Building Your Economy

[Velico]

I'm just curious how people are going about building their economy. I've been building the tax bonus buildings that take the least amount of time, then buildings that give trade increase, and finally, if the city happiness is above 150% I do the tax building.

I try to avoid the infrastructure buildings unless I need the happiness. If I'm not at war I try to keep between 75k-100k for building and in case I go to war I can levy a couple stacks quickly.

So, how are you guys strategizing your economy?

[Massive_attack]

What i do is this, and bear in mind: im a turtle, and this is a horrible idea for players who want to expand:

1: Conquering stage, get into a good defensive position, most money goes to armies, etc. Attain regional dominance.
2: Fortify borders at special choke points and concentrate military there, disband armies as needed in the provinces with lowest population growth (or where recruitment was heaviest).
3: Build population boosting initiatives, make them the maximum level that you can.
4: Once 3 is done, invest in "tax bonus" buildings, such as organizing caravans, better agriculture, mining, tax initiatives (where the population likes you), and so on. Be sure to invest in the law and certain temple paths as well, your going to want to get your "base temple" to be as large as possible for the inherent happiness boon.
5: Once you have several large or huge cities, the population can be (carefully !) taxed. 40,000 taxpayers, with high taxes, and a very "pro tax bonus" focus can cultivate thousands per turn from just a single city. What follows is very dicey. More and more settlements will hit huge city, and building palaces will wound your economy, so at this point the population growers in cities you no longer have intrest in may be replaced with the population decrease line.

Step 5 is the most important of all. If you make a few bad calls, you can have ALOT of angry civilians, and a populace unwilling to undergo those high taxes. I reccomend staffing rebellions cities with large quantities of weak low upkeep units for the garrison law boost and invest more in happiness/law generating chains.

However, if you pull step 5 off right, you can have enough money on your hands to undergo a whole new phase of expansion, in which case, you rinse... and repeat, as needed.

The trouble with my strategy is that in this mod wars are common, and nigh impossible to stop. Think carefully who you want your enemies to be when you go down this road, and always keep some cash in your back pocket if things suddenly go to hell, and dont worry, they usually do.

Thats what im undergoing right now. Im at step 5, new expansion phase-ing into Libya, but i have barbarians at the the gates in the north. Exciting times ! If my legions hold north, Carthage's empire will crumble ! MWAHAHAHAHAHA !

...sorry about that.

[Tankbuster]

It's tough. There's no strategy that works every single time, but on the whole, building tax building first and keeping happiness at decent levels while you do it is a good rule of thumb.

My only problem is that just about every governor in my empire has the "Economic Depression" trait, even though I'm making a decent amount of money every turn. Does anybody know how to get rid of that trait (i.e. "cure it")?

[tone]

Thats what im undergoing right now. Im at step 5, new expansion phase-ing into Libya, but i have barbarians at the the gates in the north. Exciting times ! If my legions hold north, Carthage's empire will crumble ! MWAHAHAHAHAHA !

.....errr, have I missed seeing your beta test report on the Romans somewhere? If there isn't one, it'd be really extremely helpful indeed if you could bless us as development team with the fruits of your experience.

[dvk901]

The 'Economic Depression' trait is gained by all Governors if the people, the Senate and the troops all hate your faction leader\Emperor, (or faction leader, for all other factions). The solution is to get rid of your faction leader, who is likely a jerk.