I have been giving some thought to the problem we are facing now with money coming from looting totally out of proportions as compared to tax income. 

My idea is to split economy into two: one of guildars and one of silvars.

Guildars

would be money to run your empire. Everything concerned with building, maintaining and upgrading troops. The main income would come from taxes, but bonuses from quests/hard monsters should be available. However, i would think about loot around 10-50 guildars max (50 from deadly quest). It will force player to carefully build his empire economically.

Possible issues: there is not much player can do to improve his profit right now ... Second: maintaining army is too expensive, i would put system following system: 3 soldiers unit - 1 guildar, group (5) - 2 guildar and so on. Right now middle game army of 6 good units can cost you 30-50 guildars/turn to maintain. City that has 200 population and brings around 20 guildar in tax, could spent 10 on maintenance and still field 5 groups of soldiers. Last issue: rushing production should be re-calculated.

Silvars

Used only for heroes, for equipping them. Way of getting: loot and quests only. Forces player to choose in what and how much invest. 

Issues: selling euipment in shop should be for 80% and not 50% of value of an item for allowing free flow of money.  

There could be a late game tech allowing to transfer gildars into silvars and vice versa with certain penalty (10% of value). I would put 50 guildars worth 900 silvars, and 1000 silvars exchangeable into 45 guildars.

What do you think guys?