Income sharply decreasing after conquest?!

[Carthago]

I recently started a campaign with Carthage on hard. I conquered southern and middle spain, Mauretania and Syracuse, then building up my economy while having peace. I then declared war on Rome, which conquered half of Gaul, Greece and many provinces north of Italy and Greece. At the beginning of the war I had an income of ~1500 per turn because of huge army recruitment. Then I declared war and conquered three Roman regions - after that, my income sank to -1000, despite my armies being in patrol mode again and positive income from the conquered provinces?!
Furthermore, Cyrene declared war on me. After the conquest of that city my income decreased by further 2500 per turn?! I really don't understand that, must have something to do with the supply system probably? Does anyone has an idea?

[Augustusng]

As your imperium level increases, your empire maintenance (renamed from corruption in vanilla) penalty increases, among other things. You can check that in your faction screen and the provincial income overview.

[nunz]

Yep .. literally the only thing I really don't like about DEI. I feel punished for expanding and it kills my enthusiasm with campaigns when I hit that ~100 turn mark and the game is artificially made 10x harder, making me have to disband armies simply because of one conquered region.

With that said, you need to train all of your governors for -% Empire Maintenance to help negate the Imperium punishment as well as push civil development for the -% Empire Maintenance research.

[babaikasc]

Believe it or not but having 9K + income with max out armies also kinda kills enthusiasm. Not to mention that diplomacy and balance of power calculation depends purely on your income. So I don't think that swimming in gold makes game any better.

[nunz]

Believe it or not but having 9K + income with max out armies also kinda kills enthusiasm. Not to mention that diplomacy and balance of power calculation depends purely on your income. So I don't think that swimming in gold makes game any better.

Yeah, it's definitely a difficult balance and one that Dresden & Co have been messing with (last couple patches for 1.2 have moved the Imperium bonuses/penalties around up and down iirc) to try and find the sweet spot. As it stands it's not like it's going to make me stop playing DEI but I do find that once I get around ~100 turns I often lose interest in my campaigns and end up starting a new one, which is unfortunate because I absolutely love the "This Year in History" event messages that pop up and I want to see new ones LOL.

[Dead*Man*Wilson]

I definitely prefer money being an issue to overcome than money being no issue at all, especially after you've played the campaign a while. Bear in mind 1.2 tries to make the campaign longer and more challenging to avoid mid and late game steamrolling.

[Dresden]

Corruption (empire maintenance) is one of the only tools we have to make the later game economy any sort of a challenge for the player. I have tried other ideas (income negatives, other negatives as you expand) but the idea is still the same - its tied to imperium level. There really isn't much of another way to do it, unfortunately.

With the population system and some other changes in 1.2, we have tried to prolong the early/mid game into the late game. But, with a player's ability to min/max provinces, buildings, effects, etc, economy always becomes easier as you go. This is one of the only limiting factors we have at our disposal to address that issue.

[nunz]

Some things are just limiting by design of Total War. I've told myself I'm not going to quit this Rome campaign (first time I've held interest in a Roman campaign in a while) and I'm currently on Turn 98. This is the danger zone for my interest going down. I've actually taken my time and instead of being aggressive I've let the AI make a lot of the decisions - the map has expanded VERY interestingly and there's been quite a few major factions wiped out quite early. The Edetani were steamrolling everyone until Carthage decided they were sick of their emblem in Spain, and now, despite owning much of what is now considered France, they've been destroyed by Carthage and the Nievii/Arventi. I quickly had to break my trade agreements with the Edetani to get the Arventi to be happy with me LOL.

[Dresden]

It sounds to me like the mid/late game is actually interesting then And making expansion a struggle through population and economy can only make it more interesting, in my opinion.

I feel like what makes most TW players quit mid/late game campaigns is that it becomes a steamroll, the AI really doesn't do much, and/or the campaign becomes predictable. I think we have solved a lot of those issues in 1.2.

[Augustusng]

Yep, mid-late game is interesting thanks to increased AI aggression and empire maintenance penalties. Those penalties can be really nasty, but at least they do something to limit you - they delay the late-game steamroll.

[nunz]

What Imperium level do you guys consider to be mid-game, and what level do you consider to mark late-game?

You guys have done an incredible job and your CAI tweaks are by far the best changes to how the AI operates I've ever seen. I wish I had time to sit down and explain to you just how intense the campaign map has expanded JUST in what is visible to me! It's amazing. Athens ended up expanding East and taking out Pergamon, going head on with the Seleucids. I'm really not sure what Carthage has done, it seems they've been stagnant, but their client state, Masalyia or whatever their name is, ended up killing off Syracuse. The Edetani were actually steam rolling early-game but they were just defeated. They killed Massalia and were on my border in Genua/Mehdten. Carthage is smart and hasn't declared war on me as they are now fighting in Spain against the Lusotanian's, who've expanded over the Edetani and have begun fighting the Gauls.

Really guys, I can't stress to you enough how amazing the changes have been and how dynamic the campaign map is now. It's different every time (and as I said, I end up starting over around ~100 turns so I've seen plenty of campaigns to the 50 turn marker) and it's been so different ever since the changes.

[Dresden]

The thing is that some factions actually start near imperium 4 (carthage, seleucids) so its hard to say a certain level is "mid" game. But I generally feel like 3 is the transition from early to mid, 4/5 is mid and after that is late game.