How will you achieve greatness? The decision is up to you!
When deciding who do you want to be, your initial choices shape your later career. However, most of the skills you obtain are either focused on combat, or “Misc” skills. For example, you could be a decent knight, footman or archer. But on the other hand, you could also kick off as a decent Engineer, Merchant or medic. So in a way, when considering these three propositions, you have to be aware, that it is often a good idea to focus on one path, to best exploit the benefits.
Let us start off by acknowledging one thing.Bandits are often walking pots of gold. There are two reasons for that. Higher levels bandits have decent equipment, but even the prisoners alone are worth plenty of gold. Although a Looter will fetch you a mere 30 coins, a captured Sea Raider will go for over 100 coins. But before you kick off your career of capturing slaves and selling their equipment there are a few things you must be made brutally aware of.
My rag-tag band of Rhodok Infantry waiting for the Mountain Bandits to engage. Since the bandits always charge first, why should I come to them, if I can wait?
First of all, let us look at the Bandits. At your first levels you will meet two types of bandits. The Looters and Bandits are something your most basic recruits can handle, and they also make perfect practice at your first steps, if you want to improve your combat against weak opponents. They usually lack shields, have pathetic armour, and sometimes have bows, but usually use rocks. In short summary, easy targets. Due to their equipment usually being of horrid quality you are better off capturing them, than killing them. The next step up from that are Forest and Mountain Bandits. Both groups have better equipment, and Forest Bandits are mildly effective archers, but against experienced troops mildly helpless. Their axes are deadly however, while Mountain Bandits usually use hammers or flails, which only knock out your troops, and thus do not kill them. The deadliest foot bandits are Sea Raiders. They appear to be the best fighters of the lot, but also their equipment is staggeringly better than that of their predecessors. Due to this, they are not to be taken lightly, since basic recruits will have a hard time harming them, and due to their throwing axes your frontline could be decimated if you do not have any experienced troops with shields. There are two more groups of bandits. Desert Raiders and Steppes Bandits. The key difference between these two groups is that Steppes Bandits usually use bows on horseback. Desert Raiders use spears to charge into your line, potentially insta-killing your men.
Obviously, each group uses specific equipment. This also means their specific strengths and weaknesses are clear. Sea Raiders are tough, and devastating in close combat. Desert Raiders lack better armour, but their spears could be a problem in the initial charge. Forest Bandits will pepper away at you with arrows, as they advance. Although the bandits will charge in a disorderly manner toward your line, as mentioned before, sometimes you have to charge yourself to reduce damage to your own line. Sometimes specific troop types will fare better, or worse against the bandits. But there is one thing to be aware of when hunting bandits. The bigger your band, the more likely bandits will flee from you. This might not be too much a problem against Mountain or Forest Bandits, but Steppes Bandits and Desert Raiders are very quick, due to being on horseback. As such, you have to invest in one of two things. A warband consisting of almost purely cavalry, or a lot of points invested into Travel related skills. This is also a remedy against smaller bands which can be extremely quick. So, either have a very small quick band, or a band composed of horsemen.
Bandits, however, do not appear out of thin air… not most of the time at least.When you notice a huge focus of bands in an area there is likely a hideout. Hideouts are normally very easy to defeat, with only a handful of defenders (although you will only have a few people yourself). You will not get any prisoners but obtain plenty of equipment associated with the type of bandit camp you defeat, and a number of other resources (nothing valuable, most of the time). When a hideout appears in an area there will be a few bands of bandits moving about. These hideouts can only ever be found if you travel near them, and there is more or less a rule where they can be. Mountain Bandit hideouts will be found in hills or mountains. Forest Bandits will hide in woodland. Sea Raiders near the sea (usually in Nord Territory). As to the mounted bandits, you just have to get lucky.
It might not be “Fat Loot”, but when you sell all this trash you should get a few denars. At the least, it will cover your band’s expenses for the week. Worst case… well, worst case is when you want to haul more loot but have an already full inventory!
As a Headhunter, you will also meet Deserters. These are troops from a specific nation which will on average demand a portion of your riches to allow you to pass. The exact strength of the force is random, but if you know most of the unit types about, Deserter groups are made of one unit type. So you could meet thirty Rhodok Veteran Crossbowmen, or ten Swadian Militiamen. The loot is also dependent on unit type and the prisoner sales on the level of the units. So obviously, if you faced off against Swadian Knights you would get incredible loot and prisoner cash-in, but on the other hand, capturing them alive would be a huge bother.
Being a Headhunter has two obvious benefits. Experience and gold. When you find better gear for you or your companions you will use it, the rest sell. As your army progresses you will be able to take on tougher bandits, eventually farming away at Sea Raiders. The main downside is that bandits are often much faster than you, and their spawn rate is dependent on a local hideout. So, one day you could have plenty of work on your hands, and the next, having nothing at all, with an expensive force to feed. But, if all goes well you will be able to easily progress to becoming a Mercenary captain for a lord, having a solid force, and enough cash to perform any emergency purchases when necessary. Of course, during your “Man Hunting” you will not be bothered by enemy Nobles. After all, you focus on the common pests.
Interested in the “Big Things” from the start? Working for lords, Towns and villages is highly profitable, gives you many friends, and as such in the future lets you cope better. You really do not need anything specific to be a mercenary, except a basic military force. In most quests Trade and Persuasion skills have a big role, so invest in those when you have spare points. There are many varied quests from Towns and Villages, with decent payouts and plenty of experience for your character. They are not always focused on combat. Sometimes you just have to act as a Caravan, or a Guard. There is a problem with a lot of these quests however. Later on when you have a big force or a highly experienced small force most quests will have an insufficient payout to upkeep your army.
The first step toward becoming a Lord. After enough service, and bringing about numerous victories for your faction the King might offer you a title and fief. Do not think it will be so easy though!
Taking prisoners, and especially enemy Lords is an excellent way to boost your income, assuming somebody will want to pay the ransom. Holding enemy Lords also makes life for your side much easier, since the enemy will have one less army to haunt you with. But, all of this comes with a serious downside.
Unlike bandits, enemy Lords will always have mildly impressive armies compared to what you can have at the start. As such, although you could have your own village and maybe fifty “medium level” soldiers a Lord with a hundred troops could prance about and smash you aside, burning your village, or conquering the nearby town/castle making you lose your property for good. Oddly enough, if you made a living off raiding enemy villages your greatest problem will be peace, since you will have to rely on petty quests from towns and villages to prosper on. These, as mentioned earlier will be insufficient later on, so prepare to make moves in some long-term income possibilities, such as expanding your village/town/castle or building workshops in towns.
Hack and Slash not your thing? There is an economic element in Warband.Your key skill is Barter. With it you will buy items a bit cheaper and sell any loot or goods a bit higher. Since you might rely on moving about quickly invest in Travel related skills. If you do not have a big force Spotting helps as well, since you can stop your caravan when you spot a group of bandits. All in all, your first moves as a merchant will be to buy and sell goods.
This is what you will usually obtain, when Assessing local prices. Object, Location and potential profit!
Buying and Selling is not difficult, if you have the basic three or four points in Barter. Firstly go to the Market and Assess local prices. Take note of items that offer at least around 60-70 coin profit. It might not seem like much, but when for example you find that Ale sells for a profit of 70 gold per barrel you can buy a very big shipment due to the low price per barrel. As such, you overall profit will be much higher since you will have more of a profitable good. The basic “cheap” goods include Ale, Wine, Iron (to an extent), Leather (later on) and Salt (in some locations can be bought dirt cheap). Foods although can often reach a decent profit from time to time have the downside of being eaten by your troops over time. As such, your highly profitable honey could be drank on the way and you do not get that much gold back from the trip.
When unable to decide what to buy at a location do the following. Assess the prices in your current location. Take a pen and paper and write down the most profitable offers. If you forget to write the assessment down first you cannot go back to it, and will have to start a new one. Then go to the world map and look which of the profitable destinations is closest. That way the overall cost of your troops is much lower, and you make money faster, and in the next town you could find more interesting offers.
Once you have plenty of coin (let us say, around four to five thousand) you can think about setting up workshops in towns. Each town can have only one workshop so it is important to decide what is best, at the time. There are different types of workshops, but in each location different ones will be more profitable than others. I had cases when a Bakery (which costs 2,500 coins) provided me with 150 coins of profit per week. Meanwhile a Textile Mill, if I remember the name correctly (which costs somewhere around 8,000 coins) made barely 250 coins of profit per week. At this low level you should always look at the Cost/Profit ratio at the time. As in the example the Bakery is more profitable. It is cheaper and will pay itself off quicker than the Mill. However, the Mill made more money, so the question is your money reserve, and whether you will deliver the goods yourself for production or take the ready products and sell them yourself (you have such options). If you delivered the basic production materials yourself, and then sold the ready product through your Caravan you could make much more money, but as you build more workshops you could find yourself running out of steam.
While travelling to Shariz with my Wine Shipment I stumble upon a concentration of bandits. At this later stage of the game I am lucky, since my force is big enough to scare them off. But if I was just starting this might had been a “Game Over”.
What does this path grant you? A stable and substantial income. When later on you join a faction the workshops will not be destroyed if located in an enemy town, they will keep making money! So, while you wage war against the enemy you will get enough money to hold a sizeable army, on top of that getting funds from any villages you own, or perhaps just mercenary pay. This path takes patience however, since you cannot rush ahead blindly. Bandits will be your bane at first, so always have a sizeable force defending you. Sometimes even agree to pay for passage if you think you might lose. But, in your free time, you might as well hunt bandits for extra profit, since you will be able to sell their gear for a higher price.
Aleksander “WriterX” Bielski Rating:9/10 Pros:Huge Sandbox
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