Money
Money makes the world go round; even in Eressea. Many different ways to earn money exist in Eressea: You can earn money by: working, entertaining the peasants, collecting taxes oder trading.
Working is more of a type of stopgap, units workig will earn barely enough to feed themselves. You can make quite a lot of money with entertainnment and taxation. Especially at the beginning of your ventures, trading might be the biggest source of income, profits of some thousands of silver are possible, provided the regions have the appropriate luxury goods.
Silver has its own weight: each 100 pieces of silver equal one unit of weight (UW/GE). When calculating weight it is a common rule to round up; even one piece of silver can overload.
Because persons (of most Races) can carry 5.4 UW/GE, they can carry up to 540 silver with them; when carrying 541 silver a single person is overloaded. A boat (50 UW/GE capacity) for example, can carry one person (10 GE of most Races) with 4000 Silver; even 4001 silver would be too much.
Expenses
Recruit
If you want to recruit people, all you need is enough small change, because those willing to recruit are often particularly thirsty ... Depending on the race, you have to spend between 40 and 150 silver on recruitment costs for each person you recruit.
If the region is guarded by a foreign faction that has neither HELP GUARD nor HELP ALL to your own, this prevents the recruitment of people for your own faction (see GUARD and HELP), unless you are "invisible" due to a higher cloaking talent. In the case of an empty TEMP unit, the one created is the visibility reference. In other words, the decisive factor in this case is whether the unit that created the TEMP unit is seen.
The amount of the recruitment costs depends on the race and can be found in this table.
You can only recruit people of your own race! Persons of other races can only be accepted by human factions, and these must be handed over by other factions.
Upkeep costs
Every person of a faction and each peasant require 10 silver each turn to buy themselves the supplies needed to survive. Units of a faction help each other with silver when staying in the same region, i.e. it is basically enough if one unit has enough silver for all persons present (which can lead to catastrophes when done wrong and nobody else has any silver!). If your own faction does not have enough silver, other factions that have set HELP SILVER to your own faction will also help (see here). Units that move must be supplied where they arrive. Without enough silver, people will suffer Starvation.
Some buildings also require weekly maintenance costs in order to function. These maintenance costs are incurred at the start of the round, i.e. they must be collected in the preliminary round and are due as soon as the building has been started (i.e. even for half-finished buildings). If there is not enough silvers available, the function of the building cannot be used. More details can be found in the chapter on Buildings.
Starvation
Hunger for player units (see also Expenses)
Starving units take damage, the hungry Halflings proportionally more than others. However, a fully rested unit will not die in the first week. A starving unit cannot give people to other units. In addition, the skill levels of starving units fall by half, they do not regenerate health points and they learn much more slowly than normal.
The Sailing talent is only reduced by one level when units are starving. Nevertheless, starvation at sea is a critical situation. On the one hand, nobody can work there except aquarians, so you are dependent on silver from outside. Secondly, due to the reduction in skill, you may not be able to gather enough sailing levels to manoeuvre the ship, causing it to take Damage and drift away.
Hunger is almost fatal if you come into contact with the enemy, e.g. due to theft or poor planning. You lose hit points and will be much weaker in any subsequent battle. If you survive such a battle anyway, there is still a risk that you will continue to starve because you were unable to work due to the battle (see Combat End).
If you master the Endurance skill at a high level, you may experience the strange effect that a unit is "very strong" according to the report (i.e. it has more hit points than it should normally have) after starving.
Starvation for peasants
Peasants also need sustenance, which they normally earn themselves or take from the regional supply. If the regional supply is exhausted, the peasants starve and die. This can have various causes:
- The region is overpopulated. In a plain without trees, where each peasant earns 12$, only 12000 peasants can survive in the long term, because only 10000 peasants work, earning 120000$, which is only enough for 12000 peasants. In the short term, the number of peasants can be higher as long as there is still enough silver in the region's supply.
- The region is not overpopulated, but working player units occupy some of the jobs.
- The peasants earn enough silver, but player units collect taxes before the peasants can provide for themselves.
- There are also rumours of special events that can temporarily or permanently reduce the fertility of a region, which means that the peasants can no longer earn their own living.
Starved peasants can later "be" resurrected as Undead.
Income
Work
You can earn money by working in agriculture (see command WORK). However, the larger the forests in a region, the less arable land there is, and the fewer peasants (and player units) can work: eight peasants or players can no longer work per tree, each sapling occupies 4 jobs. The maximum number of people who can work (not live) in a region, i.e. without any forest, depends on the terrain (see the table in the WORK order).
A peasant normally earns 11 silver per turn. This wage can be increased by the bonus of a citadel up to 16 silver per peasant and week (see also this table). If, for example, a citadel is built in a plain and the forest is cut down, 10000 peasants can feed themselves in one turn and another 60000 silver are added to the region silver.
However, working units of players earn less - after all, they are only auxiliaries. How much they can earn is specified in the report and can also be found in the table in the order WORK.
If the unit is on a ship and the region is guarded by a foreign faction that has not set HELP GUARD, the unit cannot work!
Collecting taxes
Armed and trained henchmen can use the command TREIBE to squeeze out of the peasants 20 silver in taxes per person and skill taxation level. To do this, you will of course need the taxation skill, as well as a weapon and the corresponding skill.
If the region is guarded by a foreign faction that is not in HELP GUARD with its faction, the unit cannot collect taxes!
If the peasants live close to the maximum population, almost all the silver reserves will be used up by themselves, so they will have no more silver "left" for taxes. You can still collect taxes, but the peasants who are not supplied will starve to death (and this will not increase their earnings ...). This is why it makes sense to build a castle, as this increases wages: with 12 instead of 11 silver, 2000 peasants earn 2000 silver more per turn!
Entertainment
The silver that remains to peasants after paying taxing units is added to the region's silver (the peasants' silver supply, so to speak). Of this silver, 5% can be earned through entertainment. Each entertainer can earn up to 20 silver per round and talent level of entertainment with the ENTERTAIN order, if the peasants have enough money available.
If the unit is on a ship and the region is guarded by a foreign faction that has not set HELP GUARD, the unit cannot entertain!
Examples of potential income
| Region | Trees | Peasants | Wage | Income | Upkeep | Surplus | Entertain |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Plain | 200 | 3742 | 11 | 41162 | 37420 | 3742 | 187 |
| Plain | 200 | 3742 | 14 | 52388 | 37420 | 14968 | 784 |
| Forest | 818 | 3742 | 11 | 38016 | 37420 | 596 | 29 |
| Forest | 818 | 3742 | 12 | 41472 | 37420 | 4052 | 202 |
For each tree, the maximum number of peasants that may work is decreased by 8, for each saplings the number is decreased by 4.
In this example, the total income is smaller because not all the peasants can work. This is because too many trees are preventing them from growing food.
This also does not take into consideration the peasants' savings (region silver reserve). They will live on this reserve when overpopulation strikes. The silver available for entertainment is also affected by the amount of silver reserve. As a rule, more silver can therefore be earned through entertainment, as the 5% refers to this reserve.
Stealing: the dishonest way
In addition to the honest ways of earning money, there is also the dishonest variant: theft. Cloaked units can try to steal silver from other units.
If the stealth skill of the thief is higher than the best Perception skill level of target's faction in the region, the thief steals 50 silver for each level of difference. In this case, the stolen silver always comes from the whole silver pool of the target faction in that region. The stolen faction receives a message that it has been stolen from, but not by whom. If the thief's stealth skill level is as high as the best perception skill level of the target's faction in the region,, the theft fails and the stolen faction receives an anonymous report of the attempt. If the thief's stealth skill level is lower than the best perception skill level of the target's faction, then the target's faction will know who the thief was. Goblins have special abilities when stealing.
Trade
In every region, the peasantry produce one special luxury item. Your units may purchase this product. In all regions that do not produce this special luxury product, there is a continuously rising demand. If you are not afraid of the risks involved in long distance travels, trading is a very lucrative method of earning silver.
In order to trade, a unit needs the trade skill. For every level of trade skill, a unit can buy up to 10 luxury items or sell 10 luxury items (see here). The better the trader is and the more traders are present, the more items can be bought and sold each turn.
Furthermore, some form of castle is needed for the trade to take place. At least the size of a tradepost is required. It does not matter who controls the castle, the owner cannot directly prevent the trading from taking place. However, he can indirectly prevent trading from going on by simply attacking the trading units with his own armed units.
You can only trade from a ship if the region is not guarded or you are "contacted" (order contact) by all guarding factions or have a HELP GUARD.
The owner of the largest castle in the region receives a revenue share from all sales made by other players. This revenue share is deducted from the traders's income. If two castles in the region are the same size, no one receives this share. The amount of the "tax rate" can be found in this table.
This table shows the base prices of luxury goods. The number of units of luxury goods that can be bought without raising the price is 1% of the number of peasants in the region. Every time this amount is bought (the total bought by all factions), the price rises by the base price. A region with 2,000 peasants means 20 luxury items can be bought without raising the price. The price drops to normal the next turn.
| Luxury good | Base price |
|---|---|
| Balm | 4 |
| Oil | 3 |
| Spice | 5 |
| Silk | 6 |
| Gem | 7 |
| Incense | 4 |
| Myrrh | 5 |
Der Verkaufspreis eines Luxusgutes ist ein Vielfaches des Grundpreises und ist im Regionsreport angegeben. Sobald in einer Runde jeweils 1% der Bauern ein Produkt gekauft hat, sinkt der Verkaufspreis um den Grundpreis und steigt in den nächsten Wochen erst langsam wieder an. Jede Runde besteht für jedes Luxusgut eine 10%ige Chance, dass sich der Verkaufspreis um den Grundpreis erhöht. In Regionen, in denen ein Hafen ist, liegt diese Chance bei 20%. Liegt der Kaufpreis bereits beim 25fachen Grundpreis, wird er sich nicht weiter erhöhen.
Die angegebenen Preise und Maxima gelten für alle Spieler der Region zusammen und nicht pro Spieler, allerdings pro Luxusgut. Ohne eine entsprechende Absprache untereinander kann man sich so den Verkaufspreis schneller "versauen", als einem lieb ist ...
Alle Käufe und Verkäufe von Luxusgütern werden regelmäßig unter den Spielern verteilt. Die Preissteigerung bzw. der Preisverfall betrifft also gleichmäßig alle Spieler, die in der Runde kaufen oder verkaufen.
Beispiele:
- Angenommen, in einer Region mit 8000 Bauern wird für Weihrauch 4 Silber verlangt, und für Gewürze werden 15 Silber geboten. 1% der Bauern sind 80. Verkauft ein Händler nun 200 Gewürze, werden die ersten 80 Gewürze zu 15 Silber verkauft, die nächsten 80 Gewürze zu 10 Silber, und die restlichen 40 Gewürze zu 5 Silber. In der kommenden Woche würden Gewürze hier nur noch für 5 Silber verkauft werden können - wenn der Preis nicht mit einer Wahrscheinlichkeit von 10% wieder auf 10 gestiegen ist.
- Werden in der selben Region 100 Weihrauch gekauft, so kosten die ersten 80 Weihrauch 4 Silber, und die nächsten 20 Weihrauch kosten 8 Silber. In der kommenden Woche liegt der Preis für Weihrauch wieder bei 4 Silber und man kann die ersten 80 Weihrauch wieder für diesen Preis einkaufen.
Das Geld, das die Bauern ausgegeben haben, kommt den Händlern zugute. Trotzdem verliert die Region kein Silber, denn die Bauern besitzen ja Luxusgüter, mit denen sie die Steuern bezahlen können. Das Geld entsteht nicht aus dem Nichts - es ist der Wert der Güter, die in einer anderen Region produziert worden sind.
Es lohnt sich, ein Schiff auszurüsten und in See zu stechen. Obwohl man mit den zwei Produkten, die auf einer Insel produziert werden, Handel treiben kann, bleiben die Gewinne relativ gering. Kehrt man aber von einer fremden Insel mit einer Ladung seltener Güter heim, kann man astronomische Gewinne erzielen, wobei die Entfernung der Inseln aber keine Rolle spielt. Solche Expeditionen sollten dafür ausgerüstet sein, in der neuen Welt eine Niederlassung zu gründen - denn man kann ja nur in der Nähe von Befestigungen Handel treiben.
Siehe auch
| Continue reading: | Materialpool |
