How to make lots of money in Medieval 2: Total War

First of all, you have to make sure that you keep all of your citizens happy so that you can tax them to death. Generals, town halls, churches, and farms are good ways to do this.

After that, build ports, markets, farms, and mines in all of your cities, and consider converting some castles that are well protected into cities, since castles are best at making soldiers, not florins.

Since ports are your main money makers, trade agreements come in handy, as does having lots of cities. Make sure not to let your docks get blockaded either.

If you need lots of money quickly though, there are a couple ways of doing it. You can try to sell off some reserve military, but that's not the best option, since you never know when you'll get attacked someplace that you never thought that you would, and since you don't get a lot for troops.

My favorite way is to just go on a crusade/jihad with my main army that's closest to the people of a different religion. All the troops in that army get free upkeep, and I can hire dirt-cheap mercenaries while conquering new cities and keeping the pope happy.

Another way that works well when used with crusades is to just loot random cities. Conquer a relatively undefended city that you know that you'll never be able to keep, loot it, sell all the buildings, and march all of your troops out and on to their next target. You'll usually get 30,000 florins, and your enemy's city gets reduced to almost nothing.

I have 3 tips for a sound M2TW economy:

1. I have seen most of the people talk about raising taxes. That simply isn't the best idea. On average, the biggest source of income for a single city are taxes. While raising taxes does immediately increase income, it also slows your population growth. Raising taxes should be your last option. I always keep my taxes on low and build all the population boosting buildings I can, because the larger your taxable population, the larger your income.

2. Don't conquer every single region and maintain trade rights. There a couple regions that can make a killing on trade; Constantinople, Stockholm, and Alexandria are a few examples. Each one of these land trades with every neighboring region and exports sea trade with 1-4 regions based on your number of trade fleets. But usually only 1 or 2 regions offers large trade incomes; for Stockholm it's trade with Sofia with that makes good income. But the income is far better when you trade with regions belonging to different factions.

3. Know the difference between governors and generals. Certain family members are more suited for leading a city. You can actually make generals better at governing by building certain buildings. Build lots of mines and markets with a general in town and it raises the chance of gaining attributes like "Good with Trade" or "Geologist." If you are in dire need you can cheat and add the attributes and ancillarys yourself. Here are some of the best attributes:

   • brilliant_inventor
   • architect (reduces squalor)
   • overseer
   • intrepid_explorer
   • GoodAdministrator 3
   • GoodMiner 3
   • GoodTrader 3
   • Energetic 3

   
   A fully upgraded governor can increase a city's income by 1000+

With all these tips I have gotten Stockholm to make 10,000 florins per turn, as a huge city of course.

Make sure to spend enough money on infrastructure/trade improvements in your regions - stuff like roads, farms, mines and so on. Another alternative is to sack the cities you conquer - this gains you a lump sum of cash at the expense of some reduction in population and some possible damage to the city.