2
            }
            material wooden
            construction  1 
            cost  400 
            settlement_min town
            upgrades
            {
                c_paved_roads
            }
        }
        c_paved_roads castle requires factions { northern_european, middle_eastern, eastern_european, greek, southern_european, } 
        {
            convert_to 1
            capability
            {
                road_level 1
                trade_base_income_bonus bonus 3
            }
            material wooden
            construction  2 
            cost  1200 
            settlement_min city
            upgrades
            {
		c_highways
            }
        }
        c_highways castle requires factions { northern_european, middle_eastern, eastern_european, greek, southern_european, } 
        {
            convert_to 2
            capability
            {
                road_level 2
                trade_base_income_bonus bonus 4
            }
            material wooden
            construction  4 
            cost  2400 
            settlement_min city
            upgrades
            {
            }
        }
    }
    plugins 
    {
    }
}

If you want to use highways, you should go get the highways mod, it's very good. If not, then you have a choice:

- You can remove the highways and c_highways - I've bolded them to make this easier. Note that they include the } in case you can't tell, and numerous references to "highways" and "c_highways".
- More simply, you can just add the lines I've underlined to your EDB, those lines will make the roads grant trade bonuses.

Hope that helps.

[andrewt]

That makes a lot of sense. I had noticed the trade was constantly going up, but never really thought about why. A larger population would require larger quantities of the imported goods its using, and could also produce more of its exports. It also may involve the population of the settlement's trade partners too, since they would have similar supply and demand effects from their own population level.

I would say the population of the settlement's trade partners affects it as well, like you said. No hard numbers but experience points to it.