Help with Denmark

[calvinhobbeslik]

My goal is to inherit, with cores, Norway and Sweden, form Scandinavia, and then colonize all of North America from my Greenland cores. I attacked TO on day 1, and have since conquered Osel, the Baltic States, and Memel, so I have a larger army than Sweden, who thus stopped insulting me. However, even with a 5 star Master of Mint and all this land, I'm running a negative yearly budget because of my relatively large army, even when my maintenance is close to zero. I've taken CAD and switched it to NTP, but I don't think I can afford to send merchants. How do I improve my economy?

 

[unmerged(337549)]

Could we see a screenshot of your finances?

If you don't have many (or any) merchants placed a master of mint wont help you much. Over-minting for a year or two (or take a loan if you prefer that) to afford merchants is worth it as they will greatly increase your income (once placed).

 

[calvinhobbeslik]

Looks like I'm about to be attacked by the Golden Horde....

 

[unmerged(62860)]

-1 Stabilty is your big Money drain. You could use your cultrul tradition and spam Tech advisors who other nations hire, this will net you a fair amount of ducats per year.

 

[sebas379]

I'm a newbie, but what I'd do here first is deal with stability. Doesn't low stab increase cost of stuff? Get it away from that -1 and head for +3 right away.
In the ledger you can see a breakdown of your income and spendings, I tend to look there at what the biggest costs are and see if I can do something about them, since that would pay off most.

 

[Conch]

too high infamy to trade and no way to reduce army size... hm... hire a Diplomat if you want to trade in the near future, or look out for the Chance of quick acquisations of (richer) land... maybe join a war againt a Major that cant hurt you and hope for war subsidies...

 

[Blaaat]

Increasing your stability to +3 would help, during that use magistrates to make paintings for cultural tradition in order to export advisor and lower your inflation to decrease costs.
You have to lower infamy if you want to start trading, high infamy decreases chance for your merchants to succeed.

 

[unmerged(204522)]

you conquered some really poor provinces-why dont you have holstein? why didnt you conquer a CoT?

 

[calvinhobbeslik]

you conquered some really poor provinces-why dont you have holstein? why didnt you conquer a CoT?

Holstein is Unlikely to be diploannexed and will give me another stab hit. Which COT would I conquer? Lubeck is protected by the Emperor, and Burgundy is Burgundy.

 

[Agenor]

The Baltics are too poor to bother with, they will just drag you down, since your tech costs increase with size, but your income hardly rises.

Basically, provinces with a tax base of less than 3 are not worth conquering, especially if they produce low value goods like grain, wool or naval supplies. Perhaps you could consider releasing some of them as vassals? That way you get reliable allies with small, but often useful armies without the drawbacks mentioned above.

Also, I have never managed to keep Sweden in a PU as Denmark. It always breaks up, and they will attack you as soon as you look weak. Best to be prepared by building a bigger fleet than they have.

 

[calvinhobbeslik]

The Baltics are too poor to bother with, they will just drag you down, since your tech costs increase with size, but your income hardly rises.

Basically, provinces with a tax base of less than 3 are not worth conquering, especially if they produce low value goods like grain, wool or naval supplies. Perhaps you could consider releasing some of them as vassals? That way you get reliable allies with small, but often useful armies without the drawbacks mentioned above.

Also, I have never managed to keep Sweden in a PU as Denmark. It always breaks up, and they will attack you as soon as you look weak. Best to be prepared by building a bigger fleet than they have.

Well, I want to have a Baltic Empire as well...and the provinces are not that poor. Riga has a base tax of 6 for example. And I need those provicnes to keep my forcelimits high enough.

 

[unmerged(37198)]

Also, I have never managed to keep Sweden in a PU as Denmark. It always breaks up, and they will attack you as soon as you look weak. Best to be prepared by building a bigger fleet than they have.

as long as you have a larger army then sweden they will not break of or sling insults, when I play denmark I use to stick to just building inf in the early game since it allow me to get a larger army at a lower cost

 

[calvinhobbeslik]

I'm trying to send merchants. I can keep a few in Novgorod, but that COT is poor. I tried trading in Lubeck, but my merchants keep getting kicked out, probably since Hansa removed me from their trade league when I went to war with them on an ally's call. Even with overminting and 3 stability and 0 army maintenance, my yearly budget is very bad, and to top it all off, I don't even have a decent change of inheriting Norway or Sweden! How do I fix this?

 

[JKNUBZ]

have you touched your trade slider?

 

[calvinhobbeslik]

have you touched your trade slider?

Nope. Would that really help? I thought trade league COTs are counted as owned COTs?

 

[JKNUBZ]

as denmark i go +2 free trade (max you can have while still getting sound toll) and get NTP + a trader so that i can trade in lubeck, novgorod, antwerp, and maybe some other places. it's pretty effective, but you have to control your infamy.

EDIT: I meant SCP instead of NTP, it works a lot better.

 

[unmerged(37198)]

as denmark i go +2 free trade (max you can have while still getting sound toll) and get NTP + a trader so that i can trade in lubeck, novgorod, antwerp, and maybe some other places. it's pretty effective, but you have to control your infamy.

EDIT: I meant SCP instead of NTP, it works a lot better.

it depends on which patch you are on, on the 5,2 beta its always better to go full free trade since the bonus from toll is much worse

and OP if you wish to make your trade work you need to get your infamy down and your stability back up at a bare minimum

 

[Vainfall]

Each point of infamy is -2% compete chance in foreign cots. Not a big deal in single player, if you have +5 free trade and shrewd commerce practice. But definitely need to start sliding free trade immediately. in 20 years, you'll have burnt all your infamy and taken a few slides to free trade, and be able to trade in every CoT in europe easily.

 

[Boon63]

Just a tip, in the case you don't already know it. If you want extra money you can use your Magistrates to raise your Cultural Tradition and "create" 5 or 6 stars advisors. You wait a year and other countries will hire your advisors. You'll gain 15-20 ducats for each adv. that way. (I recommend the High Judge advisor ; always hired and don't bring too much benefits to the nation.)

With cultural decisions and the provincial decision in your capital (I don't remember the name) , you can easily earn 10+ ducats a year this way. It's not a huge amount of money but it can be a life-saver

 

[calvinhobbeslik]

How do I increase my chances of inheriting my Personal Unions? I have a few spheres already, but the tooltip says that's I won't inherit Norway or Sweden. What else do I need?