Workshops give no money?

[Sam "The Pathfinder"]

I have two different workshops and they give out zero profit, I can't understand what do I do wrong? Weeks passed since I bought them, and there were couple of days when I earned at least a bit of coins, but most of the time they are useless.
And yes, I know they are MUCH less efficient then forgery, but I just want to get some little passive income.

[Action Man]

Ohey, is it Workshop Wednesday again already? :)

There are a lot of topics on this forum alone that can help you. Don't look at older, outdated info. There's probably good threads within the past couple of weeks.

Be smart about what and where you buy. Don't buy a workshop in a low prosperity/war torn area. Check what the bound villages to your workshop are trading. Have your workshop make things that use those materials. Don't allow competition. Protect the bound villages. If a castle changes lords. it's bound villages may get redirected elsewhere, so keep an eye on that.

[Someguyinhere]

Essentially workshop payouts work on a calculation that takes into consideration the local economy around it. First, if there's no village producing the raw material nearby, or too much competition, or the local economy is already completely stuffed full of the item you're producing, you'll make less and less money. The old system had a minimum payout you'd receive no matter what.

That was tossed out many iterations ago when they overhauled economic mechanics in favor of it being more in-depth for trader playstyles and the like. Now you will just flat out not get money if the calculation is below a certain threshold. Your options are to either CRUSH the competition and completely buyout the surplus, or sell the workshop and take your ventures to a better location.

Crushing the competition and buying out the market like a scummy big business man is certainly fun if you're playing as a trader, but it is expensive and requires a chunky amount of capital. You can recoup a little by buying and selling. For example, if your problem is simply that there's too many workshops in nearby cities making the same thing you are, you can just buy them all, change their production, and sell them. You take a loss overall but it's not as bad as it could be.

Overall, look up current, modern guides and videos. Ignore anything that's old.

[theodora21]

I'll spare you the search through the forum. This is my recent reply to someone asking about workshops:

Workshops are not guesswork. Whether workshops are profitable or not depends on a lot of factors that you can identify yourself:

- the town's prosperity and how often it is being besieged/conquered (which affects prosperity and prices)

- are the bound and also nearby non-bound villages producing the required raw materials or not (and if they are, are the villages or the villagers being attacked often, including by bandits)

- how many workshops of the same type are on the map or close to your workshop or in the same town (the more, the lower the price will be for that product; and this is different every time you start a new playthrough, workshops are random)
So for example you can buy all the silversmiths and change their production to something else, sell them off, open up a silversmith in Sanala for example (basically monopolizing the production of jewelry) and see the price of jewelry and your workshop profits increase
However, this doesn't last forever, workshops not owned by you can change their production so new silversmiths might pop up in time

- the demand

- how expensive the final product (for example beer vs jewelry or velvet) or the raw materials are

- are you in the early, mid or late game (later in the game most towns are prosperous and consume a lot of goods at a high price)

These are biggest deciding factors. Also, there is at least one policy that affects workshops, and perks

If your workshops aren't profitable, my guess is either that the town is being attacked often or it's a low prosperity town by default / you don't have a reliable source of raw materials (the villages are not producing them or they are being attacked often) / the final product is a cheap item that might also be very common / a combination of those.

The best workshops will always be at the edges of the map (in safe areas), preferably in prosperous towns that have villages with the needed raw materials, with a preferably expensive finished product that is not very common, so basically Aserai and Vlandian territories. Khuzait territory is a big nono because of the bandits, the Empire and the Battanians are constantly under attack and they also don't have very prosperous towns (at least compared to the Aserai and Vlandians), Sturgians also have poor towns so yeah.

The only exception to these rules would be if the price of something is not balanced (like wool weaveries used to be), but this always gets fixed.

Towns' prosperity is a different discussion but trust me that Vlandian and Aserai towns will end up with the highest prosperity (even if they don't start with the highest one) IF they are not attacked or conquered often, followed by Battanian and Empire towns

[Seggellion]

If you are using workshops in the 1.2.0 or 1.2.1 beta, then the mechanics have completely changed and they will constantly stop producing. They no longer provide passive income, unless there is a new trick to it, but I have not seen anyone discover it yet. In the beta, they are only worth buying if you want to micromanage all the trading yourself, IMO. In the other versions of the game, all the advice listed above is sound in order to create solid passive income.

[theodora21]

Originally posted by Seggellion:

If you are using workshops in the 1.2.0 or 1.2.1 beta, then the mechanics have completely changed and they will constantly stop producing. They no longer provide passive income, unless there is a new trick to it, but I have not seen anyone discover it yet. In the beta, they are only worth buying if you want to micromanage all the trading yourself, IMO. In the other versions of the game, all the advice listed above is sound in order to create solid passive income.

Not playing on 1.2 because of crashes and bugs but wow, out of all the things wrong with this game they decided to revamp workshops, Jesus......

[Someguyinhere]

Originally posted by theodora21:

Originally posted by Seggellion:

If you are using workshops in the 1.2.0 or 1.2.1 beta, then the mechanics have completely changed and they will constantly stop producing. They no longer provide passive income, unless there is a new trick to it, but I have not seen anyone discover it yet. In the beta, they are only worth buying if you want to micromanage all the trading yourself, IMO. In the other versions of the game, all the advice listed above is sound in order to create solid passive income.

Not playing on 1.2 because of crashes and bugs but wow, out of all the things wrong with this game they decided to revamp workshops, Jesus......

Bro they revamped workshops and the economy ages ago. These changes aren't recent. Also they were very good changes that made playing as a trader much more engaging.

[siricjr]

Originally posted by Action Man:

Ohey, is it Workshop Wednesday again already? :)

There are a lot of topics on this forum alone that can help you. Don't look at older, outdated info. There's probably good threads within the past couple of weeks.

Be smart about what and where you buy. Don't buy a workshop in a low prosperity/war torn area. Check what the bound villages to your workshop are trading. Have your workshop make things that use those materials. Don't allow competition. Protect the bound villages. If a castle changes lords. it's bound villages may get redirected elsewhere, so keep an eye on that.

if he playing normal non beta

it is buggy

i had workshop brewer

i bout out all brewers around my town an switch them

waited (2)weeks later still made 0

only after i switch brewer to another shop an switch back did it made money

after that i just left normal an went to beta

this was all last patch

not the new beta patch

so i dont know if this bug is still going on

[Sam "The Pathfinder"]

Wow, thanks a lot for the answers, guys! I guess, my problem was in the consequences of recent war, but anyway I'll check out nearby villages etc.
May you all prosper!

[Someguyinhere]

Originally posted by siricjr:

Originally posted by Action Man:

Ohey, is it Workshop Wednesday again already? :)

There are a lot of topics on this forum alone that can help you. Don't look at older, outdated info. There's probably good threads within the past couple of weeks.

Be smart about what and where you buy. Don't buy a workshop in a low prosperity/war torn area. Check what the bound villages to your workshop are trading. Have your workshop make things that use those materials. Don't allow competition. Protect the bound villages. If a castle changes lords. it's bound villages may get redirected elsewhere, so keep an eye on that.

if he playing normal non beta

it is buggy

i had workshop brewer

i bout out all brewers around my town an switch them

waited (2)weeks later still made 0

only after i switch brewer to another shop an switch back did it made money

after that i just left normal an went to beta

this was all last patch

not the new beta patch

so i dont know if this bug is still going on

You sure it wasn't just that your surrounding towns were all FULL of beer? Sometimes you need to empty the stock yourself and spread it around. Or even just dump it if you're rich enough.

[lar unuruur]

passive income? you invest 22+k gold to have MAYBE 100g income per day. too often it is less or even zero days and days, if not months. to get ANY passive income at this rate, you have to wait... 3 in game years.
during those 3 years, most likely, you will invest even MORE. what means you have to wait more than 4 years to get ANY "passive income".

if player do things at least reasonably well, by 4 years such "passive income" is so small its just pointless.

i say - forget them! good towns can get you reasonable passive income, but not garbage called "workshops".

[Someguyinhere]

Originally posted by lar unuruur:

passive income? you invest 22+k gold to have MAYBE 100g income per day. too often it is less or even zero days and days, if not months. to get ANY passive income at this rate, you have to wait... 3 in game years.
during those 3 years, most likely, you will invest even MORE. what means you have to wait more than 4 years to get ANY "passive income".

if player do things at least reasonably well, by 4 years such "passive income" is so small its just pointless.

i say - forget them! good towns can get you reasonable passive income, but not garbage called "workshops".

Skill issue.

[Gnasty Gnorc]

The amount of people here who can’t be bothered to read patch notes on economy changes then whine that their workshop doesn’t produce.

Lol.

[ShepherdOfCats]

I have a jewelry workshop in Sanala (aserai town with 4 villages feeding it). 13 years from the game start, the town prosperity is about 11,000+. It is making between 500-700 denars per day. That's without any production bonuses, because I don't actually control the town.

(it isn't even cost-effective anymore to buy the jewelry there and sell it somewhere else, due to the high prices such a prosperous town will pay, but I do occasionally buy some and sell it for minimal profit just to keep fueling the demand)

When prosperity increases, even the not-so-profitable workshops will turn a decent profit. Early game they aren't worth it (but I'm pretty sure the cost-to-buy the workshop is related to the workshop's profitability, so if you wait later in the game it might get really expensive)

[Legiondorf]

I hate the way Bannerlord does the enterprises Warband was way better I felt like a playa making a play for the throne. And you shouldn't forfeit property because plebs want a war we are nobles afterall about all that tosh. RIP Rivacheg dyeworks.

[lar unuruur]

by the 6th year game is over. maybe on some dynasty campaigns it is good, but otherwise no workshop is worth any efforts, because when they finally start to payout, game is almost always over by that time. pitiful money they bring at that time plays no role whatsoever then.