blainedeyoung 说:
Is there any reason that you shouldn't get Right to Rule early in the game?
No.
When you fire a companion, can you hire them again?
Yes.
Does it matter if they're mad at you when they leave? I know the Traveler in the tavern won't tell you where they are.
Actually, they will; it just sometimes takes awhile. I like to think of it as the companion wandering around outside of Calradia for awhile.
What I'm thinking about is getting the companions that I don't want to keep permanently, sending them on their Right to Rule mission immediately and then firing them.
Precisely what I'm doing now!
But I'd kind of like to keep the option of hiring them later open. You could get 8 companions and train them, make them lords, and then hire the other 8. But it doesn't sound like a good idea (you wouldn't want to lose their skills for one thing). So, you could instead use the other 8 to get 24 RtR at the beginning of the game for the cost of a couple thousand silvers (nothing in the long run) without making anybody mad because there's nobody else in your party.
Eh--most companions have skills that can be covered by at least one other companion. Some people swear by making companions lords since you get to shape the skills of the companion(s) for maximum effectiveness. I wouldn't recommend it to someone on their first playthrough, but it's perfectly doable with some prior planning.
I, like everyone I'm sure, have entertained the idea of keeping all 16 companions in my party. Properly trained and equipped, they're better than retainers. I once heard it was possible (if your Persuasion was high enough, I think it would be useful to not take sides in their squabbles, but you'd lose their RtR missions because they wouldn't like you, and it's just a big hassle when they nag you to leave *every* day). I learned from this thread that would also be costly in terms of loot (thank you for explaining that to me, I was wondering what was going on there).
I know the Diplomacy mod has an option to turn off companion complaints, but I don't know if this makes them get along any better, or if it just makes them shut up! I also know there are other mods that have tweaked companion relations, but I'm only familiar with Diplomacy.
I appreciate everyone who worked so hard to come up with trade routes, but when I've tried to follow them, I sometimes feel cheated. I think they should come with a disclaimer that the tides of war and bandit infestations will *frequently* knock a city completely out. You can't buy anything from a city that can't produce anything because its villages are all burning.
I feel the same way about productive enterprises. You spend 10,000 silvers on a velvet manufacturer (10,000 that could have bought a suit of Plate Armor), and then some jerk comes and kills the peasants for his profit and causes you loss. I wonder if it isn't a better idea to hold off on building those until you're building them in *your* cities with the intention of protecting them.
For the above two reasons, I favor bandit-hunting as an occupation over trading and enterprising. Bandit hunting has the added benefit of developing every thing you need in the game long-term (you can even use it to develop relationships if you take missions, but I don't like doing that).
No different from real life, in this case! There are some trade goods that give a basically guaranteed profit: iron and salt. Iron is cheap in Curaw, Ahmerrad, Dhirim and sometimes Bariyye, and can be sold at a profit anywhere else. Salt is cheap in Tulga, Wercheg and sometimes Sargoth. However, if you're dead set on getting the maximum profit every trade you make, you'll quickly end up disappointed because of the price fluctuations you've already noticed. In the same vein, enterprises are popular because they're a guaranteed source of income that requires little to no input on your part. However, the profit fluctuates from week to week. The best you can do is pick one that is guaranteed to give a halfway decent profit
on average, and ignore the weekly fluctuations.
Someone (I think it was this thread) reported that he had a million silvers hoarded and had a renown of 500. His characters were probably really low-level too. I've never had a million cash-on-hand (I've had that much invested in Plate Armor and Tempered Heavy Bastard Swords [which I learned from this thread that I've been overvaluing because I assumed they did the listed damage one-handed] and other expensive gear, but to have *that* much money and a renown of 500?! He's been doing a lot of trading and a very little fighting).
Not necessarily. As I said, enterprises keep the denars rolling in no matter what you do. If you get an enterprise up and running in every town, it'll pay for all your armies, fief improvements, equipment, etc., with profit left over. Very easy to rack up large cash reserves in that case. And trading and fighting aren't necessarily mutually exclusive: trade iron and salt between Curaw, Wercheg and Rivacheg and it's easy to fight Sea Raiders along the way (and it's a very profitable trade route, too).
Which brings me to the contribution I'd like to make to this sum-total of all knowledge of things Mount and Blade: Warband. I depend on bandits for my livelihood. They train my men and pay them.
You can always count on finding Tundra Bandits near Khudan and Mountain Bandits north of Uxhal and Forest Bandits south of Suno and Desert Bandits in between Ahmerrad and Durquba and Steppe Bandits around Ichamur and they always build their hideouts near these places, but those hideouts are very difficult to find (unless you get lucky and just stumble across one, you have to build a search grid that might take game-weeks) and even once found it's hard to get a lord to assign you the mission of destroying it (they would always rather get you to abuse their peasants for them or train men that you'll have to fight later).
But there's one that I depend on. If you start at Rivacheg and follow the coast west toward Wercheg, you will almost always run into a Sea Raider Landing before you reach Wercheg. And Boyar Meriga who controls Rivacheg at the beginning of the game almost always wants it destroyed. I've actually found a Landing, gone to Boyar Meriga, gotten the mission to destroy it, destroyed it, gone back to Meriga to report success, and immediately gotten another mission to destroy a Landing which was easily found just by following the coastline.
Each destroy-the-hideout mission is worth 4 relationship points with the Lord, 1500 silvers, 3000 XP, some renown, and you usually get about a 1000 silvers in loot from a Sea Raider landing, *and* you can choose the guys who go down with you so you practically distribute the XPs and increased weapon skills among your companions yourself, **and** a week later (at the latest) the coast will once again be crawling with Sea Raiders and there will be another landing for you destroy.
It is a cow whose utters drip liquid gold. And I've never seen anyone else mention it.
Good tip! I've seen people mention in other threads that they prefer to leave bandit lairs where they are, as it's so difficult to find them. But, as you say, the Sea Raider camp is probably the easiest one to find. And it's a good way to gain reputation with Boyar Meriga, who always seems to start out with -3 relation to the player (at least in all of the games I've played).
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