how to actually make money?

[need help]

I am playing as Sparta on Hard map, and hard battle difficulty. I wanted to not use cheats this time, and while i was conquering Greece I had no issues with money, so i never had to use the money cheat. But now as I am conquering the romans, and find that i am making only 3k denari per turn, which is not nearly enough. I have built many economic buildings in my settlement, but i just can't seem to make enough money anymore... how should my set up be so that i can actually make money?

[Caligula Caesar]

Without further details, it is hard to help you, but if you have not done so, I suggest putting taxes as high as they can go, at least so long as settlements are still growing. It's all very well putting taxes down so you have a healthy growth rate, but you really need the money.

Edit: Another thing to consider, if you want to go on a serious campaign, is putting all construction on a hold, or cutting it down to the bare essentials.

[need help]

what do you mean by putting all construction on hold? When i took over all of Greece I was making a solid 70k denarii per turn, but it seems as I my empire expands even more, I no longer make money. For example I know that army upkeep should be split amongst population, but many of the cities that I take such as Rome, Capua, Gruguentum are already losing money as soon as I take them, even when I exterminate the population. It also seems that when acquiring new cities, it takes off no tax burden off of any of my other cities. So it seems that by conquering many of the Roman cities, I am just adding more debt. This has gotten to the point where I need to use the money cheat, else I go into negative debt. I really would love to play without cheats and was able to untli recently where I have basically just stopped making any money. Btw, mostly all of my cities are on very high tax

[Rameth]

You might have run into the large empire tax. It makes it hard to sustain money in the later part of the game when your empire is bigger Also you shouldn't have more then 2, maybe 3, full stacks of units on the map. Probably one to defend the Greek mainland and the other one/two attacking Rome or whoever.

[Muizer]

It is true that expanding your empire reduces the tax and trade efficiency. You have to offset that by developing the settlements you own. If you expand too fast, you may find yourself in a position where you are spending all your money on maintenance, with nothing left to develop settlements. At that point you have over-extended yourself. You will have to disband armies to free up money for building programmes and hope you won't lose any ground because of it.

[need help]

The problem is i have like 8 stacks of full armies but i am enemies with the getaes to the north, illyrians to the northwest, and the romans to the west, and then the carthaginians on sicily. Am i simply playing too unrealistically and fighting on too many fronts? If i disbanded any of my stacks than i leave greece open to attack.when u play, how many fronts do u normally fight on or how many enemies do u have at once?Also the getaes seem to have an unlimited supply of armies and just keep attacking relentlessly on some of my occupied settlements. I wouldnt b able to handle them with jusy one stack on defense.

[Iguanaonastick]

That seems the answer then. Fight on fewer fronts. Pull back a few of your armies to deal with one or two of your enemies and then come back to deal with the others. Or find ways to fight defensive wars with fewer troops.

You do not -need- full-stacks to beat the AI. 2/3rds of a stack will do handsomely. Half-stacks might do. Or make sure to use few expensive elites and cavalry units, if you can avoid it. The AI is bad at assembling strong armies, so if you put your best against them it's usually overkill.

Or raid the enemy. You need a lot of manpower to subdue and conquer a different-culture area, but if you have a good siege-assault stack (And Spartans are very good in sieges, I find) you can take a bunch of lightly defended settlements, exterminate the population, destroy every building and then let them revolt or be recaptured while moving on to the next. I haven't tried this yet in RTR VII, but it -should- slow the AI down even if they do usually get a stack of revolting troops. (Citizen levy,mostly.) If nothing else it'll give you a lot of extra cash to invest in buildings.

[MasterOfThessus]

AS the others have said, you've hit the Large Empire Tax. It is desing to prevent you from steamrolling in the later parts of the game, and it forces you to hold your expansion and invest in your cities. The more you conquer the harder it will get to make money, try to get some trade agreements, they can be very lucrative