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Thread: [TW Guide] M2TW: Guide to building a stable economy in Medieval 2: Total War

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    Default [TW Guide] M2TW: Guide to building a stable economy in Medieval 2: Total War



    Author: Yojimbo
    Original Thread: Guide to building a stable economy in Medieval 2: Total War

    Guide to building a stable economy in Medieval 2: Total War

    Guide to building a stable Economy in Medieval 2: Total War

    Version 1.1.3


    Getting an economy is the stepping stone to everything in m2tw. Without money you can’t create buildings, train troops or even defend yourself. Without money in M2TW you are nothing but fodder to be chopped up and ground into a red paste. This guide will give you a quick rundown on generating a huge pile of cash to fund your expansion.

    The first key to untold riches is roads. Without roads your economy is utterly stalled and will never be anything. Roads increase trade by quite a bit and they enable your armies to move much further than they could otherwise. Always construct roads everywhere you possibly can when you have the funds.

    Next you want mines. Mines are expensive at first, but they provide a substantial reliable income that never changes like farm income does. Mines cannot be destroyed, so if you take over a settlement that has a mine you will get their mine too and they can get yours.

    Trade rights are also very important for your financial health, as they bring in a lot more money from trade with other factions. Send a diplomat to every faction you can and ask for trade rights and offer map information or a few florins and usually they will accept. Quite often factions will ask you first.

    Next you want farms everywhere. Farms increase population growth and money from farming income. Open the settlement scroll then click the show settlement details button at the bottom of the scroll and then click the scales icon on the bottom left of that scroll to find the economic status of the settlement. At the bottom you will see the farm income and what sort of harvest it was. The type of harvest you get is random and better harvests bring in more income. If the settlement has a good farm income, say 250+ florins you should build farm improvements to improve it further, building farms in poor areas will encourage more population growth, as you are providing a food surplus. Building farms everywhere when you have money to burn is a good idea, as it brings in even more money and grows your city faster. The whole point of growing your cities, besides to access more advanced tech is to tax them.

    Next you have to organise what settlements are cities and which aren’t. Cities will provide much, much more income than castles will, but they are a lot harder to keep loyal, as castles have much higher public order and you can get away with just 2 or 3 units garrisoning or maybe even none. Towns are unruly and need a much larger garrison, even with public order buildings. Towns are harder to defend as they have lousy walls compared to castles. Towns also grow faster and can build much larger religious buildings. They also are the only places where you can train gunpowder troops, as you can only train gunpowder artillery in castles, not infantry or cavalry.

    It’s best to have castles on your borders with people you are at war at or will be at war with soon, which is basically everyone because of the shoddy diplomacy. Castles are far better at resisting sieges and are much harder to assault than towns. You should have all settlements in your heartlands, places you’ve conquered that are within your empire, away from the borders as cities, as they will hopefully not be assaulted and will make the most money this way. If you want to make copious use of gunpowder troops you should have a huge city close to the borders stay a city, so it can pump out gunpowder troops.

    It is a bad idea to have coastal settlements as castles. Sea trade is very lucrative and by building a castle you are missing out on the huge trade profits a town and the superior trade capability it brings. Unless a settlement is under constant threat of attack on the coast, make it a city or leave it a city.

    Also don't build every building in a settlement as its a waste of money. You don't need elite level barracks costing 9400 florins in a heartland settlement that's never going to be attacked.

    Settlements in m2tw can support a certain number of units for free. These units will have a blue background on the control panel when you click a settlement’s army tab. The larger the settlement the more free troops it can support. Usually you need more garrison to keep a city loyal than the free ones but it can be handy.

    The free troops with the blue background are easily visible.

    Next you need to get your garrisons sorted out. Army upkeep can be very expensive in m2tw and it’s a complete waste if you have elite knights costing 225 florins a turn garrisoning a settlement deep in your empire that will never be attacked. Always move elite troops towards the front, i.e. where you’re fighting to make use of them or disband no longer needed troops. Make sure you don’t leave mercenaries around in settlements. They are more expensive than normal troops and will drain your treasury fast if you leave a lot of them in your settlements. Just use the settlement flags to see how many men at a glance is in the settlements and disband and replace them with spear militia, peasant archers, crossbows or even just plain peasants.

    Tax will form a lot of your income and needs to be balanced. More tax will give you greater income, but will make the settlement unhappy. You can pick from low tax, normal tax, high tax or very high tax. Usually unless you desperately need money have the tax on normal or low as the hit to public order can be too great at higher tax rates. This is especially true if the city is huge. When a city has 30k or so people it will be so big it will bring in stacks of money even with a low tax rate. If you have a building in the settlement to allow you to hold races or jousts, such as a jousting field or a Plaza Del Toro there will be another option for daily, monthly or yearly races. Having more races will raise public order, but will cost more money.

    Trade is probably the most important part of your income and will form the largest part, along with taxes. It is not that important to know what a settlement has access to before setting up trade routes, just build the biggest market you can there and a port and merchant wharf line. If built you’ll bring in plenty of money, though of course huge central cities tend to make much more than out of the way places. Make sure you keep building roads when you have trade buildings up, as this provides even more trade. The merchants wharf adds more trade ship fleets to the settlement which increases trade ever further.

    While trade rights is an important thing to have with factions, you should not accept it with just anyone,. if you accept trade rights with a faction that is very far away like if your England and the Turks ask you, you cannot trade with them and as you aren't holding up your end of the bargain, their relations with you will suffer constantly. Its a good idea to reject trade rights with distant factions.

    Here is a direct quote from Artetius showing his relationships did not decay like they have been known to do in m2tw.
    Quote Originally Posted by Artetius View Post
    In my past campaign as Sicily I have been picky about my trade agreements and who gets the right to trade with me. With Sicily I opened Trade Agreements up with The Papacy & Venice and refused the request from the HRE, Genoa/Milan, and France; I normally accept these. Normally as I play as Sicily I randomly get attacked by Venice, Milan & the HRE mainly in the department of blockades. When I refused the trade agreements and only opened them with Venice and the Papacy my relationship with Milan, France and HRE stayed at So-So instead of degenerating to Poor for over 25 turns, 25 Turns!.
    big image to show detail (614k)

    This picture shows the various ways to see income and gauge trade.

    Central settlements like central Europe and Italy are very rich and there is a lot of trade if you build up your settlements. The number of carts or ships shows the amount of land and sea trade taking place. the ones with the most carts are the most profitable so keep them safe and enemies out so the trade flow isn't interrupted.

    Certain governors have traits than can affect certain income, like more or less tax income or trade. Having high or low taxes can also increase dread or chivalry. You should check your governor isn’t too incompetent before leaving him there. The management stat from RTW doesn’t exist now so it’s down to traits and retinue.

    Merchants aren’t really all that useful, tho they can sometimes make a tidy sum. The number fop merchants you can have is controlled by the level of market building you have. Upgrade markets to raise the merchant cap. When you recruit a merchant he will have a finance rating. This governs how good he is at making money and the higher it is the more he will make from trade resources. Trade resources are shown as things like small piles of gold or logs or goblets of wine. You then move the merchant over the resource and he will begin to trade. If you look at his scroll you can see what he’s trading and for how much. Mostly this trade will be a really small amount except for things like gold and wine. You get a bonus to trade income if you have trade rights with the faction whose territory the resource is in The absolute best trade opportunities come in the new world as you’ll get insane profits from tobacco, chocolate and coffee, because these resource do not exist in Europe you can make both a lot of money because of distance from your capital and usually have a monopoly. Besides the base value of the resource the price is mostly based on how distant that resource is from your capital settlement. Resources that exist only far from your capital make you the most money, while closer resources do not. Like if you are trading wood at a resource icon far from your capital but there is another wood icon near your capital you’ll make little money. Make sure you take some merchants with you on the boats to the new world and some priests to convert the heathens. Enemy merchants aren’t completely useless as you actually gain some money from other faction’s merchants that are trading resources on your territory if you have trade rights with that faction.

    As you probably already know it’s possible for your merchants to buy out other merchants which will put them out of business, which can be handy if they are sitting on a juicy resource you want. If the merchant fails to buy out the other merchant he might be forced to quit instead and you’ll lose the merchant. Only target rival merchants with less or equal finance than your merchant has.



    Also check what governors you have, particularly for your huge money making cities. Though acumen doesn’t exist anymore, a governor can have traits pertaining to governing a settlement. If he has traits like corrupt or the extravagant line you’ll make less money from the settlement as to governor takes it for himself. Governors with bad negative trade traits are crippling as well. Don’t put these guys in charge of large settlements. Also high dread or high chivalry helps keep the population in line, so for cities it’s good to have a governor that’s high in one of these status if he’s equally good as a general with a lower stat.



    Finally protect your lands. Enemy armies in your provinces block trade routes and if left there cause devastation which loses you money, a black burnt area around an army shows it is causing devastation. Rebel armies often do this, so send out troops to crush people that hang around in your land. Neutral and allied armies don’t do this.

    The black area shows where my armies have been devastating the Hungarian's territory

    This is Budapest's status after i took it. Notice the devastation. This goes away over time.

    Naval trade can be blocked by enemy ships blockading your ports, stopping trade. Have a navy ready to fight off the attackers and keep your lucrative sea trade open.

    Make sure you keep you sea trade open!


    You should also try to keep peace with factions for as long as possible if you are trying to make money, so you keep you trade rights with them. However taking new settlements is the way to make even more money, as that provides more trade and more tax. It is not a good idea to have a war goign on and on however so end it and get the trade flowing again

    I hope this guide has been useful! Now get out there and rake in the cash!

    Credtis

    Thanks to Townie33 for reminding me that having castles on the coast is a bad idea, and for remindign me to put abotu ending wars quickly.

    Thanks to Artetius for details on trade rights and how it affects relations
    Last edited by Sir Adrian; December 24, 2013 at 10:35 AM. Reason: updated author name

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