Making steel swords vs. buying them.

[Blebekblebek]

SS production is okay, but not IS and any Expert weapons production.

Bronze Sword & Horse is all you need (Higher lvl adv also need Bowman to reduce Recruit & Xbowman loss, some need Militia & Soldier to be meatshield because recruits can't do the job)

Most weapons people sold, they get it from adv, and most of time it's 1 time build (Once you've train Soldier/Longbowman/Xbowman) you will cherish it until they needed to sacrifice, not with Xbowman though.

trust me, you'll get more weapons by doing adv than produce it.

[LordBaldrick]

So it comes down to;

- In the end you barely need to make any soldiers at all.

- And if you do need to build them, the swords needed have been found many times over.


So they go to the market; pretty much making the whole steel(sword) making process obsolete.

Thanks for your input everyone; I like knowing why stuff is the way it is..:-)

[dnarag1m]

LordBaldrick,

This is one of the mayor flaws in Settlers. A large part of the buildings are superfluous in this game. Titanium smelter, Damascenesword smith, Xbow smith, the whole cannon chain. It's all a gigantic waste of money, since the demand for these items is limited (e.g. very few of them are lost once needed numbers are established to follow guides) and the supply [adventures] is outstripping any accidental losses.

A predictably frustrating game design, of which I do not understand how it ever got in place this way.

[StarCaller]

Well in my opinion its like this, because devs didn't rly cared about economy at all. Hmmm... that's even bad for them, because there is not much point to buy some of the refills in the Shop. Maybe in time they will realize that MMO is not the same as ordinary multiplayer and you have to take care in balancing things out. Andi have the feeling that they think that economy will eventually balance by itself. (Supply demand stuff) But I really doubt it. Every currency in the world most of the time has positive infilation (resources/wares price only increases), well GCs here have negative infilation (almost everything just gets cheaper) and the price drops doesn't seem to slow down... Thats just against everything what we are used to. Hmm I'm even curious will Marble/Hw stack prices reach ~3-5 GCs per stack

BTW I actually produce some swords but that's mainly to spend ores and so on. When I come to think about it I haven't tried to calculate if that would be more profitable to sell mats.

[SwampHen]

I've arrived at your topic having gotten sick of constantly replacing iron mines and coal mines that are only there for my steel weaponsmith. I agree with your conclusions, OP.

[fishslice]

Surely it depends upon how you play. I tend to have a couple of Level 5 iron mines that I drop fillers from adventures in and friends buff these - I let all other iron mines build to Level 1, deplete and rebuild. My SS are also Level 5 (needed for a side quest) and friends also buff the smelters and weaponsmith. I don't tend to have a problem with resources so I just let them crack on with churning out swords. Occasionally pausing the production if I want to regain some ore or coal (I hate having low stock).

In all therefore none of that costs me money - just the time taken to replenish mines and swapping buffs with friends which is also free. Ok, I admit I don't sell the swords I make, they just sit there gathering dust or rusting away until a friend needs some help. But that is my playing style and it works for me - it also helps that I don't need the building licenses (I have to many already).

so in summary, there are lots of different playing styles, some are active traders that buff their whole economy for maximum profit, others that are high level and sell everything they get from adventures and never use, others that trade all day in currencies other than coin - some people that make steel swords for instance don't mine ore but buy it or buy steel bars as it may be better for them.

I'm not sitting here thinking why don't I sell the resources for other coins or resources. Its called having a balanced economy - the main thing is find a playing style you enjoy and have fun rather than stressing about where that next lump of coal is coming from.

Cheers
fish

[SwampHen]

Thanks fish. That makes sense. I think as a lower player level (level 39) short of licenses (and lacking iron refills!), the steel sword chain takes many resources and licenses that could be better directed elsewhere. Even though I have four geologists, I feel like I'm constantly (every other day) sending them out for iron mines and coal mines. It is starting to feel tedious, especially because those two resources take longer to rebuild. Waiting for a coal mine to build is like watching paint dry.

[fishslice]

SwampHen, I agree the 2 hour search time is horrendous in trying to keep coal in place. A great suggestion is get as many jolly geos as you can (on Newfoundland they cost 300gems or about 1500 - 1800 coins if gifted), get recyclers when they are event awards and upgrade the recyclers as high as you can. Coal seems to be one of the basics that many people are short on so creating a surplus is a good steady income stream of coin or other resources and although it has become rather cheap on our server is much easier to buy sell than many other resources.