money

[gunrsm8]

i might just be stupid but i am havaing a problem with getting enough money to keep going any help would be great

[Artos]

Few basic thing:

- Check your financial screen for what is taking your money
- Keep your armies concentrated, don't keep huge garrisons in every city (and keep troops that have low upkeep)
- Use your diplomats to get trade agreements
- Keep your religion as high as possible in your settlements (no rebellion because of religion = you can keep higher taxes = more money)
- Keep your relations with the Pope good, then your settlements are more pleased, which means less rebellion (same effects as above)
- Have more cities than castles, cities can make more money
- Terminate the rebels armies blocking your trade routes

[TacticalSkirmish]

I love micro-managing so I select the option to manage all my settlements (otherwise you need to have a general in each settlement to do so).

I am currently playing HRE, and after a nice start you find yourself in a mess financially. I'm sure you know all this but here are my suggestions (nothing original btw):

- Always focus on your economy, especially at the beginning. Therefore build all the affordable economic buildings (especially ports and roads) right at the beginning. Later as funds allow upgrade them, and select happiness buildings only as needed.

- Max your tax rate so your settlements have @80-85% happiness rating.

- Establish as many trade agreements as possible.

- Probably early just have 1-2 castles with everything else as cities. I prefer to keep my castles close together, and after each having a barracks try to specialize say artillery in one and cavalry in the other (later as funds permit I eventually build both up equally).

- Minimal garrison using militia that have free upkeep for cities and peasant units in castles.

- Keep exploring the map with merchants for better income sources.

- While you should always be building your military infrastructure at your 1-2 castles (maybe @4 once your empire is much larger), try to limit your troop selection to the most affordable units that can compete with your enemies. Use mercenaries as needed and get rid of them if they cost too much to keep.

- If you find yourself low on funds it is because you have too much overhead (i.e., military), so get them moving and expand your empire!

- If you want to keep Catholic factions off your back, always send a Diplomat right to Rome and give the Pope maps and money as often as possible to improve your relations. When it becomes viable request an Alliance with the Papal States and maintain good relations.

Getting back to my HRE campaign, as mentioned you start out good with regards to the number of settlements and troops. The problem is that you are also surrounded by a number of powerful factions, plus your German-based economy is very sluggish.

I attacked Poland and nearly wiped it out. But then Venice attacked and later Milan and Hungary. My empire started falling apart, I couldn't access decent troops, but luckily it didn't matter because I had no money anyway.

Well after turning down Milan's proposal to be their vassal, Denmark attacked and made the same proposal. I accepted and instantly received money, new trade agreements, and was able to restore some previous alliances. Finally my economy started moving forward and I was building up a decent military.

Shortly after that there were two quick elections for pope. My first attempt failed but I was successful at the second. So here's the deal for any new popes out there. If you are lucky you can call a crusade against one of your enemies (or allies). So given the strength of Milan, I choose one of their cities for a crusade. After a bunch of turns, and with the help of France's crusading army, Milan's military might was destroyed and I gave the city to the Pope as a gift.

Btw if you are going to select a city to crusade against make sure it is far away from your empire, or else all these large foreign armies will turn on you after the crusade. Apparently the chaps don't feel like walking back home.

Well anything useful here mate? Sorry I forgot the real important stuff.

TS!

[EmperorJulian]

I too have great difficulty 1) Keeping cities in control WITHOUT huge garrisons and 2) Earning any money even with a large empire. I recall in an early 1.0 campaign I had 36 territories and barely 3000 florins per turn in profit. In fact I usually couldn't do anything without sacking a city as I rarely had the money to spend on troops or buildings.

So I can understanding having too many castles, blockaded ports and military overhead can be a big contributing factor, but it would help me to know just exactly how you keep taxes on Very High and have little to no garrison in a city, yet avoid massive unrest and revolts. That would certainly help me manage my own funds!

[MarkPharaoh]

Make an army of Peasents to lower squalor and chance of revolts and send them pillaging on your enemies lands.

[Ippius]

I play as the HRE as well and I know exactly what it feels like when u've been bankrupted after a great start to the campaign (Waiting while increasing all taxes and disbanding units for 10-20 turns for ur economy to kickstart is not good).
ALWAYS look at the financial screen
Capture and sack cities
Militia ONLY in cities
merchants to far off places
trade agreements
good relations with the states around u
reuse any units which are just sitting in a province which loves u even without a substantial garrison
And finally in general keep ur states happy.

[morble]

In general, you need to build at least the lowest levels of happiness buildings, including churches, town councils, and inns. These all provide a modicum of happiness, thereby allowing you to tax your citizens until they are literally blue in the face. It's important to note that militia buildings increase your city's law & order, and these increases get larger when the building is upgraded, so these also function as happiness buildings.

Lastly, consider using one of the AI mods, such as Shaba Wangy's or Ultimate AI. I've always been a proponent of plain vanilla, but after waiting 4 years to see an upgrade from the minimal diplomacy AI, I got tired of playing "everyone kill da hooman". In plain vanilla, you almost have to

Every city should thus have at least a militia and a small church. You don't really need anything else until your happiness drops down around 80%. Then you should be preparing to add a building upgrade, to keep happiness at no less than 75%.

Oddly, I find I don't usually need anything more than a small church, or a single upgrade in any city. Certainly, more pious leaders create more docile populations, but I find that inns, town halls, and militias are the best tools to maintain highest happiness and taxation.

Note your generals' attributes. Some guys should not be in charge of a city--the populace can't stand them and/or they're lazy, corrupt, whatever.

Always build roads, ports and walls as soon as you can. Failure to upgrade walls drops you quickly to 80% happiness and lower. Ports and warehouses are your main income sources. Roads don't seem to show up on the financial details page, but are critical to your trade income. For port cities, upgrade your port facilities and merchant buildings immediately when available. For inland cities, check the income (on the details page) that a merchant upgrade will bring. It's rarely worthwhile to upgrade beyond a market (or even a grain exchange) for an inland city.

The earlier advice about castles is good. You only need a few castles and they make about 1000/turn less than they would as a city. Still, they are easy to keep happy, since they grow slow and always have normal tax levels.

Perhaps most important, build your farmlands. Farmlands only add about 50/turn for each upgrade (on VH), but they add to growth, and it is population that ultimately determines your income.


In the beginning, when everyone is running around with cheap militia units, that's what you should use almost exclusively. In the early game, 2 militia units, or 2 peasants in a castle garrison are all you need--and those are free. Minimize your expenses by using only free units as garrisons.

You can deal for trade rights with every faction, especially at the beginning, and can get anywhere from 200 to 2000 in gold paid to you for the privilege--usually you have to trade map info too.

I personally almost never use merchants. True, you can put 4 of them down in Timbuktu and thereby get about 1 city's worth of free income. BUT...they cost 550 each, take forever to install in far-off locales, and invariably get eaten by the AI's 5 and 6 star merchants. For the price of a merchant enclave in Timbuktu, I could garrison several new cities and get income from them.

It should go without saying that you should almost always try to please your noble council. They can make a huge difference in getting your economy up and running.

Lastly, consider an AI mod like Shaba Wangy's or Ultimate AI. I have always been a plain vanilla proponent, but after 4 years of virtually nonexistent diplomacy, I'm tired of playing "kill da hooman" with the game AI. I use Shaba Wangy's, just the diplomacy part not the rest, and have been quite pleased with the ability to actually form alliances that work. With actual working alliances and working reputation levels, it's a whole different game, and allows you the time to build an economy and empire.

[Commander_Vimes]

when i played hre i agreed peace with about half the people who bordered me destroyed denmark and finally milan after after wave france wants war with me but has sent an army to me yet poland is my freinds and sicily ,venice and hungary are getting on my nerves economically i am making tonnes of money i don't know what your problem is i haven't even got high tax rate anywhere.

[Commander_Vimes]

when i played hre i agreed peace with about half the people who bordered me destroyed denmark and finally milan after after wave france wants war with me but has sent an army to me yet poland is my freinds and sicily ,venice and hungary are getting on my nerves economically i am making tonnes of money i don't know what your problem is i haven't even got high tax rate anywhere.

[Commander_Vimes]

sorry my thing didn't work so i clicked twice and that came up.