SP - Economy Infinite income issue and solutions

[abc123456]

Making money is way too easy.
Once you have some caravans/workshop basically an infinite stream of income no matter how much you get captured.
We need some kind of system that threatens your finance if you are not careful... what to do?
Some suggestions:

• Make denars (gold) have weight.
  • This means denar is something physical you carry around.
  • The more gold you have the more it slows your party down
    • Now you have to stash gold somewhere to remove the weight, or use mule/horses
  • If you have all the denars with you unstashed, if you get captured, you lose all or most of your denars (difficulty option to choose)
  • You lose most/all of your equipment, and companions' equipment too if captured (but the enemy party has your equipment)
    • either buy equipment again or beat the enemy party
  • If your denars is stashed in a town/castle that is unstable with low security, add risk your denars are stolen, either a little or a lot, or all
• Introduce plague/disease system
  • Now we have real life experience with current pandemic crashing economy, we know how to model this.
    • sick workers cant work, workshops and caravan won't function
    • essentially no to little income
    • this will also add new depth to end game, stop snowballing (powerful faction weakened by plague, vulnerable to attack)
      • soldiers weakened by sickness, large armies can't fight too
• Add more threat to caravans
  • I never see caravans get attacked. They are too fast.
  • Add more danger to caravans, so it is a less consistent source of income.
• Make campaign AI more aggressive and smarter
  • If AI can end your kingdom, it will attack deep and end your faction.
    • This means you can't sit and wait a long time for a positive income to accumulate over many hours.
    • This is what real enemy players would do, as well as smart AI such as Google 's starcraft openAI

 

[somaholiday]

Or just add sinks to that money, make it so you have more money going out the door. Castle improvements? Garrison fees for upgrading troops? Peasant fees for increased production of goods? Increased security patrols around settlements and castles to clean up looters and bandits? Rivalries and bribing for relations with other faction clans/lords? Slightly increased costs to higher tier troops?

People keep saying to cap income, but the problem is that there is nothing to spend the money on, so whatever you nerf it to, you'll still wind up in the same situation, it will just take longer and make the game more of a slog, increasing sinks would be a much better option.

 

[LEEKING2005]

Actually the possibility is endless, like paying 100k for increased a relationship to anyone(can capped at 50 if feel it's too OP), or buy fief for 500k etc.

 

[Punchtown Hero]

I think passive income mainly just needs a nerf, I shouldn't be raking in like 6k+ while paying wages for my 1200 garrison units in my two castles and fielding 140 elite troops less than 180 days into the game. All that cash off of a castle, town and 3 workshops. Party wages alone are 1600 gold/day

 

[Wheem]

Or just add sinks to that money, make it so you have more money going out the door. Castle improvements? Garrison fees for upgrading troops? Peasant fees for increased production of goods? Increased security patrols around settlements and castles to clean up looters and bandits? Rivalries and bribing for relations with other faction clans/lords? Slightly increased costs to higher tier troops?

People keep saying to cap income, but the problem is that there is nothing to spend the money on, so whatever you nerf it to, you'll still wind up in the same situation, it will just take longer and make the game more of a slog, increasing sinks would be a much better option.

I rather liked the way Viking Conquest had expensive upgrade/upkeep costs for mid and high tier units, as well as very expensive horses and armor (and "prestigious" weapons like swords). Only problem there would be balancing the AI's ability to pay for its armies.

 

[LEEKING2005]

I think passive income mainly just needs a nerf, I shouldn't be raking in like 6k+ while paying wages for my 1200 garrison units in my two castles and fielding 140 elite troops less than 180 days into the game. All that cash off of a castle, town and 3 workshops. Party wages alone are 1600 gold/day

6k+ and 140 troops? I got 26k daily and 300+ troops on my party and I just got 7-8 towns in game, but I considered I cleared the game cause it's not a challenge after you understand this game mechanism.

I think they designed it to be this level for realistic purpose, cause if you stayed poor when you own many fief then no one would want to stay in power in reality, so the best way to compensate it is making money more usage in this game, just like in real life.

 

[abc123456]

So, adding sinks, caps and increased upkeep doesn't solve the issue.
The issue is a safe, steady infinite positive number over time.
The problem here is safe, too safe.
Just wait deep in your kingdom for a few hours and eat a hotdog, even at +100/daily you will end up a lot of gold.
Maybe the solution is to make AI smarter and more aggressive.
You sit in base and wait for income? Can't if your kingdom is under attack.
Not just the skirmish kind of attack, but a deep follow through end kingdom kind of attack by the AI.
So you need to go out and defend your kingdom, to defend your income.
Think about it,if campaign was multiplayer, that's what real players would do.
In fact, that's what the smart starcraft AI would do from Google's machine learning OpenAI.
It ends your faction, when it can.

 

[LEEKING2005]

So, adding sinks, caps and increased upkeep doesn't solve the issue.
The issue is a safe, steady infinite positive number over time.
The problem here is safe, too safe.
Just wait deep in your kingdom for a few hours and eat a hotdog, even at +100/daily you will end up a lot of gold.
Maybe the solution is to make AI smarter and more aggressive.
You sit in base and wait for income? Can't if your kingdom is under attack.
Not just the skirmish kind of attack, but a deep follow through end kingdom kind of attack by the AI.
So you need to go out and defend your kingdom, to defend your income.
Think about it,if campaign was multiplayer, that's what real players would do.

Not really, if this is a multiplayer the player would unite other faction and let those hot headed noobs bite each other and weaken themself for their victory, which is what you do vs NPC in this game. ( You just gather tier 6 troops while they kill each other )

Warmonger doesn't always win, especially if you penalize the gold earn from fiefs.

For the solution of excessive gold they should just need to make the gold had more usage, currently it's more like recruit troop, building town, mercenaries and making peace. It should make it can increased relationship with village notable, lord, buy a town, marriage, maintain morale, recruit clan and the possibilities is endless,

 

[Maximum997]

Money income is fine. Only real problem - you have nothing to spend it on.

 

[Punchtown Hero]

6k+ and 140 troops? I got 26k daily and 300+ troops on my party and I just got 7-8 towns in game, but I considered I cleared the game cause it's not a challenge after you understand this game mechanism.

Yeah the income gets ridiculous, i've had games where im generating around 20-30k a day as well after owning only a few towns which is my point exactly. Maybe just reduce passive income slightly as well as make it harder to maintain settlement loyalty/security unless it assigned a governeror or you visit them on a regular basis. That would give governerors a purpose to maintain fief stability as there is pretty much no reason to assign one rn.

 

[KaosProphet]

Think about it,if campaign was multiplayer, that's what real players would do.

If campaign was multiplayer, real players would blitz the map in about 3 months game-time and make the currently unpopular AI snowballing look like a snail's pace. I'm pretty confident in saying those who want an actual satisfying single-player experience aren't looking for *that.*

 

[KidKiedis]

Sure there is a problem, but i'am not sure about the measures. I don't have any caravans or workshops and I already had a vast amounts of money even before I got my first castle.

So the problem is not in caravans and workshops.

In Warbands it took quite some time to get 50-60k gold, and you could spend them on one single horse or helmet. You had to choose between troops quality (wages) and weekly income. Now money are just keep coming from pricey loot and trophey money.

 

[abc123456]

Sure there is a problem, but i'am not sure about the measures. I don't have any caravans or workshops and I already had a vast amounts of money even before I got my first castle.

So the problem is not in caravans and workshops.

In Warbands it took quite some time to get 50-60k gold, and you could spend them on one single horse or helmet. You had to choose between troops quality (wages) and weekly income. Now money are just keep coming from pricey loot and trophey money.

Yea, the fun and drama comes from limited resources and having to choose what to prioritize. When you got all the money in the world, just buy everything.

 

[KidKiedis]

When you got all the money in the world, just buy everything.

Yea, hope devs see all that. Game is incredible! Think it just needs some tiny tweaks (to my taste).

 

[vadeN]

Just put a new option when creating a new game.

Realistic/hard income for those who likes to grind indefinitely.
Very easy/easy income for those who likes to spend their time doing anything else than trying to manage a market.

 

[abc123456]

Just put a new option when creating a new game.

Realistic/hard income for those who likes to grind indefinitely.
Very easy/easy income for those who likes to spend their time doing anything else than trying to manage a market.

Why does hard income have to be a grind? Clearly you have not played economic sim games.
Devs already put in so much effort into modelling a realistic market with trades flowing in and out.
Might as well make it better by fixing the problems.

 

[vadeN]

Why does hard income have to be a grind? Clearly you have not played economic sim games.
Devs already put in so much effort into modelling a realistic market with trades flowing in and out.
Might as well make it better by fixing the problems.

Clearly you didn't know that this IN NOT an economic sim-game so why should it strive to be one?
Some of you want the economy to be more "realistic", some of us don't think your way of seeing it is more "realistic" or "fun".

Btw: economic sim-games are boring, this is a game about war.

 

[abc123456]

Clearly you didn't know that this IN NOT an economic sim-game so why should it strive to be one?
Some of you want the economy to be more "realistic", some of us don't think your way of seeing it is more "realistic" or "fun".

If the devs didn't care about some kind of economic simulation why did they care to spend so much time to make a realistic trading economy?
They actually built tools to analyse the flow of goods and AI movements on the campaign.
Also, economy affects war and troops, it is all related.

 

[vadeN]

If the devs didn't care about some kind of economic simulation why did they care to spend so much time to make a realistic trading economy?
They actually built tools to analyse the flow of goods and AI movements on the campaign.
Also, economy affects war and troops, it is all related.

Why do you even oppose my suggestion of splitting it into different difficulties?

You can still have your grind at "realistic/hard" while those who want a higher cap on income or better prices could just choose "easy".
You would still be able to have your economic-war-simulation that you so badly want.

I don't want this to be an economic simulation, mainly because i don't want to come home from work and do more work.
If i wanted to do that i could just sit around and trade with my stocks which is a hassle of it own.

 

[KidKiedis]

Just started a new playthrough, where I leave most of my loot, don't take prisoners excerpt potential recruits, no workshops or caravans and no traiding. And it seems like in that case early-game economy works quite well (only needs more quests).

Problem is in mid-game, where your money start rocketing with successful campaigns. Each defeated lord gives you loot-money, high tier prisoners and gear. So poor mercenary gets about 10-15k per battle plus free equipment and troops.

So I think removing plundered money at all or significantly reducing them should help a great deal!

First of all players don't loose money if defeated, so why AI lords should? And why do they need so much gold with them?

Why do you even oppose my suggestion of splitting it into different difficulties?

Don't think anyone would say anything against difficulty levels. ?