Unable to get money

[Elum]

I don't seem to be able to get money anywhere except the merchant. This feels unbalanced or bugged.
I have played through a couple of times on island 2. Eventually I just get overun because I can't get enough money.
In the early game archers give a little bit of gold then stop entirely, so I'm dependent on the merchant, but then that means I can't expand past the merchants hut or I'll get no income.

[TKF│анти]

Build farms, these will eventually be a steady stream of income. Another way to get some steady gold on the side is through the Banker (the well dressed guy that's running around near your base). Just drop him 10 gold, and he'll pay it back with quite a bit of interest over the next couple of days.

[pupplio]

I just started playing this game recently and felt the same as you at the start, but with each playthrough i learned a little bit more. Here's a few things that might help you.

The layout is random, so naturally some games will be harder than others.

In the first couple of days try to figure out which side your dock is and which side your cliff (indestructible portal) is. Recruit from camps religiously if they're near you (every 2-3 days). You're going to expand in the direction of the dock, don't develop toward the cliff, just level trees if necessary. Two of the level 2 stone wall on this side are good. If there's a mini portal on your dock side, build up lots of archers first before investing in a knight, and after a blood moon send the party out to destroy it.

Once the dock side is clear, you can work on levelling the forests so bunnies will spawn. Leave the trees next to camps or the merchant hut intact, you can keep levelling the forest beyond it by finding a clearing first. Yes, you can build past a hut without breaking it down. When you can see the sun and there's no trees in the background you're at a clearing, and this is where you can start levelling trees from. Wherever you find a little dirt heap build a level 1 defense so your archers will spread out and hunt in these areas (DOCK SIDE ONLY). Build the teleporter where the portal was. Depending on the location, you might wanna use it to teleport back to your base and then build another portal there (you'll have a chance to biuld it for 5 gold). Then you can teleport between close to the dock and the base at will. If you have enough space and archers, teleporting back to the dock and running back to your base should more than fill up your pouch. You can also stop at camps and recruit peasants there on your way home.

You also need to use the banker as the other user said. Every time you give him 10 coins he will stash them in the keep. You can give him as many coins as you want in a day, but he can only hold 10 so he has to pause to deposit them. You get some interest, so if it's close to the end of the day and your pouch is pretty full just give them all to him. I give him at least 10 a day, which is easy with the merchant, but sometimes i give him a pouch at a time. As your stock of coin builds, you'll see the money in the door of the keep. Once it's almost touching the gate at the top, the visual cue will no longer change but it'll keep accumulating. When I'm at that point I start putting my extra money into ship parts. The money stash is important for winter, when all your sources of money will disappear. Winter has no end, so you need to get off the island before your stash runs out.

Any time you're out of money and can't do recruiting or development, herd deer. It's boring, but building up your gold cache will save you later. Especially if you have a streak of bad luck like I did around day 40 and your whole settlement was wiped out. Feeding the builder statue and rebuilding some level 4 walls bought me enough time to get my knights on my already-built ship and get away from 2 breeder greed that wouldn't despawn since they were from a blood moon.

The reason you don't need to expand toward the cliff is that often by the time the greed reach your tower you only need to hold them off for a little bit before the night ends, and they will leave, unless it is a blood moon. Immediately after a blood moon is a great time to recruit from more remote peasant camps since you get one night without attacks after. Make sure you build the catapult only on the cliff side, unless you weren't able to destroy a mini portal on the dock side.

Hope that helps a bit, good luck!

[5 AM]

This is pretty sound advice. I only take issue with this bit.

Originally posted by What are birds?:

Once the dock side is clear, you can work on levelling the forests so bunnies will spawn. Leave the trees next to camps or the merchant hut intact, you can keep levelling the forest beyond it by finding a clearing first. Yes, you can build past a hut without breaking it down. When you can see the sun and there's no trees in the background you're at a clearing, and this is where you can start levelling trees from. Wherever you find a little dirt heap build a level 1 defense so your archers will spread out and hunt in these areas (DOCK SIDE ONLY).

Bunnies won’t spawn behind your walls but deer will, so if you plan on expanding further out, leave a ton of trees so that deer can still spawn in the forest and are hunted by archers running back and forth.

[CrashToDesktop]

Originally posted by alexandermce:

Bunnies won’t spawn behind your walls but deer will, so if you plan on expanding further out, leave a ton of trees so that deer can still spawn in the forest and are hunted by archers running back and forth.

Fairly certain that was removed with one of the last updates. No point in keeping forest behind your walls.

[5 AM]

Are you sure? Mobile version still has deer spawning behind walls.

[pupplio]

Hmm, I had no idea! Guess my archers were ranger further than I thought. Thank you for the info!

[BeeJang]

The deer can appear behind wall. Make sure you still have some trees. In island 4 and 5, I always build wall somewhere in the next clearing, just to be closer to the portals so my knights can destroy them in time before nightfall. My archers will hunt deer in the forest, and patrol behind the wall

I really don't understand the AI in this game. I believe the archers won't go beyond the first tree. But when you build wall somewhere far over the forest or in the next clearing, they will wander safe behind the wall. Even there are some bunnies in front of them over the wall, they don't hunt there. I guess they eat too many bunnies and they get bored.

[YamaKasin]

What should I do if I have 0 coins, no banker, no farms, no chests and my archers come back empty handed every night?

[5 AM]

Originally posted by YamaKasin:

What should I do if I have 0 coins, no banker, no farms, no chests and my archers come back empty handed every night?

If it’s snowing, then nothing can be done unfortunately.
If it’s not, then try hearding some deer towards your hunters.

[Proud Facebook Mom]

Having the same problem. Inhabited second island with a moderately sized purse.. No money left to build farms after expanding walls that would protect them. Merchant as usual disappears after the first day or so. Wildlife depleted.

[WalllRus]

Originally posted by w_e_s_t_e_n_r_a:

Having the same problem. Inhabited second island with a moderately sized purse.. No money left to build farms after expanding walls that would protect them. Merchant as usual disappears after the first day or so. Wildlife depleted.

I think the game is most enjoyable when played through trial and error. If you are getting frustrated with the game (pretty understandable since building your kingdom over and over again when you fail like the game expects you to is boring) then try one of the steam guides or read what the posts above have to say.

[Proud Facebook Mom]

Originally posted by WalllRus:

Originally posted by w_e_s_t_e_n_r_a:

Having the same problem. Inhabited second island with a moderately sized purse.. No money left to build farms after expanding walls that would protect them. Merchant as usual disappears after the first day or so. Wildlife depleted.

I think the game is most enjoyable when played through trial and error. If you are getting frustrated with the game (pretty understandable since building your kingdom over and over again when you fail like the game expects you to is boring) then try one of the steam guides or read what the posts above have to say.

Oops, I forgot to delete my comment. Once I figured out farms and traders I made a lot of headway. I loved the first game.

What does that little priest dude do? The idiot hopping around at my home base.

[WalllRus]

Originally posted by w_e_s_t_e_n_r_a:

Originally posted by WalllRus:

I think the game is most enjoyable when played through trial and error. If you are getting frustrated with the game (pretty understandable since building your kingdom over and over again when you fail like the game expects you to is boring) then try one of the steam guides or read what the posts above have to say.

Oops, I forgot to delete my comment. Once I figured out farms and traders I made a lot of headway. I loved the first game.

What does that little priest dude do? The idiot hopping around at my home base.

I ended up having to look up what the priest man did when i started playing. He is a banker/treasurer.

By day 30-50 the season changes to winter and all your money making methods are gone. Before winter you can give the banker coins and he will store them for you. This way you can have several hundred coins in storage to play with when winter comes if you want the reach 100 days achievment. Stand next to the banker (on a day you have not given him any coins) and he will fill your purse to the top.

Also apparently adds 7% interest on your coins up to 8 coins generated a day. Hope that info helped ya.