Robbing 1st Trader

[Padre]

I've noticed quite a few comments of players robbing Traders, specifically the 1st Trader. I know it's an option, but never taken the plunge. My questions;

1. What happens?
2. Do you always win? Or, sometimes lose?
3. Lose villagers?
4. Does said Trader come back?
5. Can you rob them and then use their own $$$ to purchase wares?

Just wondering what all the pros/cons are of mugging them.

[el Darkness]

As far as I know, results are somehow tied to the trader robbed. Sothur should not be robbed unless he will be your last trader. 1 trader cannot be robbed but I do not remember his name.

As for others (I may be wrong with numbers), you lose 2-5 villagers, you gain 2 hostility, next trader will avoid your settlement, following traders will take 50% longer to visit. Lastly you will get ~50% of their wares, that can be sold (robbed cornerstones cannot be sold obviously).

[Samseng Yik]

About my hobby the spreading robbery love recently in forum.
I have to warn you though,
DO NOT ROB THE ANCIENT
Rob ancient make your good worth 90% less. Essentially spell doom to all usefulness of future trader......(unless you rob them again lol)

[Samseng Yik]

I using mobile not sure how to show you the screenshot.
But I am supporter of first trader robbery.

Let me share you the benefit.

1) You will get around 50% of full stack resource from the trader all stock.
My record is 30 tool, 60 coal, 50, fossil, along with another 3 items.
Do you know how much amber to buy these? Around 170 amber !! (Before I include the "other resource")
That rob secured me a multiple year long coal burning and removed my wood fuel stress

2) you can get average 2 non item, such as blueprint and cornerstone. You can't decide which you get, but they are free anyway (almost)

3) hostility reduction. A things that can greatly help you fight storm hostility and speed up reputation generation.

Negative now
1) random death 2-5 people.
Manageable if you spend 1 or 2 embark point to start extra population .
Because the resource you get from robbing, worth around 40 embark point

2) impatience increase (means reduce hostility) before death of villager

3) trader arrival speed slower to your settlement. Not very big deal for year 2. We all need sometimes to earn amber anyway.
Let's give the trader some time while we saving amber (and enjoying loot from last robbery)

Each time you rob you stack more slower trader by 50%......
But no big deal, if you have too much mouth to feed and high history, just "call the trader come immediately" for honest business.

There is once I rob 3 times trader within a settlement.
The trader arrival speed become 40 minutes lol.......(but I still can call them reach immediately for another purpose)

[mostly willing]

https://hoodedhorse.com/wiki/Against_the_Storm/Trader_Wares
leftmost column
as soon as you assault them they leave - you can't trade with them using their stuff. the trader you attack doesn't come back for the rest of the game. if your City Score is low enough (and early on it will be), traders won't visit until you get your City Score above 0.

[Samseng Yik]

Oh yes...... Sometimes I have some amber, I will buy what I really need from the trader, example a blueprint or the hostility reduction.

Then..... I just rob them for another random resource.

The less useful resource is very very nice for trade route.
Sometimes, I have no idea how to solve the current food sustainability.
Robbing them give me around 150-200 food and ingredient.

Rob is kickstart. Practice do it once per settlement for the first non ancient trader, and you will win fast consistently.

[arjensmit79]

Originally posted by Samseng Yik:

Rob is kickstart. Practice do it once per settlement for the first non ancient trader, and you will win fast consistently.

What year do you win on average ?

[el Darkness]

Oh my, there are 3 traders that increase hostility when you attack them :O Is it 50 hostility at Viceroy or at lowest difficulty? What I mean is, is it multiplied by difficulty level?
Oh, these are only Small Glade Traders.

[Samseng Yik]

Originally posted by arjensmit79:

Originally posted by Samseng Yik:

Rob is kickstart. Practice do it once per settlement for the first non ancient trader, and you will win fast consistently.

What year do you win on average ?

6. For p16-20.
Year 7 is slightly longer than average.
I admit I am still not a wonderful gamer in ATS.
But my point is...... Waiting is wasting.
I dislike start trade route in year 1.
So usually I don't get enough amber to warrant the usefulness of first trader.
Also, Amber can use to reroll blueprint very important for first 2 year resource accumulation.
I don't enjoy robbing.
However wasting the first trader is worse feeling.
And the opposite opportunity cost of robbing first trader, is missing the resource for glade event.

I can't remind how important is the resource kickstarting and glade event and fuel.
The random 6 stack resource, even barrel, luxury service item are bound to be useful at some glade event.
Which make your settlement more secure against the risk of dangerous glade.
Main point also is weighting the negative with positive, the resource gain on first trader rob weight so so much amber and how much manpower cycle of production

[arjensmit79]

Originally posted by Samseng Yik:

What year do you win on average ?
6. For p16-20.
Year 7 is slightly longer than average.
I admit I am still not a wonderful gamer in ATS.
But my point is......

Well, its not about measuring e-peens or admitting if you are great or not.
I did however ask it to judge the merrit of your strategy.
There are advantages and disadvantages to it. Both have been mentioned plenty. And surely, you absolutely do make sense when you mention the positives, but ye the negatives are massive too. So i was curious to the end result.

7 year is not super great, but its also not terrible and more factors go into the victory year than just this. So i guess i'll still have to give it a try sometime when i get back to AtS.

[Samseng Yik]

Please please, if anyone tried my strategy.
Do not proudly show off in forum.
The last thing I want is developer nerf this.
Robbing already got negative bias from developer, due to not having any deeds and cornerstone.

[arjensmit79]

Originally posted by Samseng Yik:

Please please, if anyone tried my strategy.
Do not proudly show off in forum.
The last thing I want is developer nerf this.
Robbing already got negative bias from developer, due to not having any deeds and cornerstone.

Haha, now you are taunting me to try and make the most of it.
Would it be possible to leverage it into a really fast victory? How about if we rob traders twice. Its a lot of impatience, but how about if the resources make it so we don't need any food industry nor fuel production? How about if we can win so fast that we can deal with that impatience? And if we win so fast, we would not have seen many traders anyway, so the downside is reduced too. The only problem i see is what population is going to generate the reputation so early and after giving up ~5 like this. So lots of glade events that give reputation? We have lots of random stuff for the glade events and lots of impatience to deal with the hostility. If we just open loads of glades while robbing that trader, we also see lots of caches to fill in the gaps in our needed goods. We dont need food industry so we can focus on tools production. hmm.... lets try and get this nerfed ;)

Silly how the mind works huh. You taunt me a little and all of a sudden i'm imagining golden opportunities :D

[Samseng Yik]

Minor note about P20.
Robbing cause dead villager.
Dead villager give huge impatience at P20. (Suggest do once).

The most uncomfortable feeling is the sudden death of few villager which may slower your current production (and food consumption).
But if you know the order reward and new fresh meat coming soon. The bad feeling get mitigated fast

You got the theory a bit right.
If I really save up a lot from trade route.
I will just call in the trader immediately to buy stuff.

I much prefer to have around 80 amber when trader arrive, then buy a big bulk of things instead of the minor tidbit

[Defektiv]

I think the devs must know its an option. There is a map modifier you can gain that will make it so you lose no villagers attacking them.
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3152787002

[Padre]

I'm very tempted to rob a 1st Trader now. Will definitely do it if/when I run across that modifier.

[Luciole]

I gave it a shot , i actually robbed the 2nd trader instead of the first because Sahilda had nothing of value to me . Faster ? I don't know.
I still did it in 8 years on P18 , so i'm fine with it . In any case it was not that big of a deal in the end , i only lost 3 villagers.

Originally posted by arjensmit79:

Originally posted by Samseng Yik:

7 year is not super great, but its also not terrible and more factors go into the victory year than just this. So i guess i'll still have to give it a try sometime when i get back to AtS.

Come on...the game is calibrated to be won before the start of year 9 and SHOULD be over by year 11.
If you win by year 7 , it's great . I don't understand you.