The start is very slow, one thing though is build a castle in every town, 4 towers, as many walls then fill it with homes. If you would like a random town that is not worth it to defend build a town on like a swamp or something and make every square dumps and graveyards. It actually will benefit your BP. Send all your kingdoms trash there and all the dead. That way if any necromancers try to assault your kingdom from within you know where to go.
Given the situation, if you can't get your DM to adopt the UC rules - which, really, are the playtested version of the KM rules - you'll want to focus on getting your Economy up as cheaply as possible (Graveyards and Brothels are the way to go), and reducing your Consumption (build farms!). Depending on your Loyalty and Stability, you can maybe mess with your tax/holiday edicts to boost things in the short term.
Income > Economy.
Sawmills provide some of the best bang-for-buck in the system.
Don't forget Mines.
Mind your Consumption.
Don't tax your citizens at all-- bad trade-off.
Seek additional funds from your allies in loan, trade, or donation.
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To repeat what everyone else has said, the Ultimate Campaign revision is SO MUCH BETTER than the rules originally published in Kingmaker.
That being said, if you want your kingdom to flourish, you HAVE to make sure you're pumping out as many build points as possible. As others have said, that is difficult without selling off magic items, but not impossible. Just build scads of whatever gives you cheap economy boosts.
Are you sure you guys are playing the rules right? A stagnant, two year old kingdom with seven hexes seems a bit off, as neither the kingdom building rules nor the Kingmaker AP itself are THAT harsh. A breakdown of your kingdom would be really interesting to see.
edit: You could suggest dividing the economy checks by 3 instead of five. That would help get things kick started. Or ask the GM if he can build an encounter where your party makes a diplomatic mission to Brevoy to ask for more BP.
I had Irovetti visit their kingdom.
A herald announced his impending arrival and implied a feast would be appropriate.
The PCs decided to spend what little they had on the feast and Irovetti granted them a large boon of BP in honor of their alliance. Around 50BP or so. He claimed to need allies against their mutual neighbor Mivon. One of his confidants, Annamede Belevara, stayed behind as a liaison.
Not Mills. Sawmills (Terrain Improvements).
If that's all your mines are producing, reread Special Terrain: Resource. A mine built on a resource yields 2 BP per month in addition to + 2 Economy.
thebigragu, they're using the original KM rules, not the UC rules, as outlined in the original post. No sawmills, no mines.
Graveyard (for some reason), Tannery, Smith. Build those.
Also smack your GM on the nose with a rolled up newspaper and point him to the rules from UC which are available for free online (and legally!) at a popular SRD site.
The Kingdom building rules in Kingmaker rely on either unrealistic grinding of the magic item system or unrealistic mass building of cheap buildings.
Also provide a breakdown, I can't imagine how you're stalling out at 7 hexes, unless you're not filling all leadership positions and are taking massive penalties. Or maybe your GM is using some dumb "some buildings take multiple months to build" houserule.
Yeah, your GM is basically hosing your kingdom's economy because of that change to minor items. Those extra 2 BP a month really help your kingdom start to run.
In any case, I would reccomend saving up BP's until you can afford the black market. The 50 BP will take about half a year if you can start to sell those medium magic items, but once you get it, you effectively get a free 15 BP every month.
The item selling only works once/city district/month, so then every other month you can found a new 'city' that only contains a caster tower.
One house rule from our GM has been that selling minor magic items only generates BPs if they are worth 4000GP or more...
This isn't a house rule. Under the "Sell Valuable Items" paragraph on page 64 of the Rivers Run Red book, it says you may attempt to sell items that cost over 4000gp.
...otherwise we have to save up the GPs and add them to treasury once we get 4000.
This, on the other hand, is a house rule in your favor. The book says nothing about item sales under 4000gp, so according to the RRR rules you wouldn't get anything from them. This is a pretty common house rule, though, and is supported by the developers.
Using the Kingmaker kingdom rules requires you to build a Magic Item economy to survive, which cuts down on realism - how many other kingdoms do you see thriving due to magic item sales? If you want realism, the Ultimate Campaign rules are the only way to go.
If your GM won't allow that, then you'll need to crank that Economy score higher so you can sell those magic items every month instead of once in a blue moon. As for these monster attacks and natural disasters a successful Stability check can lessen the impact or even negate the penalties completely. This makes Mills and Smithies very good investments because they're cheap and increase both Economy and Stability by 1.
Anyway, good luck keeping your kingdom afloat!