Economic help

[Grande]

Hello I just started plying this game and have read the famous Ralegh guides. Dare I say they are better than the provided game guides (they are useless especially if you have never played a board game or strategy game before).

However i am still a little unclear as to what to do to raise money, and what to do to raise the available labour levels.
I started off as France and with economic advisor the net income seemed to be plus in the first few months, but after January 1806 I have suddenly no money as for some reason my army upkeep is higher although I have only the original two and both still in france.

Is the only way to raise money by trade? Should I set some goods as untradable amongst whoch money, so that I dont pay but only barter for things? And to trade, do I need to build more merchant ships or not?

Also the concept of feudal Levies is totally unclear. I have not touched it but someone should really explain how it works. I dont understand why the manuals dont cover these things.

Thanks for any help!![:D]

[AvalonHillfan]

raise taxes to the max. As Raleigh says, reduce depots to save money.

[GalacticOrigins]

Also, do not forget to to set ARMIES to Forage (but keep attached Corps to non-forage).

Otherwise, you will pay heavily for supply. A little bit of attrition is not bad, just don't place 250,000 troops in any one place for a long time ... [:D]

[jupiter]

You're right. If you use the Economy Advisor you'll soon go broke. You need to do 2 things.

1) Manage your economy. Raise your tax rate way up (bad for moral, but win big battles and it won't matter). Raise your Feudal rate; it brings in money and reduces Troop Upkeep costs). Eliminate your Welfare (again bad for moral, just win battles).

2) Develop your provinces. Identify the provinces with the most income and build banks up to level 5 (after that they get pretty expensive, so move on the the less productive provinces). Also build courts to reduce waste (it's a pretty expensive item, and they're cheaper than banks).

3) The most important. Get your enemies to surrender. As terms of surrender, make them pay reparations.

After I figured all this out, money ceased to be a problem. [:D]