The Ottomans being poor is quite historically accurate. They became cut off from the lucrative trade with India and China whereas the European colonial powers took control of that trade. And historically the Ottomans were unable to break out of the Mediterranean in either direction
@Thelondonbadger I agree with you about the ruthless tactics used by the Ottomans. Though I would also say that all the European trade empires used similarly ruthless tactics. I just think the main reason is that they lost the power struggle and were unable to match the level of naval power that the Europeans were able to project. They fell behind in the high seas naval technology race and were geographically locked into the Mediterranean. Before they were defeated in the Indian Sea they had plenty of Eastern trade, afterwards not so much.
@@MericErdemBal yeah mate, do you live in any Balkan country? Do you even know what they did to our countries? If you dont live or dont have anyone from Balkan with bit of history knowledge about it, dont talk shit. Its pure shit. There is reason why Croatians and Serbians hate each other so much but they will unite against muslims every singe time if needed. There was hardly anyone they spared, and even those eho got spared were used with purpose not because of mercy and compassion. Every year, young boys were taken into army, girls were r*ped,money and animals taken. Every. Single. Year. People struggled with life there since Ottomans came. Dont talk such shit over internet if you dont know anything about it
“Plundering settlements is a very viable way to keep your finances in check”.... take note you destitute college students, rape and pillage is back on the menu
1. Unit pros/cons in battle 2nd. Hiw to Control of Army/units 3. Not understanding building mechanics 4. Not understanding victory conditions 5. Not understanding how to make money or why they are losing money.
- not having lightning strike skill in warhammer 2 when chaos arrives - wasting archer's ammo at heavily armored, shielded target at front (rome 2, attila)
Γιάννη! Ψάχνω χρόνια Έλληνα να παιζει Total War 😭😭
5 лет назад
I'm surprised you didn't pick Parthia from Rome 1. OK I don't know if they're poorer than Numidia. However, Parthia's opening video basically says "wealth wealth wealth we're so wealthy af, did I mention all the gold", and they start with a big deficit and no easy way to fix it. This was so dumb I remember it to this day.
Fortunately, you're close to Seleucia. That's where I usually go first.
5 лет назад
@@josephharrison8354 Half your army is in far north steppe close to nothing. The other half is also horses, which are terrible at assaulting settlements. So unless you play with siege cheese, you can go bankrupt before taking any Seleucid land.
Parthia has a full Cavalry rooster and Persia right down...you can wait a couple of turns until the war with Egypt keeps all their attention and start raiding/conquering hard no prob. It's also cannon.
Yeah the ottomans kept Christian slaves, which does not do them much good in relations. They are also a different religion to the byzantines they wiped out. Further they invaded Christian lands like 1000 times.
@@Galdenberry_Lamphuck ...They both shitheads and did some shady things...However we're still seing the inpact of the shit things those Brits did *cought* middle east situation *cought*
@@enesduraku6087 the ottoman empire has had a major influence on modern events in eastern europe and the middle east. Numerous ethnic groups to this day despise Turks, even till today. They created alot of bad blood dude. The Armenian Genocide, the Greek Genocide. I've heard that they kill Kurds to this day.
As Woodelf, you can also build up (occupied) Lothern (to T5), which is easily the richest city you can build as woodelf, due to the traits the city has. Raising overall income etc.
He missed the Laurelorn Forest (or what it is called) in the Empire. And woodelfs make a ton of money if they raze some wealthy regions. Nearly as much as Chaos.
The key to winning as the wood elves is to start as Durthu or research the no attrition tech ASAP and then go conquer Norsca. Ports (with the appropriate tech) are one of the few ways the Wood Elves can reliably make money, and most of the Norsca settlements have them. And, of course, Norsca has no walls, so no sieges.
naaa, my Durthu cmapaign went this way; defeated in order; pavarron, white banner orcs near by, karaz norn dwarves, bordeloux, carassan, broken nose and ikit claw skaven, im at this point turn 70-80 with around 18 settlemants. 3 full armies and around 3-4k income. So id say im set up. Oak of ages at lvl 3 and 1 wood elve faction left to confederate. And i dont have alliances. I could alliance with Reikland and get that 28 amber but im not sure if its worth it. It went rly cool and fun so far comparing to Orions campaign which i tried like 8 times ending it around 40-80 turn being frustrated with everything. It sucked. Durthu forever.
You can also very easily win the campaign by simply conquering all the wood elves settlements, research diplomacy with other factions and start making military alliances with everyone. I ended the campaign with Durthu at turn 70 because I had no enemies, everyone was excited to be military allies with me, I only fought Clan Skryre and The HE/DE because I was bored and I wanted Ulthuan (which has two wood elves settlements)
Its hilarious that the best way to make money as wood elves is to conquer an area of the map that is infamously terrible due to how low income it is lol
With Russia in Medieval : 1- grab Stockholm as quicky as possible. 2 - If possible, grab Thorn while it's still a rebel castle, if Poland has messed up their sieges. (Does happen). This gives you a very good castle to defend your border. 3 - Send your princess to Britain and try and nab an English or Scottish prince. 4 - Once you've got a prince, grab some mercs and take Dublin and Caernarvon (if your quick you should be able to to get them while they are still rebel held). 5 - Start pumping out merchants from Dublin and set them all over Britain, the wool and the tin in the south east nets several hundred coins each. 6 - Grab the rest of Russia, especially Kiev. Do all this and you should have a fairly decent economy going eventually.
Paul McCloud Splitting your empire right from the start? That’s a great way to get high amounts of corruption especially with a family member so far away
@@batters4718 You would have thought so, but for some reason I never had any problems with rebellions from either settlement. And that was keeping the capital in Novgorod. It's important to marry your princess off to a very good prince in the British Isles. Scotland usually has a good selection early on, Henry the early English prince available is usually a bit of a dud.
Paul McCloud In the end game the main costs are: Upkeep and Corruption. If you start to build corruption from the start it would destroy your empire by turn 150
@@batters4718 Of course. But as I said, never had a problem. Been playing for 14 years.Corruption has been an issue with many factions, but never seemed to have it with Russia using this method. Only play Vanilla so can't comment on if mods make it more an issue.
"Our enemies, the French, are said to be better lovers than fighters. This is true! Ask any cat, dog or farmyard animal." Sicilian general against the French
Look at the dates. They were recent additions. At the time of the making of this video, Laurelyn Forest (and a number of other territories) were not in the game. That part was all a huge stretched out Middenland with just 3 settlements and lots of empty space.
I do find the factions that “struggle at first but eventually become absolute monstrous powerhouses” to be the most interesting to play in every game not just TW (paradox strategy for instance)
tomb kings is pretty shit at beginning (only skeletons that can't 2v1 any other tier 1 unit). but in late game with 20+ buildings of each type , to get that extra capacity , you just free-doomstack your way to victory
Oda&Ikko-Ikki in TW:S2 HRE&Byzantium in TW:M2 Austria in TW:E (the one who brings more line Infantry wins, Austria got additional 40 soldiers per division for the same upkeep)
Ottomans have an easy time catching up economically in my opinion. In part because, if you sacrifice some of your industry at the start, you can spam schools in a way that literally no other faction (aside maybe Mughals?) can. The administration techs can allow town wealth growth to overtake industry if you get it quickly, while still being able to keep up in military techs.
If the turks have changed dynasty (overthrowing the ottomans) maybe they could have stand a chance, just like muhammad ali pasha did in Egypt, but no, to focus on having a proud dynasty made them vulnerable (when you are incompetent, better try with another family)
If you really throw down enemies as Wood Elves, just occupy the race capitals for +10% Income everywhere with each capital, you become absolutely minted, and by the time the Oak of Ages is at tier 4/5 you have great upkeep reductions too. Wood Elves have got the potential to be super rich, to be fair... Not to mention, you can increase income everywhere too by 1% with every settlement you occupy and build in.
Aye, takes them some time to grow from their weak beginnings, but once they put down roots they really grow to become incredibly strong and steadfast. Just like a mighty oak
i prefer to put this additional +1% attack/missle damage on every army in all settlemants besides main forest and ports. i love durthu and his armies. so versatile. forest spirits like tree kin are so damn tanky with lords buffs. with ward save they reach like around 60-70% physical resistance, 50-70 missle, its crazy. with glade guard and some wild riders its so much fun to do battles. + if u add super high casuality replenishment u basicly dont lose units unless u mess up. then its only 1-2 units lost. not a big deal.
I disagree with Ottoman Empire point. The Empire has issues early on, but once you are able develop infrastructure and make even basic technological advancements, you will get HUGE returns due to the sheer number of small plantations/forges/weavers etc. I ve completed a succesful campaign with them, (Prestige Victory), with the only problem being their fucked up monarchs affecting the prestige rating. It is easy to break out of Mediterranean, take Malta and then take Gibraltr. You can even use Morocco and Barbary States as staging grounds for these invasions.
Hattori from TW:S2 are poor as fuck too. 1) they don't have particularly rich settlements. Farms in their regions suck. One tree of the Shinobi special building brings money, true, but not much and its expensive to build 2) all of their infantry, excluding the late-game War monks, have a special ninja training, which increases the upkeep by quite a bit while only being so-so strong in actual battle. Plundering in this game isn't very good since you'll lose honor which reduces Taxes. And they start close to both the Oda, which have very cheap, strong early-game armies and the Ikko-Ikki which have very large early-game armies. You're going to find yourself at war with 2 of the most powerful early-game clans in the early game while you neither have strong armies or strong industries but expansive armies.
He’s good but not perfect, he can use even more clever strategies to squeeze a tiiiiny bit more out of most of his campaigns (edicts, agents, merchants etc). I’d love to see an accountant play these games
That's the secret to making money with Wood Elves. Let the AI build their settlements up to Tier 5 with that cheat money, then raze them. It's not like you can use the buildings anyway (unless it's Lothern, Arnheim, Star Tower, Gaen Vale, etc.)
I actually had a surprisingly easy time on sieges with the wood elves. Durthu (or any large tree lord) knocks down gates in no time, soaks up damage and deals a ton of it at the same time. I also found if you get rid of the more aggressive small factions and ally with the rest (who end up protecting you from unwanted encounters) you don't really need more than two or three armies at most and end up with a ton of extra cash.
Parthia (similar to Scythia & Numidia) also has a difficult beginning in Rome 1 because the settlements are so spread out and generate such low revenue. It really requires an early turn blitz to take enough settlements before the Egyptians (inevitably) come for you, because their settlements make a ton of cash and they can throw army after army at you.
I remember Wood Elves were the first faction in TWWH that I did NOT struggle financially with. The early game was a pain in the ass, since you only have one tree that barely let's you field a single army, and that makes it hard to start rolling. But once you do start, you just don't stop until the end of campaign and don't have to worry about gold at all. Amber was more troublesome, from what I remember.
The Balkans culture's trait is pretty useful in the early game, it let's you bulk up your army before an important battle. The Ardiaei have such a bad roster however that it really doesn't help them much.
1:The Capture flags in Rome 2's field battles (I believe they're gone now, but dumb as fuck putting it in originally). 2: In the Rome 2/Attila Total wars, having to have a general be present to hire soldiers (when you're limited on number of generals by arbitrary bullshit rather than how much you can actually afford)
Woodelves are fine at sieges. Take your hidden archers (waywatchers, etc), switch off fire at will and place them on one side of the map. Place anything visible on the far other side. The AI will deploy all its forces to front up your visible units (except maybe 1 infantry unit to guard a gate or whatever). When the battle starts, rush the walls with ladders, make sure to send each archer unit to a different section of wall so they all get up quickly. When your archers get spotted as they approach the walls, switch fire at will back on. This normally results in getting your archers uncontested on to their walls, then it's effectively game over. With the damage buff from the height, those archers are going to melt whatever is inside the settlement. Take out immediate threats before moving along the walls to assist the rest of your assaulting force.
How about top 5 most interesting factions to play as? Factions that do something a little different, or have an interesting extra challenge to them. Ikko Ikki in shogun 2 with their different religion for instance.
My strategy for the ottomans is this. First of all is to immediately start researching turn 1 and go for military sylebis you get that and everything in between. Also grab canister as from my experience you wont run into towed artillery from the ai until mid game. Lastly unlock the second military dock to get fifth rate ships. The AI tends to churn out lots of brigs and sloops and fith rates chew them up and you dont need to many to do it. One fifth rate in a early fleet really helps. After that you'll have a decent enough military to hold the line long enough to sink the rest of your finances into developing your territories. Despite what he said people will want to trade with you I recommend approaching France Prussia and Britain but most of all the marathas Also dont trust venice
I like Balkan culture in rome total war II. It lets you run arround with half filled armies and whenever you are about to get into a major fight you just recruit the units you need. Also you dont have to be carefull with mercs. This tactic really helps these poor balkan nations get trough the first phases of the game.
To be honest, the poorest faction in Total War i played is Tokugawa in Shogun 2, because they are not free, they start listening to Imagawa (Rebel against them), the reason why they are particularly broke is because the only traits they have is that their Ninjas are cheaper, and thats it. Your ninjas are going to be useful in later game, you might say "BUT NINJAS ARE GOOD ASSASSINS, SO WHAT IS THE PROBLEM?!" the problem is that the valuable target is going to appear lately, and even if you count Daymios, the Daymios always have trait where they decrease your chance of assassination.
-50 Mercenary Costs, but -+Mercenary upkeep!? It takes a hell a lot of money to maintain good level mercenaries and they INCREASED the upkeep? I know what faction I am NEVER playing,
Like he said the idea is to disband them again, essentially leaving you weak on the defense. But yeah higher upkeep is uncalled for when other faction traits are a straight bonus.
Agreed on most points about the Wood Elves, but i would add the distinction between the 2 sub-factions- the tree faction can be super easy early game Turn 1 immediately hire a Treeman Ancient general-he doesnt need an army Then they become really good at assaulting settlements with essentially 2 endgame monsters on Turn 1 that can self-heal Although it is kindof 1-dimensional playstyle, as most battles are "can durthu and the treeman ancient do enough heavy lifting to carry the day"
Hell no. Ottomans are one of the wealthies faction in Empire. Ankara is second richest settlement in game (first one Paris, third London) and they can loose few settlements in Europe and go to India. Then trading is easy cuz you have short way to Indian and western African traid ports and also to Indonesia. You can go there 2 times faster than England, France or Niderlands
Novgorod was conquered by Muscovy, it was sacked because there were plans to defect to Poland-Lithuania. Ivan was paranoid, but the massacre had a cause.
what you need for ottoman navy is just a 5th rate, my initial 5th rate captured 30 galleons in 2 turns, and all a sudden I am the strongest navy, and most of my merchant fleet comes from venice, also by capture, i also own some 15 6th rate, 10 5th rate, a few rocket ship and 3rd rate, all from capture, and tbh the only ship i ever built is galleys(at the time i dont know how to capture ships), so naval building is really nothing for ottomans, just focking raid!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
You can also build up Lothern as Wood elves I think you can build up every Elven capital but I am not sure about Naggarond. Wood elves are absolutely poor in early game but if you start winning battles you can maintain your treasury even with minus 10000 income.
Yes, but at that point you would rock with literally any factions, not only Wood Elves. And with Dwarves, High Elves, Dark Elves, you would have gained ten times more than that.
@@montsaint-michel9443 fair enough. There is no question that Wood elves have one of the hardest campaigns, to a point that when you compared them to Dwarfs and High elves I laughed hard because as you said it is not even comparable.
@@DrPult Come to think of it, I changed my mind for my saying "At that point you would rock with literally any factions." Skarsnik is fucked up even in the late games.
yeah the ottomans start out poor but with a little investment and tech rushing you can be literally swimming in money by turn 20 i was half expecting one of the native americans or prussia to represent empire because the ottomans are just so easy to turn around and world conquest
Pssst want to buy some cheese? Have you tried defending wood elf setlement with a timer and hide from the enemy?Worked for me but i played warhamer 1 not 2,if they didn't improve the ai or change the draw it should still work.
In Warhammer 2 the wood elf settlements are normal field battles instead of the huge, hilly forests they had in game 1. So hiding and defending have both been made more difficult for them. Of course you do get two units with stalk and vanguard, so if the timer is low enough they might make it. But I don't know if your deepwood scouts will refrain from routing to army losses upon the death of your dryads.
@@predwin1998 Besides if you are willing to spend over an hour each turn for each minor settlement that gets attacked then the game will take longer then an actual war.
Wood Elves campaign is in desperate need of a total overhaul. The amber system is horrendous and no fun at all. A shame because they are one of the coolest and unique factions
A solid strategy for the Ottomans in ETW is to give your Balkan territories to a Native American tribe (keep Greece) that way the Austrians either won’t declare war on you or even if they do they won’t attack you since there is a buffer between the two nations. Firstly focus all your military might in Persia and Georgia (though leave a medium sized army in Greece to fight off the venitians when they attack). Persia has 2 schools and Georgia has 1 so with the conquest of your eastern borders you’ve now got more schools then any other nation in the game. The economy of the Ottomans is difficult to manage at the beginning but it’s not because you don’t make money (I generally have $10,000 coming in early game, through trade) it’s the fact that you have to uprgade your settlements in order to sustain your inflating military and due to the sheer size of your empire it takes quite a lot of investment. After you’ve passivised the east you can do what you like, invade the balkans and take on Austria, invade India, build up a navy that can add to your trade empire I’ve tried all these tactics and they all generally work really well. Also I play darthmod empire and I haven’t played vanilla since the launch of the game though I don’t see why any of these tactics won’t work in vanilla.
are you kidding me with the Wood Elves? Everytime I play I am drowning in money, I can't even come close to spending the amount of money I amass. Its absolutely absurd. Durthu get a shit load of cash, but orion is just rolling in it and throwing it away for laughs.....council of the wild hunt position, use that general to sack major settlements = hundreds of thousands of gold each time.... Stop trying to hold territory, sack and raise, use the diplomatic credit you earn to cultivate massive alliances with some factions and sack and raise everyone else, you dont need to occupy territory, let your allies do that, only hold a few port cities for the income and trade.
Agreeing with Russia. Scotland at least has the advantage of being able to take out England fairly early on, and while England's provinces may not be world beaters, they can make more than enough to get you going.
Parthia is a much poorer faction than Numidia in RTW1, and completely unrealistically so. Historically Parthia could control the Silk Road, but in the game they are stuck on the edge of the map with few people to trade with. That said, their horse archers are much better than Numidia's javelin men.
When I play as the Ottomans on Darthmod literally all of my neighbors are at war with me turn 1 and Spain and Morocco have a good chance to declare war and ruin my whole day
What I do is just stay defensively, try to take out the Persians and the Georgians Austria and Russia is no problem if Austria declares the war on you go and destroy their ports or block them they won't do any fleet and your trading ports will be fine, against Russia they won't do anything they will be busy with the swedish is like a faction to just try to grow up as much as possible, and also try to have at least 3 universities and research the best bayonet then go straight for fire by rank tech and you'll be invencible they try to aim for Western doctrine and you'll unlock
@Harold Haroldson the ottoamas are built around skirmish troops and mass numbers for assult in melee wither the foe down with skirmish troops then bomb rush them to melee is the way the ottomans play.
@@gastonhitw720 but fire by rank is not advlable to use for the ottomans till the new model army reserch is done and they can field the nazim cedats who can do fire by rank.
With the Wood Elves it helps to invest in recruitment tech and only patrol your treehouse empire with small stacks and use global recruitment to sure up your bloodthirsty park rangers as needed. It ain’t perfect but it’s the most effective method I’ve found. If the AI decides to play ball they make better amber farmers though.
Re: Wood Elves and sieges. I think Durthu and other Treemen (maybe Ancient Treemen for balance?) should be able to attack walls, like the Ents at Isengard. That would make them better at taking settlements IMO, and be pretty thematic, what do folks think? It might make Treemen OP, but I get the impression that the Elf units are usually better at field battles so this could balance things back towards wooden/Tree units getting some love.
I have some experience with Novgorod, unlike the other 4. Sacking settlements might sound good, but consider that sackings reduce the population, which hamstrings you when it comes to building up your economy. I's also unadvised to sack a castle-type settlement, because then it will take ages to get the second stone wall for them, which also means that you'll not get too many proper units (At lower tiers, only the cavalry is viable). I'd recommend converting Helsinki to a town, because it has resources that can be traded. And even if you can hold your western flank, then the Mongols will come, then you'll have to maintain a couple armies, and somehow force them to attack you at fords, to bleed them out. But considering how stupid the AI is, it is hard, due to the fact, when they get reinforcements, they'll send back all their armies, then march for you again.
Playing RtW myself I'd say Germania is pretty shitty, too: You're in the midst of nowhere, surrounded by a whole bunch of enemies that are barely worty conquering and your armies have really good troops, but are pretty expensive. That said I can't blame you for Numidia, they're crap.
I love playing as Scotland. Nothing is more satisfying than taking the entirety of the UK then just chilling and building massive armies. Send a load of merchants over to Egypt and get them trading sugar, spices, slaves and ivory and you've got yourself a nice budget to work with. Once you can build Noble Pikemen, or even Pike Militia, you can basically just "this is sparta" your way to global domination.
I like to play the Wood Elves but you are correct about them having money problems. For me it is a slowdown not being able to build more than tier 1. Even if I'm not playing with Durthu (as the actual Wood Elves) I often recruit a couple of Ancient Treeman generals, they are big, tough, and can kick open a gate. Without them taking towns is much harder. Sadly, as Wood Elf Faction leader, I cannot put them on my council. There is a councilor member you can have to get access to better trade (trade with other factions) but you have to build the correct building before that can happen-which re-enforces the building limits on Wood Elves. I like them as a faction but they can be hard to manage.
Also there are some places if the Wood Elves occupy that give a bonus to income. But they are special places like castle Drakenhof-which I totally recommend taking if you are a Wood Elf.
I played Russia recently in Medieval 2 and many times I have failed to even do a short campaign. But then I started to realize a good strategy for Russia: 1. Fuck any developments (except turning captured settlements into castles) until the Russian steppes have been united 2. Make Poland and Hungary allies till one of the two betray you (I'm looking at you Hungary ewe) 3. Develop farms once Russian steppes have been unified And finally 4. Fuck. Shit. Up!!! OwO (With cav only though. Fucking Russia's starting infantry and missile units are shit!)
I completely disagree about Russia being poor. They get 2500 per turn from kings purse which is 1000 gold more than Scotland gets and Russia doesn't have too many enemies. Also they have very good units, I have never had a problem with their economy.
The irony for your #1 pick? During the "Season of Revelations" mini-campaign, the Wood Elves after they get things going can end up as instead the *richest* faction once you get a ton of wineries up after having gotten the woodland realm under your control (there's a building that massively increases the moneymaking of a certain building any WE city can build, both in the same territory and in adjacent ones... and in this campaign, there's a bunch of adjacent WE cities, which adds up fast once you've expanded out)
As woodelves I made the consistent mistake of trying to have a 'healthy economy'. Then a shortwhile in I realised the obscene amounts they get from razing. By the end of the game I was fielding 7 full stack armies (not including defence stacks) with about 400,000k in the bank and -30,000 a turn. Ignore the Bretonnians and go south and blitz Tilea's capital that got me 80-100k at around turn 11.
in Warhammer 1 every small settlement wood elves got gave a faction wide bonus to income, so the more settlements you have the more each additional settlement gave you, meaning that as your territories expand progressively, the economy will grow exponentially that made wood elves bearable but made for a tougher start and middle I have not played much wood elves in 2 but they seem way worse
kislev is kind of like this in Warhammer 3 only instead of resource buildings giving base income and infrastructure buildings giving a bonus % its the other way around
There are not a whole lot of Wood elf settlements as they are scattered but they are massive, however the "cities" are just that, massive, however there is a random wood elf tree somewhere in the empire territory, plus Norsca would suffer against Nakai The Wanderer
I have to say something! Meanwhile you can also capture and build up Lothern as Woodelve aswell. Also there is the Laurelorn-Wood in the North Empire. (Maybe there is another settlement somewhere, but i Found those both to add)
Am I the only one who never had a problem playing as the Ardieai? I usually have enough funds to supplement an group of armies to stomp around Rome without much resistance. Sack worthwhile settlements then occupy, get money from each one. Build up your trade network and income buildings and you'll be fine around the time you take out Macedonia. The only roughish part is before you get the mid-tier troops and the culture problem.
Sounds about right.I never finished my wood elf campaign not because it became a disaster it's just I raised so many enemies so fast and so efficiently I have to start swimming or bleed cash.(methodical rush of destruction of walled cities was not a good idea)
the ottoman empire is acutally realy strong... u have alot of realy poor cities u can trade of to prevent war whyle going east vs persia and than going into rich india
Strange, I've never had any issues playing as Wood Elves. Some of the sack/loot bonuses they get are insane. All of their outpost bonuses stack globally. I remember playing a head to head with my mate (he was Beastmen), and I was getting more sack/loot income than he was! Was ridiculous.
Dude wood elves make a ton of money from harbor settlements. Just get the +400% or something tech and you're set. I usually invade Norska since I can get the no attrition treeman army and make a ton of income.
In napoleon total war, Russia is pretty similar, you start poor with little capabilities, it takes 20-45 turns to start your economy and trade routes going, but after that Russia is unstoppable as enemies are only westward and south In Istanbul.
To be fair, the easiest way to balance the wood elves and get them out of poverty is to remove the supply lines penalties. And give them some kind of earthquake magic or vaul's anvil magic to knock out towers with.
Novgorod isn't that poor in M2:TW, in my opinion. Their economy starts out kind of small, but they can expand very quickly and their isolation means they don't need large armies to protect them. Keeping taxes low and armies small will lead to a very strong economy.
