Money, Money, Money

[SirGejor]

AVE Generals!!

My Tips:

1- disband all unnecessary units (e.g. 1 or 2 unit of town guard in every city *cheap*), make up your armies with efficent units (balance low cost vs how strong units are, e.g. try to limit number of mercenaries), not more armies than needed (before Marius I field about 7 or 8 legions only). Get rid of some cavalry ...

2 - focus on economic building on all settlements except one or two for military buildings. Road, Farming, Trade, Port. Academies! That will make income strat ticking

3 - control the sea east of Italy. The trade gives a huge boost to your economy. Arretium and Tergeste will pay for several legions! But care with the Greeks and the germanes . Get ready!!!

4 - Take Greece asap after clearing Italy. That will boost your econmy even further. In my case I start to get trouble spending money at this point ...

5 - avoid taking settlements bordering Germania for as long as possible. Gauls will send stack after stack to Italy. It is hard enough to fight them off. If Germania joins in you need to field more than double amount of armies and you will have trouble re-fitting your legions.

6-Taxes are a valuable asset to your profits, and should be used as such: when the city is happy, raise your taxes as much as you can (preferably to very high) without losing the ‘green face’. This will boost your income, decrease population growth, and give you room to decrease taxes when a city has to cope with riots.

7- Belive-me, Money is the most important thing in SPQR next to the battles. So make sure you earn as much as you can every turn, and try to save some money in the beginning, as you will be needing it to fund your troops later on, believe me. Don’t spend every denarius you earn!
Grow a sizeable treasury to safeguard your own future.

8- Development of cities: Cities must be developed and managed according to their function: a city with large income will be best off with a governor that has several ‘management scrolls’. Also the building queue should consist of buildings that augment the city’s income above anything else.
This is known as making a city a ‘financial center’

Contrary to that, you also have the kind of city with less income and a less good strategical position for finance. Although taxes should be dealt with as stated earlier, you should build mostly military structures in this city, and use this place to churn out your armies.

Of course, how you use this concept, is purely based on the position of the city: for example, if you have conquered a city, and it is well-suited for a financial purpose, but it’s bordering your enemy’s territory and under risk of attack, do not fulfill its financial purposes yet. It should be used as a military base for that stage of the expansion, with the proper defences.

9- After the conquest of the city: When conquering a city, you must adapt it to your faction: destroy buildings that are not of your culture and replace them with your own, as this culture-difference can become troublesome in the future. And after that –this should always be done- build main functions such as roads and proper walls before developing it further.

I hope it has helped....Good Luck General!!

[Gauliez]

Nice post SirGejor
That is indeed a good sum-up of the main points to control money issues.

Two more points I would add:
- some people also take Iberia instead of Greece. Result seems to be the same, both place have pretty wealthy cities.
- I also micro-manage ancillaries, so that my governors get ancillaries bringing money bonus, rather than some bringing combat bonus. Especially manage your Vulcan priests, and put them in cities with mine. They can easily increase your income by 1-2k each.

Beside this, reading your post, I was wondering if many of you use the building construction queue. I personally never do this, and go through each of my towns every turn to manage each one differently, depending on my current priority.

[SirGejor]

Many Thanks General.!

Very well reminded, and observed their strategies. I think with their additions can create an excellent informative document here.

[Raglan]

Beside this, reading your post, I was wondering if many of you use the building construction queue. I personally never do this, and go through each of my towns every turn to manage each one differently, depending on my current priority.

yeah i do the same, i always judge by my current needs and my long term goals

[SirGejor]

Beside this, reading your post, I was wondering if many of you use the building construction queue. I personally never do this, and go through each of my towns every turn to manage each one differently, depending on my current priority.

AVE!!

Dear General, I always prefer to administer my cities and my empire more freely, however in an orderly way.

Please note down more some tips, use them because healthy really efficient.

Make Money Fast ????????????? The eternal question.

Roads, mines, and sea trade are the way. Roads bring in trade revenue, mines bring in direct revenue as well as increasing trade, and every port upgrade opens up a new sea trade avenue. Once you've built them up, additional buildings will really kick the economy up a notch: buildings like markets and forums. Build these early on. The sooner they're built, the more money a city will make you, making it easier to upgrade other cities, and so on. Once you're swimming in cash it'll be easy to toss military buildings in places where they're needed.

Roads deserve special mention, because they're so critical to conquest as well. Roads should be the FIRST thing you buy. General, is all about applying force to where enemies are hurt the most, and you can only do that if you can move your troops quickly around the map. Don't let cities languish without roads: Build them and pave them as quickly as you can. (Highways can wait a little longer). They'll pay for themselves in no time, and when you're using them to hurtle tons of troops at your enemies faster than they can recover, you'll be thankful to have a good road network.

So, What Should I Build?

I'm sure people want to hear exactly in what order they should build their buildings, but it's really going to depend on the circumstances. Buildings on your frontier bordering an aggressive enemy may require walls and barracks before you have the luxury of building up an economy -- try to avoid that, but sometimes, it can't be helped.

All things equal, here's a rough priority guide. Adjust accordingly based on the situation and the advice I gave above.

1. Roads
2. Basic Barracks
3. Farms
4. Sea Port
5. Temple
6. Sewer
7. Trader
8. Governor's Villa
9. Paved roads
10. Communal Farming
11. Shipwright
12. Market


From there, you can begin building military buildings if you need another city capable of cranking out units -- by then this city should be growing and profitable.

I ranked basic barracks high on the list only so that you can recruit town guards. It's helpful to have them around to keep the peace in a city, that way your more expensive troops can eventually move on in order to conquer more important locations.

I wait to have helped once again.

[Raglan]

hmm.. i disagree with some of this sir gejor - i play using the ancillary add on, meaning i will only recruit and reinforce 1 legion from each city. So i'd better have most of my cities militaryly capable else i'm really limiting my options

other than that i also disagree with your order, i agree that road (and mines) are some of the most importantant buildings in the game, but villas (and the upgrades) should be at the top of the list as squaller can be a real killer - and the same reason i build farms last, it allows me better control of my economy

[SirGejor]

AVE.!

Ok General, your observation does very sense for me. The subject to supply the legions is perfect.

But anyway, I have been using this strategy the some time, and also with a lot of success. The important is to add our ideas in a constructive way with focus of helping other generals.

[Raglan]

agreed, we all have different ways of doing things - hey, whatever works

[SirGejor]

Perfect General. That is the philosophy.

They steal our money, our freedom, our space, but our knowledge nobody can steal.

PS: (They are our Government, actually the system of any country)

Best regards!

[Raglan]

lol - where do you live?

altought you can probably use this sentance with fair acuracy wherever

the ....... government ruin my life

lol

[SirGejor]

It is true General, and I thank for your lol of the message. She means a lot for me, mainly because my Father is that he said her. I grew and I was educated with bases in those words.

I live in the Wonderful city of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.

Beautiful beaches, beautiful gils, a lot of surf... In a way general, i love my city and my Country. But as at every moment, we have problems that seem inexplicable...