JayWalker
Regular
How much damage do you think we could do to a lord in our own faction, or a lord in another faction through economic sabotage without going to war? What methods do you think we could use to pull off these economic assaults? Say another lord has stepped on your toes and refused to apologise, how can you destroy him without open warfare?
So I can think of four target of economic sabotage
1 Productive enterprises. If they have them this seems like the most obvious and easiest target. Buy up all the raw input goods and sell them across the map somewhere for a profit or at least break even. This shouldn't cost anything but time and an initial investment. If you can buy enough of the input in warband the enterprise will run at a loss. I guess a longterm way of doing it would be to buy all the goods and stockpile them until you can run him out of business then you would replace his business with your own and you would have a huge stockpile for inventory for some good initial profits.
2 Trade. This one is harder. If he sends out trade caravans you could get them destroyed. Kiting a large group of bandits to them or somehow getting an enemy lord to destroy it seems difficult. Another possibility if you are not in a faction with your victim might be to build up a high enough relationship with his faction that destroying his caravan doesn't put you low enough to go to war with the faction. You would probably have to be careful with this one especially if you are wrecking caravans on the regular.
3 Taxes. From a village you might be able to kite bandits in to attack the peasants, seems hard. Or maybe you can find out what the town produces and try to flood the market by selling that good from across the map. If it is a good that is local though this might be costly. The goal is to destroy his income, not your own. Of course raiding the village is a dangerous option, and I don't know if it will be possible to raid a village without going to war with the local faction.
4 Soldiers and Battle loot. Killing off his soldiers and making him lose battles whether you are in them are not may not hurt his overall economy, but it can certainly make costs go up in the short term. I see this as a method as being a good idea after all his other income sources are taken out to start hurting his bankroll.
What do you guys think? Will true economic warfare be possible without starting an actual war or will you have to commit against an entire faction to cause any real damage? What other methods of economic attack can you think of that might be possible in the game?
So I can think of four target of economic sabotage
1 Productive enterprises. If they have them this seems like the most obvious and easiest target. Buy up all the raw input goods and sell them across the map somewhere for a profit or at least break even. This shouldn't cost anything but time and an initial investment. If you can buy enough of the input in warband the enterprise will run at a loss. I guess a longterm way of doing it would be to buy all the goods and stockpile them until you can run him out of business then you would replace his business with your own and you would have a huge stockpile for inventory for some good initial profits.
2 Trade. This one is harder. If he sends out trade caravans you could get them destroyed. Kiting a large group of bandits to them or somehow getting an enemy lord to destroy it seems difficult. Another possibility if you are not in a faction with your victim might be to build up a high enough relationship with his faction that destroying his caravan doesn't put you low enough to go to war with the faction. You would probably have to be careful with this one especially if you are wrecking caravans on the regular.
3 Taxes. From a village you might be able to kite bandits in to attack the peasants, seems hard. Or maybe you can find out what the town produces and try to flood the market by selling that good from across the map. If it is a good that is local though this might be costly. The goal is to destroy his income, not your own. Of course raiding the village is a dangerous option, and I don't know if it will be possible to raid a village without going to war with the local faction.
4 Soldiers and Battle loot. Killing off his soldiers and making him lose battles whether you are in them are not may not hurt his overall economy, but it can certainly make costs go up in the short term. I see this as a method as being a good idea after all his other income sources are taken out to start hurting his bankroll.
What do you guys think? Will true economic warfare be possible without starting an actual war or will you have to commit against an entire faction to cause any real damage? What other methods of economic attack can you think of that might be possible in the game?
