Usary! Or, "How to create a banking empire in M2TW"

[thecactusman17]

Having trouble acquiring the necessary funds to maintain a long term campaign, but still getting those short term windfalls after sacking rebel settlements? Want to make cash on par with a top-level merchant without having to invest heavily in market upgrades and sending them clear across the world where they are quickly destroyed by enemy merchants? Make money the modern way! Make money the American way! Make money the banking way!

Thanks to the improvements in alliance and relations reliability made in patch 1.2, friendly factions are more likely to pay off debts and live up to long-term agreements. You can use this to your advantage by recognizing that factions consider money a tradeable resource, and that they weigh immediate gains as more valuable than long-term repayment (though they certainly do recognize the importance of that, too).

What you should be looking for are meagre and bankrupt factions which you can easily improve relations with, perhaps by offering map information or trade rights (or of course alliances).

Trade off money (let's say 1000 florins) and demand in return a modest recurring fee on par with low-level unit upkeep--somewhere between 100 and 200 florins per turn. Give them a number of turns to pay it off until you end up making between half again or double the money (remember that bankrupt factions may be incapable of funding more than a very low amount of money).

Arrange these sorts of deals with five or six factions, and you'll be making money equal to a mid-level town evey turn, corruption free. And as the game progresses, you can offer and make more money (assuming you can keep them paying). If they do break contract, demand your money and threaten to attack, or pay off another still-friendly to attack in your stead (this is a great reason to have at least one Islamic faction in your alliances).

[notger]

That is interesting. I will give it a try, though I have to say, training a good merchant is maybe easier and faster than going on a diplomatic voyage to your six customers. Anyway, it is great that the game allows for this move.

[BuchVecny]

lol this is nice...

[Astalder]

Lol I don't know if I could orchestrate all that and still avoid the 354345345 random attempts to burn my empire to the ground.

[Routed Peasant]

I like this idea, but is it historically accurate? Where this method used in the medieval era? Lending money between nations.

[notger]

There were no nations. Nations are a modern times invention.
Anyways, the richest economical power in these days were the Fugger family from southern Germany. They became rich by harvesting the Austrian silver mines and lending money to all kings in Europe. In fact, in their high-times, there were a lot of wars that were funded by the Fugger family.

For comparison: The economic power of the Fugger was bigger than that of modern Europes Top-100 companies together!

Conclusion: Making politics with money was a fact, though rather not between kingdoms.

[thecactusman17]

Actually, the modern banking system with interest was commonly practiced by many emigrating Jews throughout Europe--that's why there are still so many Jewish families with names like 'Goldstein" and "Silverstein" around today, and one of the reasons why many European cultures have traditionally seen Jews as being among the financial elite or misers, regardless of how inaccurate those claims may have been. Where usary was usually condemned by the Catholic and Orthodox churches, it was not expressly forbidden in the Torah.

Also, the lending and repayment of money has been a common economic practice for millenia aorund the world, so I was suprised that it's almost impossible to do in Vanilla 1.2. For some reason it's pretty easy to arrange in LTC, though. I don't know if Lusted intended for that to be the case, but it's something I thought was rather cool when it suddenly started working easily for me here.

[ImKyleJames]

im getting on this boat