Generating Income

The foundation of your imperialistic war effort will be your income. Just as there are numerous factors that affect population growth and public order, there are many variables that adjust a settlement’s income. As stated previously in this section, it’s wise to think economy first. How you develop your settlement from its inception can have long term effects on its viability as an economic cornerstone to current and future expansion efforts. Neglecting income-producing structures and trying to pumping out military buildings and trained soldiers will hinder expansion and defenses in the long term.

The primary structures generating income will be farms, trade, ports, roads, and mines. Plus, you’ll generate a large portion of income from taxation. Farms generate income as well as allow your settlement to support a greater population (the more food, the more people your settlement can support), which in turn generates greater tax revenue.

The trade line of structures (trader, market, forum, great forum, curia) are not only prerequisites for other important buildings (such as sewers) but they’re vital for your settlement’s economy. Each new trade structure increases your settlement’s tradable goods. To complement your trade structures, build roads early and upgrade to paved roads when available. Roads increase trade efficiency and also allow you to move units quicker through the province. Utilize diplomats to visit nearby factions and negotiate trade rights to generate as much trade income as possible for your settlements. Early on this can be extremely helpful in generating additional income.

Coastal cities can generate large income from naval trade lanes. Upgrade your port at each opportunity.

Don’t neglect ports either. Each new port upgrade opens up an additional naval trade lane. Open up ports at each applicable settlement to maximize the number of naval trade lanes available to your faction. Defend your ports with naval units, which you’ll also need to blockade enemy ports (often at the Senate’s request).

Adjusting your settlement’s taxation rate alters generated income. As stated previously, the higher the tax rate, the greater the public disorder. But it’s certainly possible to maintain order with a high tax rate. Use this tactic early in the game to concentrate on your settlement’s economic infrastructure (building farms, roads, trade, and ports and upgrading when available). Maintain the tactic as long as you can maintain public order. Check your settlement details to gauge what’s needed to curb unrest. Don’t neglect sewers, temples, a small garrison and other easy means of increasing order.

Some provinces feature mining areas; in these provinces, construct a mine and the mine +1 upgrade to increase mining income generated from the province.

Structural Decisions

The primary concerns for each settlement are population growth, public order, and income. As you’ve seen in this section, there are numerous variables affecting each of these concerns. Many of these variables result from the types of structures you decide to build in each settlement.

As illustrated throughout this chapter, it’s wise to mold your settlement’s infrastructure before concentrating on population growth or worrying about advanced structures and units. Consider the settlement decisions you make early on and how they’ll affect the settlement long-term. Ushering in a weak governor will mean smaller growth, a more inefficient economy, and possibly unrest (or at best, the need to constantly balance out growing disorder).

A small garrison is usually enough to keep public order maintained. Too much army in a city can add to the settlement’s squalor.

Focus on your economy and public order before your military. Construct advancements in roads, farms, ports, trade, sewers, and temples. You may want a barracks in each settlement to create town watch as a small garrison (which helps maintain public order). Too much military, however, affects your bottom line and also seems to affect order and population-hampering squalor.

Integration

As you expand your empire through new provinces, move your capital from your initial starting point toward the center of your empire. If you keep the capital at its original location, your outer provinces will lose some public order based on their distance from the capital. If you move your capital, you can counter these effects.

When you conquer a new settlement you have three choices on how to deal with its current population. Although it’s a military decision, it’s also an economic decision.

You can occupy the settlement, which retains its population. The advantages are you could already be at higher tier structures; plus greater population means greater tax income. However, the disadvantages are the population isn’t used to your culture and the differences can result in reduced public order. Also, the higher population can lead to more squalor if the settlement doesn’t have the proper infrastructure.

Next you could choose to enslave the population. This spreads population through other conquered settlements as long as the settlement contains its own governor. Use this to increase pop at other settlements as you’re looking to advance to the next tier and structure set. If you do this, though, don’t neglect to get the next tier economic and order structures in place.

Finally, you can exterminate the population. This provides excellent income but at the cost of the populace. The disadvantages are you will need to wait for the settlement’s population to return to its previous level. However, the advantages are it’s under your rule so cultural differences won’t become an issue. Also, the growth, with infrastructure in place, should reduce squalor in the long term. It becomes more difficult later in the campaign when you conquer sizable cities. The population won’t simply give in to your new rule. It might be better to exterminate than deal with an unruly city that resorts to riots and virtually destroys any potential profit the city might have provided.