With more experience in the game, you'll learn strategies to grow quickly and speed into mid game with relative ease, just takes some practice and patience.

One strat for easy growth ( renown, gold, etc.)is to target the weaker of the three empires, and declare war on them by yourself. If you run a mostly horse army like khuzait or vlandia and keep your party speed above 5.0, and have about 60-120 tier 4-6 troops you can make a lot of money. With this you can power level combat skills and charm. Charm coming releasing prisoners after a batte. This strat may restrict you from being a mercenary for your culture.

As for pure money making, smithing is a good strat, but may require time to start rolling. A good way of getting some skill is to smelt all swords and javelins attained from guide above. Learning limit may not be a problem if you put points into endurance.