Workshops are worthless.

[Chevalier of Possums]

15,000 gold to build a workshop that makes 15 gold per day. That means it takes 1000 in game days before it even begins to make a profit. Meanwhile a 2 handed axe sells for 8,000 gold. The economy in Calradia is a strange animal.

It costs about 50 gold to feed an army of 200 men for a day. A decent helmet costs 50,000 gold. That means a single helmet is worth over 200,000 meals. You could literally feed a large village for 5+ years for what it costs to buy a helmet. If you were to convert that into modern currency your talking about a plain steel top helmet that costs at least 300,000 dollars.

By those numbers steel would be worth 10x its weight in gold. And a blacksmith could afford to buy all the horses in the known world after a years worth of making helmets.

[Aven]

Workshops need three things to function:

1) A supply of raw material.
Open up the trader in a city and look for which goods have a large stockpile available. Compare that to what the surrounding villages are producing. If they match up, there is a good chance that a workshop that uses that good to produce something will be profitable.

2) A demand for a final good.
Open up the trader in a city and look for which finals goods are not available. Compare that to what the surrounding villages are producing. If the surrounding villages produce a good that can be made into a needed final product, there is a good chance that a workshop that produces that final good will be profitable.

3) Villagers, or you.
Villagers buy and sell goods. If they can't get to a town, either because looters and bandits are preventing them from doing so or because that town is constantly under siege, then goods will not be bought and sold. You can bypass this somewhat by selling the goods your workshop needs directly to the town, and buying out the produced goods and taking them elsewhere to sell.

[Chevalier of Possums]

Originally posted by Aven:

Workshops need three things to function:

1) A supply of raw material.
Open up the trader in a city and look for which goods have a large stockpile available. Compare that to what the surrounding villages are producing. If they match up, there is a good chance that a workshop that uses that good to produce something will be profitable.

2) A demand for a final good.
Open up the trader in a city and look for which finals goods are not available. Compare that to what the surrounding villages are producing. If the surrounding villages produce a good that can be made into a needed final product, there is a good chance that a workshop that produces that final good will be profitable.

3) Villagers, or you.
Villagers buy and sell goods. If they can't get to a town, either because looters and bandits are preventing them from doing so or because that town is constantly under siege, then goods will not be bought and sold. You can bypass this somewhat by selling the goods your workshop needs directly to the town, and buying out the produced goods and taking them elsewhere to sell.

Yes i know all this, the village produces grapes-the town doesnt have much wine-i build a wine press- not a large amount of roving bandits- i make between 15 and 25 gold a day. Even if i made 150 gold per day on it, it still wouldnt be worth the massive initial investment of 15k just to get it started.

[flyingscot1066]

Originally posted by Shotgunwilly:

15,000 gold to build a workshop that makes 15 gold per day. That means it takes 1000 in game days before it even begins to make a profit. Meanwhile a 2 handed axe sells for 8,000 gold. The economy in Calradia is a strange animal.

It costs about 50 gold to feed an army of 200 men for a day. A decent helmet costs 50,000 gold. That means a single helmet is worth over 200,000 meals. You could literally feed a large village for 5+ years for what it costs to buy a helmet. If you were to convert that into modern currency your talking about a plain steel top helmet that costs at least 300,000 dollars.

By those numbers steel would be worth 10x its weight in gold. And a blacksmith could afford to buy all the horses in the known world after a years worth of making helmets.

If your workshop is making 15 dinars a day, it's a VERY poorly placed workshop. I can't recall having one make that little. Mine usually make at LEAST 100, usually closer to 150 each. Plus they are generating Renown for my clan eventually.

Trader perks are huge. Market Dealer, Local Connection, Sweatshops, Artisan Community, Villager Connections, Rapid Development all give boosts to how your workshops benefit you.

As far as a decent helmet being 50k, no. A really GOOD helmet costs 50k. A decent one costs about 10k. Still a lot, but nowhere near the same, and if you have an army of 200 men, you paid for ALL of their decent helmets, and their armor, and weapons, usually for about 50-100 dinars each.

But on the main topic, Workshops, they aren't a fire and forget type of investment like they were in Warband. You actually have to think like a merchant to ensure they turn a decent profit, and in any case they aren't going to finance your whole operation on their own.

[Chevalier of Possums]

Originally posted by flyingscot1066:

Originally posted by Shotgunwilly:

15,000 gold to build a workshop that makes 15 gold per day. That means it takes 1000 in game days before it even begins to make a profit. Meanwhile a 2 handed axe sells for 8,000 gold. The economy in Calradia is a strange animal.

It costs about 50 gold to feed an army of 200 men for a day. A decent helmet costs 50,000 gold. That means a single helmet is worth over 200,000 meals. You could literally feed a large village for 5+ years for what it costs to buy a helmet. If you were to convert that into modern currency your talking about a plain steel top helmet that costs at least 300,000 dollars.

By those numbers steel would be worth 10x its weight in gold. And a blacksmith could afford to buy all the horses in the known world after a years worth of making helmets.

If your workshop is making 15 dinars a day, it's a VERY poorly placed workshop. I can't recall having one make that little. Mine usually make at LEAST 100, usually closer to 150 each. Plus they are generating Renown for my clan eventually.

Trader perks are huge. Market Dealer, Local Connection, Sweatshops, Artisan Community, Villager Connections, Rapid Development all give boosts to how your workshops benefit you.

As far as a decent helmet being 50k, no. A really GOOD helmet costs 50k. A decent one costs about 10k. Still a lot, but nowhere near the same, and if you have an army of 200 men, you paid for ALL of their decent helmets, and their armor, and weapons, usually for about 50-100 dinars each.

But on the main topic, Workshops, they aren't a fire and forget type of investment like they were in Warband. You actually have to think like a merchant to ensure they turn a decent profit, and in any case they aren't going to finance your whole operation on their own.

A kettlehelm over mail in my game is 42,000 gold. A heavy nasalhelm is 148,000 gold.
I dont see a kettlehelm over mail as something i would consider really GOOD especially when its the basic helm that infantry units get in Calradia. Imagine being a common soldier in this world that makes 20 gold a day and wearing a helmet worth 10 years of pay. That would be like every modern soldier getting a tank issued to them as standard equipment.

[Karl Power]

Originally posted by Shotgunwilly:

You could literally feed a large village for 5+ years for what it costs to buy a helmet. If you were to convert that into modern currency your talking about a plain steel top helmet that costs at least 300,000 dollars. .

The important difference is that a 1960s military steel helmet is mass-produced in a factory while an 11th century helmet of the type you describe is an extremely rare luxury item created by a master craftsman (or more likely, several of them). A truly high-quality early medieval helmet like the one found at Sutton Hoo might indeed have cost the entire 5-year-production of a large village, if not more.

https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Datei:Sutton_Hoo_Helmet_Replica.jpg

Fantasy films like Lord of the Rings portray early/high medieval-like settings as if they essentially had modern industrial production; e.g. the armies of Gondor are all uniformed and wear identical plate armour. Many people therefore assume that medieval armies could afford such items and could obtain them in large quantities.

This has never been so anywhere in the early/high medieval period. Most Anglo-Saxon warriors went to battle with very little metal strapped to their body. An iron helmet maybe, otherwise leather and cloth. Icelandic Sagas refer to leather and cloth armour here and there and so does Skaldic poetry, although, of course, ring mail is more prestigious.

It took highly developed regions like Southern Germany until the 16th century (!) to develop a very sophisticated armour production that could pump out not only high-quality armour, but moreover significant amounts of helmets and cuirasses with which entire regiments were equipped. Most of these items however were ... pretty lacklustre in quality, made quickly and cheaply.

Of course the prices in bannerlord are reflective of the item's value to the player, not of any approximation of its true production cost, I'm not trying to dispute that. There is no 'real' reason why a 2h axe that essentially has a longer shaft than a 1h axe, and maybe a slightly larger head than the 1h axe, should cost six times as much. 2h axes and swords are so much more expensive because they are better in the game, that's the reason.

[Twelvefield]

There was a guy in Vancouver who made custom armour. A while back, Vancouver tore up one one of their major commercial streets to put in transit. The construction was so bad that many stores along this stretch were forced to close.

So the armourer bought up one of these shops, since it was dirt cheap to do so even by Vancouver standards. He explained in an interview that nobody needs medieval armour, but those who want it would walk though a live minefield to get it. Or in this case, navigate a massive trench that made the first step in or out of the store a very, very steep one. It made no difference where he put up his shop, people would come from anywhere.

My point is, quality will out.

[Chevalier of Possums]

Originally posted by Karl Power:

Originally posted by Shotgunwilly:

You could literally feed a large village for 5+ years for what it costs to buy a helmet. If you were to convert that into modern currency your talking about a plain steel top helmet that costs at least 300,000 dollars. .

The important difference is that a 1960s military steel helmet is mass-produced in a factory while an 11th century helmet of the type you describe is an extremely rare luxury item created by a master craftsman (or more likely, several of them). A truly high-quality early medieval helmet like the one found at Sutton Hoo might indeed have cost the entire 5-year-production of a large village, if not more.

https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Datei:Sutton_Hoo_Helmet_Replica.jpg

Fantasy films like Lord of the Rings portray early/high medieval-like settings as if they essentially had modern industrial production; e.g. the armies of Gondor are all uniformed and wear identical plate armour. Many people therefore assume that medieval armies could afford such items and could obtain them in large quantities.

This has never been so anywhere in the early/high medieval period. Most Anglo-Saxon warriors went to battle with very little metal strapped to their body. An iron helmet maybe, otherwise leather and cloth. Icelandic Sagas refer to leather and cloth armour here and there and so does Skaldic poetry, although, of course, ring mail is more prestigious.

It took highly developed regions like Southern Germany until the 16th century (!) to develop a very sophisticated armour production that could pump out not only high-quality armour, but moreover significant amounts of helmets and cuirasses with which entire regiments were equipped. Most of these items however were ... pretty lacklustre in quality, made quickly and cheaply.

Of course the prices in bannerlord are reflective of the item's value to the player, not of any approximation of its true production cost, I'm not trying to dispute that. There is no 'real' reason why a 2h axe that essentially has a longer shaft than a 1h axe, and maybe a slightly larger head than the 1h axe, should cost six times as much. 2h axes and swords are so much more expensive because they are better in the game, that's the reason.

A plain Iron kettle helm with a chainmail coif is nowhere near as ornate as the helmets your referring to. And while Early Anglo-Saxons may have had very little metal equipment the vlandian footmen of the 1080s in Calradia all have metal helmets with chainmail. So there is no reason metal armor should be that costly when almost everyone is wearing it. Also it only gives like 20ish armor to ur head slot so u can still get hit in the head with a sword and lose half your health, its not all that great.

Owning a smithy in a town that produces metal helmets makes 150 gold per day if we are being generous. That means in order for a shop that makes and sells metal helmets to produce enough profit for you to buy a metal helmet would take over 300 days.

I understand its a game but i see no reason for workshops to be this useless, is having a decent background income such a bad thing?

[Chevalier of Possums]

Originally posted by Twelvefield:

There was a guy in Vancouver who made custom armour. A while back, Vancouver tore up one one of their major commercial streets to put in transit. The construction was so bad that many stores along this stretch were forced to close.

So the armourer bought up one of these shops, since it was dirt cheap to do so even by Vancouver standards. He explained in an interview that nobody needs medieval armour, but those who want it would walk though a live minefield to get it. Or in this case, navigate a massive trench that made the first step in or out of the store a very, very steep one. It made no difference where he put up his shop, people would come from anywhere.

My point is, quality will out.

I bet his smithy makes more than 15-20 dollars a day.

[Doyle216]

You know I never really thought about it that way... That's kinda nuts.

[Sabaithal]

That means you got a bad workshop in an inappropriate location. Change it to something else. A good workshop in my experience gets between 150-250 per day.