Raiding Caravans / Making money

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Flixton

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How do you make money properly in this game?

I always seem to just kill sea raiders and sell them off as slaves and sell their loot, but this doesn't really give me a lot of cash and is boring and repetetive.
I have also tried to raid caravans after hearing about people bragging about 4-5 k in loot from them. But I rarely get more than perhaps one piece of velvet if I'm lucky. Usually it's just wine and some oil.
Looting villages has tended to give me some loot, but this usually pisses of my companion.
Village / Castle tax is just lame and never more than 300-400 which is less than half from what I can earn from attacking sea raiders.
Arena battles may also give me about 1k but are boring and repetetive.

My looting skill isn't more than 2-3 but I've heard that it doesn't help loot from enemy armies...
So what am I doing wrong? why can't I afford lordly plates for my companions? :/
 
Raiding villages early is a great source of cash, as long as you know where to sell the loot you get. But it hurts you late game when you need to recruit troops and every village in the countryside hates your guts.

Raiding caravans never seemed to be a steady source of income for me. Once in a grand while I get some salable commodities from them, but it's rare.

The best way to make cash is to trade. After awhile, I think when all the major towns graduate to being considered "rich," trade really opens up huge opportunities for cash. Just run around looking for cheap goods, and sell them to places that are willing to pay a mint for them. Some villages are good for finding cheap commodities, but here're some general trade routes I take between towns (mostly) when I'm trying to make some serious coin:

Furs from Khudan (and some Vaegir villages now and then) to Yalen, Veluca, Jelkala, and sometimes Narra

Oil from certain Rhodok and Swadian villages between Jelkala and Suno to Khudan (once in a great while Jelkala or Narra will have a bunch of cheap oil as well)

Velvet from Jelkala to Tihr, Wercheg, Reyvadin, and Khudan (wherever the offer is best at the time)

Spice from Tulga, Ichamur, Halmar, or Uxkhal to Tihr or Wercheg, and sometime other nearby towns. I've had it sell decently as far south as Suno and Yalen.

Those are the most valuable commodities. You can also trade linen from Nord territory, which will make you a little bit of change (a hundred per pop, on average) to most places between and around Jelkala and Uxkhal, most of the time.

If you like to keep a lot of food stocked, taking it from its place of production to someplace far away can make you some easy pocket change as well. You can get cheese for almost nothing in Yalen and sell it in Khergit territory for five to six times your cost late game. Similar profits with dried meat from Vaegir territory.

And if you go looking for cattle at villages, if you find any of those sweet deals for a head of cattle for a handful of denars, pick them up, slaughter as many cows worth of beef as you can hold in your inventory, and you can sell them for hundreds of denars profit per cow at most towns (the later in the game, the more your profit will be. I think it scales these things so you can get more money to pay all your troops)

Some other tips:
Skill in trade (or any hero with 3 points in trade, as most do) will help a bit with this.
Your relation with the town/village to/from which you're trading will increase your profits a small percentage.

That oughtta help. Have fun
 
Tournaments. Even if you don't modify the bet amounts, winning a tournament is good for several thousand denars. I play with bets amounts quintupled (500/250/100/50), so I can clear 20,000+ from winning a single tournament. After you win, ask the arena master where the next one will be, and go win that one too. Repeat until there are no tournaments running, then go do something else for a while and ask again after a few days. There'll be a new round of tournaments starting.

 
Sea raiders and lord ransoms are my main source of income.

You can merchant, if you like but I've never tried it. (That's, basically, buying and selling goods from different towns for a profit).

Tourneys are quite good (don't know if that's what you meant by arena battles).

Ultimately, it's going to take alot of time, whatever you do. Just keep trying to take castles etc. and as your character progresses and your army gets bigger, more opportunities will come to you.

BeRzErKeR said:
Tournaments. Even if you don't modify the bet amounts, winning a tournament is good for several thousand denars. I play with bets amounts quintupled (500/250/100/50), so I can clear 20,000+ from winning a single tournament.

Isn't that modifying the bet amounts?

kosmik said:
I just keep pillaging villages of only one faction usually the khergits :grin:

Typical philistinic nord.
 
I found that raiding villages gives me a nice amount of money (usually about 3-4k per village)
Is this a way to go in the long run? Will villages eventually give less loot when you've pillaged them several times?

I've tried trading but it usually only gives me a couple hundred the first few runs, and it's a hassel when I'm a vassal and can only enter Khergit and Swadian cities.. (is there any way to make peace?)
Also trading gives very little experience so it won't let my character evolve. :/

Also: What are the ultimate companions if you want to go on a village burning spree?
 
all of them , with plate armour winged helms the lot, with a huscarl sheild, club with spike/bastard sword and 2 bags of jarids
 
Flixton said:
I found that raiding villages gives me a nice amount of money (usually about 3-4k per village)
Is this a way to go in the long run? Will villages eventually give less loot when you've pillaged them several times?

I've tried trading but it usually only gives me a couple hundred the first few runs, and it's a hassel when I'm a vassal and can only enter Khergit and Swadian cities.. (is there any way to make peace?)
Also trading gives very little experience so it won't let my character evolve. :/

Also: What are the ultimate companions if you want to go on a village burning spree?

Back in the days when I still thought raiding villages was worthwhile, I did find that the poorer a village is, the less you'll get out of it. It's not a sustainable source of income, and you might end up owning the village one day, or stopping by for supplies. The first time I played through the game I was working with the Khergits and we were at war with the Rhodoks so I raided the hell out of all of their villages. Then when I needed spearmen, I couldn't hire them to save my soul. Too much raiding and you'll probably regret it.

What sorts of companions you have won't affect your ability to raid villages at all. If I remember correctly, the time it takes to raid and the amount of loot you get is based on your party's looting skill. So train one of your companions, or yourself, with looting. As long as a huge enemy army doesn't catch you midway through the raid, the equipment you've got on your companions won't mean squat.

Also trading gives very little experience so it won't let my character evolve. :/
Raiding villages doesn't really get you experience either. But whether you decide on raiding villages or trading, just fight your enemies on the way.

Oh, and to make peace...
Talk to the guild masters of your own faction's town and the towns of your enemies. Eventually he'll give you a quest where he asks you to help make peace between two factions. All you have to do is either persuade two lords to make peace, capture them, or pay them off. There's one per warring faction you'll have to contend with. This quest pays 12,000 upon completion. Sounds like that's just what you're looking for!

Have fun

*EDIT
Oh, and I just remembered one thing about raiding villages. Not all companions give a damn about raiding. Here's a great page on what companions will cry about who and what:
http://strategywiki.org/wiki/Mount%26Blade/Companions

Heck, here's the whole list of everyone who doesn't like raiding, since you have to go through a few links to get there anyway:
Bunduk
Firentis
Jeremus
Marnid
Ymira
 
Keep it civil.
Flixton said:
Is this a way to go in the long run? Will villages eventually give less loot when you've pillaged them several times?

I've tried trading but it usually only gives me a couple hundred the first few runs, and it's a hassel when I'm a vassal and can only enter Khergit and Swadian cities.. (is there any way to make peace?)
Also trading gives very little experience so it won't let my character evolve. :/

Also: What are the ultimate companions if you want to go on a village burning spree?
Poor villages give you less than rich villages, if you like to use only nord troops for example it's no matter which village you raid. Trading works good, improve you're trading skills and listen to merchants (town menu).

Well, you want a companion with high looting, I guess. Peace from guild master as quest.


EDIT: Morphine beat me to it.
 
Looting skill isn't all that useful, but it will help.  Trade skill is where the money is, if you just want to trade goods, or sell loot you need a high trade skill.  I know in Native after just a couple of sea raider battles walking away with 4-5k is not a problem, sometimes I'll empty a town of all its gold, which is annoying. 
Caravans are good money, but only after you have your skills up, otherwise it is barely better than a typical battle. 

Fiefs are OK money, castles tend to be very poor, but a good town is worth a lot. 

The key to making money in M&B isn't one thing.  It is a combination of everything, your looting and trading skills are small parts in the formula.  The faster your party (from good skills or troops) leads to more enemies you can catch, the better your medical skills leads to less money draining down time.  Your leadership saves you on carrying costs.  You rarely find big scores for making money, so you need to add up little by little, and a small percentage change adds up. 

My companions started with looted equipment, and their first bought equipment (for all of them) was standard platemail.  After that it was a very very slow progress towards lordly plate for all of them.  You don't need lordly, so don't stress about it. 
 
I have looting friendly companions and loot like a bandit, er..nord?  Anyway I choose one nation to be my cash cow(swadians usually) and I will raid their villages continually.  Works pretty well but after going through this thread I might try my hand at some trading.
 
But trading isn't easy when your faction is in a constant state of war with the other factions.. Is there any way to avoid the war by for example being released from my oath?
I tried the misson from the guild master and finished it (got my 12k) but my faction was still at war with the other faction even after I finished my quest :S
 
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