How to Make Money

[wpmaura]

good god, I used to not have this issue, but now I am struggling to repair equipment and feed troops yet alone trying to replace them. Any suggestions for begining tactics

[Caveira]

What i do is to choose one of the nobe houses and become their enemies, then i start raiding caravan for loot (the weaker ones), it works quite nice and is fun to be the bandit a little bit.

[Sarissofoi]

What difficulty level?

[WastedTrojan]

Do contracts, trade, and when strong enough go loot random places that you find. Early game contracts and trade are you lifeblood. Try to get good reputation with a city that produces goods like Copper, dyes, cloth, ect... and get a good reputation with a big trade city or big harbor city. Then buy goods from the producer at a low cost and sell them at the big trade cities for a profit. You can even do this without reputation gains, but you make a lot more money if they like you.

After you get to good reputation with a noble house start selling as much as you can at that house's capital.

[wpmaura]

I am running on middle dificulty read somewhere its harder on the easier because of lack of enemies. But I am feeling the save scumming of this game bad, as I cant afford to repair or replace people.

How do you find the producing cities?

[Sathra]

Its the little outbuildings. Mines for salt/metal bars, sheep farms for cloth, dyes are dyeworks.
Wine is not a trade good, its a provision so you won't make profit on it.

[Lord Stuffington]

Originally posted by steven.aus:

You can make some profit off certain foods as long as you buy it at a small settlement (preferably that likes you and has conditions that allow you to buy cheaper) and selling it at a big city or fortification soon after (preferably that likes you and has conditions that make your selling more profitable).

Yeah it's true, in one savegame I got a village that produces Dyes, mead and wine and (especially with the High Spirits buff) I can buy all these and sell them for profit in the neigbouring big city that has for mysterious reason ambushed trade routes all year long :P

[clench]

I got really lucky in my current game.

The biggest city on the map is a few hours march from a city that sells salt and uncut gems.

:)

[Phunfun]

Originally posted by wpmaura:

How do you find the producing cities?

With the map paused just look around the map at the different towns and cities. Focus on the little buildings that are near each town, not the town itself. Look for the buildings shown toward the bottom of this wiki page ("Economic Attached Locations"), http://battlebrothers.wikia.com/wiki/Settlements_and_attached_locations.

The ones that produce food/drink are not so useful for trade but if you can locate the towns that produce the other trade goods then that's where you want to go to buy stuff cheap for trading. Just make sure when you get there that there is no Town debuff (scared villagers, ambushed trade routes, etc.) as that will make buying the stuff far more expensive. If there is a debuff then see if that town has a contract that will clear the debuff (ex. Hunt down what is terrorizing the villagers).

Make sure you do your buying AFTER doing any contracts. Not only will prices be slightly better as you gain relation status with that town but certain contracts (return relics) will make the town so happy they'll usually sell their trade goods BELOW the actual value.

Then return to the bigger castles/cities (shown towards the top of the wiki page) to sell at higher amounts. Oh, and make sure you don't spend all your money when you're buying at the towns cause you still need enough money to pay daily wages for the trip back to the selling destination.

[Prester]

where do i get early contracts? after the automatic mission for revenge noone wants to speak with me, i dont see any taverns, nobles are all locked. i just wander around the map aimlessly ... i would like to do some questing to get used to the game because i dont earn any money ... :-(

[Mountain King]

Originally posted by Prester:

where do i get early contracts? after the automatic mission for revenge noone wants to speak with me, i dont see any taverns, nobles are all locked. i just wander around the map aimlessly ... i would like to do some questing to get used to the game because i dont earn any money ... :-(

Go to towns only, do not go to forts or keeps or castles or anything that sounds like those because they will only have noble contracts which you cannot accept until you have 1050 renown or fame or whatever it is called. You can check this by clicking on the shaking hands, where you see your relations with the towns and nobles.

Taverns are not for missions, they serve two purposes: buy drinks for the locals and they might tell you where to find some hidden locations, or buy drinks for your men to boost their mood.

[WastedTrojan]

Originally posted by Buster Heimann:

Originally posted by Prester:

where do i get early contracts? after the automatic mission for revenge noone wants to speak with me, i dont see any taverns, nobles are all locked. i just wander around the map aimlessly ... i would like to do some questing to get used to the game because i dont earn any money ... :-(

Go to towns only, do not go to forts or keeps or castles or anything that sounds like those because they will only have noble contracts which you cannot accept until you have 1050 renown or fame or whatever it is called. You can check this by clicking on the shaking hands, where you see your relations with the towns and nobles.

Taverns are not for missions, they serve two purposes: buy drinks for the locals and they might tell you where to find some hidden locations, or buy drinks for your men to boost their mood.

Taverns may tell you about unique items hidden in the locations that they tell you about. Its one of the best ways to find uniques.

[Prester]

thanks, is trading a good way to make money at the beginning? im playing on easy until i get a hang of the game so i start with nearly 3k gold ...

[wasabimousse]

Originally posted by Totenkopf:

What i do is to choose one of the nobe houses and become their enemies, then i start raiding caravan for loot (the weaker ones), it works quite nice and is fun to be the bandit a little bit.

how do you attack a caravan?

[Mountain King]

Originally posted by Prester:

thanks, is trading a good way to make money at the beginning? im playing on easy until i get a hang of the game so i start with nearly 3k gold ...

I'd say to always buy trade goods that are selling for near their base value, you rarely have to travel more than 1 or 2 towns away to turn a decent profit. But I'd advise spending almost every penny of that starting cash to get your guys geared up. If you have extra cash and you feel like your guys have good gear, recruit a couple of the cheapest good backgrounds (things like brawlers and farmers and gravediggers, cheap guys with small bonuses and no real penalties) to search for guys with stars in good stats. If you need a way to burn that early cash, try to get as many Leather Lamellar armors as you can for your melee guys. A good price on them is 400-500 gold, don't pay much more than that. They are decent gear early on, providing 90 armor, and then when you start upgrading to chainmail they make good hand-me-downs for archers and other back-liners.

Edit: Another tip for fiscal conservatism: markets are the BEST. You can get so many cheap used items there, and even if they are 100% they are still cheaper than armorer/weaponsmith prices so always check the market.