SP - Economy Poll: In the end balance state of the game, how much income should be passive vs. active?

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TheShermanator

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I should start off right away with 2-3 premises.

1) This is a super complex game, with tons of mutually interactive currencies, player choice cost/benefit outputs measured in those currencies, and other variables.
2) The complexity of the game is a testament to the extraordinary ambition of the devs.
3) So much of the game balancing choices to be made are still to come - based on simple balance adjustments for existing features, re-balances based on new features, etc., etc. that it is not super useful to look at any one number in the game currently (e.g. average daily income per workshop, per wood workshop, per fief / fief prosperity, etc., etc.).

Given the above, it may not be very useful to offer too much specific feedback on too many details currently in the game. But big picture questions - like active vs passive income distribution balance - will be with us all the way through every patch and every re-balance.

So, the question: When the dusts settles on the final patch of the game, theoretically, where do you think the distribution between passive income vs. active income sources should be? Or, given that different players play differently: How easy do you think it should be to secure a large proportion of your income via passive sources vs. active sources?

Edit: Terms defined:
Passive income = average daily caravan income, workshop income, tax income as it relates to the specs of each unique town (prosperity, improvements, other modifiers), and whatever else I'm forgetting in this vein - ways to make income simply through the passage of time measured in game days.

Active income = $ over time from selling loot, ransoming prisoners, smithing gear sales, and trade profits (and whatever else I'm forgetting).

Gold sinks = useful and interesting things on which to spend your income.

(And of course, comments on 'how' and 'why' you answered the way you did are welcome.)
 
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I think that passive income should be the main way for players to get money. Fief taxes should be far greater than enterprise or caravan income. There really needs to be a greater distinction between lords and commoners, and wealth is obviously the biggest difference.
And I'd generally prefer there to be fewer "gold sinks". The only really big gold sink should be maintaining armies. Wars should be super expensive and debt inducing. (which would alleviate the tendency for war)
 
I'd quite like to see more player input into the so-called "passive" income - so that if you want to concentrate on being a trader, say, there would be some minor management options that allow you to get more money out of your businesses and caravans, rather than just buying them and that's it.
And with fiefs, maybe some more detailed options for governing them that affect tax yields.
I don't think passive income should necessarily be entirely passive, that is.
And I don't like the idea of gold sinks for their own sake: the economy just needs to work properly so that it's balanced - things that you're doing anyway, like waging war and maintaining your properties, should be expensive enough for you not to need artificial "sinks".
 
I'd quite like to see more player input into the so-called "passive" income - so that if you want to concentrate on being a trader, say, there would be some minor management options that allow you to get more money out of your businesses and caravans, rather than just buying them and that's it.
And with fiefs, maybe some more detailed options for governing them that affect tax yields.
I don't think passive income should necessarily be entirely passive, that is.
And I don't like the idea of gold sinks for their own sake: the economy just needs to work properly so that it's balanced - things that you're doing anyway, like waging war and maintaining your properties, should be expensive enough for you not to need artificial "sinks".

Re: "Sinks" - For sure. Semantics might be an issue vs. substance. When I say sink, I don't mean artificial or silly thing like a really expensive feathered version of the same max tier helmet or something. I mean useful, valuable things. e.g. I think higher tier troops should be more expensive in terms of both recruitment and upkeep costs.
 
I agree with the majority here. You should not be able to stack up on hundreds of thousands while your army wages are not higher than a couple thousands a day.



But disagree with is the ridiculous amount of gold end game equipment costs. It should be difficult to obtain, right, maybe though quests or having it made by someone but it should not be the main gold sink of the game.
 
Funny thing - trying to hire a lord with only 114 troops (like a minor one) after successfully passing the questions/answers step, I have tried to use auto-calculation to make him a final offer - he requested 2.8 million denars!
Just for fun I accepted the offer (had about 2.85 million on me) and do you know what happened next? He just left my kingdom in less than a week! Fortunately I didn’t have enough time to give him any castle or town (the inability of a “king” simply transfer part of his property to vassals is another HUGE issue, I believe. The “king” shall be called “a can leader”, but not a “king” if his abilities are so limited.
But the monetary system is completely broken at the moment, as well as many other things like perks, property management system, war/peace declarations from other kingdoms, item prices
 
I feel like the current patch gutted economy to a huge degree, making it impossible to be anything other than a bottom tier bandit hunter running down looters and sea raiders. I'd love to see a way to balance player economy around being able to maintain a retinue of troops or a few parties through passive income, with active income like the spoils of war being a way for the player to truly get ahead.

Definitely some gold sinks as well, like if you could invest into a town or hire talented craftsmen to give you access to better gear in shops or hire press gangs to up recruitment and drillmasters to provide passive exp to garrisons. Maybe a way to increase influence by donating to your kingdom or good old fashioned buying gifts to increase relations with lords?
 
Useful poll! But I hope that Bannerlord will not try to retrain the audience of video games in understanding the economy, but simply will find ways and functionality for more convenient and affordable use of active income.
 
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I'm gonna detail my votes:

  1. Player should rely more on securing source of passive income, less on passive income, and should he lower/harder to secure
The key word here is securing, it's far too easy to gang upon some looters, smelt everything and smith à 200 difficulty 2H sword that sell to 15k, then buying a workshop with the fund. Despite it being the more efficient, it's lackluster and unbalanced.

I'll not talking about specific workshop balanced but i think that the passive income goal should be somethink like :

20% Workshop/Caravan ; 20% Mercenary contract/King's help ; 60% Fief. (Not talking about merchant playthrough, i never did that)

Not sure about mercenary contract being really passive tho

2. In addition there should be more gold sink​
I really can't stand having 1m+ gold and not having anything to do with it. However this is compared the present state of the game, and if passive income become lower/harder to secure gold sink will be less needed.

I would not really need "gold sink" but i would like more thing to do with gold than speeding construction and buying equipement. Stuff like hiring city patrol against looters, boosting recruitement so you would have more noble recruits/better trained one available in your settlement.

A thread with those kind of suggestion would be nice.

@TheShermanator when you feel like the poll had enough feedback, you're welcome to start a thread with suggestion about how to do the final result :p
 
Most income should be passive eg: taxes from fiefs, workshops, caravans tax income should be such that any town or castle should be able to provide a basic garrison a bandit patrol and supplies. Active income like loot should be icing on the cake as in it is not needed to provide basic supplies and basic armies but can be used to buy extras.

There can be loads of gold sinks from decorating the Lords hall ( I want a big expensive throne for my capital and a trophy room a million or two for each would not seem excessive ) to buying fancy flags for your castles to buying expensive equipment for your armies.

I think basic armies and wages should be cheap but outfitting them with heavy armour, warhorses and really good weapons should be extremely expensive.

Everyone should be able to afford a basic army, basic weapons should be cheap 50 for a begining sword, shield or bow the type militia get
but there should be expensive war toys to spend mopney on that only the truly rich can afford.

There will of course be middle range stuff but an example of high end stuff could be....

5k for a high end warhorse 10 k for heavy horse armour and 10k to equip a soldier with top tier heavy armour 2k + for top end weapons and shields
Heavy armour should get a large buff against ranged to compensate for the price I'd also give top end archers a precision and a damage buff against un armoured and more arrows to compensate for their expensive bows.
If the soldier dies and you win you get the armour back to put on another soldier, if the horse dies its dead buy a new one or he fights as a footman.

Castles should get extremely expensive but effective add ons eg: metal portcullis 250k prevents attacking through the front door it isnt revealed till they waste time knocking down the gate

A moat with a drawbridge 2million makes the enemy either have to fill in the moat under fire before attacking ( takes an extra week and inflicts a few hundred casualties) or use very expensive seige towers

Dedicated crossbow seige companies 500k max of 2 per castle ( 50 armoured heavy crossbowmen trained in defensive seige warfare with stocks of ammo - pop out shoot, get under cover to reload, gauranteed to take a heavy toll on the enemy and be resistant to return arrow fire. They will be stationed on a particular part of the castle they can be ai scripted to be much more efficient than normal troops as they wont leave their assigned post. They of course must be garrisoned in the castle before its attacked but they have their own seperate provisions so dont starve with a garrison )

Dedicated defense engineers companies 500k max of 2 per castle ( 50 armoured seige defence engineers who use catapults, boiling oil etc properly to defend a castle not the haphazard way that normal troops use why rely on amatuers call in professionals, as all they do is defend specific parts of a castle they can be properly ai scripted to be much more efficient than normal garrison troops)

Ladders are free but if you want a siege tower or a battering ram 5k each if lvl1. 20k if lvl 2. 40 k if lvl 3 the castles got a moat ? siege towers for that are 250k each. Sieging a castle should cost time men and money.
 
I think that passive income / infinite money in the lategame Isn't necessarily a bad thing, and it helps with an issue in games with nonlinear pacing: it's impossible to tell how strong a player is, and thus impossible to balance the economy to make the game fun to play.

For example in most open world games, money is only really a thing you need to worry about in the early to mid game. Beyond a certain point you get loads of it, and the game shifts to different mechanics. The game designers don't know whether you spent 10 minutes getting the bare minimum of money or whether you spent 10 hours grinding for it, and if you can just buy your way to the endgame then it ruins the pacing. So by the end of the game the game designers shift the focus away from money so that you can't just grind in safety in the early game and then buy your way to the finish.

I think in the lategame the bottleneck should be focussed more on things like food supplies and access to resources. The way money works in bannerlord is like a 3D printer sometimes.
 
I'd quite like to see more player input into the so-called "passive" income - so that if you want to concentrate on being a trader, say, there would be some minor management options that allow you to get more money out of your businesses and caravans, rather than just buying them and that's it.
And with fiefs, maybe some more detailed options for governing them that affect tax yields.
I don't think passive income should necessarily be entirely passive, that is.
And I don't like the idea of gold sinks for their own sake: the economy just needs to work properly so that it's balanced - things that you're doing anyway, like waging war and maintaining your properties, should be expensive enough for you not to need artificial "sinks".

There absolutely need to be more money sinks. At the moment, you can't really do a lot with the money you have, when in actuality you should be able to bribe people into liking you, buy everyone a beer at the tavern to increase relations, Commission bards to write songs about your accomplishments, stuff like that.
 
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