Bad economy

[johlos]

ok... in my Norwegian campaign i allied to denmark and conquered all of the regions in sweden and norway,but i ended up with a horrid economyso i disbanded almost all of my troops thinking i should make a solid profit and then convert some castles into cities,but the next turn i was making even less money!

i have good trade,markets,farms, i have tried everything that should get money to flow in but every turn i end up making even less!
i didnt find anything on the forums please help!

[Mega Tortas de Bodemloze]

I'm soooo sorry... . johlos....It might help if you told us the game version and sub mods you're using please...

[Battletoads]

Put tax rate up to yellow face level (100% order). Build roads and ports and get some trade agreements going.

[johlos]

i play version 6.1 no sub mods, very high taxes, roads in every region, ports in some but it doesnt work!

[Mega Tortas de Bodemloze]

Hmmmm... That's kind of a stumper. I've started a Norway campaign inSS6.2 M/M and I'll be the first to admit that it was kinda of rough... First off the economy in game start Scandinavia is zip. I had to be very careful and make just enough units to take rebel settlements while building the economic infrastructure. Things didn't start running around til I took Aarhus and Hamburg and naturally i had to get excommunicated to do that....

Lets see, do you have....

1. trade pacts. Massively increases income.
2. Housing just free upkeep units in non front line settlements.
3. No rebel land or sea presence in your lands.
4. Absolute bare minimum military. I'm talking mean and lean. Vikings ain't cheap yo. Start disbanding bro.
5. as you said,castles to cities, on coastlines where you can.
6. what turn is it. The infrastructure usually takes awhile to get there..

Hopefully something in here can help....

http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showthread.php?t=329518

[meese]

I'm not familiar with Norway but I'm sure putting taxes to low will help in the medium/long run. I always set them to low from turn 1 and don't run into debt (except when the plague hits).

Tortas' link is good, it'll help you no matter what submods/version you're playing

[sbroadbent]

ok... in my Norwegian campaign i allied to denmark and conquered all of the regions in sweden and norway,but i ended up with a horrid economyso i disbanded almost all of my troops thinking i should make a solid profit and then convert some castles into cities,but the next turn i was making even less money!

i have good trade,markets,farms, i have tried everything that should get money to flow in but every turn i end up making even less!
i didnt find anything on the forums please help!

The economy of Scandinavia is definitely poor, and can take a while to develop. Low population and slow growth slowing things down even further. You start off with a castle and a city. Oslo, Skara, Kalmar and Uppsala are all castles, leaving Nykoeping the only rebel held city in Scandinavia (if you don't include Visby). In 6.1 if I recall, Bergen doesn't even start off with a port (whereas in 6.2 does have a port).

It seems you need an economic stimulus in the form of a Viking raid. In the early years Norways economy is almost dependent upon warfare (sacking and ransoming), until you can develop some of your cities into economic centers.

Your error may have been to ally with the Danes. Instead you should have tried allying with the HRE or Poland. You're not going to get much in trade early on, so being friends with the Danes this early is not much of an option. I played two 6.1 Norwegian campaigns. In the first, I had to struggle against the Danes for control of Scandinavia. In the second, I massed as many troops as I started with put them on the ships and landed north of Arhus. With the assistance of my spy, I was able to quickly assault the lightly defended Arhus (Danes were busy taking Hamburg), and by Turn 4 or so, Arhus was mine. I gained a port, and the increased income.

I was quickly threatened with excomm *but* the the threat was to both Danes and myself. The next turn the Danes blockaded Arhus port and was excomm'd, giving me the green light to mass troops and grab Roskilde and Lund. With the Danish cities now under my control, I could take the rest of Scandinavia at my leisure.

In both Norwegian games, I was allied to Poland. In the first, I used diplomacy to ask the Poles to attack the Danes. In exchange I also promised to attack the Danes, which I subsequently followed up and grabbed on of the Danes territories. Within a couple turns, the Poles had launched some attacks on Danish controlled Stettin.

Success in this game is made easier when you consider all your neighbors to be enemies, and all of your neighbors neighbors to be your allies, unless you have no plans what so ever to expand in that direction.

Although this won't help now, whenever I consider building economic buildings, I always look to see how long it would take for that building to become profitable. If you have the choice of two buildings, but can only fund one, it makes sense to build the one that will bring in more money, and pay itself off sooner. Divide the cost of the building by the increase in income it will bring in to figure out how much it will improve by. For instance, in Eikundarsund (turn 1), you have the choice of Dirt Roads, Land Clearance or Grain Exchange. They all cost 800 florins to build, but the farms will bump the farm income from 400 to 480 (paying itself off in 10 turns), whereas the roads don't even provide any economic improvement, and the Grain Exchange bumps up trade from 24 to 26 florins. Once you have trade agreements, improved roads and ports, the grain exchange line will generate greater income, but I hold off on buildings unless they will pay themselves off in 10-15 turns (or if I have an excess of money). Every turn a city can start new construction I always check every potential building for their potential economic improvement. Mines regardless are always great investments.

[JohnDoe5x5]

I didn't see anywhere mentioned.. did you build Merchant's Wharf and it's upgrades on coastal cities ? Because that's where the bulk of income comes from. It's a different building from the port.

Every turn a city can start new construction I always check every potential building for their potential economic improvement. Mines regardless are always great investments.

I know the game tries to simulate the effects of the buildings you can build when putting them in the queue, but I found out that they are often not accurate.

For example, in Rome Total War, all were accurate on the extra income, except the markets (who were showing much lower extra income than they really gave).

In M2TW and SS, it seems that more are not showing the proper income, especially ports, wharfs, markets, who will give you much more after actually built.. I guess the game e.g. doesn't calculate the best sea route for trade only after building them.. ? I noticed this happening when I had at least 10 cities.

And I actually was building a Fairground (Market) and it said something like +70 in the simulation, and after building it, it gave +200 (from 500 the trade jumped to 700) ?? This is my only observed proof until now.

So don't underestimate buildings by always trusting the 'simulation'. It's accurate for farms and mines (althought mines will give you always more income than said in the description and the simulation is also accurate).

I'm using SS6.2.4, some skins and Crimson Tide.

P.S.: If Merchant's Wharf don't apply to SS6.1, my bad.

[sabaku_no_gaara]

You should start by building farms first, and upgrading them when you can, trade next, farming brings in heaps of cash often as much as trade in my games and initially more

[johlos]

thanks for the help, i guess i have to start over and crush the danes

[Mega Tortas de Bodemloze]

Ite...Let us know how it goes... Here's a friend of mine I'll loan you to give you a hand....


When your done with him just give him a pink slip and send him back to the Warhammer forum...

[sabaku_no_gaara]

What in godsname is that ugly cretin

[Mega Tortas de Bodemloze]

A very pissed off orc. Click my sig for further details...

OT: Sorry you've decided to trash your campaign, but perhaps it's for the best. W/o Aarhus & Hamburg any Norwegian venture is pretty much dog meat from the word go....Let us know how you make out. Pics would be great..if..ya can. Please tell me if any of my suggestions are erroneous so I can make the proper adjustments...

[JorisofHolland]

Well, that's pretty much everything. If you start over, there are two, no three, options.
1) Fight the Danes, as explained above
2) Fight the English/Scots/Irish (though I recommend England, it's lands are rich and Nothingham is a castle, take it first)
2) Take Gronignen and Flanders from the rebels and build up from there.

[Ichon]

Norway does have a bit of rougher start than some factions but it isn't as poor as a few others either. Aarhus is initially the richest city close by but you can also go into the lowlands/Antwerp etc and have decent income or go after England/Scotland which for me I find the most fun route.

Farms then mines make the most sense as it takes awhile for trade to build up and pay off whereas both farms and mines will pay good income all game regardless of situation and farms also increase growth of your regions so they reach higher level and more taxes quickly.

I can't believe no one mentioned merchant either... grain exchange should be the 3rd building or port/merchant wharf depending on what is built already.

Even low Merchants can bring in an extra +1,000 per turn relatively quickly for Norway as there are trade resources they lack relatively close by so merchants don't have to travel forever to reach them.

After those are built running lean(minimum troops builds, just use what you start with). By turn 10 you should be making a little money and can either make a bigger army and go on a rampage or focus on trade buildings and turtle for another 10-15 turns. Norway needs to get at least 6 regions initially to afford decent turtle and trade but that is easy to accomplish with starting army. Only annoyances I've had with Norway is England or Scotland and Danemark deciding to start a war early when I went to trade building rather than military route. Attacked from both sides and having to spend on military while a couple regions lose income due to siege is painful but not impossible to deal with.

Norway can afford relatively inexperienced merchants early because of the location of trade goods they can reach is far from most factions that by the time other merchants arrive Norway merchants will be leveled up a couple times enough to be defensively strong vs competitor merchants.

[JorisofHolland]

How could we forget about merchants?

[JohnDoe5x5]

How could we forget about merchants?

Oh no ! I feel so ashamed by the defeat..


(goes to hara-kiri his ass)

[cuo]

In my last norse campaign I conquered all settlements around the baltic sea. I always had about 4 fullstacks (to fight the HRE, Poland, Lithuania, Novgorod, Kiev) and still had a 5k income per round without construcion costs.
=> Conquer the baltics.

Edit: 6.2 RR/RC comp., vh/vh

[johlos]

i started over it was too late for me anyways, i didnt have money to start a war and conquer anything.

in my new game i took arhus very early and have almost crushed the danes allready seems that the problem was that i allied with denmark, now i have very good inncome

[JorisofHolland]

Taking Aarhus is probably the best choice, although there are many other ways to make money and have a fun campaign. Good luck with those Danes and the Pope!