Money Help

[Gamerwolfsix]

I'm having trouble doing the campaign. Currently low on money and with negative balance. Just unlocked artisans and settled a new island.
Farmers +903
Workers +2377
Artisans +45
Share Income +26
Maintenance -3213
Trade Ships -45
War Ships -50
Royal Taxes -285

People seem generally happy.
Workforce is +182 farmers, +155 workers, +20 artisans

Also, Beryl O'Mara (2 star) recently got her third island. I am a bit worried she will overtake me in time. Her military is 70 to my 11 and her economy is 12 to my 7.

[Gregomoto]

If you have enough soap you can sell it to the prison and gain a lot of money.
And yeah Beryl is fast in expending, try to save islands with ressources you need asap.

[General Malaise]

I only survive by using propaganda, and doing all the quests I can.

You can easily beat the Ai, just build up about 10 Ships of The Line of Battle, and you can take their main island if you want.

[Hundinger]

Don't overproduce products unless you can sell them for a profit, like soap. When in the artisan phase don't produce canned food right away, it's an expensive production line and it won't earn you money until you have a lot of artisans. Better give them sewing machines first and then rum, rum brings a lot of money. Canned goods should be the last thing you give them before you upgrade to engineers, they pay much more for it.

Beryl O'Mare, well, you should have chosen a custom game and play without her. I don't know why the devs thought it was a good idea to add a 2 star AI for the setting that most beginners choose. Next time just choose custom game and play with one star AI only. You can play without AI if you want, but I wouldn't recommend it. One star AI are useful (quests) and non competitive.

You should familiarize yourself with the statistics screen, it tells you everything you need to know, for example how much you produce of one good and how much is demanded. These numbers should match. Overproduction will kill you, especially early on.

I link you this tutorial series. It's not campaign specific, but the principles apply. The first episode is about the UI (more important than you think), after that it's a full playthrough and teaches you everything you need to know from your first farmers to the wildest endgame stuff. The second episode about your first farmers also features an introduction to the statistics screen, the most important tool in the game. As soon as you know how to read it your money problems will go away, I guarantee that.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HqXRULW2NSY&list=PL62qv03TjhLsdVEzH_INbioOPm8BN54JJ

[Musical Jacob]

As already said here:
- ONLY produce what you need, except for materials you plan to sell. At the beginning of the game, you should really only be selling soap. Never build more of any farmer/worker need item until you officially consume more than you make.

- Caveat to the above, never feel bad making extra building supplies. Build on top of every clay pit you can. Your main island should have 4 sawmills right at the start.

- In the beginning of the game, more warehouses are cheaper to maintain than upgraded warehouses. Upgraded warehouses have exponential maintenance costs. Thinking about pressing the "upgrade" button on a warehouse? Build another warehouse instead.

- Do every. single. quest. you can.

- Build grain silos immediately. The return on investment is insane and well worth it. You'll immediately notice reduced workforce/maintenance/farms needed for pigs and wool.

- Going along with silos, worker conditions on grain, clay and bricks are the most important things to boost early game.

- Buy bricks and steel beams from Archibald to help beeline to soap production. Sell soap to Bleaksworth. Make 1-2 soap factories. Then, settle 2 more islands and make 1-2 soap factories per extra island. Shut off soap usage for your workers on these other islands to maximize available soap to sell.

- Keep your ship pop low early game. Especially military. Frigate upkeep(and building cannon) is expensive until you reach late artisan.

- Don't be afraid to shut off snaps to your farmers. This keeps your snaps production needs down as you'll focus on providing it only for your workers.
Or, skip snaps entirely.

- Getting beer set up will add a nice $2k more to your average budget. Again, you can game the system a little by shutting off beer to workers and supplying only to artisans, as they will give you more money per beer used.

- Unlock Embessa ASAP. Everyone here will tell you the meta is bee-lining it to embessa to begin buying pocket watches from Archi and selling to Ketama. This is the. single. most. important. step to making money.

- Middle to late game is all about optimizing docklands and specialists. Get the actor, port dealer, and Brasserie Patron Mertens as soon as possible. Prioritize actor above all else.

P.S. As you unlock more citizen types, keep an eye on the neutral traders and what they buy/sell. You can get millions of $$$ buying from one trader and selling to the other.


Source: Just won an "advanced" game for the 5th time.

[KippenKaasBaas]

Another piece of advice I learned way too late is ITEMS.
Keep an eye on the specialists that are sold at the prison. Some are ridiculously over-powered. I always keep a ship parked there so I can quickly buy something before it disappears.

I have played entire playthroughs without ever even going to the new-world.

So how do I produce rum?
I don't. Why would I need to? I have the ''Actor'' item.

How about cotton?
No need for cotton if you have the ''Costume Designer'' item.

The right items in the right places let you skip or delete entire production lines.

You have brick factories right?
Put them all together and add the ''General Foreman'' item.
You can now delete your steal beams production line.

You have bakeries right?
Put them all together and add the ''Cake Decorator'' item.
You can now delete your chocolate production line.

The right items in the right places are game changers.
So look out for them and make an effort to buy them.

[Tankfriend]

I'd also like to add that when settling old world islands that can be self-sufficient for peasants and workers, there's no real reason not to settle and supply just under 1000 of each of them to cash in on the tax-free income. It might not be much individually, but it adds up, since you'll want to catch a good number of old world islands, anyway.

[Gamerwolfsix]

Currently I am denying the 1 star guys new islands, but am allied with one of them and trying to to the other.
I am currently trying to buy up stocks from the 2 star lady, thought about war, but it just might be easier to buy her islands. The other two are expensive but time will tell.

[Tankfriend]

In my experience, going to war and capturing the islands is cheaper and faster than trying to buy them. It just takes too long to buy the shares necessary, the AI can prolong this by buying back shares itself, and the final buyout price is too high to really be worth it. Especially since you just end up with a completely empty island, either way.