Or, be me, and intellectual and take perks that reduce costs of troops. Nothing like getting the crossbow skill that cuts T3 and above wages by 50%. Also getting skills to reduce wages in general, or specific troop types. I don’t need combat perks to destroy armies, I just need my super cheap, highly efficient Army to do that for me
It really doesn’t take that long, and with a 50% reduction in ranged troop costs it’s worth it. Makes a battantiom fian only cost like 8 a day compared to 17 or whatever it is
TFW one thing Victoria 3 does right is once you have a weapons industry, you have to keep declaring wars, even ones you never intend on pushing to victory, just because peacetime will bankrupt your nation.
If your currency isn’t backed by anything, the it has no true value. The best way to keep your currency from inflating and becoming worthless at that point is to wage continuous war that requires you to spend and destroy money. One of the primary reasons for the fall of Rome.
Not sure the US has truly enjoyed peacetime for a very long time. It's just that the continuous wars it's involved in happen far away enough to allow a peacetime economy in the US itself. The Russo-Ukrainian War is very much shaped by the colossal economic might of the US and its NATO allies.
And it's actually a pretty damn good investment, despite some appearances. The existence and strength of NATO has coaxed most of the countries of Eastern Europe into the European-American sphere, opening up huge and rapidly growing economies to trade worth probably tens if not hundreds of trillions over the next half-century.
Pretty sure corruption is at the base of the issue, rather than overspending. So less than 2/3 because like... it'd be less if there weren't so much corruption...
Starting caravans as a kingdom is a bad idea they are very costly and unless you have the 175 trading perk once a caravan is attacked its gone with the potential for not even paying for itself. The vest advice i could give is too either slow down and be a mercenary for awhile until he had adequate savings because 150k is not enough for a kingdom especially with how costly seeking peace is sometimes a tribute payment can go up to 12k i know because i paid it. I think if he wants to continue this route the best thing to do would be to fight large scale battles for good loot. Or better yet level roguery up so you get more loot
When I did my playthrough I was always at war, never allowed for extended periods of peace.
If you're constantly fighting and selling loot you really shouldn't have an issue with money. I never did caravans, workshops, barely messed around with smithing, and money was not a problem.
I’ve never made my own kingdom only a really big vassal, but whenever I’m at peace I seem to make more money as I convert all of my companions into caravans, I also play with distinguished service and unlimited companions so that might be taken into consideration
I dunno. I'm losing 20k a day, and the economy is so wrecked from wars that no city has more than 40k. I'm currently carrying around 1.8m worth of loot that I can't sell. I went from 6m down to 2m and still dropping. Eventually I'll need to get rid of some of my 560+ t7 troops (or just hotel them in a city with governor reduced salary perks). But for now I need every last elite to help me on my final push for unification.
tl,dr: Sometimes war isn't the answer?
Honestly for me that's an excessive amount of elite troops lol, I'll only ever have a few high tier units while my garrisons consist of low tier units, some of which due to training I'll replace losses with or disband. That said I've never done a full completion, so perhaps now you're just in a mad dash before your finances crash lol
Good luck with your campaign!
My solution to this was to make peace with a nation I hadn't been to in awhile then go around and bankrupt every city until my loot was gone. Then it was back to war lmao
If you're close to conquering the map then you don't need your own large warband anymore to be honest. Just form an army and use their troops for your needs.
Thats why you start off by turning companions into vassals (costs something like 20k coins) and save up for converting lords to your cause.
The amount of grinding it takes to smith stuff thats actually worth it is too much.
That’s a surprising take. Grinding smithing is Grindy. But there’s a lot of strategies to easily get levels, recipes on the other hand is where it gets complex. (But doing smithing orders help a lot). but the payoff is literally akin to 50-60k everytime you stop at a town.
I keep hearing of people talking about these smithing orders that are 40k+ but I never got one anywhere near that. I got my smithing to like 200ish and honestly made more money free smithing than doing orders. Is there a trick I was missing?
My main issue with smithing was the amount of time you'd need to rest inbetween smithing sessions, in that time I could fight a few battles and make more money that way it seemed.
Then you're playing the game wrong, I assume. That's not even playing a game to exploit mechanics. You could likewise activate cheats and give you the money, why wasting lifetime by repeatedly pressing buttons like a trained circus monkey?
There's no skill or problem solving required to head to the smithy and smelt stuff to generate resources that you could realistically never recuperate if you smelted a measly dagger and then obtained material you could forge an entire sword from, that's a clearly broken mechanic, and there's more than one mod to make the smithy what it should have been from the git-go - but maybe 10 years of development and pondering about it wasn't enough time for the devs to come up with a proper smithy mechanic, I get it, so it needed some talented modders to come up with solutions within months after launch, all successfully aiming to rid the game of this nonsense for those who can't resist the temptation and willingly stay away from it.
I never smith. Point blank period. No interest in it, totally boring for me. I play a nobody who started off with nothing but 1,000 denars, an adventurer turned mercenary turning vassal, constantly on the lookout for a good wife, getting children, earning his first fief from a king as a loyal vassal's recompense, which is how I think it should be. I am a commander of my troops, not a bleeding blacksmith. I have about 50 elite soldiers to earn enough denars to more than offset their cost, expensive costs of 500 a day for not even running an army, but big enough to at times making about a thousand a day just from my mercenary contract, and they are capable and I am not losing one of them, plus two workshops to double their numbers if necessary. If I needed more men, I quickly hire tier 2 troops and either wear them off in a battle or decommission them. I even play with mods that jazz up the game a fair bit and make it more complex and thus tougher and less exploitable (don't want to use that nonsense term of more "realistic", since nothing in their is realistic to begin with, to make it even ..."more realistic").
To solve his self-inflicted problem, he would simply have to undo what he had done before: he accumulated expenses over time without any adequate income to even remotely justify the amount of wages, and then done nothing with those troops. Preposterous. This is going to end badly.
He will lose the game because he cannot cut spending by getting rid of what he thought he had earned and trained so hard, namely his troops. Or is it an army of overpriced, equally unnecessary and overrated companions? I didn't need a single one of them. Not today, not 2 yrs ago.
The important thing for me is to generate an ancestral line, as in Crusader Kings, only if you have character death enabled, of course. But what would be the point without that? I played sandbox, a never ending story, I did not plan to become a king, as expectations ruin everything, particularly in real life, but I wouldn't be surprised if an heir would make it thus far. Or even the main char.
Next time he could act more cautiously and only upgrade troops when he can afford it, and not already with such a Mickey Mouse income, and not try to rule a kingdom when he's in fact only the king of spending, the king of expenses, as with Tyrion's announcement,
Tyrion: *"And the king shall be.... Bran the Broke!"*
Bran: *"Yeah, actually just Bran is cool."*
Tyrion: *"Bran the Busted up ..."*
Bran: *"Okay, or ..."*
Tyrion: *"Bran the Dummy makes no Money ..."*
.
.But I digress.
At the same time, if you are at war and happen to own a cluster of holdings near a border, your towns, castles and villages are all getting raided, which hurts your income and sets back your progress on those villages.
Making sure you defend your territory or try and keep the enemy engaged somewhere away from your territory is the goal. Also, make sure any workshop you have is in an allied city or one under your rule or ruler since enemy's deny you the income when at war.
Could also be a combination of resource drains, making a second party almost doubles your cost. Garrisons for some towns cost stupid amounts of money that I sometimes take a bunch of them and bring them to other castles. It could even be war tributes.
For your case it looks like you either increased your amy in a slightly unsustainable way and that plus the tribute expense and mercenary hire is draining about 1500 gold from you. Try and earn a fief or some workshops to generate income. Maybe even a caravan.
Also, downsize the army a little if need be.
You need to start up caravans, buy workshops in prosperous cities, and kill and loot more. The most I’ve ever been able to make passively was 10k a day but that was will fully upgraded fiefs plus I was Khan of the Khuzaits. Every companion was a caravan master and I created a monopoly on the wool making trade.
Also when your garrisons start getting too expensive you need to get the higher tier troops out of it and donate them to other nobles in their towns and castles
i read somewhere that you should have a workshop based on the city's villages' production.
i am not sure if you are supposed to do supply runs or it's a passive boost
Local villages will automatically sell their goods to the city. Look at what the bound villages produce and you'll find your input goods. Build a shop that uses those goods and they'll take them from the town inventory (trade screen IS the town's inventory btw) and use them to produce goods that they sell back to the city.
Since the trade screen is the inventory you could manually supply resources if you wanted.
And nearby castle villages can sell to the nearby town as well, giving more input goods. (Although im not sure if they're as consistent as the town's villages)
Workshops profits are based off of how much product is in the market. Lets take beer for example. Ive seen it sell for typically 30 gold and ive seen it sell for 120 to towns in battania or aserai that dont produce much grain or no beer. A brewery in poros wont make any money because the market is saturated. One thing you could do is drive up the price of your good manually by buying up all the beer but depositing grain. Another thing to consider is the other workshops around if nobles are running breweries near by that could also mess up your profits. I find silver smiths and tanneries giving consistent returns
Either it doesn't recieve enough input goods, or the product it makes isn't selling for much. Note: two workshops producing the same item will compete with eachother, causing both to lose profits. Fix this by buying your rival's worshop, changing it to something else vaugely profitable (so they dont change it back 2 years later) and resell it.
I have like close to 700hrs in Bannerlord and I can never seem to make a profit from workshops anymore. Not sure if something changed in one of the patches, but I know what should work. I've been making workshops in M&B since my many hours in PoP.
My caravans do fine, but I don't even bother with workshops anymore. Seems like maybe they'll make a profit once in a while, but then go back to being a waste of money like 95% of the time.
I haven’t played in awhile so they might have changed them. They pretty much always made a profit it was just a matter of how much. Some weeks they would make barely anything but other times they were enough to cover the costs of my fairly large group of soldiers. I just thought of them as extra passive income in my last game.
War = Profit //// if you win against middle to high tier lords you’l guarantee get at least 15-20k for 1 battle. do several battles throughout the war and you got your next 2 in-game years covered
Don't get emotionally attached to your army. It is just an asset, liqudize it via fighting people, you will give casulties in return for loot etc. Then don't recruit new people for a while aswell. Invest the money on workshops.
War. Keep killing folk. It's a problem that will sort itself. You either lose men and your expenses drop, or you win battles and rake in tens of thousands. You can more or less just keep playing with a montly expense of thousands if you just stay in war.
Take your party and go kill bandits. Take loot. Sell loot. Make money. Repeat. Join a kingdom. Eventually, get a feif (unless your valandian). Make more money. Buy a shop. Upgrade feif. Make money.
At some point, you'll be in the positive.
Because compared to other rulers derthert is massive fief cuck followed closely by rhagaea(serious answer being their best units cost a lot to maintain)
Source am valandian
If you wanna max out your money and don't want to RP then go for this strat;
1. Get the most powerful troops you can get. Fianna, etc
2. Join an army
3. Get into large battles
4. Log home as much loot as you can
5. Sell all of it
You'll net anywhere from 20k to 150k for a single battle depending on size, faction and drop quality.
I went from 70k to 1.5 million from killing lords and looting the loot,
Make sure each town you own has toll collectors
Try your hardest to receive a castle or town as quick as possible.
But in the mean time,
Perhaps invest in a caravan or some workshops they cost around 20k
But honestly kill lords parties and get like easy 10k loot sometimes you can be lucky and get good drops.
I am playing vlandia right now and I had a lord drop a 60k sword.
if you chose battanion culture (just for character not actual nation you are in) then you have increased speed through forrests and can catch all size groups even if theyre tiny. constantly kill them and sell their stuff. if youre at war, use this technique to find small lords and fight them for big bucks.
Reduce your main party down to an elite retinue. It’s easy to recruit during times of war. Get the right companions in your parties management. Match your party cost versus its necessity. Caravans are an easy way to get some steady starting revenue streams. Learn to blacksmith. It’s not the power house money stream it use to be, but it’s still good. Always be questing, warring, or doing tourneys. Downtime is like a high you’re trying to chase.
Go watch flesson19 guides he has a top 5 best cities where to buy workshops and don’t upgrade your troops to tier 6 if you don’t have the income keep them at tier 2 or 3 till you get more funds
Invest in workshops but only in towns over 5000 prosperity open up a silversmith if the town has a silvermine nearby or and wine press or oil press they make the best money
War. Taking part in wars is what funds me.
Sell the loot random the nobles and other prisoners and the overall spoils of war.
Whenn my kingdom isn't at war I go out of my way to start one as it is my main income... Even though atm I break even with my fiefs... I need more denars. Want to reach at least 100mil.
It's not a tip to fix it because you can only take a city to fix so much money leaving your pockets, my only tip is not going high tier troop and remaining under tier 3~4 before having your first city/castle
The equation is simple: You have no income.
Either force someone to pay you tribute or get a city and get tithe, caravans, spend time in tournaments, these usually work best.
I don't understand how people get into high cash only to not invest into income. You got trade, caravans, workshops, hell even selling loot, selling prisoners and even smithing. If you got 100k dump, buy 5 workshops, on a bad day that's 1k income, on a good day that's 4k, caravans are even more profitable
I fell into this trap when I first started too.
- do tournaments early to get that cash while still having low (if any) party expenses
- As soon as you have enough $$ (15k or 23k) Look for companions with trade skills (and also scouting and steward if you can) and buy them caravans for trade
- When you start your army, keep it tier 3 max to keep your overhead low
- Once you have a base income from investments (caravans, workshops, gang activity) start growing your army and it's tier levels
- Once you have that base income, switch to mercenary work (or vassalage) and level up your party tiers and get mad cash from the loot from noble parties especially
If you aren't a vassal yet check which kingdoms are at war with which. Join them as a mercenary and hunt single lords. Once you capture a lord you can either sell them at any tavern OR you can put them in your allies dungeons which gives you influence and if you're a mercenary influence increases your daily income. To my memory it is way more beneficial than selling lords at a tavern.
When I farmed influence like this as a mercenary I even had higher income than after I became a vassal.
Oh and selling loot also gives a lot of money.
do caravan escort jobs and when visiting town with caravan, do tournaments and sell unnecesary stuff. also keep horses, they don't only increase weight and didn't noticed they consume food.
In my experience you really only make money during campaign. You could have every town in the map and still be in the red. Fight, loot, and plunder. That's really the only way to make money. Otherwise you'll always be in the red.
Blacksmith. the right wep combo can bring amazing amounts of cash making money no problem permanently. But needs a bit of smithing and breaking loop to start up. remove troops and do again or battle some bandits till then
caravans, become a mercenary, shops, and selling equipment are quick ways. Or join a kingdom and take over a couple castles or Motown and collect the taxes.
This is the best part of mount and blade I think. It challenges us to become positive and I believe when we quest enough is when the game really gets good, I just feels.
a really good way to supplement your income is to keep an eye out for bandit camp quests. If you see a village quest to clear one that’s near a city, chances are one of that city’s gang leaders will have a quest to clear that same camp. you can accept both of these for 3000 each. add a hunting brigands quest (given out by city merchants and village landowners) and you can pretty easily net about 10k from a single bandit camp when including sold loot and prisoners.
Realistically though, you’re going to need some more stable income. Finding reliable companions to send out on short quests for you, or purchasing workshops in high prosperity cities are probably your best bet.
Main party wages. Either garrison most of them (some perks reduce the cost of garrisoned troops) or attack bandits or enemy caravans / lieges when you have a relatively large party or siege a settlement. Towns bring in quite a bit of income. Otherwise invest in a workshop or caravan, join a tournament, become a mercenary for a lord, begin smithing, sell what you don't need, etc.
Seems to me like you are already a king thats right?
Usualy, becoming a king with less than a few milion is hard as you might have to pay bribes just to avoid war with every single kingdom in order to exist long enought to persuade other lords to come to your faction, capture tows and maybe grow stronguer until you can actualy fight wars.
recently, i done the following.
Using smithing to create weapons that sell for up to 20k each. So in one day of work, i can Usualy make from 250 to 500k in weapons depending on how many heroes i have with me.
this also usualy help build resources to create caravens and buy workshops.
Caravans pay better, but are a bit more risky as they might be attacked and lost.
Well placed workshops can be both safe and pay well, specialy if you manage to control the market and buy off most competition out of the market.
Captuing towns with high prosperity also helps a lot.
Eventualy if you do all this you will get 4 workshops, 5 caravans, ad 1 or more towns wich usualy give something between 1500 to 3000 denars a day, this usualy help cover the costs of all wages and trybutes, and might still slowly increase your gold.
when you need a sudden increase of wealth, you just buy high tier weapons, smelt them and them smith them into highly valuable items.
Usualy if you go for RAW damage you get the best value, so cutting polearms, trowing weapons. and two handed weapons are usualy great for money making.
Smithing
The tier 4 pointed falcion blade + tier 3 everything else (there’s a specific combo but it should only cost the 2 cheapest ore types)
It only costs 1,000 denars or so to buy Tribal throwing knives and cheap daggers and weapons for under 200 denars, then sell the sword for 8,000 denars.
8x your money :) use one companion, preferably ‘The Smith’ for refining and such. You do the crafting and smelting. Infinite money essentially
you can survive on a deficit, in fact it's almost unavoidable unless you really try to get by with a small party. Just need to stay active on whatever you're doing to get funds, either smithing, or selling off loot and prisoners.
Use the money you have into buying shops. If you have companions send them as caravans, leave the faction that you are with and focus on doing missions. Try mercenary work. Focus on doing tournaments and sell the high value rewards that you get.
So to get this right, you’re a clan with no fiefs serving some faction other than the southern empire, right? If you’re a vassal you should be granted a fief when your kingdom conquers a town or castle, you should lead an army to take a city as that will solve your financial problem right away. (City rents and associated village income usually clears a thousand per day easy) you can buy workshops on friendly cities that are not likely to fall, but it will require a significant investment relative to your current funds to buy enough to make a profit. Caravans are also an option, but can be attacked and have unstable income, though it nets out to more than workshops usually. Personally, I recommend abandoning your filthy liege and playing independent, your caravans won’t be attacked (except by bandits and this rarely works in their favor) unless you first attack a faction. (Which you can do to weaken factions you wish weaker and influence the outcome of ai wars. Since you’d have no fiefs their ability to counterattack is limited to hitting caravans and running down your party.
You will need to go to war. Either make the money from that, or lose your elites now you dont have to pay that wage. Revolt if your kingdom refused to break peace
Just start up some caravans, mine on average make 1k a day each running just two caravans will make you defecit disappear. They seem deceptive at first because it does take a few days for them to start making money.
Edit: I dont play with mods, yet.
By people from The tavern district to go into your party. The NPCs with names. You can then go to some of the nobles in the city and have your NPCs run caravans. I typically have four or five caravans going at a time to break even.
Caravans give you obscene amounts of gold. Simply recruit some people out of the tavern, talk to one of the local notables and put your new recruit in charge of it. Spend the extra gold when you get it started to upgrade the troops and you'll never worry about bandits attacking it either.
You need to open some workshops and caravans. You are most likely losing money anyway until you own 2-3 towns to support your main army. Just keep fighting and sell loot to overcome negative income
You need passive income, buy some workshops and then start some caravans. Dedicate a couple companions as traders, and then keep selling all the loot from bug battles, those mangy shirts add up.
When you start having castles and towns watch out to not have too many people garrisoned where you don’t need them, adds up.
Man, asking for advice is brutal. This is why I've started a character 15x before finally getting it right. Men don't ask for directions and we don't ask for help, even when the cancer is killing us. Lol.
Buy workshops in big and prosperous cities that are not at war, I have 50 hours in game and that's what I did, I have 5 workshops that bring me 1600. Just make sure that you have workshops that are in relation with the resources that nearby villages produce and that nearby cities don't have the same workshops as it would reduce profit. For example, I have an Olive Press in Jaculan that never brigs me less than 500
Take some cities and use influence to make sure they are given to you, try for the ones that arent constantly being taken and retaken if you can. I have 3 parties including my own (350 t6 troops) and make +8k per day.
Start baking like Walter White.
On a serious note you need to start smithing and selling what you smith to high prosperity towns.
You will soon become a millionaire.
Brother you can make a lot more than 1.4K in a day don’t even worry about it. Fighting is the easiest most straightforward way of getting denars especially large scale battles. Or just smith it’s basically a money printer lol
For the first while don’t upgrade your troops past tier 3 they become expensive to maintain. Kill looters as much as possible and sell their loot. Save up to buy workshops in towns - ideally something producing products that have the source of materials - example, a cities attached village makes grain - can turn grain into beer etc. rinse and repeat, compete in tournaments and bet on yourself every step of the way - and sometimes the prize will be a crazy expensive horse you can sell (as you probably wont be skilled high enough in riding yet). If you can become a mercenary the influence you gain from winning battles get turned into cash so a good source of income during times of war - when at peace, try completing quests for villages/towns/lords and that will keep rhe money rolling in. Once you get your own towns, just check how much garrison each has as you can set how much you pay in wages per city/castle. The default is unlimited so keep an eye on the “clan” then “parties” tab. You can set the limits here. If you want any further info hit me up, 750 hours of vanilla here!
I dont know very much since im also new to the game ,but one way to make money daily is to buy caravans or workshops ,search a tutorial in youtube about them ,other way is to attack caravans or large bandits ,probably no the the most effective method
Join someone as a vassel. Wait for a war to start. Start rolling heads and take all their gear and horses. More horses more stuff you can carry. Sell. Rinse and repeat.
So what I've been doing is working on all troops to tier 3 and not increasing them it keeps wages low. Also if any die its not hard to get them back go tier 3. Grind money and work on passive income caravans workshops. And do quest grinding caravan escorts are the best in my opinion
So I am new as well. I have figured out that you should cut your army in half and focus on have weaker troops, keep things low priced, then in times of war hit looters and upgrade them. Get a few caravans going. I have 3 and it's not a lot but about 230ish a day times three isn't to bad. I also have a few workshops. Go to towns find the settlements that they have and by the workshop that fits. Ie, olives buy the oil press, grapes wine workshop, so on so on. That should get you to above 2k a day then. Do whatever you want.
As in any financial bind, you can do two things!
Increase your income or lower your expenses.
Things to increase income: take mercenary Contracts, acquire territory, kill bandits or other enemies and sell their stuff, get caravans or workshops (though I've had very limited success with those two), or go be a merchant! Buy low, sell high and all that.
Seems like your main way to lower your expenses would be to get rid of some of your soldiers. But where's the fun in that?!
Just go to the border of western empire and the desert sarranids and raid caravans that pass through the pass there, easy to trap and crush
Good money, exp, and prisoners
mid game (this was a year ago last played) only way to balance the books was find a cheapish crafted sword that netted 20k-40k, something 2 handed. could make 10 at a go and have on hand, and sell to each place
as other pointed out, war earnings not indicated in the balance
Starts wars with minor clans and attack them indiscriminately, get the equipment selling perk and sell their shit, many times they are giving you enough wages for 10 days sometimes when you're lucky more, sometimes less. Also get a bunch of party members, when you see tournaments either play or give up and if you have a bunch of your party members in them, they'll win smth from time to time. Buying max capacity of shops is also extra income
I have 200k debt just from joining a kingdom and getting 2 castles and a city. The debt has been worth it to accumulate, and I just keep continuing the war. So far there have been 0 consequences
Fight in wars/battles and sell the loot. By far the best source of income. In my experience, even if you got a positive income per day, it would never make up for your entire expenses. (But I'm not experimenting very much, so if I'm wrong please tell me everyone)
You need to invest before you get an army that big, and get some fiefs. Its better to just get rid of the troops or fight some intense battles to get your upkeep down.
Garrisoning troops will reduce their wages and food costs.
Start a war and sell all the good loot, totally viable on its own.
If the anxiety is still killing you, cheese the blacksmithing mechanics—melt down Pugios for 200 gold and resell them as Glaives for 10,000 gold. Your heir won’t forget the schematics you learn so you’ve only got to unlock them once.
Yah just go fight people. I had this problem when I first started. You will never make enough money to sustain a full army of elites off passive income. You have to slaughter your enemies and loot their corpses to succeed. Loot villages raid caravans the economy is a cash flow system not an accrued wealth system
Start some caravans, or kill more people, or both. You could also cut some of your party as that is 98 percent of your overhead.
"Someone help me budget" "Spend less on your army" "No"
A deficit is worth having 200 battanian fian champions in your garrison.
Except that this dude has no fiefs. No fief, no garrison.
Came here for this comment lol
Or, be me, and intellectual and take perks that reduce costs of troops. Nothing like getting the crossbow skill that cuts T3 and above wages by 50%. Also getting skills to reduce wages in general, or specific troop types. I don’t need combat perks to destroy armies, I just need my super cheap, highly efficient Army to do that for me
Finally a reason to play crossbows?
Yea, it’s a tedious grind, but once you get to i believe 275 you unlock a skill that reduces daily wages in half for any ranged troop T3 and above.
275!?!? Jesus h christ
It really doesn’t take that long, and with a 50% reduction in ranged troop costs it’s worth it. Makes a battantiom fian only cost like 8 a day compared to 17 or whatever it is
Those garrisons will drain you dry in peace time.
What is this "peace" you speak of?
I think that's an AI glitch when they stop attacking each other.
It’s when the other guy isn’t alive any more. I offered him the peaceful long nap
Yeahhh unless you own a city or two and nor just crappy little towns and the odd castle
America in a nutshell. 1 trillion dollars per year during peace-time, and we wonder why we keep hitting a debt ceiling.
Problem is there has only been 15 years of peace-time in the whole US history.
We are a war machine. That’s what happens when you have no gold standard.
In America its, "The military-industrial complex is growing to meet the needs of the military-industrial complex."
TFW one thing Victoria 3 does right is once you have a weapons industry, you have to keep declaring wars, even ones you never intend on pushing to victory, just because peacetime will bankrupt your nation.
Bringing back the gold standard will help this how?
If your currency isn’t backed by anything, the it has no true value. The best way to keep your currency from inflating and becoming worthless at that point is to wage continuous war that requires you to spend and destroy money. One of the primary reasons for the fall of Rome.
You just never stop to wonder how the US stays in peacetime. (Apart from starting wars of course)
Not sure the US has truly enjoyed peacetime for a very long time. It's just that the continuous wars it's involved in happen far away enough to allow a peacetime economy in the US itself. The Russo-Ukrainian War is very much shaped by the colossal economic might of the US and its NATO allies. And it's actually a pretty damn good investment, despite some appearances. The existence and strength of NATO has coaxed most of the countries of Eastern Europe into the European-American sphere, opening up huge and rapidly growing economies to trade worth probably tens if not hundreds of trillions over the next half-century.
Only part of the issue, but yeah...
I’d say it’s roughly 2/3 of the issue, numerically. Because, ya know, it is.
Pretty sure corruption is at the base of the issue, rather than overspending. So less than 2/3 because like... it'd be less if there weren't so much corruption...
I'll be honest, I like this comment the most lol. Made me laugh this morning.
Starting caravans as a kingdom is a bad idea they are very costly and unless you have the 175 trading perk once a caravan is attacked its gone with the potential for not even paying for itself. The vest advice i could give is too either slow down and be a mercenary for awhile until he had adequate savings because 150k is not enough for a kingdom especially with how costly seeking peace is sometimes a tribute payment can go up to 12k i know because i paid it. I think if he wants to continue this route the best thing to do would be to fight large scale battles for good loot. Or better yet level roguery up so you get more loot
When I did my playthrough I was always at war, never allowed for extended periods of peace. If you're constantly fighting and selling loot you really shouldn't have an issue with money. I never did caravans, workshops, barely messed around with smithing, and money was not a problem.
I’ve never made my own kingdom only a really big vassal, but whenever I’m at peace I seem to make more money as I convert all of my companions into caravans, I also play with distinguished service and unlimited companions so that might be taken into consideration
I dunno. I'm losing 20k a day, and the economy is so wrecked from wars that no city has more than 40k. I'm currently carrying around 1.8m worth of loot that I can't sell. I went from 6m down to 2m and still dropping. Eventually I'll need to get rid of some of my 560+ t7 troops (or just hotel them in a city with governor reduced salary perks). But for now I need every last elite to help me on my final push for unification. tl,dr: Sometimes war isn't the answer?
Honestly for me that's an excessive amount of elite troops lol, I'll only ever have a few high tier units while my garrisons consist of low tier units, some of which due to training I'll replace losses with or disband. That said I've never done a full completion, so perhaps now you're just in a mad dash before your finances crash lol Good luck with your campaign!
Okay well you noted your own problem you’re going for quantity and quality
I mean, I'm about to conquer the world. I'll balance the books once the last heads have rolled.
[удалено]
I mean, it definitely ruined the global economy... And created the necessity for my massive army. Is there another way it's adversely affecting me?
I'm reading all of this, and for some reason I kept thinking that you are talking abt the world we live in.
Who says I'm not
My solution to this was to make peace with a nation I hadn't been to in awhile then go around and bankrupt every city until my loot was gone. Then it was back to war lmao
I have -8k per day and i only have 400k 😬😂
If you're close to conquering the map then you don't need your own large warband anymore to be honest. Just form an army and use their troops for your needs.
It's Harvesting Season!
War is a he only answer
No way. Even being constantly at war the amount of funds you need to get more lords is ridiculous. I always found it necessary to abuse smithing.
Thats why you start off by turning companions into vassals (costs something like 20k coins) and save up for converting lords to your cause. The amount of grinding it takes to smith stuff thats actually worth it is too much.
how do you turn them to a vassal
That’s a surprising take. Grinding smithing is Grindy. But there’s a lot of strategies to easily get levels, recipes on the other hand is where it gets complex. (But doing smithing orders help a lot). but the payoff is literally akin to 50-60k everytime you stop at a town.
I mean, I do that anyway by dumping everything I earned through *excessive violence* into the market.
I keep hearing of people talking about these smithing orders that are 40k+ but I never got one anywhere near that. I got my smithing to like 200ish and honestly made more money free smithing than doing orders. Is there a trick I was missing? My main issue with smithing was the amount of time you'd need to rest inbetween smithing sessions, in that time I could fight a few battles and make more money that way it seemed.
Not orders! I meant that orders personally was a good method of obtaining recipes. Since even The money is always in free-smithing.
I've never smithed. Just always fighting/looting/selling prisoners.
Then you're playing the game wrong, I assume. That's not even playing a game to exploit mechanics. You could likewise activate cheats and give you the money, why wasting lifetime by repeatedly pressing buttons like a trained circus monkey? There's no skill or problem solving required to head to the smithy and smelt stuff to generate resources that you could realistically never recuperate if you smelted a measly dagger and then obtained material you could forge an entire sword from, that's a clearly broken mechanic, and there's more than one mod to make the smithy what it should have been from the git-go - but maybe 10 years of development and pondering about it wasn't enough time for the devs to come up with a proper smithy mechanic, I get it, so it needed some talented modders to come up with solutions within months after launch, all successfully aiming to rid the game of this nonsense for those who can't resist the temptation and willingly stay away from it. I never smith. Point blank period. No interest in it, totally boring for me. I play a nobody who started off with nothing but 1,000 denars, an adventurer turned mercenary turning vassal, constantly on the lookout for a good wife, getting children, earning his first fief from a king as a loyal vassal's recompense, which is how I think it should be. I am a commander of my troops, not a bleeding blacksmith. I have about 50 elite soldiers to earn enough denars to more than offset their cost, expensive costs of 500 a day for not even running an army, but big enough to at times making about a thousand a day just from my mercenary contract, and they are capable and I am not losing one of them, plus two workshops to double their numbers if necessary. If I needed more men, I quickly hire tier 2 troops and either wear them off in a battle or decommission them. I even play with mods that jazz up the game a fair bit and make it more complex and thus tougher and less exploitable (don't want to use that nonsense term of more "realistic", since nothing in their is realistic to begin with, to make it even ..."more realistic"). To solve his self-inflicted problem, he would simply have to undo what he had done before: he accumulated expenses over time without any adequate income to even remotely justify the amount of wages, and then done nothing with those troops. Preposterous. This is going to end badly. He will lose the game because he cannot cut spending by getting rid of what he thought he had earned and trained so hard, namely his troops. Or is it an army of overpriced, equally unnecessary and overrated companions? I didn't need a single one of them. Not today, not 2 yrs ago. The important thing for me is to generate an ancestral line, as in Crusader Kings, only if you have character death enabled, of course. But what would be the point without that? I played sandbox, a never ending story, I did not plan to become a king, as expectations ruin everything, particularly in real life, but I wouldn't be surprised if an heir would make it thus far. Or even the main char. Next time he could act more cautiously and only upgrade troops when he can afford it, and not already with such a Mickey Mouse income, and not try to rule a kingdom when he's in fact only the king of spending, the king of expenses, as with Tyrion's announcement, Tyrion: *"And the king shall be.... Bran the Broke!"* Bran: *"Yeah, actually just Bran is cool."* Tyrion: *"Bran the Busted up ..."* Bran: *"Okay, or ..."* Tyrion: *"Bran the Dummy makes no Money ..."* . .But I digress.
Ok
At the same time, if you are at war and happen to own a cluster of holdings near a border, your towns, castles and villages are all getting raided, which hurts your income and sets back your progress on those villages. Making sure you defend your territory or try and keep the enemy engaged somewhere away from your territory is the goal. Also, make sure any workshop you have is in an allied city or one under your rule or ruler since enemy's deny you the income when at war. Could also be a combination of resource drains, making a second party almost doubles your cost. Garrisons for some towns cost stupid amounts of money that I sometimes take a bunch of them and bring them to other castles. It could even be war tributes. For your case it looks like you either increased your amy in a slightly unsustainable way and that plus the tribute expense and mercenary hire is draining about 1500 gold from you. Try and earn a fief or some workshops to generate income. Maybe even a caravan. Also, downsize the army a little if need be.
You need to start up caravans, buy workshops in prosperous cities, and kill and loot more. The most I’ve ever been able to make passively was 10k a day but that was will fully upgraded fiefs plus I was Khan of the Khuzaits. Every companion was a caravan master and I created a monopoly on the wool making trade. Also when your garrisons start getting too expensive you need to get the higher tier troops out of it and donate them to other nobles in their towns and castles
Workshops are so nice, like a financial safety net that I don’t have to work to maintain
Mine never makes profit or like once every month
i read somewhere that you should have a workshop based on the city's villages' production. i am not sure if you are supposed to do supply runs or it's a passive boost
Local villages will automatically sell their goods to the city. Look at what the bound villages produce and you'll find your input goods. Build a shop that uses those goods and they'll take them from the town inventory (trade screen IS the town's inventory btw) and use them to produce goods that they sell back to the city. Since the trade screen is the inventory you could manually supply resources if you wanted. And nearby castle villages can sell to the nearby town as well, giving more input goods. (Although im not sure if they're as consistent as the town's villages)
thank you, that was very informative
Workshops profits are based off of how much product is in the market. Lets take beer for example. Ive seen it sell for typically 30 gold and ive seen it sell for 120 to towns in battania or aserai that dont produce much grain or no beer. A brewery in poros wont make any money because the market is saturated. One thing you could do is drive up the price of your good manually by buying up all the beer but depositing grain. Another thing to consider is the other workshops around if nobles are running breweries near by that could also mess up your profits. I find silver smiths and tanneries giving consistent returns
Either it doesn't recieve enough input goods, or the product it makes isn't selling for much. Note: two workshops producing the same item will compete with eachother, causing both to lose profits. Fix this by buying your rival's worshop, changing it to something else vaugely profitable (so they dont change it back 2 years later) and resell it.
I have like close to 700hrs in Bannerlord and I can never seem to make a profit from workshops anymore. Not sure if something changed in one of the patches, but I know what should work. I've been making workshops in M&B since my many hours in PoP. My caravans do fine, but I don't even bother with workshops anymore. Seems like maybe they'll make a profit once in a while, but then go back to being a waste of money like 95% of the time.
I haven’t played in awhile so they might have changed them. They pretty much always made a profit it was just a matter of how much. Some weeks they would make barely anything but other times they were enough to cover the costs of my fairly large group of soldiers. I just thought of them as extra passive income in my last game.
Two or three city fiefs with high prosperity can fund any conquest.
War = Profit //// if you win against middle to high tier lords you’l guarantee get at least 15-20k for 1 battle. do several battles throughout the war and you got your next 2 in-game years covered
I still got a bunch of blood-stained gear in my inv that nobody can afford
Man this post made me think I was on WSB
Except here OP is getting good advice
Don't get emotionally attached to your army. It is just an asset, liqudize it via fighting people, you will give casulties in return for loot etc. Then don't recruit new people for a while aswell. Invest the money on workshops.
Why don’t you have any caravans or workshops?!?!
I don't know much about them I started playing this game a week ago
War. Keep killing folk. It's a problem that will sort itself. You either lose men and your expenses drop, or you win battles and rake in tens of thousands. You can more or less just keep playing with a montly expense of thousands if you just stay in war.
Take your party and go kill bandits. Take loot. Sell loot. Make money. Repeat. Join a kingdom. Eventually, get a feif (unless your valandian). Make more money. Buy a shop. Upgrade feif. Make money. At some point, you'll be in the positive.
Dunno why the last "make money" I read it as "make monkey".
Just curious, why not Vlandian?
Because compared to other rulers derthert is massive fief cuck followed closely by rhagaea(serious answer being their best units cost a lot to maintain) Source am valandian
If you wanna max out your money and don't want to RP then go for this strat; 1. Get the most powerful troops you can get. Fianna, etc 2. Join an army 3. Get into large battles 4. Log home as much loot as you can 5. Sell all of it You'll net anywhere from 20k to 150k for a single battle depending on size, faction and drop quality.
Feed party exclusively Butter, they’ll pay you to stick around
Does that work?xd
kill lots of dudes. Take and sell everything. Once you start getting into big fights each one will net 100k or more.
I went from 70k to 1.5 million from killing lords and looting the loot, Make sure each town you own has toll collectors Try your hardest to receive a castle or town as quick as possible. But in the mean time, Perhaps invest in a caravan or some workshops they cost around 20k But honestly kill lords parties and get like easy 10k loot sometimes you can be lucky and get good drops. I am playing vlandia right now and I had a lord drop a 60k sword.
if you chose battanion culture (just for character not actual nation you are in) then you have increased speed through forrests and can catch all size groups even if theyre tiny. constantly kill them and sell their stuff. if youre at war, use this technique to find small lords and fight them for big bucks.
war can be really profitable
Loot or smithing are the best earners. If you're passing time doing nothing and paying wages you aren't out making money.
Reduce your main party down to an elite retinue. It’s easy to recruit during times of war. Get the right companions in your parties management. Match your party cost versus its necessity. Caravans are an easy way to get some steady starting revenue streams. Learn to blacksmith. It’s not the power house money stream it use to be, but it’s still good. Always be questing, warring, or doing tourneys. Downtime is like a high you’re trying to chase.
Spend less money on candles.
Go watch flesson19 guides he has a top 5 best cities where to buy workshops and don’t upgrade your troops to tier 6 if you don’t have the income keep them at tier 2 or 3 till you get more funds
The simplest way I’ve found to make “fun” denars is to be a Mercenary for a kingdom.
Invest in workshops but only in towns over 5000 prosperity open up a silversmith if the town has a silvermine nearby or and wine press or oil press they make the best money
Don't count on the passive income. Do smithing
That is normal and what motivates you to a live of plunder
bannerlord is war based economy. you can always win more battles to offset any amount of spending
Buy some workshops your clan tier seems to be high so I’m pretty sure you can get like 6 or something
War. Taking part in wars is what funds me. Sell the loot random the nobles and other prisoners and the overall spoils of war. Whenn my kingdom isn't at war I go out of my way to start one as it is my main income... Even though atm I break even with my fiefs... I need more denars. Want to reach at least 100mil.
It's not a tip to fix it because you can only take a city to fix so much money leaving your pockets, my only tip is not going high tier troop and remaining under tier 3~4 before having your first city/castle
You need an income. Owning a city is a good way.
I mean stop buying Starbuck's in every village you visit. Make your coffee at home. That's how I bought my castle.
Its likely you have too meny troops if you reduce the size of your army, it should help save you some money.
The equation is simple: You have no income. Either force someone to pay you tribute or get a city and get tithe, caravans, spend time in tournaments, these usually work best.
I don't understand how people get into high cash only to not invest into income. You got trade, caravans, workshops, hell even selling loot, selling prisoners and even smithing. If you got 100k dump, buy 5 workshops, on a bad day that's 1k income, on a good day that's 4k, caravans are even more profitable
I fell into this trap when I first started too. - do tournaments early to get that cash while still having low (if any) party expenses - As soon as you have enough $$ (15k or 23k) Look for companions with trade skills (and also scouting and steward if you can) and buy them caravans for trade - When you start your army, keep it tier 3 max to keep your overhead low - Once you have a base income from investments (caravans, workshops, gang activity) start growing your army and it's tier levels - Once you have that base income, switch to mercenary work (or vassalage) and level up your party tiers and get mad cash from the loot from noble parties especially
If you aren't a vassal yet check which kingdoms are at war with which. Join them as a mercenary and hunt single lords. Once you capture a lord you can either sell them at any tavern OR you can put them in your allies dungeons which gives you influence and if you're a mercenary influence increases your daily income. To my memory it is way more beneficial than selling lords at a tavern. When I farmed influence like this as a mercenary I even had higher income than after I became a vassal. Oh and selling loot also gives a lot of money.
do caravan escort jobs and when visiting town with caravan, do tournaments and sell unnecesary stuff. also keep horses, they don't only increase weight and didn't noticed they consume food.
In my experience you really only make money during campaign. You could have every town in the map and still be in the red. Fight, loot, and plunder. That's really the only way to make money. Otherwise you'll always be in the red.
Blacksmith. the right wep combo can bring amazing amounts of cash making money no problem permanently. But needs a bit of smithing and breaking loop to start up. remove troops and do again or battle some bandits till then
Wage war
Takes forever to make money on this game man, wtf
Once you get going as a small kingdom money starts to stack quick. I’m talking 300k over 2 days.
caravans, become a mercenary, shops, and selling equipment are quick ways. Or join a kingdom and take over a couple castles or Motown and collect the taxes.
Fight anything you can. I'd always try to be in a war at that point if only to raid caravans.
Make more enemies and plunder their armies
This is the best part of mount and blade I think. It challenges us to become positive and I believe when we quest enough is when the game really gets good, I just feels.
Buy workshops to have more daily income. Fight lots of ennemy lords for loot to sell, try to be alone for this since you won't need to split the loot.
Kill some people. Take their shit. And sell it. Or. Have less people in your main party.
Invest in some caravans and shops. A few will make you that money pretty quickly
Your expenses aren’t bad at all other than main party wages. Time to make them work for it. You get loot to sell. Some of them die. Both = more money.
If you train blacksmithing, you can turn 2 pugios or tribesman throwing daggers into ~35k gold.
Use some of that money and set but businesses to get passive income
Blacksmithing is a pretty good way to make money, as well as getting good weapons.
try to put your party into a garrison to reduce the wage
My expenses go off the screen and depending on wars or such I could be loosing 2k a day for weeks. Still making money tho, im at 850k
a really good way to supplement your income is to keep an eye out for bandit camp quests. If you see a village quest to clear one that’s near a city, chances are one of that city’s gang leaders will have a quest to clear that same camp. you can accept both of these for 3000 each. add a hunting brigands quest (given out by city merchants and village landowners) and you can pretty easily net about 10k from a single bandit camp when including sold loot and prisoners. Realistically though, you’re going to need some more stable income. Finding reliable companions to send out on short quests for you, or purchasing workshops in high prosperity cities are probably your best bet.
Sell the loot from defeating people instead of using it for troop xp gain
Main party wages. Either garrison most of them (some perks reduce the cost of garrisoned troops) or attack bandits or enemy caravans / lieges when you have a relatively large party or siege a settlement. Towns bring in quite a bit of income. Otherwise invest in a workshop or caravan, join a tournament, become a mercenary for a lord, begin smithing, sell what you don't need, etc.
Win tournaments, do quests, buy workshops, plunder some enemy villages
Seems to me like you are already a king thats right? Usualy, becoming a king with less than a few milion is hard as you might have to pay bribes just to avoid war with every single kingdom in order to exist long enought to persuade other lords to come to your faction, capture tows and maybe grow stronguer until you can actualy fight wars. recently, i done the following. Using smithing to create weapons that sell for up to 20k each. So in one day of work, i can Usualy make from 250 to 500k in weapons depending on how many heroes i have with me. this also usualy help build resources to create caravens and buy workshops. Caravans pay better, but are a bit more risky as they might be attacked and lost. Well placed workshops can be both safe and pay well, specialy if you manage to control the market and buy off most competition out of the market. Captuing towns with high prosperity also helps a lot. Eventualy if you do all this you will get 4 workshops, 5 caravans, ad 1 or more towns wich usualy give something between 1500 to 3000 denars a day, this usualy help cover the costs of all wages and trybutes, and might still slowly increase your gold. when you need a sudden increase of wealth, you just buy high tier weapons, smelt them and them smith them into highly valuable items. Usualy if you go for RAW damage you get the best value, so cutting polearms, trowing weapons. and two handed weapons are usualy great for money making.
Buy some shops and build some caravans, usually helps offset wild cost increasements
Buy some shops
Caravans recrut companions and make caravans.
Smithing The tier 4 pointed falcion blade + tier 3 everything else (there’s a specific combo but it should only cost the 2 cheapest ore types) It only costs 1,000 denars or so to buy Tribal throwing knives and cheap daggers and weapons for under 200 denars, then sell the sword for 8,000 denars. 8x your money :) use one companion, preferably ‘The Smith’ for refining and such. You do the crafting and smelting. Infinite money essentially
you can survive on a deficit, in fact it's almost unavoidable unless you really try to get by with a small party. Just need to stay active on whatever you're doing to get funds, either smithing, or selling off loot and prisoners.
Use the money you have into buying shops. If you have companions send them as caravans, leave the faction that you are with and focus on doing missions. Try mercenary work. Focus on doing tournaments and sell the high value rewards that you get.
Just do what you did to get 250k in the first place
All I did was fighting battles and selling their loots
So to get this right, you’re a clan with no fiefs serving some faction other than the southern empire, right? If you’re a vassal you should be granted a fief when your kingdom conquers a town or castle, you should lead an army to take a city as that will solve your financial problem right away. (City rents and associated village income usually clears a thousand per day easy) you can buy workshops on friendly cities that are not likely to fall, but it will require a significant investment relative to your current funds to buy enough to make a profit. Caravans are also an option, but can be attacked and have unstable income, though it nets out to more than workshops usually. Personally, I recommend abandoning your filthy liege and playing independent, your caravans won’t be attacked (except by bandits and this rarely works in their favor) unless you first attack a faction. (Which you can do to weaken factions you wish weaker and influence the outcome of ai wars. Since you’d have no fiefs their ability to counterattack is limited to hitting caravans and running down your party.
I had 2-3 castles and one town But I lost them due to war
You will need to go to war. Either make the money from that, or lose your elites now you dont have to pay that wage. Revolt if your kingdom refused to break peace
Just start up some caravans, mine on average make 1k a day each running just two caravans will make you defecit disappear. They seem deceptive at first because it does take a few days for them to start making money. Edit: I dont play with mods, yet.
constantly fight, take prisoners. leaders sell for a lot too the slavery people
Buy workshops and form caravans. Leave the kingdom and become a mercenary
By people from The tavern district to go into your party. The NPCs with names. You can then go to some of the nobles in the city and have your NPCs run caravans. I typically have four or five caravans going at a time to break even.
Caravans give you obscene amounts of gold. Simply recruit some people out of the tavern, talk to one of the local notables and put your new recruit in charge of it. Spend the extra gold when you get it started to upgrade the troops and you'll never worry about bandits attacking it either.
Get caravans
You need to open some workshops and caravans. You are most likely losing money anyway until you own 2-3 towns to support your main army. Just keep fighting and sell loot to overcome negative income
War. More and more war. I always have a deficit like that😅
Get a job.
Get some holdings. Go to war and commit war crimes like raiding villages and stealing from wagons of your enemies. Sell your captives to other lords.
spend less on troops
Get some companions and send them out on caravans. Or decrease your army size . Your entire cost is due to your army.
You need passive income, buy some workshops and then start some caravans. Dedicate a couple companions as traders, and then keep selling all the loot from bug battles, those mangy shirts add up. When you start having castles and towns watch out to not have too many people garrisoned where you don’t need them, adds up.
Buy less candles
Rape, kill, and pillage. Not necessarily in that order.
Man, asking for advice is brutal. This is why I've started a character 15x before finally getting it right. Men don't ask for directions and we don't ask for help, even when the cancer is killing us. Lol.
Buy workshops in big and prosperous cities that are not at war, I have 50 hours in game and that's what I did, I have 5 workshops that bring me 1600. Just make sure that you have workshops that are in relation with the resources that nearby villages produce and that nearby cities don't have the same workshops as it would reduce profit. For example, I have an Olive Press in Jaculan that never brigs me less than 500
best solution ctrl+x
Take some cities and use influence to make sure they are given to you, try for the ones that arent constantly being taken and retaken if you can. I have 3 parties including my own (350 t6 troops) and make +8k per day.
Avoid hiring cavalry early game
In peace? - Win tournaments In war? - Loot EVERYTHING - Try gain a castle or town
Start baking like Walter White. On a serious note you need to start smithing and selling what you smith to high prosperity towns. You will soon become a millionaire.
Brother you can make a lot more than 1.4K in a day don’t even worry about it. Fighting is the easiest most straightforward way of getting denars especially large scale battles. Or just smith it’s basically a money printer lol
Workshops are good, caravans are better, killing is best.
For the first while don’t upgrade your troops past tier 3 they become expensive to maintain. Kill looters as much as possible and sell their loot. Save up to buy workshops in towns - ideally something producing products that have the source of materials - example, a cities attached village makes grain - can turn grain into beer etc. rinse and repeat, compete in tournaments and bet on yourself every step of the way - and sometimes the prize will be a crazy expensive horse you can sell (as you probably wont be skilled high enough in riding yet). If you can become a mercenary the influence you gain from winning battles get turned into cash so a good source of income during times of war - when at peace, try completing quests for villages/towns/lords and that will keep rhe money rolling in. Once you get your own towns, just check how much garrison each has as you can set how much you pay in wages per city/castle. The default is unlimited so keep an eye on the “clan” then “parties” tab. You can set the limits here. If you want any further info hit me up, 750 hours of vanilla here!
I dont know very much since im also new to the game ,but one way to make money daily is to buy caravans or workshops ,search a tutorial in youtube about them ,other way is to attack caravans or large bandits ,probably no the the most effective method
Caravans, workshops, settlement buildings, kingdom policies, smaller army
Join someone as a vassel. Wait for a war to start. Start rolling heads and take all their gear and horses. More horses more stuff you can carry. Sell. Rinse and repeat.
Cheating be the way to go
Are you kidding me I only have 30k and I'm completely fine just join armies do major battles Rinse and repeat
WAR
Less talking, more raiding
Fighting constantly and looting selling
Get rid of mercs and start making some workshops in towns
So what I've been doing is working on all troops to tier 3 and not increasing them it keeps wages low. Also if any die its not hard to get them back go tier 3. Grind money and work on passive income caravans workshops. And do quest grinding caravan escorts are the best in my opinion
Reduce your party upkeep or use mods.
So I am new as well. I have figured out that you should cut your army in half and focus on have weaker troops, keep things low priced, then in times of war hit looters and upgrade them. Get a few caravans going. I have 3 and it's not a lot but about 230ish a day times three isn't to bad. I also have a few workshops. Go to towns find the settlements that they have and by the workshop that fits. Ie, olives buy the oil press, grapes wine workshop, so on so on. That should get you to above 2k a day then. Do whatever you want.
'Steal' prisoners from allied castles and sell them
As in any financial bind, you can do two things! Increase your income or lower your expenses. Things to increase income: take mercenary Contracts, acquire territory, kill bandits or other enemies and sell their stuff, get caravans or workshops (though I've had very limited success with those two), or go be a merchant! Buy low, sell high and all that. Seems like your main way to lower your expenses would be to get rid of some of your soldiers. But where's the fun in that?!
Just go to the border of western empire and the desert sarranids and raid caravans that pass through the pass there, easy to trap and crush Good money, exp, and prisoners
mid game (this was a year ago last played) only way to balance the books was find a cheapish crafted sword that netted 20k-40k, something 2 handed. could make 10 at a go and have on hand, and sell to each place as other pointed out, war earnings not indicated in the balance
Get good at smithing. You can make roughly 1 million dinars a month with smithing 200+. This is not an exaggeration.
Invest in caravans
When at war make those parties worth. Workshops are needed and caravans can help at this point in the game
Starts wars with minor clans and attack them indiscriminately, get the equipment selling perk and sell their shit, many times they are giving you enough wages for 10 days sometimes when you're lucky more, sometimes less. Also get a bunch of party members, when you see tournaments either play or give up and if you have a bunch of your party members in them, they'll win smth from time to time. Buying max capacity of shops is also extra income
buy workshops and make caravans!
More Caravans is the answer. Also, more battles.
I have 200k debt just from joining a kingdom and getting 2 castles and a city. The debt has been worth it to accumulate, and I just keep continuing the war. So far there have been 0 consequences
Fight in wars/battles and sell the loot. By far the best source of income. In my experience, even if you got a positive income per day, it would never make up for your entire expenses. (But I'm not experimenting very much, so if I'm wrong please tell me everyone)
Level up smithing Make expensive sword Sales go boom Money go up
You need to invest before you get an army that big, and get some fiefs. Its better to just get rid of the troops or fight some intense battles to get your upkeep down. Garrisoning troops will reduce their wages and food costs.
Get some cheaper units, kill some lords, hire some caravans.
Start a war and sell all the good loot, totally viable on its own. If the anxiety is still killing you, cheese the blacksmithing mechanics—melt down Pugios for 200 gold and resell them as Glaives for 10,000 gold. Your heir won’t forget the schematics you learn so you’ve only got to unlock them once.
Yah just go fight people. I had this problem when I first started. You will never make enough money to sustain a full army of elites off passive income. You have to slaughter your enemies and loot their corpses to succeed. Loot villages raid caravans the economy is a cash flow system not an accrued wealth system
Go fight lords, brigands are no longer worth it
You can open workshops in friendly towns for passive income. Pair this with caravans and you should make enough to self-sustain your armies.
Smithing will help, some orders are quite expensive
Win battles
Caravans and workshops. Or better yet steal yourself a few castles or towns.