I think that the big problem with income is that You don't have to choose one but rather You are forced to use all of them.
AI has only one source of income while player has multiple sources so we can either allow AI to have multiple sources or raise income but lock it behind certain conditions.
1. Caravans and workshops should be tied to trade skill instead of renown and made unlockable via lvl of skill or even special perks. This will allow to raise the income but it will also require the player to become a good trader (high skill) in order to profit from this. It will allow to have pure merchant playthrough.
2. Loot should be closely tied to rogue skill and additional party role for rogue skill should be introduced. So on 0 rogue loot should be minimal and not allowing to make decent profit. The higher the player or companion skill the more one can get out of loot.
3. Fief income should be raised allowing AI to have a decent army without worrying about anything else than keeping his fiefs safe. It will help the AI and allow to play pure lord/fief owner playthrough without forcing us to have more income sources.
4. Mercenary contract should be more profitable to allow keeping average party while being contracted and not forcing us to find as many additional things to do as possible.
All of this changes should allow us to have a profit for sustaining party but except high merchant skill it shouldn't give too big profit. So if we wwant to gather money to buy something than we need to take some activities like quests, raids and battles but if we are not interested in gathering a lot of money than we should be able to sustain our party just out of stable income.
AI has only one source of income while player has multiple sources so we can either allow AI to have multiple sources or raise income but lock it behind certain conditions.
1. Caravans and workshops should be tied to trade skill instead of renown and made unlockable via lvl of skill or even special perks. This will allow to raise the income but it will also require the player to become a good trader (high skill) in order to profit from this. It will allow to have pure merchant playthrough.
2. Loot should be closely tied to rogue skill and additional party role for rogue skill should be introduced. So on 0 rogue loot should be minimal and not allowing to make decent profit. The higher the player or companion skill the more one can get out of loot.
3. Fief income should be raised allowing AI to have a decent army without worrying about anything else than keeping his fiefs safe. It will help the AI and allow to play pure lord/fief owner playthrough without forcing us to have more income sources.
4. Mercenary contract should be more profitable to allow keeping average party while being contracted and not forcing us to find as many additional things to do as possible.
All of this changes should allow us to have a profit for sustaining party but except high merchant skill it shouldn't give too big profit. So if we wwant to gather money to buy something than we need to take some activities like quests, raids and battles but if we are not interested in gathering a lot of money than we should be able to sustain our party just out of stable income.
