Having a tough time with money in Conclave in early start Count/Duke

[jpinard]

Apologies as I'm not typing from my computer and can not see the game. But my last game I was my own created character of the Duchy on the Southern Coast Duchy Southern France, right next to Itlay. You start with 3 vassals. And the main county you own "Provence" is nice because it has an extra Castle in it.

So early on I take a loan from Jewish moneylenders so I can do a quick invasion of night after getting a Cassus belli, and now I've been trying to build up my castle, but I'm making so little money I can't even get a buffer in case of war (need mercenaries). I was only able to afford one Castle upgrade with my starting character, and now with his yet son in charge, it feels like it is going to take his entire lifetime or more to upgrade the rest of the castle to level II?

Finances from Concalve seem to be are very different. As a test I took a city to run it myself and surprisingly I made a little less money than when I had my vassal in charge who liked me. But that city was one in my home County Province. I changed the tax rate for mayors up which didn't effect my income hardly at all. The way they have tax and laws setup now, it will take decades to get a decent tax rate going, and the positives are so incremental it seems almost pointless to change when the council can just nuke it back when they get a bit unhappy.

I did get money from the Pope using my piety, but with money now being the cornerstone of how everything works, and the insane cost of getting favors now at $80, It feels way harder to make money to upgrade your basic holdings or to hire soldiers. Right now there is no game. I just sim for years and years and years waiting from money to trickle in. Then buy a castle upgrade. Rinse repeat. It was never like this pre-Conclave. For this type of game there is actually less to do than before, at least the way the game is playing me and I'm playing the game.

Would someone feel up to giving me some help that's relevant (based on Conclave with latest beta) to help make more money? I've already exhausted Jewish supply of money, and the Pope as well. I'm bringing in 3.8 gold per month. So you can see why it feels it will take me forever to do much of anything.

Thanks!

 

[HolyOne]

My experience is quite the opposite. In my Sicily and Hungary games I consistently had a ridiculous 30-40 monthly income, that is merchant republic grade territory, without the family dues to keep it in check. (I only had less than 1000, when I went on a building spree after unlocking new technology) For some dumb reason they changed feudal taxes, now you get a default of like 20%. I realize that money is sparse early game, when you are small, but if you grow a bit, you will have more than you can spend.

Concentrate your demesne in a single province and park your steward there. Tends to help a lot.

 

[jpinard]

Concentrate your demesne in a single province and park your steward there. Tends to help a lot.

I already did that. And herein is the issue. I can't really do much expanding because I don't have the internal army numbers to take over another county without mercs Once I get to $220 I could hire mercs for a couple months to take someone, but then I am back down to zero money to ugrade my castle properties.

It feels like the new tax system Really hurts the income of a smaller ruler starting out in many areas (obviously not yours). What were feudal taxes before?

 

[Bernard95]

If you're desperate for cash, but don't mind the chance of becoming greedy or deceitful then the Business Focus may be right for you. Every so often you'll get the "minting coins" event. Choose to debase the coins for profit and you'll gain 100 gold and 100 prestige, but you do risk the aforementioned traits. A few years down the road you'll also lose 100 prestige.

Other than that, I'd probably play around with your obligation laws. Get your mayors to pay high taxes and your nobles high levies. Ignore the clergy, since they probably won't pay you anything which is the one downside to being Catholic. And of course, keep on expanding. More land after all does mean more levy and tax.

 

[jpinard]

If you're desperate cash, but don't mind the chance of becoming greedy or deceitful then the Business Focus may be right for you. Every so often you'll get the "minting coins" event. Choose to debase the coins for profit and you'll gain 100 gold and 100 prestige, but you do risk the aforementioned traits. A few years down the road you'll also lose 100 prestige.

Other than that, I'd probably play around with your obligation laws. Get your mayors to pay high taxes and your nobles high levies. Ignore the clergy, since they probably won't pay you anything which is the one downside to being Catholic. And of course, keep on expanding. More land after all does mean more levy and tax.

Thank you for the ideas. Personally, I hate the new law system in that changes are Glacial. Being able to only make one tiny perceptible change every 5 years is stupid and unrealistic. If I want to be a barbaric Duke and tax my people into oblivion, I should be able it make that change. Right now to do as you mention it takes 10 years MINIMUM if I didn't have any other laws to adjust which would lock me out of a change.

It literally could take a ruler his entire short lifetime to change the taxation rate by 20%.

 

[HolyOne]

I already did that. And herein is the issue. I can't really do much expanding because I don't have the internal army numbers to take over another county without mercs Once I get to $220 I could hire mercs for a couple months to take someone, but then I am back down to zero money to ugrade my castle properties.

It feels like the new tax system Really hurts the income of a smaller ruler starting out in many areas (obviously not yours). What were feudal taxes before?

It was previously 0, hence the big difference. Your problems are coming from still being relatively small. You should expand, with opportunistic wars or inheritance (intrigue). Once you grow kingdom size and have a few vassal dukes (vassal republics even) cash will start flowing in.

As a general rule, you should always keep your demesne at its limit, revoke titles if necessary. You will get much much more troops than just relying on vassal levies. As mentioned, use business focus for quick cash or martial to further increase your personal levies. You get bonus levies in your capital county, as well as in your capital duchy, which get further increased by your martial skill.

 

[jpinard]

What would you suggest I do with feudal tax/levy "slider button thingie"? Leave it in the middle, or bump it over towards taxation or levies?

 

[HolyOne]

It really doesn't matter until you grow enough for it to make a difference.

Revoke every county in Provance. It will more than double your levies.

 

[jpinard]

It really doesn't matter until you grow enough for it to make a difference.

Revoke every county in Provance. It will more than double your levies.

I will try, but one of the Counts has 2 counties which nearly matches my own troop numbers. How would you suggest I remedy the anger my people will have from revoking a county?

 

[Bernard95]

I will try, but one of the Counts has 2 counties which nearly matches my own troop numbers. How would you suggest I remedy the anger my people will have from revoking a county?

Well, you could fabricate a claim so you get no tyranny but that probably doesn't help you much on the account you're having money problems as it is.

If it was me I'd probably ally with someone nearby and just revoke his titles outright, provided I have no other real vassals. How old is the guy exactly though? If he's like 50+ I'd probably wait for him to drop dead and hope that his heir has low martial skill. One better if he happens to have gavelkind and two sons. Another option I could see is marrying into the family to try and inherit his land, otherwise you might be able to pull something with the Intrigue focus. Speaking of intrigue though, you might just get randomly lucky and it'll turn out he's plotting against somebody for a free imprisonment.

On a side note for your money problems, have you tried the Pope yet? Send your chaplain over and possibly your chancellor, provided your liege has papal investiture and you don't have a bunch of sin traits.

 

[Robert II]

If you're desperate for cash, but don't mind the chance of becoming greedy or deceitful then the Business Focus may be right for you. Every so often you'll get the "minting coins" event. Choose to debase the coins for profit and you'll gain 100 gold and 100 prestige, but you do risk the aforementioned traits. A few years down the road you'll also lose 100 prestige.

Other than that, I'd probably play around with your obligation laws. Get your mayors to pay high taxes and your nobles high levies. Ignore the clergy, since they probably won't pay you anything which is the one downside to being Catholic. And of course, keep on expanding. More land after all does mean more levy and tax.

Actually with conclave and it's opinion nerfs I've been getting money from catholic bishops which is a nice change. Having 25% of your holding contributing sweet fuck all was annoying.

 

[AchedTeacher]

I honestly hate that the Jew-borrow event is there, because it's a deal that has close to no negative side effects. It has some, but the boons are greater. I hate having to press it because it feels like such a cheat.

 

[szmik]

money borrow is a one time fund to let you possibly survive (or expand quicklish) as a single province county, it's just enough to hire mercenary band for about a year

in my single county start I avoided it and still could grow to duchy starting with just a castle income (city mayor hated me and bishop prefered Pope), surely it wasn't in Asturia

 

[jpinard]

I honestly hate that the Jew-borrow event is there, because it's a deal that has close to no negative side effects. It has some, but the boons are greater. I hate having to press it because it feels like such a cheat.

I won't have the money to pay them back for hundreds of years and I'm getting the negative hit to relationship for having borrowed, two priests are borderline and if I hadn't borrowed I could be making money off my them. So it's not a cheat in the least.

 

[HolyOne]

I will try, but one of the Counts has 2 counties which nearly matches my own troop numbers. How would you suggest I remedy the anger my people will have from revoking a county?

Who cares about tyranny, when you have no vassals left to hate you?

You could try imprisoning the 2-county count. Park you marshal on his location with the supress action to maximize your chances. Unless you play ironman, savescumming is also an option.

 

[Zsrai]

I won't have the money to pay them back for hundreds of years and I'm getting the negative hit to relationship for having borrowed, two priests are borderline and if I hadn't borrowed I could be making money off my them. So it's not a cheat in the least.

Or you could banish the Jews and never have to pay them back, and then a generation or two later reinvite them and do it over again.

Anyways, if you're having that much trouble with gold income you need to fully control your duchy. I'd start off with trying to murder through/plot to revoke the Castle Baron vassal you have in your capital, and then work on pissing off your count vassal until he revolts. If you own 2 castles in your capital, you can use your Marshall to improve levies and it will effect BOTH castles... the same with the Steward's "increase tax" job (or whatever it's called). Taking that castle before pushing on into your count vassal should help tip the balance of power.

Regarding the Levy/Tax obligations: this is a no brainer. You're short on cash, so up the tax obligations. I would focus on upping the taxes in your cities first, while ignoring temples (Catholics don't get guaranteed troops/cash from priests). You can ignore the feudal slider until you actually get some more feudal vassals that you plan on keeping.

 

[Xinkc]

Thank you for the ideas. Personally, I hate the new law system in that changes are Glacial. Being able to only make one tiny perceptible change every 5 years is stupid and unrealistic. If I want to be a barbaric Duke and tax my people into oblivion, I should be able it make that change. Right now to do as you mention it takes 10 years MINIMUM if I didn't have any other laws to adjust which would lock me out of a change.

It literally could take a ruler his entire short lifetime to change the taxation rate by 20%.

The new law system is faster than before if you have a slightly empowered council. Before it was a flat 10 years and everybody de jure had to vote to approve a law change. Now you have like 7 people max to influence and 5 year timers. Not to mention the law change doesn't result in a permanent opinion malus for all characters under the law.

Anyways, single county demesne runs are doable but require a lot time (to get the gold to make new baronies if you have none to revoke). If you want a faster way to wealth in the Charlemagne start you need to either revoke proper holding types from vassals or fabricate claims outside your duchy (you are Duke of Provence so this should be possible) and war for those.

However, 3 gold a month is not bad for small starts in Charlemagne. The count of Evreux starts with like 1 gold a month but even that isn't much of a hurdle.

Oh, and get allies. Allies make all non-holy wars go well.

Once you grow kingdom size and have a few vassal dukes (vassal republics even) cash will start flowing in.

Not necessarily true, getting to demesne limit or near it as a single Duke works just as well. The Duke of Bretagne can easily make as much or more than Charlemagne with the whole Frankish Empire not too far into his namesake start. It's mostly about demesne.

 

[jpinard]

OK, it sounds like I was on the right track. I was doing much of what's listed above, and was considering whether my option of revoking titles was the best route. I actually have 6 vassals since I was given some weird county seat out in BFE, so I will have a few people to deal with. I think my income will drop a bunch from them since it will go from positive to slightly negative overall opinion. With all the talk of people complaining about how easy the game is I figured I was missing something to the Conclave had made this harder than I remember (many moons ago).

 

[AchedTeacher]

Or you could banish the Jews and never have to pay them back, and then a generation or two later reinvite them and do it over again.

Exactly my problem with this all.

 

[QDI]

Exactly my problem with this all.

You now have to pay back part of what you took from them when you reinvite them. Good change!