Money problems

[SaadHabib]

I always seem to have problems with my finances, regardless of which faction I play with. This is especially the case with BI.
I tend to become bankrupt even though I have taxes on 'Very High' in all my cities and I keep capturing new cities. I'm also trading as much as I can. Eventually I become so bankrupt that I have to quit and start over because I can never train any units or construct any buildings. Any suggestions as to how I could keep my finances in tact?

[Publius Quirinus]

I think the problem might be your military. Are you recruiting expensive units all the time? Are the garrisons of your core cities full of elite units? Try garrisoning your core cities (where there is no chance of attack) with peasants or town militias only.

Also, there might be rebels blocking your roads-- these cut off your trade, which might be why you're not receiving any cash even though you're trading with other factions.

Are you building markets/ports etc.? These buildings help a lot with trade.

[SaadHabib]

Yeah, I do recruit elite units in most of my core cities. In fact I have massive armies poised all over my empire. I suppose I should replace them with inexpensive units such as peasants and town militia.
Rebels seem to continuously block my trade routes. Is there any way to keep them out of my borders or do they randomly generate within the borders? If so, what should I do to keep them from blocking my roads?

[Il Duce]

Position Diplomats to bribe them at your borders, or just crush them with inexpensive troops (also helps to give your generals more experience)

[Summitz]

When I started playing total war, this also used to happen to me, but then I started looking into the manual and then learnt slowly.
To get money flowing in, I build the following in the order:
1.roads
2.ports
3.trader
4.market
5.great market
These are really essential to get money flowing. If a settlement has a coastal regions, I give a lot of priority to building the ports first and upgrading it rather than the market and traders. Trade by sea is much more profitable than trade by land. Also I dont tend to build farms and its upgrade cuz they give a population explosion instead of a boom, and town grow so fast, it will be hard to manage.
Also depending on the game, I make the armies, in the beginning of the game, there is no chance for me to build an elite army, so I just stay with the standard ones, but only late into the game, I just keep a maximum of 3 elite armies. Also the town which dont border other factions, I only tend to upkeep it with peasant and milita units, that too, it stop when the happiness is 80 or over. Rebels also cause problems to the trade and add to destruction to the land, so I just send a lazy family member with a maximum of 6units of the standard army to crush them, this way, the trade routes remain free and also the lazy general earns a few stars.....

[Il Duce]

And don't be tricked and set taxes to very high. Always keep them at high unless the population starts to get pissed. It's the maximum growth/income setting in the game.

[Xavier Dragnesi]

The main economic buildings are: roads, markets, ports and mines. Get these things to as high a level as possible, and you should get a good income, along with the taxes.

[SaadHabib]

Thanks for the tips. I'll keep them in mind.
In fact I've started a campaign with Carthage and my economy is overflowing with money at the moment. Carthage itself is losing a lot of money but the rest of my cities are bringing in a lot.

[Angrychris]

ya i always have to pinch pennies for anything in total wars games, i wish i could have unlimited income like the ai does.

[HorseArcher]

Thanks for the tips. I'll keep them in mind.
In fact I've started a campaign with Carthage and my economy is overflowing with money at the moment. Carthage itself is losing a lot of money but the rest of my cities are bringing in a lot.

If you are constantly building something /and/or have giant armies, you will be going negative. You either build only when necessary (keep them from rioting) and keep only town guards in the cities and only build units if you intend to fight and don't forget to keep a governor in the town with good retinues/traits. Take the crap governor out of there, send them to a war or sit on a boat in the middle of the ocean , Like I did with a few (kinda forgot about them and died in old age or went crazy, lol)

[Korlon]

Thanks for the tips. I'll keep them in mind.
In fact I've started a campaign with Carthage and my economy is overflowing with money at the moment. Carthage itself is losing a lot of money but the rest of my cities are bringing in a lot.

Carthage is never losing money, no city makes negative amounts of money. In fact, Carthage is probably your biggest cash cow. The problem is the army upkeep is distributed between your cities depending on the population. Since Carthage's population is so large, it's going to take the largest part of the upkeep, so you get "negative" income. Don't even bother looking at the amount of money you get there, only look at the finances tab for the real information.

[Calyptus]

non-frontier garrison troops: peasants
frontier garrison troops: spearmen/pikeman/archers

[Angrychris]

somtimes u have to keep decent armies in citys so in the long run ur gonna hit a financial wall.

[Double A]

Or you could use...........................................................................cheats
Im lazy, so I use the add_money 40000 cheat all the time. IDC if everyone thinks it is bad. I just think having no buildings under construction in a town that can is a crime.

And to the people that STILL think cheating is worse than murder:

[Angrychris]

the ai cheats so when in rome

[atraps]

Or you could use...........................................................................cheats
Im lazy, so I use the add_money 40000 cheat all the time. IDC if everyone thinks it is bad. I just think having no buildings under construction in a town that can is a crime.

Same here i think not building in settlements is very bad, so i build every single turn and in every settlement, but i dont need to cheat to do this.
I think constructing building is the best investment you can do with your money.

Im not trying to brag, but every campaign ive done with every faction (very hard diff.) i became very rich quick and i never cheat.

My record is 7 million denarii with the Greek city states in Vanilla RTW (no cheating). That game ended in 14 a.d.

Tips

1.) Build (in order) ports, farms, roads, markets, mines (yea i know some of you think its a bad idea to build farms but its not, farms help you upgrade your cities faster and really add to the income of the settlement. Then when your cities become huge cities with huge populations, that riot, you let the city rebel and recapture it and exterminate the population which gives you alot of money im talking like 20k, but the bigger the population the more money you get when exterminating.)

2.) Recruit very few units in the beginning of your campaign. You need to spend your money on constructing ports,farms etc. Those buildings will give you a much bigger treasury

3.) Dont recruit units every turn in every settlement (other words spamming units) doing this will drain your treasury quick because you not only have to pay the recruitment cost you also have to pay the upkeep cost which you pay every turn on every unit and this can become a huge amount to pay if you have lots of units.

4.) if you are currently in a campaign and you find your treasury is going down, the problem is you have to many units. The best way to fix this is to find a full stack you have (with units that are good and cost alot of upkeep) and disban it. A fast way to do this is to select the army, press CTRL + A (this selects all units in the army) then press CTRL + D (this disbans all the selected units)

I hope you find this useful

p.s. if you have anymore questions ask them (even if it seems its a dumb question ask it, and remember there are no dumb questions)

[Korlon]

The AI cheats, but you have brains. Can your brain defeat the AI?

And you can't hit a financial wall if you play the game right. You never need too many stacks of soldiers. As you take more and more towns, you'll gain more and more money. Unless you're making soldiers all the time, your treasury will continue to grow and grow by thousands per turn even if you're building buildings every turn.

[Master_Templar]

Being WRE is hard especially, because from the start you are in a financial bog.

[SaadHabib]

When I was playing a Julii campaign, I'd pretty much taken over all of Europe (except for Spain and Eastern Europe), I was making a decent amount of money for the longest time despite having huge armies in most of my cities, regardless of whether they were likely to face any foreign threat or not (which I now know was a mistake). However, suddenly my financial position shot downward and I went bankrupt in almost no time. Now I have somewhere around -26,000 dinari and I fear it's going to keep dropping. What should I do to sort that out? I really want to avoid using any cheats because I'd like to face this challenge. Any suggestions?
Another quick question - I recently captured Londinium and have been continuously faced with riots. I even lost the city once to rebels and had to recapture it the next turn. I exterminated all of the population but I continue to have a discontent population that's killing soldiers and destroying buildings.

[Korlon]

Disband your excess troops. Check your finances tab. I have a Julii campaign in just about the same condition as you. Took over the Gallic tribes without taking Iberia and now focusing on the Germanic tribes. Currently making about 20k a turn, with approximately 400k in the treasury at 246 B.C, and this is with most cities on low taxes. You should never just "suddenly" have less money than normal. Always check your profit margin. Once you go negative, you're doing something wrong.