Seems you are playing the game poorly, I think these changes by Taleworlds are definately the right way to go, (i would like workshops to maybe even earn less, but also maybe max cost 5000-10000), it was WAAAAAAAAAAY to easy to earn money and influence before once you knew what you were doing, made you pretty much skip the mid game, letting you go straigt to late game, that still needs features implemented, more so than the midgame.
Tend to agree with you.
The game is in horrible balance and needs some tweaks. Sure maybe the first 20 days is a bit hard but it is easy to go from beginning of game straight to end game, which seems wrong as there is no middle. Smithing makes so much bank it is crazy, hitting choice lord armies is huge bank, and yes shops still make good coin (tannery, brewery, smithing).
I don't like prescribing a game style to people. However, I will do it for the sake of a proper argument.
What I do is tourneys to start, no troops during this part. While doing tourneys I keep an eye out for good donkey prices and cheap materials to sell as I do tourneys. You can do this in empire and not have to leave, I however like Battanian tourneys as I like two handed weapons. This allows me to level trading, athletics, horses and my choice of weapons based on tourneys. It also gets me gear I desperately need.
Once I have 10K together I go south and pick up asarie warhorses for less than 800 a piece, take them north to batt or val and trade for 2k a piece. Grab fur and bring them back. Do this a few times and laugh at the dough you are raking in. Train that trader up. Setup a smithy shop in the town you wish to start your lordly campaign in. It will make you good gear to buy if you keep pumping the goods there.
Next I go merc after train 25 archers and 25 cav, easy to do when you have 50k in the bank. This is where it snowballs so damn fast it is an avalanche. I run down weaker lords.You need to keep as many cheap horses as you have footmen to keep that map speed up. I use batt or steep horse for cheap horses, mostly steep as they are everywhere out there. Don't be a hero, I play on realistic and one arrow with crap gear means you go down and you lose control of your battle lines. Lets just say your troops are so stupid without you.
After every win take your loot to the smith and get pumping that gear out. I sell two handers, pole arms and swords (tier 3) for about 10k to 30k a piece. This seems broken to me. Sell the crap you get from battles that isn't worth melting.
There are many others that don't do what I do and make huge bank. I just started doing this after 20+ game starts. It works but someone else probably does it better and faster.
The game balance is just not there and because of it the lords of factions are going war crazy. That I believe is why we see the huge nerfs. Not because they want us to to do bad but because what we are abusing is exactly what the AI abuses. Except for smithy, we are privy to abusing that where as the AI cannot.
