Ale is bankrupting me!

[gg I throw]

So i feel I've gotten a pretty good grasp on the game and how to deal with a lot of potential issues for my villagers. Gotten a few regions, and also a decent military. However, the one thing I feel I cannot fix no matter what is ale in the tavern. For one thing it is a requirement to get tier 3 houses, which is only a real problem in the newer regions. But the villagers drink SO MUCH ale.

At first you kinda have to buy the ale via trading posts, and the prices are crazy. They also go up because there is a high demand, the more you buy. This wouldn't really be a problem if I could find a good way of making back the money by selling good, but whenever I get goods to sell (Rooftiles, charcoal, shoes, weapons/armor etc) those prices drop down to 1 per unit because there will be a massive surplus. I kinda have to go back and forth between selling and not selling to get decent prices, but that is killing the game for me.

The real issue is not upgrading to tier 3, it is once you get to tier 3 houses, they demand constant ale, or you will get a massive loss of approval due to "lack of entertainment". This means no more villagers, and the region is stuck as I cant tax, and have to spend everything on ale just to keep my villagers from leaving.

The only way of somewhat handling this issue is to have an entire fertile region produce barley for ale and then shipping it off to other regions. I just feel it ruins that whole region, and its still near impossible to keep up with the demands, the more regions/villagers you have.

I read that the devs know about this issue and is planning a fix, but it is seriously ruining my experience with a great game becuase all my efforts go into making and trading ale. I'm seriously looking forward to some new patches. Rant over.

[robchatc35]

I have seen a video where he gets 1 ale in the tavern, then pause the tavern. So nobody can use the tavern but still showing it has ale. Then you can upgrade to tier 3. But you must uncheck the ale from the granary or store house so they don't collect it from the tavern.

[Fekin]

Originally posted by robchatc35:

I have seen a video where he gets 1 ale in the tavern, then pause the tavern. So nobody can use the tavern but still showing it has ale. Then you can upgrade to tier 3. But you must uncheck the ale from the granary or store house so they don't collect it from the tavern.

That sounds interesting.

[Fred Sanford]

But to be clear, even if you optimize the production and distribution chains, the overall consumption rate is too high IMO.

[Monk]

How big are you making your barley farms?

Since it's key to lvl 3 burgs it can turn the fertile regions into mini-Milwaukees* just to supply the less fertile regions. Currently building towards a supply chain just for this, will see how it goes.

Big fan of specialized regions tho, reflective of real-life commerce drivers. The trans-region trade needs some tweaking but a great concept.

And that's typical of EA resource driven city builders, logistics and pathing are usually high on the immediate “needs work” list.

[Scaristotle]

Ban Ale from the Granary. They will have no choice but to stockpile in Pantries at the Breweries and Taverns.

(Note that it can take some time for this to take effect and there is still the issue of mass consumption.)

[leftbehind]

Ale is currently bugged as workers will take ale from Tavern and move it to Granary.

But, regardless, if you're losing money the problem is likely not the ale. First, limit how the surplus amount so you're not buying crazy amounts of ale. Next, make sure you have enough upgraded buildings, as they will bring in monthly revenue. Finally, when selling stuff via trader, do so in bursts of a few months at a time, so you get max sales price from the global market. (The same effect happens when buying stuff too - if you constantly buy same thing, the price will go up due to limited supply)

[Whysoserious]

Originally posted by Fred Sanford:

But to be clear, even if you optimize the production and distribution chains, the overall consumption rate is too high IMO.

Only non-alcoholics would say this.

[Quxudais]

There's a mod to increase Ale production per malt on Nexus, easy to install and fixes the Ale issue for now until they can do a balance pass.

[Agony_Aunt]

Don't buy ale.

If you must, buy barley and convert it.

However, keep in mind, you mainly need the ale to upgrade your level 2 plots, and since there are no level 4 plots (yet), screw them.

Get enough ale to upgrade and then let the level 3 plots suffer.

Yeah, you take an happiness hit, but by that point it really doesn't matter.

[Oddible]

Stop buying ale, that's insanely expensive. Buy BARLEY and malt it yourself then add an artisan brewery.

[Fortigan]

I don't grow barley at all anymore, nor wheat. I put that development point into orchards instead of plowing. More food than you get from wheat farms per space used and orchards don't require outlandish seasonal labor. Not having to deal with farms at all is so much easier. Get some sheep instead of growing flax and you can supply clothing needs that way.

That being said, why are you buying ale instead of barley? Get the "Better Deals" development point as your 2nd point and start an import and export empire. Barley is cheap and you can easily export enough goods to afford it.

[Martin]

Originally posted by Agony_Aunt:

Don't buy ale.

If you must, buy barley and convert it.

Do this. buy 10 sacks of barley, put 1 worker in a malter and have 2 lvl 2 Burgess houses set to make ale.

This will produce enough ale, to supply your people.

Make 3 fields for producing Barley, set 1 of each field to 100 010 001 Fallow/Grow per year.
Set 1 Farm Building to oversee and on advanced set work area to only barley fields. This way you'll plant and harvest the full field, set at least 4 works to the farm in march april and in sep/august. Once you start collecting barley, stop trading for it.

You can go for apple growing or rye, but both are imo a pointless route. I keep points for deep mines and sheep, plus the plough. And double berries. Apples are ok but it takes around 3-4 years to get decent crops.

[CatPerson]

I don't know if it was intended or a glitch, but I noticed when I tried to import Ale itself, the only way it would get into the town was by having a granary set to accept it. I mean, I waited months, it stayed in the trade depot, never got to Tavern that whole time. Meaning you'd then run into the granary gets ale, tavern gets ale, granary takes it back circle.

So yeah ... I like setting up two malt workers, 1 employee each, with them and Tavern close to the brewery house/s, import barley - while you're unlikely to ever have a large surplus of ale, most of the time it's enough to trigger/satisfy the requirements, outside of very large populations.

[Ranzera]

I agree they consume ale way too fast. 1 region importing eventually drives the market of barley into under supply.

Honestly though, I think you can just eat the lack of entertainment morale penalty. Between your morale bonuses between Church level, food variety and clothing variety, you can easily tank 1 morale malus. Only run the tavern/malt house when you want to upgrade burgages.

[Stellion]

Don't just import ale alone, buy barley and malt it and make it yourself, it seems to have a higher market cap before the price goes up. Barley can get stuck in your trade post sometimes however, but a reload usually fixes it.

Make sure the granary can't collect ale and the storehouse doesn't collect malt, because a brewer family can out make the malthouse.