AI with businesses

[harikulade]

Greetings.
This game is a hidden gem. I find it by coincidence, really like it.
I've played couple of rounds with it. I usually have just one business and deal everything with myself. But last time I decided to go bigger, had multiple businesses, but it got hard to deal with all of them, so I got AI to run them. But I guess AI didn't do well. It spent all of my money, hired multiple workers, multiple carts and stopped producing at the end. So, it didn't go well.

I was wondering, how you people manage your businesses and AI? How many business do you usually have?

[Mark]

Hi there.

Yes, the ai does tend to absorb some money at first. Some tips that might help you:

- dont let the ai buy and sell carts cause he often makes more then you need. He also might hire guards for all your carts.
- dont let the ai upgrade and ''improve'' your buildings when you are low on money
- the ai will sell in optimal stacks (most profit) so might wait till he has maybe even 40 of something before selling.
- you might wanna let the ai sell in the town first (instead of the whole map) so you get your money quicker and you have less risk of getting robbed. Also, this will help you avoid running out of resources for production most of the time (as long as there is enough in your town ofc).
- having max workers is most of the time the best option, with a few exceptions in my opinion like hospital & church (those are more service related..... if you know what i mean).
- make sure that you have some cashreserve at midnight, cause then the wages (and taxes i think) are being payed and your carts might not be able to suply your buildings with rescourses for the next day.

Just a few tips, hope that helps you to get past that point that its not a problem anymore.

I let the ai run all my building pretty much and it works really well. Once you have a bit more cash in reserve, letting the ai run the place is a great option.. if not the best :D
Do make sure that there are actual buildings active on the map that supply your raw materials, cause sometimes thast not the case and the market runs dry after a few years/turns.

Good luck!

[onefortheGhost]

I'm not entirely 100% on this, but I noticed that if you set production to manual, then tell the AI to keep production for 24 hours, they will get the materials for those items produced. This is important since on automatic, I've had my fancy clothier shop make wool blankets as opposed to the money makers like nobleman's clothes.

As said earlier, always manage your carts. The AI will buy cheaper slower carts that only have a single guard. Having the AI manage upgrades is precarious if you don't have money, but I would have it keep the building in good repair. Hiring employees is also essential as they can die and you not notice.

[harikulade]

Thank you guys. Very helpful comments.
Started managing with AI with your tips, become rich now.. so rich..

[Nesterus]

I dont personally use the AI on my craftsman businesses, I do on my vagabond's camp and my hedge tavern though, its hard work trying to manage all my prostitutes and beggars w/o it.

[Nimrod]

The AI is completely hosed and you should not use it. Period. I've been experimenting with a smithy. The carts refuse to purchase any of the materials I need, but go out of their way to purchase those I don't. When I'm making daggers, the AI buys pine wood even though I'm not producing tools. When I make tools, it keeps buying charcol and iron for daggers but no pine wood for tools. When I produce both, it buys only charcol and iron and no pine wood. It will let the production be interruped and never purchases pine wood, even though I have a total of three carts. The market is adjacent to my smithy, and it is well stocked with all three supplies. So, in clonclusion, forget the AI. It is absolute crap.

[Mark]

Originally posted by tod.westlake:

The AI is completely hosed and you should not use it. Period. I've been experimenting with a smithy. The carts refuse to purchase any of the materials I need, but go out of their way to purchase those I don't. When I'm making daggers, the AI buys pine wood even though I'm not producing tools. When I make tools, it keeps buying charcol and iron for daggers but no pine wood for tools. When I produce both, it buys only charcol and iron and no pine wood. It will let the production be interruped and never purchases pine wood, even though I have a total of three carts. The market is adjacent to my smithy, and it is well stocked with all three supplies. So, in clonclusion, forget the AI. It is absolute crap.

A blacksmith building is pretty much the only building that really messes up often cause of lack of iron. Besides that, with letting ai run the building you pretty much HAVE TO set trading to town instead of the whole map (except for raw material buildings like mine/woodcuttershut/farm etc).
Saying that letting the ai manage the building is crap, is sooooo not true. You just have to learn how to tweak the ai-management settings.

Ive had games with over 40 buildings being run by the ai, with no probems once however.

[Nimrod]

Originally posted by Mark:

Originally posted by tod.westlake:

The AI is completely hosed and you should not use it. Period. I've been experimenting with a smithy. The carts refuse to purchase any of the materials I need, but go out of their way to purchase those I don't. When I'm making daggers, the AI buys pine wood even though I'm not producing tools. When I make tools, it keeps buying charcol and iron for daggers but no pine wood for tools. When I produce both, it buys only charcol and iron and no pine wood. It will let the production be interruped and never purchases pine wood, even though I have a total of three carts. The market is adjacent to my smithy, and it is well stocked with all three supplies. So, in clonclusion, forget the AI. It is absolute crap.

A blacksmith building is pretty much the only building that really messes up often cause of lack of iron. Besides that, with letting ai run the building you pretty much HAVE TO set trading to town instead of the whole map (except for raw material buildings like mine/woodcuttershut/farm etc).
Saying that letting the ai manage the building is crap, is sooooo not true. You just have to learn how to tweak the ai-management settings.

Ive had games with over 40 buildings being run by the ai, with no probems once however.

Well, I've done the trade-within-city thing. It's not that. And I'm not having any problem with a lack of iron. As I stated quite clearly above, my carts will not buy pine wood, even though I am producing tools and there is a ton of pine wood in the market. The so-called AI lets production be interrupted, and it never resumes. Of course, when I set it to produce only daggers, THEN it starts picking up pine wood. If you are saying that the only building that has this problem is the smithy, I'll take your word for it. But the smithy is righteously hosed.

[Mark]

yes, blacksmith building is worst building to be run by ai. I assume your at level 1 building. Iron issue comes more at level 2-3 when you need 6 or 8 per item.

[Lammiwinks]

Don't let the AI run your buildings - learn to micromanage them yourself. Get clever with trade routes (setting carts to auto pickup and deliver items) to keep your stores stocked. Specialise in one or two buildings each time you play and you'll get great at them.

Some of my favourites:

- Church - Sermon at 8am with worker and 9pm with yourself. Praise someone when the sermons nearly complete, and you get a whole nother bar! Make sure the Church is stocked with hosts. Upgrade it asap so you can start 'gaining believers' and you'll attract most of the town.

- Hospital - Not a good moneymaker unless you are the only hospital in town. Destroy the other one with firebombs :) Stockpile plague medicine in case it breaks out, and sell soap wherever you can.

- Pawnbroker - Microloan your way to riches!

- Pickpocketing with a thieves den is great money for little heat from the guards. Never pickpocket with your own character. Usually I have my wife pickpocket. Once upgraded and after a few years when your employees get good, this is plenty of cash

- Tailor - make special clothes and sell them using the 'free trade' option in the street!

[Taipan]

I really have no idea how you make the AI work. I am having these settings on an IN:
http://prntscr.com/7dmiep
yet the AI purchases raw materials only when selling to my opponents taverns, and in small quantities, like 1 piece of meat and 1 honey. Although the market is full of anything, wheat, whatever is needed.
I have even set up the selling price to 150 in the hope that they don't sell too much, and I can intervene, because I also noticed that the AI sent 3 carts, none of them full, to the same market, same products. 1 or maximum 2 carts would have been enough. And it sent them one after another, the products were in the stock, he did not expect new merchandise to be made.
AI is incredible awful, and I can't think about how to have multiple buildings if you have to micromanage them all.
Setting up trading routes manually also gives you the risk of overloading the building with raw material, with no space for making new ones. I have ran out of ideas.

[jojobe]

you might have to set up trade routes. You have it pick up 10 wood drop it off then go get 10 of another item the cart will continue going. You have to find the magic number to keep up with your production 10 might be too much.

[Taipan]

Yes, that might be a solution, thanks.

EDIT1:

I think I need a micromanagement tutorial for this :) On Auto, AI does not supply itself, and if he does, he makes the maximum of one product, while not producing the others. There is no shop where things are working fine. I have 100 cows in one farm, sitting there ducks. And the AI keeps breeding cows.

EDIT2:

On the other side, a pastry keeps producing nothing. Even if it has materials. Sometimes it makes a cake. I don't understand the mechanism, and for sure the wages won't pay themselves alone.

[jojobe]

LOL wow. I think depending if your running mods or not how things go. the trade route in my game works well with some businesses over other. the trade route works very well with the bakery all you do is have an endless string of 5's pick up and drop off of every item of ingredients. have them trade in city first. as you get troops you can go outside the city.

[Farad]

Everything said might be correct but in addition to all those suggestions you should build some carts from your hous that way you will have full controll to resuply your shops,the AI wont send carts not belonging to its shop for trade run or resuply.