What is wrong with eriador?

[DrwHem]

im on turn 80 of my eriador game. i have all the required lands except hoarwell and tharbad. I managed to somehow pay for an army of 3 merchant cav, a ballista, 3 hunters, axemen, and 4 spear militia.
I finally stabilized my borders and, lacking the money to reinforce my army, am just sitting around trying to build up a treasury. my profit per turn, with no construction que, was around 500 per turn.
BAM i build 2 pallisades in barrow downs and athilen and train ONE spearmen and now im netting -1200 a turn and am now into -5000.
WTF last time i checked when towns grew bigger they made more money, also 1 spearmen does not cost 1200. before the screw up all my towns were at 1% growth. even after jacking up all the taxes to stangante growth im still short money. therefore i cant re-enforce my men and cant take more land so its a loss out of some math error in the god damn script.

[FC Groningen]

How many troops do you have in your towns? How many generals? Generals especially can quickly suck you dry if you adopt too many and people start to come of age too. Also, you can only get free upkeep in settlements if the units you have inside can be recruited there too. Apart from that, it's a matter of quick expansion for Eriador as if you don't, your enemies will grow very strong for you.

[Galain_Ironhide]

Could be a number of things. However sounds like you are having issues with your current economic strategy.

Are any of your settlements auto-building / auto recruiting?

are you retraining other units? (ie upkeep will go up)

have you moved any free upkeep units out of settlements? Maybe even moved Generals out of cities?

any tributes to other factions?

This list could go on and on. However it will not boil down to one unit of spears being created.

[FC Groningen]

Yeah, poor harvests or something can easily fluctuate your income each turn as well. Best thing you can do is check the graphs and check for "production" and see the total number of upkeep in the "end turn report".

[DrwHem]

i never use auto manage or auto recruit. i dont have the money to retrain any troops so they have been the same number as before. i did get like 4 generals coming of age but havnt let any generals in optionally. how much do generals cost? it would be sad if 4 generals could break my entire economy since you cant really do anything about that.
and i think ive expanded pretty aggressively for eriador, considering all you can muster are some sub par militias. i actually over-extended a bit and cant train troops on a few of my border towns yet cause i lack the money to build barracks.

[FC Groningen]

Well, I could continue to ask, but maybe it will be faster if you would upload your save here so we can take a look. Would you mind? also, I assume/hope you haven't installed any submods?

edit: Because of some limitations of the site, you have to compress your save game in a rar file to upload it here.

[DrwHem]

where do i go to upload my save?

[FC Groningen]

Here. If you post here and use the "go advanced" button, there is a paper clip icon somewhere on top in which you can upload attachments. Again, the file has to be in rar. form.

[DrwHem]

hope this one works http://www.fileswap.com/dl/plBqnh3ZGy/

[FC Groningen]

I took a look. As I somehow expected, these were the problems:

- You got way too many generals. I know it can't be avoided to some point without actively trying to kill them off, but you have a lot of them, sitting around doing nothing. Generals alone cost you 250 + their bodyguard upkeep. Try to kill some of them off or at the least have them do something. Eriador's bodyguard units are very strong against most stuff the Orc factions can send against you.

- You got way too many troops too. Eriador doesn't have such an economy that it would be able to financially support several stacks. You also have a lot of troops sitting in settlements doing nothing (so far) and very little "free upkeep", compared to the total amount of units. I would recommend you to disband all units that you won't plan on using soon and the ones furthest to the west as you won't need them there, unless you plan a war against the Dwarves or Elves.

- A lot of your governors have "bad" traits, which cause income penalties. In the guides section of this forum you can find general tips on how to "grow" good governors.

[Macilrille]

Very helpful advice there, GJ. I will add that TATW is like no other TW game. It is designed to be harder. Hence even experienced TW players often get a nasty surprise until they adapt. Read all the advice on strategies and economic play that you can get your hands on in the guides section and forum, they will help you a lot. One thing, never- ever run taxes Very High except when finishing a building, it will give the governors bad traits, except in the latter case where it can give good.

Have fun, Eriador is en easy and fun faction to play. The downside is that once you can form Arnor, you have already beaten the local enemies, so all the shiny new units are not going to see action until you come to Gondor's aid. Which is somehow fitting though.

[ppetrus]

Killing generals is not that necessary. You can send them to forts for free upkeep (1 fort = 2 free generals). There should be 2 forts in the north iirc.

[DrDragun]

Killing generals is not that necessary. You can send them to forts for free upkeep (1 fort = 2 free generals). There should be 2 forts in the north iirc.

Just when I think I am done learning the rules of this game...


So generals are free upkeep in forts but not settlements? Including both ther wages and bodyguard (250 + 250)?

[FC Groningen]

Killing generals is not that necessary. You can send them to forts for free upkeep (1 fort = 2 free generals). There should be 2 forts in the north iirc.

The thing is, if you allow them to live, they are "allowed" to "create their own spawn" as well. So, if you fix it with using forts, in about 40 more turns, you'll need at least the double amount of forts to deal with them. There aren't that many in this game.

[Dunadd]

You won't, because characters die of old age and sometimes get killed in battles/trapped in a city by a superior assaulting force and killed etc.

And since some of them have good traits those ones will net you increased income overall if they're put in as governors.

(just being contrary here i know)

[FC Groningen]

You won't, because characters die of old age and sometimes get killed in battles/trapped in a city by a superior assaulting force and killed etc.

And since some of them have good traits those ones will net you increased income overall if they're put in as governors.

(just being contrary here i know)

I appreciate you showing the other side of the coin, but let me continue then. Characters become too old for that. They can turn to 150 if I'm right, which is 600 turns before they die off old age (assuming they grow that old of course). As far as I know, there's no age limit on being able to conceive children which means they can keep producing. The ones you have should be treated well, used to their max extent etc. but you will receive much more than that. Might sound heartless or "lore breaking" to some, but I use the rebel armies that keep popping up to send some of them to their deaths.

[magicgunnar]

Killing generals is not that necessary. You can send them to forts for free upkeep (1 fort = 2 free generals). There should be 2 forts in the north iirc.

Forts will only give you free upkeep for the bodyguard unit, not for the wage you pay for a general, so it will give you half price. So I never place a bodyguard in a fort, unless for defence, or if he is moving throught.

You should only have excess units in the settlements bordering the evil factions because the probability for a good faction declearing war on you is so small. Every city should only have so many units as it can support with free units, or if it does not have any free upkeep slots, a very small unit.

At the borders to Isengard and OoMM you should probably have a little more, but all the rest of your units you should dispand or march to war against Gundabad.

I would actually dispand the units that is farthest away from Gundabad so you get rid of the debt right away, because debt give negative traits for your generals. And thats not something you want.

Not all settlements should have a governor. A governor should either have 7 or more in chivalry so the population increase faster, or some traits that gives you higher taxes or trade. Now some of your governors give a penalty to your income by staying in a settlement. Make them join an army and use them for invading Gundabad.

Edit: Some more things I noticed when I played your save: Amun Sul does not use all the 4 free upkeep slots, move 2 more breeland militia from Bree there. You can get about 2500 from Isengard and 5000 from OoMM by offering them a trade agreement.
One more thing about the negative traits governors get when you are having debt, there are three of them: Cheapskate, Miserly, Stoic. And the first two give a +2 to squalor for a governor when maxed. +4 to squalor is not something that is good for a governor. And there is no way you can avoid getting them when you have debt. There are a 4% chance every turn for each of your guys.

[ppetrus]

Settlements provide free upkeep only for units you can currently recruit in them. Forts provide two free upkeep slots for whatever you have, including generals (at least their UI icon goes blue). But I have no idea whether it covers 250 or 500 upkeep.

[Dunadd]

You either have too many troops and can't afford to pay them all (remember each new family member/general that joins you also has a bodyguard that needs paid) , or else you've conquered too many settlements that are too far from your capital (which means corruption in them may mean they lose you more money than you get from them when you take into account wages of troops to hold them etc)

It's more likely the first problem and you just need to disband some units and maybe put up tax rates where you can without making the population too unhappy.

If it's the second you'll still need to disband units and/or put up taxes (and/or put characters into towns as governors) , because you need to get 5,000 gold, because that's the cost of moving your capital to a town or fortress a bit closer to what's now the centre of your kingdom

You can send them (Generals) to forts for free upkeep (1 fort = 2 free generals).

Nice. Did not know that - thanks for the info.

One thing, never- ever run taxes Very High except when finishing a building, it will give the governors bad traits

Didn't know that either

[Goth]

One thing I find with eriador is that you get laods of generals very quickly at a certain stage of the game, they have expensive maintenance and damage your economy badly, for this reason I edit the EDU file and reduce cost for generals of all factions to 150, this helps Eriador out more than any other faction and stops them bankrupting the economy
Goth