SSHIP economy advice for beginners

[jurcek1987]

A couple of free tips for all the newbies . I'm not going to write a general economy guide, the principle is the same as in Stainless Steel. I'm going to focus on merchants. As you may have noticed, merchants are no longer the useless clutter they were before. In this mod they are extremely profitable and, if used to full potential, can even become your biggest source of income. In my current Roman campaign, I receive over 50.000 florins per turn from merchant income alone, which is even more than I receive from taxes and represents one third of my total income. In more practical terms, merchants provide almost 50% of my military budget. Not bad, eh?

There are two main things you need to know: how to get high-level merchants and where to send them.

Step one: There are three variables that determine the starting level of a newly trained merchant: The level of a market in the city, the presence of a merchant's guild and random luck. Instead of just producing merchants where you can, I recommend that you limit their recruitment to a single city, the one with a high level market and a port (i.e. your factions biggest moneymaking city). The best examples are: Constantinople, Italian coastal cities, Alexandria, Jerusalem, Antioch, London... After a few turns, when you've accumulated enough points, you'll receive an offer for a merchant's guild in that city. A merchant's guild, in addition to increasing your city's trade income, provides positive traits for your newly trained merchants. But there is also an element of luck involved, so from time to time, even with high level infrastructure, you'll get terrible merchants. If that happens, simply send them on a "suicide takeover mission" against other factions merchants (the amount of merchants is limited to how many markets you have). Merchants' skills can also be increased by accepting "Great Trade Fair" events, by successfully acquiring rival merchants or by positioning them on resources.


Step two: The amount of income you receive is determined by the value of resources, by distance from capital (more is better) and also if you have trade rights with the owner of the region. So it is best to send your merchants outside your borders and look for gold, cotton, silver, pepper, silk, slaves and others.

The two best locations (that I've found) are gold mines in Upper Hungary:

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and in Carmania (the south-eastern edge of the map):

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some other profitable locations:

gold in Serbia:

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cotton in Nile Delta:

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gold in Armenia:

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silver in Transylvania:

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Other good locations: gold in Tunis, Upper Egypt, south-eastern Arabia and Novgorod, silver in Frankfurt, Trebizond, Malatya, Tabriz, Sardinia, Bosnia, Granada and Toledo, cotton in Pisa, Aleppo and Basra, pepper in Venice, Pisa, Antioch, Acre, Fes, Carmania and Basra, slaves in Pereyaslav, Crimea, Dnieper Lowland, Genoa, Ani, Libya, Upper Egypt and Tunis and silk in Constantinople, Damascus, Crimea, Sicily and southern Spain.

[Lifthrasir]

A nice piece!!!

[Dekhatres]

dang, and i thought the 10k denars my merchants make is a lot

[j.a.luna]

hehehe jurcek great economy post!!! currently, in the SSHIP, merchants are very important for the game...
i think that it should be given more importance to trade roads...for example, if you control the main trade routes( land and sea) you obtain much extra incomes and population for your cities, put important trade routes( silk roads, italian trades, constantinople, baltic sea...) all this for give much importance to control principal routes...

[Lifthrasir]

Not sure that all this can be done

[achilles-91]

It could be done by leting those regions create specific buildings that boost income a lot

[Dekhatres]

it could be made so that all settlements on the silk road get to build a special/unique building and that building would have huge trade bonuses

EDIT: is the number of buildings limited ? if yes is the limit reached ?

[Lifthrasir]

Yes it's limited but not reached yet

[nvm]

Don't forget that merchants have traits which limit their movement more and more over time, making sending them to far away places more of a chore,

[Larkin]

Different merchants even with the same finance will make different money if they are from different factions due to distance. 'Byzantine' merchants won't make much from the silk etc just outside Constantinople. But my merchants of Venice were making 11-14k off them. Similarly, the spices and silks along the coast of the Holy Land are big money makers for European factions, but won't be for Muslim ones.

[RexTrust]

Don't know if it is helpful, but i had to adapt to the economy system in SSHIP, coming from SS. here is what i learned


SSHIP puts a lot weight on the economy in general - more economy related buildings, interactions between the traits of the generals, public unrest, taxes, merchants, etc. so, if you want more money, a lot of other factors must be addressed.


- make sure that you have a happy population. happy population -> more taxes -> less garrison units needed.


- if you want to take a settlement from the enemy, first be sure that the regions has a lot of your religion, then take the settlement. as CS i discovered that at least 30% catholizism is good, 40% or 50% is better.


- if your population is already happy, get trade buildings first, then buildings which reduce squalor. i have the impression that squalor is one of the main reasons for unrest, but i could be wrong.


- if you have an unhappy population, it is sometimes usefull to build a gallow for 1-5 rounds, and then demolish it.


- never never never ever use cavalry-units for staying in cities to reduce unrest. cavalry is a lot more expensive in upkeep than militias (sometimes 10x more expensive). always use cavalry for fight, never for staying in cities.


- try to get "administratively minded" generals in the cities, and "military minded" generals in castles. build schools, academies and the like for better administratively traits. lower taxes if needed, to get higher chivalry.


one word on chivalry/dread: in my first campaigns i used assassins all over. for everything. that is a good idea in the short run, but not in the long run: your generals and your faction leader get more dread. and that means, more unrest in cities -> more militias needed and lower taxes -> less money overall.


my 2 cents, hope it helps, sorry for jolty english

[Swarbs]

- if you have an unhappy population, it is sometimes usefull to build a gallow for 1-5 rounds, and then demolish it.

Gallows in general can be great for the economy, as the law boost they provide massively reduces corruption. It is often better to build a gallows in all far off cities, particularly rich ones, as the benefits in reduced corruption far outweighs penalties to growth. The most extreme example I have encountered is when I captured Palermu as the ERE, and building a gallows reduced corruption by around 2,000 per turn.

one word on chivalry/dread: in my first campaigns i used assassins all over. for everything. that is a good idea in the short run, but not in the long run: your generals and your faction leader get more dread. and that means, more unrest in cities -> more militias needed and lower taxes -> less money overall.

Don't think this is true (Lifthrasir can confirm) - I think dread is just as effective as chivalry for increasing public order. The only thing about dread is that it doesn't boost growth, so a high dread general is often better for managing captured capitals to prevent them getting too big. Remember than smaller settlements get a higher garrison boost from the same militia units, so less militia needed to keep them happy. Also smaller settlements have less squalor, so again less garrison needed to keep them happy.

[RexTrust]

Don't think this is true (Lifthrasir can confirm) - I think dread is just as effective as chivalry for increasing public order. The only thing about dread is that it doesn't boost growth, so a high dread general is often better for managing captured capitals to prevent them getting too big. Remember than smaller settlements get a higher garrison boost from the same militia units, so less militia needed to keep them happy. Also smaller settlements have less squalor, so again less garrison needed to keep them happy.

Ah yeah, that could in fact be the case. i forgot to mention the distinction between captured capitals, boarder regions, and the like. i would say: own capital + own cities: boost growth! foreign capitals= boost popularity with any means necessary! and then, go on growth!

[Swarbs]

Ah yeah, that could in fact be the case. i forgot to mention the distinction between captured capitals, boarder regions, and the like. i would say: own capital + own cities: boost growth! foreign capitals= boost popularity with any means necessary! and then, go on growth!

I think foreign capitals have permanent levels of unrest when captured. So I try to avoid growing them wherever possible, particularly distant ones which are already large cities or citadels. The risk with growth is always that when your faction leader or the local governor dies you may find the settlement slips into rioting and the faction re-emerges, so growing them is a risky prospect, particularly given that corruption will soak up much of the benefits of growth.

Like you say, try to get high chivalry generals for your own settlements, or ones which don't have inherent unrest, but high dread generals for captured settlements with distance and unrest issues.