User Guide

46
large portion of your monthly budget to sta-
bility increases if your stability ever becomes
too low. If you are at the maximum +3 stability
level, this slider will be automatically set to a 0
investment and any previous allocation will be
distributed evenly in the other six sliders. Your
stability level is always displayed in the top bar
of the Main Interface, as well as to the right of
this slider.
Treasury Investment
The “investments” amount shown on the budg-
et summary is the sum of the amounts that
you have allocated to the five technology slid-
ers, as well as any investment in stability. The
remainder of your monthly income will auto-
matically be allocated to your treasury alloca-
tion slider which is used to mint money. These
ducats will be used to pay your fixed monthly
expenses and any remaining balance will be
added directly to your treasury. Investing in
your treasury causes a very small but constant
increase in your country’s current inflation
value, which we’ll talk about shortly. The “bal-
ance” shown on the budget summary scroll is
the total amount allocated to the treasury slid-
er after the fixed expenses have been deducted
and is updated automatically as you adjust the
treasury slider.
It is possible to run a deficit in your month-
ly balance, after fixed expenses, but it is not ad-
visable to do so for extended periods of times.
While there are no direct penalties incurred by
a negative balance, any shortfall will be with-
drawn from your country’s treasury. If you lack
the funds in your treasury to pay your fixed ex-
penses, you will automatically be forced to take
a loan to cover the shortfall. Until the loan is
repaid, you will forced to spend an additional
monthly amount in interest charges which will
make it even harder to balance your budget and
could eventually force your country into bank-
ruptcy. We will look at this financial death-spi-
ral after quickly reviewing your country’s fixed
expenses.
Fixed Expenses
There are three fixed expenses shown on the
budget summary scroll on the left side of the
screen. The “advisors” amount is the monthly
salary you must pay to retain the services of any
court advisors that you may have hired. The
“military maintenance” amount is the monthly
cost to maintain your current complement of
armies and navies, and is the subject of the next
page of the Domestic interface. The “Interest”
amount will only apply if you have voluntar-
ily (or involuntarily) taken a loan, and reflects
the monthly amount that you must pay in in-
terest on the sum that you have borrowed [see
below].
Monthly Budget Balance
Once your fixed expenses have been deducted
from your treasury investment, the monthly
budget “balance” is reported near the bot-
tom of the scroll, showing the number of duc-
ats that will be placed into your treasury each
month. You will use this money to recruit new
troops, hire mercenaries, build new ships, con-
struct new province improvements, conduct di-
plomacy, fund new mercantile ventures, estab-
lish and expand new colonies, and many other
things that involve an expenditure from your
treasury. If your monthly balance is negative, it
will be shown in red and this amount will be
deducted from your country’s treasury. If you
lack sufficient funds in your treasury to pay
for your fixed monthly expenses, you will be
forced to take a loan to pay for them.
Inflation
Europa Universalis III incorporates a basic
measure of inflation which reflects the trend
for things to gradually become more expensive
over time. The amount shown on the “infla-
tion” line of the budget summary scroll is the
current percentage surcharge that applies to a
large number of the things that you purchase.
It is not a compounded value; thus, an infla-
tion value of 10% means only that you are cur-
rently paying a 10% surcharge over the base