Trading and Enterprises Tips v1.2

[Waffenbaum]

Compared to all that, my tactic for making money is embarrassingly easy. I get chummy with all the lords of my faction, then I conquer as many cities and keeps I can. Once they get awarded to me, I get a steady tax income from most of my new possessions. I make so many schillengas I never have to worry about money again.

But I'm still too cheap to buy horses for myself and my followers.

 

[Palestine]

Compared to all that, my tactic for making money is embarrassingly easy. I get chummy with all the lords of my faction, then I conquer as many cities and keeps I can. Once they get awarded to me, I get a steady tax income from most of my new possessions. I make so many schillengas I never have to worry about money again.

But I'm still too cheap to buy horses for myself and my followers.

how do you fight tax inefficiency? How big is your army? How long do you play before even thinking of conquering a castle? Till you get your character and your companions fit for battles you have to gain some level, armor and weapons, some friends, renown and rtr, and quality army, and to get that, you need money. I didn't trade much at war, with all the fiefs and enterprises that bring me money, however it took few months to get there.

 

[Waffenbaum]

Well I spend no money on my companions, they only get gear that I find after battle. My army is in reality 210 men, but most of them are stationed in my castle because of the party size penalty, so I have 68 men total. 60 of which are Curraidhs. I make around 12000 per month and my total expenses are around 6000, with a tax inefficiency of 14%. I have several hundred thousand schillings both in my bags and in my vault. There's certainly no lack of money for me.

I also conquered my first castle around day 5, then as many as I could conquer in a day after that. Now I've run out of enemies and I hope the king will declare war. Which he hasn't for almost a year ingame now.

Spoiler

 

[aurgelmir]

Been there
you can try flax to Emain macha, then buy some iron and sell it in Dun Keltair, travel to Caer Manguid, buy lots of iron, sell some at Lindisware and buy flax there, go back to Ireland, sell the rest of iron in Dun Keltair and all the flax in Emain Macha. I also buy horses in E'M so that they could later buy my flax

Gonna have to try that out, thanks for the tip 

I just expanded my tading route a bit by buying iron at Temair and selling it at Seals-eye and that gave a nice buck, was also thinking of buying all the salt in Lundenwic and Rendleasham to sell in Caer Segint or some other salt buying town along the way.

Well I spend no money on my companions, they only get gear that I find after battle. My army is in reality 210 men, but most of them are stationed in my castle because of the party size penalty, so I have 68 men total. 60 of which are Curraidhs. I make around 12000 per month and my total expenses are around 6000, with a tax inefficiency of 14%. I have several hundred thousand schillings both in my bags and in my vault. There's certainly no lack of money for me.

I also conquered my first castle around day 5, then as many as I could conquer in a day after that. Now I've run out of enemies and I hope the king will declare war. Which he hasn't for almost a year ingame now.

Spoiler

You conquored your first castle on day 5!!!??   

 

[Waffenbaum]

Well, I started out not being at war with anyone, as a neutral character. I got a quest by the Connargh(?) clan to collect taxes from a village nearby, and I went directly to a tavern afterwards and recruited about 10 elite soldiers with the money. Then I left the city and bumped into a lord from Dal Riata, who asked me to become a mercenary. I helped him take an Ulaid castle and that's when the Liege of Dal Riata showed up, right after we had finished taking the castle. I asked him if I could become a sworn man and he accepted, and the day after I was awarded the castle. I sold all the items I had gotten from the castle fight, and recruited about 50 peasants. I spent as many points I could in character creation on getting a high trainer skill, so after two days and several battles with bandits, I had plenty of top notch warriors.

My army of 127 just destroyed an army of 800 an hour ago, so I must be doing something right.
Also I still haven't returned that tax money 

 

[aurgelmir]

What difficulty are you running on?

I could pull off stunts like that (well not the conquor a castle on day 5 thingy, and I think my record is taking down an army of 600 with 170 men ) before i started mocking around with the difficulty settings, now I attacked a town with a force of 230 men consisting mostly of dena raiders, franks and hearthweru and I lost half of them

 

[Waffenbaum]

I haven't changed the settings apart from the screen size from what they were on install, so they should be normal. I know that every time I face those "Vysgerod" units or whatever they are, I'm going to lose some Curraidhs, but they're extremely competent as "tanks" on the battlefield. Heavy armor and slow attacks. They can clear away hundreds of peasants like a plough through snow. Sure it takes a while, but I got time.

 

[Palestine]

curraidhs are great units, I love them. But if you started out as a new character, you would have to have at least 4 trainer skill + 1 with the book, and to get that you need 12 inteligence and a good charisma to manage 127 men. That means your agility and strength are rather low. Even then it takes time to upgrade to units like curraidhs. Even if you had such path, I prefer my way, collecting money, experience, rtr, heroes, and troops, freinds, honor, and since I have a problem with authority I never swore allegiance to any of those wankers 

 

[Vaanshir]

Is it just me or is the Trading changed now...

 

[Belthize]

Prices for items in cities seem roughly the same to me as before, at least the common iron and salt routes but the income from building wineries (and other shops) is way up. 

In 1.2 a Winery in a town with 2000+ demand would return 800+,  in 1.3 it's returning 1100+.  A town with a 2400 wine demand is returning 1400 a week.  The return from shops is so high it makes looting and other income sources a waste of time.   

 

[Gerard Mulder]

Troop wages are also up and the price for prisoners is up. Seems like inlfation hit Britannia. Over all I would have to say money is less scarce now. An average return of 1300 on wineries makes it too easy to get positive cashflow. If I am not mistaking this was done in order to make it less attracktive to run arround with lots of Cavalry. Making them expensive is not goin to work though. THe only thing that will work is to limit their number with a hard cap either on noble recruits or otherwise. An army of 100 curraids still kills everything even if it costs 18000 per week. (100 Hearthweru Saexe also kill everything but at least that feels right).

Cheers,


Gerard

 

[Dragonhelm]

Also handy for travelling Traders...
Building a Wagon from the get go allows you to not only carry more but if its not in your personal inventory it don't weigh you down. I was traveling around the Isles at the full 9.3 with 20+ bags of salt in my wagon...

haha oh man thats dirty...i need to get in on some of that!

 

[Elekvar]

I found the wagon to be slowing me down a great deal, actually.

And I tried have it run some errands for me to find it to be a spectacular failure: the wagon had for 3k worth of Salt, to be sold twice that price in a faraway city. When the wagon came back, it brought me 1200 schillings. What the ****.

Also, the Salinae seems to be an honor sink: I lost like 12 honor since I started using it, and I only visited it twice! Not worth it.

 

[cercamon]

So winery for everyone ?

I'm ok with winery being the most profitable trade but it would be good to have other viable alternatives.

(this mod is great and I understand it may not be the most urgent thing to do now)

 

[mp84]

So winery for everyone ?

I'm ok with winery being the most profitable trade but it would be good to have other viable alternatives.

(this mod is great and I understand it may not be the most urgent thing to do now)

I'm not sure if that's intentional or feels cheap, I do probably see a nerf coming to that though, I mean seriously, Winery profits are almost double then any other business, it just does not make sense to have anything but wineries everywhere. I just have just one going for now, and it's raking in 2100 a week, so screw salt mines, lol.

Personally, I prefer it like that because some factions lords field over 300-400 units, so to be able to counter that big profits like this is a must I believe, so I hope nothing changes really, but i guess we'll see soon enough

 

[Untitled.]

Tip 4 - Enterprises - Wine-press Wine-press Win-press - This makes 500 schillings a week, much more profitable then dye-works and for half the price. Infact the only city that it wont make a profit as far as I know of is Oxford (it actually produces a negative)

Yes, you get 500 per week. That's 2000 (500X4=2000) per month.

Now, it costs 24000 to buy one.

Okay, so how long til it gets profitable?

That should be easy to figure out: 24000/2000=12 That means 12 months until any profit at all.
How often do you play a M&B save over 8 months? Maybe 50% of the times?
Unless you're planning to play very long you shouldn't buy one.

 

[mp84]

Tip 4 - Enterprises - Wine-press Wine-press Win-press - This makes 500 schillings a week, much more profitable then dye-works and for half the price. Infact the only city that it wont make a profit as far as I know of is Oxford (it actually produces a negative)

Yes, you get 500 per week. That's 2000 (500X4=2000) per month.

Now, it costs 24000 to buy one.

Okay, so how long til it gets profitable?

That should be easy to figure out: 24000/2000=12 That means 12 months until any profit at all.
How often do you play a M&B save over 8 months? Maybe 50% of the times?
Unless you're planning to play very long you shouldn't buy one.

I think you're over analyzing the economics here and it can be more like 2,000 a week in some cities. You have to think of it along of the lines of a constant cash flow coming in that can support your army. Granted, you can easily just trade all the time, and never have to worry about enterprises, but honestly what's the fun in that? Don't get me wrong trade is very helpful, but I'd rather do other things then just that all the time, plus if I want to take advantage of a full blown trading game, I'd just go play Patrician 4 or East India Company, lol. Will that stay in future updates, who knows, but again overall I hope it does, considering I just saw an Irish King with over 850 troops in his army, so I need those consistent wages to field my troops for sure, lol

 

[DejavuDeckard]

Tip 4 - Enterprises - Wine-press Wine-press Win-press - This makes 500 schillings a week, much more profitable then dye-works and for half the price. Infact the only city that it wont make a profit as far as I know of is Oxford (it actually produces a negative)

Yes, you get 500 per week. That's 2000 (500X4=2000) per month.

Now, it costs 24000 to buy one.

Okay, so how long til it gets profitable?

That should be easy to figure out: 24000/2000=12 That means 12 months until any profit at all.
How often do you play a M&B save over 8 months? Maybe 50% of the times?
Unless you're planning to play very long you shouldn't buy one.

I think you're over analyzing the economics here and it can be more like 2,000 a week in some cities. You have to think of it along of the lines of a constant cash flow coming in that can support your army. Granted, you can easily just trade all the time, and never have to worry about enterprises, but honestly what's the fun in that? Don't get me wrong trade is very helpful, but I'd rather do other things then just that all the time, plus if I want to take advantage of a full blown trading game, I'd just go play Patrician 4 or East India Company, lol. Will that stay in future updates, who knows, but again overall I hope it does, considering I just saw an Irish King with over 850 troops in his army, so I need those consistent wages to field my troops for sure, lol

Actually wine press cost 26000 schilings and that will range for 1500 to 2000 per week depends on the selling price of grapes on that town. I manage to have 3 wine press within 2 months just by buying Irons in Temair and Cill Dara and selling it to Gweynned ( forgot the name of their town  ). Now I have an income of 6319 per week ( to be exact ) minus the army expense for teulus. If you manage to hire alefir then you will have a better trading flow early in the game.

 

[Untitled.]

Oh, okay, that changes is to ~12 weeks for profit, I guess. That's acceptable. Thanks for correcting me.

 

[cercamon]

I'm not sure if that's intentional or feels cheap, I do probably see a nerf coming to that though, I mean seriously, Winery profits are almost double then any other business, it just does not make sense to have anything but wineries everywhere. I just have just one going for now, and it's raking in 2100 a week, so screw salt mines, lol.

Personally, I prefer it like that because some factions lords field over 300-400 units, so to be able to counter that big profits like this is a must I believe, so I hope nothing changes really, but i guess we'll see soon enough

I agree with you and I don't wan't a nerf of the winery,  I'd  like other trade to be cheaper

When your buy your first enterprise you may not know what will be your next war so it could be wiser to not put all your eggs in one basquet.

I've seen winery cost between 24k and 29 k for ~ 1500/2000 a week.
If for say 25 K i could buy two trade in two cities for a total income of 1200/1500 it would be what I call a "viable alternative".