Intro
Back when I first started playing EB1 I found a guide for RTW called City Management Guide for Rome: Total War by MarekBrutus. I really loved this guide as it was the first one that went into detail on how the economy/city management side of the game worked. Later when I got MTW2 in anticipation for EB2, the first thing I did was google if Marek(or anybody else for that matter) had done a similar guide for MTW2. Unfortunately I couldn’t really find anything similar to that. Most guides concentrated on the combat side of the game(for obvious reasons). So when the first version of EB2 came out, there were some things in the game that I didn’t fully understand. So I started googling around trying to figure how some of the stuff worked. Sometimes I found the answers while at other times I did not. Over the years though I collected more and more info on the different mechanics and started to think about collecting it into a guide similar to Mareks. It took a long time but I finally decided it was time to get this out. It’s still not finished though! The reason I decided to release it this early is:
1. Even though not finished I think it has enough content to be helpful to many players.
2. I thought the release of EB2 version 2.3 would be a good time to release this since it’s such a big update and might bring more players in.
3. I thought releasing the guide might motivate me to finish it in a more reasonable time.
When I first decided to not just figure things out for myself but to actually try and turn it into a guide, I used the original guide by MarekBrutus as the base on which to build. Since RTW and MTW2 use the same game engine, many things from RTW worked the same way in MTW2. Of course there were differences too and EB2 further changed things up. The way I have gone about learning all the different mechanics was the same in each case. First I would read up how it worked in RTW using Mareks guide, then I would search through every forum I could find and try to figure out how that thing works in MTW2. Lastly(and most importantly) I tested if the things I read from Mareks guide and the internet actually work as they they say in EB2.
One thing I found out very early on was that the forums are full of contradicting and erroneous information. Obviously there is a lot of correct information as well, but since I usually didn’t know anything about the subject it was hard to figure out which information was correct and which was not. Mareks Guide, being made for RTW, also included some incorrect information although to my surprise most of it was accurate even in EB2(of course the actual numbers would differ since EB2 devs have changed many of them to better suit their needs but the basic principles were usually the same). Because of all this I needed to test everything myself in EB2 to make sure what was true and what was not. In my guide I didn’t want to claim anything that I had not tested myself in-game(no matter how true I might think it is). Therefore(since the guide isn’t complete yet) in some parts of the guide I have explained how I think(or have heard) a mechanic works but I always specifically mention if I have not tested it yet.
Of course I’m only one man and since I have worked on this for more or less since the first release of EB2(obviously very sporadically and lazily) it is possible that there are a lot of mistakes within this guide. Therefore I would welcome people to point out any mistakes I might have made, so I can continue to improve the guide in the future.
Like I said, this guide is not complete yet and one of the bigger things missing is worth mentioning here. One of the new things in MTW2 was the addition of a new type of settlement. There are two settlement types in MTW2; cities and castles. In EB2 castles have been renamed to camps to represent some of the nomadic factions. When it comes to many of the settlement mechanics, the numbers differ for cities and camps. I have not tested camps at all which means that everything I say in this guide applies to cities only! I will (hopefully) add camps in at a later date. Also, throughout this guide I use the words city/settlement/province interchangeably. In all cases I’m referring to cities(not camps).
Settlement Screen
Spoiler Alert, click show to read:
The Settlement screen, where you build your buildings and train your units, gives you only the most basic information of that settlement: Income, Public Order(PO), Households(i.e. population) and Population Growth(PG). At the bottom of this scroll there are three buttons. From left to right these are:
Show building browser - Useful for planning what buildings to get and seeing which buildings are even available to you(although note that there are some buildings that won't show here which makes things a bit more complicated).
Ask advisor for recommendation… - I think this one is disabled in EB2.
Show settlement details - Opens the Settlement Details screen.
Settlement Details Screen
Spoiler Alert, click show to read:
To get a better understanding of your settlements you have to open the Settlement Details screen. This screen gives a more detailed account of everything that's going on in your settlement. This is the most important screen for managing your cities and the majority of this guide consists of explaining everything you see in this screen. It’s divided into four main parts:
- Population Growth(PG) - the total growth rate of the city.
- Public Order(PO) - how happy the population is. If this dips below 75% you will start getting riots.
- Income - how much money the city is making for you. Some sources of income and expenses are not shown here but are instead found in the Financial Overview screen(more on that later).
- Culture - the total culture of your settlement.
Each of these parts consists of two rows of icons. In each case the top row shows you the bonuses while the bottom row shows the negatives(this is indicated by the small + and - signs at the end of each row). At the right side you will also see the totals(top row minus the bottom row). Sometimes you might notice that some of the icons are transparent or blinking. These are warnings or notifications for the player that something is about to change in the settlement. The blinking icons mean that they are about to disappear. For example if you put a building in the build queue that reduces trade income, you will see that some of the trade income icons start blinking to indicate that once the building is complete, you will lose trade income. The transparent icons on the other hand mean that you are about get them. For example if you put a building in the build queue that increases law, you will see that a new transparent law icon will appear to indicate that once the building is complete your law will increase.
At the bottom of the scroll there are also two buttons:
Show trade summary for this settlement - This opens Trade Details screen that gives an even more detailed account of your trade income, we’ll go over this is later in the guide.
Set this settlement to be the faction’s capital - Allows you to move your capital which can be useful in some situations.
Population Growth (PG)
Top row shows all the things increasing PG while bottom row shows all the things decreasing it. Each icon represents at least 0.5% PG.
Positive factors:
Food Import(represented by grain sacks) - Food import is basically health from RTW. It’s just been renamed. As of this writing food import is provided by only one building line: the granary(grain dole). There’s three levels of this building. They give the following bonuses:
Level 1 = 1.5% PG
Level 2 = 2.5% PG
Level 3 = 3.5% PG
There are also some governor ancillaries that can increase food import.
Improvements(house with corn) This bonus comes from buildings other than granaries. So farms, some temples, some government buildings etc.
Tax bonus(money bags with green arrow) – Low taxes give 0.5% PG
Negative factors:
Famine(skulls) – This is the main factor limiting growth in EB2. Famine is directly related to population level. The more population you have, the more you have famine. There is no way to permanently reduce famine, other than decreasing population. This is important to remember when you want to grow a city to a big size, as you need to overcome the famine via positive PG bonuses. There are some governor traits/ancillaries that can also increase/decrease famine(but obviously these only apply while that person is the governor). Famine at different city levels is as follows:
Huge City (24 000 population) = -5.5% PG
Large City (12 000 population) = -3% PG
City (6 000 population) = -2% PG
Large Town (2 000 population) = -0.5% PG
Town (800 population) = 0% PG
Whenever your population reaches the next threshold, a new tier of walls becomes available to build. Once built, the settlement officially becomes the next tier(Town -> Large Town etc). It seems like these walls have a hardcoded effect on famine(there's no mention of famine in the building files). I haven't tested this much, but as an example, when your Large Town reaches around 5700 population your famine goes up to 2%. It will still be at 2% when you reach 6000 pop. When you then build the next tier walls to become a City your famine will go back to 1.5%. I will have to do some more testing on this but the point is that you should build walls as soon as they become available.
Plague(rat) - Sometimes you get plague in your cities. This can give as much as -10% PG and it blocks ALL trade income. It lasts around three turns. I have not tested plague very much so I can’t say much about how or why a city catches it, it might just be random chance(also once it happens, you can spread it to other cities with your infected units and agents). I have heard that health buildings would help you against plague(in EB2 health is renamed food import) but again I haven’t tested this so I can’t say how exactly that would help, if at all.
Tax penalty(money bags with red arrow) – High taxes give -0.5% PG and very high taxes give -1% PG.
Capturing a city - Although this isn’t part of the Settlement Details screen, I thought I’d include this here since it can still have a big impact on population levels. When you capture a settlement you get three choices:
Occupy - no effect on population
Sack - about 25% of the population is killed
Enslave - about 75% of the population is killed
Public Order (PO)
Top row shows all the things increasing it while bottom row shows all the things decreasing it. Also note that each settlement has a basic public order level of 100% which is not visible. So you have to add that to the total from the two rows in order to get the right number. Each icon represents at least 5% PO.
Positive factors:
Garrison(soldier) - The presence of soldiers gives a garrison bonus that can go all the way up to 60% PO. The higher the population of the city, the more soldiers you need to get the same amount of garrison bonus. If you come from EB1 then there is one big difference when it comes to garrisons. Unlike in RTW where every unit counted the same for garrison purposes, in MTW2 some units are considered peasants(they have the “is_peasant” tag in the files) and only count as half when it comes to garrison bonus. Now unfortunately the in-game unit cards don’t show whether the unit has this tag or not. So in order to know whether a unit is peasant or not, you need to either check the EDU file yourself(quite annoying and time consuming) or use the Recruitment Viewer(way easier and faster to check).
Here is the equation for Garrison bonus:
GPO = S / P * 750 / US
Where:
GPO = Garrison Public Order
S = Number of soldiers in the garrison(remember to halve the number of soldiers in any peasant units)
P = Population of the city
US = Unit Size modifier(normal = 1, large = 1.5, huge = 2)
Note that this is not a perfect equation but simply the best I have come up with and the result is in any way rounded to the nearest 5% in game(and the rounding principles seem a little weird sometimes). Therefore it is possible that the equation gives an answer that is off by 5%. If you get results that are more than 5% off, please tell me so I can take a look.
If you want to figure out how many men you need to get x% garrison bonus, use this equation instead:
Spoiler Alert, click show to read:
Law(scales) – Law bonuses are given by certain buildings(like strategic fortifications, port garrisons, temple of governors etc). There are also some buildings that give a penalty to law(this is shown in the building card as +-X). Note however that the total law of a settlement can never be negative(so you will never see law in the bottom row). This means that if your city has 0% law and you build a building with -5% law, you would still have 0% law(so no effect on PO). If you were to then build another building with 10% law you would now have 5% law in the city.
Law is also used for fighting corruption but we’ll talk about that later in the guide.
Buildings of entertainment, fun, culture and the maintenance of good order(house with a flag) – Commonly known as just happiness. Happiness bonuses are given by many buildings including theatres and most temples. There are also some buildings that give a penalty to happiness but just like law, the total happiness can never be negative.
Governors influence(scroll/papyrus with a star) - This is given by certain governor traits. A very rare effect in EB2. At the time of this writing it’s mainly just used on Carthage faction leader and faction heir traits(it’s called local popularity in the trait descriptions). One point of local popularity gives 5% PO.
Tax bonus(money bags with green arrow) - low taxes give 15% PO.
Games/Races(happy and unhappy mask) - Some of the higher level theaters give the ability to throw games/races. The player can then set how often he wants to have these. This gives the following bonuses:
Yearly = 0% PO
Monthly = 20% PO
Daily = 30% PO
Of course you have to pay for the monthly and daily games/races. The exact prices are listed later in the guide.
Food Import(grain sacks) - In addition to increasing population growth, food imports also give a bonus to public order. There are three levels in the granary building line(which is currently the only building giving food import) giving the following bonuses:
Level 1 = 10% PO
Level 2 = 10% PO
Level 3 = 20% PO
Negative factors:
Famine(skulls) - In addition to reducing population growth, famine also reduces public order. As mentioned in the PG section, famine is directly related to population level. The more population you have, the more you have famine. You get approximately 5% famine for every 3000 population. This is not an exact calculation plus the game rounds the number to the nearest 5%. Famine at different city levels is as follows:
Huge City (24 000 population) = -40% PO
Large City (12 000 population) = -20% PO
City (6 000 population) = -10% PO
Large Town (2 000 population) = 0% PO
Town (800 population) = 0% PO
There is no way to permanently reduce famine, other than decreasing population. This is important to remember when you want to grow a city to a big size, as you need to overcome the famine via positive PO bonuses.
Distance to capital(wheel) - Determined by the distance to your capital city. The farther the city is from your capital, the bigger the penalty. This seems to be capped at -60% PO.
No governance penalty(scroll/papyrus with a red cross) – If you have no military units in the city you get -45% PO.
Tax rate penalty(money bag) – High taxes give -25% PO, Very High taxes give -50% PO.
Unrest(pitchfork on flame) - Unrest is probably the most complicated public order modifier in the game. There are tons of different things affecting it including faction specific events/missions. In this guide I won't be going over any faction specific stuff. The first thing we should cover is the different types of unrest. By this I mean that not all the unrest in the game behaves the same. There are three basic forms of unrest as I see it. Governor/agent unrest, temporary unrest and base unrest. Governor/agent unrest is simply the unrest you get from agents and governors traits/ancillaries/loyalty and it is only applied while the governor/agent is in the city. Temporary unrest is the most common type of unrest and as the name implies it is temporary meaning that once you get it, it will decay at a rate of 5% per turn until it is gone. Base unrest represents the reluctance of the population to being ruled by foreign powers. Every single settlement has a base unrest value set in the files. This can be anything from 10% to 100% and unlike temporary unrest, this does not go away. However, base unrest does not apply to “home” provinces. So if you are playing as Rome, you won’t get base unrest in your starting provinces but if you were playing as Carthage and you took over Capua(one of the Roman starting provinces), you would get the base unrest. The total unrest in a city is capped at 80%, although the game does still keep track of the true unrest value which might sometimes confuse players as it might seem like the temporary unrest is not decaying but this is just because the true unrest is above 80% so you can’t see the change.
Things that cause unrest:
- Settlement base unrest
- Here's a map that shows the base unrest of all the provinces(open in new tab to see full size image):
Spoiler Alert, click show to read:- Initial settlement turmoil
- A few settlements start the game with some temporary unrest:
- Korinthos = 60%
- Pella = 40%
- Persepolis = 25%
- Shardin = 20%
- Ariminum = 15%
- Pantikapaion = 15%
- Arpi = 10%
- Arretium = 10%
- Korsim = 10%
- Major and minor city unrest
- There are some major and minor cities that will give you extra unrest whenever you conquer them. This is in the form of temporary unrest and it won’t apply to the founder faction. So for example if you’re playing as Romani and lost Rome to an enemy faction but then take it back you wouldn’t get this unrest since you’re the founder faction of Rome. If on the other hand you were playing as Epeiros and took Rome you would get this extra unrest. Here's the list of cities:
Spoiler Alert, click show to read:- Taking a settlement
- When you conquer a settlement you get three choices: Occupy, Sack and Enslave. Occupy gives 30% temporary unrest, sacking gives -20% temporary unrest and enslaving gives -40% temporary unrest. So sacking and enslaving actually decrease unrest(but being temporary unrest this “bonus” decays as explained previously). See the example below.
- Enemy spies
- I have heard that spies can also cause unrest when they are inside an enemy city. Apparently it’s 5% unrest for every point of subterfuge while the spy is in the city. I have not tested this.
- Governor traits and ancillaries
- Some traits and ancillaries can also cause(or reduce) unrest. Obviously this will only last as long as the governor is in the city.
- Governor Loyalty
- The loyalty of the governor also affects unrest. The lower the loyalty, the more unrest it gives.(This was added in 2.3 so I haven’t had time to test how exactly this works yet.)
- Some other stuff
- There are a whole bunch of other stuff like faction specific events etc that can also give unrest. I won’t be listing these.
Example on base unrest and capturing settlements:
Spoiler Alert, click show to read:
Civil Unrest(black and white mask) - If you’re coming from EB1 and are not familiar with the addition of religion into MTW2, I suggest checking the culture section later in the guide and then coming back here. Civil unrest is directly related to your settlements culture percentage. The lower it is, the higher the civil unrest penalty. This is capped at -50% PO and goes away entirely if you get your culture % high enough.
Your governor’s influence can reduce the civil unrest penalty. For a more detailed look at civil unrest and how much governors can affect it, check the appendix.
Governors traits/ancillaries - Your governors traits and ancillaries can affect PO by increasing/decreasing law, happiness, food import, famine or unrest. These are shown in the appropriate sections.
Income
Top row shows gross income, while bottom row shows expenses. Note that this section doesn’t actually show all the incomes and expenses in the game. The ones that are not shown here will instead be found in the Financial Overview screen which we will go over later in this guide.
Positive factors:
Local production/farming(house with corn) - Farming gives you income according to the total farming level of the settlement. Each settlement has a base farming level of 1 which is modified by buildings/traits/ancillaries. The total income is then modified by your campaign difficulty and harvest quality. At normal difficulty and average harvest, each farming level is equal to 160 income. The harvest quality goes from poor->average->good->excellent. You can see what the harvest quality is by hovering over the farming income icon(or via the Trade Details screen). All provinces have average harvest at turn 1. After the first turn harvest can change randomly. Season doesn't seem to affect it(you can get excellent harvest even in winter turn) and it can change more than one "step" in one turn(so you can go from poor harvest this turn to excellent next turn). Also, while there are buildings/traits/ancillaries that decrease farming level, the total farming level of a province can never go below 1. So in other words all provinces will always have at least some farming income, no matter how many maluses they got.
The equation for farming income is:
FI = 160 * FL * H * CD
Where:
FI = Farming Income
FL = Farming Level(so 1 + all the upgrades from buildings/traits/ancillaries)
H = Harvest (poor = 0.95, average = 1, good = 1.0375, excellent = 1.08)
CD = Campaign Difficulty (easy = 1.2, normal = 1, hard = 0.92, very hard = 0.85)
Note that this is not a perfect equation and so you should not take the results as anything more than approximations. As an example, let’s say you have a settlement with buildings giving you a +3 to farming. At very hard difficulty and with excellent harvest, the equation would say you had a farming income of 160 * (1 + 3) * 1.08 * 0.85 = 587.52. Whereas if you were to check this in-game, you would see that it’s actually only 586.
For a table showing the actual in-game farming income at some of the lower farming levels see the appendix.
Taxes(moneybags) - Tax income is affected by population, tax level and campaign difficulty.
Hard campaign difficulty gives around 4-8% less taxes compared to normal difficulty while very hard gives around 8-15% less taxes compared to normal difficulty. I have not tested easy difficulty yet. These numbers are not the most accurate since it also depends on the population of the settlement.
The effects of tax levels are as follows:
Low Taxes = -20% tax income compared to normal
High Taxes = +20% tax income compared to normal
Very High Taxes = +50% tax income compared to normal
To get a good overview of how population affects taxes at different difficulty levels, see the appendix.
Basically the higher your population, the more pop you need to get the same increase in taxes. Also, you will immediately see a weird dip in tax income. In normal difficulty this happens as you come close to 8k pop. At 7905 population you get 1300 tax income(at normal tax level) but once you go up one pop to 7906 your taxes drop down to 1138 and it won’t come back to 1300 until you have around 16 000 pop. The point where this tax drop happens changes with your campaign difficulty.
This means that although taxes play a big part in your finances in the early game, they should lose on importance later on when cities get bigger. I assume this is done to encourage players to look for other income sources(especially trade).
Mining and metallurgy(pickaxe) Not all settlements have mining income. Mining is restricted to only those settlements that have at least one minable resource in them as this is required to build the mine building. Once a mine is build you get a steady mining income that is not affected by campaign difficulty and the only factors that can change it during the game are governor traits/ancillaries and the bonus from the mine building(the level two mine gives a bigger mining bonus).
All the resources in the game are represented in the campaign map by little models. You can hover over these to see what they are. Some of these resources are considered minable. You need at least one minable resource in the settlement in order to be able to build a mine. Each resource has a trade value which is used in the equation for mining income. For the minable resources, the trade values are:
Gold = 10
Gems = 8
Silver = 7
Tin = 5
Copper = 5
Lead = 5
Iron = 4
Marble/Granite = 3
Mining bonuses(level 1 mine/level 2 mine):
Gold = 7 / 12
Silver and Gems = 5 / 9
Everything else = 3 / 5
The equation for mining income is:
MI = 5 * MB * TV
Where:
MI = Mining Income
MB = Mining Bonus
TV = The combined Trade Value of all the minable resources that the settlement has
IMPORTANT NOTE: If the settlement has resources with different Mining Bonuses, then you must use the highest Mining Bonus in the equation to get the right answer. This is the reason why in some settlements you can see two or three different mining incomes in the mine building card(the highest one is the one using the highest Mining Bonus and this is the correct one, the other numbers are the results of using the lower Mining Bonuses in the equation).
Let’s take an example:
Spoiler Alert, click show to read:
Trading income(horse cart) - Trade, in EB2, is the selling of resources a city has, to cities that don’t have those resources.
Trade income is probably the most complicated type of income in the game. I haven’t figured out any kind of formula for calculating this but I can give some insight into all the things that affect it.
The Settlement Details screen gives only the total trade income of your settlement. To get a more detailed breakdown of trade income, you need to open the Trade Details screen:
Spoiler Alert, click show to read:
The Trade Details screen lists all the cities you are trading with divided into three parts: “Land Trade(Imports and Exports)”, “Sea Imports” and “Sea Exports”. The resource icons show which resources are being traded and on the right side is the total trade income from that city. At the bottom of the screen is the total trade income from all the cities. Weirdly, below that you can also find the farming and mining income as well as the total income from trade, farming and mining combined. I’m not exactly sure why these are in the Trade Details screen or why it only includes farming and mining but not other forms of income(like taxes).
A small note about total trade income as reported by Trade Details screen vs Settlement Details screen:
Spoiler Alert, click show to read:
Let’s first look at who can a city trade with:
- A city cannot trade with an enemy city(so no trading with the eleutheroi for example).
- In land trade, a city can trade with all cities it shares a land border with.
- In sea trade, you are limited by the amount of trade fleets you have. Each trade fleet(which you get from port buildings) allows you to sell your resources to one city. This gives you export income while also giving the other city import income. The player cannot choose where to send his trade fleets, instead the game sends them automatically to the most profitable cities. Only restriction is that they cannot be send to cities with which your city shares a land border with(since you are already doing land trade with them). Although sea export is limited by the number of trade fleets you have, sea imports don’t require you to have trade fleets, only that somebody else send their trade fleets to your city. As far as I can tell there is no limit on the number of sea imports a city can have.
- While trading, a city cannot sell a resource that the other city also has.
Example 1(land trade):
Spoiler Alert, click show to read:
Example 2(sea trade):
Spoiler Alert, click show to read:
Sea Imports
Before we go over all the things affecting trade income, we should mention sea imports as they work differently than other trade income. Sea imports are always 20% of exports. So in the sea trade example above, if the trade fleet that town B sent to town A gives 1000 export income, then town A would get 200 import income(0.2 * 1000 = 200). There is nothing that can increase sea imports other than increasing the export income. Note that this rule does not seem to apply to land imports. This has lead me to believe that there might not be any land import at all in the game(despite the fact that the Trade Details Screen clearly says “Land Trade(imports and exports)”).
Things that affect trade income:
- The number and type of resources both cities can sell to each other
- How many of each resource you have and their trade value
- How many of each resource the other city has and their trade value
- Remember you can’t sell resources that the other city also has.
- Land vs Sea
- Sea trade is more profitable than land trade.
- Distance
- I have only tested this in sea trade(and even there only very briefly). It seems that the distance is measured from port to port. And the shorter the distance, the bigger the bonus.
- I have a feeling that distance is not applied to land trade at all but I'll have to test this more.
- Population of both cities
- How the population is distributed between the cities doesn’t matter. It’s the combined population of both cities that is used as a modifier for increasing both cities trade income.
- Trade bonuses from buildings
- There are several different trade bonuses that buildings can have. I will go over these bonuses later in the guide.
- Trade bonuses from the governor’s traits and ancillaries
- These increase/decrease land trade and sea export.
- Enemy forces
- Enemy fleets can block ports and thus all sea trade.
- I have heard that enemy armies can block land trade by sitting on the roads but I have not tested this yet(I’m sceptical of this since you don’t need roads to trade with neighbours. Maybe they don’t block all the trade but only the bonus you would get from the road building[see below]).
- Trade rights
- Doubles sea export
- Triples land trade
- This seems to apply after all other trade bonuses
Trade bonuses from buildings:
Spoiler Alert, click show to read:
Improvements(house with corn) This covers buildings that simply give a flat amount of income. This includes industry buildings and some government buildings. This modifier is also used in EB2 as a way to add building upkeep to the game(using a negative number). So some buildings have a negative “bonus”, for example most level one temples have a -50 income “bonus” on them. Note however that the total income bonus from “improvements” can never be negative.
Some examples:
Spoiler Alert, click show to read:
Negative factors:
Corruption penalty(moneybags with a hand) - Corruption is calculated as a percentage of your gross income(gross income = the total of the top row). How big of a percentage depends on the city’s law bonus and how far the city is from your capital. Cities that are very close to the capital won’t have any corruption but as they get farther away they start getting it. Corruption starts small at 1% of gross income but as distance increases so does the percentage. I assume this could go all the way to 100% of gross income but in EB2 corruption is capped at 1200 so you won’t see any higher corruption than that.
To combat corruption you can move your capital to a more central location in your empire but you can also use law bonuses to help you. Each 5% of law decreases the percentage of gross income that corruption takes by 3.75 percentage points. So if the city’s corruption is 50% of gross income, then increasing law by 5% would knock it down to 46.25% of gross income. And conversely buildings with law penalties will increase corruption by the same amount. Also note that even though corruption is capped at 1200, the game still keeps track of the “real” corruption and so in some distant cities law won’t actually help at all since even with the law reduction the corruption would still be over 1200(so you won’t see any change).
If you remember from the PO section earlier in the guide, the total law bonus of a settlement can never be negative. But although the PO from law can’t be negative, the game still tracks the total law in a settlement. And interestingly negative law DOES affect corruption. So if you have 0% law in a settlement and build a building with -5% law it WILL increase corruption. Also, if a city is close enough to the capital to not have any corruption, law penalties might be enough to introduce corruption there.
Games/Races(happy and unhappy mask) - Extra costs for throwing games/races:
Yearly = 0 (gives 0% PO)
Monthly = 500 (gives 20% PO)
Daily = 1000 (gives 30% PO)
Devastation penalty(burning house) - I have not done any proper testing on devastation yet so everything here is just things I have heard people say or have noticed in my own games. Devastation is caused by enemy armies. It represents the army devastating the countryside, burning and stealing what they can. In game terms it robs you of your income. The amount of devastation is calculated as a percentage of your farming income. How high a percentage depends on how many “tiles” are devastated. Devastation is capped at 1200. Note that the percentage can go above 100% of you farming income so even with low farming incomes(like 320 for example) you can still get 1200 devastation if you let the enemy do its thing. I assume this means that each “tile” that gets devastated represents X% of your farming income and so the longer you let the enemy raid your territory, the more tiles will be devastated.
Two important things about devastation. First, apparently the army has to not move in their turn in order to cause devastation. So if the enemy army keeps moving each turn, you should not get any devastation. And second, devastation can happen even across borders. This is probably the most confusing thing for new players who see their lands are devastated(devastated land is marked in the campaign map as burned ground) but can’t see any enemy in their territory. That’s because even if the enemy is on their side of the border, they can still cause devastation in your province. So it seems that armies have a sort of “raiding radius” and any enemy province that falls within that radius can be devastated. I don’t know how many “tiles” an army can devastate per turn or whether the size/composition of the army matters. Also once the enemy is stopped(like if you kill the army) the devastation doesn’t seem to go away instantly. But like I said, I haven’t really tested any of this.
Governors traits/ancillaries - Your governors traits and ancillaries can further affect income by increasing/decreasing farming, tax, mining and trade income. These are shown in the appropriate sections.
Culture
MTW2 added religion into the game. In EB2 this has been renamed to culture. Each faction has a culture and some cultures are used by several different factions(since there is only a limited number of different cultures you can have in the game). This section shows your own culture on the top row and any foreign cultures in the bottom row. On the right side you can see the total culture percentage of the settlement(top row minus bottom row). This percentage can go from -100% to +100%.
Things that cause culture to change:
- Settlements “founding faction”. Each settlement has a founding faction set in the files. For example Roma, Arretium, Ariminum, Capua and Luceria(roman starting factions) all have Romani as their “founding faction” and so will always drift towards the Romans culture no matter who owns the settlements.
- Settlements owner. If you own a settlement then it will slowly drift towards your culture. This bonus is the same amount as the “founding faction” bonus so if you take over a foreign settlement this will negate the “founding faction” culture conversion.
- Governors presence. If there is a governor in the settlement he will slowly convert the people to your culture. I would assume that all governors convert at the same rate, regardless of their skills, though I have not tested this.
- Neighbour conversion. It seems neighbouring settlements also affect the culture but I have not tested how this works exactly.
- Buildings. Some buildings convert people to a specific culture.
How does culture affect you:
- Civil Unrest. Low culture % adds a public order penalty to the settlement as described earlier in the guide.
- Building restrictions. Some buildings require you to have a certain culture % before you can build them.
Financial Overview
Spoiler Alert, click show to read:
- Local production/farming
- Total farming income as explained earlier in the guide.
- Mining and metallurgy
- Total mining income as explained earlier in the guide.
- Trade
- Total trading income as explained earlier in the guide.
- Merchant Trade
- Total income from merchant agents. [Merchants are not used in EB2]
- Taxes
- Total tax income as explained earlier in the guide.
- Wages
- This covers agent upkeep as well as wages you need to pay for each family member and admiral.
- 50 for each family member and admiral.
- Agent upkeep costs are listed in their unit cards.
- Army Upkeep
- Total upkeep cost of all your military units and ships.
- Recruitment
- The amount of money you spent on recruiting units this turn.
- Construction
- The amount of money you spent on buildings this turn. This can also be positive if you have demolished buildings this turn.
- Additional Income
- Not sure what this includes.
- Diplomacy/Tributes
- Corruption and Other
- Income column shows the money you get from capturing a settlement and the money you get from “Improvements” buildings(as explained previously in the guide).
- Expenditure column shows the total corruption and devastation of all your settlements.