[The Merchant] Achievement

[balrog2sdu]

Got the merchant achievement today. It was a fun challenge - to reach 'Small Town' without ever gathering berries or hunting game.

Helped me to learn a lot about the Trading post. Really the most challenging part was just getting those (3) level 3 plots. Needing 25 wealth, Ale and triple clothing options all at the same time took awhile.

[Ninephoenix]

For me it was getting that perk that removed the import tariff on food. Once I hard that, I was on a path to a wealth singularity as new villagers would be way more productive than their costs. And it was a matter of waiting for people to move in.

[Robbo Mate]

Does it matter if you buy berries or meat?

[dragon warrior]

Originally posted by Robbo Mate:

Does it matter if you buy berries or meat?

no, you can buy them from traders from neighboring regions. The main thing is not to collect these resources yourself.
and upon achieving the achievement, you can continue the game in the same settlement, but already start picking berries and hunting animals.

[Robbo Mate]

Glad to hear it thanks, as I'm on verge of lvl3 homes in my playthru and ive been scrounging hard on default settings.

[Nick]

Do you know if you can do the achievement in a 2nd village or does it have to be your starting region?

[WalrusJones]

If you rush apiaries this is likely a reasonably simple achievement, even on challenging.

The difficulty here compared to a hunting start is needing to get your bread on the market while you build burgages. This means eating the cost of a granary where most of my builds do logistics buildings year two.

1 chicken coop every 2 houses, and an pair of apiaries will feed you oddly well....
Add in vegetables and you have three foods for happy level 2 houses. This might seem strange when you could do a naked trade rush, but trust me here, this gets you immigrants fast.

For your level 2 village you can start selling bows and shields to import sheep, which give you wool for yarn.

Setting up goats on a few houses lets you run a tanner cobbler combo.

By the time you reach better deals at level 3, it should be trivial to buy a better church, as well as malt, which can be used to beer up for level 3 houses.

Now you can develop pretty much however suits your province.

[Ninephoenix]

Originally posted by WalrusJones:

If you rush apiaries

I feel like that defeats the point. It's called merchant, you're supposed to do it via trade.

[WalrusJones]

On challenging/on the brink you need two food types or you get people leaving, eggs and honey is the only one that you can do mid winter.

If it makes you feel any better, only eggs and honey sounds really gross.

[Cool Cat Jack]

It didnt trigger for me after I achieved small settlement despite not touching berries or hunting :(

[Moriendum.est]

Originally posted by Cool Cat Jack:

It didnt trigger for me after I achieved small settlement despite not touching berries or hunting :(

Same for me. The instruction was obviously clear, "Get to a "small town" settlement level without hunting or gathering berries.". So, with that in mind, I just created 5 Burgages up in the get go since that was just all of the requirements needed to lvl up to "Small town".

[linas.warrior]

You need to reach small TOWN, not small VILLAGE. To reach small town, you need to build level 3 burgages.

[Diaper Lord]

Apiary is the way to go lol

[trchorus]

I have same question as Nick above. Can this be in uiur 2nd region? Just did it there and it didn't trigger. Small town - 3 lol 3 plots

[scattster]

All I did was. Build houses first thing. Outfit them with vegetable gardens. As many as you can afford. They should start producing before your people go hungry. Sell planks and collect firewood. Spend point into Charcoal once you build the 5th house. Sell charcoal and buy the skins for your leather. This achievement was ridiculously easy.

[trchorus]

Didn't have any issues figuring out a way but I didn't focus on the achievement until my 2nd region but the achievement didn't proc when I made it to small town. So can anyone confirm if they achieved this after their initial settlement?