economic threshold

[shenryyr]

Every time I play there comes a point where income begins to overtake expenses and you're able to do whatever you want. At that point the game stops being challenging, stops being fun.

I really hope someone can find a way to mod the scripting to allow for strict economic drawbacks to conquering lands far from your captial.

[Jared the Piper]

I hope that this wont be patched too harsh as done in ETW, where after that econ patch you basically couldnt do any longer since 1 Line Infantry burned down your budget instantly. I remember having a really really hard time as spain to get a decent army to fight against all the big armies the AI had.

A little correction would be okay, but no "OMFG REDEWZ DE INCOME TO A MEENEEMUM!" ya know?

[iksterminator]

I agree, if it's gonna be tough, it should be same for AI also,

[Randall Turner]

Income is too low initially, then too high as development and conquered provinces kick in.

For everyone except Great Britain, there's an initial period of insecurity where you're practically forced to exploit everything "bad" in the campaign game. Blitzing, steamrolling, spamming trade nodes, etc - no choice, no matter how historically silly.

Then, as the OP notes, once you get "comfortable" (usually around spring 1807) you're drawing waaaay too much from conquered provinces, which just did not happen in real life. At that point you have to start imposing house rules. Again, Britain is a special case, but only inasmuch as they get "comfortable" much earlier and encounter the boredom point sooner.

I think the problem is simply the Total War campaign-game model. It's too RTS-ey build-up-and-spam. It needs a redesign.

[Lord Dakier]

I reach this point in my 5th-10th turn.

As soon as I start;
Upgrade economic buildings
Select best possible ministers
Make all regions tax free
Begin plans to take trade routes

Because the rich are not being taxed it raises the overall cash earned. Sardinia started at 500 and going down they now have 7000 and its still as high as possible. I was earning 10k per turn at one point. I have the most technology yet have only just got universities simply by asking cash for tech. It's a bit too easy. When you get people say turn up campaign difficulty I think why? When I hold an enemies trade hes ment to suffer not my fault if the CAI is just not as good at its finances.

[spanish_emperor]

maybe it would be nice to have things like inflation, etc to keep the economic aspect a little bit more realistic and harder for the player. Afterall, the spanish empire had the greatest amount of gold in the world and it still lost simply because of the huge inflation. If a player had the advantages the spanish empire had he would have won the game in 5 turns.

[the_mango55]

Limiting the number of trade ships you can build would help this some.

[The_Reckoner]

Is there a limit to how many merchantmen and Indiamen can be on a single trade node? Yeah I usually experience this after a few years in each game. At first I'm pretty pumped because I can buy what ever I want But I agree it was getting out of hand with me playing Prussia and being able to casually support 6 full stack armies while still making almost 10k a turn and this is with out a single trade nodes.

[shenryyr]

Assuming we eventually get some modding tools to make this easier, what specific economic changes would you like to see?

[greybuscat]

I'm not disagreeing about the campaign becoming too easy, but as far as the trade node spamming, it was my understanding that an influx of goods with few trading partners drastically lowers the price of a trade good. Additionally, if you have removed the major powers by mid or end-game, generally, the minor powers don't buy most of the trade goods. If you look in the trade window, you'll primarily see other goods (crates) being traded with minors. I don't think limiting trade ships is necessary.

I would be in favor of increasing the price per unit as an army becomes larger, though. I would think that, logistically, an army twice as large would cost more than twice as much (could be wrong). Also, improved technology and training should equal increased cost. They could also increase the maintenance of a unit based on how far away it is from its home territory, whether it moves in a turn, charge for the replenishment, etc..

[the_mango55]

Assuming we eventually get some modding tools to make this easier, what specific economic changes would you like to see?

We've already got modding tools to make it easier.

http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showthread.php?t=338259

[♔DoomBunny666♔]

I like it as it is, its still a challenge, mainly because I waste most of it on my allies or buying new lands, ussually end up with about 1k for other stuff each turn...