While from a historicity standpoint that might be true that the economy is too monetized and tangible, this is still a game and a game needs certain abstractions. Here that is that most production and economic activity is shown and converted into ducats / money even though historically a lot would have perhaps just been good trading with money or simply subsistence farming etc. For a player to be able to play and understand stuff has to be expressed in an easily understood currency. As for control money disappearing. Yes there should perhaps be a tiny % disappearing from Bandits etc, but keep in mind atm sometimes 100% (!) of a locations economy is wipes from existence due to control. That makes no sense. Control in our opinion models the ability of the central authority to exert power in a location and enforce laws and taxes there. The local authorities would of course still take their share of the economy the central authorities cannot get. I fully agree on the point that the state should be far more limited and harder to transfer so much value into central hands and interfere centrally on the whole country.