Treasury in and treasury out
The campaign is a faction you build and pay for: settlements, armies, diplomacy and conquest, then the battle. Income arrives from settlements and their buildings, from trade, and from post-battle choices such as loot and sacking. The treasury figure is what you can spend this turn.
The standing costs are army upkeep, construction and recruitment. Many races also spend treasury on a rite or a race action. Look at upkeep before you queue another building. A building that finishes next turn does not replace losses in an army that is about to fight if the treasury is already gone.
Some factions also spend a race resource. Ogre camps use Meat, Khorne uses Skulls, Lizardmen track Spawning Sequence, and Vampire Counts spend Blood. Chaos Dwarfs spend Labour, Raw Materials, and Armaments, and they also track Conclave Influence. A race pool can be full while the treasury is empty, or the other way around — check both before you recruit.
Growth and building tiers
Growth advances a settlement toward the next population tier. Higher tiers open the stronger buildings, including military chains. A settlement stuck at a low tier cannot build the chain you are waiting on.
The settlement panel states current growth and climate. Fighting in the province, lost control, or a climate the faction handles poorly will slow the climb. Read the panel before you colonise a ruin on the far side of the map.
Corruption, control and race meters
The province panel shows corruption and, for most factions, control. Vampiric corruption, skaven corruption and the Chaos gods' corruption are different pressures. A province flooded with a corruption your faction does not want pulls public order down and can hurt armies that are not adapted to it. A race that spreads that corruption wants the province to match.
Low control interrupts income and growth and can spark a revolt. An order building, a nearby army, or the race's own cleansing action is what the panel is asking for. A neighbour's corruption leaking across a border is a reason to cleanse that province or to avoid holding it yet.
Kislev is the documented exception: Devotion operates at province level in place of Control. Cathay's Battlefield Harmony is a battle rule about Yin and Yang troops, not a treasury figure. Read the race page for that faction's meter, and the province panel for corruption.
Geography
A settlement behind a mountain pass is easier to hold than one with three open borders. A province you can connect to your capital is easier to defend than a ruin three regions away.
Before you march, select the army and read its movement range, which enemies can reach your land, and the route home. Finish a province you can hold, then spend growth there, rather than opening a second war to fund the first.
If the settlement panel marks the climate as unsuitable, growth and public order will fight you. Sack it and leave, or take it only when you can afford the trouble.
A turn's spending order
Check income after upkeep. A negative balance means the armies are drawing down the reserve. That is a plan for a war you are about to finish, not a standing budget.
Repair and recruit for the army that will fight next. Then place one building that serves the next tier or the unit you lack. In a province you just took, read corruption and control before you queue a landmark.
End the turn when the army has a stop that enemies cannot freely walk past.
Sources
- Total War: WARHAMMER - A New Player Survival Guide & FAQ — community.creative-assembly.com
- Total War: WARHAMMER III - An Update on Unit Recruitment Issues — totalwar.com
- Total War: WARHAMMER III - Update 9.0 Release Notes — totalwar.com
- Immortal Empires DLC Ownership Guide — support.sega.com