Methods of Making Money

Hey Guys,

I am new here, and first off I gotta say this mod is fantastic.  LOVE it.  That being said, I have had a pretty hard time making money (starting as part of no faction, I am lvl ~15, and have maybe 9k and have spent nothing (no cheating either)), so I decided to do some searching of the forums to try and find ways that people go about making money in this mod.  I have found a few things, but I am un-sure if what I have found is still relevant (most posts do not list a build number), so I would appreciate it if anyone could chip in with any information they have.

Here is all the consolidated information I have found by searching these forums:

1.  Tournaments. 
This seems to be the biggest one for most people, but currently I have been able to afford any decent armor (that i have been able to find) and, even if I spent all my money on armor I would then have none to bet.  Potentially 20k profit once I can get myself up and going.  (Supposedly Armor + Xbow + Arrows is a path to easy victory, will have to see about that, perhaps i need to pump my crossbow skill)

2.  Guild missions. 
This is what I have been doing, but the money has been coming very slowly. ~2k for a LONG trip across the map.  Great XP though.

3.  Kill Sea Raiders.
I have had a hard time finding them, the one group of 30 I did kill (In naval combat!!), I netted ~1000, not too bad.  Maybe I need more stats in loot?  Having a companion with high loot works right?

4.  Trade. 
Consolidated information so far:
IRON

• Buy < 150, Sell > 250
• Places to purchase: Scandanavia, Scotland, Wyclz (poland), Hungarian city to the southeast of Praha
• Places to sell Iron: Ordensstaat, Lithuania, Teutonic Cities

SPICES

• Buy < 600, Sell > 800
• Places to purchase: Kaunas (Lithuania), Lithuanian city to the northeast of Marienburg (the middle one of three arranged east - west)
• Places to sell: anywhere

SALT

• Buy < 100, Sell > 200
• Places to purchase: Wyclz (poland), Lithuanian city to the northeast of Marienburg (the middle one of three arranged east - west)
• Places to sell: Scandanavia, Teutonic Cities,

LINEN

• Buy < 160, Sell > 220
• Places to purchase: Elbing
• Places to sell: Scotland

ROUTES

• Buy Iron in Scandanavia => Sell in Ordenstaat/Lithuania => Buy Salt (or others?) => Return to Scandanavia
• Salt/Iron in Poland => Sell in Teutonic cities
• Buy Iron in Scotland =>  Sell in Elbing => Buy Linen => Return to Scotland
• Salt - Buy in Polish cities for 50-100. Sell in Teutonic lands for 250-300
• Iron - Buy in Polish cities or HRE for 50-100. Sell in Teutonic or Lithuanian cities for 200-300
• Linen - Buy in Teutonic cities for 70-150, sell in Polish or HRE for 200-300
• Spice - Often for sale very cheap (I've seen it as low as 170!) in Kaunas (Lithuania). Sell pretty much anywhere else - even Hrodna right next door for 700+

[*]Buy dates in Egyptian villages (less then 60/unit mostly), travel to middle east (in crusaders hand at that time mostly) buy salt there (less then 60/unit mostly) in villages as well and travel then to Sarai-al-Mahrus in southern russia (old persian city & centre of the Golden Horde) via black sea; near Trebizond. Buy velvet there and travel back whereever your home is;
[/list]

Anybody have any other tips for trading?


5.  Open businesses.
SELF SUSTAINING

• Tool manufacturing in poland/paris (~600/week income)
• Dyework in poznan (~1200/week income)
• Velvet store in golden horde cities
• Dyeworks in any Golden Horde city - don't even need to stock up their supplies as they'll net you 800-1200 profit on their own.

NEED GOODS

• Tools in Lithuania or Teutonic lands, though you'll have to buy the iron cheap elsewhere. Tarnovo & Halych cities also get good profit from tools.
• Oil press in Trebizond or Szeged, though with Szeged you'll need to provide the olives.

Any other good investments?

I heard some chat about decreasing returns for investments of the same type.  Has that actually been implemented, or just suggested?

6.  Loot villages.
Get high loot skill and loot villages, arabs are typically easy targets

Thanks to:
Sirfenby, Skandinav, Antirelic, TDKlondike, Shifty76, Corsix

Get high loot skill
Find faction you hate
Loot all of there villages
???
Massive profits.
Just make sure you don't get caught.
For easy prey I recommend the Arabs, for some reason they seem to be very underpowered and even if caught by a Lord, you should have no problem taken them out.

Trade and investments are by far the easiest way to get much money and buying iron in Scandinavia ( and selling it in the Ordensstaat and Lithuania ) is usually much faster and safer than doing so in Poland ( and mostly cheaper ) as you can simply cross the Baltic by boat, buying and selling in the settlements by the shore.

There are also a few commodities ( for example salt ) that you can buy cheaply where you sell your iron and then sell for a decent profit when you return to Scandinavia to buy more iron.

Decreasing return from investments of the same type has not yet been added but will be in the next version.

Skandinav said:

Trade and investments are by far the easiest way to get much money and buying iron in Scandinavia ( and selling it in the Ordensstaat and Lithuania ) is usually much faster and safer than doing so in Poland ( and mostly cheaper ) as you can simply cross the Baltic by boat, buying and selling in the settlements by the shore.

There are also a few commodities ( for example salt ) that you can buy cheaply where you sell your iron and then sell for a decent profit when you return to Scandinavia to buy more iron.

Decreasing return from investments of the same type has not yet been added but will be in the next version.

Click to expand...

This is awesome stuff, i am going to update my post to reflect this information (and edit formatting to make it more of a resource since i don't figure i am the only one who would find this useful)

A few I use with all my characters (faction relations permitting):

Short, profitable trade routes:

Salt - Buy in Polish cities for 50-100. Sell in Teutonic lands for 250-300
Iron - Buy in Polish cities or HRE for 50-100. Sell in Teutonic or Lithuanian cities for 200-300
Linen - Buy in Teutonic cities for 70-150, sell in Polish or HRE for 200-300
Spice - Often for sale very cheap (I've seen it as low as 170!) in Kaunas (Lithuania). Sell pretty much anywhere else - even Hrodna right next door for 700+

Always profitable businesses:

Dyeworks in any Golden Horde city - don't even need to stock up their supplies as they'll net you 800-1200 profit on their own.

Tools in Lithuania or Teutonic lands, though you'll have to buy the iron cheap elsewhere. Tarnovo & Halych cities also get good profit from tools.

Oil press in Trebizond or Szeged, though with Szeged you'll need to provide the olives.

I'm on the lookout for other investments that don't require me to be constantly topping up the raw materials as I have better things to do than act as courier.

Very nice hints! Since I rarely play around in the middle or northern europe; those merchant routes presented were somehow new to me. Good job

Another nice merchant route is buying date's in egyptian villages (less then 60/unit mostly), travel to middle east (in crusaders hand at that time mostly) buy salt there (less then 60/unit mostly) in villages as well and travel then to Sarai-al-Mahrus in southern russia (old persian city & centre of the Golden Horde) via black sea; near Trebizond. Buy velvet there and travel back whereever your home is; as a rich man/woman.

The risk of banditism on this route is quite low.

Awesome, updated!  Keep em coming.

Generally, velvet shops are good business no matter where you build them. Sure, some regions are about 100% better than others but they will all yield about 500+ additional income each week so in the long term they are all worth it ( and worth more than most other shops no matter how well they fit the local economy ), and you won't need to constantly watch and supply them ( unless you really want to ).
This "exploit" will be gone in the next version of the mod, however.

A minor note to the OP; the Ordensstaat is the Teutonic Order's land, the Teutonic Order is "Der Deutsche Orden" in German and so the region is the "Deutschordensstaat" ( or just the Ordensstaat ).

Skandinav said:

Generally, velvet shops are good business no matter where you build them. Sure, some regions are about 100% better than others but they will all yield about 500+ additional income each week so in the long term they are all worth it ( and worth more than most other shops no matter how well they fit the local economy ), and you won't need to constantly watch and supply them ( unless you really want to ).
This "exploit" will be gone in the next version of the mod, however.

Click to expand...

No velvet shops are not always profitable, most cities will yield only ~600 gold for an invetsment of 10000. With almost that same amount, if we invest in making tools in three average cities, we get a net profit of ~ 900 (300 x 3).
Though velvet shops are always profitable in the golden horde cities. They each give around 1200 gold per week.

Yes, that is what I was trying to say, hence why I wrote "in the long term".

Thats true, by the time we have our own kingdom or have joined an existing one, we would want our shops to be in our own kingdoms lands to avoid income loss due to war.

These tips worked great, last night I built up enough trading that i could afford two dye works as well as a suit of armor (good stuff) and i have about 10k left over (to continue trading).  Woot!  I have yet to find a tournament to since I got the armor though =D

Soon (hopefully) I will have enough for a nice armored horse (~10k) for myself and good armor for my companions (10k a pop, ouch).

My goal is to get enough dye works that i can have an income of 10k per week (so i can upgrade one companion per week doing nothing).  I think my goal will be every time i get 30k or so, i will go buy two dye works until i reach my goal of  10k/week income.

I can only advise you go after Robber Knights first.. they come in numbers of 9-12 and not so hard to beat. At the end of the battle you should get good armour out of it. I'd suggest you to not attack any of the lairs so they can keep on comming.... Sea raiders too..
In my currant game the robber knights are roaming along the welsh rebels in lower England. They have a lair close to Bristol. As for the sea raiders they are east of France close to Nanntes. I havent disturbed their lair and now there are so many of them that once I go down that area it feels like the map is shaking.

As others said before me, you can buy iron in Scandinavia for practically nothing (around 80 denars sometimes) and, for me, I sell it back to northern Africa and southern Spain for something like 300 denars.

Buying salt in Northern Africa and selling it back in France, or middle Europe is very profitable too.

About manufactures, what I tried to do, and worked so far, is that I opened a "shop" of which resource the nearby villages produced. That way I bought the raw materials very cheap in villages, and put them in the manufactury's inventory, and made quite an enjoyable profit.
For example I opened a tannery in Granada, bought some "hiddens" (that's the right name isn it?) in nearby granadia's villages, put them in my tannery's inventory, and the profits jumped from 500 to 2000 / week or something like that.
Dunno if someone has experienced the same thing as me...

Skenderbe said:

I can only advise you go after Robber Knights first.. they come in numbers of 9-12 and not so hard to beat. At the end of the battle you should get good armour out of it. I'd suggest you to not attack any of the lairs so they can keep on comming.... Sea raiders too..
In my currant game the robber knights are roaming along the welsh rebels in lower England. They have a lair close to Bristol. As for the sea raiders they are east of France close to Nanntes. I havent disturbed their lair and now there are so many of them that once I go down that area it feels like the map is shaking.

Click to expand...

Awesome idea, I actually beat a party of 12-15 veteran billman deserters from one of the teutonic armies, those buggers are tough.  My strategy was ride around them at a high speed to distract them, and try and lead them away, once one or two broke off following me i would lead the others away and have my party of ~35 charge the lone 1-2 billmen.  Rinse, repeat.  Still had pretty significant losses.  (And all my companions except roland were knocked out).  Adding insult to injury, after that extremely difficult battle there was absolute garbage in the item pool... what is up with that?  Same with a group of 25 sea raiders I defeated...  I got this tip from the item pool thread, though i have yet to try it (hoping it works):

[quote author=Blacknight74]
manage your Party---> upgrade management for NPC ---> Price treshold for picking up ---> set to 200 denars  ( so they only pick up stuff, that is really worth it)


then after battle ---> let the heroes select gear....to üick better stuff----> after that  pick the Item which price is higher than 200 denars

ride to a Town---> go market,  sell items automaticly  ---> change settings ---> autosell to 9999 ---> done  and sell.... 

depends on how much money the town owns, maybe u have to sell in 3 or 4 towns....with 96 items[/quote]

Have yet to try that though, anyone found that there is better loot when doing this?

[quote author=Brubar]For example I opened a tannery in Granada, bought some "hiddens" (that's the right name isn it?) in nearby granadia's villages, put them in my tannery's inventory, and the profits jumped from 500 to 2000 / week or something like that.
Dunno if someone has experienced the same thing as me...[/quote]
You got 2000/week with a tannery in grenada?  wow, i have never heard of a business making that much.

Well as far as I can remember I started as an English lord and my first or second.... or maybe third battle  was against Robber Knights. My character was without significant skills but managed to get black Coat of Plates with 80+ b. armour & 30 + l. armour. I still have it now since then and its been almost 200 days 

As for the tannery I have no idea... I placed ALOT of cheap iron into my iron workshop but the result is still the same 

The more I visit Kaunas, the less reliant I am on my businesses making money.
Went there 4-5 times over the space of a couple of weeks, and each time I purchased an inventory full of spice, paying 300-600 for it.

Traveled to the nearby cities and sold all of it for 800+ each time. Averaging that out, I'm making around 400 per unit, so with 20 units that's 8000 profit each trip.
Managed to finally crack 100k in the bank with a combination of Kaunas trips & business income (and I'm not even 100 days in yet)

Scarley said:

[quote author=Brubar]For example I opened a tannery in Granada, bought some "hiddens" (that's the right name isn it?) in nearby granadia's villages, put them in my tannery's inventory, and the profits jumped from 500 to 2000 / week or something like that.
Dunno if someone has experienced the same thing as me...

Click to expand...

You got 2000/week with a tannery in grenada?  wow, i have never heard of a business making that much.
[/quote]
Sorry it wasn't a tannery, it was an oil factury in Granada, and I had to buy the Olives in Greece, so forget what I said about buying raw materials in nearby villages. This is only to save some travelling time. But yeah, it seems pretty weird but when I bought the olives and brought them back in Granada, and put them into the manufactury's inventory, my profits jumped from ~250 to ~2300. Never happened again in another game (with another material/manufactury) though... :S

I've found that cities in Gaelic Kingdom and Scotland are also offer high price for iron, or maybe it's  just because they're in warring state?

Another method that I love to do is serving as a little company of mercenary for warring country which already gain upper hand in war. By this way, you could find something worth more than Sea raiders to kill and loot (caravan, patrol and peasant is a good choice, but if you're worried about your honor rating, just kill patrol).They give you some wage too (about 1000 every week)  In fact, even if you didn't join any of their battle they still give you your wage.

I'm not sure about this, but I think that after the war was ended you could still be a mercenary and recivied free wage from them.

Also, if you worry about the hatered from enemy country, they will reduce it to 0 once you stop being mercenary for their enemy. (for example, if you join England and got -60 relations with France, you'll have 0  point of relation toward France once you cease being mercenary for England.)

Being a mercenary is the best occupation for now, much better than a vassal. Maybe the only thing that beats merc is being a king.
And mercenary wages are dependant on the troops you carry around, i once upgraded all 150 units of mine to tier 4 before a siege, and my payment jumped to around 15000. And yes you can be a merc even during peacetime.