How to make money?

[Ledus]

How do you make money as it seems that its really hard to even get trade agreements...

Im playing as Georgia

[Berkut]

You have to expand very quickly into the rebel settlements at the beginning of the game, I'd even go as far as rather than build anything in the first 10 turns instead just train as much forces as you can while you still have any money left, so that you can capture more lands faster, or you could potentially disband most of your forces to cut expenses, and slowly expand but this will screw you later in the game as you will get squished between kypchaks, great seljuks and rum seljuks

[damnfap]

Expand ruthlessly there is NO TIME for lengthy sieges... make them sally by laying siege with a small force of cavalry and then crush them with superior tactics (cavalry charge does massive damage/horse archer them). Seljuks will not attack you so feel free to take all the rebel lands bordering them. Also get trade rights and alliance with romans at the start. Basically there are alot of rebel settlements devour them (Majar in the north is particularly wealthy once roads are developed and the nearby rebel provinces are conquered - get an alliance with kypchaks by trading them a crappy settlement)

[Iguanaonastick]

Also, make sure to keep a high reputation by not sacking any of the rebel cities you seize.

This will enable you to get trade agreements, and after a you occupy a few cities peacefully factions will start accepting your alliances which will boost your reputation even further. This will then result in far fewer attacks on you, for an overall much easier strategic game.

To illustrate: In my first Roman game on medium campaign difficulty I did not know about sacking and reputation, and after attacking the Turks I got piled on by Armenia, Georgia and the Great Seljuks.

In my second Roman game on hard campaign difficulty I had firm alliances with both Georgia and Armenia and the Seljuks left me alone. Only the Abbuyids attacked me, and I wanted to fight them anyway.

On very hard campaign difficulty the AI is much more aggressive. I stick with hard difficulty as this feels more realistic.

[The Noble Lord]

Also, make sure to keep a high reputation by not sacking any of the rebel cities you seize. This will enable you to get trade agreements,

For some reason in my games it doesn't matter if you do not sack rebel settlements, you will still not get many trade agreements, in the beginning you get none at all. So I started sacking rebel settlements with exemplary mercilessness and after a while the other factions were coming to me for trade agreements. But I have to admit it is very hard and frustrating and some factions are just to introverted or something, they just don't want to open up to foreign trade!

[Berkut]

Expand ruthlessly there is NO TIME for lengthy sieges... make them sally by laying siege with a small force of cavalry and then crush them with superior tactics (cavalry charge does massive damage/horse archer them). Seljuks will not attack you so feel free to take all the rebel lands bordering them. Also get trade rights and alliance with romans at the start. Basically there are alot of rebel settlements devour them (Majar in the north is particularly wealthy once roads are developed and the nearby rebel provinces are conquered - get an alliance with kypchaks by trading them a crappy settlement)

During my Georgian game I was attacked almost at the same time by first Seljuks then Turks and then Kypchaks

[Ledus]

Expand ruthlessly there is NO TIME for lengthy sieges... make them sally by laying siege with a small force of cavalry and then crush them with superior tactics (cavalry charge does massive damage/horse archer them). Seljuks will not attack you so feel free to take all the rebel lands bordering them. Also get trade rights and alliance with romans at the start. Basically there are alot of rebel settlements devour them (Majar in the north is particularly wealthy once roads are developed and the nearby rebel provinces are conquered - get an alliance with kypchaks by trading them a crappy settlement)

Im doing that right now but wondering how im going to get in...

------------------------------------------------------------------
Nvm after killing their main army with my cav i camped at their gates and waited for them to come out then i rushed inside....

Funny how their last troop was their general, i got a heroic victory, (enemies killed 370(109), lost 35)

I then got a mission to attack yevrun(?) although its crappy, in return i'd get 4 units of missile cav ;D

Well i lost 186 troops at yevrun so thats bad but i didnt know what to do when facing enemy cav and it took me some time to figure out a way to deal with them killed all their troops.

then i attacked devin(?) and this is where i worked out a new strategy

I would send a troop of spear men or in this battle it was swordsman to hold the enemy troops while i go around them with my cav and kill them from the back like a true hero.

and if they would try to do the same, my missile cav would shoot at them (had about 4 units of them) in the end i lost 38 troops and killed 314(21) another heroic victory

[Nephilim]

at first you must divide all your forces in two part leaving only one unit per settlement and send them to different cities and rise taxes as high as possible. most of players prefer disbanding monaspa lancers but in my opinion it's mistake, especially when you know how to play with heavy cavalry, with them you can destroy tones of units charging in back. if you manage to take settlements in second turn after siege or making them to sally out, after 3-4 turn you will have pretty good income. send diplomat to romans, make alliance with them and then to kypchaks. not so hard i think.