Economy and Events in The Guild - Europa 1410
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Greetings, aspiring business owners!
Welcome to our 7th dev diary! Last time we talked about goods and items; now we want to expand on this and focus on in-game economy and the effects of global events on your playthrough. These are two of the most discussed topics since the release of our demo of The Guild - Europa 1410. Before we get into the thick of it, a small disclaimer: The Guild - Europa 1410 is in active development, and economy as well as events are still in an early stage. What you can currently see in our demo does not yet properly reflect our vision for this portion of the game - improving and expanding economy gameplay will remain an ongoing task throughout the Early Access period.Now, with that out of the way, let's dive into it!Economy
Economy, or "when to buy, when to sell", was always an important part of every The Guild game. While this mostly refers to the game's market prices, expenses like taxes and the availability of raw materials and workforce play a big role, too - not to mention seasonal effects, laws, and special events.The Need for Resources
In general, the idea is simple: buy cheap materials, craft and sell expensive end products. But depending on the economic situation, that might not be as easy as it sounds. What if the town's marketplace does not have enough raw materials in stock? In this case, you can choose to switch your production to another product, or you can try to get resources directly from one of the resource sites surrounding the city.If you don’t find what you need at the marketplace, depending on the season, the mines, quarries, woodland areas and farmsteads surrounding the city might be better stocked. And it can be tempting to send your biggest cart to load up on those important materials, but you might want to invest in an expensive escort to make sure the cart makes it back safely.Some items will only be available in certain conditions, like berries, which only grow in summer.The Producers' Market is one of the resource sites where you can purchase raw materials.
Selling for a Profit
After acquiring the necessary resources, you can start crafting goods and selling them to your customers. The profit you make depends on the price offered for your goods, and like in real life, the price is dictated by supply and demand.As competition in your city grows and your rivals try to push you out of business, you have to stay on top of things: make sure to upgrade your workshops and focus production on goods that are not readily available. Flooding the market with a certain type of good can ruin prices for several turns, in which case it is always good to have a warehouse to store items until prices go up again. Over time, you will have to make a choice - either put all your eggs in one basket and create a specialized production chain for certain kinds of goods, or play it safe and diversify at the cost of efficiency.Even if you are playing a profession that does not rely on crafting, supply and demand will impact your gameplay. This is because prices will affect your equipment costs, as well as the profit when selling goods you acquired by whichever means.The Storefront
While the market is a good place to sell your products in bulk, your storefront is where you can achieve the best prices - but you have to earn it. You compete with all other craftsmen of the same profession, and the number of customers visiting your store and how much they are willing to pay depends on many factors, like your own skills and reputation, your workshop's customer appeal, the local quarter's needs and whether your workshop is usually well stocked. If you are willing to put in the work, you can make your workshop the standard address for certain goods in town.City Needs
Your city is divided into several districts, and each district has one or more quarters. Each quarter has certain attributes that reflect the state the quarter is in, like crime rate, filth on the street or religious zeal. These attributes also have an impact on your workshop's customer appeal: you will find it hard to sell high-tier products in a shady neighbourhood, as much as a rich and pious neighbourhood will have little use for daggers or bombs.Make sure your workshop is stocked up on goods that are needed by the local citizens, and they will buy from your storefront more often. Depending on your line of work, it will pay off to make sure your quarter's values and needs fit your business ambitions and use the quarter to make your opponent's lives harder.You can view the different districts and their quarter metrics by toggling the District Overlay. Use it to decide what goods would fulfil the needs of the citizens in the respective districts.
Employees
You will not produce a single good without your employees - and good employees are hard to find. The price for hiring employees in The Guild - Europa 1410 depends on the worker's age and skill; a young and skillful worker costs more than an aged and inexperienced one. If you don't want to invest money upfront, you can hire unskilled workers and train them yourself, and after a few years, you can promote your apprentice to journeyman, boosting their productivity.But what if you cannot hire anyone? There might be times when simply no unemployed workers are available. On these rare occasions, you might need to approach one of your opponent's workers and incentivize them to work for you instead. Of course, this won't come cheap, and you might draw the ire of your fellow craftsmen, but in the end, you've got an employee, and they don't.Keeping your employees happy, healthy and occupied is key if you want your workshops to run efficiently.Events
The Guild - Europa 1410 features both historic events that always happen in a certain year, and random events that can relate to historic events, or be completely unrelated. These events will often have an impact on the people living in your city: a harsh winter might reduce productivity and increase accident risk, but can also increase the demand for thick clothing, and a passing army on their way to the frontlines might buy all of the city's weapons and iron, driving prices up for affected goods.An outbreak may reduce the productivity of the affected population - put in efforts to maintain sanitation, and make sure to keep yourself and your workers healthy.
Some events might prompt you to personally react, and some can be part of a bigger chain of events that unfold depending on your choices. These special events can even result in your family obtaining a new crafting recipe for your workshop, to allow your business to be the only supplier of a certain good - at least until your competitors catch up. All of these events have in common that they will influence your and all your fellow citizens' lives, and you will have to plan for it if you want to come out on top.
This concludes our dev diary about economy and events. Thank you for reading! As mentioned before, with this dev diary we want to share with you our long-term vision of economy and events; not everything we mentioned will be available when the game starts in Early Access later this year.What is the most important aspect of economy and events for you? Let us know in the comments below or drop by our Discord server!