What does everyone think of its current state?

In terms of how AI handles it, I ran a lot of test observer games (1066 start, hard difficulty), and the results are the following:

(Yes, its a wall of text, do feel free to skip to the bottom if you are not interested in reading about the findings :P )

I know not everyone enjoys debating with actual math, but here go the current numbers:

- The total gold in circulation starts out at around only 37% more vs vanilla!
- The very lategame sees around 123% more total circulated gold vs vanilla.

(That's assuming AI built up buildings to full in vanilla lategame, which it doesn't, and the player does, so the gap between the two is MUCH smaller in SW than in vanilla).

- Buildings are on average 22.5% more expensive to build and upgrade and their income is only an average of 17.4% higher in fully-built-up holdings than what it used to be before the economy changes that made everyone complain.

a) Building base income is increased by an average of 35%.
b) Building income per level increment is increased by an average of 13.2%.
c) Buildings are on average 22.5% more expensive to build and upgrade

- There is much less of a gap between optimized vassal contracts, and what AI does.

a) Feudal vassal tax is between a 10-40% base, whereas it used to be 2.5-25%.
b) Absolute authority used to give +35% income/levies, and only gives +30%, now.

Lieges get between +/- 54% (absolute extortionate scutage) and 122% (AI-management-average) more of the % income from their vassals, compared to vanilla. However, this gold does not come from nowhere - vassals lose it. You centralize - you have more gold, they have less, but the total circulating amount stays the same.

if you are playing perfectly optimally, you are getting the +54% end of the spectrum, compared to vanilla. But, if you are playing unoptimized - like AI, using a mixture of normal/low tax contracts, no scutage, and high, not absolute, crown authority - then you are getting the +122% compared to before. Which is still much less than the former in actual gold, but does a lot to lessen the difference.

Overall, the vassal gold gap between perfect income optimization and AI-play :

- Was (and in vanilla is) -> 50% vs 9% -> 5.55 times the gold!
- Is (in Sane Warfare) -> 78% vs 20% -> 3.9 times the gold.

In other words, its only 70.2% as wide - and not because of any artificial bonuses - so you could say AI is (1/0.702 - 1 = ) 42.5% better at the economy game, and that's completely ignoring the building logic changes, and the "more gold resulting in it getting exponentially more buildings built" thing, and the building cost reductions on hard/very hard difficulties.

Furthermore, in vanilla you get a big chunk of your gold, perhaps even the majority, from broken character interactions (I.e hooks, pope tax refunds, ransoms etc) - which in SW amount to less %-wise of your income, simply because its bigger. And that's a good thing, because the AI doesn't exploit these interactions, unlike the player.

On hard, AI gets -30% building cost (that's all it gets), so the gap building-gold-wise is around 2.73 times in favour of the relentless optimizer player.

On very hard, AI gets -50% building cost (again, that's all it gets), so the gap building-gold-wise is only around 1.95 times in favour of the relentless optimizer player.



1. More often than not - byzantines, in terms of raw income. However, their big realm and expensive cataphracts ensure they never hold gold in abundance, spending it on buildings, mercenaries, and wars, to the point of landing in the red perhaps not often, but regularly so in serious, long conflicts.

2. Usually Francia (if it forms) and HRE (if it doesn't collapse) tie for this spot, though frontrunners include a unified Iberia (whether muslim or catholic), and the persian and indian empires. Sometimes Britannia comes close too (it formed in 4 out of the 14 full observer games I ran since the economy changes, twice by England, once by Scotland, and once by freaking Wales.)

Much like ERE, they also have a lot to spend the money on, perhaps even more so - as their war chest empties into the negatives relatively often, no matter how rich and powerful they grow.

3. To noone's surprise, the Pope is pretty rich. However, he doesn't make an outrageous amount of gold - usually less than the ones above - he just has little to spend it on. Picchieri cost decisively less in upkeep than cataphracts, gendarmes, or even regular armoured horsemen, and the pontiff has but a dozen holdings, unless he grows to conquer italy at large.

Regardless, he does NOT usually have bottomless coffers. He spends a lot on each crusade, and the catholic tithe as well as his greatly built up holdings have proven not to be enough on more than one occasion, landing him in the red. There are games where he doesn't ever - if catholicism does particularly well - however, his treasury has its limits, despite its usual size.


Byzantion usually grows the quickest, unless the Byzantines get into a chain of difficult wars, followed closely by Rome, both of which I'm happy with. Cities and temples develop moderately faster than most castle holdings, however the castles are quick to fill with buildings as well.

The AI builds and upgrades duchy buildings in time, and soon after they become available, whereas regular buildings in castles, while quickly built, sometimes stay unupgraded for longer than ideal. The main "castle" building of castle holdings often lags behind a bit compared to available technology.

While AI does by no means develop slowly even early on, there seem to be three major "building spree thresholds" in most games, when AI permanently quickens up the pace :

The first happens after approximately 50-80 years from game start (1115-1145).
Most AI vassals start erecting/upgrading castle buildings en-masse around that period, whereas before it, its mostly the ruler's domains that get developed, as well as those of barons and dukes - I'm talking in relative terms here - everyone else builds too, probably more than in vanilla lategame tbh. New holding constructions stop being an uncommon sight around that period, and most duchies will have their duchy building filled by then.

The second - 120-150 years from game start (1190-1220)
More upgrades. Most castle holdings are fully filled tier 1 castles by now, and start getting upgraded, though its a slow-ish, yet steady process. This period is predominately characterized by new holdings being constructed and filled with buildings, everywhere.

The third around - 200 years from game start (1270-1280)
This is when the big jump happens. Everything quickly starts growing. Rural castles that lag behind grow to T2, with T3 quick to follow. Buildings everywhere get quickly upgraded to tier 5-6 or higher, This impacts the way warfare is conducted greatly - in that, before this period, serious castles are a rare sight, whereas after it, fortifications dominate warfare, and battles become less decisive, as every major player has many big forts to regroup behind in case of a lost battle of two.


- AI seems to use properly-sized retinues from the very start of the game (within three years of game start, unless it starts in a significant war - it prefers spending on mercenaries then).

Retinue sizes progress gradually throughout the entirety of the game, only the biggest nations capping out their retinues to the hard limit before the end of the game, and only doing so by the latter half of the last century (I'm talking byzantines, francia, HRE, Iberia).

Everyone else, excluding realms based around not-so-expensive MaA retinues, is unwilling or unable to sustain a full limit, and even the formerly listed major realms sometimes struggle to do so (if they survive and don't fall apart!).

Hence, it appears to me as if Men-at-Arms are just about rightly priced in terms of upkeep (which is what the AI budgets around when choosing whether to buy or maintain its retinues)

In terms of effectiveness, lategame realms seem to near, and sometimes even bridge, the +100% damage and toughness bracket on their main men-at-arms, which is considerably close to what a decent/good-ish player gets, and is something I'm always happy to see!

(Though, admittedly, England often struggles on that front if it turns english, because of longbowmen not really benefiting from anglo-saxon buildings, but that is an issue that can be separately adressed.)

- Mercenaries see regular use, particularly in crusades and in western europe as well as india in general, though not only. From the very start, until the very end of the game, they remain a major factor in many wars, and are often hired in big numbers, at that.

An example would be the pope hiring a gargantuan amount of 43k mercenaries (remember, they are all Men-at-Arms, and it cost him around 30k gold for 2 years, if not more) to aid him in the 1324 crusade for england (100+ years before end date), which was overtaken by a christian-sweet-home-alabama heresy and controlled by a big heretical Britannia. And they lost that war, despite the HRE joining in, because of Britannia's alliance with Francia (numbers were roughly even on both sides).

This also seems like the right kind of balance, to me, with the potential to challenge the player.


There is a lot of gold. Enough to start on infrastructure relatively quickly, at least as long as you don't do much warmongering.

But, between better building up, mercenaries, retinues, and perhaps lategame deciding to hold onto one, two, or if you are extremely rich - maybe three more duchy capitals than the soft limit of 2 - and only if you use otherwise cheap retinues - there is always a way to spend that gold, from start to finish.

It never just sits in the treasury, unlike in certain paradox games (like EuIV), where you just sit on a pile of neverending cash, waiting for the new tech to unlock so you can upgrade your income-making buildings, wondering why you even do so, because you can't possibly go bankrupt, or even be forced to take a loan, anyway.

I've never felt like I genuinely had too much gold, to the point where I wouldn't have a use for it - though I admittedly mostly play with expensive retinues of armored horsemen and the like, so that means I'm paying more army upkeep than most.


I am, at present, inclined not to drastically adjust the economy, due to all the reasons outlined above. However, I would also like to hear everyone's input on the matter.