Money

[Capital]

I know I made a thread with similar ambitions, but this time I will keep it relatively sober and uncluttered.

I'm losing money. Every campaign i've played, from Portugal to England, back again to Spain and etc, etc I come across one problem.

Money.


I read Furrins post on the fact Merchants are a must, Im going to try to do this and the trade hub in my capital right now, but I must know. When do you start making real money. I do quite well in the battles, taking out all the rebels relatively quickly, falling back into my cities and struggling to build buildings (often getting the +20,000 from the nobles) but the upkeep just wears.

I am using Servitus's "Big Army" mod

[Xtiaan72]

It's really important to keep your city to castle ratio at least 2 to 1....Always upgrade cities before castles.

[svean]

Economy always go first.
Economic upgrades with free upkeep units (militias) are the main focus (along with merchants). Always try to have trade rights with everyone around, reduce armies to as small as needed, keep them in cities/castles or forts, reduce times of sieges by early assaults and/or use spies...
And whenever you build something keep in mind economy before all - many economic/trade buildings give also bonuses to other areas (city growth, happiness) check the exact effects given by building in city details window.

[Furin]

Merchants, markets, ports, streets, townhall in that order, voila

[Capital]

Merchants, markets, ports, streets, townhall in that order, voila

By Merchants you mean Jewish synagogue right? I read one of your posts Furin about making a trade hub, would you say build Jewish synagogues right away, and upgrade accordingly?

Currently as the Flemish I am doing just this, and im wondering how far I should walk to get my merchant making money.

EDIT: I should add that if there is a strategy to using merchants to monopolize trade resources I am unaware of it.

[Furin]

A small one is plenty, until you reach the real big markets. 5.7 has lower religious requirements for the merchant recruitment.

About the trait, monopolist, I am not really sure how your merchant get it, maybe by being the only one in the region trading that resource. Too lazy to look into the char_traits file atm .

But in general, if you are broke your merchants become better automatically, while they tend to become loyal to coin and whatnot if you are too rich.

Good starting positions for flemish merchants is the silver near Frankfurt, the danish amber and then further out more silver, marble and even more amber. I wouldn't goo farther than italy, germany or england/ireland first. So Timbuktu is totally out if you thought about that.

[Capital]

I have a merchant near Milan gathering marble, I am guessing that the actual number of merchants is still tied to the amount of towns you have, as opposed to castles.

If I had two merchants gathering marble do you think it will have any benefit over lets say over one gathering something else?

[Xtiaan72]

A small one is plenty, until you reach the real big markets. 5.7 has lower religious requirements for the merchant recruitment.

About the trait, monopolist, I am not really sure how your merchant get it, maybe by being the only one in the region trading that resource. Too lazy to look into the char_traits file atm .

But in general, if you are broke your merchants become better automatically, while they tend to become loyal to coin and whatnot if you are too rich.

Good starting positions for flemish merchants is the silver near Frankfurt, the danish amber and then further out more silver, marble and even more amber. I wouldn't goo farther than italy, germany or england/ireland first. So Timbuktu is totally out if you thought about that.

I'm almost possible you have to corner the market on that commodity....Really hard to do but would be kind of a game within the game...You would need tons of merchants tracking down every instance of the resource in the world and some really skilled assassins to kill any AI merchants that came near you.Cause the AI merchants are pretty ruthless when it comes to the more valuable resources .Would make for a great AAR though!

[LlamaD]

Well, McKinsey says: Cut your costs first. Disband unnecessary units (ships, non-militia-troops in cities), move high-upkeepunits to forts, reduce the fieldcosts where you can, avoid long sieges and units, agents in enemy lands (rebels regions, too)

... and then increase your income.

[Capital]

Very interesting, about the forts thing do units cost anything extra for being outside of a settlement? And that order thing is very interesting, mine goes something like this usually: roads, market, fields, infantry building, upgrade repeat

But im pretty fresh to the scene, I played RTW in the closet for years before I found TWC, only then because MTW2 didnt feel like it had a soul.

It was very refreshing to have all these excellent responses, and like the rest of us im downloading DLV 5.7 right now.

[Furin]

Well you will have the -200/turn for an army within your territory which does end the turn not being within a settlement. On the other hand a fort can hold four free units. So even if you take the cheapest version, peasants, you make an "around the corner" income of 4*90-200=160, more "income" if you put better units there.

If you had these units in a castle they would cost you 360 florins, the difference is your gain, because you can have these units and increase your strengh. You would only make more total money if you didn't have these units at all.