How to make lots of money in Medieval 2: Total War

Question

I'm having trouble making much money on easy. Even if I get rid of all of my army except for a few units per city, I still just barely break even or make a loss. What is a good strategy for making lots of money?

Answer 1

First of all, you have to make sure that you keep all of your citizens happy so that you can tax them to death. Generals, town halls, churches, and farms are good ways to do this.

After that, build ports, markets, farms, and mines in all of your cities, and consider converting some castles that are well protected into cities, since castles are best at making soldiers, not florins.

Since ports are your main money makers, trade agreements come in handy, as does having lots of cities. Make sure not to let your docks get blockaded either.

If you need lots of money quickly though, there are a couple ways of doing it. You can try to sell off some reserve military, but that's not the best option, since you never know when you'll get attacked someplace that you never thought that you would, and since you don't get a lot for troops.

My favorite way is to just go on a crusade/jihad with my main army that's closest to the people of a different religion. All the troops in that army get free upkeep, and I can hire dirt-cheap mercenaries while conquering new cities and keeping the pope happy.

Another way that works well when used with crusades is to just loot random cities. Conquer a relatively undefended city that you know that you'll never be able to keep, loot it, sell all the buildings, and march all of your troops out and on to their next target. You'll usually get 30,000 florins, and your enemy's city gets reduced to almost nothing.

Answer 2

I have 3 tips for a sound M2TW economy:

1. I have seen most of the people talk about raising taxes. That simply isn't the best idea. On average, the biggest source of income for a single city are taxes. While raising taxes does immediately increase income, it also slows your population growth. Raising taxes should be your last option. I always keep my taxes on low and build all the population boosting buildings I can, because the larger your taxable population, the larger your income.

2. Don't conquer every single region and maintain trade rights. There a couple regions that can make a killing on trade; Constantinople, Stockholm, and Alexandria are a few examples. Each one of these land trades with every neighboring region and exports sea trade with 1-4 regions based on your number of trade fleets. But usually only 1 or 2 regions offers large trade incomes; for Stockholm it's trade with Sofia with that makes good income. But the income is far better when you trade with regions belonging to different factions.

3. Know the difference between governors and generals. Certain family members are more suited for leading a city. You can actually make generals better at governing by building certain buildings. Build lots of mines and markets with a general in town and it raises the chance of gaining attributes like "Good with Trade" or "Geologist." If you are in dire need you can cheat and add the attributes and ancillarys yourself. Here are some of the best attributes:

   • brilliant_inventor
   • architect (reduces squalor)
   • overseer
   • intrepid_explorer
   • GoodAdministrator 3
   • GoodMiner 3
   • GoodTrader 3
   • Energetic 3

   
   A fully upgraded governor can increase a city's income by 1000+

With all these tips I have gotten Stockholm to make 10,000 florins per turn, as a huge city of course.

Answer 3

Make sure to spend enough money on infrastructure/trade improvements in your regions - stuff like roads, farms, mines and so on. Another alternative is to sack the cities you conquer - this gains you a lump sum of cash at the expense of some reduction in population and some possible damage to the city.

Answer 4

PLUNDER! Armies are for conquest, then exterminate the population: gives plenty of money and they won't stage a revolution soon.

Answer 5

Things that gain you money:

• More population in city. This means more population to tax (and therefore sacking a city when you capture it has a real cost). You can gain population by building structures that increase population growth, e.g. farms. Lowering taxes also has a population growth bonus.
• Trade. Ports, roads, etc. are all things that increase your money. Similarly, trade rights with other factions increase your income.
• Some governors will have traits that increase the tax revenue of your settlement.
• Merchants can also gain you money, but the amount gained tends to be rather low unless you are in the Timbuktu region in the south-western portion of the map.

Things that lose you money:

Aside from the obvious (e.g. whenever you build something), the main one is

• Armies. You pay upkeep on your armies (including generals), and of course, you pay money to recruit new armies.

From your description, I would guess that you are not using free upkeep units. The way free upkeep works is 1) the unit needs to be militia, and 2) that particular settlement must be able to produce the unit. You have several free upkeep slots per settlement (depends on what you have constructed). If the unit has free upkeep you'll be able to see it from the garrison tab when you mouse over it; the background is also gray. Free upkeep is a big deal. Try to prioritize it.

Finally, it's ideal to dedicate some settlements to army-production buildings and the rest to economy buildings like ports.

Answer 6

It is possible to use a cheat to add money, press ` to bring up the console window and then type in the following;

add_money 40000

40,000 is the most money you can add in a single cheat, but you can use the up arrow to reselect your previously entered command in the console window, allowing you to run this cheat multiple times quickly, without typing it out repeatedly.

Answer 7

I think one of the biggest mistakes that most do is killing most of the population of a city, and damaging some buildings.
Personally, I would recommend occupation, because I think that population is everything in Medieval 2.
If you really need the money, in the case that your attacking army is large and strong and you intend to stay in that settlement for a while, sack it - it gives you more money, and kills less of the population of the city (or castle,anyway).

I saw some guys recommended going on a Jihad or Crusade. I wouldn't recommend this because, in most cases, after you take the holy city (like Antioch), you find yourself surrounded by the rest of the enemy faction's territories and armies. At this point, you won't be able to remove that strong holy army of yours from the city so you can defend it, and it will become another costly army that you cannot use it to attack due to the strength of the units.

On the other hand if you have taken one of the Asian settlements there is a high possibility that either the Mongols or Timurids or both will attack and you will find yourself an invincible foe.

So after all these I recommend trade as the greatest source of your income - remember that the longer you keep your tax low and transportation high, the faster your trade will improve. In my case, trade makes up half of my income.

Just in case you want to know, I reached the income of 20000 florins per turn by the end of 50th turn with England in hard mode. Trade really is a useful way to make money.

Answer 8

Keep the population happy, tax them, kill every merchant you find.

Answer 9

Take as many cities as possible and invest in ports, banks, and production buildings like mines and farms. Also have a ridiculously strong army so you can conquer and conquer some more and when you do raid the city or castle.