For a number of days now I have been doing a few different things in the game to earn the in-game currency denars with the goal of buying a different business in the game and making them my short to the midterm economic backbone to pay troop payroll, food, and buy equipment upgrades.
To do this I have been:
- Farming Sea Raiders and NPC lairs
- Questing
- Entering tournaments
- Pillaging villages and caravans
- Ransoming prisoners
- Earning profit from business
Some of these tasks never earn much while the big earners are more time sensitive or require something to happen to be able to do them in the first place. Landownership and a bunch of villages, castles, and cities under my control are the long-term goals. Running a kingdom can be rewarding but wars get expensive. As such I’m still a Vassal. So my more short-term goals are just having a business which I have managed to acquire.
Farming Sea Raiders And NPC Lairs
I have discussed the other day about my trips up north to farm the Sea Raiders. You can make a couple thousand denars every so often but it really is just a starting point. Along with that, I have been raiding quite a few bandits and other lairs that I just come across while exploring or on my way to one region or another. While the profit is not that great if I can get 500 or 1k denars for my time in between things I say why not go for it. It does help in the long run and as long as I’m not spending more on the payroll to do these things it’s not a big deal to take advantage of things when they come up.
Sometimes as well taking out a lair happens to be a quest so things can just alien like that. I have been farming a few Forest Bandit camps since they are in the kingdom I am from. True sight seems to not be working or maybe it broke and unless I run into the darn things head on I just don’t see them. Thankfully there are quite a number of them in the game and I do just hit them.
Questing
It is more of side benefits than anything else making a couple of denars from them. They are mostly for earning reputation and trying to advise one’s own rank or “allegiance” with another. Some of them you can even lose money on. They all come with time limits in days till you need to finish. The NPCs also move around a lot so just finding them can be time-consuming and not always worth it. You can ask other NPCs such as females in castles where someone likes the king or another royal person is. That information can be outdated as well even more so when you get to that location.
Some I even despise doing in the first place. Such as raising an army for the quest giver. They want units up to a certain rank and they give you fresh recruits. Well, they cost money to level up and add to my payroll costs. They can also die to incur even more cost on my end since now I need to replace troops. Turning them intends to be a loss.
Many quest givers also just tell you they have nothing worth your time. Which is a major waste of my time as well unless there are a few of them gathered in one area. Attending a feast where a bunch of NPCs is at that can all have a quest is one way of finding something to do.
You also have quests that don’t really pay off in the short term. This one just wants you to overthrow the current king and help someone claim it for themselves. Frankly, I’m already under the thumb of one king why would I want a different one. I would rather just be king! So these ones I just inform them I need to leave now and hope that settles the matters.
The ones I enjoy the most are killed or capture quests. We might be at war with someone so the king wants me to capture royal from that kingdom. I might get a quest to go take out some bandits ransacking caravans from the Guild Master or find someone in a castle that needs a bandit lair removed.
Entering Tournaments
Another task to do early in the game once you have some money saved up. They get harder the higher level you are as they can use your own companions and other units you have as they sign up for their chance as well. It has quite a few different rounds and you get to bet on yourself that is where the real money comes into play. They appear quite random or during a feast so I can go a while without bumping into one. I know there an NPC in the tavern that can randomly show up that tells the locations I often seem him less than a tournament.
Each town has their own preference of weapons that are used in the tournaments. As such it can be best to focus on the ones you know you have the decent skill level and player level of usage at. This often times includes horseback or foot combat and even a combination of the two in a single match. Such weapons could be, bow, crossbow, sword, javelin, ax, mace, and some others as well. Sadly you can’t bring your own so you are stuck with the low-level items they give everyone.
The matches themselves can be 1 vs 1 or team vs team. They start with 64 participates and you go through different rounds till you if still standing are left fighting the last guy. While also making a max bet of 100 per round on yourself to win it how sly of you! Winning for me tends to be around 4,000 denars. Which for the time is quite generous.
Pillaging Villages And Caravans
This is one of the fun ways for me at the moment to make a killing in earnings. During a war with another kingdom or when we do not have a peace treaty you can just ransack villages and rob caravans. I prefer doing this only during war otherwise the king might get a little upset with me and have some ideas about me being a traitor. The loot from these is quite amazing if you don’t have that king’s troops start showing up and slowing down the processes.
I really have lost count how many villages I’ve pillaged. Sometimes I have to wait due to the fact that every place I go to sell my ill-gotten gains lack having money left till they reset to buy any more goods. This can lead me running all the way across the map just to find a place to offload. If I was more into min and maxing profits I would find the kingdom that had the highest paying price per item. I find it just faster to keep pillaging more villages then trying working that out.
Another tactic I like to employee is storing goods for use in my own business. They almost act like a fence in the way except you don’t in trouble with stolen goods in this realm. In most places, they are buying the raw goods at a higher price than I can even sell them for myself. So it is just a win-win situation when I have items like raw silk, dyes, iron, hides, and so forth and the inventory space to hold onto them before bringing them to my business. In return they make a higher profit then I would have selling the raw goods and them having to buy it on their own.
This also causes economic damage and reducing recruiting abilities. I’m not quite sure how this affects the NPCs if the game is just not cheating for them. I know for myself if a village I own gets pillaged they have to rebuild so I’m not making any taxes off them and they also do not have anyone to recruit to my army making it hard to resupply.
As such I just go crazy during a war in profiting and causing damage. You do lose a lot of reputation with that kingdom. Since my own trade relationships are long gone if we are going to war with them that makes little difference to me anymore.
Ransoming Prisoners
After you have won the battle there is a chance you can capture some of the troops or even the one leading that army. The lower level guys really are not worth much and you can just take to a random NPC in a tavern and get a couple hundred denars quickly. The ones with royal blood well there family sometimes is willing to pay after a while a much higher sum!
War is always the best time to capture and hope for a massive payout. If you capture someone important you could get 1900 or some other amount. There is a risk of them escaping which is why I tend to keep any in a castle once I have one. At the end of the war, they are also returned as part of the peace treaty if I recall. As such the payday is not always there!
This method really is random and like getting an extra bonus on top of what you already earned for winning a battle. Is it unethical? Oh yes, and quite fun I must say in this game! I sometimes go looking for a small army to attack in hopes of capturing someone of importance!
Earning Profit From A Business
All of that leads up to that moment when you start spending massive piles of denars to open a business in different cities. While they all have the same kind of business you can have most locations are not profitable or a very bad investment. In fact, going this route takes a while to recover the investment and sometimes that does not happen.
Before you can even open a business you need to be in good standing with the leader of that city and have the funds ready to go. Thankfully you do not have to do your own research in if something can bringing in profit. The Guild Master just tells you under current conditions what it would be earning. Prices change all the time and if your kingdom has a war with one where you have business in. It does not make an income from it for that time period. As such war can sure cripple your own empire of profits. Once that done it really is automated if you wish to do nothing else that is more than fine.
You can only have one business in a city. More times than not there only a couple that has profit and some higher costing ones naturally bring the most profit no matter where you are. They all require certain raw goods to be used so they can produce a final product. They also have a wage upkeep costs as well for running the business.
- Bakery that use grain to make bread
- Brewery that uses grain for ale
- Tannery that use hides to make leather
- A wine press that use grapes to make wine
- Oil press that uses olives for oil
- Ironworks that use an iron to make tools
- Then you have a few different kinds of weavings to make velvet or cloth or lien depending on what you choose.
Making bread or ale tends to not bring a lot of profit and they can be on the lower end. Something like a velvet weaver can cost 10,000 and requires expensive silk and dyes to produce velvet. Sometimes the profit can be 400-600 or higher. Other times they are a massive loss. While I’ve mentioned above you can gather your own supplies and even choose to deliver to a preferred town yourself. I don’t play the game for trying max profits. I’m all into war and conquest!
From the ones I do own they can bring in almost nothing to a thousand plus if I happen to load up that business with some raw resources acquired form pillaging. Such as this Dyeworks making velvet. While right now I’ll make my investment back in 5 weeks that is only in the short term. It could take over 22 weeks on average.
A really good investment and a cheap one to get into can be an ironworks that produces tools. It only cost me 3,500 and right now has a profit of 586 for the week much more than some of my dyeworks. While it was not the highest paying business for that city it was close enough to go for it. While this does have a much better return on investment. The limiting factor of one business per city has to be kept in mind.
A tanner cost 8,000 and it was just the best choice overall for the city it was in. I also get a lot of hides from pillaging and when I have a hard time finding enough places that still have money it is always great to just unload a few here for a better return.
I also own a wine press just because that is something a future king should own! It was not the best choice but I always wanted to own one. I’m sure it won’t be a wise thing to have done but my other options for the city it was in was also not that great. I also already have quite a few weavers so some diversity might not be a bad idea.
All in all, I own business in 12 different cities and my best week was around 5,500. It will take awhile to recover the investments but it should be worthwhile. That more than covers my weekly payroll, food and other costs for the time being. I don’t have any further plans to buy more business for now. Even if I wanted to I lack the reputation to be permitted to open one in the remaining cities or I am at war at this time with that kingdom. This will make it easier to run a kingdom one day before I won cities and so many villages I don’t know what to do with them all other than give them away to my commanders.
Information
Screenshots were taken and content written by @enjar. Screenshots are from a game called Mount & Blade: Warband