How to make influence/money as merc?

[Chance]

Trying a merc playthrough and I'm barely making denars, I've heard smithing some how makes fat money? and so does starting a caravan?

but I saw somewhere that if you donate prisoners you get influence to fuel your pay however I didn't get a drop of influence when I donated some prisoners.

[smitty]

Raiding and selling stuff from raids. You pillage villages and then sell the loot, use the money to buy workshops.

The game economy is really dependent on your pillaging or looting and then selling stuff. I my experience you cant just ECO the game with non-combat stuff, the combat + looting is required.

If you play something like X4 you can play mostly without combat.

[Chance]

Originally posted by smitty:

Raiding and selling stuff from raids. You pillage villages and then sell the loot, use the money to buy workshops.

The game economy is really dependent on your pillaging or looting and then selling stuff. I my experience you cant just ECO the game with non-combat stuff, the combat + looting is required.

If you play something like X4 you can play mostly without combat.

Doesn't that ruin your reputation tho? making it harder to recruit?

[GIJoe597]

As a mercenary you should be rolling in Denars. Fight every battle you can against enemy lord parties. The money from selling battle loot should net you 10K to 30K easy early on.

If the kingdom you are a merc for is at peace, leave, join one that is getting their butt kicked. They will pay more.

EDIT: Do not leave a kingdom at peace if you still have Influence being converted. Let it run out first. Do missions or fight bandits/hideouts until all your influence is converted to denars.

[Zorlond]

Looting villages is completely unnecessary. Fight all the battles, sell what loot you don't use, influence will grind into money. If there's no war, fight bandits and clear hideouts. Having a couple workshops helps, of course, but you shouldn't have too much trouble keeping your influence up and the pay rolling.

[Chance]

Originally posted by GIJoe597:

As a mercenary you should be rolling in Denars. Fight every battle you can against enemy lord parties. The money from selling battle loot should net you 10K to 30K easy early on.

If the kingdom you are a merc for is at peace, leave, join one that is getting their butt kicked. They will pay more.

EDIT: Do not leave a kingdom at peace if you still have Influence being converted. Let it run out first. Do missions or fight bandits/hideouts until all your influence is converted to denars.

I'm still early game so 50 man parties vs 100 isn't quite it yet, I join armies but don't get much from them rn, the loot is /okay/ usually 2k-3k right now

[Teralitha]

Smithing is how I always start out making money.

[~ Fabulous ~]

as a mercenary you should change sides as the money flow, the lord that you follow get ambushed by a big army? ho boy, switch side rob him and capture him so that you can sale him to his enemy, fun time, then go ask his villagers for supply, if they refuse, more money to you, because you can sale them after you boink their heads with a mallet, after you done asking supply from all the enemy faction villages, change to the other sides and ask money from you former employer villages too. You basically cannot lose as a mercenary.

[Chance]

Originally posted by Teralitha:

Smithing is how I always start out making money.

I started giving that a go, hows that work? Everytime I make an order they're displeased with it.

[~ Fabulous ~]

Originally posted by Chance:

Originally posted by Teralitha:

Smithing is how I always start out making money.

I started giving that a go, hows that work? Everytime I make an order they're displeased with it.

no, the exploit is not that, it go like this:

unlock 2h weapon parts until you get flax blade part, smelt some pugio( those 200 denar dagger you can get from empire towns) and turn them into a flax sword with highest damage then sell them en mass, pugio +charcoal cost you like 200, you can sell those flax blade for like 6k a pop...huge margin

[Chance]

Originally posted by ~ Fabulous ~:

Originally posted by Chance:

I started giving that a go, hows that work? Everytime I make an order they're displeased with it.

no, the exploit is not that, it go like this:

unlock 2h weapon parts until you get flax blade part, smelt some pugio( those 200 denar dagger you can get from empire towns) and turn them into a flax sword with highest damage then sell them en mass, pugio +charcoal cost you like 200, you can sell those flax blade for like 6k a pop...huge margin

sheesh

[Ruffio]

Originally posted by ~ Fabulous ~:

Originally posted by Chance:

I started giving that a go, hows that work? Everytime I make an order they're displeased with it.

no, the exploit is not that, it go like this:

unlock 2h weapon parts until you get flax blade part, smelt some pugio( those 200 denar dagger you can get from empire towns) and turn them into a flax sword with highest damage then sell them en mass, pugio +charcoal cost you like 200, you can sell those flax blade for like 6k a pop...huge margin

Yeah hoss, that is not so much the case in 1.2 anylonger, You want big bucks, you need great skill to get masterwork and legendary, and with the latest hotfix update to 1.2 now also material tiers come into play on top to get a chance of masterwork and legendary.

You can create those swords and churn them out mass, but you more looking at 2-3k now.

[~ Fabulous ~]

Originally posted by Ruffio:

Originally posted by ~ Fabulous ~:

no, the exploit is not that, it go like this:

unlock 2h weapon parts until you get flax blade part, smelt some pugio( those 200 denar dagger you can get from empire towns) and turn them into a flax sword with highest damage then sell them en mass, pugio +charcoal cost you like 200, you can sell those flax blade for like 6k a pop...huge margin

Yeah hoss, that is not so much the case in 1.2 anylonger, You want big bucks, you need great skill to get masterwork and legendary, and with the latest hotfix update to 1.2 now also material tiers come into play on top to get a chance of masterwork and legendary.

You can create those swords and churn them out mass, but you more looking at 2-3k now.

have just try it again a few minute ago and here are my result:

Rusted crafted: 2k+

Dull crafted: 4k+

Crafted: 7k+

I believe Balance, masterwork and legendary will be higher but even just crafted is already 7k

edit:
apparently balance is only 8k lol

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3015312961

[Don-Meisner]

Make a horse archer army 40-50 should be enough. And do Caravan escort missions or caravan ambush. They will make you role in money with a fairly low upkeep army. And as a merc even more money.
I will never do smith, so cheesy

[Sabaithal]

Participate in battles at all. The bigger the battle, or the less one-sided in your favor it is the more influence you get.

You don't even need to fight enemy kingdoms, you can fight bandit parties or raid their lairs and get influence.

[flyingscot1066]

One thing to make sure of when doing mercenary work: not every kingdom pays the same. If they are winning their war, they pay a lot less than if they are getting rolled over. Shop around for better wages.