How to maintain a positive income?

[Favre]

Hello, for some reason - Whenever i conquer a city it usually makes about 2000 Denarii per turn, but this only lasts for about 5 turns. Every turn after that it goes down by like 200 Denarii per turn until im in the negatives and then it stops.

How can i keep my cities making 1,000+ denarii per turn?


Note: Im in the Italian states, so my income should be way high because im on the coast all along, and i have all the moeny making buildings built

[invictus]

As the city's population rises, more money is earned, but also while it rises, it also pays for more of the military. So it might be due to its overpopulating other cities or your building more and more troops thus every city pays more. -Leon

[Hader]

usually when you recruit soldiers in the town it depletes income, but recruitment in other cities also affects the income. Plus, you need to build structures that help your economy. If you want a better explanation from me, than tell me what you have done with that town.

oh, yeah, check to see if rebels blockaded your port. what happens to me is the rebels block my port and I just don't notice it. doubt this is the problem with yours though.

[Favre]

First off, Im not playing with any cheats and im using Terrae_Expugnandae.

I have built all the moneymaking buildings already and then moved onto things for troops. Everything in near all of my cities is already built. I have not reached the next tier for any of my cities yet. Roma is at like 11,000 and the other are roughly 4,000.


I have probably 2 full army stacks, maybe 2 and a half

[Hader]

sometimes you have poor harvests which can tweak you income, or you just have a ton of rebels on your land. enemy armies devestate the land. plus the difficulty you set for the campaign will affect income. Other than that, the only other explanation I can think of is that you have a really crappy town.

[Favre]

Yeah i think i figured it out. I for some reason thought i ALWAYS needed like 10 full stacks... So I stopped recruiting in all my provinces that arent frontier, so far its workin well. Got roughly 30,000 Denarii built up from the last 2 turns

[Septimius Severus]

Another solution to keeping the city incomes above 1,000: You should rapidly conquer cities that are nearby each other, and it is easy if you have two stacks:

• One with the army you plan to use for conquering.
• One with units of high numbers (peasants, for example) that will act as a garrison for the city.

If you do this you can conquer many cities in under 5 years, and this also lessens the problem of squalor in some of your cities. (That is, if you use your most populated cities to recruit units) But you should also expect some cities to go below 0 on their scrolls, especially the biggest ones, if you plan to raise multiple stacks.

[Favre]

Indeed, At the moment im kind of stuck with low grade troops. Im trying to get to 24,000 Population to get an Imperial palace.... But Roma jsut got to 12,000 so i can build Triarii....


And since the beginning it has been my policy to execute all who stand in the way of Romes glory. So whenever i beat an opponent i make sure to kill all of them as they rout and exterminate city populace when i conquer them. Think i should change my policy for the good of my economy? :O

[Septimius Severus]

And since the beginning it has been my policy to execute all who stand in the way of Romes glory. So whenever i beat an opponent i make sure to kill all of them as they rout and exterminate city populace when i conquer them. Think i should change my policy for the good of my economy? :O

Well, that depends on the population of the city. If it has over 20,000 it would be a good idea to exterminate or enslave, as the city has a good chance of revolting. If it has between 10,000 & 20,000 I think that enslaving would be a better choice, and if the city has less than 10,000 people there shouldn't be too much of a problem, so you can just occupy the settlement. Also, be aware of the fact that although you get quick money from extermination, occupying a city will help your income because you add more taxpayers. (Though the population can easily grow back; it's your choice, really )

[Favre]

I think I'll enslave them! That must be worse than dieing quickly! Rawr!

[NobleNick]

Hello, for some reason - Whenever i conquer a city it usually makes about 2000 Denarii per turn, but this only lasts for about 5 turns. Every turn after that it goes down by like 200 Denarii per turn until im in the negatives and then it stops.

How can i keep my cities making 1,000+ denarii per turn?


Note: Im in the Italian states, so my income should be way high because im on the coast all along, and i have all the moeny making buildings built

If it is only this town, you probably only have a problem with economics in that town, or else that town's population is very large. You see, the town's final "income" number that you see on the campaign map includes the army "burden." (I have purposefully not called this a "tax" because it is -NOT- the same as the tax rate you set in the town's construction window. Remember, taxes are good, burden is bad) This burden is doled out to each town in proportion to that town's percentage of your empire's total population. Was that clear? Maybe not. Here is an example. The numbers are made up, but the concept they illustrate is not....

Example: Say you have 10 cities, each with a population of 12K, and each town nets 4000 denarii in taxes/farm/trade/mines/corruption/etc but before taking into acount the military "burden". You also have one city with a population of 30K that brings in 5000 denarii before burden. That is a total population of 150K, bringing in 45K denarii. Now, lets say that your army upkeep is 40K. Your largest town's share of this is 40K * (30K/150K) = 40K / 5 = 8K. So your campaign map will show this town's income as 5k - 8K = -3000 denarii. Each of the other town's will show 4k - 3.2K = 0.8K = +800 denarii. So your largest city looks like a loser, when in reality, it is contributing more to your treasury than any of your other cities!

It sounds like what you were doing was building troops hand-over-fist, which would increase the military burden in ALL your towns.

Things you can do in general to improve economy: Build and upgrade roads, ports and markets. Build/upgrade temples and take other actions (which I won't detail here), so that you can reduce the need for standing armies in your towns. Disband or use up excess military power. (I always find that my treasury rockets up just after I have suffered devastating losses in a military conflict.) Capture more towns (spreads the military burden over more towns). Capture the Greek wonder (I *think* it is at Rhodes) that increases sea trade by 40%. Capture the Greek wonder that gives happiness bonus to all your settlements (I *think* it is at Sparta; if not then it's Corinth). This, again, reduces the need for standing troops. Hey, while you are at it, just capture every Greek city there is: They all have gold oozing out of every pore.

Hope that helps.

[Favre]

Yay! I'll work on that next. Thank you for that explanation, that really helped me out alot because i really didn't understand the economy that well. The only problem now is im getting a problem w/ Carthage's elephants and Ctd's.

Im gonna send diplomats to try and bribe that city. Atm my treasury is at 30,000. :")