Economy tips?

I'm currently having trouble with the Campaigns of the Coalition (as Great Britain), and every time I play it, I go bankrupt after a 30-50 turns. I know that I require research to lower upkeep and upgrading farms and mines to increase income, and I realize the need to take the trade ports around the area with merchant ships, but usually due to the immense need for a navy to defend them, they just add to my upkeep. All of my taxes are auto managed, btw.

What am I doing wrong? If I need to provide more details, just let me know.
I'm guessing that one of my problems is military upkeep, which is hard for me to keep down because of the need for the navy to suppress the French navy and escort trade ships, and also the need for the army to support the foothold on Spain.

Be patient. Don't go to fast. Stay in Britain with your army until you really developped your economy. You have plenty of ports, develop them, develop trade. The French navy is not too dangerous, you should be able to raid their ports relatively easily and damage it to prevent them from building a navy.
Avoid building a large army of the most expensive ships if you don't really need it.

Originally Posted by Aqpwod

I'm currently having trouble with the Campaigns of the Coalition (as Great Britain), and every time I play it, I go bankrupt after a 30-50 turns. I know that I require research to lower upkeep and upgrading farms and mines to increase income, and I realize the need to take the trade ports around the area with merchant ships, but usually due to the immense need for a navy to defend them, they just add to my upkeep. All of my taxes are auto managed, btw.

What am I doing wrong? If I need to provide more details, just let me know.
I'm guessing that one of my problems is military upkeep, which is hard for me to keep down because of the need for the navy to suppress the French navy and escort trade ships, and also the need for the army to support the foothold on Spain.

I'm also playing as the United Kingdom. Going bankrupt is inevitable. A large deal of your money comes from the trading port in England. If the trade route is cut, or the port itself is captured you'll lost potential money. Continue using research to unlock advancements which will benefit your faction.

As Britain, focus most of your income on ships and building upgrades. You may need to sacrifice Gibraltar until later. Don't worry about Spain. Then, try liberating northern France to create Belgium, Brittany and Holland. They should add to your trade route, and with the Batavian republic gone you'll have one less nation to worry about. With Normandy, simply destroy their port time to time so they won't build ships there. When building ships, remember quality over quantity.

You can use your army to harass French shores, but Austria and Prussia are responsible for dealing with them, just cut off their trade routes and blockade ports with their navy while eliminating any other allies they have (excluding Spain, until later)

Also, check your ministers. i once went bankrupt because my army and navy ministers went down to 1-2 stars.

Originally Posted by SeizeVictus

Then, try liberating northern France to create Belgium, Brittany and Holland. They should add to your trade route, and with the Batavian republic gone you'll have one less nation to worry about.

Thanks for the helpful replies. I'm just wondering what the economic benefits are of liberating the regions rather than occupying them? To tell the truth I actually sometimes loot them for a quick buck.

Occupying a region will make that territory completely subjective to you. Meaning, you have to take full

control of what happens in it. If you liberate them, you'll still get a portion of the money you could gain if you occupy them each turn, but you won't have to worry about adding garrisons to the region capitals. Liberating regions make them Self-Sufficient and Semi-Autonomous.

They'll have their own government, and military that you won't control nor fund. They may trade with France, but France will eventually try to regain its lost territory, leading to the french having to fight on multiple fronts .

Liberated country won't revolt, you don't need to maintain order and keep troops there. Since they will defended themselves (perhaps not very well, but it's another mater), then you can keep a relatively small and less expensive army, focused on the key point.
Land an invasion force by sea where France doesn't have a strong army nearby, and then attack. Loot Normandy, Aquitaine, Champagne, or even Paris if you can
Liberate Britanny, Belgium, Netherlands... Or Oldenburg and Hannover.
You can also try to harass the Danes to deny France and ally and trading partner.
Since you can really have a big army, your role is to control the sea and the trade, to keep a small efficient army, harass France.
If you land army near Paris and France has to rush an army there from Germany to protect Paris, you can hope to go back to your ships and safety. And the French army won't be there to help against Austria Russia or Prussia.
Once you have developped your economy, you'll be able to have enough ships to control all the trade nodes. You can also try to capture ennemy ships. It will cost you on upkeep, but you will get a biger navy for low cost, and invest the money in upgrading ports instead of building ships.
The ennmy will have difficulty creating large fleet, you can usually get them "one by one" with low investment in new ships.

France can try to steamroll to quickly beat Austria, or Prussia or even Russia. Britain needs patience, and to use the fleet to attack any weak spot of France.

I played GB on VH/VH. Lasted a good while before the Spanish sunk an entire army stack because I was stupid and only trasnported them in one frigate. Then I "rage quit", but by the next day I back was playing as France .

For every faction, trade is usually a substantial part of their income. If you cut of a nations trade, they're pretty much screwed.

GB is in a unique position, because it has no land routes. A single ship blockading any one of the ports in the London region will you up and make your trade income go to zero. GB also doesn't have alot of regions and can't make that much in tax revenue, compared to what it can it trade. So you don't have much choice except to go with a strategy of heavy trade and strong navy.

So you need to protect those ports. Conveniently you have the best navy in the game. This will be sufficient for a while (maybe half the year), but you really need to upgrade it, especially with those expensive ships of the line - frigates alone are not going to cut it. You will need to upgrade your docks to get the ships of the line.

Also build a few more trade ships (merchantmen, indiamen), and send them to the trade points in the North Atlantic. You won't need more than a few... past a certain point supply will outstrip demand you can't sell the excess goods anyway. Check the trade log to see how much of a certain good you are able to sell.

The upkeep on the navy will limit the size of your army. But since you have such a powerful navy, which is protecting your coastline, you won't need much of a garrison anyway. Try to forge an aliance with Prussia and use your small army to defend the Prussians when they get a attacked. This also protects your trade with them ... if Berlin is taken you can no longer trade with them. Its also much easier and quicker to evacuate this force should disaster strike. Worst case, you can evacuate them to Russia (assuming you are allled with them), or even Austria.

I wouldn't recommend making a play for the Mediterrean early. I don't know if it was a coincidence, but last time the second I tried to build something in Gibraltar, the Spanish attacked it. I retook it, but it sort of forced me into an Mediterrean strategy too early that became my undoing.

Once you can afford enough of navy, feel free to roam abroad. The Western Mediterrean trade points are more lucrative than the ones in the North Atlantic, so you might want to go that way and before tackling mainland France.

Thanks for all the advice. I'll try it next time I get a chance to play NTW.

I 'am going well in my UK campaign and get almost 10k each turn, because ....
1st. Build Tradeships to trade note places
2nd. Incase if France starting blocking your harbors and economy, build 1 strong fleet who can deal those french fleets.
3rd. France navy is not strong in begin, so you can raid their harbors, before they do it for you. Also raid Republic Netherland!
4th. Republic Netherland (the france allies) have couples tradeships and some small brigs and sloops near your island in trade post, destroy them on your strong fleets (on your 5-6 big warships) and capture those tradeships for yourself.
5th. Improve your markets
6th Make trade agreements, if you can.

Hopefully this help you.

build trade ships in scotland, go for cotton/tobacco first... harrass the crap out of neatherlands... swap the commercial areas in london for banking houses... swap dublin from tax office to opera house and keep it like that for 30-90 turns to generate high wealth, then switch it to tax office...avoid upgrading iron in scotland/london...

Originally Posted by Data78

build trade ships in scotland, go for cotton/tobacco first... harrass the crap out of neatherlands... swap the commercial areas in london for banking houses... swap dublin from tax office to opera house and keep it like that for 30-90 turns to generate high wealth, then switch it to tax office...avoid upgrading iron in scotland/london...

Why do you want to avoid doing this? Do you think the benefit is not worth the cost?

I play GB on VH/VH and can usually win the long campaign victory conditions in around 30 turns. Money shouldn't be hard to come by, sink the French and Spanish fleets and use every port to constantly build merchant ships and send them to the north Atlantic trading points (don't really bother with buildings if it means you won't be able to afford merchant ships), once you have successful destroyed all enemy navies (excluding the Dutch navy) it should be quite easy to take almost every trade point in the Atlantic. Your first invasion should be against the Dutch, when you take Amsterdam you will destroy the Dutch navy meaning you won't have to fight them. Then take Brussels and Picardie while your second invasion lands at Rennes, after taking Rennes take Caen then march this army south to Take Bordeaux and Toulouse. Now simply invade Paris, sack the city, destroy every building and all farms/colleges/etc and leave the city, repeat a couple of times until your are able to conquer the city without fear of revolt. France should then be relatively easy to eat from the inside out and you can mount a naval invasion of Denmark at your leisure.

EDIT: The blue research (National debt and Census tables I believe) are very useful for generating income.

Do the amount of trade ships on trade ports stack income? Or is one trade ship on each enough?
Do I need to concentrate on the African and Spanish ports or just the West Atlantic ones?

Originally Posted by Aqpwod

Do the amount of trade ships on trade ports stack income? Or is one trade ship on each enough?
Do I need to concentrate on the African and Spanish ports or just the West Atlantic ones?

They do stack, the more trade ships the more income. You want to go after as many trading ports as you can. Look in the trade part of your government tab to see which trading resources are worth most and therefore which routes you should put most of your ships on. Early on just try to get one ship on as many trading routes as you can.

Originally Posted by In3x

They do stack, the more trade ships the more income.

Is this always true? I have noticed that if I'm bringing in, say, 54 pounds of coffee, I may not sell all that 54 pounds. When you look at the trade status window, it give you a breakdown of what you are selling to whom. Sometimes, adding up all sales is less than what you supply. I don't think its a rounding issue, but will double check.

You want to go after as many trading ports as you can. Look in the trade part of your government tab to see which trading resources are worth most and therefore which routes you should put most of your ships on. Early on just try to get one ship on as many trading routes as you can.

Yes, because once you are on a trade point, no one else can use it unless they're at war with you and they destroy your trade fleet. Also, the amount of supply you get decreases with each trade ship(it starts out at 20, then goes down to 17 with the next ship, then to 17 with the second and third ship, then 16 with the fourth ship. So it makes sense to diversify.

On the other hand, if you at war with a nation with a powerful navy, they can easily destroy your trade fleets if your not careful, especially if they are just merchantmen. In that case you may wish to have a few larger fleets.

Originally Posted by JC Denton

Is this always true? I have noticed that if I'm bringing in, say, 54 pounds of coffee, I may not sell all that 54 pounds. When you look at the trade status window, it give you a breakdown of what you are selling to whom. Sometimes, adding up all sales is less than what you supply. I don't think its a rounding issue, but will double check.



Yes, because once you are on a trade point, no one else can use it unless they're at war with you and they destroy your trade fleet. Also, the amount of supply you get decreases with each trade ship(it starts out at 20, then goes down to 17 with the next ship, then to 17 with the second and third ship, then 16 with the fourth ship. So it makes sense to diversify.

On the other hand, if you at war with a nation with a powerful navy, they can easily destroy your trade fleets if your not careful, especially if they are just merchantmen. In that case you may wish to have a few larger fleets.

If you are the UK, and you hold most of the trading ports and have trading agreements with most nations, it seems at least that most of your product does get sold. I am unsure if some trade is lost due to corruption or something similar, perhaps your trading routes were being raided? I honestly haven't played the game in a few months, but pretty early on I found that merchantmen ships gave far greater and faster returns than most other economic activity in the game so I generally tried to keep most of my ports as trading ports and made sure I was always producing merchantmen. Along with regular conquest I never had any money issues.

Regarding everything else you have said I believe you are spot on.

There are a couple of things that need to be taken into account with generating trade income using the trade nodes:

Firstly, simply having ships on the trade nodes doesn't actually create any income by itself. Looking at the "value" of the trade routes can be misleading since it shows a value against the route(s) from the trade node(s) to your home port(s). However, you have to have trade agreements with other nations before any income is generated, i.e. you have to sell the goods being imported. So in turn 1, try to get as many trade agreements with allied and neutral nations as you can.

Second is that stacking ships on trade nodes operates on a system of diminishing returns. The price of goods on the market (their value shown in the trade tab) is a function of supply and demand. If you put a dozen ships onto the same trade node (or even two nodes of the same product), the value of the product will fall unless there is an equivalent foreign demand for that product. Also each ship has an operating cost, if the value of the product is depressed enough, then adding extra ships will simply make a loss (where the additional trade income is less than the operating cost of the ship).

Originally Posted by meme_engine

However, you have to have trade agreements with other nations before any income is generated, i.e. you have to sell the goods being imported. So in turn 1, try to get as many trade agreements with allied and neutral nations as you can.

I have to sell the goods? So essentially that means opening trade agreements with other nations?
Sorry if I sound ignorant. I'm pretty new to NTW.

Originally Posted by Aqpwod

I have to sell the goods? So essentially that means opening trade agreements with other nations?

Yes, simply having your ships on the trade nodes doesn't, in itself, generate any income. They are simply a way of bring goods to your home country. In order to make money from those goods, you need to have trade agreements with other nations. The larger and more developed the nation, the more trade you can do with them. There are also bonuses for long term trade agreements.

You don't have to have trade partners to gain money from trade nodes, but it will be much more if you do.

Every ship beyond the first bring 75% goods of what the previous ship does; so you get 100% for the first, 75% for the second, ~66% for the third and so on (not sure about the exact number, but it is a percentage). More goods on the market also influence the selling price though.