Why I have so little money?

[thecarlocarlone]

As title says, I earn something like +3 a month and I need 500 to convert other holdings from tribal to feudal. So I need 1500 money.

The problem is that people keep on declaring war over and over and over, because I can't sustain enough men at arms (YOU DON'T SAY???)

I have huge and I mean HUGE negative money when at war, I had to dimantle men at arms regiments, only to keep loosing money again and again.

FOR WHAT??? +3 A FREAKING MONTH????
I OWN AN EMPIRE AND THIS IS IT???

I also used hooks to modify my vassals contracts and guess what? it went from +0 to +0,1
WOW, SUCH GREAT CONTRACT!!


I'm sorry if I'm angry, but I had 18+ allies to call for all 5 wars that happened in the same year. So I'm also angry at this game because I had to stop playing just to click "call ally" 90 times.

So, how the hell I'm supposed to make money in this game?
I'm supposed to invest all I have or should I keep some? if yes, how much?
How many man at arms should I employ? if I earn +3 at month WITHOUT any, how much should (or better can) employ?
How much positivive income should I aim? I know "the more the better" but I'm really struggling to understand what is considered a good income.

[EA Latium]

Why I have so little money?

I wonder the same everyday mate.

Jokes aside, this looks like there has been a domino effect. You basically got caught into a loop - you fight a war, go in red, they attack you and on and on.

First things first, you have way too many allies, seriously. Just get those you actually need and could support, it will make your life easier as the cons outweighs the pros.

Get only the MaA you can sustain over a period of time, warfare has to be planned in advance and having an army can only be sustained for months at best will cause trouble; just get the essential for now.

Since you are Tribal and in dire needs of money, go raid some of your not so friendly neighbours, when you'll have a bit more cash save it for later, you'll need it.

Changing the contracts was a good choice, now it's a mere 0,1, but they work on percentages so it will be more later on.

To fix your situation will be best to "turtle up" for a while.

[Twelvefield]

A good income is one that allows you to make money while you are at war. It takes a while to get that, though.

Bribes can be expensive, but they can be less costly than war. If you are fighting a lot defensively, bribes can help... once you get the money. Right now you're in a trap. If you've got a whole Empire but you are that poor, you likely expanded far too quickly, or inherited an Empire that was too big to support itself.

You'll just have to do some scorched earth and let stuff go until you can support yourself financially. As long as your family lives, you will have plenty of opportunities to regain your losses. If you drop a lot of land, your enemies may overexpand and fall into the same trap you are in. If they are all tribal, they'll be weak when they expand.

Also: having the highest crown authority you can get will help keep your vassals in line, and that should help with some of the extra wars. So much trouble from your allies, though. Don't you think they are more trouble than they are worth?

[Aldon]

Originally posted by EA Latium:

Why I have so little money?

Since you are Tribal and in dire needs of money, go raid some of your not so friendly neighbours, when you'll have a bit more cash save it for later, you'll need it.

Changing the contracts was a good choice, now it's a mere 0,1, but they work on percentages so it will be more later on.

That doesn't fit together! I guess he is feudal and conquered three tribes that he owns as a domain and cannot convert. They bring him no money and no troops. Handed over to vassals, quickly!

[angel of derp]

Originally posted by Aldon:

Originally posted by EA Latium:

Since you are Tribal and in dire needs of money, go raid some of your not so friendly neighbours, when you'll have a bit more cash save it for later, you'll need it.

Changing the contracts was a good choice, now it's a mere 0,1, but they work on percentages so it will be more later on.

That doesn't fit together! I guess he is feudal and conquered three tribes that he owns as a domain and cannot convert. They bring him no money and no troops. Handed over to vassals, quickly!

Exactly. Use your vassals to do vassal things.

Why hold onto Tribal holdings if you're Feudal?

Give those to Vassals, let them deal with it. IMO, those are the first things to hand out - anything you conquer that is too expensive to deal with. Let someone else deal with them.

[VayneVerso]

It's really frustrating to try to take land from tribal realms after you've gone feudal. It's massively expensive. Yeah, you can hand those out to vassals, but how are they going to afford the 500 gold it takes to convert a tribal hold to a castle? They're probably in the same boat as you financially. So instead those lands just sit there useless functioning as war targets for whatever tribal ruler actually can use them.

[Al Gore]

raiiiiidddddddddddddd

I had like 5k gold 10 years into the game by raiding my feudal neighbors, it's free real estate.

[Aldon]

Originally posted by TheWatcherUatu:

It's really frustrating to try to take land from tribal realms after you've gone feudal. It's massively expensive. Yeah, you can hand those out to vassals, but how are they going to afford the 500 gold it takes to convert a tribal hold to a castle? They're probably in the same boat as you financially. So instead those lands just sit there useless functioning as war targets for whatever tribal ruler actually can use them.

They dont have to spend 500 gold. If you are feudal holding tribel counties you must spend gold, if you are tribal with feudal liege, you have to have limited crown authority, some prestige (not that much 300 i think) and then just hit the decision button to convert to feudal and get random city or abbey.

[VayneVerso]

Originally posted by Aldon:

Originally posted by TheWatcherUatu:

It's really frustrating to try to take land from tribal realms after you've gone feudal. It's massively expensive. Yeah, you can hand those out to vassals, but how are they going to afford the 500 gold it takes to convert a tribal hold to a castle? They're probably in the same boat as you financially. So instead those lands just sit there useless functioning as war targets for whatever tribal ruler actually can use them.

They dont have to spend 500 gold. If you are feudal holding tribel counties you must spend gold, if you are tribal with feudal liege, you have to have limited crown authority, some prestige (not that much 300 i think) and then just hit the decision button to convert to feudal and get random city or abbey.

Maybe I'm confused, but read his original post. He said he needed 500 each to convert three tribal holds. I assumed that implied that he is feudal and conquering tribal lands.

[Aldon]

Originally posted by TheWatcherUatu:

Originally posted by Aldon:

They dont have to spend 500 gold. If you are feudal holding tribel counties you must spend gold, if you are tribal with feudal liege, you have to have limited crown authority, some prestige (not that much 300 i think) and then just hit the decision button to convert to feudal and get random city or abbey.

Maybe I'm confused, but read his original post. He said he needed 500 each to convert three tribal holds. That implies he is feudal and conquering tribal lands.

Yes and i told him to give the land away. His vassal is then tribal under fudal liege and can convert for like nothing.

[VayneVerso]

Originally posted by Aldon:

Yes and i told him to give the land away. His vassal is then tribal under fudal liege and can convert for like nothing.

Oh, I see what you're saying. I didn't realize that would work. I'll have to test that out later.

[VayneVerso]

Originally posted by TheWatcherUatu:

Originally posted by Aldon:

Yes and i told him to give the land away. His vassal is then tribal under fudal liege and can convert for like nothing.

Oh, I see what you're saying. I didn't realize that would work. I'll have to test that out later.

Well, I tested it out with a county I conquered. The fresh vassal I installed there is indeed considered a tribal vassal and can reap the benefits of the tribal structures. He has yet to build the castle, though, but we'll see; he hasn't been there very long.

Related question. There's this one stupid island here that is held by one of my vassals and I guess the duchy title is considered a feudal title or something? Not sure how this works.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2311721675

It's actually the only thing he owns. Just the duchy title and the county title. It's obnoxious, because it's considered to have a garrison of 1, so it's the first place an enemy like this will go. How can I get this thing converted? Do I have to commit a tyranny to revoke this poor guy's title so I can destroy the duchy title and put somebody new there?

I think it has been like this for a long time. I'm looking at the title history and it's a mess. I never really paid much attention to it.

[EA Latium]

Originally posted by Aldon:

That doesn't fit together! I guess he is feudal and conquered three tribes that he owns as a domain and cannot convert. They bring him no money and no troops. Handed over to vassals, quickly!

Blimey, I think you're right! That's the way to go then.

[CrUsHeR]

1) Don't upgrade tribal holdings yourself. Give them to a random lowborn, they just need some time to upgrade their tribal authority and then can adopt feudal / clan ways for free with no extra requirements. All they need is an organized faith.

If you really, really want a new and completely empty feudal holding, you can also forge a claim and revoke the county after the vassal adopted feudalism, which only costs a small fraction.



2) Always put holding upgrades over men-at-arms recruitment. Getting +0.3 taxes from a new trade port sounds extremely low, but you just have to stack those.
I generally try to focus on 1 men-at-arms type, so i can put 2-3 economy buildings into each holding. Some of them like the hunting grounds also boost MAA, so you need to check what you can build in your local terrain for the best synergy (also see point 3 below).

Also your mayor vassals are useless if their cities don't have any upgrades. Their basic income is about 0.1g, so they pay 0.02g tax to you. At that rate, it would take 1200 months until they can afford a trade port or guilds building - assuming they don't use the gold to bribe plot agents, or have their title revoked. So you also have to kickstart their economy by building at least 1-2 of these upgrades for them.


3) Not sure if it was mentioned where you are playing. Thing is that the terrain has a huge impact on your economical potential.

https://ck3.paradoxwikis.com/Warfare#Terrain

So the terrain has very hard modifiers for county development.
Also the terrain imposes heavy restrictions on which building types are allowed on them, so basically only Plains and Farmlands are ideal places to settle. Oasis and Floodplains are also good, but come with their own special set of buildings.

https://ck3.paradoxwikis.com/Barony#Terrain_buildings

[BaCaz]

I'm going to be blunt. You f'd up a long time ago and it's going to be very difficult for you to fix it at this point, compared to starting over and doing it right.

If you start as tribal, your best bet is to take feudal land and make it your capital, (this is done for you from the start in the Hvitsik/Whiteshirt campaign) with tribal culture and feudal land you're set to make money easy mode. As suggested by others above, develop your land so every county you hold has 2-3 buildings that support your economy. 0.2 or 0.5 gold per month doesn’t sound like much but it stacks up and it upgrades to become much better.

Well I bought 2 buildings and now I'm broke, generating 3 gold a month, am I supposed to just sit here and wait?
No, this is the time for raiding. Choose your target carefully, you wanna hit someone who is much weaker than yourself or someone approximately just below your strength to weaken them and keep them raidable or you wanna raid someone who you just defeated in war.
When raiding, make sure you hover all the available targets and hit the best ones, hover your army to see how much more gold they can care and try to avoid taking attrition, but keep in mind you probably will, on your way back if you didn’t plan accordingly. It’s also a good idea to use this time to scout for your next raiding target. (England and France, i’m sorry but your land is too good not to plunder).

Another great way to help you in the early as much as the later game is to have a spouse who is good at Stewardship and have her ‘Manage Domain’ in your council member tab, this might even double your available holdings in the beginning. Now whether you choose to control a lot of counties or have a lot of holdings in each county doesn’t make a large difference and there are ups and downs to either. I prefer holding overpowered Duchies like Constantinople or Jerusalem directly and keeping small highly developed counties in the same duchies as staging areas to spawn large armies.

If you are Feudal but your religion isn’t organised and you’re of the North Germanic culture group you can still continue raiding, however if you’re both Feudal and your religion is organized then it’s time to start asking your head of faith for gold if that is an option within your religion. For him to give you gold he is going to have to like you and based on his personality that may or may not be difficult but it's generally speaking worth the investment.

To avoid being the target of continued siege from the AI, try to never drop too low in comparable military power and gold. If you can’t go to war without going bankrupt then you should wait, if you don’t have at least twice the military of your opponent don’t go to war. Keep scouting how out, and when suddenly he is the target of a lot of wars and is weakened to half your numbers, he doesn’t have gold and no children to marry off, that is when you strike.

Don’t rush, be patient. The most common mistake I see when I play with friends in MP is they just wanna paint the map, you have to be very considerate, especially early on when things can quickly turn on you, so bite your time, I really can’t stress this enough.

Now to provide some context here are some screenshots from different games.
https://steamuserimages-a.akamaihd.net/ugc/1652222267933966087/70149C43A5835C3785E00907F10359CFE747DFB5/
Byzantine Empire, start 867, current year 1081. Monthly income 150-200 depending on stability. Available Gold 173.381. 12 Holdings. Ironman, no mods, Custom Character.

https://steamuserimages-a.akamaihd.net/ugc/1667982787568570104/739C1F89654F14EE1F8EDB8D5E9C9EC51DDD18B8/
Jarl Sigurdr Snake-in-eye, 867 start, current year 1451. Monthly income 550. Available gold 214.581. 17 Holdings. Campaign start, no mods, not ironman.

I hope this has answered some of your questions, best of luck building your economy.

Edit: Just to answer this before it's asked. To make this much gold, fast and get really tired in your arm, simply create a new temporal faith with you as head of faith and one of the tenets being Communion, allowing everyone inside your faith to seek indulgences.

[McKeachnie]

Try getting the PROFIT FROM WAR PERK that's in stewardship so you get a little bit more money. You may just need to play as different rulers for a bit to setup your empire more effectively.