Managing Money as Sicily

[Egbert]

Sicily is one of my favorite factions. However, I usually have trouble managing my empire's treasury when I play as Sicily in the Grand Campaign. Oftentimes, I'll run into financial trouble early on, while trying to capture nearby rebel settlements. Is there anything I can do to avoid monetary problems in my Sicilian campaign?

Thank You

[Gerin]

keep most of your setlements as cities, use militias as garrisons, and get trade rights as far away from you as possible.

[decimator22]

Blitz the factions by the cost, early on you start losing money, but use your pope influence and call a crusade for free armies.

[Sparkshot]

I recommend something similar to what decimator suggested. First, ally with the Papal States and exploit it--next turn give him about 500 florins and you should then be able to call a crusade on any of the cities offered. Only call crusades and conquer land that is more developed such as Marrakesh and Cordoba. It's not worth maintaining provinces that drain you treasury as you upgrade it to eventually turn a profit. Also, if you have the chance, call crusades on Milan and or Venice, they are great trade opportunities.Once you are financial stable, then go after the minor rebel cities with a small force. I hope this gets you off on the right footing.

[Sorkenlol]

Destroy venice and genoa ASAP, with Milan, Genoa, Naples (maybe florence if you're fast before papal states) AND venice you'll have a great income.

[Psychonaut]

turn your your castle into a city, then go and capture the two island settlements that are right near Palermo. ally w/ the pope and try to take venice early on

[Toshi-sama]

Focus on pure financial for cities and military for your lone castle.

Capture both islands and make them into cities, ally with the Pope and kill of Milan.

Ally with the HRE with trade rights and map info. Don't forget to kill off the moors and take their land to get a foothold into spain. Defeat spain first then portugal and then make your way via ship to england and kill the scotts and then the English. After all of that, destroy the french and you got yourself an empire.

STAY OUT OF THE EAST, LET VENICE DEAL WITH THE BYZANTINES

[HighLord z0b]

Take Florence and Tunis ASAP, even if it means ignoring Council Missions to take Durazzo, you can take it if you want but it means most likely getting involved in a war with the Byzantines and possibly the Venetians.

If you can take Venice or Milan, that will help a lot with cash.

Train lots of Merchants and send them to North Italy to eat other merchants and trade the textiles there, hopefully you'll train up some top quality merchants who you can then send to trade something really expensive like Silk in Constantinople. This should also trigger a merchants guild in one of your cities.

Turn most of you castles into cities if you can.

[KoS]

A lot of my advice has pretty much been covered so far, so, there you go.

[Five_of_Swords]

you need to take the islands near italy quicky and make them cities.boating merchants to egypt is also vital imo, the spices/sugar etc there will do wonders for your financial situration. with armies, you have to figure out how to do more with less. Use generals very agressively and dont use dismounted norman knights when peasants will do fine. I actually prefer to keep the capitol city a castle because the muslim archers and the norman knights are wonderful units and make you able to defeat much larger armies- you have a massive tactical advantage with these units over the other italian factions, remember that norman knights are armour peircing melee. If you take amd hold some of the other wealthy northern italian cities fairly early, you will never have to worry about money again. Dont get distracted by the moors or byzantium early on, it will not help your financial situation and the religious unrest etc is a serious pain a time waster. Venice always wars with HRE early and this is often a great opportunity to take venice itself while they are distracted. They usually conquer vienna, and if you take that also, you could perhaps trade it for bologna to the hre.

[Tsarevna]

I agree, skip Durazzo, that town has no resources, no farming output, takes forever to grow to even get a port, and it makes Venice AND the Byzantines attack you.

I took my initial army and took Tunis, then sailed to Rhodes. It's a nice trading town. Then I left a garrison in Rhodes and took Smyrna. I turned it into a town instead of a castle. Yes the Byz's eventually attack you over this, but it's actually pretty easy to defend as towns go with simple militia troops.

Milan attacked me next and I started making the big money once I took Genoa and Florence. I think what prompted Milan to attack was the fact that I took Corsica and Sardinia from the rebels (I turned them into towns).

Create 3 diplomats at the start and have them roam the corners of the world for factions to trade with. As long as you don't piss off France, Spain, the Moors, Egypt, the Turks, and the HRE too soon you can roll in money trading with them.

[eisenkopf]

One thing that might seem like a big NO-NO but for me worked quite well:

Disband all your knights. You don't need them at the start, because your militias are excellent, you have three bodyguard units, and you will be sieging settlements mostly. As for the re-recruiting cost: It is worth about three or four turns of upkeep, so even if you recruit the knights again, if you do it in the forth turn or later after disbanding your original ones, you have saved some money. And you might not want mailed knights anyway, Norman knights are soo much better...

[Tsarevna]

Also, another tip, is to not build markets in island towns like Rhodes, Corsica, Sardinia, Crete, etc. They don't have land trade nor sea trade until they get a port! They won't get a port until they reach a certain population and you upgrade the town.

So, ports first, then markets for island towns.

[Silent Assassin]

Also, another tip, is to not build markets in island towns like Rhodes, Corsica, Sardinia, Crete, etc. They don't have land trade nor sea trade until they get a port! They won't get a port until they reach a certain population and you upgrade the town.

So, ports first, then markets for island towns.

Yep that is right and also Roads are not a priority on Islands this is more true if your city is up close to your Port

[HighLord z0b]

If you're going to take Corsica and Sardinia I would leave them as castles to begin with as the AI seems intent on capturing them. I fought so many battles for those two islands, which aren't even really worth it.

Or capture them and then gift them to the pope if he gets angry with you.

[Viking Prince]

Three comments that I do not think have been mentioned:

Be certain to tally your upkeep on each stack roaming the board. Maybe cutting back on the number of targeted cities in process. Remember that seiging cost florins -- assault ASAP and this will lower your upkeep.

To sack or occupy can be somewhat of a personal style of play. I prefer to occupy. It is somewhat of a wash though in the early game since taking a 700 whack on population is also affecting future taxes and upgrade schedules.

Very early try to use all of the units that cannot be garrisoned free of upkeep (including generals). The general only needs to be present when structures are completed, so time which turns the generals are in the city.

[Sorkenlol]

If you're going to take Corsica and Sardinia I would leave them as castles to begin with as the AI seems intent on capturing them. I fought so many battles for those two islands, which aren't even really worth it.

Or capture them and then gift them to the pope if he gets angry with you.

Yes, Corsica usually gets attacked by Aragon, and Milan. As for Sardinia, it gets massacred by the Moors, they send armies all the time, and once you're at war with them they'll place their god damned fleets all around you trying to sink every ship you sail off with.

[Five_of_Swords]

well anywhere sicily expands is going to get sicily in trouble...since you have to expamd early i think the islands are a better bet than tunis...or durazzo, both of which really gont give much money and require a larger garrison. there are no other reasonably near cities controlled by rebels (florence might be ok, i dunno, when i played siciliy it had already been taken quite quickly) and you dont want to get in an early war with stronger factions. I do fine just taking the islands and then skipping right to venice as my 5th region when venice and the hre goes to war. Its not a big deal to take rome after that...the consequences are not a disaster like they were in the 1st mtw. I always wanna take bologna without actually going to war with the HRE, or even without hurting them, but they are quite stupid about how important this settlement is to them

[HighLord z0b]

In my campaign I took both islands and had to defend them almost constantly, which I did and got really experienced troops from doing that. I got attacked by Milan and the Moors at the start then Spain later. I eventually changed Corsica into a town, but left Sardinia as a castle.

[Kratos]

Make sure you take all of Italy and keep most settlements as cities.