Ok so after some break from BL I've played again on 1.5.5 and economy is still in not in shape.
I will separate it in 3 groups: Loot, Settlments, Trade.
1. Loot
In 1.5.5 still the main and must have income source. Even Fighting looters can easly give tons of money. What i would change is to reduce the amount of loot and convert it to party wage reduction after battle won (% based on the size of battle and enemies killed/captured). I would leave only trade goods and gold for player to loot.
2. Settlements
Income from taxes is still the worst source of money. Owning land gives a lot of troubles and cannot even equal the cost of medium class garrison. Settlements are easy to besiege/raid while they are hard to defend if You cannot bring army with You. And if You have big party it's hard to catch small lord parties raiding Your villages. Of course we need to separate here owning a City and owning a Castle cause owning a good city can cover the garrison wages and give some funny profit but Castles are totaly useless and not worth having them. They give no benefits and have no real use in the map or to the owner.
This should be something that everybody aims for. Owning Your own land and it should be able to sustain at least a decent garrison and one party and in case of cities a garrison and 2-3 parties. Also Castles shoul get some use cause right now they are just a marker to own villages and a costly marker. Either remove them and just let players and AI own single Villages or add some worth to them like patrols, tarrifs for going near them or maybe make them into smaller versions of cities with some business around and market.
3. Trade (this includes owning caravans and worksops)
Trade itself (running around buying cheaper selling high) almost doesn't exist. Trade rumors are totally fake. And most prices are flat around the world so there are almost none trade routes that will give more profit thean the cost of troops upkeep.
Workshops and Caravans are something i focused on and tested a little and below are the results.:
Caravan in:
10 years running around (never destroyed)
Attacked 2 times and won both battles
Never made profit bigger than 500 (350 on average)
10 years gave around 420 000 profit
In Comparison brewery in Pravend
10 years without any risks
gives 600 profit on average (1000 max)
10 years gave around 720 000 profit
Initial investemnt on Caravan 22500
Initial investemnt on Brewery 14000
Caravan total profit 397 500
Brewery total profit 706 000
Workshop gave 308 500 profit more than caravan.
There were other workshops that I have that made more profit but i chose Brewery as I think it is most balanced right now.
In conclusion Caravan that should give me more profit but with higher risks gave me a lot less profit with risk still included (i was lucky it wasn't detroyed cause second Caravan was destroyed 4 times)
I'm totally ok with the amount of profit that workshops give but Caravans are really bad now and totally not worth it.
So basically game is only about fighting and selling junk.
@mexxico
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