Article: Cheat Engine is a cheating program that can be used on a variety of different games. It can be downloaded for free from the developer. In order to avoid downloading extra adware along with Cheat Engine, you should only download from the developer's site. Start Empire: Total War and load a previous game or start a new game. Open the Options menu and set the game to "Windowed" mode. This will let you easily switch back and forth between the game and Cheat Engine. After you have started a new game or loaded your saved file, start Cheat Engine and then press the Computer icon. A process list will appear. Look for the "Empire.exe" in the list, click the name, and then press Open. Type in the exact amount of your gold in the "Hex" field at the right side of Cheat Engine. Press First Scan after typing. Cheat Engine will find all of the values in the game that match your search. Go back to your game and make use of your gold. For example, train one soldier to have your gold deducted. Type in the new amount of your gold in the "Hex" field, and then press Next Scan. This will remove the other scanned numbers and leave the in-game gold in the list. Double click the address to automatically place the value in the lower table. Double click the value number in the lower table to open up a small window. Replace the number with the amount of gold you wish to have.  Do not type in more than 5,000,000—there's a chance your game might crash if you do. Press Okay. Then, close Cheat Engine, and continue playing your game with huge funds.

What is a summary?
Download the client. Start your game. Run Cheat Engine. Find the Gold value. Spend some gold in the game. Return to Cheat Engine. Change the gold to what you want.