I just don't get it.

[Xitenic]

Okay. I've owned and played the game for a while, did a few of the campaign levels on the original Anno, had a couple co-op matches in Venice. All fine, all dandy. I get the general gist of the game, I understand the concept, some strategies, et cetera. No problem.

But I just can not, will not, have any understanding of how to economy. Seriously. I passive trade, I actively trade, I keep the needs to 100% for the peasants/civilians (as if I'm going to get to Patrician with this kind of economy), as I've noticed keeping needs to 100% increases their tax income, and I've even moved the tax to the furthest right without them moving out.

End result: Well, on a level right now with -800 treasury with an income of about -50. And this is probably one of my best games so far.

I've Google'd, went and checked out anything. Economy strategies. Building layouts. The value of stuff when sold. Advanced economics. Early game strats. And I'm still here being literally out-done by easy AI.

Tldr; I feel like there's a hidden secret to having a good economy, and I simply don't know what it is.

Thanks in advance to anyone that may be able to help. I could honestly do with it.

>Inb4 "Get better"
I love RTSs. I'm normally good at them. I've never struggled with a game to this magnitude before. Never.

[klogw]

I play anno 2070, when your economy is bad you build more houses... Or you can increase tax, but in that situation your citizen class doesnt advance, make sure that you keep it low when you want advanced citizens, which you will obviously want because they pay more.

[Xitenic]

Thank you for the response. - I get that, the whole building more houses thing, but with 100+ homes, with all needs, I just don't get the economy to balance out the cost of everything.

Like, with all the homes, taxes up, I couldn't get the economy to keep up with the maintenance costs that kept going up to keep all the needs up.

It ended up being a perpetual cycle of me trying to get money, spending money, and my incoming dwindling to make more money.

[🐾Humulus🐾]

The link Tom provided offers you an excellent tool to calculate the amount of industry buildings you should build. Keep in mind when you expand your industry your cash flow will decrease because of the maintenance. So to obtain more money you must keep building houses. However, your inhabitant's demands need to be satisfied so you must expand your industry and so on. You can trade with your mentors (Al zahir, lord northwhatever and Garibaldi :) to obtain money. Generally your oriental goods are more valuable than your occidental ones. Hoard them so you can sell the excesses.
About taxing, if you set the tax on euphoric your inhabitants will pay the lowest amount of gold. If you set the tax on happy your cash will grow but your inhabitants cannot upgrade. However, any upgrading inhabitants who are one rank below the 'happy taxed' class can upgrade themselves to the higher class.
If you're really desperate for money you can always take a loan (without interest) and you pay with honourpoints

[Xitenic]

Thank you, guys, for all the advice, as well as the link. I'll give the game another shot soon, and see how it goes.

[Anton HE]

Turn the pirates on, they are an additional trading partner once you manage to get a pact with them, spend your hornor on additonal trading ships for all neutral parties. Initialy only 4 ships with 1.000 gold will be sailing around, once fully pimped it will be 16 ships with 30.000 each buying your goods.
Settle an island closest to a neutral harbour with hemp growing there, build several plantations and weavers there and have a trade route that does nothing but sell linen to the neutral party. This should help you in the beginning. But try to sell as many goods as possible from your islands as it will give you more gold.
Later on, consider settling on small islands for the sole purpose of selling stuff there, don't forget to refill them constantly (or use trade routes once you have enough ships).
I personally am mostly somewhere -1.000 to -5.000 and still making a surplus by selling tons of stuff. I even settle islands with no other purpose as to produce stuff to sell, linen in the nord, carpets and later on perls in the south.

[Xitenic]

Interesting, thank you for the head's up. I normally don't capture other islands due to me spending so much time and resources focusing on one, and then when I look at an easy AI, they've already got 2-3 other islands other than their main island... I was curious how they did it so fast, as well as having the resources from multiple smaller islands to maintain such forces.

Anyhow, I heard/seen norias to be quite costly. Isn't the initial cost of setting up desert trading routes, as well as getting all the boats, et cetera, et cetera, going to over-throw the income from trading for a long time?

[Anton HE]

No, the stuff sells for enough to cover any and all costs after a few minutes.
Just make sure you get it all sold.
Also, the ai cheats heavily.

[Xitenic]

Bah, I wish they wouldn't. No real fair fight. I think it's enough that the AI can give move/action commands mili-seconds apart.

Well, thank you, again!

[BTU_Natas]

Send me a pm, and ill share a few save games, i just made a peasent start, with 1800 coins+ income. Ill help you out ;)

[Maffer]

-Expand your main town.
-Build mutliple peasant towns for easy + tax income

[CraZy_SkuLL]

-do more houses
-sell the extra resources you have
-time ago when i have this game from a torrent (now i have original here from steam) i saw a wiki checking google where say how many population can get enough resources from each building.


for example if i don't remember bad each fisherman give enough fish for 50 or 100 peasants.

[Brendan]

When i played the game first, i had the same problem. Here is how I prevented it.

After you have your standerd buildings like lumberjack and fishermanshut,start building houses first, get a tax income around 150~200, and then build some new stuff till it drops down to around 40. keep repeating this process to prevent your taxes to drop. Also, when you dont have the goods to fullfill the needs of your citezens, put their taxes on the yellow bar, cz they wont move out, and the taxes of the peasents on euphoric so they will advance to citezens and pay more taxes. Remember to put the taxes on euphoric/happy once in a while, so the citezens can move in. This will sometimes drop your taxes in the minus, but after waiting for a while till the houses are full (you can also speed the game ofcourse) you will recieve + taxes and when you put the taxes back in the yellow, you will get a lot of income again.

Also, make a lot of settlements that sell linen garments and other stuff. this wont require any houses, just some goods, and with a lot of ships, you will be able to get a ♥♥♥♥ ton of gold

Also, you might want to try to build your plants and stuff as far away as possible from the beginning, and reserving a lot of space for houses, churches and taverns.

Another thing to note, is that it takes time for houses to fill up. Don't forget to wait for houses to fill up, building a house doesnt mean your tax income will get higher instantly.

I hope it helps and the best of luck.