Caravans, now a waste of money.

[jorvinn]

Caravans are now limited to 30 members max - that means it rarely survives more than a visit to a few towns - you´ll never see an investment - or even a return of capital - on the 15-18k gold you spent to form them.. having a clan tier bonus of perhaps +5 per tier would not be game breaking.

Caravans are useless post patch.. nay, worse than useless.. Wasteful.

[GodsLeftBall]

i dont get it. I dont have problems. But maybe because I heavily equipped the companion in charge of the caravan. They proll one-shot those bandits. Never checked.

[Syllabus]

Originally posted by GodsLeftBall:

i dont get it. I dont have problems. But maybe because I heavily equipped the companion in charge of the caravan. They proll one-shot those bandits. Never checked.

Don't bother. Op's just bullsh**.

Caravans easily turn up +1.5k per day. When business is good, over 2k, when things are bad, at least +500. If there are way too many wars and looters and bandits running rampant then the caravans can get unlucky and destroyed, but in peacetime, runs for years.

They're fine.

[[VSC] Sparto]

Originally posted by Syllabus:

Originally posted by GodsLeftBall:

i dont get it. I dont have problems. But maybe because I heavily equipped the companion in charge of the caravan. They proll one-shot those bandits. Never checked.

Don't bother. Op's just bullsh**.

Caravans easily turn up +1.5k per day. When business is good, over 2k, when things are bad, at least +500. If there are way too many wars and looters and bandits running rampant then the caravans can get unlucky and destroyed, but in peacetime, runs for years.

They're fine.

Very debatable I've purchased 3 caravans this patch on my trading character. and all 3 of them were destroyed. And yes my companions were also decked out to the teeth with weapons. Nobody wants to attack me other than bandits and looters and still they were destroyed. I wish we could just pay a little more to hire more caravans or some kind of "War time" protection plan.

[Olek]

Seems silly to have an artificial limit on caravan guards, if you can pay them their wages, then whats the problem.

[Greb]

Trade probably shouldn't be 100% success. Trade never was guaranteed fortune, after all. For everyone one rich affluent trader who achieved their dreams, there's a trail of 100 of them destitute with nothing but broken ones.

I guess.

Trade still works. Random elements still ruin them, like wars and bandits. Stuff out of your control, but dems the breaks. Trade seems like a good idea while you're independent and you have no wars, since even with the reduction to 30 sized parties, they barely get attacked (and if you pick the right companions, they'll usually win the fights) but it becomes less of a good idea when you own fiefs and have wars, because enemy factions will ravage them at no penalty.

Trading is great though, for sure. There's a perk called "Insurance" which gets you back 5000 gold if they're destroyed. Caravans can easily make back the remaining 13,000 gold in their lifespan so you begin breaking even, especially if formed in peaceful towns. The trading perk can help, anyway. I feel like you should have some skill in trading before you can operate more than one caravan anyway, seems silly you can have like 5 skill points in it, but technically operate up to 8+ caravans at once. That's just me.

They're less powerful than they were a few patches ago, for sure. They're now risk vs reward. Seems fine to me. Painful in the early game though I suppose, but if you remain independent they shouldn't get wrecked unless you get unlucky and somewhere on the map, multiple groups of bandits gang up on it at once.

If it starts to really annoy you, use a mod to give your caravan companions 450 in tactics or something. That way their puny 30 stack has more chance of surviving the simulated battles with bandits and stuff, I guess.

I do agree caravans need more work though. You should be able to decide how defended it is (low defence = higher speed, more trade goods, high defence = lower speed, less trade goods) or specifically their routes, including being able to forbid them from trading with towns you are at war with. That would go a long way to increasing their survivability anyway.

I kind of wish you could make your caravans form their own "armies" with a certain perk. It might reduce profits since they'll all be following the same route, but who would want to attack a massive stack of 5+ caravans roaming in a big group with 150+ units in it?

[Syllabus]

Originally posted by Sparto:

Originally posted by Syllabus:

Don't bother. Op's just bullsh**.

Caravans easily turn up +1.5k per day. When business is good, over 2k, when things are bad, at least +500. If there are way too many wars and looters and bandits running rampant then the caravans can get unlucky and destroyed, but in peacetime, runs for years.

They're fine.

Very debatable I've purchased 3 caravans this patch on my trading character. and all 3 of them were destroyed. And yes my companions were also decked out to the teeth with weapons. Nobody wants to attack me other than bandits and looters and still they were destroyed. I wish we could just pay a little more to hire more caravans or some kind of "War time" protection plan.

Want me to grab a pic from my finance stats? It won't show the date of the caravan formed unfortunately, but it will clearly show that it is plenty profitable.

[Trip]

Yes, absolutely you need to be able to pick there route, and also tell them to "Wait in City" so they can build back up and you can clean their route up a little. They would still cost you upkeep of course.

[jorvinn]

You often see caravans with at the 40-50ish troop count from NPC merchants.. just seems silly we as players have no way of boosting the numbers.. or choosing our own troops for said caravans etc. Ie. being able to form one from the Clan page like parties are formed now.

And it is not looters and robbers that are ganking my caravans.. it is fiefless lords that are at war with my faction.. they have armies ranging from 30-66 troops and often attack two at a time.. a 40-50ish caravan with a companion and troops of my choosing would counter that a bit at least.. as is.. I don´t even bother with the Caravan.. they just straight out go lemmings right into lords that hang around Towns.

[Cosmic Cat]

Originally posted by Olek:

Seems silly to have an artificial limit on caravan guards, if you can pay them their wages, then whats the problem.

/Thread

[Krono]

Originally posted by Olek:

Seems silly to have an artificial limit on caravan guards, if you can pay them their wages, then whats the problem.

That's about how I think it should be, it makes sense to me that a profitable caravan can afford to pay more guards of a higher quality to defend themselves. As it is, if you're at war with a faction then your 30 man caravans are going to get massacred because of their low troop count and nerfed movement speed.

If I'm part of Vlandia and we're at war with the Battanians, it would be nice if I could tell my caravans to hang out in Khuzait or Aserai territory so they can trade in relative safety, something like that

[dtsmart1981]

i have a feeling these clowns that keep saying their caravans are fine are guys that arent in a kingdom or are playing on an old save thats not the current patch.

Caravans are getting blow apart all the time now. You will see a caravan pull into town and have 3 guys left from fighting off bandits or a minor faction party and then pull out with 4. It's a total mess.

[Battlelock]

In the current version of the game. Looters seem a bit too efficient in sim battles, usually taking one actual solder with them into their graves, whittling your company down with 100% success.
Also, morale seems a bit too high for bandits in Sim battles, allowing them to cause more casualties to your caravan before fleeing.

[Nickzilla]

I did one the other day and it made me a fortune, got into at least three battles and lived luckily

[your opinion is wrong]

bruh wtf when I loaded my save after the update, all my caravans immediately got ganked, and they had more than 30 men cuz they were still disbanding people

[Krono]

Originally posted by your opinion is wrong:

bruh wtf when I loaded my save after the update, all my caravans immediately got ganked, and they had more than 30 men cuz they were still disbanding people

Yeah, when that happened to me I thought it was a bug until I went onto the forums and reddit and saw people complaining. The memes have been pretty good though