How do you get a lot of money in RTR?

[RTRplayer29004]

I've seen screenshots of people who apparently have gotten upwards of about 1million denari on their campaign... without cheating.... how do you do this?????????

[Brusilov]

I think in an unmodified game it's quite hard to get to that sort of money.

It could depend on the style of play though. If you don't upgrade cities very far and keep your armies small then it's quite easy to gain money. Certain areas of the map are well known for being rich - trade across the Aegean is very profitable, trade in the Nile Delta is very profitable, mining in Iberia is profitable.

I tend to upgrade buildings and settlements all the way. At the start of the campaign I will specialize buildings. Later in the campaign I do this to a lesser extent.

The further away from your settlement you are the harder it is to hold onto the settlements due to distance from capital etc.

One thing that players could do is to not expand very far and upgrade all economic buildings before military ones keeping the military small. This does mean that the AI at the same time is also building up it's economy, maybe to the extent that they will swamp your faction.

But maybe I'm not a very good RTW player....

[Delvecchio1975]

I usually get over 1,000,000$ before 200BC. Upgrade your harbours as soon as possible, garrisson your cities heavily only near borders, use cheap units for garrissons, clean up blockades and rebels as soon as they appear. This is for sides like the Seleucids, Macedonians, Greeks, Carthaginians, Bactrians and Pontians. I guess it's harder for Romans, Armenians or Parthians, (expensive units and poor homelands) and I'm not sure if it's possible at all for barbarians, since they're filthy and I don't understand what they say.

[Jamey]

I usually get over 1,000,000$ before 200BC. Upgrade your harbours as soon as possible, garrisson your cities heavily only near borders, use cheap units for garrissons, clean up blockades and rebels as soon as they appear. This is for sides like the Seleucids, Macedonians, Greeks, Carthaginians, Bactrians and Pontians. I guess it's harder for Romans, Armenians or Parthians, (expensive units and poor homelands) and I'm not sure if it's possible at all for barbarians, since they're filthy and I don't understand what they say.

The low cost of barbarian units means that they can do quite well economically, as a general rule. They don't have runaway income like the effete "civilized" factions who like to use things like overly long pointy sticks and hot heavy armor for fighting.

I prefer to try to keep my end of turn money below 50k because over that the corruption penalty occurs and devastates your family with horrid traits. I sink the money into buildings and units. Eventually I might run out of things to build, but I tend to get bored with my conquerfest before that happens.

[Solaris]

Playing as Romans, it's easy. Just control Italy, Spain, Africa Province and Greece, and you're sorted. Also, it helps not to have garrisons in Italy, just good governers should be more than sufficient. Often, my cities stay passive without a garrison or governor.

[phoebusapollon]

i usually have no problems getting loads of money - just concentrate on building up your economy before building provincial barracks - roman citizenship is not to be extended till you get the city up and running - i use the reserve cohort concept for this - it costs a bit more in running costs but overall you gain by doing this

in my current campaign i have a problem trying to keep below the 50000 denarii threshold -

[Tiberius Nero]

I've seen screenshots of people who apparently have gotten upwards of about 1million denari on their campaign... without cheating.... how do you do this?????????

Don't worry, you don't need that kind of money anyway; I don't recall ever making a profit more than 25000 per turn, and it is more than enough.

[QuintusSertorius]

You start hitting penalties with a treasury of more than 50,000 anyway, so why would you want it? All your family members end up blistering morons.

[Mikail Mengsk]

Which penalties?

[Tiberius Nero]

Your FMs acquire negative traits, if you leave 50000+ sitting in the treasury; a lot of negative traits.

[wiande]

depends of which difficulty level you play, if you play campaign difficulty hrd/vr hrd
then you won't know peace and as a result you'll built lots of armies => impossible to save money.

[Korlon]

You start getting negative traits at 50,000. Then more of a chance at 100,000 and then more at 200,000. In every RTW game, I generally try to keep my money at a bare minimum unless I can't help it. I queue buildings like crazy and try to establish some more armies to conquer new territory. Eventually, you'll have to get past the 50,000 money, but I try to stave that off for as long as possible.

[Solaris]

In my Rome game I was into billions of denarii, but Rome was still producing good governors. Ah well, Rome's governors were corrupt anyway! e.g. Gaius Verres!

[Red Hair Roman]

Well Taking it slow in the begining get alliances with everybody ecept carthage and build up your inferstructor constantly. And only have a small army standing. Now I am stacking buildings have a gigantic army around 50% are mercenarys. And I am brining in 60-80000 denari every turn but I am able to end every turn below 50000. Also bribe alot. The down side is that I have no real enemys, seleucids are running to india for some reason 6000+ soldiers suddenly ran from the front line, deep in to seleucids holdings, Carthage is no match same as the other remaining fractions.

[QuintusSertorius]

You don't need alliances, just trade rights. Later on start giving smaller factions both regular tributes and big lump sums of money to soak up cash.

Build stacks of troops you probably won't use for a long time to use money. And queue buildings, especially in settlements where the governor doesn't have many management scrolls - he gain traits like Builder and Architect.

[Mikail Mengsk]

Carthage is a money-making machine! If you concentrate yourself on the economic buildings for the first years, you expand the empire in the right directions (spain for the mines, italy for trading routes and rich farms) and you succesfully maintain the big city loyalty around 120-130%, you can easily see your denarii growing up fast! And i still don't have upgraded all the farms and mines to maximum, so i still can improve my economy!

[Jamey]

You don't need alliances, just trade rights. Later on start giving smaller factions both regular tributes and big lump sums of money to soak up cash.

Or, if you have enough money, bribe or buy a settlement that you want! In my Roman campaign, the money spike from sacking Carthage and the surrounding cities went to bribing Rhodes from the Ptolemies. The money spike from the heart of Greece went to buying Remi from the Germans to shorten my defensive lines.

I'm exterminating because the silly AI just doesn't build needed infrastructure like sanitation. I think that the Taverns and Bardic Circles of Germania are the only sanitation buildings I've captured. It's just too annoying to deal with Large and Huge cities without any substantial infrastructure.

[ThePianist]

As people wrote already, capture the Aegean Sea area (Greece + Macedon) because of all the sea trade there. Especially in RTR, any AI faction that owns the Aegean Sea area would dominate the map (see all the threads complaining about Macedon AI stretching all the way to the North Sea). In fact, if you play any faction that is within reach of Greece/Macedon area, you should always capture it first, and that's not just in RTR, but any mod, and including original RTW. It's not only the center of the map but also the highest income from the sea trade. You can either start overland, or you may find it easier to capture Crete and Rhodes first, since they don't have any adjoining territory and AI rarely does sea invasions.

After the Aegean Sea would be the lower coast of Anatolia going all the way to the Levant. With that and the Aegean sea, it's a very extensive sea trade network. Then the mines in Massalia and the Iberian peninsula. But sea trade nearly always gives the most income. In fact, if you just capture all the coastal cities of the Mediterranean (and maybe the coastal cities of the Black Sea, though the Anatolian cities are more worth it than the Bosphoran ones), that is the income of half the map.

[phoebusapollon]

also dont underestimate north africa - the income from those cities is huge - but more importantly because of the grain exports - all your nearby cities grow very fast and they also become huge producers of income -

in my roman campaign i have huge cities in sicily, sardinia and north africa - the income from those cities alone allows me to field six or seven legions -

[Mikail Mengsk]

As I already said, Carthage is a money-maker machine . Its trading income is probably the best in the Mediterranean, maybe except one or two greek cities, and if you get both Carthage area and Sicily you will gain thousands of denarii