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If your businesses can't get enough workers, check the town supply and your citizens happiness level. You need to to at "satisfied" or better. Try not to run out of beers, grain, cloths, fish, timber (I can't remember what are the goods poor people need). Build school to attract more poor people to your town (build mint to attract more rich people).
Again, sell more goods to your town will get you the most reputation.
I always sell at a slightly lower price in my home town. Sometimes, I will take a lost and sell goods at average market price or a bit lower. For example, timber at 60-65 is average market price. This is just to keep the town well supplied and happy.
Use it as a boost once in a while. I mostly use it to build trading offices everywhere in the first couple months.
I tried to improve my popularity by lowering prices in the Leubeck trading office. I think I lowered most everything for sale about three dollars and now I am losing money like crazy and the town population has gone from 4200 to 4700. A couple of turns ago it was only 3800 after the siege. I'm not sure how much of this is due to lowering prices but I think it does have a dramatic effect. Unfortunately, I'm losing too much money and I'll have to raise prices a little. I've now been down as low as 500,000.
I tried to put in a huge tax increase of about 8 or 9% (the max) but even with a generous bribe (40,000) it didn't go through.
You are probably losing money because you are trying these funny strategies instead of, you know, trading more.
I need to organize some smaller convoys with better captains. I usually emphasize trading ability but what if I get into a battle or a storm?
Maybe someday I'll learn to chill out and just accept all the inefficiencies and errors of my trade routes, managers and captains but I haven't made much progress.
I've got all these hulks coming out but now I have brickworks, farm and timber operations all over the place. They may not be as important as they were earlier. I think I'll have a use for them. If hulks just carry inexpensive, bulky cargo do pirates avoid them? Seems like they should.
Trading is best left to the managers, so you don't really need captains with the trade skill.
Pirates attack anything. Best way to deal with that is to use snaikka convoy leaders as I described earlier. A fully loaded snaikka with a sailing 3 captain will outrun even pirate crayers, unless you click manual for some reason.
Should I just set the trading offices to default sales prices and then maybe jack them up a little? That would be a lot of work since I have trading offices in all but two cities.
I have a large miscellaneous expense of over 200,000 in my 4 week report and my expenditures are about 450,000 greater than my income in the same 4 week period. It wasn't always this way. I'm guessing its because of all the building I do. I've got all kinds of houses and businesses going up. There's only about 120,000 in the coffers and election is five months away.
I think I close up and sell some of the brickworks and timber in leubeck since they are inefficient (one of them is anyway).
I'm gonna try and get some screenshots.
EDIT: Screenshot just doesn't work. I enabled steam overlay. I changed the key to F4 because F12 switches screens or something but no matter what I do my screenshot folder stays empty and I don't get a sound like I used to a long time ago when it did work.
I'm not really sure how to help exactly, without knowing the details of your business. Details such as number of ships, how many trade routes you have, where they are stopping and selling along with their regular profit reports (or loss reports as the case may be). Plus details of your individual businesses inside different cities; eg X number of workshops in luebeck and X amount of grain farms in stettin, ect.
Have you tried looking in your warehouses to see if you have any major backlogs of goods? If so, try clearing them for some immediate income and shut down or demolish those excess production buildings.
You can sell off any spare ships that you don't need as well. Will give a good amount of income, just remember that those ships will often be sold to your AI competitors.
At first glance, based on information you've given on your business both now and previously, I'd say you've just got too many unstable production facilities and probably more fully crewed ships then you can really use effectively. Try taking a look at your rent values in different areas too, if you've got a lot of free space in your merchant houses, get rid of one or two.
Also on the housing note, don't bother with Poor or middle class houses, there's little to no profit in them, and more often than not they'll cost you money rather than give profit. Let the AI handle those, unless you can afford it.
Timber,
Bricks,
Hemp,
Iron Goods,
and pitch.
All of those goods above are construction dependant goods. Meaning that their demand and use rates are entirely or largely dependant on construction rates by the AI and yourself. It's a rate that'll fluctuate a lot and it has a limit based on how big a city can build outwards. Timber, Bricks and Hemp especially. Hemp is more for ship production really but some buildings require it too. Use of these three goods by the citizens is negligable.
Iron goods have a decent base use by the citizens directly. It can be both pritty profitable and stable by itself, in moderation.
Pitch, is primarily for ship construction and is used in small amounts by the citizens of those cities. Acivities of the prince can also affect pitch demand and supply rates too. Unless the princes are on high activity though or you're sinking pirate ships like no tomorrow, it isn't going to be in huge demand.
If you have a lot of production facilities, based on those goods and have a large surplus you're not using, I'd consider destroying or selling them outright. Word of warning though, do not SELL your businesses in cities where you want to keep or increase your amount of infuence for mayoral election. You'll basically be handing your competitors the workers they need to win elections.
Iron goods are great for trade down south in the Med. It's only really worth it though if you can trade HUGE quantities though, with captains that have good trading ability, since you'll need a fairly well armed and well equipped escort to protect the trade ships.
EG: Three fully crewed cogs, plus, perhaps two minimally crewed hulks and one captain on each of the escorts for maximum protection.
An average captain on say, a 26/day wage equalling 182 per week x 3 cogs, so 546/week
and a crew of 55 (using an average cost per ten sailors of 154 equalling 847/week x 3 cogs
Plus another 24 crewmen (counting the two basic build hulks) equalling 370/week (rounded up to nearest whole number)
So 3,457 in total per week over at LEAST 8 (prolly more like 12 though, on average) weeks + repair costs that'll average to about 20-30,000 per trip. So you're talking around 40,000 per trip meaning you have to sell no less than 400 barrels worth of iron goods at a 100 gold/ barrel profit margin to make the trip break even.
But that actually close to triples when taking into account raw production costs too. The good thing about the med though is that you're garaunteed a max price sale :)
Sorry for the essay -.- lol. Hope you find it helpful in solving your issues in game.
I have 152 businesses with 4045 employees. They cost 27,639 for labor. Daily production is 1364 with a value of 33,691
This is the first time I've looked this carefully at this particular page of the economic reports because I never saw much use in them and didn't like the way the stats were presented. If my labor cost in factories is 27,639 per day then I'm spending 9,950,040 on labor every year! A lot of that is for lumber, bricks, grain. I now have better lumber and brick production facilities so maybe its time to sell off Luebeck's excess. Luebeck has 180 employees working on second rate timber facilities. I think that means 6 timber operations. If I sell all of them off I can put in workshops but there will be some unemployment. I can save 5040 per week or 20,160 per month
This page of data might actually be very useful in
In the last 3 months I spent 715,000 more than I made but
in the last month that number is only 31,000 so I've done something to improve.... oh, I know. I just got into a battle with a city and made about 450,000. I think that got figured in. Without the conquest of Rostock I'd probably still be losing about 250,000 a month. Getting rid of those 6 timber operations isn't going to save me.
I have started building all kinds of housing. Oh, I can auction off the half timbered and gabled homes. That would be something. I don't think the game lets me easily know how many half timbered homes I've put up but there are a few and all of them can go.
Company value is 5,700,000. Debts are zero.
I move low cost goods around to distribute them but I must confess I like to build homes and businesses and I'll sometimes just try to get something for my lumber and then build. I probably should just leave it all in the office and let the town spend their money at my office for higher priced lumber.
This is a way to force the town to spend more money on your resources. I build a home. The town has to buy the resources from my trade office so if I jack up the prices, they just have to pay those high prices right away. All this time I've been letting them have low priced resources. Or do they buy the resources from the other guy in town if my prices are too high? That would make sense but how do I know how much timber he has? He probably doesn't have much since most of the competition only has one ship and I have 25 so that's a reason to hang on to all your ships.
I've auctioned off my cheaper homes now so I'll no longer have to pay those taxes but people will still have a place to live because the homes aren't being demolished. Is it a bad idea to sell all the homes in one month. Will the market get glutted with homes that no one wants and then they're be no money for the later homes to be sold.
Should I set my extra ships up in various towns as outriggers? I earn money that way and I get a boost in reputation in that town. How is that worth anything in a town where I'm not running for anything? If I attack that town as a pirate, I'll be attacking my own boat and men.
I just realized that I can't sell houses and businesses in other towns unless I join the guild which costs 75,000. Building in towns where you are not a guild member sucks. Why do I need a guild. Can't I just put an ad in a newspaper or on a lamp post that says "House for sale"? Furthermore, why couldn't I sell the houses in other towns through the Luebeck Guild? Is this really how things worked in Hanse? On the other hand I can charge high rent in other towns and if it makes people leave town that doesn't have much impact on me except that I'll have a little less cash coming in.
1) If you manually trade, your captains trade ability does nothing, zip, zilch, nadda. You don't get discount when buying and you won't get a bonus when selling, if you do it manually.
2) It's not really so much a bonus, so much as it is negotiating a better price on your behalf. It's a limited function that probably can't (At least I've never seen it happen) go above or below a trade goods max or min price.
I'm kinda surprised you didn't notice, considering you're suppoosed to be an accountant, or was it some kinda businessman, either way.
3) If you build in a town at all, YOU pay the entirety of the costs for that construction. The only reason that one of your construction projects would take resources directly from the town would be if your own warehouses were lacking in those construction materials. EG:
A merchant House will need (rough guess, i can't remember exactly how much they take) 80 bricks, 20 timber and 20 iron goods.
If you have 20 iron goods and 20 timber but only have 40 bricks in YOUR warehouses, then only 40 bricks will be taken out of the towns warehouses. You will never ever, ever get any tangible profit from forcing a town to use construction materials this way. Because it'll always cost you more to buy them back then what ever you sell them for. It's good for shifting wasted stock, but that's about it. It's actually far cheaper to produce the goods at a modest rate yourself and then have the construction project take those goods directly out of your warehouse.
4) Producing timber in Luebeck is a huge mistake. It says it has some modest production value, but the rate still sucks. It's cheaper and more efficient to have one - three timber production facilities in Oslo or Aalborg, then to have however many in Leubeck.
Brick production is pritty good in Leubeck, but again, you don't really need many.Two brickworks will fill up your warehouses REALLY fast if you're not constantly using them. Again, timber and bricks are totally dependant on construction rates of ships and buildings.
5) I'd strongly recommend getting rid of a few. In early game, you only really need about 2 brickworks and 2 timber production facilities (can't remember exact ingame name). By the time you're done using up that regular supply you'll have enough demand to sell directly for consumption, without flooding the market. You can add more later to accommodate any extra demand you might have. It's sorta like driving, you gotta make slow, gradual changes. If you try to suddenly turn a semi-truck, you're half likely to jack knife. Not fun, right? :D
6) Early in the game, guilds are insanely cheap (compared to later on) to join. In Leubeck, if you time it juuuust right, you can join the guild for very close to 11,000. I'm talking first game month kinda early. After that it just keeps rising (It's related to your companies value).
7) If you can't sell your excess businesses, then destroy them outrite. The city will lose population but if you're losing money by hiring them anyways, they ain't doing ya much good to begin with.
8) Other than gaining reputation in a particular town, there's really no point in posting outriggers, it will cover most of (but not all) the crews costs though, if you are desperate. There's no point assigning idle ships though and even if you're just shafting unused, active ships, you're better off just dismissing their captains' and crews' and leaving them idle in a port.
9) Tryyyy not to run too much on daily costs, you'll drive yourself nuts :D
Those are all of the important parts.
You don't get the discounts unless the captain is auto-trading.
This is a completely useless statistic that doesn't tell you anything.
Demolish 3 Sawmills, don't bother selling them. You'll be left with 3 Sawmills, which produce enough wood for 9 Brickworks. If you still have Workshops there, don't demolish unless they make more timber than you use.
You need those houses. You just need to fill them with people.
The game tells you how many of them you have, if you click on them. If you somehow built too many, demolish them, don't auction.
This is mathematically impossible.
If you build after selling timber to the town, you pay more. Because the buying price is always higher then the selling. You sell at a low price, then place an order to build, which buys everything you just sold at a higher price.
If you already have timber in the warehouse, using that to build is always cheaper than buying from the town.
They don't choose where to buy. Whoever clicks on the sell button first, gets to sell his goods.
It's a bad idea to sell homes to begin with.
You just build enough to keep them mostly full, and demolish the rest. That way you get profit on the rent. If you own too many empty houses, you pay for the land but get no profit. If somebody else owns them, you won't get the profit from building new houses, until you fill all their houses.
The outrigger option is useful for reducing the cost of your warships.
You get to sail a fully crewed warship, and a town pays most of the wages. If the town offers 340 per week, and your warship costs 440, you only have to pay 100 yourself to maintain it.
That way you can keep up a lot more warships in strategic locations, and use them to hunt down pirates or do missions, and return them to their post afterwards. You can cancel the outrigger before attacking the town.
You can charge high rent in any town, nobody will complain.
That's how you profit from the houses. You make sure you are the only one that builds them, then raise the rent price.