Economy Guides?

[Rick]

Is there any posted guides on how not to go bankrupt in for year? Before the 3rd qtr turn I had a debt of almost -18,000 gold. Should you simply build up Rome first and then concentrate on the other cities?

[Quinn Inuit]

Ok, first fight Pyrrhus. After you deal with him (assuming you have any troops left), disband most of your army and then focus on your economy. Trade is still your best option, but land trade is relatively more important now. Build up as fast as you can at the start.

Things are very expensive in this mod, and we've seriously nerfed the economy. You'll find relatively few troops running around as a result. Full-stack battles (until well into the game) are as important as they are rare.

[Rick]

Thanks.

[Carados]

The trick I find with the ExRM early game is to abuse long build farms. If you want to take a mathematical approach to it (which I advise ), divide the cost of the building by the number of turns it takes to build. Communal farms for example, take 12 turns to complete and cost £3000. This works out at £250 a turn. A minor temple costs £1000 but takes 2 turns to build. This works out at £500 a turn. If you start off with £10'000, and have a £500 income, building minor temples because they are the cheapest buildings gets you no where. Why? Because with three cities, you are expanding £1500 a turn, with only that £500 income. You will hit £0 at 10 game turns. If, however, you were to spend £3000 on communal farms and 2* £1600 on the farm level below, you are actually expending £3000/12 + £1600/8 + £1600/8 = £650 a turn!

With a starting treasury of £10'000. £10'000 - (£3000+£1600+£1600) = £3800. With a net loss of £150 a turn, it will take you 26 turns before you hit negative figures!!!

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Whoever said maths would never come in use after school???

Once you have this concept sorted in your head, you can start to see how income, trade, farms, upkeep and happiness all interact. You then have to start deciding for yourself how to develop your regions and more important who and where to attack. Low happiness areas cost your empire more because you have to build the relatively more expensive happiness buildings to overcome the unhappy population. This has serious long term implications because you then lack the economic and military buildings to support an empire! Concentrating solely on economic buildings though mean you'll lack the military might to conquer other areas or defend from a serious assault. The last typical problem is that if you concentrate on your military, you can then hardly build your empire because you spend all your money on upkeep.

[Ramiro]

Nice analysis Carados.

Mi aproach is to avoid building anything in my home cities for the first turns, amass a big army, and instead of fighting small skirmish that create attrition and causes looses that are hard to replenish keep your big army intact and lay siege to the nearest big city, take it, if you suffer heavy casualties, just masacre and loot. If not, repeat the process with another big city.

The combination of heavy looses, that decreases your upkeep, the loot from the big city and the increased income should be enough to recover your economy.

In the case of Rome. I try to build at least 2 legions with the starting money. Then expulse Pyrrus from South italy and then conquer sicily. Always masacre and loot the wealthy greek cities. Do not leave big garrisons as they do not contribute to your offensive actions but increase your upkeep. After sicily, hit the gauls until you expulse them from italy. After that, keep an army in northern italy and try to conquer illyria (its mines will give you LOTS of money).

[Needs New Name]

Nice analysis Carados.

Mi aproach is to avoid building anything in my home cities for the first turns, amass a big army, and instead of fighting small skirmish that create attrition and causes looses that are hard to replenish keep your big army intact and lay siege to the nearest big city, take it, if you suffer heavy casualties, just masacre and loot. If not, repeat the process with another big city.

The combination of heavy looses, that decreases your upkeep, the loot from the big city and the increased income should be enough to recover your economy.

In the case of Rome. I try to build at least 2 legions with the starting money. Then expulse Pyrrus from South italy and then conquer sicily. Always masacre and loot the wealthy greek cities. Do not leave big garrisons as they do not contribute to your offensive actions but increase your upkeep. After sicily, hit the gauls until you expulse them from italy. After that, keep an army in northern italy and try to conquer illyria (its mines will give you LOTS of money).

Actually I heard Obama's giving some bailout money to imaginary empires. How that for pork.

[Quinn Inuit]

He might be Jewish or Muslim, you insensitive clod! Now take those comments to the mudpit where they belong. That's not what this forum's for.

[leemyster]

best bet is take out epirus. settlements like tarentum and croton put to the sword while the ones that have roman culture just enslave (smaller populations equal less incomes from taxes and take longer to grow).

the AI tends to be extremly aggressive (might be due to me playing VH/VH) so whoever you might be at war with you want to attack their big cities and exterminate. best one in your situation is appollonia. depending on the situation try to build a phase1 nuilding (helps later) and then get the hell out!. either gifting the settlement (never works lol) or forcing it to rebel; this is so no other factions have an incentive in starting war.

for the most part aim at trade. docks are a definete must (but do your research for indivdual settlements before building. some places like sparta can increase dock size but theres no increase in trade fleets). farms are rubbish and forums do jack all but they should definetely be the first you build as their neccessary for later growth. also, in rome build a siege engineer. artillery is the secret weapon of civilised empires. they will give you the ability to strike at coastal settlements, loot it then sail away again. also, alot of battles you face are with armies with only 10 units or w/e. though no match for your big army a few of those battles damage your force alot. a few scorpions or ballistas can wreck an armies best troops, its generals and make them scared.

hope i made sense. i'm not the one for grammar or structured writing lol but the inner workings of this games AI has become second nature to me lol