Balancing Your Budgetby Erving Bolinski
Death and taxes; the only certainties in an uncertain world. Even in the realm of Middle-earth, there's no escape from this troublesome duo. The trick lies in learning how to keep the one from leading all too quickly to the other. A bankrupt nation is just as dead as one that's been conquered and razed. Each of the twenty-five positions in ME-PBM must face the challenge of bringing income and outlay into balance, some more pressingly than others. Generally speaking, each nation possesses enough gold reserves to support their campaign for roughly two to three months, assuming no significant expenses occur (creating a lot of characters, improving pop centers on a wid scale, etc). Strong early decisions must often be made to determine the best use of available income and to minimize unneeded expenses. But what strategies are best for your position? In this article, we'll take a look at a number of the options that are open to you to help keep your nation running in the black. Please note that not all these strategies will work equally well for all nations, but you should find enough financial advice to point you in the right direction.
1) Increase revenue by increasing taxes.This option has the advantage of immediately increasing revenue and is often the simplest tactic to put into effect. However, it also has the negative side effect of lowering your pop center loyalty. If there's a danger of other nations benefiting from your lower loyalty, yet still allow for increased revenue. Further, to compensate for the period of higher taxes, the nation could instruct its emissaries to focus their attention on increasing their own pop center loyalty - providing the benefits of improved/restored loyalty as well as that of skill rank improvement for the emissaries involves since the order is automatic.
2) Increase revenue by increasing the number of population centers.This option can take on many forms and results in an almost immediate revenue increase. One method is to have emissaries influence the loyalty of foreign pop centers, bringing them under your nation's control. Another is to simply capture the pop centers of other nations. This method is particularly effective for aggressive militarily-oriented positions, such as the Eothraim. A third possibility is to post or create camps in unoccupied hexes.
3) Increase revenue by placing camps where there are valuable products.This extension of the above option can offer numerous benefits. For example, strategic placement of camps can work to hinder your opponents' economic and military growth, cutting them off from needed resources.This option can be used to increase gold reserves directly by securing hexes containing gold. Gold production is independent of taxation and is only affected by the changing seasons. Location other forms of production can be useful as well, allowing a nation to sell their valuable surplus of high-cost products (see option 5). Successful use of certain mage spells or effective agent scouting can provide hints for the best camp locations. It can take some planning and patience to ensure the success of this option, but the immediate and long term rewards can be significant.
4) Increase revenue by increasing population center levels.This option provides more of a long term solution to revenue problems because it requires up- front gold in order to raise the pop center levels. This will compound a revenue shortage at first, but in the long run will provide a solid increase, particular if the tax rate is raised. Thus, this amount of revenue over an extended period. Additionally, the improvised levels can result in a boost to victory point rankings in the area of population centers.
5) Increase revenue by selling product stores.This is the easiest option to pursue, but frequent use of it can result in a product-poor nation that must eventually buy back needed products at a higher cost, or else be forced to do without them. Consequently, it is often the last refuge of the desperate. While the promise of quick cash can be tempting, moderation and careful planning are really the keys to successful utilization of this option. Remember that everything you sell can fall right into the hanks of your opponents. You must balance the short term reward with the possible long term damage.This option works best in conjunction with some of the other options (#3), or when you need an immediate temporary shot in the arm.
6) Increase revenue by trading products with nations.Frequent communication between allies, neutrals, or even enemies can reveal material needs and allow a nation to find new markets for their surplus products, ones that avoid the market price overhead and limits. Of course, one must be trusting that the other nation will pay up once the goods have been delivered...
7) Increase revenue by offering services to other nations.This option is frequently overlooked and is more specialized in nature than most of the ones previously discussed. However, it is easy to implement in conjunction with any of the other options. What kinds of services one could offer are limited only by the imagination of the nation's ruler: kidnappings, assassinations, spell castings, information dealing, thefts, military operations, artifact sales, etc. Of course, one must be trusting that the other nation will pay up once the service has been provided.
8) Increase revenue by threatening nations.This option is most suited to strong militarily-oriented positions and can be of mixed benefit. Often the mere threat of an attack, particularly against crucial pop centers, can motivate your opponents to cough up the cash to keep you away. Call it extortion, call it payola, but if you can make it work, call it financial security. However, keep in mind that exercising this option will make you a lot of enemies who may just ban together to rid themselves of the financial drain.A variation of this tactic is for a neutral nation to "threaten" to join one side or the other if not paid to stay in the middle.
9) Increase revenue by borrowing from other nations.The team nature of the game often encourages one side to help support the continued existence of their weaker nations, or even of neutral nations that may join their cause. This option takes advantage of this characteristic by suggesting that a nation may be able to secure additional gold as a loan or a foreign aid directly from other nations. A very specialized and risky tactic, but one could greatly benefit a weaker and/or neutral nation.
10) Decrease expenditures by reducing maintenance costs.This frequently overlooked option actually can be an extremely effective means of accomplishing several goals and can provide a very quick and sure way of balancing the budget by reducing costs rather than trying to increase revenues.Army maintenance costs can be reduced by retiring troops, or even better, by launching a military offensive. The latter results in the capturing of pop center ( option #2) AND in the loss of troops, which reduces maintenance cost. Retiring unneeded warships and transports also reduces costs. Population center maintenance costs can be reduced by removing unneeded harbors, ports, or fortifications. Character maintenance costs are usually always on the rise as characters improve their skill ranks. However, costs can be reduced by retiring character that offer minimal benefits terms of their skill ranks and types of skills offered. The cost to create new characters can be avoided by more effectively using those already in existence.
Deciding which options are best or most effective is up to each player and his or her style of play. Some nations will find some more suited to their plans and needs than others, and furthermore, these plans and needs could change over the course of the game. The common goal is to determine which options provide the most advantages and the fewest disadvantages and which hold the greatest promise of short and long term gain. One final item to consider: Combining more than one of the above options often allows the nation greater flexibility in dealing with unforeseen future events - frequently a critical and deciding strategic factor.
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