Economy
This has less to do with mechanics and more to do with simple optimization, but I feel it is useful nonetheless. Many players do a good job of fighting, but mismanage their economies, crippling their war effort in the process. Probably the most important lesson you can learn is to always take full advantage of free upkeep. House Lannister's core territories (now counting the northern coast) consists of 6 settlements. At the start of the game you will be given the option of mobilizing all of your reserves to fight in the Riverlands, leaving all of your castles either empty or with single-unit garrisons. This does have the short term effect of putting troops into the field faster, but it is almost never worth it.
The real limit on the size of your armies is not the cost of recruiting new troops, but the cost of maintaining the ones you already have. Upkeep varies from unit to unit but, generally speaking, a unit's upkeep costs will exceed it's recruitment cost after ~5 turns. Eventually these costs will cripple your economy and make it impossible to recruit new troops and build forts, so it is vital that you get the most bang for your buck. To help with this, every settlement has an allotment of free-upkeep spaces which can be used to house units for free (you can check the number of slots by right-clicking on the main wall/castle building). Below, I have filled each of these free garrisons in the Westerlands, meaning that I now have 26 units in reserve and it isn't costing me a dime. I can say from experience that this is incredibly useful for when you are betrayed and you need to muster an army quickly to defend your homelands.
The flip side of this is that maintaining expensive units in your home territories is rarely worth it when you do have to pay their upkeep costs. As I said before, their upkeep will exceed their recruitment cost in 5 turns, so you are generally better off relying on your free garrisons and only recruiting more forces once the threat is immediate.
One aspect of hotseats that players will often ignore are guilds. These are generally quite expensive so players will generally reject them out of hand. However, one very useful one is the Merchant's guild. Joffrey especially will often be offered this (though other factions will get it too), and I cannot stress enough how useful it is. While Joffrey holds King's Landing, a merchant at the Golden Tooth can generate in excess of 2,500 gold per turn! This will pay the guild's construction costs in 4 turns, and is the equivalent of 3 normal castles. As such, accepting this is absolutely an investment worth making (though make sure to send him after that Westerland gold as other trade resources won't generate quite as much).
Annother thing more specific to Westeros is the option of destroying buildings. For some strange reason burning down a castle barracks will give you mountains of gold, and this can give you the liquid assets to invest heavily in, say, naval power. Some buildings are vital to your war effort, but many others can be destroyed with little to no consequences. Barracks (or at least those in castles) are useless in Youngbloods, as inspecting the castle building reveals that it is capable of recruiting the same troops. As such, burning all of your barracks on turn one is usually a good idea. Castle-based septs are also useless, considering that castles almost never encounter moral issues. Stables and Archery Ranges can go either way, as castles cannot recruit cavalry and archers without them. However, I have found that the addition of cavalry/archers to an army does very little to boost its effectiveness, and as such I personally have no qualms about letting them both go. The one exception to these rules is that cities and towns cannot recruit forces in the absence of a barracks, so I generally leave these intact to allow for greater recruitment options. Apart from this, the only castle buildings I leave intact are blacksmiths (upgraded armor is quite useful) and ports (naval power is vital). Below, I have burned all of Lannister's unnecessary buildings on turn one, gaining an additional 33 thousand gold in the process!
EDIT: Some experienced players have said that they prefer to leave the barracks intact as it provides a greater replenishment rate for your units. I personally disagree with this, as I've rarely found recruitment pools to be a major problem in my home territories, and letting your enemies capture a barracks intact makes it easier for them to hold said settlement. However, there is disagreement on the matter so don't take my word as gospel  (really, don't take any of this as gospel, it's pretty much all just opinion).
As for what to spend it on, the investment with the greatest power:upkeep ratio is without a doubt a huge navy. Generally speaking, ships have roughly the same upkeep cost as troops, with Galleys/Cogs probably having the best ratio in the game (25 more upkeep than sailers, but about twice as powerful). Moreover while, say, seven new troops will not make much of a difference on the front lines, seven ships can give you complete naval dominance along the entire coastline. The only downsides are that they require a large up-front investment, they can only be recruited in a few places, and building them takes ages. As such, I would personally recommend using some of the above cash infusion to help pay for a fleet. Trust me when I say it will come in handy . The fleet below took 8 turns and ~18k gold to produce, but it will outmatch just about anything House Greyjoy or Tyrell can throw at it and only costs 1,175 gold to maintain (aka: less than the three units of heavy knights Jaime starts the game with).
Pro Tip: Sailers, cogs, and galleys take ~7 turns to replenish.
Other things to consider are that, as was mentioned above, the projected incomes are not always accurate, so be careful to factor in the upkeep costs of new units when looking at the total.
Finally, if any more experienced players know any economic tricks please share them as well and I'll probably add them to the list .
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