Economy tips

[frenchyvinnie]

Hi everyone.

I'm currently playing a DEI Rome campaign, currently approaching 200 BC. So I'm fairly advanced in my campaign, and my Empire has reached a size when I usually don't encounter any economic problems anymore.

However, in this particular instance, my economy is really struggling. I can barely maintain a 4000/6000 denarii profit per turn, while maintaining two full stacks of fleet and six full stacks of armies. I currently own 54 different settlement. I think my Imperium level is six, but I'll have to check again.

Basically, the problem comes from my empire maintenance. It is way too high right now, and it is swallowing all of my revenues. The only way I know to counteract this is through agent and general skills that specifically reduce empire maintenance.
As a result, the first general skills I unlock are always rightful sovereign and capable bureaucrat. Similarly, I always use as many governors as I can, and always unlock administrator and public orator first.

But this is not enough. Sometimes, when I have enough skilled governors and generals, I may lower my empire maintenance enough to reach 8000 profits/turn. But inevitably, one my agents die of old age, and my profits plummet to 2000 denarii/turn. Then it may take me 20 turns to recover the profits I lost.


So, any tips to increase the profitability of my empire?

[luck_ponte]

Go for the philosophy tree, not only are there techs that reduce EM directly, but for each segment of the tree you complete you also get an EM reduction, it's pretty neat. Also, from what I recall, EM only affects tax revenue, so trade agreements go untouched. As such, get as much trade agreements you can and focus on tariff buffing from buildings (the small town trader tree and the Wine trader for capitals) and traits. Getting the agreements should be piece of cake because of your empire size (other factions fear your strength bar and you probably have a lot of valuable resources within your borders).
Otherwise, I dare say you are in really good shape, 4-6k is what I'd consider a healthy economy, specially with six legions and two navies (navies are really expensive, specially considering what you get in return for them), even though it can be tough structure-wise with 54 settlements. Keep in mind that high imperium will make you EM grow exponentially, keeping a large empire is no easy task (remind me of my constant headaches with PO back in Rome I), so sort your money out before pushing for more land, chances are they won't even come near to paying themselves in the long run if you're not careful. I don't play for a long time, mind you, so I never got a campaign to your point since the team tweaked EM, but from what I gather here in the forums it was designed as a true late game challenge, more so than Civil War, so face it like an enemy to be smashed =p
Hope it helped you some =)

[frenchyvinnie]

Thanks for the info on the philosophy tree, I did not know that. But I don't think it will actually matter, I've already researched all techs in tiers 1&2 of the philosophy tree, plus an extra tech in tier 3.

As for trade, that is how I coped until now. The problem is that at this point, most factions have coalesced into large empires. Which means that my number of trade partners is constantly dwindling. And trade benefits in the game are horrendously unbalanced. For example, my smallest trade partner is the Atrebates with only one settlement, yielding roughly 500 denarii in trade. However, trading with the Ptolemaoi, with their huge empire of 20 settlements only grants me 2000 denarii... Do you see the problem here? My trade revenues will fall no matter what as the game progresses and small factions get conquered by larger empires. This is both unrealistic and unbalanced.

Add to that the fact that as you enlarge your empire, your diplomacy rating with other factions plummet since you are increasingly viewed as "imperialistic". At this point, there are already a few small factions with only one settlement and 0 trade partners that are refusing my trade propositions. Again, this is both unbalanced and unrealistic.

To further illustrate my situation, just last turn, two of my agents died, dropping my profits to 1500 denarii/turn. Considering that a tier 3 building usually costs 4500 denarii and a tier 4 building in excess of 10 000 denarii, how the hell am I supposed to maintain an empire with 54 different settlements?

By the way, how does EM increase? Is it according to your number of settlements? Would an extra army or agent increase my EM as well?

[luck_ponte]

Try to liberate and make client states instead of conquering; this might give you a bit of a headache if your new allies become too restless or get dragged in too many wars, but your imperium won't rise as much (when liberating, I think imperium rises with client states, but I'm not sure actually), will have buffers on your borders and willing trade partners, that way you can have 4-5 factions that actually like you instead of one big empire you were at war with anyway. You may want to still conquer some pivotal regions (for resources, strategic location, AOR, etc.), so think a bit before liberating/subjugating, but know there are pros about not covering the entire map in red. About the EM, there are a lot of factors as to why it rises, I never did some serious testing, but I believe character traits, some techs as well as some buildings raise it, but the real deal is from Imperium level and political strength, I think that if you are not in the sweet spot in politics you get negatives and your empire will become more expensive as you make it bigger. Again, hope it helps =)

[Cidalsleepwalker]

In my Roman campaign I don't make any money from taxes. It's all from trade. I think I tax maybe 3 of my provinces that are producing food. I'm making ~20k per turn with no armies and I can maintain several armies at once on this income.

[GnaReffotsirk]

Commerce and Slaves.

[luck_ponte]

Commerce and Slaves.

Yeah, slaves are a good money source if you invest in it and keep the conquering going (you may even want to leave an enemy live just for the sake of having slaves to capture, did something like that in my Scythian campaign).

[GnaReffotsirk]

Commercial Stimulation also increase slave pop overtime. I cycle selling and commerce stim for maximum effect.

[Ardri]

It also seems that upgrading the capital structures in each city has a big impact so if you have the food start leveling up those cities. I also don't try and get caught up with maintaining positive public order so if you have to crank taxes, go for it. You can also disband some of those armies partially or fully during times of peace to stockpile funds for times of war. I cut most of my legions to half strength when they aren't actively campaigning.