How to maximize income?

[MuradBey]

Hello All

I was wondering if building economic structures in a different order will yield different income. Does it matter if you build roads first before market or build the dockyard before the farm? I read somewhere in the forum that some people have cities that generate up to 13k a turn. How is that possible? London my capital with 50k population, has all the economic levels structures built in and is only generating 7,500.

thanks for ur help

[Immaculate]

Not all cities produce equivalent returns at the same population/tax level. Some cities have more resources (the things the merchants sit on) associated with them and thus make more in trade. Antioch is making more money then Jerusalem even though the population is much smaller and they are both at the same tax rates because they have way more trade income despite having inferior trading infrastructure (so far).
I am not 100% sure about this, but from my observations, it makes sense.

[MuradBey]

In my english campaign Stockholm with a pop of about 30k is generating 6k in trade while london my capital with all economic buildings built is generting little less than 4k. Can any one tell me what are the best cities that will generate carzy income so I will capture them in my next campaign. Or do resources change from one campaign to another.

[Sitarus Originalus PM-30+]

Stockholm was making me almost 12.000 per turn in my last campaign as Venice =)

to max your income you need to have good roads, markets, ports and population.... the rest depends on trade resources and other factors you cant do much about.

[MuradBey]

So what do you guys recommend? Lower taxed and get a big population for more trade or tax at the highest level possible?

[Irishfarmer]

Someone please answer these questions I am hanging on its everyword.

[Sher Khan]

Low taxes until your settlement is at least a Large Town, then you can jack em high while building money making structures.

[AytchMan]

I was wondering if building economic structures in a different order will yield different income.

Long term, it makes very little difference. Everything else being equal, if you build three different economic structures over, say, twenty turns, the city income will be the same on turn twenty regardless of the order of construction. Obviously, there will be some variation short-term if the individual buildings differ in construction time or generate different amounts of income.

So what do you guys recommend? Lower taxed and get a big population for more trade or tax at the highest level possible?

The answer is complex. It depends on several factors including:

a. Are you playing vanilla M2 or one of the mods?

b. Short or long campaign? Six month or two-year turns?

c. What's your style of play? Would you rather hammer your AI neighbors into unconsciousness from the starting whistle (at some risk) or schmush the life out of the uncivilized wretches at your leisure (with certainty)?

In short, the choice depends on the campaign parameters and your preferred path to victory.

[Irishfarmer]

I was wondering if building economic structures in a different order will yield different income.

Long term, it makes no difference. Everything else being equal, if you build three different economic structures over, say, twenty turns, the city income will be the same on turn twenty regardless of the order of construction. Obviously, there will be some variation short-term if the individual buildings differ in construction time or generate different amounts of income.

So what do you guys recommend? Lower taxed and get a big population for more trade or tax at the highest level possible?

The answer is complex. It depends on several factors including:

a. Are you playing vanilla M2 or one of the mods?

b. Short or long campaign? Six month or two-year turns?

c. What's your style of play? Would you rather hammer your AI neighbors into unconsciousness from the starting whistle (at some risk) or schmush the life out of the uncivilized wretches at your leisure (with certainty)?

In short, the choice depends on the campaign parameters and your preferred path to victory.

a. Vanilla M2

b. Long Campaign. This may be a stupid question but how do I know how many years per turn?

c. The schmush at my leisure part please.

Continue

[AytchMan]

If you're playing vanilla M2 with no mods, you're playing two-year turns.

So, vanilla M2 and the leisurely schmush: at the higher difficulty levels, your AI neighbors will come at you hard and fast. Therefore, you must maximize income quickly to meet the initial challenge. Set taxes as high as possible and maintain the smallest army possible consistent with overrunning three or four nearby rebel provinces quickly (in succession, not all at once). This will maximize net income and allow you to produce a constant stream of buildings. Emphasize economic structures (markets, roads and ports) to build up your income. Build military structures as a last priority.

The philosophy here is to survive the first fifty turns while you build The Economy That Takes Names. To accomplish this, you must play defense against the AI factions while you pick off several adjacent rebel provinces. Select them based on ease of conquest AND contiguity of empire (now, there's a phrase!). Translation: build and expand your empire in a compact blob. Don't spread it out all over the place.

Incidentally, low growth in your cities is not a disadvantage in the early game. Population growth, in and of itself, brings little extra income and it requires non-income-producing suipport structures. Plus, unlike RTW, unit construction does not reduce city population.

[loquar]

I play very much as Aytchman has said. Early on I tax as high as I can and build money makers although not totally exclusively as I have 1 town making siege weapons and 1 castle making cavalry. But essential as he said the first 50 turns is a land grab. When my towns start to get to 100% or 90% happiness I start with the council and garrison buildings to help out before dropping taxes.

Also the "blob" empire is pretty important as the game goes on. If you are stretched out all over the place you need too many armies to defend let alone attack and they all cost money to upkeep. If your empire is for example a circle (not realy totally possible but you get the idea) then the edges need big armies while the middle "soft" section only needs small garrisons and a roving "fire brigade" or 2 to take out any rebels that pop up.

Take for example a moors campaign. First thing I do is take timbuktu and tripoli then attack either portugal or spain. the whole north africa area is a massive cash cow that only needs a few imams a fast cavalry fire brigade and some small garrisons. Once Iberia is taken the same principal applies, a few imams to convert the populace, a fire brigade for the rebels and some garrisons although you'll likely need some navies to stop people blockading your trade income.

From this point you have 2 nice little "soft" earning places and only a small land front to fight on. Admittedly this is easier with the moors than most other factions but I find trying to emmulate this with other factions at the start of any campaign a lot of fun. These early decisions of where to expand and when to turtle for a bit are very important.

The whole merchant thing can be both a boon and a headache and I am sure theres topics on it. For me I like to use them in out of the way places like timbuktu or somewhere I can stop others siezing assets. Placing forts can be costly. Early in the game I dont use many merchants unless I am 90% sure they wont be taken out

[Immaculate]

If you're playing vanilla M2 with no mods, you're playing two-year turns.

So, vanilla M2 and the leisurely schmush: at the higher difficulty levels, your AI neighbors will come at you hard and fast. Therefore, you must maximize income quickly to meet the initial challenge. Set taxes as high as possible and maintain the smallest army possible consistent with overrunning three or four nearby rebel provinces quickly (in succession, not all at once). This will maximize net income and allow you to produce a constant stream of buildings. Emphasize economic structures (markets, roads and ports) to build up your income. Build military structures as a last priority.

The philosophy here is to survive the first fifty turns while you build The Economy That Takes Names. To accomplish this, you must play defense against the AI factions while you pick off several adjacent rebel provinces. Select them based on ease of conquest AND contiguity of empire (now, there's a phrase!). Translation: build and expand your empire in a compact blob. Don't spread it out all over the place.

Incidentally, low growth in your cities is not a disadvantage in the early game. Population growth, in and of itself, brings little extra income and it requires non-income-producing suipport structures. Plus, unlike RTW, unit construction does not reduce city population.

Respectfully, i couldn't disagree more.

I think its VITAL that you get one or two cities built up to a large population as fast as possible. The same goes for at least one castle. Wouldn't you rather be using Scot's guards and Gendarmes (French) then peasent bowmen and mailed knights? Wouldn't you rather be using Janissary archers and Quapolocopo (whatever) (Turkey) then Turkish archers and not having any heavy cav?
The point is, all the really good troops can only be hired in big cities/castles. I want to get those troops as fast as possible (Scots guards by turn 31? Yes please! Ottoman infantry by turn 22? oh YES! Janissary archers by turn 42? Take that Mongols!). If you can field advanced armies before your opponent can, especially if you can do it much earlier, you have already achieved a significant battlefield advantage.
So how do you get big cities? You ignore the markets, the ports, the highways. Instead you make farms and town-hall type buildings your focus. Anything that increase food output or decreases squalor. And then, to top it off, you put your highest-chivalry general in that city and watch it grow like a weed.
Finally, only once its got to 24,000 peeps do you turn your taxes to max. Then focus on trade or whatever else. Move your high chivalry general to a new city where he can help it grow. You may have made a bit less money in the beginning but as soon as you hit 24,000 people and start taxing them, you'll make your money back quickly enough. Trading with a 24,000 person city generates more money then trading with a 9,000 person city for those cities around it too. In addition, you can now hire those advanced troops that will turn battles for you.

Obviously you can't do this will all your cities and castles, but its certainly wise to choose one of each and really focus on growing them as soon as possible.

I should point out that although i've only played a limited number of campaigns, i play on VH/VH and have no difficulty in expanding aggresively from day one with this approach. In my current Turkish campaign on turn 40, i hold all Byzantium and all Egypt and am moving into Russia, Venice and Sicily. I am just starting to build Jannissary archers and have several groups of Ottoman Infantry with Naffatun support. If i had wanted Jannissary Infantry earlier, i could have had that a while ago (but i generally like cav/archer heavy armies so i didn't focus on that). Anyway, all to say that this approach seems to work pretty good for me so far.

Anyway, thats my two cents.


Immac.

[Tiberiu_R]

I recommend doing the following:
At first increase your small settlements' population by building farms. This will also give you more income. Then when you have some large cities then raise the taxes and build trade buildings(markets). And one more thing try to conquer settlements which have an opening to a sea or ocean so that you can build ports. This helps allot.

[MuradBey]

I'm on my first Vanilla M2 English campaign (no mods) M/M. I already won the game and I'm in the year 1560. I kept playing to see how big the population can get and how much income I can possibly get. I thought that would make me understand the economics better for my next Vh/Vh campaign. I was wondering how can i get cities to make me 10 or 12k per turn from trade. So far Stockholm is generating 7k from trade with a population of about 33k. I built all economic and military structures in that city, I have a 7 or 8 chivalery stars general in there and all cities around Stockholm are English. But I just can't pass the 7k in trade. Do i have to wait for the other cities around stockholm to get as big? How come some people get so much money up to 13k in trade and I can't?

[Tiberiu_R]

I don't think that you can reach high income from the north region. Some cities from the Mediterranean could reach high income levels, but I drought north settlements could. There are just not enough valuable resources.

[MuradBey]

What are the pros and cons for high chivalery and dread in the game.

[Sher Khan]

I don't think that you can reach high income from the north region. Some cities from the Mediterranean could reach high income levels, but I drought north settlements could. There are just not enough valuable resources.

In actuality, Stockholm and Arhus are ridiculous money makers. Most other cities in the region aren't, but Stockholm's mining and Arhus's trade make it an easy rival to most Mediterranean cities.

The Italian cities, most cities along the Mediterranean, Cairo, and Baghdad are able to make vast sums of money if controlled properly. They usually do well when owned altogether.

Say, Owning Constantinople, Nicaea, Iconium, Adana (turned into a city), and Antioch in succession will produce a trade route that'll churn out over 7k easy, with each city peaking over 10k at times. The same for the Italian cities.

[MuradBey]

Currently in my English Campaign Stockholm and Arhus are by far my most lucrative cities generating 12k combined. In the other hand Milan, genoa, Marseille and Bologna dont make as much and all cities got all levels of ports farms and roads built in.

[Mansa musa]

In actuality, Stockholm and Arhus are ridiculous money makers. Most other cities in the region aren't, but Stockholm's mining and Arhus's trade make it an easy rival to most Mediterranean cities.

The Italian cities, most cities along the Mediterranean, Cairo, and Baghdad are able to make vast sums of money if controlled properly. They usually do well when owned altogether.

Say, Owning Constantinople, Nicaea, Iconium, Adana (turned into a city), and Antioch in succession will produce a trade route that'll churn out over 7k easy, with each city peaking over 10k at times. The same for the Italian cities.

will corsica and sardinia produce $$$?

[Routed Peasant]

One thing to do to maximize income is to convert regions that have castles, and potentially high trade value to towns. Keep 1-2 regions as castles is my philosophy, then i make lots of money so i can actually recruit the troops at the castles.