Noob Question: Monthly Income Help!

[Cyrus_The_Great]

Hello everyone i just got this game recently and although have been playing the suggested countries, my economy is always so bad that i have to quit adventually because i lose to much money. I am sending out merchants and when my stabibility allows, raising war taxes but i just cant seem to make any money. Can anyone help or give me advice, thanks!

 

[unmerged(17277)]

Hello everyone i just got this game recently and although have been playing the suggested countries, my economy is always so bad that i have to quit adventually because i lose to much money. I am sending out merchants and when my stabibility allows, raising war taxes but i just cant seem to make any money. Can anyone help or give me advice, thanks!

Sending out merchants and raising war taxes are almost always bad ideas for boosting the economy, especially when just starting out.

If you set your "to treasury" slider to zero, then as long as your monthly income is greater than your monthly expenditures (and assuming you are not building too big of an army, it will be) then you will not go bankrupt. Your treasury will just sit at zero until Jan 1st. At that point, you will get a large-ish amount of money. With this money, buy whatever troops you need to buy, build whatever province improvements you need to build (tax collectors are an absolute priority over everything else you can buy with your money, btw) and do whatever diplomacy you need to do that costs money.

Spend it all in the first month or two. Then sit at zero for the rest of the year.

This is how you play for most of the game. Wartime can sometimes lead you to need to set the slider at a place other than zero, and religious conversion and certain province improvements can also warrant saving up money rather than let it shrink down to zero over the year. Other than that, don't worry about sittig at zero--it is the normal state of the treasury.

A little more about merchants: The conventional wisdom is that you should wait til you've got tech level 4 or 5 before sending them out. Before that, it is said, they are not worth the money they cost to send out.

I, however, will spend leftover January money on traders alot of the time even before these tech levels, and there are others who are not bad players who do the same.

(Also, remember to set military maintenance at 50% when not at war. Heck, in my experience, you can often get away with leaving it at 50% during war.)

-Kris

 

[unmerged(15337)]

I recommend that you read some of the FAQs which give excellent advice on this topic. But here are some general guidelines.

1. Many countries start with an oversized army -- meaning more than the support limit. Either use it or lose it, disbanding a few troops if necessary. Pay your army and fleet only half maintenance until or unless you go to war.

2. Build tax collectors in your provinces right away.

3. Be very sparing about sending merchants in the early part of the game. The competition is usually too tough compared to your trade efficiency and consequently your earnings are low even when your merchants stay. I suggest that you focus only on your local COT at first (the one that is cheapest). In any case do not use autosend.

4. You almost always should focus your initial tech investment toward trade and/or infra. Getting up to level 3 in these makes a huge difference in your income.

5. When at war, take advantage of every opportunity to loot. In a month when your army first moves into an enemy province, move your budget slider to treasury, taking cash that month. You get a very small amount of inflation but a good supply of much needed cash. Remember to reset your budget slider the next month.

6. I advise new players to be very conservative about avoiding inflation. Once you know the game better you will have a sense for when you can be more aggressive to mint cash for major investments (such as manufactories, especially refineries). But a novice player can easily get caught in a nasty inflation spiral with careless minting.

 

[Cyrus_The_Great]

I read some faqs on here and eu2wiki and they all seemed to stress building tax collectors, i did this a bit and it seemed to work (I got turned off from doing this a few days ago because i know rebellion chance is increased and, lets just say one game with austria i didnt have fun with that ).
But yea thanks and me sending too many merchants out was probably a problem.

 

[unmerged(45766)]

Read carefully jwolf's post, it's full of good advices. Kris has some things that need to be precised, but mostly good too.

For trade, start thinking about it when you get to trade 3. Send a few merchants in some CoTs, and look how long they stay in it, how much they made you earn, and if it's worth the cost of having them there (including the costs of failed attempts). If you're negative, abort, and either try elsewhere or later.
Interestingly, some rather poor CoTs are in fact very interesting to start trading in, because they don't get much of a competition, which means your merchants stay put much longer.
Dont necessarily spend your january's leftover on merchants. If they don't return a positive benefit, you'll be investing less in technology. And it's technology that will give you the edge, if you maintain a pure infra/trade research until levels 4/4 or 5/5.

For your wars, avoid all battles. Early on, the game engine is unreliable, too random, and you'd suffer huge losses for little gains. And the AI'll always have much more troops than you. Troops are expensive to raise, so avoid cases where you have to recruit them. So, avoid battles, focus on multiple sieges. Don't research land or naval techs, since you're gonna avoid battles. Focusin' on economy is better, as later you'll have a much better income. Usually, the AI is first at land 9 while you're still at land 2 or 3, but at the same time you hit infra/trade 4/4 or 5/5, and before the AI gets to land 14 you'll have bested it there. From then on, it's cakewalk.


A final note : manufactories are good. Expensive, but real good. Imagine that for a cost of less than a thousand ducats for the first couple of them, you get a boost of 66-72d to your annual income, without even counting their other "side" benefits : 5d/month in tech-investments, and 6 or 12d annually to your monthly income (0.5 or 1d/month). Nothing beats early manufactory's benefits, they pay for themselves in barely a dozen years.

 

[Cyrus_The_Great]

Read carefully jwolf's post, it's full of good advices. Kris has some things that need to be precised, but mostly good too.

For trade, start thinking about it when you get to trade 3. Send a few merchants in some CoTs, and look how long they stay in it, how much they made you earn, and if it's worth the cost of having them there (including the costs of failed attempts). If you're negative, abort, and either try elsewhere or later.
Interestingly, some rather poor CoTs are in fact very interesting to start trading in, because they don't get much of a competition, which means your merchants stay put much longer.
Dont necessarily spend your january's leftover on merchants. If they don't return a positive benefit, you'll be investing less in technology. And it's technology that will give you the edge, if you maintain a pure infra/trade research until levels 4/4 or 5/5.

For your wars, avoid all battles. Early on, the game engine is unreliable, too random, and you'd suffer huge losses for little gains. And the AI'll always have much more troops than you. Troops are expensive to raise, so avoid cases where you have to recruit them. So, avoid battles, focus on multiple sieges. Don't research land or naval techs, since you're gonna avoid battles. Focusin' on economy is better, as later you'll have a much better income. Usually, the AI is first at land 9 while you're still at land 2 or 3, but at the same time you hit infra/trade 4/4 or 5/5, and before the AI gets to land 14 you'll have bested it there. From then on, it's cakewalk.


A final note : manufactories are good. Expensive, but real good. Imagine that for a cost of less than a thousand ducats for the first couple of them, you get a boost of 66-72d to your annual income, without even counting their other "side" benefits : 5d/month in tech-investments, and 6 or 12d annually to your monthly income (0.5 or 1d/month). Nothing beats early manufactory's benefits, they pay for themselves in barely a dozen years.

Ok thanks, so prettymuch when starting out it is a good plan to just sort of lay low until your economy goes up then, right?

 

[unmerged(45766)]

Ok thanks, so prettymuch when starting out it is a good plan to just sort of lay low until your economy goes up then, right?

Sort of. However, there's one very important "currency" in the game : BadBoy.

I call that "currency", because it's a part of what you have to "pay" in order to conquer provinces (and nefarious consequences come if BB gets above 10, starting with decreasing relations, culminating with BBWars). There're ways to pay less BB than usual, it's part of a good management, but there's one element that stays permanent : over time, BB decreases naturally, by a number depending on your monarch's DIP skill and difficulty setting. Your BB starts at 0 (except exceptions), and the decrease can never go negative (no way to "reduce in advance"). It's then important to start growing, slowly but consistently, at a low BB cost, so as to get the maximum for your bucks.

 

[unmerged(17277)]

Read carefully jwolf's post, it's full of good advices. Kris has some things that need to be precised, but mostly good too.

For trade, start thinking about it when you get to trade 3. Send a few merchants in some CoTs, and look how long they stay in it, how much they made you earn, and if it's worth the cost of having them there (including the costs of failed attempts). If you're negative, abort, and either try elsewhere or later.
Interestingly, some rather poor CoTs are in fact very interesting to start trading in, because they don't get much of a competition, which means your merchants stay put much longer.
Dont necessarily spend your january's leftover on merchants. If they don't return a positive benefit, you'll be investing less in technology. And it's technology that will give you the edge, if you maintain a pure infra/trade research until levels 4/4 or 5/5.

For your wars, avoid all battles. Early on, the game engine is unreliable, too random, and you'd suffer huge losses for little gains. And the AI'll always have much more troops than you. Troops are expensive to raise, so avoid cases where you have to recruit them. So, avoid battles, focus on multiple sieges. Don't research land or naval techs, since you're gonna avoid battles. Focusin' on economy is better, as later you'll have a much better income. Usually, the AI is first at land 9 while you're still at land 2 or 3, but at the same time you hit infra/trade 4/4 or 5/5, and before the AI gets to land 14 you'll have bested it there. From then on, it's cakewalk.


A final note : manufactories are good. Expensive, but real good. Imagine that for a cost of less than a thousand ducats for the first couple of them, you get a boost of 66-72d to your annual income, without even counting their other "side" benefits : 5d/month in tech-investments, and 6 or 12d annually to your monthly income (0.5 or 1d/month). Nothing beats early manufactory's benefits, they pay for themselves in barely a dozen years.

Your info is more "precise," perhaps, but mine is more "directly relevant to the OP's question."

Not, to be sure, that I don't think your info is to be appreciated by the author of the OP.

-Kris

 

[Cyrus_The_Great]

Alright, so i started playing Austria, and iv been building tax collectors at 2 or 3 at a time, and my income is still only about 2.5 ducats each month. I have both my maintnence costs at 50%. What should i do now? Im thinking of vassalizing a country or two?
And thank you everyone for your help, i appreciate it and know these questions are probably elementary to you.

 

[unmerged(15337)]

Austria can or will be strong eventually, but during the 1400s you should stay calm and wait for later events to guide you. Your monthly income should rise significantly as your economic techs advance, and as you gradually get more trade income from your merchants.

Meanwhile, be opportunistic. If a rich victim is ready to be taken, go for it. Otherwise, lie low and wait. After your inheritances in the early 1500s your Austria will turn into a monster.

 

[unmerged(45766)]

Alright, so i started playing Austria, and iv been building tax collectors at 2 or 3 at a time, and my income is still only about 2.5 ducats each month. I have both my maintnence costs at 50%. What should i do now? Im thinking of vassalizing a country or two?
And thank you everyone for your help, i appreciate it and know these questions are probably elementary to you.

First off, did you reduce the size of your army ? Austria is one of those counties that start with an oversized army. Either use it on a lone neighbour or disband it.

Stay low indeed, but stay acute and ready. Ally to Bohemia & Hungary or form your own alliance. The german minors are good countries to force-vassalize, and early on their armies aren't too numerous. I spoke in another thread of the importance of BB as a "currency", so keep on growing and reinforcing (just don't take provinces in offensive wars and don't force-annex). You might go with Burgundy, to guide it through a rampage across Germany and Italy (true, they'll release half-a-dozen western german minors and cede french provinces back to France when you inherit them, but all other provinces are free booty for you, at 0.25 BB).
Likewise help the other countries you'll inherit, Milan, Bohemia and Hungary, but that's for later (don't hesitate to sacrify your allies if you go to war with them).

 

[Cyrus_The_Great]

Ok everyone thank you so much for your help, anyone else got any suggestions to make?

 

[unmerged(45766)]

Ok everyone thank you so much for your help, anyone else got any suggestions to make?

Yes. Uninstall EU2 and all other Paradox games, scrap the CDs, put the CDs and the boxes in a fire, hammer them with a sledgehammer, bury them in a cement-blok, and throw the blok from the San Francisco bridge. Lest you do that, you're forfeiting your social life for all eternity.

 

[unmerged(15337)]

Yes. Uninstall EU2 and all other Paradox games, scrap the CDs, put the CDs and the boxes in a fire, hammer them with a sledgehammer, bury them in a cement-blok, and throw the blok from the San Francisco bridge. Lest you do that, you're forfeiting your social life for all eternity.

:rofl:

Sounds like Paradox makes the Rasputin of CDs. You left out dissolving them in acid.