Hello, new to the forum, lurked for a while whilst looking at mods for Medieval II, but decided to join because I'm getting a bit frustrated with Total War games.

I've played Rome, Medieval II, Empire, Napoleon, and just recently picked up Warhammer 1.

In all the games, whilst I struggle to get an economy going without reading up on how to do it in each specific title, when I do, and finally get some expansion going I always find myself in following situation -

A few cities with large stacks of troops. Most newly captured cities only occupied by basic garrisons. A couple of armies roaming around, again large stacks of troops. Everything seems to be going OK. Then a few turns later I'll be firefighting civil unrest, or attacks from other factions, and losing many cities as a result. And/or my economy tanks because I have to create new large armies to sit on my frontier in cities doing nothing most of the time.

This is especially true of Warhammer 1 where I can't get an economy going so that I can maintain more than a couple of small armies stuffed in cities, which are too weak to fend of attacks, and a couple of large roaming armies. My economy tanks due to upkeep and my "empire" starts to crumble due to attacks by other factions at conquered cities that I cannot defend from.

It also seems to take me forever to expand an "empire". My most successful game was in Medieval II, where, playing as England, I had conquered the UK, most of Western Europe (not including Italy), and was expanding into North Eastern Europe - but by the time I got to that point it was the equivalent to the middle ages in terms of game year!!!


So, can anyone here offer any advice on how to avoid the "late game" crumbling and how to speed up expansion?

Thanks in advance.