How to financially survive Arnor emergence?

[Boogster]

So, I finally managed to unify the northern kingdom by waging war against Gundabad and Isengard to get the needed lands, kept my most priced general as a farmer in Annuminas to grow it, bribed fat Gondor-lords with everything I had, and finally scraped together the funds to build the house of kings. And what was my reward?

All cultural buildings destroyed, cultural drops in all regions, no more free upkeep.

This has caused my kingdom to go into -10k per turn. Reconstructing the buildings will cost lotsa dough and will take a long time. However with the negative income I'm having it won't be happening as the only way to get back into positive is to disband all my armies, which the orcs of Misty mountains will be happy to see, but the local population probably would have rather just stayed as Eriador...

So the basic problem is that I'm into massive debt with the transition into Arnor, but I can't disband troops because the orcs will eat me if I do that. I've taken Gundabad and Isengard out of the picture and Misty is the only evil faction still bordering me. However my so called "Allies" are "busy" with Rhun/other evils.

Finances in pic. Also see Gandalf as Aragorns grandson.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

edit. alt pic host

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

[smoesville]

Can't see the pic i'm afraid.

[Malinwa]

You've to replace your capital to the middle of your 'empire'. ----> Less corruption
Delete useless units----> less army upkeep
Increase your tax rate in some settlements---> higher tax income.

[Boogster]

Can't see the pic i'm afraid.

Added another source if that helps.

You've to replace your capital to the middle of your 'empire'. ----> Less corruption
Delete useless units----> less army upkeep
Increase your tax rate in some settlements---> higher tax income.

I don't really have useless troops. Just enough to keep cities happy and a few stack waging war against the orcs.

Moving the capital does have a great impact. Saves 3k just by moving it to Staddle, which was the best place to have it.

Now I'm only 7k below the line... This means about 40 units, 2 per city, which means empty cities all around for the orcs. I though about going well into dept and then once available after a few turns, replace the troops I have with the new ones, which would have free upkeep, by destroying most of my buildings and using the profit for the recruit costs. However with the current -7k it isn't going to happen as the debt would be too great after those turns of waiting.

[smoesville]

Put whatever units on the frontier that you believe will hold the line against the OotMM and then get rid of as many units in the interior as possible without open rebellion. Changing capital also helps though taxation sometimes isn't cost effective if it takes more units to maintain order than it brings you in profit.

[Keyser_Soze]

There really isn't any need for any units to be held in settlements with no risk of being attacked or with good order. disband these.
Either disband your army or suicide them into OOTMM. This way, you will take a settlement or 2, expanding your income, and also lower your total upkeep substantially. Most Eriador units become entirely redundant with the advent of Arnor so you're not losing anything. try and kill some useless generals too. Generals are a huge drain on income.

[tonplan]

Make peace with your enemies no matter what then disband all your units (keep the hobbits and dunedain). This will bring your finances under control very quickly. When everything is settled you can go back to waging war on Orcs of the Misty Mountains.
If you want it to be more interesting, you can keep fighting with your old Eriador units. You would be surprised how you much can get out of them when there is no possibility of reinforcements.

[Boogster]

I emptied my cities of units, which dropped the army upkeep into 26k, and puts me into the positive. Buffing taxation wherever applicable netted less than 1k.

I'm leaving only the stacks which are battling OOTMM. Let's hope that the dwarves, elves and men of rohan/gondor don't get any funny ideas about strolling into my unprotected cities.

Yeh, peace with OOTMM would have been nice, but they aren't listening.

Also, is this how things are supposed to work? There is no warning that you are about to majorly screw yourself by reforming the old kingdom. Maybe the troops should be converted into Arnor ones, or stay upkeep-free?

[jinjo]

Boogster,
when i reunited arnor, i had same problem.
first u should do is to build as many cultural buildings as u can. try to build these buildings firstly in higher income cities
second u should wait some turns(approximately 20-30 turns) to increase the religion again
try not to fight extremely in these turns OR if u have lots of army, fight and fight to reduce the number of army
then, everything goes very well

[Malinwa]

I think you just got waaaay too much generals. Gather the useless ones and let them die in a stack against orcs.

[Boogster]

I think you just got waaaay too much generals. Gather the useless ones and let them die in a stack against orcs.

I have 18 generals and 27 regions. Usually I like to keep 1:1 ratio with generals and regions +a few to make war.

So in my books I'm actually a few short

[Tatoru]

I have 18 generals and 27 regions. Usually I like to keep 1:1 ratio with generals and regions +a few to make war.

So in my books I'm actually a few short

18?
You can effectively use about 5. You dont need extra stack of generals.

[Andor Vex]

You are evil sir. My little bro did the same when he was Eriador during hotseat.

[Boogster]

18?
You can effectively use about 5. You dont need extra stack of generals.

They are not in a stack. They are in cities/castles and the best ones leading armies. Armies also carry a spare or two to leave in a newly acquired cities. And to replace lost ones.

After a few turns I'm getting a nice profit again and there seems to be no backstabbing into my empty cities. I'm also annihilating the OOTMM with the remaining Eriador units. Arnor units can't yet be built due to the recruitment spawn times.

[Malinwa]

Indeed, when I played Gondor once. I gathered a very small fleet, put all my useless generals on it and began to attack rebel fleets till my fleet sunk with all my generals on it .
Result: economic boost

[brasswire]

I have 18 generals and 27 regions. Usually I like to keep 1:1 ratio with generals and regions +a few to make war.

So in my books I'm actually a few short

Problem with this is that generals are expensive and never get free upkeep (except in forts). Keep a good governor/general in your largest cities to increase growth/wealth/happiness, keep a few battlefield generals for leading your troops, and toss the rest.

[Maegfaer]

Problem with this is that generals are expensive and never get free upkeep (except in forts). Keep a good governor/general in your largest cities to increase growth/wealth/happiness, keep a few battlefield generals for leading your troops, and toss the rest.

Or better, make sure all towns/cities have reasonable governors so income and growth is raised everywhere. It pays off. Generals? Two per front preferably. Fight at as few fronts at the same time as possible.

As for Arnor, the trick is to disband any troop that won't see battle in the next 10 turns or so. This usually means you get rid of all the garrisons of 90% of your settlements.

[Bobz]

There's no reason for every settlement to have governors. Especially when you acquire a large empire, you are not going to have nearly enough good governor types for every city anyway; there'll probably be a fair few bad ones dragging you down.

For your tiny towns, unless you have really good growth guy to spare, they'll only bring either a tiny benefit or not recoup their cost - if the place is happy and only bringing in a hundred gold, what real difference can they make? Saves money to have them elsewhere or not there at all.

[smoesville]

There's no reason for every settlement to have governors. Especially when you acquire a large empire, you are not going to have nearly enough good governor types for every city anyway; there'll probably be a fair few bad ones dragging you down.

For your tiny towns, unless you have really good growth guy to spare, they'll only bring either a tiny benefit or not recoup their cost - if the place is happy and only bringing in a hundred gold, what real difference can they make? Saves money to have them elsewhere or not there at all.

It adds to the realism IMO Same stuff happens as the Romans in EB but it makes sense that as an empire gets bigger it becomes more difficult to handle and if it's really big it'll require satrapies or something similar

[Maegfaer]

There's no reason for every settlement to have governors. Especially when you acquire a large empire, you are not going to have nearly enough good governor types for every city anyway; there'll probably be a fair few bad ones dragging you down.

Not true, if you know how to manage your governors properly you can have tons of really good ones. And just don't let the bad ones drag you down; send them into battle and be careless with them, they'll die soon enough.