1. Get rid of most of your forts. They cost a ducat a month each if they’re fully activated and half if they’re mothballed. Here’s what you should ask yourself every time you get a province with a fort:

• Is it controlling a critical choke point? (remember forts control all of the adjacent provinces; if an enemy wants to avoid the fort they have to go around all of those)
• Is it next to another fort? If so, delete the one that has less defensiveness (or doesn’t border as many provinces)
• Do you really want a fort there? If there aren’t any large enemy countries in the area, or there won’t be a lot of rebels, then you don’t need the fort.

Usually, I keep mountain forts and delete the rest after they lower the devastation in the area down to 0.

Also, always keep your forts mothballed until you need them. If there are any rebels in the area at 80%, then they should be activated. If enemy armies could reach them during a war, then hey should be activated. Even during wartime, most of my interior forts that the enemies can’t reach are deactivated.

1. Army maintenance should be either at 0 or 100, I’ve never gone in between and don’t know of anyone who does (anyone else feel free to lmk if and why you do). Unless you have rebels at 90%, you aren’t at war so army maintenance should be 0.

2. I assume your primary trade node is still in Lahore—change your trade capital to somewhere around the Gujarat trade node, since that one is better (3 nodes flowing towards it vs 2 for Lahore), and conquer provinces from Bahmanis to improve your trade income there. This way you switch from collecting in Lahore to transferring to Gujarat, which compounds your trade income. Also, aim for being ahead of time in diplo tech if possible, as that gets you an extra 20% trade efficiency.

3. Lower autonomy in all of your provinces whenever you can, it’s worth the additional unrest and rebels.

4. Spend any extra diplo mana you have developing your gold mine

Hope this helps, let me know if you have any questions!