Stuck on economy in campaigne could use some help

[mentalpower]

Hi
I have been playing couple of games now and I get stuck with no funds.
Im playing as the Englisch and conquered the isles exept Edinburg, also the 4 coastel cities closest to the uk.
The only castle I have is Cean, and most cities are garrisoned by free up keep troops. Besides that there is only 1,5 assault army.

Population is happy and taxes are on normal, pope seems to be ok with me.

When I capture or get the option to upgrade a city, I emediatly upgrade/ built roads, farms, market/ ports asap. In cities i do not built militairy buildings.
Thats what should boost economy, according to guides I have read.

Thing I noticed cities are growing, castle is not.

According to guides I kill rebels asap to prevent devestation, and execute heritics where in my borders. This should keep trade lanes open, for wich I have trade rights estabelished.

In theory my economy should be good and stable. Now comes the turning point. Me income is declining and im not able to built a good army, my castle wont upgrade so ill soon have obselete units.

Now all of a sudden everybody attacks me, I was al ready keeping the French at bay for a while. Now Spain, Portugal, Denmark join in, while i have not been excommunicated, or have been nasty.
Scotland, whom wich I have been allies with, also attack in my back.

Portugal is blocking my ports and my ships seem not to be able to defeat them, so no trade there. To make mathers worse, thanks to the attacking armies, the trade lanes no longer function either.

Can anybody tell me what is going wrong, especialy economy whise?

Thanks.

[UndrState]

Hello mentalpower,

There are going to be different approaches to solving your problem, but here is mine. Be careful not to overspend on buildings, and start by focusing on buildings that increase your income. Maintain as small an army as you can - some times it is better and cheaper to pay "gifts" for peace than to pay soldiers for war. Building military in Cities is important, so don't avoid that completely - why? Because units produce in cities (militias) get free upkeep, so your cities can be protected at no cost to you. When you are at peace, and can cut back on your military, cut knights and other horsemen, as well as boats, since they have some of the most expensive upkeep. I only keep units that have good experience (chevrons).

Finally, when you are in a tough position like you are, you might want to go on crusade - all units on crusade pay no upkeep. If you are playing in such a way as you will Sack cities, there will be plenty to sack ( Egypt, start at Alexandria and walk from city to city on the way to the holy land). Just be warned, as England, you need to position yourself well before you go on crusade, ideally right next to the mediterranean - you don't want to lose your armies to desertion!

[apostrophefz]

some times it is better and cheaper to pay "gifts" for peace than to pay soldiers for war.

a very simple and wise course of action I find hard to follow. unfortunately to me the thrill and motion of battle pulls me more than quiet and far reaching results.

[totalwar_legend]

In Medieval 2 you should be using war to boost your economy. Take your army out of the castle and go kill some scots or frenchmen.

[CavalryCmdr]

If your trying to create a peaceful, stable economy, raise taxes. Focus on upgrading one city at a time (as far as overall city level) as soon as you can build the next level walls, raise taxes and lower them in another city. Do not lower taxes any more then you have to until you have at least all financial buildings for that level built, and preferably the happiness buildings as well, you will find that, if you have high fields, you will not have time to build all buildings before the population reaches the next city level anyway. Also keep an eye on your generals, it's very easy for them to develop negative management traits so cities they are governing make less money then with no governor at all.

[Silverheart]

From what I can make out of your post, I would venture a guess similar to Undrstate regarding your predicament.
It is likely that your economy is being held back by military expenses - check the economy scroll (that little pot of gold coins in the lower right corner on the campaign map) and you´ll probably find military upkeep and/or recruitment costs making up a large percentage of your expenses (either due to excessive amounts of soldiers and fleets, or due to large-scale recruitment of either) and seriously holding back your income. As Undrstate mentioned, the solution to this is to disband any troops and fleets that you don´t need, alternatively gathering them into large forces in order to take decisive action against your enemies, or you could send one of your armies on crusade; you don´t have to pay upkeep for crusade troops, and they can make you a lot of money by sacking all the non-catholic settlements along the way (either go to Egypt and plunder the Nile cities, or go by land to plunder Constantinople and all the turkish settlements - don´t worry about relations, it´s usually pretty easy to make peace with them afterwards). You may also keep your crusade army in the holy land after the crusade to continue plundering cities, thus augmenting your economy.

Now, going back to the economics scroll, I´m pretty sure you´re going to find that your economy is also being held back by a high "construction costs", meaning that, even though you´re right to spend money on economic buildings, you may not be spending in a sufficiently strategical manner.
You should focus on port facilities, roads, markets, mines and farms, in that order - and even then, in some settlements it may be best to neglect some of them (for example, a region with poor ore deposits and Little profit to make from mines, should maybe not have mines), if the cost is too great for the moment. You need to ensure to also have enough funds on hand for other projects - given your situation, war, for example.
Also, invest some money in a couple of merchants, in order to attract guild house offers from the merchants guild - they instantly grant a higher income in their settlements, and they allow recruitment of the Merchant Cavalry Militia, which are poor-performance troops, but useful for hunting down routing enemies (which you can then demand ransom money for).

PS.
Also, you shouldn´t neglect building military buildings in cities. It´s true that they don´t add to economic development, but they allow your cities to be defended more effectively. Just build the cheap and less time-consuming economic buildings first (like roads and ports, as well as basic farming), then start prioritizing - a high-risk settlement will obviously require better defences, while a non-threatened one may be better off with a upgraded market.
DS.

[Dr. Conquest]

Based on what you described, I don't think this is too big of an issue yet, but try not to have too many castles. One castle per 5 or 6 cities should be enough and your economy will see the difference. For example, I keep one castle in Caernarvon to cover the British Isles; everything else becomes a city. (Given how secure Britain is, you don't even really need one there in the long run, but it's good to be prepared for the invitable Portuguese sneak attack). When you say your castles have no growth, is that 0%, or just very low at 0.5-1%? Either way, this situation is remedied by building farms, although a castle won't normally grow as quickly as a city. At least happiness is less of an issue here, so don't worry about over-population.

[apostrophefz]

Another notion, this one new to me, I find hard to deal with: castles. I played a lot of Rome TW, and there is no distinction like the one in M2TW.
It's appealing to produce archers and valuable cavalry, but without tax adjustment and other interesting buildings, it gets me really indecisive.

[UndrState]

Another notion, this one new to me, I find hard to deal with: castles. I played a lot of Rome TW, and there is no distinction like the one in M2TW.
It's appealing to produce archers and valuable cavalry, but without tax adjustment and other interesting buildings, it gets me really indecisive.

Well don't be shy about converting some Castles to Towns - when I play as England or Scotland, I usually convert the Welsh castle to a town, and sometimes Inverness as well. This way, they grow faster and generate more income, and if I change my mind frankly I'll get to the higher levels of Castle more quickly this way than if I had kept them as Castles.

When playing as a continental european faction, I like to have castles at my outer borders - I usually have some in mind, expand ASAP to those lines, then turtle for a while. But my playstyle, now at least, is less aggressive than most.

[apostrophefz]

and yet, growth never stops: with your advices, and my situation in my irish campaign, I see a new issue which I didnt have playing Rome: disbanding units. I hold to them like the miser does to his gold.
Any of you have this diffculty? I'd rather see them dead than weighing my coffers. But I also don't like to see them dead, they are dear to me like my proud and eager children.
Rock and a hard place, feck it!

[Silverheart]

If you have too many troops draining your economy with their upkeep, just disband them - it´s not particularly complicated. Older, weaker soldiers aren´t worth keeping around if better troops are available, anyway, unless they have at least silver-level experience.
If you for some reason happen to have a personal thing about disbanding some obsolete troops or something like that, then march them to the frontlines and put them to use - especially wise if the soldiers in question are hardened veterans from previous wars.
I usually don´t have any such "problems", though in my latest turkish campaign, I did neglect disbanding a couple of units of Spear Militia (to replace with Saracen Militia, as I did in all other settlements) simply because they were all super experienced with gold chevrons and weapon upgrades. But those were just militia troops, and so didn´t drain the economy in any way.

[apostrophefz]

This new mechanic in Medieval 2, of militia troops not costing upkeep, is really interesting, and forgiving.

[apostrophefz]

Maybe I should be less of wuss, learn to disband units, and have diplomats at the ready for gifts and good relations.
I'm the anal type: units, cities, money, nothing must go.

[Boogie Knight]

I sort of have that problem of not wanting to disband units, although I have no qualms about merging them. My Britannia campaign as Wales was a real educator for me, especially as regards economies; a big killer for me was too big an army and too many generals. There are times one has to be utterly ruthless with your nobles and generals; if that family tree has too many inefficient governors and leaders, then it doesn't need to be deflowered so much as deadheaded. Take a general out for a walk, lead him towards the nearest enemy column and have him Leroy Jenkins his way into the next life.

In the aforementioned Wales campaign, I had it a little easier than most in that I bought myself some breathing room early on by expanding carefully and winning strategic victories against the English, and then running two large raids one after another against England and Ireland respectively, in which I sacked every city I took before destroying all the buildings (all of which can reward a tidy sum for their destruction) within it and waltzing off towards the next city with all the money I'd won. Those raids are quite common - you're essentially plundering and pillaging the enemy. Destroying their ability to make money and soldiers while increasing your own. They'll retake those cities, of course, but they'll be retaking only a husk. The raid against England was a roaring success; the Irish gave me absolute hell (as they did throughout the campaign) but they paid in the end.

That money helped me maintain those armies and improve my cities back home, as well as cover the costs of my growing armies. If you're at war with that many factions at once, such raids might be tricky at best and dangerous at worst, but if you can make peace with a few or even all but one of them, it's well worth considering that tactic against whoever's left.

[apostrophefz]

to the OP or any newbs around:
http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showt...iplomacy+guide

[apostrophefz]

another, succint and didactic
http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showt...iplomacy+guide