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Choose your characters basic settings
As we enter into "The Guild", what do you do? For your first game, I would suggest London as the starting town and select the "normal" difficulty level. Select the occupations of your parents - this will influence the talents of your character at the start, so it should be clear what sort of career path you want to take.
For example, if you want to be a crafts man, or Alchemist or Perfumer, you should make sure you have 3 stars on the handicraft talent. Also, some talent in negotiation is a good idea as this can improve prices at the market.
The preacher should concentrate on the talent rhetoric, since the holding speeches is one of his main sources of income. Also, the talent handicraft is useful as this helps the production of writings. For a military occupation, combat and stealth are the most important talents. Also, a thief should have 3 stars in stealth, as this is crucial for pickpocketing, which will be your main source of income at first.
External Options for your Business
After these formalities as settled, you can get going! First, inspect your enterprise. With a simple click on the business, you can bring up the "Options" and "Transport" buttons on the right hand bar. Under "Options", you can make structural changes like adding extensions (see extensions section below), renovating or selling the property.
If you have the necessary number of Master's Grades in your profession and enough cash, you can upgrade the building here too.
In the transportation window, you can load or unload carts. This is a simple drag and drop system - one click of the left mouse button will select one unit, a double click will select all units of that type or you can hold down the mouse button to select an exact figure.
To send a cart out to the market (or any other business), you select the card and click on the "Destination" option at the bottom of the transportation window. Then click where you want the cart to go on the 2D map that will appear. The cart will leave your business and arrive at it's destination in due time.
If you are being troubled with hold ups or you have a valuable cargo, you can specify that you want an escort, either small or large. The cost of this will depend on how large an escort you want and the value of your cargo, with a minimum price of 100 gold (50 for a light escort) if you have any cargo at all.
Initially, I do not bother with escorts as there is few holdups. However, if you make an enemy of the local robber, for example by refusing to pay protection money, you could find your carts being targeted and your cargo stolen! You can also buy, sell, or repair carts in the transportation window.
Internal Options for your Business
You can doubleclick from on your business from outside to enter it. Most craft businesses will only have one room, but some have two or more - for example a tavern has 2 or a thief's smugglers' hole has 3. You can change room by either clicking on the door, if visible, or by clicking on the room you want on the sketch on the right hand side.
The "Improve" button will allow you to build extensions that are typically for increasing safety or production speed (see extensions section below). Within each room, you can click on items to perform actions.
If you are not sure what options are available, hold down the Ctrl key on your keyboard and all actions will be highlighted. Move around the room (move the mouse to the edge of the screen) to see everything.
The first thing you should do is to adjust the apprentices. Click on The Staff Register, which is usually on a desk in the main area of the business. In the register, on page 1, there will be a free slot for the master - ignore this for now. On page 2, there should be one worker and at least one free slot for workers (the number varies from business to business).
Click on the first spare slot on page 2 and select the option at the bottom for searching for a new apprentice. In a minute, you will get a notice telling you that an apprentice has been found and has begun work. Fill all the spare slots with workers.
After 4 years of employment, you can (and should) promote an apprentice to a full status of journeyman. Journeymen will work much faster but require a sizable wage increase (roughly twice).
Most businesses will start with a few raw materials already. Therefore you can immediately start production. Find the option to go to the production screen (the name depends on the business, but it should be easy to find as it's so important - for example, in a blacksmith's foundry, you click on the anvil in the middle) - if you can't find it, press the Ctrl key to view all actions. Some occupations are a little different - please read the appropriate description!
Extensions
Extensions to your business should be added relatively quickly, since their benefits are significant and will last throughout the game. Extensions will do things like increase production speed, make the work place safer (which makes your employees like you more and stops injuries slowing manufacture) or adds protection from thieves.
To see exactly what an extension does and it's cost/build time, rightclick on it's name in the extensions window. You can also increase the size of your storage rack, either by adding storage slots for different materials and/or increasing the size of each slot to stop more of the same material.
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