Bank vs. Granary

[Sines]

So, I know the Bank is really good in the long term, allowing you to make absolute oodles of money. But I'm wondering if it's really all that worth getting early on, and not grabbing the Granary instead. Here's my reasoning...

In terms of money generation, the Granary generates about 525 gold per week in terms of free food. Since you pretty much always bring food into a dungeon, this is always going to be used, unless you roll a lot of food and you're going on a Short mission. At a cost of 2500 gold, the Granary turns a profit in just 5 weeks.

The Bank, on the other hand, takes longer to turn things around. Not only does it cost 15,000 gold to build, but it also requires an 'investment' of gold you purposefully don't spend, in order to actually make anything. At a rate of 5% interest, this will take about 17 weeks to pay itself off (less than the full 20 weeks, thanks to compound interest). While you can eventually 'canabalize' that savings later on, by the time you're happy to use that initial investment, you probably have run out of things to actually spend money on.

For reference, the Bank generates the same amount of money as the Granary with a mere 10,000 gold left in town. At this rate, you've 'invested' 25,000 gold into the Bank, or 22,500 more than the Granary for the same income. Obviously, the more you 'invest' in town, the more you generate, but this just reduces the relative importance of the price difference of the building itself.

Second, the heirloom cost of the bank is much higher. Not only are portraits rarer than busts, but portraits are far more valuable than busts. Portraits are needed for upgrading the Guild, to allow yourself better skills, which is a fundamental aspect of character growth. While busts are still valuable for use at the Sanitarium, you won't be spending nearly as much money there in the early game as you will at the Guild, where you'll be buying and upgrading new skills quite regularly. So not only is the monetary cost and investment higher, but so is the heirloom cost.

Given that these heirlooms can be used to reduce the costs of the Sanitarium and the Guild, and that the Bank requires proportionately more heirlooms, this is another 'cost' of the Bank.

Third (and least) the Granary has the nice side benefit of boosting healing by eating. Not huge, but it's something.

I haven't done all the math, and there's something to be said about just chaining Antiquarian runs right around the time you get the Bank, and holding off on upgrading your equipment and skills for just a little longer than you might normally. But it still seems to me like it takes a LONG time for the Bank to pay itself off, and it has no direct benefit to combat, like the Granary or Cartographers Camp. It's a long term investment, but the further you are in the game, the more money you have in general, so by the time it starts to really pay off, you don't really need it.

I could make a similar argument about the Puppet Theatre, since the improvement to passive stress regenerations means you can safely ignore paying for stress relief for any hero not Afflicted (and even the afflicted) and spend less in battle time healing stress. I'm not a huge fan of the Sanguine Vinters, simply because you can delay starting the CC content until you've had enough The Blood drops from the rest of the game. Although I would say that that also pays off immediately in not having to spare inventory slots for The Blood and/or having spare blood to use for the combat buffs.

TL;DR The Bank is overkill, costing too much for a return that only really matters around the time you don't really need it anymore. Of the 5 non-class based Districts, it's the least useful, however awesome the end result of hundreds of thousands of gold might be.

[White Shadow]

Nice breakdown and I agree. Free food is going to be useful all the time, and seeing how Granary is a lot cheaper both goldwise and heirloom-wise, it's a nice building to go for early.

[Arreghas]

I agree with you on the Granary, but about the Bank being less useful than all other non class ones, I am not certain.

The Bank allows you to reach a level of cash where you can throw away most gold-generating items in a run to focus solely on Heirlooms, which you need a ton of. So I'd say it's a good second District to get.

[Chezz]

I kind of agree too. I tried the bank in a couple playthroughs and if you plan properly it allows you to ditch the antiquarian totally. That said, the opposite can be said too, and using the antiquarian properly should allow for not needing the bank at all, allowing to use the heirlooms and money in another district.
I do love the granary and will use it early in future playthroughs for sure, I didn't run the numbers like you did so nicely but I was also under the suspicion that the savings could be comparable. What I like about the extra food is the increased safety net in non-healer runs, which is very good.

[SergeTroy]

I'm actually more curious about the current thinking on this for the meta in Stygian / Bloodmoon playthroughs. Which district is the optimal choice (assuming there is any consensus)? I play on 'Darkest' currently and for me there's no doubt I'm aiming first for the Bank in the manner the OP suggested, with some amendments:

First, get the (base) Hamlet built up to a point where it's fully functioning for maxed out Apprentice level heroes.

• Stage Coach with maxed out roster (29 heroes all DLC, darkest), and 4 - 7 new souls every week, sometimes including level 1 heroes.
  
• Sanitarium with 3 cells for Treatment and Diseases, max discount on quirk management
  
• Blacksmith with maxed discount (furnace) and both Weapon & Armor smithing upgraded to
  
• Guild with maxed discount (training regimen) and level 2 in Instructor Mastery
  
• Nomad Wagon with 12 Trinkets at 50% off (100% complete)
  
• Survivalist with 40% off (80% complete)
  
• Don't really touch either the Abbey or Tavern

Second, get the 50 portraits together and build the Bank.
Lastly, do enough Antiquarian runs to accrue a banked sum of around 250K in gold. At that point, I imagine I don't need to do anything but grab Emeralds and above in gems and special item value, while devoting the rest of inventory space to heirlooms.

[Sines]

Originally posted by chakkal2001:

I didn't run the numbers like you did so nicely

There's more math to be done, I'm not as familiar with the game and the practical outcomes as I could be.

For example, a critic of my argument could point out that, in a properly played game, you have a lot of spare money early on anyway, and so you're not really 'losing' that 20-40k your leaving in the Hamlet, you're just putting it to work for you, and that if you canabalize that money 10 or 15 weeks later, you'll still come out ahead.

Originally posted by Arreghas:

I agree with you on the Granary, but about the Bank being less useful than all other non class ones, I am not certain.

The other districts do present a harder argument to make, because the Granary and the Bank are basically a long-term vs. short-term money comparison. It's almost a one-to-one comparison.

Puppet Theatre does save money on the Abbey and Tavern, but it's not that hard to use camping, the Jester or the Crusader to top off stress in the middle of a dungeon. As such, we end up talking as much about the opportunity benefit of not having to use (or even buy) those stress removal abilities, than we do about not visiting the Brothel. It's part gold-savings, and part combat enhancement.

The Cartographers Camp is similar, providing both combat and income benefits. Although the income benefits are questionable, when your inventory size is a much bigger limitation on gold gathering than your loot drop rate.

The Vinters is the hardest comparison to make, but it's also the one I find least interesting. In the start of the game, when you're doing lots of short missions, you'll get a modest stockpile of Blood. With proper play, you should be able to tread water decently enough, and be ready to tackle the Baron (or whomever) once you start hitting the critical mass of vampires where the Fanatic and running out of Blood start becoming unavoidable problems. It feels like a quality of life upgrade, but it's way too costly for that. But at least it's cheaper than the Bank, and having more blood to give to your Vampires who are Passive or Bloodlusting for buffs can be nice for boss fights.

[SergeTroy]

Is there a capped rollover for the Blood in your Provision screen? I was honestly considering making that my second district, but while I saw they had set a hotfix to prevent errors with gold over ... 2 Billion? ... I don't know that there's anything like that for the Blood. I can very easily see my "Blood Bank" going in to triple digits and greater, the way things work.

[Sines]

Originally posted by SergeTroy:

Lastly, do enough Antiquarian runs to accrue a banked sum of around 250K in gold.

This is my biggest problem with Bank-centric plans. Sure, you'll generate a ♥♥♥♥-ton of gold every week with 250k gold sitting in reserve...

Or you could just spend the 250k gold. Even if you send three people to the Sanitarium every week to both fix a locked negative quirk, and lock a positive quirk, it's going to take you a long time to spend that 250k gold, especially since your plan involves reducing Sanitarium costs to minimum.

The problem with the Bank is that the gold you 'invest' is just sitting there. You're not spending it. And as soon as you do spend it, your bank income goes down. The Granary provides you ~500 gold every week, without having to save a penny. There's just not enough things to spend money on that you really need that big upfront investment cost.

While I was using the Bank, I'd have to sell every trinket I didn't want as soon as I got it. I'd put off disease treatments or quirk fixes as long as possible in order to eek out every little bit of compound interest I could get. This made me weaker in the short term, because I wasn't just saying "Eh, I got gold to spare. Might as well shove these guys into the sanitarium to cure them right now." Granted, the early game is pretty easy, and it's a good time to make sacrifices. And when you reach the lategame, when things get hardest, that's when the Bank pays off.

But it does feel like there's not as much need to rush the Bank. It's a lot easier to get a stack of 100k gold in the end game than in the early game, and you could just buy the Bank as your second or third district just fine. You will still want to get it relatively early, since using the bank as your primary income source, instead of your inventory, does allow you to stockpile heirlooms for the rest of the districts. I just think that since it's returns are based on your initial capital, you might as well earn that capital later on, when tens of thousands of gold is easier to come across.

[SergeTroy]

@ Sines: Well, to be fair, that is just the way that I play it, and I am definitely not going to speak for players that put their 800 hours in over a period of the last 2+ years rather than the last 5 or 6 months (Hi, that's me!). Restart-itis is a terrible condition.

[Sines]

Originally posted by SergeTroy:

@ Sines: Well, to be fair, that is just the way that I play it, and I am definitely not going to speak for players that put their 800 hours in over a period of the last 2+ years rather than the last 5 or 6 months (Hi, that's me!). Restart-itis is a terrible condition.

Hey, no problems. I've played even less than you. As I noted there is a possible hole in my argument, as there's a point in there early to mid game, wherein natural play results in you having a lot of money in the bank without really even trying. This period might provide enough seed money, however unintentionally, to justify taking the bank over the Granary.

[SergeTroy]

Originally posted by Sines:

Originally posted by SergeTroy:

@ Sines: Well, to be fair, that is just the way that I play it, and I am definitely not going to speak for players that put their 800 hours in over a period of the last 2+ years rather than the last 5 or 6 months (Hi, that's me!). Restart-itis is a terrible condition.

Hey, no problems. I've played even less than you. As I noted there is a possible hole in my argument, as there's a point in there early to mid game, wherein natural play results in you having a lot of money in the bank without really even trying. This period might provide enough seed money, however unintentionally, to justify taking the bank over the Granary.

Yeah my math skills have seriously deteriorated over the years. It's always helpful and pretty impressive to see the time and consideration put into things like this, though. I remember playing Wasteland 2 and coming across these fantastic charts by this one player that clearly demonstrated why you should always use weapon X or stat array Y. It was an extremely convincing argument, :)