Ale impossible to keep in supply

[Dracsis]

So I started with a high value iron mine and terrible fertility, so I figured I'd wind up importing all my ale, but... This stuff is SO expensive, how the heck are you supposed to maintain a supply?

[SymphonyX4]

you should be able to use your iron to craft weapons and armor which should provide enough gold. If you have bad fertility, you can also invest in Rye field which should have better yield.

[eflat0]

I supply regions with poor fertility barley, malt and ale from my fertile regions, but still have to import in those poor areas at times - so I set the import surplus level on ale very low at 5 - that seems to work. They run out of ale just once in a while but gain back enough quickly and they're far from going broke. I do have a malt house and brewery in those regions and will sometimes send them a ton of barley in exchange for ore.

I have an infinite iron and clay in a region so tiles and weapons are being sold... thing is even though all it's exports should surpass and make up for the imports they rarely do. You'll have fifty to a hundred spears or whatever sitting at the traders and they'll sit there while the trader imports a ton of stuff before he sells even one of them.

[Clovis Sangrail]

You can import barley and brew your own ale. That will save you a little.

And even ♥♥♥♥♥♥ land will produce some barley.

[Dracsis]

So I am making weapons and armor, and it is providing no where NEAR enough money. to put it in perspective, it's like 5 or 6 money(whatever it is) per helmet. Ale is 18. I set import of ale to 10, but NONE of my plots are able to upgrade despite them drinking the tavern dry instantly.

[Humble]

I thought few patch improve Ale or fix Ale supply issue, not worse?

There is tree skill that help limited gold per trade, unless that nerfed? I had not play this game since new patch, Just played game day it's come out. but stop playing just before new first patch.

[Tekel1959]

Originally posted by Humble:

I thought few patch improve Ale or fix Ale supply issue, not worse?

There is tree skill that help limited gold per trade, unless that nerfed? I had not play this game since new patch, Just played game day it's come out. but stop playing just before new first patch.

It is better, but still nowhere near reasonably sustainable IMO.

[CatPerson]

If you're trying to import minimum amounts, mostly to upgrade houses, you have to keep an eagle eye on the tavern. As soon as you see it has 1 ale in it, pause the game and then go around commanding an upgrade to any houses that you and your building (logs, planks etc) supplies can. Repeat.

On tolerant/normal approval metrics, you don't generally need oodles of ale all the time just to keep approval from dropping too much (on tolerant it doesn't seem to do anything, if they have no ale on hand, actually) - not sure about higher difficulty settings, approval probably tanks a lot faster then.

[silent mike]

Originally posted by CatPerson:

On tolerant/normal approval metrics, you don't generally need oodles of ale all the time just to keep approval from dropping too much (on tolerant it doesn't seem to do anything, if they have no ale on hand, actually) - not sure about higher difficulty settings, approval probably tanks a lot faster then.

Even on challenging difficulty it's pretty easy now. You just have to offset it enough so disapproval doesn't completely tank. I found on a recent playthrough about 10-15 barley was generally enough to keep a large town going.

[Tekel1959]

Originally posted by silent mike:

Originally posted by CatPerson:

On tolerant/normal approval metrics, you don't generally need oodles of ale all the time just to keep approval from dropping too much (on tolerant it doesn't seem to do anything, if they have no ale on hand, actually) - not sure about higher difficulty settings, approval probably tanks a lot faster then.

Even on challenging difficulty it's pretty easy now. You just have to offset it enough so disapproval doesn't completely tank. I found on a recent playthrough about 10-15 barley was generally enough to keep a large town going.

Not my experience. First run this patch, at less than a large town, I stockpiled 550 ales across the street before opening my tavern. I also had barley farms running WAY over 10-15, and 2 malt shops and two 2 family brewers. My ale plummeted to half in one season, before it slowed down to a rate that would still have me out of ale before next harvest much less >malt>ale.

So I bailed, and now pause the tavern until I need to upgrade something to level 3. If this rate of consumption is enforced with no way to game it, it basically would take level 3 housing away and I would move on to something else. It is horribly broken right now from what I can tell.

I play flat out easy mode almost exclusively.

[Didz]

This was the Dev's strategy for preventing players adopting a Trade Focused Solution to the problem and forcing them down a narrow development path. There is no solution to this problem other than to exploit the resources you have as best you can and try to earn the ridiculous cost of importing Ale.

It's tedious and boring but that's how this game is designed. The only other option is to play 'Wakka-Mole' with the Bandit camps and take the reward as Regional Wealth to pay for the Ale. or waste huge resources scraping a few barley seeds out of an infertile land.

[WebTourist]

Don't import ale. It's too expensive.
1. import Malt.
2. Build a Brewery Extension in the Burgage Plot to turn the Malt into Ale.

[Didz]

Originally posted by WebTourist:

Don't import ale. It's too expensive.
1. import Malt.
2. Build a Brewery Extension in the Burgage Plot to turn the Malt into Ale.

I looked at that but the Malt is almost as expensive as the Ale, and once you factor in the resources and labour its actually cheaper to import the Ale and be done with it.

The clever solution of course is to import the ale from another region with decent farmland, but that's dependant upon the internal trade working. Though I have done it successfully using the Pack Station.

[Iskar]

Import/export prices are just way (like, waaaaaayyyyy) off. Manufactured goods are sometimes cheaper than their material ingredients and especially weapons and armour should fetch much more.

[Yehoodi]

Originally posted by Dracsis:

So I am making weapons and armor, and it is providing no where NEAR enough money. to put it in perspective, it's like 5 or 6 money(whatever it is) per helmet. Ale is 18. I set import of ale to 10, but NONE of my plots are able to upgrade despite them drinking the tavern dry instantly.

I think barley is 12 coins, which is cheaper than 18. All you need a malt building and have one of your homes have a brewery in the back yard and you should be able to supply some ale.

I plant a few fields of barley each year and only import barley as needed. Yes it is expensive, but it is the only thing that I import.

By the time I need to buy barley I have a pretty good econ going which helps.

[Yehoodi]

Originally posted by Didz:

This was the Dev's strategy for preventing players adopting a Trade Focused Solution to the problem and forcing them down a narrow development path. There is no solution to this problem other than to exploit the resources you have as best you can and try to earn the ridiculous cost of importing Ale.

It's tedious and boring but that's how this game is designed. The only other option is to play 'Wakka-Mole' with the Bandit camps and take the reward as Regional Wealth to pay for the Ale. or waste huge resources scraping a few barley seeds out of an infertile land.

Agreed. Having played many city building games I have found that once one get's one's city going, most games have a product one can exploit to make a lot of coin in trade.

It is kind of refreshing that so far, that is not the case with Manor Lords.

I buy barley as needed, but mainly grown my own. It is refreshing to have a game that forces one to be somewhat self sufficient.