Caravans should be safe income source or not?

[mexxico]

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.

 

[Pejot]

There should be no such thing as safe income. And also i experienced my caravans destroyed by enemy Lords (Beta 1.1)

 

[mr_nifty]

They aren't completely safe at all, that's the thing. I feel they are in a pretty good place, risk- and safety-wise

 

[mexxico]

There should be no such thing as safe income. And also i experienced my caravans destroyed by enemy Lords (Beta 1.1)

Currently losing caravan is something very rare. Its like 10% in a year maybe. Thats why I assume current situation like safe income source.

 

[SmattlePattle]

Only if there's meaningful gameplay around it.

Will minor factions or otherwise demand a tariff to assure safety of my caravans? Can I defy them and risk more profits at the chance of attack?
Can I choose to heavily guard my caravans, making them safe/slow? Or can I run them on a skeleton crew and have cheap overhead but be an easy target?

Will Lords that hate me seek out my caravans? Will being honorable keep them safe?

Will they get wiped completely and need to be refounded from scratch? Will they just stop profiting for 1-2 weeks while they recover?

If its just basically an RNG mechanic to lose something I can interact with then that's kind of just aggravating. If I can make playstyle decisions around it then its fun and character defining.

 

[Pejot]

Currently losing caravan is something very rare. Its like 10% in a year maybe. Thats why I assume current situation like safe income source.

Then something is wrong cause when many enemy lords are beaten they end up with small parties and attack caravans. This way i had my caravans destroyed about 10 times just after creating them.

 

[CrazyGeorge]

I currently don't like the fact that you have to make one of your companions lead the caravan. Maybe if you had to employ a specific merchant company it would be more interesting. You could have ones that are more heavily armed and make less profit or companies that are more proficient traders but are more susceptible to attack.

 

[CrazyGeorge]

I currently don't like the fact that you have to make one of your companions lead the caravan. Maybe if you had to employ a specific merchant company it would be more interesting. You could have ones that are more heavily armed and make less profit or companies that are more proficient traders but are more susceptible to attack.

You could also add an insurance system to protect against any unforeseen circumstances but eat into your profits.

 

[CrazyGeorge]

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

If you want to make bandits attack caravans you could add an ambushing system where parties can enter ambushing mode which make them possibly invisible if you lack scouting skill. Having light horse units allow you to spot possible ambushes too.

 

[CrazyGeorge]

If you want to make bandits attack caravans you could add an ambushing system where parties can enter ambushing mode which make them possibly invisible if you lack scouting skill. Having light horse units allow you to spot possible ambushes too.

One thing to add which I just thought of is that caravans don't really give you much in the form of wealth when you attack them as the player. You get more wealth off of prisoners and armour/weapons than actual trade goods.

 

[CrazyGeorge]

If you want to make bandits attack caravans you could add an ambushing system where parties can enter ambushing mode which make them possibly invisible if you lack scouting skill. Having light horse units allow you to spot possible ambushes too.

Just simply slowing them down would eat their profits up too because they're slower walking from town to town as well as make them more vulnerable.

 

[Chuma180]

Just create a minor Merchant faction, so we can interact with it like organize special Trade Routs, Caravan Guards and Goods and make it optional if you want to use your Companions or not if you do so it should provide you bonuses to make it more attractive so like someone with good Trade Traits gives a Bonus to Gold income and a Companion with good Martial Skills improves the secutity of the Caravan.

 

[Ragemaster9999]

Having your caravans randomly get destroyed would be very annoying considering their expensive initial investment. If there are meaningful gameplay decisions and consequences around it, sure, I could get behind the idea. The player has better things to do then follow their caravan around all day protecting it.

 

[CrazyGeorge]

Just create a minor Merchant faction, so we can interact with it like organize special Trade Routs, Caravan Guards and Goods and make it optional if you want to use your Companions or not if you do so it should provide you bonuses to make it more attractive so like someone with good Trade Traits gives a Bonus to Gold income and a Companion with good Martial Skills improves the secutity of the Caravan.

Yeah I like that idea if I could put focus points into my companions more reliably and their trade would actually rank up.

 

[Wolfsblut]

Having your caravans randomly get destroyed would be very annoying considering their expensive initial investment. If there are meaningful gameplay decisions and consequences around it, sure, I could get behind the idea. The player has better things to do then follow their caravan around all day protecting it.

Indeed.

Everyone who is voting for that they should get destroyed will experience that exactly 2-3 times and then will do what everyone will do:
don't use caravans anymore, because you lose 15.000 cash on it.

Anyway, after ****ing up my evening for 1 hour and 1 ingame season now on getting the only trader-wanderer for my caravan which is bugged/not existent/wrongly displayed i punch the game out for today <.<

 

[Woopzilla]

I would only say NO (not safe) if re-creating the caravan can be done through the clan screen. I find it very tedious to visit cities all over the map to recollect lost companions from Caravans that were killed.

Also, the money management of the game shouldn't be too involved... in the late game people just want to have big battles and sieges and not worry about counting pennies. The only time money should become an issue is if Elite units start accounting for more than 50% of your army (E.g the OP Battanian Fian Champ spam should become extremely expensive).

But losing 15K gold to RNG like others have stated will lead to a lot of rage and whining on the forums. Don't fix what isn't broken... this is a fun 'big battle RPG' singleplayer game, not a hardcore 4X game. The AI's campaign movement is also still the same as in Warband (it always tries the shortest route over and over until the path is clear), it never tries to find alternative routes and gets itself killed quite easily... just like the Lords are getting themselves captured by bandits all the time. It's current speed and their numbers are very necessary.

 

[Karl_Magnus]

@mexxico
Let us create caravans anywhere, like a party and prepare it for trading with horses we bought ourselves and protect it with our own troops. This way, we can't have caravans too soon (unless we want to give it weak troops and/or be vulnerable ourself), it won't cost as much if we want to create it early, but won't give so much money right when it starts making profits and there will be a progression to the size of the caravan, more controlled by the player.

We could also ask the caravan to trade only in specific towns for specific products and be able to use them to export our workshops production.

make it optional if you want to use your Companions or not if you do so it should provide you bonuses to make it more attractive so like someone with good Trade Traits gives a Bonus to Gold income and a Companion with good Martial Skills improves the secutity of the Caravan

That should also be a thing.

 

[MBeagleguy]

@mexxico
Let us create caravans anywhere, like a party and prepare it for trading with horses we bought ourselves and protect it with our own troops. This way, we can't have caravans too soon (unless we want to give it weak troops and/or be vulnerable ourself), it won't cost as much if we want to create it early, but won't give so much money right when it starts making profits and there will be a progression to the size of the caravan, more controlled by the player.

We could also ask the caravan to trade only in specific towns for specific products and be able to use them to export our workshops production.


That should also be a thing.

Agree, I want my horses to be merchants! lol

On a serious note, I do agree that Caravans do seem a bit OP with how fast they are, but I've never used Caravans because they never seemed profitable. Perhaps I'll test Caravans and see if it's feasible. It's also interesting that some are mentioning that their Caravans get attacked.

 

[Karl_Magnus]

Agree, I want my horses to be merchants!

What... I mean, there are troops escorting pack animals. But yeah, I guess there should be an actual trader with the caravan, so maybe not being able to create a caravan anywhere if you're not going to use a companion.

I've never used Caravans because they never seemed profitable.

They're at least twice as profitable than workshops are. At least. They take a while before giving a profit, like 2 to 5 days, but after that they will pay themselves back quick.

 

[Ragemaster9999]

@mexxico
Let us create caravans anywhere, like a party and prepare it for trading with horses we bought ourselves and protect it with our own troops. This way, we can't have caravans too soon (unless we want to give it weak troops and/or be vulnerable ourself), it won't cost as much if we want to create it early, but won't give so much money right when it starts making profits and there will be a progression to the size of the caravan, more controlled by the player.

We could also ask the caravan to trade only in specific towns for specific products and be able to use them to export our workshops production.


That should also be a thing.

Now this is a good idea! Also deep in the games code there are references to player operated caravans and dialogue lines suggesting a deeper more complex caravan system was either in the works at one time or might have been shelved for now with possibility of adding in the future. Considering the experience tooltip for trade says operate caravans ... not manage caravans, I'm willing to make an educated guess there are more planned features coming to caravan than currently exists.