v .703 short econ 101 early game guide

[Slaists]

tip 1: while you still poor, the best return (% wise) for your money invested are the "cheap" items: log fish from wercheg to suno; salt from the mines to zendar; meat from rivacheg to veluga.

tip 2: once you have more money, inventory slots become a constraint. the best return per inventory slot (trip) is provided by: furs (Khendar --> Suno; short stock replenishing time); spice (Tulga --> Praven; long replenishing time); iron (Curaw --> Sargoth; short replenishing time) and oil (Suno --> Rivacheg; short replenishing time); velvet is good too, but the stock @ the merchant replenishes like once in a hundred days (i'm exaggerating). my favorite poor traders' route: praven (pick up beer for khendar) --> khudan (sell beer, pick up furs for suno) --> suno (sell furs, pick up oil for rivacheg) --> rivacheg (sell oil).

tip 3: a few lame sumpter horses (the cheapest available) in your inventory speed up your loaded caravan considerably.

tip 4: get Marnid asap: he is worth the investment. the return on your money invested improves a lot with his trade ability.

tip 5: use jousting lance to rake up some slaves (river pirates near zendar will do: you might have problems with other enemies in the early game anyways); once you have slaves: visit the merchant in Zendar and pick up a merchant caravan quest (your party needs to be of a certain size for him to hand out these quests and prisoners count towards party size limit; not sure this is not an exploit/programming oversight though); sell the slaves; do the quest...

note that merchant caravans in the early game are strong: so most groups will run from it and you will have no problem leading it with player + marnind + borcha combo (no upkeep except food).

tip 6: if the merchant you are supplying to runs out of money: visit the smithies... they give the same prices as the merchant in that particular town.

Get rich!

 

[DaLagga]

Nice tips, very helpful. But i would like to add to tip 4, that it would be wise to get Borcha as well. His pathfinding bonus is very useful to help speed up the trade process and make it more difficult for someone to hunt you down.

 

[Ingolifs]

I love doing this.

Tadaa!!

Should give you all you need to know.

 

[Slaists]

Nice tips, very helpful. But i would like to add to tip 4, that it would be wise to get Borcha as well. His pathfinding bonus is very useful to help speed up the trade process and make it more difficult for someone to hunt you down.

Yes, Borcha is helpful (note that his abilities are q bit random though: at times he has more points in pathfinding, at others - tracking, etc.) so I'd pick him up right after Marnid (while still being level 1).

Also: you should give them horses (even the lame ones will do) to raise the party map speed even if you plan to use them dismounted in battle.

 

[Slaists]

I love doing this.

Tadaa!!

Should give you all you need to know.

Yes, the only prob is: that is for an older version... The relative prices of items seem to have changed.

 

[graphia]

tip 1: while you still poor, the best return (% wise) for your money invested are the "cheap" items: log fish from wercheg to suno; salt from the mines to zendar; meat from rivacheg to veluga.

Isn't it rivacheg to curaw?

 

[Ingolifs]

Both are fine. Curaw and veluca both have a deficiency in meat.

 

[graphia]

Both are fine. Curaw and veluca both have a deficiency in meat.

Hey, you learn something every day. That'll make my halmar-jelkala-suno-rivacheg run easier anyway.

 

[Innocence]

Are these trading-runs really that profitable? What's the DPM factor (Denars-Per-Minute)?

Attacking River Pirates sure isn't a good investement of time since the 0.7 patch, whereas Arena fights last about 3 minutes and yield 30 denars, so that's roughly 10 denars/minute.

Anyone know what loot from higher level parties yield (pre-0.7 it was about 5-8.000 denars IIRC).

 

[Hansundfranz]

Furs from Curaw to Suno
buy for 73 sell for 101. profi: 28

Oil from suno to Rivacheg;
buy for 90 sell for 108 profit 18.

empty from Rivacheg to Curaw.

if you have money for only 4 units of goods you make

(28+18 )*4 = 184 credits which allows you to ship 6 units the next time and earn even more.

The whole roundtrip takes maybe 5 min (guess, did not use a stopwatch, only feels a bit longer cause ypu don´t have to much to do).

In addition a low level character has problems to win every arena fight

 

[Innocence]

184 credits which allows you to ship 6 units the next time and earn even more

Pretty nice profit indeed. Guess I'll have to try it out

In addition a low level character has problems to win every arena fight

Right, although starting with 9 Agility and 3 Athletics helps a *lot*

 

[Slaists]

Furs from Curaw to Suno
buy for 73 sell for 101. profi: 28

Oil from suno to Rivacheg;
buy for 90 sell for 108 profit 18.

empty from Rivacheg to Curaw.

.......

The whole roundtrip takes maybe 5 min (guess, did not use a stopwatch, only feels a bit longer cause ypu don´t have to much to do).

The cheap place to buy furs is actually Khudan, not Curaw. In Curaw they sell for 109 or so with Marnid's +3 to trade.

Also, profitability of these trips changes quite a bit with changes in the trade skill. For example, the mentioned Suno-->Rivacheg oil haul with +3 in trade brought to the party by Marnid becomes:

Buy oil @ 87 in Suno; Sell oil @ 112 in Rivacheg for 25 credits of profit versus 18 with 0 trade skill mentioned above. The same for Khudan --> Suno fur trip. With Marnid, the profit per unit transported goes above 30 (not sure about exact numbers right now).

 

[Slaists]

Furs from Curaw to Suno
The whole roundtrip takes maybe 5 min (guess, did not use a stopwatch, only feels a bit longer cause ypu don´t have to much to do).

In addition a low level character has problems to win every arena fight

The roundtrip time depends a lot on the number of spare horses in inventory: for example, with 8 spare horses, myself, marnid and borcha on horseback, our map speed is still close to 10 fully loaded with goods.

 

[Slaists]

Are these trading-runs really that profitable? What's the DPM factor (Denars-Per-Minute)?

Attacking River Pirates sure isn't a good investement of time since the 0.7 patch, whereas Arena fights last about 3 minutes and yield 30 denars, so that's roughly 10 denars/minute.

Anyone know what loot from higher level parties yield (pre-0.7 it was about 5-8.000 denars IIRC).

Attacking the river pirates actually is a pretty good investment since post 0.7... The keyword being SLAVES... They sell for 20 dinari each in .703, which is equivalent to 200 dinary in pre .7 economy. So what I do as a level 1 character: boost up my prisoner capacity to 15 (doable at 9 charisma); buy a courser and a jousting lance (cracked/bent will do) and go pirate hunting. 15 pirates sold at Zendar yield 300 dinari... Which is not bad at all in post .7 economy. One can pretty much solo-lance 15 pirates in no time even at level 1... Just be careful about those flying rocks: they can hurt while your slave driver has low armor...

 

[Innocence]

One can pretty much solo-lance 15 pirates in no time even at level 1...

Easily - plus, it's definately much more fun than being a merchant

Just be careful about those flying rocks: they can hurt while your slave driver has low armor...

That's what the shield is for isn't it?