Caravans should be safe income source or not?

[Casseius]

With the beta branch, i just wont create any caravan, just not worth it at all.

 

[babelfisch]

I can't really comment since I didn't own a caravan so far. Please excuse me if I got something wrong.

What about making it easier for caravans to escape? Simplified: You pay the initial cost of 18k and your caravan gets attacked at some point. 15 troops escape and lose half their coin. They'll use half of their remaining capital to hire new troops and the other half to make profits (so they don't get bankrupt during recruitment) until they are at 30 units again. That way you wouldn't lose all your money all the time but caravans wouldn't be guaranteed income either.

 

[Razorts]

i think just bumping party size back to 40 would help

 

[Faenwulf]

No, don't "just" do anything. Properly Plan it out, test it internally and then on the beta branch.
Only if it works does it make it into the live Patch.

 

[Kangamangus]

Hmm...I mean, I get losing them to other factions when you are at war with them. Just like losing a workshop if a city gets sacked. I do think that your companions skill/level should allow them to lead larger caravan parties, or deal with random bandits without much concern.

 

[Adrivan]

Lmao good job for people who voted yes in this poll. You played yourself

 

[Neodymus]

Lmao good job for people who voted yes in this poll. You played yourself

Nah, the poll options just didnt reflect the fix properly. The option should be named " Yes, they should rarely turn a profit before getting destroyed" to reflect the fix.

 

[McGough]

I actually think caravans should be a safe source of income, but that the profit margins could stand to be a *little* less than they are now.

 

[Stromming]

I actually think caravans should be a safe source of income, but that the profit margins could stand to be a *little* less than they are now.

Caravans weren't safe income sources though, and the game should reflect it, but neither were they almost never turning a profit.

The fix is good but it's dialed up to 11, it needs to be toned down a bit is all.

 

[McGough]

Caravans weren't safe income sources though, and the game should reflect it, but neither were they almost never turning a profit.

It's a game, not a simulation. There need to be some 'gamey' elements in it to make it fun. Caravans being safe sources of income is, in my opinion, one of them. Naturally everyone will have their own opinion on this.

Considering that the caravan costs as much as a workshop, *plus* requires me to hand over one of my limited number of companions to run it, then I think that it should be safe. It should not be turning massive profits, but it should be safe. Right now it certainly is an utter waste of money to engage a caravan, prior to the patch I though it was fine, just a bit too profitable in the long run.

What might be a compromise is not destroying the caravan, but having it have a chance of being raided - where some of the guard are killed and the goods stolen, which would then need a few days of losses while the caravan is rebuilt - similar to how it has a few days of losses when you start running the caravan.

 

[Sketchyad]

Well, limited to 30 in party forever is nearly impossible for late game since a lot of bandits will grow into bigger size party. Give us the choice to pay more denars for bigger and stronger guards and make it less risk and small profit due to high wages from large elite guards.

 

[Tobi7043]

On the other hand each caravan you made cost you a companion who could otherwise be serving in a war party that you could be using to bolster your own military power by forming an army. Parties also bring in income of their own which means caravans need to directly compete both monetarily and in utility as a military boost.

Then once you have one or two fiefs you have more than enough passive income and those caravans that are using companion slots start getting less desirable. I actually shut down all my caravans once I had a second fief so I could support more war parties and have more companions to serve as governors (not that having governors seems to do anything, which is a separate issue that needs to be fixed).

And as multiple people in this thread have said they do sometimes die and you do have to go find your now lost companion and spend another 15K to get the caravan running again.

If you nerf caravans to die more frequently than they do now there's a high chance they'll stop being profitable at all and then it will become an outright dead feature.

Rather than nerfing caravans it makes more sense to simply make other roles your companions could be serving more rewarding. Specifically governors who, as I said, don't seem to do much at all.

I literally showed in my post how they made 10k a day plus I had 3 parties and had them running several years, so no they were too op stop being in denial...

 

[BattanianDruid]

I literally showed in my post how they made 10k a day plus I had 3 parties and had them running several years, so no they were too op stop being in denial...

I'm not "in denial". I have a different idea of what makes something genuinely OP than you do.

Furthermore your screenshot isn't showing you making 10K a day off caravans alone. You're making about 5.5K with a 1.5K cost in maintenance. That is a daily profit of about 4K a day from four caravans running at the same time. Which is an investment of about 60K gold that, by these numbers, would take 15 days to pay back that investment and start turning a real profit.

Caravans making a lot of money over a long period of time isn't game breaking. It is kind of expected. Especially when you compare the 4K a day your caravans are making to the ability to earn 30-60K gold a day from war.

Once I had fiefs I stopped using caravans because their income was irrelevant by then. I still accumulated massive amounts of money while fielding a large, top tier army. Do you really feel your 4K income a day is overpowered while sitting on over 400K? You're literally making 1% of your total income per day. A drop in a vast ocean that is your finances. I just don't see how this is the OP infinite money cheat people make it out to be.

 

[Skyvoice]

I wonder what you think about one issue related to caravan's current situation.

Currently caravans are nearly 100% safe money source. You build your caravan and it buy some cheap stuff then sell them in next destinations. It buys cheap and try to sell expensive again and again. After some time (like 10-15 days) their capital passes initial limit (10K) and you start to get profit from them. Caravans are currently so cautious and fast they are nearly always ignored by enemies. Also bandits are generally weaker compared to them. This results in player gaining 0.8K daily from one caravan as average until party is disbanded by player. Caravan's party wage is about 0.2K. This means one caravan make 0.6K profit daily in average.

As summary to create a caravan you pay 15K and in one year you get 50K, in two years 100K and this goes on... If there is no extraordinary situation.

I think this situation is not a good design because caravans are currently obviously OP and player has no fear of losing them. This results in caravans to be a stable game element. There are nearly none caravan involved battle in map and this create lack of variety. I want to make caravans more desired targets so that bandits and minor mercenary faction lords (which player is in war with) will attack caravans even they are a bit weaker compared to it or even they are a bit far. So this will result in losing your caravan time to time (more than current situation). Of course this should not be very common. In average once in a year player can lose his/her caravan.

What do you think about this development idea? I know caravan owners will be a bit disturbed however we are trying to make game more exciting.

Obviously, they should not be 100% safe. That is indeed op. However, caravans also should not be a bunch of morons that travel through enemy and wartorn areas. If they get wrecked by a huge group of bandits then so be it. If they get ambushed by enemy lord fine, but they should not travel to the heart of the enemy teritorry simply to save some time instead of going around dangerous land.

 

[Midnitewolf]

I think there has be a balance stuck. Caravans should be a fairly safe investment because to be honest, workshops are always, so far at least, a safe investment. If the risk vs reward difference between the two is drastically different, people will just buy workshops and not use caravans.

One possible fix would be to actually make Caravans a high risk to reward situation. For example, you know 100% that at some point your caravan will get taken out, but you also know that if it makes it around to a few cities before it gets taken out, your going to make 10s of thousands of Denars and that more often than not, you are going to make double or triple what you invested. That removes them as being a "fire and forget" passive income source but gives you an incentive to risk the danger of running a caravan to make a huge profit in a relatively quick period of time.

What you can't have happening though is caravans constantly getting taken out in 1-2 days while returning only a couple thousand Denars if that.

 

[Midnitewolf]

Hmm...I mean, I get losing them to other factions when you are at war with them. Just like losing a workshop if a city gets sacked. I do think that your companions skill/level should allow them to lead larger caravan parties, or deal with random bandits without much concern.

I will also say that during a conflict, the caravan should be avoiding enemy territory. It always boggles my mind to so 10+ enemy caravans swarming all over my territory during a war. Immediately upon there being a conflict, caravans in enemy territory should be hightailing it out of that enemy territory and rerouting their paths to stay in friendly/neutral territory during the conflict.

As I mentioned earlier, caravans should be relatively safe most of the time unless caught in enemy territory at the beginning of a war. Only bigger, more organized bandit parties or enemy lords should really put them at risk and the biggest risk should be of accidentally being in enemy territory when a war breaks out. In fact enemy lords should immediately targeting enemy caravans in its territory and trying to take them out to weaken the enemy. Of course to make this all work, they would need to reduce the amount of wars happening all the time because they are way too frequent.

 

[Kipsta]

With the beta branch, i just wont create any caravan, just not worth it at all.

I've been running a caravan for >400 days.?

 

[Molay]

I voted they should get destroyed.

However I'd like to see it made much easier to start caravans back up.

How about, a few days after your caravan is destroyed (time to heal and find you), your companion comes back to you and initiates a conversation. In that conversation you get an option to pay 18k to restart caravan as it was, or you can decline.

That would be perfect for me.

 

[Panpek]

The whole economy is bonkers. Early game you're desperate for cash until you make your first caravan, then you can play until the endgame with the profit from that one caravan, and pretty much all of the quests become obsolete because of it. Caravans need to be further nerfed IMO. The massive dyeworks profit in warband was a bug, and the same system playing shouldn't be present in this game.

 

[derfuchs13]

Maybe a good comprimise would be to make them cheaper, low investment, high risk, high reward.

Right now in my game caravans are so fast i cant even even catch them with my army. (beta branch)