I'm emperor but I just make 6 gold per month. Is it normal?

[Uhtred son of Uhtred]

I'm the Emperor of Britannia and I only make 6 gold per month. It seems like I can get more land, but my income doesn't increase. Is this just because of the control mechanic?

[Cinemax]

Could be, negative gold is not uncommon. You could have picked up a bunch of MAA with the inheritance. The capital Duchy could not be very profitable. Low crown authority and bad vassal contracts maybe? You might be over the holding or vassal limits. Tons of reasons why that might be the case, you should look at the breakdown of gold flow to narrow it down.

[Deusmodeus]

Hover over your income/gold in the top right. It will give you an extended breakdown of your expenses.

also check your vassal/domain tabs as they also show some income info.

Common reasons are:
The biggest issue will either be your way over domain ( -20% per)
your way over your vassal limit (-5% per i believe)
you have way too many duchies titles held or nuked your vassal opinion of you
your holding buildings you cant use (must be mandala/temporal for temples, admin for cities)
you havent build economy buildings in your holdings.
your missing tax collectors (clan)
you need to lower your treasury distribution (admin)

[Devil_JCS]

Originally posted by Deusmodeus:

Hover over your income/gold in the top right. It will give you an extended breakdown of your expenses.

also check your vassal/domain tabs as they also show some income info.

Common reasons are:
The biggest issue will either be your way over domain ( -20% per)
your way over your vassal limit (-5% per i believe)
you have way too many duchies titles held or nuked your vassal opinion of you
your holding buildings you cant use (must be mandala/temporal for temples, admin for cities)
you havent build economy buildings in your holdings.
your missing tax collectors (clan)
you need to lower your treasury distribution (admin)

Having too many duchy titles doesn't lower your income, just -15 opinion with all vassals for every duchy over 2. That barely does anything to your income; biggest hit from it might be angering republic and theocratic vassals.

Anyway, the OP is the emperor of Britannia, so it's likely they're running a feudal or tribal government. If this is the early game (867 start date), 6 gold per month is actually fairly decent (if tribal, that's actually solid). Just focus on building up your own holdings (economic buildings being the priority) and keeping your own domain limit maxed. Get your steward working on your capital's development while you're at it.

Obviously you need your control of your own holdings maxed out as well. Anything less lowers your tax income. Never let that slide. Get your marshal on that ASAP when needed. Don't bother with your vassal's control though; the AI SUCKS at maxing control and tends to make decisions in events that lower control as well (not to mention its marshals tend to suck and make things worse). If your lands are at max control, just have your marshal train commanders or work with the royal guard.

[Razorblade]

The British Isles, especially if you started in 867, are not particularly well-developed. Income comes from county Development and holding upgrades, so a bunch of ill-developed counties aren't going to do a lot for you, especially when that money is being filtered through multiple tiers of vassals.

That all, of course, assumes those counties are at 100 Control. Low-control counties have very little value regardless until you get their control up.