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Patrician seriesP3 Production Woes: How Do You Handle It?(16 posts)solved(16 posts)solved
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This is my favourite topic
Posted December 15, 2015
I recently reinstalled Patrician 3 thinking there had to be something I had missed. It's easy to create a profitable trading venture, Which soon becomes tedious. But even set to easy, production seems to have a razor-thin margin, if that.

I've gone to a couple sites in German, and muddled through as well as I could with only a couple years of German nearly 40 years ago, and there was a lot of discussion about games with guilders well into the billions, and how important it was to get a productive bricks (tiles) business going early. Yet the importance of a steady supply of bricks to build money-losing ventures makes no sense to me.

I just don't get it. I'll build up thriving trade system, but as soon as I tire of that, and build anything other than a warehouse, costs mount. Under the best of circumstances, there is a tiny profit, but most of the time, it runs at a loss. Only rarely can I not buy materials cheaper than I can produce them. A battered hulk anchored in port doing auto-trading is a vast improvement over production.

Is it just a matter of time? Does it just take several years before the profitability of trade drops to the point that crappy margins make production worthwhile? Or am I doing something drastically wrong? The German sites suggest that in competitions, they are building by late 1300, or 1301 at the latest. Yet every time I've done so that early, I just go bankrupt.
This question / problem has been solved by flickasimage
Posted December 19, 2015
OK, so I downloaded some savegames to see what I was doing wrong. I thought I was doing pretty well with 6 ships in 4 months and 20 by 10, but the savegame had 163 in 9, and 51 with captains. He had auctioned off a whole lot of other ships, too. Plus he had trade offices everywhere, as well as production facilities and housing. About the only thing my game has in common is that population in the cities is roughly the same.

I could only find two ships on the seas not his, and all in port were damaged and in repair, so I'm guessing this was almost completely from piracy? And there were no shipyards in the process of building, and only 3 can produce hulks, yet he's got 14 already, and has built or launched none in the last month. I can't wrap my head around how numbers like that are even possible. Spending is about right for 10 or 12 boats, which is consistent with what I see for shipyard development.

I also have no idea where all these captains are coming from. I've found a grand total of 1, and regularly visit every port on the map including the ones on the river.

But I do see from his balance sheet that production and rental is a losing venture. His 7 million or so in value has been trade and presumably piracy. This compared to my slightly over 1 million in just a little less time relying exclusively on trade.

The reason I quit Port Royale is that it is entirely a game about piracy. There is no way to come close by trading, and no better way to become a pauper than to become a producer or landlord. I take it the same is true of Patrician? If so, is there a game where trading and producing are more on an even keel with piracy?
Post edited December 20, 2015 by Thorfinn
Posted December 20, 2015
Like you I mostly play Patrician 3 as a pure trading game where I'm manually doing all the buying and selling. From that viewpoint, my goal is having fun with 6-8 ships. Each ship I build replaces a ship in my fleet once I have about 8 ships. That way the game stays relatively fresh.

You could auction ships off as you replace them. I typically park them in ports and use them for storage. Note parking them in a remote port also lets you trade, which seems odd after I've transferred all the sailors to another ship. Kinda like having a trading post there at 0/week cost.

I've never gone bankrupt in Patrician 3, but maybe I ramp up buildings more slowly. Initially a building needs workers, but you're paying land tax even if the building is empty. If you ramped up too fast, that land tax for no production could eat your profits. Since I continue trading, I have nice profits to carry me through creating some buildings.

A couple notes about profitable production, though. Each port has a specialties that provide a bonus to building production. So if the bonus is brick, the brick works produces additional bricks. But the main reason for brick production isn't profits from selling, it's to always have enough bricks to make more buildings.

I haven't tried piracy, nor do I try traveling to the new world (sailing west on the map, in the sea below London). I suppose if someone had a massive fleet gained by piracy, they could make a lot by sending a fleet to the new world to conduct trade.

Summary: Ramp up those buildings slower, and try limiting your boats to see if that keeps the game interesting longer.
Posted December 22, 2015
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Thorfinn: snip
Nooooo, you don't need to pirate, don't run off to PR, you can play P3 as a trader, thats why it's so much better!!!! Ahem.

Take the games from patrizierforum.net as you would look at speedruns on youtube, you learn some neat tricks but its not necessarily the best or usual way to play. They're mostly concerned with max population, fast-ish.

The number of ships/hulks is the easiest to solve: I guess besides the hub city and whatever, Edinburgh is the third that can build hulks? Pirates take their clue about the hansa's "technology level" from there, if you want bigger ships from pirates buff the Edinburgh wharf. Besides catching every normal pirate as soon as he spawns, you can get tons of ships from escort missions, if you haven't been attacked just wait outside the target city for a bit, some Adalbert will come to donate his ship to your cause. This mechaism is probably heavily used in that game you downloaded.

Capturing most of the white ships is an advanced tactic to use only if you can supply everything yourself, they look very inefficient but without them most towns revolt in no time, tanking production and demand. Its either the initial boost for a very confident player or cleanup for the heck of it once it doesn't matter anymore. I want to assure you that it is not required to capture or rob a single ship, you save some time, nothing more. Personally I do tavern missions when I happen to see them but never play pirate myself, I don't have a million people but no money problems, no persistant ones anyway. The AI is also really bad about replacing ships you take, so that's not really a sustainable option, the black ones are your future ships, not the white ones.

While huge empires have been achieved on that forum, most newer games use a money generating exploit that lets you concentrate on logistics and building instead. In the late game everything is profitable, so it is just a way past the stage where you are currently stuck.

Don't look at the balace stats, look at the company value, thats the most trustworthy number. I'm sure its going up in the long run. Houses not profitable is a bit surprising though, the income is low but steady usually. I guess the player had to boost happyness to get more immigrants and could afford to make rent free? Or build houses for the expected workers that are not there yet, temporarily having lots of vacancies that eat those profits. Housing is for monopolists until you have money and materials to spare, the profit is too small while you're struggling. Let the Ai take care of that.

Production not profitable: Are you comparing tax+wages to value produced? Thats the only number about that I could find since I usually ignore them. This stat does not include however much you sell above the game's idea of a good's worth, 676 for pelts is probably not your idea of a good sell price. And again those big games have massive vacancies while in progress, easily missing thousands of workers that can temporarily mess up the picture. Or I missed a more obvious stat for that and am far off. You correctly noticed that the margins are slim for your own goods, but they are positive unless you hoard and never sell. In fact the biggest games have a real problem with money overflow, desperately trying to keep cash and value down. At 3mio people you own so much that the numbers wrap for all kinds of "fun". Just throwing that out there to show that profit is inevitable as you grow, never been near that overflow problem myself.

The prices you grow used to while buying AI production are more like a flooded market, the computer has no choice but to dump their production right there on the same day, to your advantage as buyer. Only start producing what you can't buy enough of, I often don't even produce anything before I'm major, no real reason about that timeframe, just to get a solid foundation in goods and ships.

Bricks make no profit indeed, and are only consumd in tiny amounts by people, the AI can even cheat and build without them if they are convinced you missed building something desperately needed. Make as many as you need, not more. Once wall expansions start you have good customers for them, but they will never be your cash cow. I used to auction off my pitch makers for similar reasons, dirt cheap pitch as long as I supply wood (with a profit for that too) and no hassle if something goes wrong. The pros might cringe but it works when white buildings don't bother you. Nobody's happyness is influenced by iron goods at all, they are the only good that you can play monopoly with without any repercussions. And they're damn profitable.

One thing worth learning from the huge games is the view on people's happiness as the most important thing. Or happyness is maybe excessive, content is enough. While the yearly exodus in Cologne and resulting wine shortage might not be felt too much as long as the other goods are there, a few more towns like that and things start to spiral. Removing the "wanted" icon from my home town is usually my first self imposed challenge, and keeping it gone. Surplus goes elsewhere for profit.

The other thing is to play slower. On "pause" you have time to check every town on the map (park a snaikka there) to snatch the production and random specialy every day. Later your admin does it, but then you have other things to do and can't speed up either. Cart the goods off to your hub/home and once you feel you have surplus of something load a ship and send round to sell, you already know where the stuff is needed. That eases into delivering raw materials for the AI, you can buy so much more iron goods if you bring them raw iron. And only when daily hoovering up of production with supply of materials does still not yield enough of that good, only then do I build. That kind of guarantees profit. The intro campaign rushes you into production far too fast for my glacial style.

re sneakcity: America is only good to sell iron goods and wine, not exactly something I usually have problems getting rid of. Not even great prices. Agreed on concentrating efficient productions.

And if all of that doesn't help, look into Patrician IV, its not on gog yet, but it keeps most that is good with a friendlier learning curve, money comes easily early and gets tough later, not the other way around as in P3.

Translation help is of course also offered.

edit: changed Newcastle to Edinburgh, now its even making sense
Post edited December 25, 2015 by flickas
Posted December 23, 2015
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sneakcity: Like you I mostly play Patrician 3 as a pure trading game where I'm manually doing all the buying and selling. From that viewpoint, my goal is having fun with 6-8 ships. Each ship I build replaces a ship in my fleet once I have about 8 ships. That way the game stays relatively fresh.
Actually, that's kind of why I uninstalled it. Buy low, sell high gets old. And I was sure that the production model had to work, if only I could figure it out, and that would be enough to make the tedium worthwhile.
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sneakcity: I've never gone bankrupt in Patrician 3, but maybe I ramp up buildings more slowly. Initially a building needs workers, but you're paying land tax even if the building is empty. If you ramped up too fast, that land tax for no production could eat your profits. Since I continue trading, I have nice profits to carry me through creating some buildings.
Could be, I suppose. I don't think I've played it for more than a game-year ever. Maybe I was jumping the gun trying to get production humming along smoothly at 4 months, sometimes sooner.
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sneakcity: A couple notes about profitable production, though. Each port has a specialties that provide a bonus to building production. So if the bonus is brick, the brick works produces additional bricks. But the main reason for brick production isn't profits from selling, it's to always have enough bricks to make more buildings.
OK, now that's news to me. This is in addition to the products they produce "efficiently"? Where do I find which product that is?
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sneakcity: I haven't tried piracy, nor do I try traveling to the new world (sailing west on the map, in the sea below London). I suppose if someone had a massive fleet gained by piracy, they could make a lot by sending a fleet to the new world to conduct trade.
It's not like PR, where you buy a Letter of Marque and you can pirate without risk of indictment. As near as I can tell, the first time each captured white-sail docks, the RNG decides whether to bring charges, and the notice is given some time later. If the crew is angry, it's basically certain. I was capturing ships for several weeks, to around 20 or so, and was fine, and could even unload, but once they went to dock, that all changed.
Post edited December 23, 2015 by Thorfinn
Posted December 23, 2015
Wow. That's a lot of info! Thanks!

If you don't mind, I'll open some other threads with about some of the non-production questions so the answers aren't hidden from searches. Feel free to pop in and get marked as the solution. ;)
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flickas: In the late game everything is profitable, so it is just a way past the stage where you are currently stuck.
When, roughly, does this stage start?
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flickas: Or [did the savegame] build houses for the expected workers that are not there yet, temporarily having lots of vacancies that eat those profits. Housing is for monopolists until you have money and materials to spare, the profit is too small while you're struggling. Let the Ai take care of that.
Yeah, many houses were less than half filled. As I looked at later saves, it was pretty clear that he didn't want the AI to screw up his building plan. I think that's above my pay grade at the moment.
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flickas: Production not profitable: Are you comparing tax+wages to value produced? Thats the only number about that I could find since I usually ignore them. This stat does not include however much you sell above the game's idea of a good's worth, 676 for pelts is probably not your idea of a good sell price. And again those big games have massive vacancies while in progress, easily missing thousands of workers that can temporarily mess up the picture.
I was rolling an opportunity cost into it as well. In order to play the spread, I need a ship (better yet, a warehouse) in every town, and at least a couple dozen ships moving goods around. Until at least that point, production pays less than arbitrage. Or at least so far as I can tell.
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flickas: The prices you grow used to while buying AI production are more like a flooded market, the computer has no choice but to dump their production right there on the same day, to your advantage as buyer. Only start producing what you can't buy enough of, I often don't even produce anything before I'm major, no real reason about that timeframe, just to get a solid foundation in goods and ships.
Ah! We are in a glut, and prices reflect that. How long does the flooded market persist if you aren't an active producer? A year? Two?
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flickas: I used to auction off my pitch makers for similar reasons, dirt cheap pitch as long as I supply wood (with a profit for that too) and no hassle if something goes wrong. The pros might cringe but it works when white buildings don't bother you.
Interesting. Have you tried this more generally? Can one build production facilities, auction them off, then make a haul through arbitrage when the AI is forced to dump at low prices?
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flickas: The other thing is to play slower. On "pause" you have time to check every town on the map (park a snaikka there) to snatch the production and random specialy every day.
Right. I think I'm on "slowdown" (the slowest setting on my game -- not quite pause) probably 80% of the time the first few weeks, then 95% after that. The random specialy? Is that from what the AI shippers drop off, or are you talking the town getting a "freebie" of some kind, wine or spices or something like that?
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flickas: Later your admin does it...
Sort of, but because he does it only once per day, he misses out on some great deals when multiple AI ships sell their loads through the day. Easily in the hundreds, sometimes in the thousands per day.
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flickas: And only when daily hoovering up of production with supply of materials does still not yield enough of that good, only then do I build. That kind of guarantees profit. The intro campaign rushes you into production far too fast for my glacial style.
Do you focus on the 3-city concept I've seen explained there, or does your shipping concern tend to be pretty much everywhere before the AI is running out of materials? I'm guessing you don't hit that point in the first 6 months or so, anyway?

Thanks again!
Posted December 23, 2015
Glad to help, have another wall of text :-)
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Thorfinn: When, roughly, does this stage start?
There is no different mechanic that kicks in later, its still pennies adding up, just more of them. Like when you have one ship the weekly tax for your counting house is a real concern, with twenty ships you barely notice that anymore... Can't answer that, really no idea.
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flickas: The prices you grow used to while buying AI production are more like a flooded market
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Thorfinn: Ah! We are in a glut, and prices reflect that. How long does the flooded market persist if you aren't an active producer? A year? Two?
I meant it more on a day-to-day basis, there is not much of a general starting supply. Except hemp, the hansa starts generously stocked on hemp, it is at the lowest price cap at the beginning, 2xx compared to the 440 reference price. But even that is gone by autumn or thereabouts. So don't grow hemp early.
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flickas: Production not profitable
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Thorfinn: I was rolling an opportunity cost into it as well. In order to play the spread, I need a ship (better yet, a warehouse) in every town, and at least a couple dozen ships moving goods around. Until at least that point, production pays less than arbitrage. Or at least so far as I can tell.
Ah, misunderstood that as being about the downloaded game too. Yes, ships are the crucial factor to consider when planning to produce, can't earn money when the stuff gathers dust in storage. Moving your goods should take priority over parked ships for port access.

And could we please not call trade profits arbitrage? Thats the name given to that money generating exploit, while it may be technically correct I find it really confusing applied to trade-as-it-was-meant-to-be. If you didn't notice that distinction while reading the other forum, better stop being impressed by their "trade" profits right now.
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flickas: I used to auction off my pitch makers for similar reasons, dirt cheap pitch as long as I supply wood (with a profit for that too) and no hassle if something goes wrong. The pros might cringe but it works when white buildings don't bother you.
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Thorfinn: Interesting. Have you tried this more generally? Can one build production facilities, auction them off, then make a haul through arbitrage when the AI is forced to dump at low prices?
Haven't tried it large scale, I don't trust the AI enough to keep more important goods going, but a few buildings per town should work. Almost tempted to try, but there is so much else I want to play, I better don't.
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Thorfinn: [pause] Right. I think I'm on "slowdown" (the slowest setting on my game -- not quite pause) probably 80% of the time the first few weeks, then 95% after that. The random specialy? Is that from what the AI shippers drop off, or are you talking the town getting a "freebie" of some kind, wine or spices or something like that?
Slowdown is what I meant, the game does not have pause except for the escape menu. If that remains the only wrong game term I won't have to install the english version.

I meant the AI delivering too much and selling it all (they actually sell everything on board then notice the good price and buy some back), completely forgot about imports.
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Thorfinn: Sort of, but because [the admin] does it only once per day, he misses out on some great deals when multiple AI ships sell their loads through the day. Easily in the hundreds, sometimes in the thousands per day.
He doesn't stop you from still buying them when you see them, but selling for the daily needs every day gets tendious, and I forget. Setting up the admin is what I do while my first ship sails out for the first time, whatever gets stored now has a chance to turn into cash while I'm busy elsewhere. This really help add some daily income, do it at least in your home town right away.
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Thorfinn: Do you focus on the 3-city concept I've seen explained there, or does your shipping concern tend to be pretty much everywhere before the AI is running out of materials? I'm guessing you don't hit that point in the first 6 months or so, anyway?
I'm not familiar with *the* 3-city-concept, is that three hubs? I only ever play with one hub, it means longer routes therefore requiring somewhat more ships, but is so much simpler. Look into the lübeck storage, what is missing there is probably missing in general, what is piling up I overproduce/over buy.

Or the three hulk wharves of that contest game? I stubbornly refuse to fight with cogs, I prefer crayers, so taking down hulks is a bit of an ordeal... I have no fixed strategy for that, sometimes I build up Edinburgh early, sometimes I keep thinking I should but don't. Once my hometown has a fully upgraded wharf I repair elsewhere, repeat. But most ships come from pirates so thats not really my priority, lots of small ships mean lots of targets at once, can't split up one hulk but combine a fleet of snaikkas. I want one convoi of hulks to take out pirate hideouts with autofight, thats all I really need.

As answered near the beginning, there is no big AI storage that could run out. In fact the town AI has no storage whatsoever. If the player does not interfere the hansa is actually doing kind of ok, growing very slowly but growing. You could start a test game where you fast forward a few years to see.

6 months? I'm slightly faster than that, if you talk real time. In game time no chance, not trying either. Only have one set of saves on this computer, still very early. May 1301: 18 ships, two counting houses, 2 mio company value, 200k cash 6 production buildings, 6 houses, Patrician and will become mayor next month. The ships are all moving, no parked shoppers yet.

I'm a hoarder in this early stage, the hansa would probably be better off without the black hole that is my counting house. Eventually I realize I really have enough of some things and pack some of it off to a ship and send it round until all sold, of course bringing back new goods.

Seperate threads sound like a good idea, this quote wrestling is getting old.

edit: its Edinburgh, not Newcastle
Post edited December 25, 2015 by flickas
Posted December 25, 2015
Thorfinn - Click on the statue or artwork near the town square, and it will list the bonus for goods production. For example, in Luebeck you'll see iron goods has a big bonus. The list with good production refer to a large production bonus to production buildings. I think the "less effective" might also get a smaller production bonus compared to average, but it's been some time since I tested that. I wouldn't trust the "lower production" means a penalty. If you have no ships in a city, you can simply click on the city to see it's best/lesser production list.

Note you can do a little bit about the city growth / lack of workers. You can visit the church, and "feed the poor" which attracts more beggars into the town. I have the impression beggars can fill up the empty worker slots in your buildings, but I'm not certain. Speeding up the growth of the town definitely helps ramp up your production buildings.

flikas - What language/version of P3 are you playing? I ask because many of your city names and some resource names are different. For example, here's the cities along the west edge of my game map ( in England):
London, Scarborough, Edinburgh.
Is Newcastle the top, middle or lower city in England on your P3 map?

One game I made it my goal to drive an AI out of business, but failed. I shipped massive amounts of the goods they sold to that same town, and sold them on the market, driving down prices (it was either wine or iron goods, I forget now). But I didn't see his company get offered for sale, nor see him go out of business. I would really like to see a trade war that defeats an AI player.
Post edited December 25, 2015 by sneakcity
Posted December 25, 2015
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sneakcity: flikas - What language/version of P3 are you playing? I ask because many of your city names and some resource names are different. For example, here's the cities along the west edge of my game map ( in England):
London, Scarborough, Edinburgh.
Is Newcastle the top, middle or lower city in England on your P3 map?

One game I made it my goal to drive an AI out of business, but failed. I shipped massive amounts of the goods they sold to that same town, and sold them on the market, driving down prices (it was either wine or iron goods, I forget now). But I didn't see his company get offered for sale, nor see him go out of business. I would really like to see a trade war that defeats an AI player.
I play Patrizier 2 gold, thats simply the german name of P3, they're savegame compatible despite the different numbers. Newcastle was a silly mistake, its Edinburgh as the first town, I'll edit it here too. Everything else should be just spelling or guessed wrong which term the game uses (like I know its not wood, but can never remember if its called timber or lumber, so I say wood anyway).

You're right that beggars are workers-to-be, so having many of them is good, no downside to that at all. If jobs don't get filled despite beggars there might not be enough low level housing; but there is a limit how many find jobs per day as well.

If you manage to bancrupt an AI trader you immediately get a new one of higher rank for your troubles. Shares only get offered in multiplayer if a human does it, the AI never sells, it is just quietly replaced to no real effect. Defeat can only come by making them irrelevant. Edit to add: they don't sell the whole bussiness, but might auction off a building here and there, usually the day after you gave up constantly checking the guild.
Post edited December 25, 2015 by flickas
Posted December 25, 2015
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sneakcity: Thorfinn - Click on the statue or artwork near the town square, and it will list the bonus for goods production. For example, in Luebeck you'll see iron goods has a big bonus. The list with good production refer to a large production bonus to production buildings. I think the "less effective" might also get a smaller production bonus compared to average, but it's been some time since I tested that. I wouldn't trust the "lower production" means a penalty. If you have no ships in a city, you can simply click on the city to see it's best/lesser production list.
What I see when I click on the statue in Leubeck is "efficient" production is bricks, fish, iron goods and pitch. Is that what you are talking about?
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sneakcity: Note you can do a little bit about the city growth / lack of workers. You can visit the church, and "feed the poor" which attracts more beggars into the town. I have the impression beggars can fill up the empty worker slots in your buildings, but I'm not certain. Speeding up the growth of the town definitely helps ramp up your production buildings.
So far as I can tell, the only advantage I can find to donating food or beer is if you have open hires AND open working class housing. (Half-timbered- houses, I think) Unless you have both, I can't see that it helps at all, as they leave within a few days.
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sneakcity: flikas - What language/version of P3 are you playing? I ask because many of your city names and some resource names are different. For example, here's the cities along the west edge of my game map ( in England):
London, Scarborough, Edinburgh.
Newcastle shows up between Edinburgh and Scarborough, but for the life of me, I can't remember how. In my games in the last few weeks, I've tried leaving a ship there, I've tried moving back and forth, but I can't get it to show up.
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sneakcity: One game I made it my goal to drive an AI out of business, but failed. I shipped massive amounts of the goods they sold to that same town, and sold them on the market, driving down prices (it was either wine or iron goods, I forget now). But I didn't see his company get offered for sale, nor see him go out of business. I would really like to see a trade war that defeats an AI player.
Good to know. I, too, have yet to push an AI out of the game. From the savegames, it looks like it can be done, but it might be you have to use some of the exploits to get there. Capture/sink all of his ships, then make offers? Even if you impound his stuff, it doesn't seem to make a difference. Gotta be something more than just straightforward trading and competition, anyway.
Posted December 25, 2015
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Thorfinn: Newcastle shows up between Edinburgh and Scarborough, but for the life of me, I can't remember how. In my games in the last few weeks, I've tried leaving a ship there, I've tried moving back and forth, but I can't get it to show up.
You can get the mission to found a new town as alderman (-candidate). Otherwise the non-existing towns are possible locations for pirate hideouts, if you get the mission to destroy that one it becomes visible as a black spot when you send a ship there. Or you saw it in the map editor. No way to see them without one of these missions.
Posted December 30, 2015
In found some very interesting tables comparing how much money the various goods make. Mostly the last table in the first post, absolute numbers which profit you get from what if you supply everything yourself in a hypothetical town of 10.000. In short, go make some iron goods and furs. The price suggestions on page two are worth a look as well.

And a slight correction to my last post, the AI has been observed sometimes founding new towns, so you might have seen that when Newcastle showed up. Must be pretty rare or depending on a playstyle other than mine, never happened in my games so far.
Posted December 30, 2015
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flickas: In found some very interesting tables comparing how much money the various goods make. Mostly the last table in the first post, absolute numbers which profit you get from what if you supply everything yourself in a hypothetical town of 10.000. In short, go make some iron goods and furs. The price suggestions on page two are worth a look as well.

And a slight correction to my last post, the AI has been observed sometimes founding new towns, so you might have seen that when Newcastle showed up. Must be pretty rare or depending on a playstyle other than mine, never happened in my games so far.
Huh. Lost what I wrote. Must be GOG's verbosity filter.

Interesting info for future, to be sure. I'm actually surprised how soon those price lists are applicable. With a few exceptions like pitch, hemp and grain, that's what I'm finding works pretty well in 10-12 months. Oh, and Iron Goods. It takes so blasted long to get production of iron ore started that you can sell everything that can be produced at over 500.

Re: Newcastle, it was on my old save, 2006 or so, and a few years into the game. I have no recollection at all of the game, so it may well have been through founding. I had tried leaving ships sitting around, because that is how to find things in PR.

Incidentally, on the first page, they are talking about people playing peacefully and having 200k gold in 3 weeks (1 JUN 1300). I take it that is using that exploit they call arbitrage? Or can that really be done clean?
Post edited December 30, 2015 by Thorfinn
Posted December 31, 2015
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Thorfinn: Incidentally, on the first page, they are talking about people playing peacefully and having 200k gold in 3 weeks (1 JUN 1300). I take it that is using that exploit they call arbitrage? Or can that really be done clean?
Verbosity filter? They're on to us, if you don't hear back... (happens also if you click reply elsewhere on gog before posting)

Not entirely sure when arbitrage was discovered, they also say that those players are the very best... there is no mention of it so I assume its honestly. Not sure, but it sounds possible to do if I consider that I can catch the first promotion in June that requires 100k if I'm trying, "just" doubling that is imaginable. At least in theory, that is more optimizing and reloading than I'm willing to do. Company value of course, not cash.

You know that in your save the admin can't buy anything except timber? Give him a goal how much to buy if you want more than zero.
Posted December 31, 2015
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Thorfinn: Incidentally, on the first page, they are talking about people playing peacefully and having 200k gold in 3 weeks (1 JUN 1300). I take it that is using that exploit they call arbitrage? Or can that really be done clean?
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flickas: Not sure, but it sounds possible to do if I consider that I can catch the first promotion in June that requires 100k if I'm trying, "just" doubling that is imaginable.
Wow. Is that with just the 1 snaikka? I'm guessing high starting cash? Got an early save I could study?

I guess I'm a complete n00b. I thought I was doing pretty well to have built a snaikka, have a cog and a crayer on the way, two houses under construction, and 5 businesses operating and one under construction in a little over 5 weeks.I'd have been building faster, but I can't seem to get the "Feed the Poor" to increase immigration, like the manual suggests happens.

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flickas: You know that in your save the admin can't buy anything except timber? Give him a goal how much to buy if you want more than zero.
No, I didn't. I thought you left it at zero to let him buy infinite, up to that price. Kinda like "MAX" on ship trades. No wonder it seemed like I was always snagging deals before he had the chance.

Is that kind of how you set up Leubeck at the early game? What would you have done differently? As you can see, my company value is just shy of 70k. (Why does buying a ship decrease company value? Hookers and coke, sure, but ships?) I'll get my promotion July 1, but there's no way I could have made enough cash by Jun 1, even though I had the reputation for it.

Is there an advantage to higher rank? All I could see was it increases the cost to join the guild.
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