Great game! but economics make no sense

[andrega]

Great game, love it! First of all because it's medieval and not fantasy. No travelling circuses running around, with gnomes, elves, or bearded ladies(female dwarves) These flashy magic shows had made me give up RPG games all together, so what a pleasant surprise this was. And no depressive dark "evil" gravediggers either

See the makers of this game has understood the concepts of lordship, knighthood, and chivalry to, that is taking what is rightly yours, gain glory in tournament and battle, and watching over the peasantry to ensure they work the land Even though this "herding the serfs" quest is very tidious and annoying (they run so fast!!), I just have to do them, just to fulfill the knightly obligations and stay "in character".

So salute! To the creators of this game, it's the game I my self would have made, if I had the wits and skill to do it
So having said that, I want' to make a few suggestions, and I'm probably not alone, but haven't found anyone else in this forum, pointing out exactly the same things.

Raiding for cattle is to lucrative, you get more from that, than from the taxes of your fief. Being a lord should be the most lucrative "job" in the game, except from perhaps merchants. Went into the cattle raiding business in the start of the game, and quickly made enough money to maintain the best force in all Calradia, I even had AI behavoir and realistic damage to me and allies at max, + 100 battle size, so I played at the hardest difficulty possible. Hired merceneries at 3. level, and killed bands of looters, so I gained levels quickly. Can't have any rivals

i also personally think it's to many different food items in the game, compared to other stuff, except weapons. Why not add more luxuries instead, more fine cloth, perhaps dyed cloth, jewelry, family heirlooms, I don't know, It's fine at start, but all the cheese, apples and cabbage get's a little boring after a while. And why do the weapons and arms merchants sell broken spears and battered shields?

The herding stuff is boring, and something I soon get tired of, cattle is not lordly buisness after all(since my character has gained three castles now) and the serfs run to fast anyway so I have given up that.

Was by the way dissapointed when i found out that, I couldn't steal the cattle from the guildmaster, even though some 100 cattle would have been to much cash. Also I would had to kept the herd with me for a long time, since I only can sell 1-3 slaughtered herds in each city. I would most likely grown tired of them pretty soon, and let them run of to the Khergits or something. But what a long campaign I could have had against my enemies, whit a lot of mercaneries to fill my ranks.

So mini games like herding cattle or serfs, can't really understand it anymore.... Should have been solved by some other easier method.

Other quests.... doing stuff for lords or guildmasters is great in the beginning, but should reflect the character's own status later in the game, I can't run around delivering letters or hunt down criminals anymore, I'm past that.. more plotting like "attack caravan to create a war" or serve my king instead. I mean i have nearly 700 renown now.(gained 150-200 in a short time when I rebelled against my king for not letting me have any castles I took, alone!!!, but I he was wise to let me keep the ones I have now so I went back to serve him) I has no choice, or else his kingdom will fall.

So of all mini games that wasn't there, THE HUNT (could even fix in some hunting accidents in it??) And could my seargent in the castle arrest anyone?(thought I could finally get rid of a rival lord there ) and what about that slave trader in Thir, could I let him have some of the lords i capture, so that they could go on a longer vacation at sea?

But as I said It's a great game, and plenty of stuff to build on, but economics should be more realistic, fiefs should give much more revenue (or everything else should pay of less). Weapons and armour cost to much compared to eg. spice/velvet, or tapestries.

And especially when a ransom for a king is about 12000, but his armour is worth three times more??? Game balance can be kept without having to sacrifice all realism. And a few peasant rebellions in the villages could appear instead of bandits raiding it, some of the time. I hope a sequel comes out, and one after that, plus expansions, yes I want it all for this game

 

[holydave]

I agree, the quests are menial at best, and the only real way to make money as a Lord is to wait around a bit and then ride to your numerous fiefs collecting taxes. I'm often forced to start the game again once I "win" to aspire to become that Aragorn-style ranger type that I wanted to be all along. At least it's more fun than sitting around and occasionally thwacking the odd party of looters.

P.S, would it be possible for a mod to add 'Aragorn' to the spell check? I sincerely doubt I'll be the last one to type it.

 

[andrega]

Just to make it a little clearer what I meant about was seems to be the problem about economics of this game. In the beginning it seems that a load of fresh beef gives you about 80-90 gold, but later the prices goes up, and I was getting nearly 300 gold per load in some cities. Especially in the cities of the Nord kingdom.

You get two loads of beef from each cattle herd you slaughter, and when you plunder a village it often turns out they have a herd of cattle of mostly 2-3 herds, but sometimes even as many as 7. This is of course in addition to all the other goods you get from plundering the village, which when soled would get you a total of 3000-4000 gold. Then add the herds of cattle and you easily get about 5000-6000 gold for each little village you plunder.

The village prosperity seems to have little to do with the amount of goods they have in store, only the amount of hard cash you get before you get to the goods. They have a lot of luxuries like velvet, spice, tools, fur, iron, linen ready for me every time i come for a visit. So i just plundered the same villages over and over again, and if I wasn't plundering the village some other lord was. I just plundered villages close to the border, so I did not risk myself to go deep into enemy territory, so there was no real challenge doing it either. Often the lord staying at the nearby castle didn't even bother to come out and protect his village. And by plundering the same villages I also could avoid being enemy with every village, so that I still could get fresh recruits.

I was of course playing a ruthless bastard, and some of my companions left me. But then when I finally got hold of castle, with a nearby village that I had earlier plundered two or three times, so they hated me. Of course I loved it, since that suited my character's role perfect that his people hated him. Even more so because I my first castle was by the way Senuzgda castle, the place were all the forest bandits are, so he was kind of like the Sheriff of Nottingham character in Robin Hood. To bad there was no Robin Hood or some peasant hero to torment me. It would have had so much fun

But the fief didn't produce any revenue compared to what he earned as a plundering mercenary captain, so the fief turned out to be possible economical disaster for this character. I had to station some 70-80 troops there, to avoid it being sieged by  enemies of the kingdom. And they were not very costly, mostly turncoat forest bandits, crossbow men, and some footmen.
But I still was running an almost 100% plunder economy! I had to force those poor peasants in my village to turn over some of their goods to make it even worth a while. So I wonder how do the good guys even make it? Can't have many troops, and have to retreat from almost every battle. Or do as you say, be that Aragorn type character, and really take your time before becoming lord of some place.

By the way the AI behaviour is also a flaw in game, or at least It's what I personally think. The AI consider the number of troops as the main factor for which castle he wants to siege, thats why any faction, especially those crazy khergits with their increased movement, could suddenly be found holding any castle anywhere. The Khergits increased movement keeps them from being caught up with when roaming around, so in the end they end up in some secluded place, like Radoghir castle, completely on the other side of the kingdom they are at war with?

But what irritates me most is that the arms merchant sells rusty swords and battered shields. And to say it one more time, yes the quests are after a while somewhat meaningless. I've looked into the files, and it seems that the quests are given to you when you reach a certain level, but it seems that it's nothing that keeps you from not getting them at high levels. Personally I think renown would be more a more appropriate factor to consider instead of levels, or at least together with level.

But, as I said, when I suddenly found my character being very similar to the Sheriff in Nottingham, as he was hunting forest bandits around Senuzgda castle, I just had to admit I have never loved any character more. He even looked like he could be a version of him, since he had this stupid "bowl" haircut, and well trimmed beard and mustache, and a bit round faced, since he had about max on cheeks, and almost no cheek bones. Gee I love this game, and that it seems to be a lot of mods being made for it as well.

 

[Acanthoid]

Yarr the quests are a bit off. There should be more quests of different types according to your level and your renown. And the quest rewards are too small compared to what you get from some sea raiders or such.

And about money making on good characters; most of my money used to come from sea raider parties (700 for battle and 1500-2000 for loot) and tournament winnings. It used to be enough but isn't anymore. My wages are 6700 per week and that has forced me to go raid villages. Which isn't that big of a deal, but because my party is so small (only all the heroes) the peasants always want to fight me and we end up killing 60 peasants before we can burn and pillage the villlage. This lowers my reputation to -100 with that village. Perhaps I should have kept my castle troops as recruits to cut the costs, but it's too late now. Not that I use them ever anyway, the enemies never attack the castles.

 

[TheMageLord]

The super high beef prices is caused by the scarcity of cows, due to a flawed trigger that kills them off faster than it creates them. I made a tweak to change it, but I'm not sure what the best values would be - the current ones I have set made them TOO plentiful, and it quickly drove beef prices down to 50 in all the cities.

The towns and such do have kinda low incomes compared to the prices of everything. They get more if caravans (or villagers in the case of villages) make it to the town unmolested, though. Although that part is kind of flawed too - some places bandits spawn so quickly that you just can't protect your villagers unless you stand on guard duty 24/7, and other places bandits are rare and the villagers roam mostly unmolested.

 

[F50]

Sometimes the cattle will go down fast enough as to become a very high positive number where you can get lots of cattle cheap.

 

[wodzu]

what really makes me irritated, is that even looted fief still will pay the tax
if it had been looted, there should be no tax or just a small part of it (or if it is already like this make it even less, because i haven't noticed so far), so there would be a reason to defend it

also they should have no recruits, no food and no merch untill they trade with other settlements

 

[DamienZharkoff]

what really makes me irritated, is that even looted fief still will pay the tax
if it had been looted, there should be no tax or just a small part of it (or if it is already like this make it even less, because i haven't noticed so far), so there would be a reason to defend it

also they should have no recruits, no food and no merch untill they trade with other settlements

Why no merch or Recruits? They didn't slaughter everyone in the village so I am sure some of the younger lads would be willing to get some much wanted revenge. And I never take all the merchandise, why should I expect the AI to all the time? Also, taxes aren't by choice. Ungoverned tax has always been big. Its one of the big reasons why the Colonials in America became their own independant nation, because of the british taxing them to death. "Hey, what's that?" "Oh, it's a rare artifact I found digging in India" "Oh... well the King made a Rare Indian Artifact tax 5 seconds ago. Going to have to take that from you, company rules"

But the tax thing falls into another thread that went into also giving your people tax breaks to up their liking of you.

 

[andrega]

Yes, there is very rare historical examples, were there were no survivors after a sack of a settlement. The mongols, and the romans, deliberately did that on some occasions, even trying to wipe out the rats as well. “He said kill every living being, didn’t he? And with being, did he mean just humans, or are animals considered beings as well” “I’m not sure, better not piss him off, ask the priests if beings include animals or not, then we will proceed”

No taxes aren’t by choice, I agree. But there was no fixed taxes in the same way as we think of today. Like there was in the British Empire, or in it’s colonies. There was a great deal of peasant rebellions in medieval Europe, like the Wat Tyler’s rebellion in southern England, caused by the hardships of their life, stirred up by religious fanatics. And unlike the rebel colonists in America, these people were literally taxed to death.

A village in the feudal system, was considered the personal property of it’s feudal lord(or to be exact the King), and the lord had a record of  almost everything in it that had any value. Anyone owning anything, was really just holding, or lending, it for his feudal lord, who in turn was holding it for his feudal Lord, and if that feudal lord was the King himself, he was a greater lord.

But not just property, every man and woman, the nobles to, was technically owned by the King. Or more correctly held to a contract, which is called homage. So since everyone is just holding, or lending, stuff from their King, or from one of his chosen men, they have to pay some rent on it.

The only exception, were many people lived as free men, was in the early medieval/dark ages period of norse controlled areas. The Danes and the Norwegians (I'm Norwegian), gave the english the idea of people's assemblies(democracy), the Things, or what the english and french called Pairlament. The Swedes influenced eastern Europe, consider the Republic of Novgorod for example. We also happen to have the best democracies today also, by using proportional representation, unlike the pseudo democracies of e.g. Britain and the US, with their two party systems. "We got 30% percent of the vote, and 50% of the seats in pairlament, so we will not reform the election system by enacting the "proportional system", as we earlier promised the Liberal Party, because since we have a majority now, we don't need their support after all" Democracy, as we call it, brought to you by the Labour Party. Thinking of the US, and how some people there think the British system is more fair, how bad is it not over there. But at least the Americans, like the Chinese, can choose which candidate, within their Party, will stand for election. 


So if a villager borrows his local lord’s stream, for example, to fish in, he have to pay some of that fish in rent. If he grow a crop, he has to give a part of that crop, as a payment for his loan. So to make things easier, they created contracts, life term loans if you will, like serfdom. And the serfs, being so poor, paid some of their dues in labour, working the land three days a week, for example. On the top of the commoner’s ladder(except from the burghers living in cities, which is something completely different) was the villeins(probably a bad character, causing a lot of mischief ), who had the privelige of renting larger plots of land from their lord.

So my point is, when you plunder a village and kill some of it’s inhabitants, you are stealing from the Lord, who owns that village, so it could be considered, as the same thing as stealing from his own home. The lord has a record of everything, so he has to note what of the things he owns are missing. Which gives the Lord less stuff to lend out, and has to live by the fact that he will collect less revenue because of it. That’s why it would be reasonable that a fief will give of less revenue, after it’s plundered. He could on the other hand, try and accuse the peasants that it's their fault these valuables were lost, since they were in their safekeeping, but then it's also the Lord's obligation to give protection, and not the peasants so it would be a hard case to argue.

It’s also noted, by the way, in the Domesday Book, that after William I’s harassing of the North the land values in northern England fell by 25% between 1066-1086, so even though William didn’t like the people up there, he would expect less revenue from them.

 

[wodzu]

hm yes you are right, i went too far with recruits maybe, but goods and denars should be limited to one fourth or something like that
also would be fun if settlements had population (doesn't have to be exact number, but few degrees like small/med/big/overcrowded would give different number of recruits; fiefs with low prosperity and raided too often would have smaller population etc)

anyway the main idea is to make lords defend their fiefs, so if they won't - they will suffer with lower income and fewer recruits


and btw, if lord with trainer skill stays in garrison, garrisoned units should train along with soldiers in party, so all of them can gain experience


and one more thing - upgrading units should cost denars, they change equipment, sometimes they get a horse, etc
this should cost imo, even if they get more denars after upgrading every week

 

[andrega]

I agree, when it’s stolen it’s gone. The lord can hang, or maim, as many peasants as he like, and still get nothing. Population, especially the towns/cities I think should have more detail. Or maybe a third type of settlement, something in between, the towns/cities and the villages. A small walled town or something. I also want to have the opportunity to sack those towns/cities, after I have taken it. That should be a real prize to take.

Cost for upgrading isn’t high up on my list, but make sense. About recruits, the whole system of upgrading is actually really unrealistic, in a medieval sense. Medieval knights didn’t start of as wretched peasants. In the medieval world, there was a rigid class system. The word gentleman, come from the same latin root as the modern word gene, which means literally someone who is well born, so your class was literally in your genes. But that not so important in this game. If it were to be taken into consideration, the whole upgrading system would have to be taken out.

But, as you say it would be a lot easier if you could train all your units in the garrison, at the same time, without having to transfer back and forth from your party rooster. Also you should be able to leave your companions in your castle.

I want to able to assign my forces into task forces, instead of having all infantry in one group and all the archers in another. So that I can have a personal bodyguard to follow me, while some cavalry charge e.g the flank, some archers here and some archers there.

A great addition would be retainers and officals.
Seneschal/Steward – your right hand official, manage stuff, don’t know what he could do in the game, perhaps he could collect your taxes.
Steward/Chamberlain – Inventory management, it should be a party skill, not a leader skill
Bailiff/Castellan – a commander of your castle, would be great if you could assign some troops to him and let him patrol around it. If every AI castle had such a patrol force, this force could rush to defend the associated village. And if the Lord was there as well, plundering would be more of challenge.
Constable – Cavalry commander, could also patrol, instead of the castellan, or be the most powerful knight you have in your army
Marshal – Infantry commander, could train troops.. or something above seargent, which there also was only one of.
Master of Archers/Master of Crossbowmen-
My own squire/huscarl – follows me every where on the battle field, only to protect and rescue me, perhaps give me a new horse or shield something, would be the best companion to have. A mobile war chest if you will.

 

[DamienZharkoff]

Well again, read the after pillage text. This nations politics seems to cause destruction and fear, not death.