Massive empire, reconquering Rome, but I have 54,000 florins/turn lost to "Corruption and Other"

[foolfromhell]

What do I do? Is it corruption or something else? The 54,000 is a hell of a lot, imo. i can barely keep my economy afloat. I dont think i can do too much. Too many generals, too far spread out. What is possible?

[muffinhead]

wow. you know, just for the heck of it, can you post a screenshot? i think that would b pretty funny to see.

[foolfromhell]

screenshot of finances? or the entire empire?

[foolfromhell]

first half of the game, every catholic in Europe was literally allied with everyone else. 100% of the wars were between me and muslims or spain and moors. Literally, nothing else. After dealing with turks/fatimids, i expanded to baghdad area. The historical limit of Roman Empire. Been defending from Kwarezmain attacks ever since then. Mongols distracting them at the moment. Cumans took half of Anatolia before I could drive them back. I was weak in that area because I was cleaning up Fatimids. I just recently destroyed Spain and declared war on Portugal. I did this because there was no fighting in the East and Hungary was almost dead (last city). Unfortunately, Hungary's last city had a 7star commander and a full stack of professionals, and Novgorod and Poland declared war on me. So now, im at war with Portugal, Novgorod, Hungary, Poland, Cumans, Kwarezmians, bunch of rebels overthrowing my cities, and Holy Roman Empire.

[muffinhead]

wow. i have no idea, i never let my empire get that big: i always switch to someone else. sry i cant be of any help, never heard of this before. but it is funny.

[nostradamouse]

No seriously... How can you manage to get that big so quick...

I've never been able to get that much in such a small ammount of time..

[foolfromhell]

It's Early Campaign. Conquering Neutral cities really isnt that hard. Turks was my biggest problem, but I cornered like 10 of their family members in one city, very lucky. The other 8 of thier cities turned neutral, i captured them, continued onto Fatimids. It took like 30 turns to pacify fatimids. The moors were very simple. Hungary is only the last 5-6 turns. I have fortresses/citadels near Constantinople so I created a bunch of stacks easily.

[nostradamouse]

I guess I'm simply not aggressive enough. Question like this. Do you massively invest in buildings or do you simply focus on certain cities?

[foolfromhell]

i try to keep all my cities in green, but I invest in mainly cities that are already doing well. Like Constantinople (or as it is called now, Nova Roma), and Athens, Jerusalem, etc. Now that I have tons of cash, I try to get more Orthodox Christianity wherever I can. I have tons of churches.

[ShockBlast]

i try to keep all my cities in green, but I invest in mainly cities that are already doing well. Like Constantinople (or as it is called now, Nova Roma), and Athens, Jerusalem, etc. Now that I have tons of cash, I try to get more Orthodox Christianity wherever I can. I have tons of churches.

One HUGE mistake my friend,develop all cities who knows maybe you will find a new Romo,again.Bucharest has only 1,7 k and Constantinople 7,8k,the differance is too big.In one of my campaigns York overtook London.You capital doesn't have to be your biggest money producer.Disband sone unneeded troops and invest in ALL your cities and convert castles that are not near the front to cities.
Try to keep as may settlements that have a port as cities.
Your strategy was doomed from the beginning,your could focus on some cities but don't forget about the others.
When i play i usualy have a peace period,between two huge wars, when i build the economy and then i start a new war.

[nostradamouse]

All right... So my guess is that my weakness is because I build too many buildings all over the place.

I usually use money to get more money but then I spend again that money to get more money but then the same money is spent again...

I'm in 1285, I got all the british isles, all norway and parts of sweden + denmark. All my towns are almost fully upgraded.

So yea.. there's my problem. I make 11k a turn, but most of it goes to building new buildings that make money...

Anyway, you figured.

[marceror]

Interesting how little you're bringing in in trade and taxes. In my current Venetian campaign (late era) I have only 48 regions and my trade is over 52k per turn and taxes are just over 50k per turn. Seems odd that an empire nearly double the size has less or comparable income in those areas.

[foolfromhell]

Well, im at war with basically everyone. heh. Also, havent had too much time to invest in trade. Ive been expanding and spending all spare cash on armies that quite quickly die.

[Don in the North]

i think a method of curing corruption is to let a city rebel, then capture it and exterminate populace.

[Syiedthebard]

i think a method of curing corruption is to let a city rebel, then capture it and exterminate populace.

No, bad idea. That's good for curing religious unrest and squalor-based negative public order. This will cut his tax-and-everything-else income and put him into guaranteed debt.

One HUGE mistake my friend,develop all cities who knows maybe you will find a new Romo,again.Bucharest has only 1,7 k and Constantinople 7,8k,the differance is too big.In one of my campaigns York overtook London.You capital doesn't have to be your biggest money producer.Disband sone unneeded troops and invest in ALL your cities and convert castles that are not near the front to cities.
Try to keep as may settlements that have a port as cities.
Your strategy was doomed from the beginning,your could focus on some cities but don't forget about the others.
When i play i usualy have a peace period,between two huge wars, when i build the economy and then i start a new war.

What he said. Upgrade all of your cities equally. In almost all of my games, I always have -every- city possible building something at any given time, and I am able to PROFIT 15k every turn with 40k in my treasury and control over all of Iberia, North Africa, Egypt, the British Isles, and Sicily.

Though, at a certain point, you simply -have- to maintain a larger treasury to keep everything running, due to the size of your nation. That leads to your generals getting crippling corruption traits (If you have 50k+ in your treasury at the end of your turn, they not only can, but WILL eventually get the corrupt traits.

For you, TC, it may be a matter of having taken the first step of your long journey... three inches off-course. Now you are a third done with your journey, and that mistake's effects are increasing exponentially.

The best thing you could do now is to balance your budget to < 50k. Judging from what I saw of your screenshots (the debt) you need to disband unnecessary troops or gather them all together and throw them at someone, raise taxes sky high, move corrupt or bad governor-generals into fort colonies or one castle, and make peace, then trade with a few factions. This will increase your income and get you out of debt.

When you get to 50k and everything is balanced, because of the size of your empire, you can do one of two things.

1) Attempt to make as much peace as possible and start building (buildings) in EVERY city in your empire or

2) Concentrate less on city growth and make more units to keep your profits from putting you over 50k. I do number 1, and in fact, find that I sometimes HAVE to build a new building that is normally ridiculously expensive in order to stay under 50k. That, or I throw the money at an ally or the Papal States (as Aragon)

That was long-winded, but I hope it helped.

Edit:

I personally think the general corruption trait for having a large treasury, while not necessarily unrealistic, is bogus. It's realistic in that when governors have that much money available, they tend to want to spend it for themselves, but not when that huge sum of money belongs to a HUGE empire. As it is now, if you expand enough, you are forced to have a treasury over 50k, resulting in corruption. However, you can alter some simple trigger files in export_descr_character_traits. (Stainless steel folder-->data)

;------------------------------------------
Trigger corruption1
WhenToTest CharacterTurnEnd
Condition EndedInSettlement
and Treasury > 100100100
Affects Corrupt 1 Chance 3
Affects Aesthetic 1 Chance 3
Affects ExpensiveTastes 1 Chance 3
Affects Epicurean 1 Chance 3
Affects BadAdministrator 1 Chance 3
;------------------------------------------
Trigger corruption2
WhenToTest CharacterTurnEnd
Condition EndedInSettlement
and Treasury > 100100200
Affects Corrupt 1 Chance 3
Affects Aesthetic 1 Chance 3
Affects ExpensiveTastes 1 Chance 3
Affects Epicurean 1 Chance 3
Affects Embezzler 1 Chance 3
;------------------------------------------
Trigger corruption4
WhenToTest CharacterTurnEnd
Condition EndedInSettlement
and Treasury > 100100300
Affects Corrupt 1 Chance 3
Affects Aesthetic 1 Chance 3
Affects ExpensiveTastes 1 Chance 3
Affects Epicurean 1 Chance 3
Affects Embezzler 1 Chance 3


As you can see, the condition for the treasury is changed to one hundred million, one hundred thousand, one hundred florins. You will probably never get that much money. This effectively eliminates the bogus trigger without eliminating the trait and any other traits connected to it.

corruption3, by the way, is not there. It may never have been there. The original values for the treasury > were 50000, 100000, and 150000 for corruption1, corruption2, and corruption4 respectively.

[Emperor of The Great Unknown]

more screens lets force him to make an AAR.

[Manoflooks]

Change your capital to an italian city, the farther away a city is from your capital the more corruption, and italy is the center.

ad watch your governor's traits. if they have the extravagant and type traits-move them away.

[Deadly Rabbit]

Being at war with everyone is going to stifle your trade income, but that can't be helped. I'd go with the Capital being moved to venice (easily defended if everything turns to crap), and get a heap of merchants out there, your merchant income is very low. A dozen good merchants could be earning you another 5000 or so.

[ivac]

Move your capital to Thessalonica (sp) (don't go too far because your greatest money making cities are surely Constantinople, Jerusalem, Athens, Alexandria and Venice is not too far from Thessalonica (sp). Your main problem is army upkeep. Keep in your cities and castles as much troops as the free upkeep allows you. On your border cities keep a bit more troops but not too much. As much as you need to defend against a siege and get rid of Portugal. Then you can control whole Spain and Portugal with 1 full stack.

[browns47]

as everyone else said, move your capital to a more central area and disband most of your army. Also make sure you switch the cities in obscure corners (Africa and the Iberian after portugal is gone) so that you can pick up more trade income. Also: DISBAND ALL MERCINARIES. you do not need them with an empire as powerful as your and they eat cash like crazy!