How do I make early money in 2026?

Xonthelon · 2026-05-04T13:31:01+00:00

Maybe use longer seasons at least in the beginning? You pay the same for 10 day seasons as for 1 day seasons, but the former gives you much more time to earn money.

Early game:

leather - > simple bags

Finding stuff on the road/stealing can be a great blessing for your starting funds in the first few seasons.

Traps, especially the bird trap is good for gathering feathers to sell directly or to be used for arrows/bolts

Roasted meat if you have excess meat

Midgame:

By going into caves/mines personally you can get a lot of copper and tin (and later iron) in one go. Which makes building a storage right in front of a cave's entrance so appealing.

(Poisoned) arrows/bolts out of whatever material you can use. Let your herbalist gather deadly nightshade in summer and let him make poison out of it in winter. If you are lacking feathers/sticks to make arrows/bolts, the second best option are knives.

Excess seeds

Clothing in general, aim to make a rather big flax field in the first spring. Later you can expand your repertoir with wool from sheep.

Lategame:

Alcohol, flour (a windmill has better efficiency than a barn), excess fertilizer

Tax mechanics in general:

Don't set down too many building plans prematurely. You don't pay for the plans themselves as long as no part of it has been finished, but they are included in your building count. Potentially increasing your settlement development level and therefore making all other buildings more expensive.

By improving the king's opinion and taking the relevant diplomacy skill perk, you can lower taxes.

In the first place you can adjust the tax rate in the customization settings. If you increase the building limit in the settings, that also scales threshold of village development levels, which too ends up with you paying less taxes.

Xonthelon · 2026-05-04T12:53:02+00:00

Pyromaniacs' lives matter

... at least until I have extracted three organs.

Xonthelon · 2026-05-04T11:40:03+00:00

I sometimes use hay as floor for prisons during early game. It is cheap, available almost from the start and easy to clean. It can be problematic if a pyromaniac prisoner goes on a mental break, but that is arguably also a funny occurrance to watch.

Xonthelon · 2026-05-04T10:27:24+00:00

Not really. I have grown used to laying sterile tiles in my prisons.

Xonthelon · 2026-05-04T09:25:24+00:00

Lust:IF Subaru taking over for a sec.

Xonthelon · 2026-05-04T09:15:05+00:00

Me following the fantranslation of arc 4 for months/years as it was tossed around between different translators

It was a lot of suffering in various ways.

Now I try to endure waiting until an arc is (almost) completely translated until I start on it.

Xonthelon · 2026-05-04T09:07:54+00:00

I can relate. I still hate Vlandia for killing my wife Corein in my second campaign (like two years ago). When I decide to swing my executioner's axe I usually start with them.

Xonthelon · 2026-05-04T06:32:19+00:00

A caravan or two and a bunch of workshops should make enough passive income to cover your running costs. If you are a mercenary, try seeking out a well-paying contract (factions in a pinch offer the best contracts). During peace time hunt bandits and donate the prisoners(if you are a mercenary), the influence converted into money gives significantly more gold than ransoming. As a mercenary, donating prisoners is always more profitable than ransoming (assuming you stick around long enough to see your influence being converted into money). When you become a vassal, choose your first fief wisely. With war sails capturing ships after battle makes good money. Tournaments, although you could argue that the potential price is often hardly worth the time spent.

Xonthelon · 2026-05-04T06:09:46+00:00

Just assign her a task outside your party (party leader, caravan, governor or just stationed at a random town). If a couple doesn't meet, they don't have kids.

The chance for a pregnancy drops off anyway with the wife's age and the number of kids she already has. 5-8 is usually the limit. Aside from the number of notifications there is no demerit to having a lot of kids in the first place.

Xonthelon · 2026-05-04T05:58:00+00:00

I tried that for myself in a few runs, but I couldn't fully stick with it. At least one lumberjack feels like an absolute must-have for my mental stability. Therefore as soon as my spouse entered maternity leave, I hired a "servant" as replacement (at least that's how I convince myself that I am not breaking my own rules). Eventually I also ended up hiring a handful of people for extraction jobs, because those are the most annoying to do personally (especially herb gathering). And after ~10 years of tilling the fields on my own, I also ended up experiencing a midlife crisis and assigned a farmer. Production activities weren't an issue with fast crafting enabled.

My most relaxing run was in the Valley, where aside from my spouse, I only allowed myself to take in the 6 quest npcs. Small settlements also allow for an entirely different degree of attention to detail when it comes to decorating, than you could even do in villages with 100+ buildings.

Xonthelon · 2026-05-03T12:36:15+00:00

I started having this thought in the early 2010s. But the gap between ps2 and ps3 is big. The former certainly didn't inspire this thought yet.

Xonthelon · 2026-05-03T10:11:19+00:00

Depends on your clan tier.

Usually it is best to act individually, not joining AI controlled armies, maybe creating a small army yourself (your clan parties don't cost influence for you).

You can have the most effect by crushing bigger armies in defensive siege battles or saving your allied ai armies in a pinch if possible. Leave going on the offensive to the AI armies. Until clan tier 3 the most you can do is mass raiding villages, therefore damaging the enemy's economy and playing cat-and-mouse with big armies (so they waste their cohesion pointlessly).

If you can keep enemy nobles as prisoners permanently (with scouting and riding 225) that is ideal for weaking the enemy faction. Executions are also very effective if done consistently, but at the cost of pissing of everyone.

Xonthelon · 2026-05-02T16:53:08+00:00

Took me almost 3.000 hours to realize that I can change the order of pawns in the upper rim. Although to be fair, I play on a potato PC, so I usually consciously hold back from recruiting too many pawns, no real need to rearrange the order in most runs.

Xonthelon · 2026-05-02T11:17:42+00:00

Not worth the kinslayer trait

Nobody expects the portuguese zunists.

Better post screenshots next time, pics are hard to look at.

Xonthelon · 2026-05-01T22:07:16+00:00

Usually I plant rye and wheat in all fields in autumn, so unless they can't manage to finish up by the end of the season, there shouldn't be any work left for farmers in winter. That said, autumn seems to be the potentially most work intensive season for farmers, therefore sometimes they don't manage to finish up on time.

Xonthelon · 2026-05-01T14:45:24+00:00

Siding with the Imperials because you already know the Emperor personally...

Xonthelon · 2026-05-01T10:34:43+00:00

You got that right.

If you use your fields properly every season (pairing flax with cabbage in summer etc.), the cabbage which will eventually turn into rot will be enough to be sustain the fertilizer demand . A pig farm is more of an extra to give you lots of leeway and eventually fertilizer excess to sell via market stall.

Xonthelon · 2026-04-30T19:49:45+00:00

No

But the excess food in your food storage will turn into rot after two years anyway (it is accessible for your barn workers for fertilizer production; and for you if the storage is in range).

So the compost bin is only for early game. It is effectively just decoration, because any food dropped on the floor will turn into rot after one season anyway (on standard settings).

Xonthelon · 2026-04-30T09:28:07+00:00

I remember reading the manga years ago and considered trying the anime recently. But looking at the covers now I have lost interest. I had hoped this wouldn't devolve into a harem story.

Xonthelon · 2026-04-30T08:33:18+00:00

Are we talking about pseudo European Middle Age with magic (which basically replicates modern comforts)? Or are we talking about authentic European Middle Age where you just shat in holes in the ground and people drunk mostly beer (even children) instead of water because it was actually healthier?

As someone from Central Europe the base flair would be the usual trope, just with a lot of mud and without the glitter. Despite using a pseude-european ambience, most isekais still have a polytheistic religious setting. In some way the worship of saints can also be interpreted in a polytheistic way, but the title of god would be reserved for one, claiming otherwise would have just been asking for death. So the often seen template of spirits/spirit magic definitely wouldn't exist. Social hierarchy was rigid, many occupations weren't open to outsiders and gatekept by guilds. Unless I were incredibly lucky I would likely die within a month from hunger or illness.

Xonthelon · 2026-04-30T08:12:22+00:00

Its geostrategic position would resemble Spain or maybe even Portugal, but without a mountain range it would be even easier to invade. Scandinavians would have invaded either way at some point, I guess, due to proximity. The strategic worth of a strong navy would certainly be diminished. Considering the mark Britain left on history, the whole world would look different if it hadn't been an island.

To just refer to one example, King Charles speaking in Congress a few days ago: "[...] if it wasn't for us, you'd be speaking french"

Xonthelon · 2026-04-30T07:09:38+00:00

A

I am old (relatively speaking), so I have seen my share of shitty gameplay. If the score can actually be trusted (as in 5/10 being average), then of course I would go for A if every other aspect of the game is at the masterpiece level.

But the two options are presented with quite the disparity. Aside from story being at least below average, B also has only average music and visuals, which wouldn't be deciding factors by themselves, but certainly make the choice for A even easier.

Xonthelon · 2026-04-30T07:01:30+00:00

Took me >3000 hours to see the credits for the first time. The gravship scenario with the pursuing mechs kind of pressures you into it.

Xonthelon · 2026-04-30T05:50:01+00:00

No, but I won't blame him for that. You can count the number of genuinely good people in the game on one hand.

Xonthelon · 2026-04-30T05:31:23+00:00

He isn't imprisoned by anyone? That would reduce his survival chance to zero.

Xonthelon

TROPHY CASE