Results 1 to 7 of 7

Thread: Economical questions

  1. #1

    Default Economical questions

    Hi,

    I would like to thank all people involved in FATW, as this mod is simply brilliant. It looks and feels just right. Praise could go on and on, but I have trouble understanding the econonomy. I began my game as Tharbad and I thought that I'm good enough; I was making 1,500 - 2000 mirian each turn and my population, thanks to low taxes, was growing steadily. I was building mostly farms, libraries and ''fountains'' and not attacking anybody - I only took swan-something town from rebels.
    Soon enough, despite my rising population and the fact that I disbanded some units, my income was way worse than in the start. I couldn't even financially afford to upgrade the province I conquered. With minus 400 income it was just a burden.

    I've read some guides and now I know that many buildings (I guess not all) generate maintenance costs. This probably destroyed my economy. Are there some ''safe'' buildings that I can always build knowing that I can't go wrong with them? Farms maybe? Healers? What level of income is high enought to build ''freely''?
    Would my economy be totally fine if I would not build anything? I guess so, because of the growing population. But idly hoarding thousands of mirians is probably a waste. I know I must spend money to generate even more money, what is the best way? Should I save for markets? Does markets also generate costs and won't guaranteee a steady income?
    Next questions is, should I invest in fishing in every coastal province or only in those with fish resource? How to determine which resource is better, like is fish worse than timber?

    This mod is great but there are many things I don't understand and I'll be grateful if you could help me.

  2. #2

    Default Re: Economical questions

    Tharbad is a difficult start, especially if you go after the rebels first. I did the same thing in my first Tharbad campaign: started off by invading rebels, as you do in TW games, only to find out that the nearby rebel settlements are tiny, undeveloped, and poor. A good opening move is to attack Threeways (north of Tharbad, held by Adunabar initially). Adunabar seems like a dangerous foe (and they are), but they're also distracted by the Reunited Kingdom early on, and Threeways is relatively far from their production center in the North, which is clustered around Lastbridge. Threeways also provides a great trade income, and has some decent development, as well as the important Iron resource.

    That's a really campaign-specific bit of advice, but I think it highlights one of the unique qualities of FATW: not all settlements are equally valuable, and a great building in one settlement may be a waste in another. A lot depends on what you plan to do with the settlement, what resources are available, the strategic value, etc.

    One great tool, if you're not already using it, is the Settlement Details scroll, which you can access on the bottom left of any settlement panel. With the Settlement Details scroll open, queue up a building and you can see how much it will benefit and/or hurt your economy. For example, the maintenance costs of buildings occur as a hit to "land tax" (which appears on the scroll as silver coins). If you queue up a building that has a maintenance cost, part of the land tax will flash to show you how much you'll be losing. On the other hand, farms will increase land tax; queue up a farm, and you'll see some additional, greyed-out coins appear to show how much money you'll earn from that investment per turn. Libraries, fountains, and healers have maintenance costs, but you may want to build them if your economy can support it as they provide other benefits, such as access to ballistas, increased public order, and population growth.

    Farms and traders will always add income and never cut it (I think... there have been a few updates and I admit I can't remember when we changed what ). I consider those pretty 'safe', but a trader in some backwater village isn't going to help you as much as a trader in a province with lots of resources.

    The Industry buildings are keyed off the various resources. These include fishing, lumber, stone, iron, wine, etc. These *do* have a maintenance cost (check the scroll for details), but often come with some other benefits that may make them worthwhile. For example, higher-tier fish buildings increase population growth. Timber and stone buildings reduce construction costs. And so on. The precise costs and profits associated with each building will vary throughout your realm. Which one is "better" depends on what you want. I usually prioritize timber over fish, especially early on when money is tight, since buildings cost a lot.

    The building descriptions should give you a sense of what does what, so between those and the Settlement Details scroll you should figure most of it out through gameplay. But feel free to keep asking questions, and let us know how your campaigns go!

    Thanks for the kind words
    One of the most sophisticated Total War modders ever developed...

  3. #3

    Default Re: Economical questions

    Thank you very much for your detailed answer. I also got totally crushed by Harad when playing as Khand, but now I'm playing as Dunland, already defeated Rohan and now fighting against RK. Well, I'm probably learning how to play this mod. Balance seems very nice, but it's scary how Adunabar got destroyed (my bad luck I guess). What should I build if i have overpopulation problem?

    In general this mod, at least in my opinion, has somewhat ''hardcore'' feel. Being harder than vanilla may be great for the majority of players I think, but it is kinda... sad to see how nearly all my generals are uncharismatic, unintelligent, lazy and so on. They're savages of course, but I think that an occasional ''genius'' trait or another nice suprise could be good. Many of them also like to catch a cold on regular basis (seriously) so they get debuffs. Another got an illness so severe I thought he will be dead soon - but he's still alive though. Having ill generals is fine, but I would also add some positive traits to balance things out. I have almost only stupid, lazy and sneezing generals. Some general thoughts:
    - characters should recover from harmless ilnesses fast
    - watchtowers seem very expensive (maybe 500 gold to build? does AI benefit from them?)
    - it's cool to have some many noble families, but I think it's mostly flavour... what about adding really small benefits from origin? Let's take Dunland: Tribe of the Wolf (they hate Rohan, so +1 command when fighting cavalry), Throca (large estates, so maybe +1 to farming/public order?), Craban (nightfighting maybe? bonus to command when ambushing?), Boar (skilled hunters, so they get + 2 to LOS or movement range?).

    I'm curious why you decided to grant experience to all newly recruited units (like base exp 3 or something)? Is it to give them more morale so battles can generally last longer? I may be isolated at that, but for me personally it's a great joy to turn rookie units into hardened veterans over time - and I guess it's harder in FATW because they... start as veterans. Base exp 3 or 4 greatly limits my chances of bonding with my units, however funny that sounds. Why is it like that?

  4. #4

    Default Re: Economical questions

    I would (shamelessly) recommend reading the stickied diplomacy guide; it has many pointers which can be helpful in getting over the financial hump early on.

    Also be mindful that there is a significant faction wide land tax penalty for having many provinces without the "Dominion" project completed. This is another reason taking non-IP faction settlements early on is advantageous; unlike IP factions, they will have a Dominion building in place, so that you do not get an immediate income penalty until you destroy that project.

    Governors are another thing that will cause financial grief to the unwary. You need to make sure your governors have the correct lordship ancillary for their province, that they become attuned, and that their "opinion-of-liege" is not low. All of these will affect both income and costs. You may have bad generals to start, but if you leave them in a governorship for long enough they will eventually improve. The more developed a settlement, the quicker they will improve. You can also move your governor outside the settlement to see if projects/recruitment become cheaper, then move him back inside once the project has been commissioned.

    If you have a settlement that can produce recruitable generals (I think every Mannish faction can do this), you can keep pumping them out until you have enough decent generals to govern all of your provinces. Don't accept son-in-laws unless they have good stats. Throw your crap generals into enemy mobs to thin your character numbers and increase the frequency of adoption opportunities. The prevalence of crap generals in certain factions is intentional as part of the flavor of the different factions. Play Elves, Dwarves or RK and you will find yourself up to your ears in proficient generals.

    The veterancy of units is integral to the overall balancing of units in this mod and cannot be abandoned at this point.

    Watchtowers are costly because otherwise the AI will spam them. This is an issue because you cannot build camps in tiles adjacent to watchtowers.
    Last edited by Wambat; August 04, 2019 at 10:23 PM.

  5. #5

    Default Re: Economical questions

    With regard to your generals being sick, you can address that by putting them in settlements for a few turns; I believe it helps if the settlement has a "Healer" type building. The same is true for generals who get wounded during battle.

    Wambat is right that generals can improve over time. When considering adoptees, I tend to take candidates who are "Poor Governor/General" or above, provided they have some other decent traits. A Poor Governor can become quite capable over time, if you leave him in the settlement to govern. Generals advance more slowly in my experience, but then I can directly affect their actions on the battlefield, so their bonuses/penalties have perhaps less of an impact than those of Governors.

    Pay attention to Supply traits, as well, as a general campaigning in enemy territory for several turns will start to lose supplies and his performance will suffer as a result.

    What do you mean by an "overpopulation problem"? Dunland usually has pretty good population growth, but if you need/want more people in a settlement you'll want to lower taxes, build farms/traders, and not recruit so much.

    The noble families mostly impact loyalty, aka "OpinionOfLiege". This is the trait that can appear as "Insolent", "Staunch", "Supportive", "Dubious", etc. Each level of this trait has either a positive or negative impact on that character's performance. You can increase OpinionOfLiege (OoL) by increasing your faction leader's Authority (by conquering territory, winning wars, keeping a large treasury, getting allies, and having a long reign), but also, characters will tend to have a higher OoL if they are from the same house/tribe as the faction leader. So if your High Chieftain is from the Tribe of the Wolf, other members of that tribe will have a higher opinion of him and get better bonuses, whereas characters from different tribes will tend to be less effective.

    Good luck with Dunland! They're a fun faction. Once they have taken over Rohan and developed it a little, they can stand to make a good deal of money. Plus their armies are super cheap, so you can swarm your foes ... but the big factions like the RK are still dangerous to your lightly-armored warriors.
    One of the most sophisticated Total War modders ever developed...

  6. #6

    Default Re: Economical questions

    Thank you guys, that helped. Great guide. I'm sorry, I meant ''overcrowded'' problem. Recruiting generals? Do you mean recruting chieftain guards? Dunland is indeed very fun, fighting a war on two fronts is challenging enough and I hope that Tharbad will leave me in peace.

  7. #7

    Default Re: Economical questions

    So by "overcrowded" do you mean that you've got too much overcrowding (too much population) in a settlement, and it's causing problems?

    To reduce population, you can raise taxes (but this drops public order as well), or recruit lots of troops from that settlement.

    Another method is to let the place rebel, and then re-take it and exterminate the population.

    But these are mostly issues with vanilla RTW; in my experience with FATW I rarely have public order problems that are directly caused by overpopulation. Maybe you're referring to imminent rebellions in settlements?

    WRT chieftain's guards, yes - you can train a couple of different generals as Dunland. You get a cavalry general in Dunfreca, and in other chief cities (the settlements with the blue flag next to them) you can train your normal bodyguard units.
    One of the most sophisticated Total War modders ever developed...

Posting Permissions

  • You may not post new threads
  • You may not post replies
  • You may not post attachments
  • You may not edit your posts
  •