Caravan Making Literally No Money

[Schrader]

I've had my caravan for at least 2 in game weeks and it has yet to make more than 400 a day. My daily troopy cost alone is 350, and the cost for the caravan is 250. I'm losing money every damn day and my caravan is doing nothing.

Help?

[Sovereigndrake]

Hold alt when you're walking around and look for the Smithy, Wood Workshop, Brewery, etc. Talk to the Shop Worker and say you want to buy the workshop.

[Schrader]

Publicado originalmente por Sovereigndrake:

Hold alt when you're walking around and look for the Smithy, Wood Workshop, Brewery, etc. Talk to the Shop Worker and say you want to buy the workshop.

Which is the best to buy? how much are they too and do I need to assign a companion to run it or something

[Sovereigndrake]

Publicado originalmente por God Himself:

Publicado originalmente por Sovereigndrake:

Hold alt when you're walking around and look for the Smithy, Wood Workshop, Brewery, etc. Talk to the Shop Worker and say you want to buy the workshop.

Which is the best to buy? how much are they too and do I need to assign a companion to run it or something

Hard to say which is best, you look around at the viillages to get a feel for what they might produce. Town with grain nearby will mean the city is a good site for brewery and so on. At least thats how i think it works?

I've seen them around 14k. No upkeep, no companion taken away, just pure profit.

[»Matrim Cauthon«]

Publicado originalmente por God Himself:

Publicado originalmente por ALDB:

that is a good money since they cover up their costs

Except I'm losing like 500 a day....

Except you're not.

Some basic math here.

Your Caravan is bring in ~400 a day in revenue, while running a 250 a day cost.

That's ~150 a day in profit, which should increase with time.

Your Caravan is, much to the opposite of your tile, actually literally making you money.

What it's not doing is making enough to cover your troop cost, which is a completely separate line of cost.

You still need to make money yourself, or run multiple caravans.

Also note that it's not unusual for a caravan to take 20 or even 30 days to start making a regular profit.

[Ksundheit]

Speaking of workshops :
Though it will also take a few days to make profits.
My recommendation is a city with silver ore in a nearby village(juwelier), a city with hardwood villages (carpenter) or a city with iron ore and hardwood (smithy)
Those are the most profitable workshops as far as I tried it out.
Which cities are best is something your should look on your own.
You can make oil via olives, you can make a brewery as mentioned before via villages with grain, a winery with grapes and so on. But if it's a brewery, winery you're going for, make sure that 2 attached villages have the required goods or the income will be kind of underwhelming

[Enspi]

Publicado originalmente por God Himself:

I've had my caravan for at least 2 in game weeks and it has yet to make more than 400 a day. My daily troopy cost alone is 350, and the cost for the caravan is 250. I'm losing money every damn day and my caravan is doing nothing.

Help?

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2060221314

I'm in my late game stage now, but just give your caravan time. The longer it operates the more it should run. Also, I'm not quite sure if this is accurate, but the amount it earns may also depend on the prosperity of the fief the caravan is established in. Any wars will also reduce the income due to not being able to trade in the kingdom.

That being said, caravans are very efficient ways of earning some dough. One of my caravans is producing between 2-3k a day now. Find alternative ways of earning some money meantime as your caravans are being established

[King Anoobis]

Publicado originalmente por Sovereigndrake:

Publicado originalmente por God Himself:

Which is the best to buy? how much are they too and do I need to assign a companion to run it or something

Hard to say which is best, you look around at the viillages to get a feel for what they might produce. Town with grain nearby will mean the city is a good site for brewery and so on. At least thats how i think it works?

I've seen them around 14k. No upkeep, no companion taken away, just pure profit.

Definitely this ^

Also caravans take quite a while, the fact its paying for itself is great. Eventually you will get a huge boost of 1000+ denars per day for a week. Not sure why but imo its similar to you doing it manually, you buy at low prices and wait to sell when they are high. Certain goods require you to travel further before they become higher priced/more valuable. Every now and then you find that town where you dumb half your goods and make your money back plus the mark-up.

Also getting a fief will greatly increase your daily gain depending on your garrison, but even then it will be a big boost as long as you can keep your villages from getting raided.

[Come at me Bro]

Taxes make you the most money. Sometimes I make $1K from my caravan, sometimes it's 500 or so. It even uses up a companion slot, you'd have to run multiple to make big money. Say your cities, use policies that increase taxes if you need gold that much. i prefer the utilities over gold.

[Hero_Weasel]

I could be wrong, but I strongly believe that how long it takes for them to get started making money depends on WHERE they start, and how SAFE their starting area is.

If they have to buy goods from a starting area, and those goods arent worth a lot, or they have to travel a long way to get a good price for them then they cant afford to higher more people/buy more goods. If they loose guards to bandits they again have to higher more guards (highering cost money). If the caravan is spending a lot of money highering new guards they arent buying new goods.

So make sure you start your caravan in a city with low prices so they can sell high, and of course wont get attacked by hoards of bandits right out of the first city.

It will still take a bit for them to be profitable, but it will be faster if these are considered for the caravan start.

[katzenkrimis]

Never had an issue running three caravans out of Sturgia.

In the beta, 485 days in and they are making over a thousand each.

In my first playthrough, with the crappy version of the game, they were making up to 3,000 each by day 700.

[OldGamer]

I am good with caravans the basics:

Firstly, Your companion needs to be good at:
+Riding
+Trading
+Steward
+Charm also helps.

The best therefore are:
"the swift"
"the vinemaker" (or something like that)
"the spicedealer"
etc

2nd, It matters what township you buy it from. Is it healthy, has it got a good village "income" (of resources) and are the businesses in those towns good?

3rd, Companion remember to kit out your companion BEFORE you send them out on caravaning. I am not sure if you can upgrade them/mess around with them afterwards (it's not intuitive at least) unless you disband and have to pay circa 13k to 15k again.

4th, The economy is variable in this game, everything impacts it. I mean everything.
So if you have a business in one town making Pottery cheaply then the price it goes at the local market will be cheap. Meaning more likely your caravan will buy cheap/sell high on the next town.

Note: Observing the caravan (I went around the map twice with my two) they sell/buy in every town at first they spend it on upgrading the caravan (starts with 30 then goes to 50-80 then over 100+ if its making good profit within a space of a month) and this is IF it doesn't get looted.

5th, which neatly goes onto TIME, a little patience goes a long way. And even if you don't do any of the above and you are just bandit hunting and selling the loot straight (not even smithering or goodsdumping your workshops' townships with raw maerials etc), it will STILL make money. Only a lot smaller.

Currently I have two caravans each making me between 500-1200 coin per tick. Add that to the smithing and my merc contract (killing bandits), plus the 3 workshops I have - I make around 5k per tick.

The only thing is, you cannot upgrade the party members that are not "holding" in your party which I personally think is a HUGE design flaw. If I am correct that you have to disband in order to upgrade your character then re-buy whatever to do it again afterwards, then its rather a tad bit annoying.

Then again, making 5k a day you would only have to have it running 3 days in game to make the coin back and thats without all the perks making it cheaper.

Hope this helps.
OG

[Radd]

The timing depends on the raw resource availability from the villages of your town and the resource itself. Grain will go faster, but give a lower yield. The higher end stuff like Olives and Wine will take maybe a month or more to become noticeable. Just give it time, be happy with what you're bringing in now. Your upkeep is low, I'm rolling out 2k a day (this is still low) and my income is lower than yours. My playthough is raiding and pillaging, so I don't invest in workshops. On another character though, it's working fine and after about 60 in games day I could do whatever I pleased.

[Schrader]

Publicado originalmente por »Nihilist«:

Publicado originalmente por God Himself:

Except I'm losing like 500 a day....

Except you're not.

Some basic math here.

Your Caravan is bring in ~400 a day in revenue, while running a 250 a day cost.

That's ~150 a day in profit, which should increase with time.

Your Caravan is, much to the opposite of your tile, actually literally making you money.

What it's not doing is making enough to cover your troop cost, which is a completely separate line of cost.

You still need to make money yourself, or run multiple caravans.

Also note that it's not unusual for a caravan to take 20 or even 30 days to start making a regular profit.

Well its not always 400 a day... Some days it makes literally no money...

[Schrader]

Publicado originalmente por OldGamer:

I am good with caravans the basics:

Firstly, Your companion needs to be good at:
+Riding
+Trading
+Steward
+Charm also helps.

The best therefore are:
"the swift"
"the vinemaker" (or something like that)
"the spicedealer"
etc

2nd, It matters what township you buy it from. Is it healthy, has it got a good village "income" (of resources) and are the businesses in those towns good?

3rd, Companion remember to kit out your companion BEFORE you send them out on caravaning. I am not sure if you can upgrade them/mess around with them afterwards (it's not intuitive at least) unless you disband and have to pay circa 13k to 15k again.

4th, The economy is variable in this game, everything impacts it. I mean everything.
So if you have a business in one town making Pottery cheaply then the price it goes at the local market will be cheap. Meaning more likely your caravan will buy cheap/sell high on the next town.

Note: Observing the caravan (I went around the map twice with my two) they sell/buy in every town at first they spend it on upgrading the caravan (starts with 30 then goes to 50-80 then over 100+ if its making good profit within a space of a month) and this is IF it doesn't get looted.

5th, which neatly goes onto TIME, a little patience goes a long way. And even if you don't do any of the above and you are just bandit hunting and selling the loot straight (not even smithering or goodsdumping your workshops' townships with raw maerials etc), it will STILL make money. Only a lot smaller.

Currently I have two caravans each making me between 500-1200 coin per tick. Add that to the smithing and my merc contract (killing bandits), plus the 3 workshops I have - I make around 5k per tick.

The only thing is, you cannot upgrade the party members that are not "holding" in your party which I personally think is a HUGE design flaw. If I am correct that you have to disband in order to upgrade your character then re-buy whatever to do it again afterwards, then its rather a tad bit annoying.

Then again, making 5k a day you would only have to have it running 3 days in game to make the coin back and thats without all the perks making it cheaper.

Hope this helps.
OG

Thanks!

[Schrader]

Thanks for all the advice everyone, this community is dope