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s.rwitt

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Aug 7, 2011
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I'm not sure if this is common or not, but I can never seem to get more than +/- 20 ducats per year until around the 1500's and the only way I can do better after that is colonization. I've played as Portugal, Norway, and the Date, experiencing the same problems every time. I chase free trade and other techs that improve my merchant compete chance, but even having 5 merchants in the richest 3 CoT's around me doesn't seem to make much of a dent. On top of that, I'm constantly falling behind the rest of the map tech wise. I never mint anything in order to keep all money invested in progress, but always seem to be playing catch up. I keep my army small, usually around 5k men and little to no ships at all, with maintenance at zero. Is this common? What can I do to make more cash and keep tech up?
 
You need to mint to get actual good income. Using a Master of the Mint advisor, you can mint without gaining inflation. You fall behind because it seems you sit around doing nothing while other countries expand. You need to constantly grow bigger, gaining preferable rich territory.
 
Norway is pretty much destined to be poor; their provinces are really low in tax, and there's a lot of them.
It'd be better if we could have screenshots in both your financial and economic screens.
 
You need to mint to get actual good income. Using a Master of the Mint advisor, you can mint without gaining inflation. You fall behind because it seems you sit around doing nothing while other countries expand. You need to constantly grow bigger, gaining preferable rich territory.

I gain territory when I can, but even those that aren't expanding whatsoever seem to overtake me (Scotland, for example).
 
Last time I played as scotland I was constantly at war with england, had my war taxes raised and I received war subs from france and venice (no idea how venice came into the picture) so my income was pretty sick compared to the peace time income. You see countries at war may not be spending much to train troops but they can still have war taxes.
You wont be havin' too much income in the under tech lvl 20 timeframe. Te OPM's gonna blow you away in tech no matter what you do but it does not matter really. Later with upgraded provinces and colonies you gonna beat them anyway. Be sure to have at least the same land tech as your bordering countries the rest will come around.
 
It takes 100 years or more for many nations to get going economically. Most nations start with bad sliders/situations for getting any reasonable trade income. Once you get that situation settled you can pretty easily catch up. When I finished the Norwegian wood achievement I was among the tech leaders & #1 income in the world with just the starting provinces plus a dozen or so others taken from TO or settled in Greenland/Canada. I think my highest base tax anywhere was 4 but having monopolies in every CoT in Europe more than made up for it.
 
Are you building buildings in your provinces when they are available?

Yessir. I usually build constables, then marketplaces, then churches.
Te OPM's gonna blow you away in tech no matter what you do but it does not matter really. Later with upgraded provinces and colonies you gonna beat them anyway. Be sure to have at least the same land tech as your bordering countries the rest will come around.
Why is that? I mean, why do they seem to develop so quickly?
 
Since they only have one province to worry about, that kicks up their tech and production, if my understanding is right. If my memory is correct, the larger a country the more tech and stability costs.
 
Yessir. I usually build constables, then marketplaces, then churches.

Why is that? I mean, why do they seem to develop so quickly?

Norway has a large coast dont forget the docks they give a +25% production bonus. And just having 5 merchants in 3 cots is not enough, you can easly have 5 merchants in every cot, when free trade. Try useing a MM to get some of that money back to build buildings and troop. Also dont expand to much, keep an eye on your infamy as it affects you compeat change alot.
 
Minting's fairly crucial to keep a good balance until you get huge, and even then it can be responsible for most of your income. I'm surprised no-one's mentioned sliders in regards to tech yet: Going Free Subjects and/or Innovative is usually very important in keeping up in tech, but you do have to be aware of the drawbacks of both of these.
 
When I'm minting, doesn't it take money away from research? Also, roughly what level of annual profit do you guys expect to have in the beginning of the game? Around 50-100?
 
When I'm minting, doesn't it take money away from research? Also, roughly what level of annual profit do you guys expect to have in the beginning of the game? Around 50-100?

yes it does, but it allows you to build upgrades faster which gives more money in the long run. It also mean you got some spare money in case of bad events or when atacked. The profit depends largly on the size of your country, income and of the cost you have. I mint around 0.08-0.12% a year which should allows me to keep building upgrades and save up some money. So the proffit depends largly on how you want to play your nation and what works for you.
 
In my TO game i minted nothing at all and in the late 1470 i was at 300 ducats per year profit.

My advice to you is to maintain low maintenance at armies and play as agresive as possible to take some rich regions around the map (e.g. in my TO game [now Prussia] i took lots of infamy to annex some rich german provinces that made me quite rich]

Also, build Constables as many as possible :D
 
Thanks again for the tips guys, they really help a lot. I've been putting emphasis into Trade/Production tech with Govt slightly behind that and Land behind that. Should I invest all in one tech at a time? And if so, which one's do you usually start with?
 
Gov tech should be a priority at "all times", sort of that tech that you advance whenever possible. Prioritize land tech early to help expand into rich areas, and slowly drift towards production to improve those regions.

Although if you're going to be playing the colonizing game, depending on your proximity to other major powers, you could swap land tech with naval, and production for trade. Go a little free trade early on to help get you some income. Use that to colonize the new world. Once you've got most of a continent colonized start moving back towards mercantilism. A single CoT in that continent should grab you well over 5k trade income if you build just 1 trade building in each colonial province.