> Dang, I'd like to know your secret for getting so
> wealthy! My current clan has been having a rather
> rough time of it....it's already 1344 and they are
> only just getting to tribe making, and I'm afraid
> they'll have to manage it on a shoestring budget.
> (Odd, considering this was the first time I chose as
> the earliest famous event Jested's settlement, which
> gives good bargaining). How few clans do you need for
> a tribe?
I don't actually do anything special; I find that after the first ten years of the game I end up with hundreds of excess goods.
One of my first three orders when the game begins is to put as many carls as possible into crafters. I also switch to a little more fancy work, but as I have no idea what this does, I doubt it's important. I also focus on making permanent trading partners when I can. Every once in a while, when I have a good trader and I've found a clan where I get more back than I gave them, I'll send two trading missions - one to sell food and goods and buy cattle and horses, one to sell cattle and horses and buy food and goods. I usually end up with a fair bit more than when I started. This kind of action is pretty rare, though - I usually tend to make a trade before I think I'll need the stuff, trading away things I don't need - like food, which is almost always plentiful and tends to spoil anyways.
I also tend to do a lot of exploring during the game, especially (at the beginning of the game) in my own tula - I'll do this three or four times a year in the first few years, since this will often give me a lot of goodies and rarely causes problems. I usually end up with three or four of the special trade materials, and when I get three or four in that year, I switch to everybody using the special materials. Over time, this gives me a lot of wealth - 50 crafters in a clan produces about 150-200 goods a year, plus another 10-20 from your market and any excess you get from trade. My figures are probably off; they go up and down constantly thanks to the temples and the slow progress of the year. When you look at it that way, trade is actually not really that important - a profit of 20 goods in a single trade is nice, but in the meantime your crafters have probably made another 20 goods themselves. In any event, I tend to give food and horses to other clans as gifts, to form alliances or to end feuds - which means I can save cows and goods for the times when the game doesn't offer me any other choices. In the first few years profit is quite low - you're sacrificing for mysteries and building shrines, which usually brings me down close to 0 by year's end. But after you stop building new temples and have learned all the mysteries, you suddenly end up with a huge surplus of goods.
In the game, I usually deliberately hold off forming a tribe until I'm powerful - that may be your big problem (or the big difference between us, rather). I think in my last game I spent over 20 years before making a tribe, at which point all my neighbours adored me, I had over a dozen treasures, and I had several hundred goods, a full herd of cattle and about three thousand excess food. None of that actually helped me win the game - you need skilled heroquesters and nobles to do that.
There are also some events that can really help. That auction in your tula is fantastic - you can pick up three useful treasures for well under a 50 goods total! Going to the dragon in the beginning of the game is a GREAT way to gain a ton of goods - killing the dragon (easy enough with a good fighter and a FULL complement of warriors - I send 30 warriors and 30 thanes just to be sure, and usually only get a few thanes wounded). The dragon has a horde of 200 goods in the Easy game, which is a nifty start to the game.
I've noticed that when I get raided by the horse-spawn it's often one of the most profitable times for me - if I do well (which I find I can do if I'm not surprised and I say 'kill them all') I'll end up with 20-40 horses, each worth 4 goods or cows. The other really profitable thing to do is take captives and ransom them - I once captured over 80 enemies, which meant I got a ransom of 400 goods - this is way more than that clan SHOULD have had, but I got it anyway.
More than anything else, it's just a matter of putting as many farmers into crafters as possible, giving grain and horses instead of cows or goods, and getting rid of the mysteries and temples ASAP (this also helps your magic - not only do you get more magic, you also don't need to add any to 'mysteries' every year. Man, I wish there was a button that said 'add to all' for the sacred time...).
Incidentally, I usually pick the Clan-Making Dance, as I prefer to have leaders who can convince people - often my OWN people - to not do stupid things. It's almost always the cheapest and easiest solution to problems, and when ALL your clan ring are very good or higher at leadership, it works out nicely.
As for clans, I try to bring in all of them. I tend to wait until all of the clans around me love me (brightest color on the map save alliance and my emissaries are told they love me, not just the chief) and then commit to it - then I start every negotiation off by giving the chief 30 goods (or the equivalent) - this seems to be the biggest effect, anything more than that really seems to be wasted effort. I've noticed a real difference when I do this - they will accept less when I've gifted them - but gifting them AFTER negotiating for a while doesn't appear to affect them. I have my own standards as to what I can accept, so I usually end up rejecting 1-2 of them around me, but that still leaves about 8 or so, giving me the largest tribe in the game - a distinct advantage. When I negotiate well, I also don't see many clan squabbles, which is nice.
> I do agree with you that one of the few general things
> about the game that I wish were handled differently
> was the tribal agreements. I know at the first moot
> there is a bunch of haggling going on, which may
> change the agreements that you had made, but I'd like
> to see the final draft of the tribal constitution, as
> it were. I'd also love to be able to see which clan
> has how many (or even which) seats on the tribal
> ring--at the very least, an occasional pop up box
> announcing that your Humakt war leader was just
> acclaimed onto the tribal ring, or that your Ernaldan
> just lost her spot because an Ernalda god-talker of
> another clan just completed a hero-quest and all the
> clans wanted her wisdom on the ring. Just one of
> those colour things.
Yeah - all of this would be really great to see. Actually, another complaint along these lines is that when I'm asked to make a decision on a tribal matter, I'm sometimes gifted, then asked to judge the case - with no mention of its merits and no ability to make a divination. I have to rely on my ring to decide - and most of them say things like "Decide for the one who gifted you," or "Our clan is allied to the Jenasti". Since I've told the Dragonnewts I believe in justice, it would be nice to actually GIVE it.
> Mind you, this is a rather minor quibble given how
> many incredibly great things that there are about the
> game!
Too true. As much as I can complain about how it could be better, it's only because it's so good that I want to complain. If it wasn't so different, so unique, and so darned fun to play, I wouldn't have played so many hours and seen so many things that could make it even MORE fun. =)
Dave
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