I realise this will very much be a newbie problem, and the question may have been asked before but I couldn't find it, so I hope some wise people will have the patience to answer once again 
On to the question - How to get a basically balanced budget.
I started up playing my favorite nation Denmark (Paradox always gets my intter patrio going). I realise full well that Denmark is no economical powerhouse, being a fairly lackluster agricultural nation with no industry and not strategic raw materials. Even so it should be able to keep itself afloat. However I experienced having military maintenance and a military budget that _far_ outstripped my income.
For some reason Paradox games never start your nation out in anything that remotely approaches a balanced state, so on day one it fall to you to balance your budget. This much I know from a lot of time spent with the various incarnation of EU.
In EU some basic 'pitfalls' is remembering to lower military maintenance in peace time, keeping an eye on inflation and knowing that you can (and in the beginning typically will) run with a monthly deficit and then live of your yearly taxes.
As far as I understand Vicky 2 there are no yearly taxe, so your budget needs to be somewhat balanced (I realise it can fluctuate, but still). So based on my EU experiences I slashed the military budget (figuring I'd be peaceful for some time anyway), and things looked ok.
Then I started the clock.
For about a month things were fine, but then my economy plummeted. Due to a lack of graphs I don't know exactly why, but it seemed like my tax base was shrinking, bascially because my poor POP (which is to say farmers) were not making any money. Well, they were making enough to cover their needs, but not enough to pay any taxes.
So I guess my question is how do i keep my tax base for rotting away in a few months? I'm sure there must be some trick or handle I've simply missed, but none of the tutorials or strategy guides mention anything that really jumped out a me.
I really want to love this game, so I hope someone can provide a hint.
On to the question - How to get a basically balanced budget.
I started up playing my favorite nation Denmark (Paradox always gets my intter patrio going). I realise full well that Denmark is no economical powerhouse, being a fairly lackluster agricultural nation with no industry and not strategic raw materials. Even so it should be able to keep itself afloat. However I experienced having military maintenance and a military budget that _far_ outstripped my income.
For some reason Paradox games never start your nation out in anything that remotely approaches a balanced state, so on day one it fall to you to balance your budget. This much I know from a lot of time spent with the various incarnation of EU.
In EU some basic 'pitfalls' is remembering to lower military maintenance in peace time, keeping an eye on inflation and knowing that you can (and in the beginning typically will) run with a monthly deficit and then live of your yearly taxes.
As far as I understand Vicky 2 there are no yearly taxe, so your budget needs to be somewhat balanced (I realise it can fluctuate, but still). So based on my EU experiences I slashed the military budget (figuring I'd be peaceful for some time anyway), and things looked ok.
Then I started the clock.
For about a month things were fine, but then my economy plummeted. Due to a lack of graphs I don't know exactly why, but it seemed like my tax base was shrinking, bascially because my poor POP (which is to say farmers) were not making any money. Well, they were making enough to cover their needs, but not enough to pay any taxes.
So I guess my question is how do i keep my tax base for rotting away in a few months? I'm sure there must be some trick or handle I've simply missed, but none of the tutorials or strategy guides mention anything that really jumped out a me.
I really want to love this game, so I hope someone can provide a hint.
