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Well, I have played a little game with the focus of masters doing all the
work for me...
I have omitted the thief since it
seems too simple to me. If the same things happen each and every turn I
simply get bored. Having said that I should nevertheless mention that
playing as a thief is like printing your own money!
In my "master game" I started out as perfumer. The reason is simply that
the collecting of lavender and jasmin is running automatically and only
one raw material has to be purchased. That makes life easier for a
master. You could as well start as alchemist however.
Alright then, the company is founded, there is even an apprentice to
start with which means you should hire 2 more and while one is busy
manufacturing the other two should go and collect herbs in the forest.
Who noticed? Right, no master, was too boring for me so I directed the
first firm myself. This way growth should be speeded up somewhat.
I used the barrow to get some iron in order to produce the fine Poisonous
Daggers. Then I let one of them produce Polish the other one Poisonous
Daggers while the last one kept collectong herbs. Finally I upgraded the
store house so the stock of herbs collected in summer would last over
winter.
Then the usual stuff: wait for a good price and sell... When my
apprentices finally could be promoted it started to really pay off
nicely. That's when I started saving money for another shop.
1403 I was accepted into the bourgoisie and 1405 I ordered the second
shop to be built making it necessary to take a loan of about 3.500. It
started to become a bit tight for me but in 1410 I got rid of my debts
and I owned enough money to be able to employ masters. Each master got a
barrow for his shop and all rights except the purchase of barrows!
This all resulted in a good economical performance, 1415 I became
Patrician, 1416 I ordered a townhouse and another perfumer's
shop to be built.
In 1419 my wealth equaled more than 50.000, I had the 6th master degree
of my starting profession and was planning on going about the art of
alchemy. Over the 5 following years I have built 3 alchemist's shops of
level 1 and equipped each of them with masters and barrows. A sidenote:
unfortunately renovations and promotions have to be taken care of
manually which can sometimes be simply forgotten once your company grows
in size and numbers...
In 1429 the founder of the dynasty took his last breath and daughter #2
took over, having a nice 90.000 for use already. The profession of the
new boss was black smith, the father still managed in time to get the 6th
master degree in alchemy. The next 5 years saw 3 new foundries being
built. In my opinion the black smith's business started a little slower
than the others but once the apprentices could be promoted I started
making constant profits.
Around 1435 the gains per year (having deducted taxes and all other
costs) were about 15.000. Not excitingly much but enough so you wouldn't
have to worry about a thing.
Since it would still take some time for the nexz master degree I started
taking a closer look at the master settings. A very important factor
definitely is the allowed budget. If a master happens to spend his budget
on buying raw materials for example, he will sell his wares at whatever
the current price is, otherwise his shop would be "broke". So it is
better to allow a high budget in order to make sure your master will wait
for good prices.
On finding that out I gave everyone a budget of 9.000. In the bottom
right corner of the main control screen you can see an overview of all
masters. This is where you can see the difference between the allowed
budget for the whole year and the current budget. This lets you see
easily who is bringing gains and who is causing losses.
The next thing I did was to upgrade all 9 shops to level 2 in order to
see how well it would all work then. Level 1 could be called successful.
And as you might expect, it went fine! The whole thing became a bit less
balanced because some masters kept back up to 20 Great Swords, but at
some point they made gains of 20.000 a turn.
Later on - thanks to my new master degrees - I added 3 stone cutteries
and 3 turneries (all level 2). The stone cutter's level 1 was a bit
disappointing but at level 2 there were good profits in it.
Conclusion:
You can indeed successfully use masters if you heed a few rules. And it
can be a very rewarding experience since you can basically forget about
that micro management and take care of other things. With my town hardly
having any more room for new buildings I will have to think about new
ways how to create some space in order to be able to go on expanding
my "empire".
The best shops for masters are the perfumery and alchemist's shop, the
alchemist's branch being the slightly better choice because of the AP
drinks that enable a much faster increasement of skills at the start of
the game. The other craftsman jobs are about equal with the stone cutter
being a bit weak at level 1, at least in my opinon. But maybe I preferred
the black smith because I am used to playing him?
So whoever wants to start a game based on masters should probably start
with the old herb collectors... As soon as there are a few shops up and
running you will have the money to experiment...
Basic rules:
- Letter of Master: allow everything but "buy barrows". Buy one or two
barrows manually for the shop you want. Masters will repair barrows
autonomously!
- Alchemists/Perfumers should be placed at the towns boarder to ensure a
short way for your collectors.
- Vicinity to the market is also a factor but less important once you own
horse carriages.
- Apprentices have to be promoted manually! Very important because
otherwise your profits will be notedly less.
- Renovations have to be made manually! Renovate frequently, at 80% the
latest. Damaged shops will result in less gains and endanger your
employees.
- Watch for dead masters, the shop will be idle! After employing a new
master take a look at the Letter of Master and check whether the settings
are still correct.
Ideas for Improvement:
- Promotions of apprentices as well as renovating buildings (depending on
budget) must be taken care of by masters.
- The Letter of Master must be conserved for the new master, otherwise
the settings have to be adjusted every time.
- With so many messages apearing one can mistakenly click away a message
about a master who died, so there should be an icon (skull) hovering
above a shop with a dead master to let you find the shop without having
to look through each and every staff information.
- Allow a longer list of masters and buildings in the book and increase
performance! Scrolling through the list of masters is in slow motion!
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