Are Kingmaker finances as broken as they seem

[JeenLeen]

I ran Kingmaker (just parts I and II) about a year ago for some friends, one of which is a min-maxer in-game and an accountant in real life. He calculated the best city-build -- I forget the specifics but it was mostly black markets, and he was a CN rogue so it fit in character -- and used it in the 2-3 towns they built. Ended up incredibly wealthy rather quickly.

It was a pretty silly game in mood, so I was fine with this. I also allowed rules for embezzlement, since it made sense (and they made a dumb kobold they recruited the treasurer), but even without that giving the PCs a lot of wealth, the nation was obscenely wealthy. I was wondering if I may have just misread the rules. For those of you who ran Kingmaker with a more serious note, were the nation-building rules as breakable as they seem?

[Florian]

It starts easy in parts one and two and gets pretty hard afterwards, once anexing other settlements and war come into it. Then you'll bite your own ass because you crunched numbers instead of building what you actually need. (High stability, keeping unrest down, favourable building for military production, food upkeep...)
Your Black Markets raise Unrest and some other infavorable attributes. The first major crisis will see your kingdom crumble then.

[GoodbyeSoberDay]

It starts easy in parts one and two and gets pretty hard afterwards, once anexing other settlements and war come into it. Then you'll bite your own ass because you crunched numbers instead of building what you actually need. (High stability, keeping unrest down, favourable building for military production, food upkeep...)
Your Black Markets raise Unrest and some other infavorable attributes. The first major crisis will see your kingdom crumble then.It seems as though the accountant above had only executed part 1 of his strategy. As you pointed out, since the game starts out so easy, you can afford to focus on economy initially, get your lovely BP and magic items, and then use your macroeconomic advantage to make up for the other statistics relatively quickly.

Magic item generation (and, relatedly, economy rush) really is key in Kingmaker; that's one reason I don't like the kingdom building mechanics. I guess if the timeline for war and interacting with other kingdoms wasn't so rigidly set (choo choo), then you might actually suffer for creating a disloyal, unstable, militarily pathetic merchant nation early on, just like fast expanding in an RTS gets punished by a rush of attacking units. But alas.

[raygun goth]

Magic item generation (and, relatedly, economy rush) really is key in Kingmaker; that's one reason I don't like the kingdom building mechanics. I guess if the timeline for war and interacting with other kingdoms wasn't so rigidly set (choo choo), then you might actually suffer for creating a disloyal, unstable, militarily pathetic merchant nation early on, just like fast expanding in an RTS gets punished by a rush of attacking units. But alas.

You can't sell the magic items generated anymore. You can buy them, but they belong to the business owners and buying them creates unrest as normal.

[Florian]

It seems as though the accountant above had only executed part 1 of his strategy. As you pointed out, since the game starts out so easy, you can afford to focus on economy initially, get your lovely BP and magic items, and then use your macroeconomic advantage to make up for the other statistics relatively quickly.

Magic item generation (and, relatedly, economy rush) really is key in Kingmaker; that's one reason I don't like the kingdom building mechanics. I guess if the timeline for war and interacting with other kingdoms wasn't so rigidly set (choo choo), then you might actually suffer for creating a disloyal, unstable, militarily pathetic merchant nation early on, just like fast expanding in an RTS gets punished by a rush of attacking units. But alas.

Well, it is an Adventure Path so pre-planned plot will happen.

Did you actually try the "full" version of the kingdom building rules (Ultimate Campaign, Quests and Campaigns)? Amongst other things, the rules make holding BP harder and alter magic item trade significantly. The added relevant feats will also alter how characters and builds interact with the kingdom rules.