Hi,
I strongly believe a finance screen would help the player make better decisions about managing his clan, fiefs & holdings.
TL : DR (please post +1 if you want this feature)
CURRENT PROBLEM
The player lacks clear time-relative information about his spending and income - since these both vary daily, and in-game logs are not available.
Currently, the player has to mentally keep track of the value of his holdings (items in stash etc.), what previous expenses & incomes were like, and how much return he has seen on his caravan/workshop investments, and his approximate profits from trading.
PROPOSED SOLUTION
A master screen dedicated to Finances, like the clan, inventory, party screens..
This Finance screen gives you several types of tables or graphs to display. These include Balance Sheet, Income Sheet, Cash Flow Sheet, and can be toggled to display information from the last 7 days, 4 weeks, 3 months
In addition, the player can see the sheets for his parties (this will come in handy when evaluating the results of Clan / Party orders)
Moreover, the player can have a sheet that tracks trade Profit & Loss, and Looting income (by category of good sold). This will allow the player to better evaluate where they currently make the most money from, spend it on, how they could better manage it etc.
Finally, if this implementation seems too advantageous - the player can GAIN access to these THROUGH PERKS in the STEWARDSHIP and TRADE trees, which unlock more advanced methods of inspecting their finances / performance.
I strongly believe a finance screen would help the player make better decisions about managing his clan, fiefs & holdings.
TL : DR (please post +1 if you want this feature)
CURRENT PROBLEM
The player lacks clear time-relative information about his spending and income - since these both vary daily, and in-game logs are not available.
Currently, the player has to mentally keep track of the value of his holdings (items in stash etc.), what previous expenses & incomes were like, and how much return he has seen on his caravan/workshop investments, and his approximate profits from trading.
PROPOSED SOLUTION
A master screen dedicated to Finances, like the clan, inventory, party screens..
This Finance screen gives you several types of tables or graphs to display. These include Balance Sheet, Income Sheet, Cash Flow Sheet, and can be toggled to display information from the last 7 days, 4 weeks, 3 months
In addition, the player can see the sheets for his parties (this will come in handy when evaluating the results of Clan / Party orders)
Moreover, the player can have a sheet that tracks trade Profit & Loss, and Looting income (by category of good sold). This will allow the player to better evaluate where they currently make the most money from, spend it on, how they could better manage it etc.
Finally, if this implementation seems too advantageous - the player can GAIN access to these THROUGH PERKS in the STEWARDSHIP and TRADE trees, which unlock more advanced methods of inspecting their finances / performance.
Because Denars are at the heart of gameplay, the player should have more transparent information to complement their playstyle, such as your party wages and income over the last week, 2 weeks etc.
I know early in the game, I make errors by travelling too far to make profits by trading, and end up at a much smaller gain than I had anticipated.
Where to find the UI (2 options)
Either the UI would have its own interface/screen, just like Inventory, Party, Kingdom etc. I think this is the best implementation, because it allows to convey many types of information from a single click.
This means, you click Finance, you have several options / sheets you can toggle (similar to trade screen, sub types for goods, but instead for financial sheets) This way the play gets their snapshot of their finances.
Or the UI would fall under Clans -> Finance (next to other), and have several sub-tabs (like in the trade screen, to display different types of financial sheets).
In this screen, there should be a 'excel' type screen (but not excel looking at all of course).
Current implementation
Currently the Finance Tooltip shows up (an income statement sheet type), and it is just inconvenient to inspect, or to extract important information from quickly. It is in the all clan screens. It could stay there, but there should be an expanded version of it for sure (both are useful, but the current implementation has limitations).
For example, you can see your daily change, and individual income/expenses, but you cannot see your total incomes or expenses by category. I.E. Total Village income, Total Party Wages, Total Garrison Wages, Total Caravan Wages.
What should be included
Both Individual & Grouped incomes/expenses should be able to be seen, with group totals showing in bold and individuals in plain type.
Also, profit & loss (return on investment) should be shown - perhaps in the same tab, or another section of the UI.
For example, caravans cost 15-22.5K to buy, and sometimes return 5K when destroyed. They also earn money daily. Getting a handle on the returns from having 7 caravans (or trying to maintain 7 caravans as they get captured), is important information to have in the game.
There should be a total profit/loss for your caravan enterprise & for your workshop enterprise, as well as your total trades (only bought and sold goods, and for sold loot (in general categories, such as ranged, melee, horses, misc.) - so the player can understand where the are making money from, and where they could be making more from.
Time periods. By day (Showing 7 days) By week (showing 4 weeks worth), by month (showing 3-12 months worth), by year, all time.
Overall idea
Several financial sheets that conveys information to the player at several levels of granularity how they are earning/losing money, and which they can use to make decisions about how to manage their finances/clan/gameplay strategy & policies.
Having the ability to track certain incomes/expenses in player made categories is also a bonus (I.E. if the player wants to sort income/expenses by fief culture (therefore geographic area), he can understand also where raids are occurring).
Different sheets would display information from different time points, of the day, or the week, or the month.
Additionally, the play should have an annual statement with a graph to show their wealth over time (line chart), and which they can toggle various sources of income to display.
Examples of financial sheet in sub tabs
Misc
Looting & trade income
Financial sheets
1) Income statement
2) Cashflow statement
2) Balance Sheet - this would function by showing the value of items in inventory, and by town stash - calculated by the average value of each item (not what you could actually get by selling high/low), and it would show the workshop assets as well (since they can be sold)
3) Profit & Loss for trading
Income statement
I know early in the game, I make errors by travelling too far to make profits by trading, and end up at a much smaller gain than I had anticipated.
Where to find the UI (2 options)
Either the UI would have its own interface/screen, just like Inventory, Party, Kingdom etc. I think this is the best implementation, because it allows to convey many types of information from a single click.
This means, you click Finance, you have several options / sheets you can toggle (similar to trade screen, sub types for goods, but instead for financial sheets) This way the play gets their snapshot of their finances.
Or the UI would fall under Clans -> Finance (next to other), and have several sub-tabs (like in the trade screen, to display different types of financial sheets).
In this screen, there should be a 'excel' type screen (but not excel looking at all of course).
Current implementation
Currently the Finance Tooltip shows up (an income statement sheet type), and it is just inconvenient to inspect, or to extract important information from quickly. It is in the all clan screens. It could stay there, but there should be an expanded version of it for sure (both are useful, but the current implementation has limitations).
For example, you can see your daily change, and individual income/expenses, but you cannot see your total incomes or expenses by category. I.E. Total Village income, Total Party Wages, Total Garrison Wages, Total Caravan Wages.
What should be included
Both Individual & Grouped incomes/expenses should be able to be seen, with group totals showing in bold and individuals in plain type.
Also, profit & loss (return on investment) should be shown - perhaps in the same tab, or another section of the UI.
For example, caravans cost 15-22.5K to buy, and sometimes return 5K when destroyed. They also earn money daily. Getting a handle on the returns from having 7 caravans (or trying to maintain 7 caravans as they get captured), is important information to have in the game.
There should be a total profit/loss for your caravan enterprise & for your workshop enterprise, as well as your total trades (only bought and sold goods, and for sold loot (in general categories, such as ranged, melee, horses, misc.) - so the player can understand where the are making money from, and where they could be making more from.
Time periods. By day (Showing 7 days) By week (showing 4 weeks worth), by month (showing 3-12 months worth), by year, all time.
Overall idea
Several financial sheets that conveys information to the player at several levels of granularity how they are earning/losing money, and which they can use to make decisions about how to manage their finances/clan/gameplay strategy & policies.
Having the ability to track certain incomes/expenses in player made categories is also a bonus (I.E. if the player wants to sort income/expenses by fief culture (therefore geographic area), he can understand also where raids are occurring).
Different sheets would display information from different time points, of the day, or the week, or the month.
Additionally, the play should have an annual statement with a graph to show their wealth over time (line chart), and which they can toggle various sources of income to display.
Examples of financial sheet in sub tabs
Misc
Looting & trade income
| Looting income | Melee | Ranged | Horses | Misc |
| Trade income | ||||
| Total |
Financial sheets
1) Income statement
2) Cashflow statement
2) Balance Sheet - this would function by showing the value of items in inventory, and by town stash - calculated by the average value of each item (not what you could actually get by selling high/low), and it would show the workshop assets as well (since they can be sold)
3) Profit & Loss for trading
Income statement
| Income | Towns & Tariffs | Villages | Castles | Workshops | Caravan | Policy |
| " | (Specific Policy name +) | |||||
| Subtotal | ||||||
| Expenses | Party Wages | Paymens | Tributes | Policy | ||
| (Specific Policy Name -) | ||||||
| Subtotal | ||||||
| Total | Net +/- |
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