Money. Money, Money...

[Crash.Kid]

... must be funny, in the rich man's world...

Not sure if it's just me who negatively notices that the recent DLCs (from Royal Court onwards) essentially bring in new opportunities to spend enormous amounts of money. While this might be useful or even needed in the late game, in order to not drown in gold coins, it bothers me in the first third of my save game a lot. I start as a small earl or duke and make max +3 Gold per month or so, which is 36 Gold per year (!) - and only if I don't spend it for anything else... One of these new tournaments would cost me 395 gold. So, I would need to save every penny for the upcoming 11 years to be able to hold one of these. Same goes for the new glamorous wedding or voyage.

I mean, I do understand that a tiny Lord would not be able to hold a big tournament every other year. I'm fine with that. But still, I have the feeling that with each DLC inflation is kicking in also in my 2nd live in CK3 now, besides real life.. I desperately seek for further opportunities to make money, in order to play tall - also with a relatively small territory. May it be with more focus on mining resources, trading, customs, taxes or just by the ability to gain secrets and hooks more frequently and becoming a small but powerful lord by demanding payments for the hooks.

So, what I want to say is: In my opintion, players should also gain more opportunities and mechanics to make money, in parallel to the new opportunitites we got to spend it. Do I miss something in the recent updates? Am I the only one who is bothered by this?

[jpcerutti]

You need to 'earn' more gold. Raiding, ransoming, events, cashing in artifacts, secret extortion, etc. are there for a reason.

If after 11 years you are only earning 36 gold a year you might want to re-examine your playstyle.

That being said, I sometimes NEED that measly two coins the dog randomly brings me. :)

[Crash.Kid]

Yes, sure. There are a few more income options than solely relying on the regular taxes. I know that and I use that, more or less. Not every character is born to go the Stewardship Lifestyle though. So, only for a few of them I even have the option to demand payments for hooks, not even talking about the extra ability "Truth is relative" from the Intrigue Lifestyle.

So, the more profitable ways of gaining gold are not always available. And even if they are, they have not grown with the growing amount of "spend even more of your gold" activities. It's still as hard/slow to gain money, while more buttons are demanding you to spend it. That's what I'm moaning about.

[Emperor2000]

Originally posted by Crash.Kid:

... must be funny, in the rich man's world...

Not sure if it's just me who negatively notices that the recent DLCs (from Royal Court onwards) essentially bring in new opportunities to spend enormous amounts of money. While this might be useful or even needed in the late game, in order to not drown in gold coins, it bothers me in the first third of my save game a lot. I start as a small earl or duke and make max +3 Gold per month or so, which is 36 Gold per year (!) - and only if I don't spend it for anything else... One of these new tournaments would cost me 395 gold. So, I would need to save every penny for the upcoming 11 years to be able to hold one of these. Same goes for the new glamorous wedding or voyage.

I mean, I do understand that a tiny Lord would not be able to hold a big tournament every other year. I'm fine with that. But still, I have the feeling that with each DLC inflation is kicking in also in my 2nd live in CK3 now, besides real life.. I desperately seek for further opportunities to make money, in order to play tall - also with a relatively small territory. May it be with more focus on mining resources, trading, customs, taxes or just by the ability to gain secrets and hooks more frequently and becoming a small but powerful lord by demanding payments for the hooks.

So, what I want to say is: In my opintion, players should also gain more opportunities and mechanics to make money, in parallel to the new opportunitites we got to spend it. Do I miss something in the recent updates? Am I the only one who is bothered by this?

If you need money, how about conquering Bohemia, it has a mine, a University and 3 counties with 6 baronies, after this you should have more than enough Money and don't build more than 1 temple or City in Bohemia, because the most Baronies in this Duchy, have the perfect Terrain for Castles.

[XHellsLegionerX]

Keep in mind that the terrain has a huge impact on available buildings in your holdings e.g. in provinces with farmland you can earn gold way more efficent compared to the average hillside castle or even one that was built on plains. if you really want to play like city state style you should keep an eye out for special buildings like mines and religious holy sites just like Emperor2000 said.

[Gilmund]

Build things in your domain as soon as possible. Starting duke of Aquitaine, i'm now in year 1330 and have 3500+ gold per month ruling over half the map. I use most of my money to buil in my vassals territories. Which is giving me more and more money it's a neverending cycle.

[Damedius]

Notice how half of the replies ignore the point of your post and are just here to humble brag.

You are right though. If you don't min/max or play a specific play style you will be broke and it takes forever to snow ball. It's because the game isn't very balanced. You have to abuse certain mechanics in order to get the ball rolling.

So abuse extorting people for money using hooks. Abuse raiding or asking your head of faith for gold.

If you just sit around saving up to build one building every 10 years, it takes forever to get income rolling in.

[CrUsHeR]

Originally posted by jpcerutti:

You need to 'earn' more gold. Raiding, ransoming, events, cashing in artifacts, secret extortion, etc. are there for a reason.

If after 11 years you are only earning 36 gold a year you might want to re-examine your playstyle.

That being said, I sometimes NEED that measly two coins the dog randomly brings me. :)

Most of these event /activity prices depend on your monthly / yearly income, so these are relatively expensive for anyone who cannot raid or otherwise organize a lot of extra gold off the monthly paycheck

Additionally, most things are much cheaper for Tribals, especially the MAA cost zero gold

[CrUsHeR]

And yeah back on the topic, it's already like that since Royal Court. I won't even think about "holding court" unless i have around 1500g spare gold laying around, because i'll have to pay off some entitled vassal or knight with sums probably equalling the entire peasant income of all european realms combined.

And don't get me started on paying something like 2k gold for a grand tour or wedding preparations.

[Gilmund]

Originally posted by Damedius:

Notice how half of the replies ignore the point of your post and are just here to humble brag.

You are right though. If you don't min/max or play a specific play style you will be broke and it takes forever to snow ball. It's because the game isn't very balanced. You have to abuse certain mechanics in order to get the ball rolling.

So abuse extorting people for money using hooks. Abuse raiding or asking your head of faith for gold.

If you just sit around saving up to build one building every 10 years, it takes forever to get income rolling in.

There is no money problem in this game. It's unrealistically easy to get it. After 2-3 rulers you may be above all other rulers of same domain size in the game regarding income...
It is expected you canno't give early game hugh kingly tournaments being a simple count.
So OP is describing a very early situation or is just playing very poorly over time.
I didn't play exceptionnaly well at all times min maxing everything to have 3500+gold at year 1330...

[jpcerutti]

Originally posted by CrUsHeR:

Originally posted by jpcerutti:

You need to 'earn' more gold. Raiding, ransoming, events, cashing in artifacts, secret extortion, etc. are there for a reason.

If after 11 years you are only earning 36 gold a year you might want to re-examine your playstyle.

That being said, I sometimes NEED that measly two coins the dog randomly brings me. :)

Most of these event /activity prices depend on your monthly / yearly income, so these are relatively expensive for anyone who cannot raid or otherwise organize a lot of extra gold off the monthly paycheck

Additionally, most things are much cheaper for Tribals, especially the MAA cost zero gold

I'm not sure expensive is always a bad thing. Not every Count and Duke needs to sponsor a tournament, a hunt, and a grand wedding every few years. I turn down enough hunt invitations as it is (for the crazy long lead times). Hunts and that stinkin' quintain have an uncanny ability to kill me as well - and that is a very disappointing thing to spend a lot of money on.

If you're going to hold an event and ask the nearby royalty to attend it should cost you a small fortune. You cannot ask the King of France to show up for card tricks, three guys mud wrestling, and whatever you might manage to shoot with a bow today. I think of them as more things to impress your friends and neighbors as you blow the profits from windfalls and success than things to be saved up for.

[Karsh]

if you start as a coutn aye , money is very slow
but then again , if i play a duke or coutn at start i confert to catho or insularism asap . for pope donations.

to egt some money buildigns started up asap

like others said if you are a count who can raid then it's even easier to get some money early game raid hope for ransoms , then convert if you think any moment some holy war is incoming


and as a count or duke you don't realkly need the tournements at all to be hosted just a money sink you cannot afford . just try to join others , without using any modifer to travel (then it should cost max 10 gold to attent depending on your caravan master)

Edit :
also when playing count try to find a easy count to take his lands from (aye cost money but 2 counties provide more money then 1 :D)

[Hauw2x]

When I got AEIOU and me, I started as crappy count Werner of Aargau. Only 1.3 gold per month.

I failed the achievement 2 times, on my final attempt, I rerolled 8 times until I got really pious Werner.

I asked my liege for guaranteed council position (steward) in which I get 3 gold per month, cheaper buildings, in exchange of larger levies (32 more troops something lol)

I ask the pope for claims, and petition my claims to my liege. In 14 years I went from count Werner of Aargau to Duke Werner of Austria and Streyermark.

After that I spam grand wedding on virtually all my children, and I got the achievement in a lifetime. 3rd time is the charm

[H0gs_tooth]

It's slow at first but within a few generations you will be making more gold than you know what to do with. Even with just a sizable duchy with upgraded buildings. At first you do kinda have to rely on more "active" ways of making money. One that might suit your playstyle would be to go intrigue focus and kidnap high ranking people for ransom. Or if you are Christian you can cash in your good boi points for gold. Winning defensive wars can also give you a nice payday but its kinda random.

[Harris]

Originally posted by Damedius:

You are right though. If you don't min/max or play a specific play style you will be broke and it takes forever to snow ball. It's because the game isn't very balanced.

The game is balanced... around the fact your domain is Duchy of Valois that has farmlands in every barony and a cathedrals and singlehandedly rakes in more gold than the rest of France. It's not balanced around you playing the count of Nowhereshire, because, quite frankly - why would anyone do that?

Yes, as soon as you become king or emperor it becomes very costly just to host a feast to get rid of some stress. Which is probably a reason why you shouldn't rush to become king and why being a powerful vassal duke might be a better choice, especially if you can get a seat on the council.

Costs scales with eras but so do earnings. In the late game you can trivially farm pope for thousands of gold, and making him love you is quite trivial between new piligrimages and the relevant legacies.

But who needs the pope when you can just capture Kent and adopt custom religion with Rite so that Catholics don't attack you and lay clergy, so that you get to rake in all the profits from Canterbury yourself. From that point you can become king, but why doing that if you can get Practiced Pirates as a duke instead and get even more gold by raiding as feudal.

I agree you're a little limited in ways you earn money and perhaps even overreliant on a good domain, but that comes with the territory.

Something I'm gonna agree with is it really helps to have some sort of cheese to make your starting capital. Like start as a viking, raid for some decades, amass several thousands gold in retirement fund, and then become a vassal under the realm of your choice and use that money to build up your domain and then slowly consume the realm from within.

[Hauw2x]

Have you ever tried the CK2 mod that allows you to start as commoner?
1 gold per month? Dude as commoner you'd make 0.05.

Forget about being a count or baron, you can't even read and write. And even if you do, no one would employ you unless you're famous duelist or skilled diplomat or steward.

I personally like the starts where you begin in rags and ended up in riches. In my AEIOU and me after I became the Archduke of Austria, I claimed Bohemia, and developed the heck out of it until 60 GPM and that's just Caslav. Austria and Streyermark became my station for regiment and Bohemia the gold.

When I got the achievement, HRE is by far, stronger than all the other catholic realms combined simply because I have 14 vassal kings, and I can 1v1 Genghis Khan.

And all of that began from crappy count Werner of Aargau. If you start as emperor with 100k ducats in the bank, where's the fun of it?