How many busisness do you own?

[Zawarudo]

I tried, I really tried. But owning more then 4 or 5 business is a total mess.

You cant trust the AI , you just CANT!

So I tried choosing the production and setting automatic trade routes for my carts... even so, I get the "production has been interrupted", "production has been interrupted", "production has been interrupted" arrrhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh its madening!!!

But if you stick to a single business you wont make money... no decent money!

I guess the best is to run a rogue and make money from mercenaries and kidnappings.
Because even waylay is a headache... bandits die like flies.

Either that or try being a gravedigger... gravediggers have NO competition, they also feel quite independent as most of their expensive items dont need to be outsourced...(with the exeption of a litle pine wood). Evertying is made from skulls and bones! Its like a farm but a farm that actually makes money $.$

[Zawarudo]

Yeah I thought about dem towers too just recently. Those canon towers cost around 7k! Maybe a bit after the start :P But then, theres the issue with the loot. You loot 3 carts and your warehouse has no room left. Doent look very easy but I will try it again.

As for trade routes... The big issue is trying to guess the right number ot items a certain business will consume each day. So you set your trade route for lets say "20 pine wood per day". But if you miss that number well, either your workplace ends up without room for other stuff or your production will stop because it is missing.

Now you multiply this for every resource you use for every item you craft!

It is quite a mess. To find this proportion.

OFC if you craft just ONE item per business then it gets a lot simpler.

Buw is it a good idea to run an Inn that only makes rosbiff? I dont know.

A possible strategy is to stock up on items first, then start production. That should take some micromanagement but, the idea of a business that bring resources, craft and sell product all by itselt looks more and more complicated :S

[ThreeOfMe]

One of my favorite games had about 20 businesses and hardly any "production has been interrupted". Most of it was patron (farms, taverns, mills, orchardists) and maybe three hospitals (fighting the plague).

I manage just about anything with trading routes. I published a mod for that this year:
http://www.gilde2.de/filebase/file/40-tradingroutes/

The mod largely improves the trading routes by removing the bugs and adding options. It's also included in the MegaModPack by now, so the link has the mod based on vanilla.

[Zawarudo]

Weird. Unless these mods add really fancy controls I cant see what is wrong with vanilla trade routes mechanics.

I can set where to stock, and how much of each item. I can then choose where the carts will unload the goods and how much of each.

I cant set up the time and I dont think they can handle schedules with too many commands such as load , unload, load again, unload, unload, etc

But I dont think they are to blame.

Do you guys try to produce 4 or 5 different items each time?

I was running all patron and scholar buildings... the patron ones were the easiest. Mages Guild, Hospital, Church, these proved to be a mess.

Windmills, orchards, they tend to get filled very easily.

[ThreeOfMe]

Well, the vanilla trade routes work just as long as you don't try something fancy with it. And if you're fine with overflowing storage space.

Scholar is a bit harder to provision since you are relying on market. And you still have to manage your workers to collect herbs -- unless you dedicate a business to herbs and provision the herbs to other buildings :-)

Anyway, it's just a suggestion. Feature list is included and tutorial is linked.

[johbowfor]

Just some general advice: I currently own about 15, and all have been automated via trade routes. If you still have trouble with automating your businesses, then you haven't yet stabilized the flow of resources into said business well enough to automate, move on, and start or buy another. Focus on manually maintaining your enterprise first by finding the holes in your production line, address those, and move on. stabilize it from the ground up.

[~Bass To Mouth~]

ive had 10 but most were just pickpockets and hookers by the end. managing rogue, patron, and scholar was getting rough

[Zawarudo]

Originally posted by johbowfor:

Just some general advice: I currently own about 15, and all have been automated via trade routes. If you still have trouble with automating your businesses, then you haven't yet stabilized the flow of resources into said business well enough to automate, move on, and start or buy another. Focus on manually maintaining your enterprise first by finding the holes in your production line, address those, and move on. stabilize it from the ground up.

I would probably have to stop production of the other places and slowly work out one by one. WIth many business that can make you bankrupt... I pay like 10 k in salaries each turn ew.

Some places are just a mess. Like the church, If I set to 5, to 10, to 20 pinewood each day to craft that "parchment paper" it always stop, sooner or later, and the leather to craft "Talents" book is always too much...even 5 leather a day is sure to overflood the church.

The alcohol in the public houses.... if you leave someone crafting alcohol it will saturate the warehouse, but if you dont watch out your business will stop because theres no alcohol left!

Maybe setting up a trade route to sell alcohol every day wouldnt be so bad huh?

The alchemist/mage business. If you leave them harvesting herbs and producing potions, well... the herbs will saturate the werehouse and the dude will craft maybe 5 potions a day? Then you either have to make the others craft potions or leave them idle...

The hospital too is a ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ mess. OMG! Those bandages specially, they are a nightmare. I think maybe its best to stock on stuff that is used to treat people and then make the nurses craft some artifact.

Anyway, public house + mages guild + hospital (not the exact names here ok?), these 3 business will let you craft the most expensive item in the game worth 3 k. I think its called secret mixture, Im not sure.