How long do your caravans last on e1.2.0 and e1.1.0?

How long do your caravans last after starting them?


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I'm guessing they don't have hard coded things in the game, like prices and chances of something happening, rather they tried to create a self sustaining environment that works kinda like the real world does, where chance is determined by multiple factors and not just by an hard coded number
I think this is accurate. Looking in the XML files and theres no actual set price for armor and weapons.
 
I'd have to agree. They seem fairly fixated on the idea of a "real-world" economy that dynamically changes according to events in the world and player actions. The problem is that that kind of economy is almost impossible to simulate. There's a reason that even real economists stress that their models only roughly match the actual world, it'd be incredibly difficult for a 50-100 man dev team to do, or at least not without bringing out the economics textbooks (which I seriously doubt they've done).
dev teams have tried this before and guess what? even after balancing the game for years the players still destroyed the ecosystem of the game by doing nonsensical things. I'm hoping that, since those attempts were quite far in the past, with modern technology this game wont end up like that
 
At this point, I don't care about losing caravans, it's not like I have to rely on caravans to make ends meet. But this change is seemingly having a wider impact on the general economy. Now the towns are suffering from low funds and food shortage which leads to starving and dying garrisons. Now THAT sucks big time.
 
I'd have to agree. They seem fairly fixated on the idea of a "real-world" economy that dynamically changes according to events in the world and player actions. The problem is that that kind of economy is almost impossible to simulate. There's a reason that even real economists stress that their models only roughly match the actual world, it'd be incredibly difficult for a 50-100 man dev team to do, or at least not without bringing out the economics textbooks (which I seriously doubt they've done).
They don't need to perfectly simulate real world economy. Having dynamic systems is pretty essential for a sandbox game though.
Their current approach seems to be good (changes just need to be part of the beta cycle) and exactly what Early Access is all about.
 
After this change game is runned hundreds of days for testing and still I am testing, I requested some player's save files who complained about their destroyed caravans. What I see is everyday 1 caravan is destroyed in all Calradia in average, in some days this number is 0 in some days it is 2. In total there are about 100 caravans. This means that average days your caravan survives is about 100 days.

To see your caravan 100th day is : 0.99^100 = 0.37 (37%)

In 100 days one caravan brings you 60K profit in average. In total you invested 18K and return is 60K in 100 days. This is average situation. However we cannot guarentee your caravan will not be destroyed at initial days. I know if this happens you become disapointed.

Of course there can be several problems. I see that caravans are not selling their prisoners and this probably slows them down after some point also they gain you relationship with notables after their battles with looters. These will be fixed. There can be some other problems too we will deeply examine it and make it better in next patches.

I explained current stats here. Daily losing your caravan probability is not 5% it is about 1-2% currently. With this ratio caravans are still profitable. However this ratio can change according to your world's situation ofc.

If 1-2% is still high we will try to find solutions to player get in interaction with his/her caravan (maybe additional perks / dialogs / trade routes / some companion skills giving more security) and reduce this ratio to 0.5-1% please wait next patches for these changes.

There is another major bug at 1.2.0 currently and town's money are going to 0 quickly. This is not related to caravan changes and this bug will be fixed soon with hotfix.

By the way, you can send me your savefiles with pm which you lose your caravans in less than one week. I will examine them to see what's increasing this ratio that high.
 
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Just did a test - companion 0 trade skill

Day 15 started making profit
Day 21 close shave with mountain bandits
Day 27 comfortably beat looters
Day 36 killed by mountain bandits

I did a dayday spreadsheets of costs to get

upfront costs:. -18000
14 days no money + one day loss: -2396
Positive income up to day 36: +8484

Profit : -12,000

average income was about 400 per day

to break even you need about 45-55 days of profit (so 60-70 days alive on game map)

Gonna run a few more just tallying the days to get a variance on caravan life.
 
Just did a test - companion 0 trade skill

Day 15 started making profit
Day 21 close shave with mountain bandits
Day 27 comfortably beat looters
Day 36 killed by mountain bandits

I did a dayday spreadsheets of costs to get

upfront costs:. -18000
14 days no money + one day loss: -2396
Positive income up to day 36: +8484

Profit : -12,000

average income was about 400 per day

to break even you need about 45-55 days of profit (so 60-70 days alive on game map)

Gonna run a few more just tallying the days to get a variance on caravan life.

Caravan 2, started making profit on day 7, lived 34 days - died to lord. Estimated loss about 8000.
 
The issue is worse than it seems. It takes time for your caravan guards to desert you if you continue from your old save, buying you some relative safety time. Newly created caravans will be vulnerable from the start.
 
I'm a bit frustrated in that I'm all for caravan risk but it should be meaningful:

What's in essence an RNG mechanic because you can't do anything about it, just sucks. Can I hire extra security? Escort my Caravan? Bribe Bandits or local lords? Tell them to stick to "safe" trading routes I've scouted? Can I play it risky and load them up to be low-crew, high speed, and hope for high profits before the inevitable loss?

No. I can just sit back and watch 18k go down the toilet with zero input. That's not fun.
 
now you don't even have a nice way to generate money.. workshops are WORTHLESS, and caravans are even more of a money sink :\

I know this is a long shot, but maybe we should be able to choose how many guards we want to send with our caravans? less guards -> cheaper upfront price, but larger risk and possible larger profits (since you won't be paying their salaries). more guards -> larger upfront price, but more safe as well.

it would also be nice to have more input on what a caravan does, like choosing its routes, what it sells, how much to spend etc.
 
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If 1-2% is still high we will try to find solutions to player get in interaction with his/her caravan (maybe additional perks / dialogs / trade routes / some companion skills giving more security) and reduce this ratio to 0.5-1% please wait next patches for these changes.

Mexxico, I know I'm just some faceless forum drone, but that is the right idea. Follow that, make the feature meaningful and give choice/playstyle definition behind it, and it won't just be some annoying nerf it'll be meaningful gameplay.

Caravans are one of the coolest additions to BL and presently they're crazy underutilized. You can do a lot with this feature that will not only balance the risk/reward but make it actually add to the content of the game meaningfully.
 
Just had a caravan make it a whole year. This ones probably made me about 50k so far and only been in one battle. One thing I have noticed is that after a battle your caravans won’t wait in a town to heal they just plow on regardless this may be causing premature deaths - walking around with 10+20 wounded is not great with the amount of bandits around. Good news though - caravans can still make bank.
 
I don't mind them getting destroyed, I'm just more annoyed at retrieving the companions and having to recreate the caravan. If they just automate that then I think it will be better.
 
I explained current stats here. Daily losing your caravan probability is not 5% it is about 1-2% currently. With this ratio caravans are still profitable. However this ratio can change according to your world's situation ofc.

If 1-2% is still high we will try to find solutions to player get in interaction with his/her caravan (maybe additional perks / dialogs / trade routes / some companion skills giving more security) and reduce this ratio to 0.5-1% please wait next patches for these changes.

There is another major bug at 1.2.0 currently and town's money are going to 0 quickly. This is not related to caravan changes and this bug will be fixed soon with hotfix.

By the way, you can send me your savefiles with pm which you lose your caravans in less than one week. I will examine them to see what's increasing this ratio that high.
Any caravan in the far east is immediately swarmed by steppe bandits which it can't outrun. As soon as a battle starts the slower looter groups are able to catch up and pile on as well.
 
Any caravan in the far east is immediately swarmed by steppe bandits which it can't outrun. As soon as a battle starts the slower looter groups are able to catch up and pile on as well.

Yes probably Khuzait area can be worst place to form a caravan because of fast steppe bandits. Try different home settlements for your caravan and we will think solutions for steppe bandit threat. So opposite areas like western Vlandian towns can be best places maybe. However according to your games (who you are in war with & positions of infested hideouts & game year) situation can change. By the way if you clear hideouts near your caravan's home settlement it can help also. (I know hideouts are also have some problems and not easy to get rid of) Also note that at some cultures your caravans have higher mounted unit ratio. These ones will be a bit faster and probably can stay longer at map.

So with latest additions now you need to think deeper to make profit.As I said things will be better in next patches. Developments create ups and downs in short time period in long time period these mechanics will be better.
 
I quickly lost my caravan after the update, and thought I would add my observations along with others here.

First, I noticed my caravan unit cap had been reduced to 30 with my clan rank of 3. It wasn't attacked immediately, but after getting close to the cap it started getting attacked by bandits. After 2-3 attacks it was defeated. I unfortunately overwrote the file so I can't go back to test it, but it seemed to happen in less than a week. Npc caravans with higher unit caps seem to be able to survive easier from what I've noticed.

Second, my fief, Ortysia, was on the border with 2 warring kingdoms at the time, so I had been focusing on staying close to defend it. Initially it was losing food due to it's villages being pillaged from the start but it's been struggling to stay in the positive since. As such, I've been manually supplying food and stuck babysitting it. When the caravan was attacked near Ocs Hall, I headed over and found the area was infested with bandits. I also noticed multiple bandit groups with caravan guards as prisoners, so it's probably what Drallim33 mentioned with groups dogpiling on after getting caught. Maybe the noble's ai priorities put bandit cleanup too low when there is war, or maybe there should be something like the manhunters in warband to specialize in cleanup.
The trade skill has some really cool perks for caravans and I'd love to utilize them, but I as a player can't clean up the entire map to benefit from them.

edit: Ok, I found an older save file that was during peace time and decided to load it up and test it out. It was before I had a fief, so I was patroling around the area frequently to trade and train troops. There was also a companion party in the area clearing out bandits and presumably saved 2 caravans during that time. For the test I waited in a town and didn't intervene. 11 days from loading the save for desertion to get the party down to 30. First attack on day 27, second attack, on 38, third attack on 41, which lead to capture by mountain bandits. So 30 days from it being at the unit cap, it was captured during peacetime.
 
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I have 2 caravans running from Lageta. No problems so far, they getting around 1000 denars each.

1.1.0 Version, Stable Branch.
 
In my opinion TW needs to scrap the pricing in the economy and go back to warband.
No. No way. What they had was working before they started messing with it. It wasn't working perfectly but it was basically functional.

Roll back the caravan change and it will to back to basically functional. Then we can get to dealing with other parts of the cash inflation problems.
 
People are talking about daily percentage chances for your caravan to get destroyed. I was under the impression it could be physically attacked and destroyed by bandit groups on the map, but are you saying there's a daily RNG chance for the caravan to just randomly die?
 
People are talking about daily percentage chances for your caravan to get destroyed. I was under the impression it could be physically attacked and destroyed by bandit groups, but are you saying there's a daily RNG chance for the caravan to just randomly die?
No, we're just using basic estimates of the daily chances for it to be physically attacked and destroyed, otherwise it would be impossible to run any kind of mathematical analysis, which is tremendously helpful for understanding the problem.
 
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