Once and for all let's get workshops done

[ElCrisp]

Put them in the right town, put them in the wrong town it doesn't matter, 99% of workshops suck. There are maybe 1 or 2 specific shops in a specific town that may provide more profit. A smithy in Marunath is one of them. The rest are useless. A winery in Quyaz or Charas or any other town that has a supply of grapes. Good luck getting over 50 a day. A velvet weavery in Amprela. Again good luck getting over 100 a day.
Now I don't know if it is the workshops themselves or if it is the market but whatever the reason is it needs fixing.

I see your concluding remark, which I can agree with. However adressing your general complaints in the body of you post:

It is not as simple as: Villages grow grapes > build winery > big $$$$

Villages get more productive as their hearths grow meaning more raw materials for your town.
Your freshly made wine will flood your own market eventually if you dont have enough caravan traffic
High demand which results from prosperity is needed not only in your workshop's town but other towns that can be connected by caravans.

None of this is all that well explained in game which would help.
I am re stating these concepts for the benifit of peoples understanding and feedback.

 

[AfLIcTeD]

I see your concluding remark, which I can agree with. However adressing your general complaints in the body of you post:

It is not as simple as: Villages grow grapes > build winery > big $$$$

Villages get more productive as their hearths grow meaning more raw materials for your town.
Your freshly made wine will flood your own market eventually if you dont have enough caravan traffic
High demand which results from prosperity is needed not only in your workshop's town but other towns that can be connected by caravans.

None of this is all that well explained in game which would help.
I am re stating these concepts for the benifit of peoples understanding and feedback.

So I decided to have a little play around with workshops. I went round to different towns and built all the different workshops in what I thought to be the ideal location for them to get an idea of what workshops work well and what don't.
I have found that these workshops are pretty much the best and the rest are useless.
Wool Weavery
Silversmith
Oil Press

Plonk one of these in a town with a local supply and good prices and you should get on average 200+ a day. Prioritise wool weaveries as they can reach 300+ at times. Also keep in mind the distance of the village supplying the town. It's no good if the villagers have to wade through a sea of bandits to get to town.
It seems like it isn't the workshops themsleves that are the issue, but the market prices. When leather sells for just a few more gold than hides, no wonder tanneries are less than useless.

 

[stevehoos]

Really seem to me like a substantial amount of people are asking for exactly this. Which is really silly IMO because trying to earn enough money to get by is a central part of the gameplay loop, like if you are sick of the things needed to make money in this game you might just be sick of the game period. Which I get we are all waiting on the feature to fill out.

You can still get workshops with incomes ranging from 200-300 a day.which I think is very reasonable.

There is however problems with workshops that relate to how goods are demanded and prosperity growth. The reason workshops are only strong in towns with higher prosperity is because demand for certain goods classed as luxuries is determined by towns being prosperous, it isnt a linear scale though, as after a certain amount of prosperity the demand for luxury good grows more quickly, which I think is cool it just need fine tuning.
Leather seems to have particular problems as the raw materials are in higher demand than the processed good especially late game, when generally prosperity should be higher.
So workshops are connected deeply into other systems and as such they are not simply "buffing them" but trying to get those system working togethers as they should.

Passive income is very strong, and given the lack of gold sinks it makes sense they are conservitive with it.
Take some simple math examples of how income effects wealth.

Say your total expenses are 9 a day
and your income is 10 a day from loot and bandits (averaged over a week, some day you make say 0 some days 30 )
10 - 9 = 1 profit a day
Over a 10 day period your wealth accumulated is 10

Now lets take the same example but add passive income
Expenses are 9 a day
you average income from loot and plunder is 10 a day
you also have a passive income from workshops of 5 a day
10+5 - 9 = 6 profit a day
Over a ten day period your wealth accumulated is 60

So even though your average income increased by only 50% your wealth accumulated inceased by 600%
There are very few sinks for wealth in this game, so very soon after going positive on daily expenses you move towards infinite money $$$$$$$$$$$$.

Place them right and workshops are really good you guys just suck I rest my case your honour.

Try a tannery in any town on the map in 1.5.2 and get back to me.

 

[AfLIcTeD]

I think what they need to do is make it so workshops have different buying prices. You can't exactly jack up the market prices on those items that give low profit. Some items will never have a high price. So the workshops need to be cheaper to balance. That 50 gold a day from your wood workshop wouldn't be as bad if it only cost you 5k to buy.

 

[Bannerman Man]

So, I was looking into the problems with tanneries, and I decided to make a model of trade good prices to get a clearer picture. The model is just an approximation and won't reflect the exact prices you'll see in-game. It simplifies the supply value, which is a little more complex in-game. It also assumes instantaneous changes to the supply and demand values, rather than changing gradually over time, as happens in-game. The trade penalty is also not applied. You guys can play around with it to get an idea of how the different variables affect prices.

Anyway, here is the price model for leather (red) vs. hides (blue). As you can see hides are actually more expensive than leather at similar quantities until ~70 items, which is one of the reasons tanneries don't operate.

Here is a graph of jewelry (red) vs. silver ore (blue), and here is one of beer (red) vs. grain (blue). Even though the price curves are nearly identical for beer and grain, workshops can still make money because grain is carried in much higher quantities than beer, so is therefore cheaper. I think the price structure probably has issues with lower volume items.

• V price = The final price of a single item at a given quantity, with the price multiplier applied to it.
• V multiplier = The "base price factor." It's the demand value divided by the supply value to the power of 0.6. A trade good can only be between 0.2x and 10x the intrinsic item value.
• Supply = Basically the quantity of the item in the town's market multiplied by the intrinsic value of the item.
• Demand = A variable that determines how many of an item a town consumes daily. It's calculated from prosperity and the base and luxury demand values.
• Q = Quantity.
• Prosp = Prosperity of a town.
• B = Base demand of an item. Assigned by developers.
• L = Luxury demand of an item. Assigned by developers.
• I val = The intrinsic value of the item, which is assigned by the developers. Most of the values can be found in the horses_and_others.xml file.

Edit: Here is the table of values. For Base and Luxury demand values, use the value in the parentheses for the model, because the game divides the values by 1000 before using them. I've grouped the items by workshop type. The workshop output items are the red lines, and the input items are the blue lines.

Item	Base Demand (x0.001)	Luxury Demand (x0.001)	Intrinsic Value	Price Model (Output = Red, Input = Blue)
Grain	100 (0.1)​	0 (0)​	10	Link
Beer	30 (0.03)​	15 (0.015)​	45
Grapes	10 (0.01)​	5 (0.005)​	20	Link
Wine	5 (0.005)​	10 (0.01)​	80
Olives	10 (0.01)​	5 (0.005)​	30	Link
Oil	10 (0.01)​	10 (0.01)​	120
Flax	10 (0.01)​	0 (0)​	15	Link
Linen	20 (0.02)​	20 (0.02)​	75
Wool	10 (0.01)​	5 (0.005)​	40	Link
Garment *	9 (0.009)​	15 (0.015)​	Varies: avg. 107
Cotton	6 (0.006)​	3 (0.003)​	80	Link
Velvet	5 (0.005)​	10 (0.01)​	160
Hardwood	10 (0.01)​	0 (0)​	25	Link
Tools	20 (0.02)​	30 (0.03)​	80
Iron Ore	5 (0.005)​	0 (0)​	50	Link
Tools	20 (0.02)​	30 (0.03)​	80
Silver Ore	5 (0.005)​	10 (0.01)​	150	Link
Jewelry	15 (0.015)​	30 (0.03)​	250
Hides	30 (0.03)​	15 (0.015)​	60	Link
Leather	2 (0.002)​	4 (0.004)​	140
Clay	20 (0.02)​	0 (0)​	20	Link
Pottery	15 (0.015)​	15 (0.015)​	80

Up to date as of e1.5.2

* Garments are a special case. Their base price factor (V multiplier) can only range from 0.8x to 1.3x their intrinsic value because they are considered merchandise. Each individual garment has its own intrinsic value that is multiplied by the price factor for the final price, but for the purposes of calculating the supply value, each town averages its garments together for the average intrinsic value. The higher minimum price factor (0.8x vs. 0.2x) is likely why wool weaveries make good profits compared to other workshops that produce trade goods. These differences make the price model I've created less accurate for garments, so I've tweaked the model for garments in the above link.

 

[Blood Gryphon]

So, I was looking into the problems with tanneries, and I decided to make a model of trade good prices to get a clearer picture. The model is just an approximation and won't reflect the exact prices you'll see in-game. It simplifies the supply value, which is a little more complex in-game. It also assumes instantaneous changes to the supply and demand values, rather than changing gradually over time, as happens in-game. The trade penalty is also not applied. You guys can play around with it to get an idea of how the different variables affect prices.

Anyway, here is the price model for leather (red) vs. hides (blue). As you can see hides are actually more expensive than leather at similar quantities until ~70 items, which is one of the reasons tanneries don't operate.

Here is a graph of jewelry (red) vs. silver ore (blue), and here is one of beer (red) vs. grain (blue). Even though the price curves are nearly identical for beer and grain, workshops can still make money because grain is carried in much higher quantities than beer, so is therefore cheaper. I think the price structure probably has issues with lower volume items.

• V price = the final price of a single item at a given quantity, with the price multiplier applied to it.
• V multiplier = the demand value divided by the supply value to the power of 0.6. A trade good can only be between 0.2x and 10x the intrinsic item value.
• Supply = basically the quantity of the item in the town's market multiplied by the intrinsic value of the item.
• Demand = a variable that determines how many of an item a town consumes daily. It's calculated from prosperity and the base and luxury demand values.
• Q = Quantity.
• Prosp = Prosperity of a town.
• B = Base demand of an item. Assigned by developers.
• L = Luxury demand of an item. Assigned by developers.
• I val = the intrinsic value of the item, which is assigned by the developers. Most of the values can be found in the horses_and_others.xml file.

When I have time I'll make a table for all of those values for each workshop production to make things easier.

This is sick. Awesome explanation, it's clear they need to adjust leather and hide prices to balance tanneries

 

[Dionaea]

So, I was looking into the problems with tanneries, and I decided to make a model of trade good prices to get a clearer picture. The model is just an approximation and won't reflect the exact prices you'll see in-game. It simplifies the supply value, which is a little more complex in-game. It also assumes instantaneous changes to the supply and demand values, rather than changing gradually over time, as happens in-game. The trade penalty is also not applied. You guys can play around with it to get an idea of how the different variables affect prices.

Anyway, here is the price model for leather (red) vs. hides (blue). As you can see hides are actually more expensive than leather at similar quantities until ~70 items, which is one of the reasons tanneries don't operate.

Here is a graph of jewelry (red) vs. silver ore (blue), and here is one of beer (red) vs. grain (blue). Even though the price curves are nearly identical for beer and grain, workshops can still make money because grain is carried in much higher quantities than beer, so is therefore cheaper. I think the price structure probably has issues with lower volume items.

• V price = the final price of a single item at a given quantity, with the price multiplier applied to it.
• V multiplier = the demand value divided by the supply value to the power of 0.6. A trade good can only be between 0.2x and 10x the intrinsic item value.
• Supply = basically the quantity of the item in the town's market multiplied by the intrinsic value of the item.
• Demand = a variable that determines how many of an item a town consumes daily. It's calculated from prosperity and the base and luxury demand values.
• Q = Quantity.
• Prosp = Prosperity of a town.
• B = Base demand of an item. Assigned by developers.
• L = Luxury demand of an item. Assigned by developers.
• I val = the intrinsic value of the item, which is assigned by the developers. Most of the values can be found in the horses_and_others.xml file.

When I have time I'll make a table for all of those values for each workshop production to make things easier.

Great post! Thank you for clearing things up

 

[Bannerman Man]

I've updated my post above with the table of all of the various values, and added links to the corresponding model with the values already adjusted.

 

[Ling*]

I don't understand why passive income is nerfed, I should not have to constantly be scrounging for money during the late game, that should all be dealt with passively so that I can focus on conquering the map and ruling. Until you fix the other economic problems like making passive income better, people like me are just going to keep exploiting how broken smithing is JUST to maintain a positive income. The current balance changes don't make for an enjoyable playthrough in my opinion. May as well change the name of the game to Mount and Blade: 2 Accounting Wars.

 

[nyarlathotep1975]

I don't understand why passive income is nerfed, I should not have to constantly be scrounging for money during the late game, that should all be dealt with passively so that I can focus on conquering the map and ruling. Until you fix the other economic problems like making passive income better, people like me are just going to keep exploiting how broken smithing is JUST to maintain a positive income. The current balance changes don't make for an enjoyable playthrough in my opinion. May as well change the name of the game to Mount and Blade: 2 Accounting Wars.

Passiv income got nerfed to create a challenge. If money just gets shoved in your face, whats the point in it anyway? So they did what is just common: Nerf everything into the ground and then slowly buff it again until its somewhat ballanced. Unfortunatly they take their time with the buffing stuff.

 

[Ichon]

I think what they need to do is make it so workshops have different buying prices. You can't exactly jack up the market prices on those items that give low profit. Some items will never have a high price. So the workshops need to be cheaper to balance. That 50 gold a day from your wood workshop wouldn't be as bad if it only cost you 5k to buy.

+1

 

[TheShermanator]

I think what they need to do is make it so workshops have different buying prices. You can't exactly jack up the market prices on those items that give low profit. Some items will never have a high price. So the workshops need to be cheaper to balance. That 50 gold a day from your wood workshop wouldn't be as bad if it only cost you 5k to buy.

+2

Or in other words, there should be price formula by which the price to buy out the workshop scales directly with the daily profit average over X time interval from the date of purchase. (The workshop's capital could also be a variable, maybe - especially the chosen value for X is not that much time.) Besides the better ROI, that would also really help out the party-stage player trying to get more stable income earlier in the game if desired.

 

[sir Gregor Clegane]

This is sick. Awesome explanation, it's clear they need to adjust leather and hide prices to balance tanneries

A possible reason for the zero income of leather workshops (besides the incorrect price difference between hides and leather) is that the number of outgoing leather goods is not indicated in the file "spworkshops". I edited the file - set the number of goods at the output as in other workshops and the leather workshop started to generate income. Does anyone know which goods demand file can be configured?
utc time now
utc time now

 

[Bannerman Man]

A possible reason for the zero income of leather workshops (besides the incorrect price difference between hides and leather) is that the number of outgoing leather goods is not indicated in the file "spworkshops". I edited the file - set the number of goods at the output as in other workshops and the leather workshop started to generate income.

If an input/output value is not specified in the xml file, it just defaults to 1; so effectively what you've done by setting it to 2 is doubling the number of leathers produced per hide. This could be a solution, but I think leather is already saturated in the regions with high concentrations of tanneries (such as the northeast), so that just makes the price bottom out even quicker. They'll still probably make money in that case, but likely not much.

Scarcity and abundance of inputs/outputs are important factors in the profitability of a workshop.

Does anyone know which goods demand file can be configured?

They're hardcoded in the Taleworlds.Core.dll file rather than configured in an xml. You can find the values in the InitializeAll method of the DefaultItemCategories class. If you want to change the demand values of an item, you can right click on the line of code of the item you want to configure in the program dnSpy, then select "Edit IL Instructions..." After that just change the values to whatever you want and click Ok.

Spoiler: Edit IL Instructions...

Spoiler: List of trade good demand values

 

[Apocal]

Spoiler: List of trade good demand values

"BonusToTax"
"BonusToGarrison"
?

 

[Bannerman Man]

"BonusToTax"
"BonusToGarrison"

Yessir. Sadly, they aren't coded to have an effect (yet?). There's also a BonusToMilitia effect that is coded, but no item currently has that property. Although, if someone were to, say, edit an item so it contains that property, they would find that it works like a charm:

Spoiler

Here's the list of all of the declared property types:

Spoiler: Item Property Bonuses

 

[Lord Irontoe]

When I see these examples of how insanely convoluted the economy simulation is, it just makes me lose hope that they'll ever be able to get it in balance. Does it have to be so complex? Couldn't they have just faked most of these economy effects and put their efforts into the systems that give more gameplay bang for the buck?

Like I guess its pretty cool that the clay that gets dug up in villages makes it way to the workshops to get turned into pottery and then transported by caravan around the world, but I wouldn't notice any difference if it just magically spawned in the shops.

 

[stevehoos]

When I see these examples of how insanely convoluted the economy simulation is, it just makes me lose hope that they'll ever be able to get it in balance. Does it have to be so complex? Couldn't they have just faked most of these economy effects and put their efforts into the systems that give more gameplay bang for the buck?

Like I guess its pretty cool that the clay that gets dug up in villages makes it way to the workshops to get turned into pottery and then transported by caravan around the world, but I wouldn't notice any difference if it just magically spawned in the shops.

This is exactly how I feel, seems as though the game has depth and complexity but the player never is a part of any of it. Economy simulator with battles with very little to do.

 

[sir Gregor Clegane]

They're hardcoded in the Taleworlds.Core.dll file rather than configured in an xml. You can find the values in the InitializeAll method of the DefaultItemCategories class. If you want to change the demand values of an item, you can right click on the line of code of the item you want to configure in the program dnSpy, then select "Edit IL Instructions..." After that just change the values to whatever you want and click Ok.

thanks a lot, friend! exactly what I needed! Increased consumption a little. I'm going to test how it will all affect the economy.

 

[nyarlathotep1975]

When I see these examples of how insanely convoluted the economy simulation is, it just makes me lose hope that they'll ever be able to get it in balance. Does it have to be so complex? Couldn't they have just faked most of these economy effects and put their efforts into the systems that give more gameplay bang for the buck?

Like I guess its pretty cool that the clay that gets dug up in villages makes it way to the workshops to get turned into pottery and then transported by caravan around the world, but I wouldn't notice any difference if it just magically spawned in the shops.

Well, I kinda understand it. Let´s say somebody got a nice idea and is excited to realise it, you are so focused on the idea that you completly forget what it´s actually about. Maybe better not bring it up and crush somebody´s dream.