Harad economy

[Temudschin]

I dont know, with every other faction i have enough florins after a few turns but with harad i cannot build up a good economy. I cannot defend my cities against Gondor because i have an income of only 1000-2000. Its turn 40 now. My army is also very small. But i build farms, roads and set the taxes to max, but its still terrible.

Harad has a good starting position but its useless without money.

[Muffer Nl]

Start out with low taxes. This will increase your population rapidly which will give you more money later on. Make Farms but don´t invest in markets over tier 1. Don´t build roads past tier one. Don´t station troops inland except for free upkeep units. Make sure your capital is in the middle of your empire so that corruption is low. Don´t build brothels but do build management buildings. This also decreases corruption.

Basics of a good economy in TATW.

[Temudschin]

Ok thanks i will try it.

[Lordinquisitor]

If you set the taxes below high, your generals will get bad traits. So move them out of the town.

I dislike the "low taxes approach" because i usually need money in the beginning and not later on. So i do the opposite and i set the taxes to high instead of low.. To each his own, i guess.

However, with the other stuff i can agree. Markets are worthless in Third Age; But farms are very good.

Also try to grab some rebel settlements early on- There are just a few near harad; But if you can conquer them without overextending your economy you will notice quite an huge increase to your income.

And don`t forget that you don`t need any garrison than the free upkeep ones in your inner cities.

[jản]

+rep to NSFW for this exelent economy guide.
btw - here is an abstract from the strategy guide

Click to view content: 

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ECONOMY / TRADE / MONEY

• conclude trade rights to other factions
• keep the corruption low by building cultural buildings and keeping a low distance to your capital
• get rid of useless garrisons
• raise taxes - ''set all towns to highest tax level (but the tax symbol should not be red) unless you want to
  encourage growth of the the settlement.'' (thanks to Tharros)
• maybe try to become trading monopols for some resources
  [i never tried that but the gameguide tells it]
• ''selling map information is also a good way to get some money in early game.'' (thanks to Kaas)
• (getting money by doing a good and fair diplomacy in a whole is a way
  to get money. but be aware of extort the other faction, because that
  could lower their realtion to you and your global reputation as well.)
• always try to put a general (with the right traits) in your settlements becasue
  mostly he increases the trade income or at least the public order and happiness
  
  
  
• conquer enemy or rebel settlements to sack them AND sell buildings that you don't need
  (you earn money for pulling down buildings)
  >>> if you don't really need that settlement you can sell all sellable buildings and than exchange
  for money, alliances, ceasefires, map-informations, military access and so on
  

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Markets are worthless in Third Age.

Eh, what a load of crap for advice...
How many of you ACTUALLY read the edvnv to say what you get bad traits for?
Bad Traits aren't linked to Taverns OR High Traits - much the opposite for the latter.

no you arent right. brothels and tavern course bad traits for
family members and generals.
you can check it here. there are a lot of traits like "social drinker",
"seyually liberated", "perverted" and so on that only occur when
the family members stay in stellements with taverns and brothels.

[Nergor]

The Vanilla TATW contains not enough resources. For example Harad doesn`t have one resource of timber - how this faction is able to built a fleet or buildings without wood ? Harad has got a long coast and doesn`t get fish at this... So I have given 3-5 resources to each faction
To put resources inside TATW: Right click any position on the map, press button ö and type ''show_cursorstat'' to get its xy coordinates and the province. Then you open the folder ''descr_strat.txt'' in \Third_Age\data\world\maps\campaign\imperial_campaign'' and type in the new resource, the coordinates and the province.

[Kawee]

Start out with low taxes. This will increase your population rapidly which will give you more money later on. Make Farms but don´t invest in markets over tier 1. Don´t build roads past tier one. Don´t station troops inland except for free upkeep units. Make sure your capital is in the middle of your empire so that corruption is low. Don´t build brothels but do build management buildings. This also decreases corruption.

Basics of a good economy in TATW.

I would agree with this except the road part. In terms of money, the 2nd tier road may not be worth it. Trade is minimal in this mod. However, Harad is a huge so I think roads are vital if you're going to move your troops around in there.

[stoffi]

Start out with low taxes. This will increase your population rapidly which will give you more money later on. Make Farms but don´t invest in markets over tier 1. Don´t build roads past tier one. Don´t station troops inland except for free upkeep units. Make sure your capital is in the middle of your empire so that corruption is low. Don´t build brothels but do build management buildings. This also decreases corruption.

Basics of a good economy in TATW.

Low taxes is a must, but why not build roads above tier 1.... They give a nice boost to trade, often several hundred gold. Not to mention they boost the trade in neighbour cities.

Also, markets up to tier 2 is well worth its money. Not at first, but later in the game.

[eregost]

Harad is the easiest faction to play as IMO.

[Vaz]

Eh, what a load of crap for advice...

How many of you ACTUALLY read the edvnv to say what you get bad traits for?

Bad Traits aren't linked to Taverns OR High Traits - much the opposite for the latter.

[Russian Gondor]

Well, this game is based on population. If I were you I would start out slow and get smaller taxes for larger population. Only boost up the taxes if you are going into the red zone on your money.

[NSFW]

While trade has certainly been nerfed when compared to vanilla M2TW, it's still possible to make some decent income from it, in the right circumstances.

The main thing to remember with trade is that it's based on the region's resources, how many other regions are traded with, and those regions' resources. So while some regions aren't really worth developing trade-wise others can be well worth it, up to a point.

In particular sea trade still seems to be relatively lucrative, especially once you've got a few ports, & imo Harad is one of the best placed factions to build up a maritime trade empire.

Where possible, I leave taxes on low in coastal regions, so that they grow large enough to build ports and the merchant's wharf line of buildings as quickly as possible.

I tend to build traders up to the market level in all but the most isolated of towns. The fairground/bazaar level is IMO also worth it when you've got a good trade region (one with decent resources and a decent number of neighbouring regions to trade with.)

I also build paved roads pretty much anywhere that it helps my logistics more than the enemy's, but, in contrast to what others have said, I actually find that it's also one of the more worthwhile trade boosters. Again it varies by region, but those with more neighbours obviously benefit more from improved roads.

I've also found the "Caravan Stop", which Harad can construct in castles, to be very worthwhile, e.g. in V1.3 building one in Minas Tirith raised the regional income from ~1500 to ~2000, and even Gobel Ancalimon (with port) gained something like an extra 300 per turn for building one.
I'm not so certain the second building in the caravan stop line is as worthwhile; it seems to give less extra income than the first level one and costs significantly more, but, as with any income building, will pay itself back eventually.

I tend to build only the first two levels of farms, after that it gets expensive & you don't even seem to get the population boost which the first two levels give.

With the size of Harad's empire corruption is a huge problem so buildings which increase law are worthwhile, and indirectly boost your income, especially when constructed at the edges of the empire. The town hall line is great IMO, I tend to build the level one version asap, and the second level one as a fairly high prority. Beyond that they get expensive but extra population growth and law is hard not to like.
Barracks also add to law so, although it's not a high priority, I tend to build them up in my high income regions at the edge of empire. Every region gets at least the first level barracks though, so that the garrison is free upkeep.

By contrast to taxing Harad's coast as minimally as possible, I taxed the inland regions as highly as I could get away with (with a free garrison), until I'd expanded a bit, & my economy stabilised.
My view is that once you've expanded these regions are going to become backwaters anyway. As you expand the income from them becomes a smaller proportion of your total income, so the fact that their growth has been retarded, by taxing them heavily, becomes less significant.
Also, they're too far away from the front line to make training troops there worthwhile. Even with paved roads it still takes ages to move troops from these places to the front, and that means turns of paying upkeep for troops which aren't doing anything to help protect or expand your empire. So stunting their growth isn't a problem from that point of view either, imo.

Actually, I found lines of supply to be one of Harad's biggest problems in terms of it's early economy. Even Umbar is several turns from the mouth of the Anduin by the quickest route, (land for a turn, then sea the rest of the way,) and, once again, that translates to paying upkeep for "idle" troops.

My Harad experience is with 1.3 so some stuff may have changed, but by turn 40 I had 2-3 full stack armies in the field and was clearing ~12-15k a turn. Anyway, hope it's some help.

EDIT: It's also worth taking a stark look at your generals. Most of the time they won't increase a settlement's income enough to cover the cost of their bodyguard, so I'll only use them as governors for defense, or if they give a respect bonus to population growth.
Any generals without respect, or at least a few command stars, (like most of Harad's non-family starting generals) get used as heavy cav. Early game they're the best unit Harad has against Gondor, so, while I won't throw their lives away, I do make them earn their keep.

[Temudschin]

My Harad experience is with 1.3 so some stuff may have changed, but by turn 40 I had 2-3 full stack armies in the field and was clearing ~12-15k a turn. Anyway, hope it's some help.

Wow thats an income i only get with other factions. I only have one full stack at the moment and as said before an income of only 1000-2000.

I will try your tips, thx.

One question, which city should be my capital? I made Umbar my capital due to the good position to ship some troops to the north. And i can build Muhad tribesmen there which are in my opinion Harads most powerful infantry.

[NSFW]

One question, which city should be my capital? I made Umbar my capital due to the good position to ship some troops to the north. And i can build Muhad tribesmen there which are in my opinion Harads most powerful infantry.

Whichever city gives you the least overall corruption in your empire, corruption is based off of the distance of each settlement from your capital, so in general you want your capital to be close to the centre of your empire, but maybe offset a bit if you have a cluster of high income settlements in a particular direction.

My capital's moved north west as I've expanded into Gondor, then southern Rohan. Every few turns I'll take the time to quickly move my capital around likely candidates and check which gives me the best projected income for next turn on the finance scroll (hotkey "F").
It may sound like a hassle but generally you only need to check your current capital versus the towns adjacent to it in (roughly) the direction your empire's been expanding.
Sometimes you get slightly odd movement in ideal capital location compared to direction of expansion, e.g. having taken Erech, Harrowdale & Edoras my ideal capital moved from Barad Harn to Pelargir, not Linhir or Gobel Tolfalas as I expected, but Pelargir is one of my highest income regions (& had recently built paved roads and a merchant's wharf), whereas the other two are much less developed.

As far as units go, I think Muhad's are pretty good, although I've not managed to use them as effectively as I've managed to use other factions' javelin units. I think their low defense and slow unit pool recharge time puts me off being as gung ho with them. *shrug*
In general I'd say Harad's strength lies in it's cavalry, and to a lesser extent archery, far more than it's melee infantry. Some of the infantry units are ok, but armour wise it's all relatively light when compared to other factions.
My favourite pre-barracks event unit would have to be their horse archers. In field battles, using them and expendable general bodyguard units, I was generally able to do enough damage to Gondorian armies that they'd be pretty much ready to break by the time the infantry lines clashed.

EDIT: My bad, something I forgot to mention which undoubtedly makes a big difference -I'm playing H/H, so if you're playing VH/VH it's not surprising you're having a rougher time of it.

[Temudschin]

Yes i am playing on very hard. Turn 77 now. And yes Harad has very good shock and missle cavalry. I have not many problems when fighting Gondor. Their heavily armored troops are a good target for the armor breaking Murad Tribesmen and the Horse Archers are good to weaken their cavalry.

I played Gondor in the campaign before. And i felt like that Gondor has problems when fighting Harad in the open. All my infantry (Fountain Guard, Citadel Guard etc.) got owned by Murad Tribesmen. They are so damn effective against Gondor.

But anyway, Umbar now has over 15000 population and i set all coastal cities to low taxes. I have one full stack guarding my northern border to Gondor. I crushed a big gondorian army and gained a good ransom of 4500.

And my income at the moment is 50-100.

All cities have farms, roads and the coastal cities have ports. I have trade rights with every other evil faction + Rohan.

Are there merchants in TATW?

[NSFW]

Ouch! with that low an income, personally, I'd raise taxes, even in the coastal towns.

[Lordinquisitor]

My dear ján. Maybe worthless was exaggerated.. Let`s rephrase it: Markets need a long time to be profitable. I suppose you can build the lower tier ones in order to acquire good traits, though.

And Vaz Taverns cause many bad traits. And taxes below high may cause bad traits under certain circumstances.

[Seleukos_I.]

Markets are very important in cities with a port, because they have in fact a lot of trade income.

[MDT]

And taxes below high may cause bad traits under certain circumstances.

Could you be more specific? I'm quit interested in these circumstances as I never turm tax above low when walls aren't maxed out.
But my "keep every settlement building something"-stratege seems uncommen non the less.

[newt]

Could you be more specific? I'm quit interested in these circumstances as I never turm tax above low when walls aren't maxed out.
But my "keep every settlement building something"-stratege seems uncommen non the less.

Tax related traits are only acquired when a building is completed. Set them to high before it's finished, and no bad traits will be had. Another good trick is the turn before a building is done, set tax to very high and make public order blue. (move troops out if you have to) Thos will give you the good tax man trait for 10% more tax income. Do it a few more times and you can max it out for 30% bonus.

Also the first building you should build with a governor is the grain exchange. If you don't, you'll get bad trader. (10% penalty to trade)

Go here to see all traits. It's for vanilla M2, but most have been unchanged in TA