Stick to short routes at the beginning. Watch out for cities with a resource in supply which have cities with the same resource in demand right next to them. Also pay attention to the red/green arrows at the resources in the city menu at the world screen indicating major price change. A little bit of an abuse imo but the most important thing I learned was that dieing during early game is most often much cheaper (10% of your gold and a free teleport) than repairing your wagon in between runs. Also stick to the cities you unlock at the beginning of the game and don't explore to far as monsters get much stronger. Loving this game so far and not strictly for the mechanics but mainly for the beautiful world the devs created. It's been some time that I wanted to do a quest not to push my character level or something but simply to see the impact of what my character has done in this world Only things I'm missing are the informations about the "game progress" and "time spent playing" of the savegames displayed in the main menu .. I guess mine would 5% or something after two days of heavy playing so it's definitely worth the money ^^
Altos Mines quest threw me for a loop when I tried to travel elsewhere, so I started over for the first time. That would have helped me a ton. Being an older gamer, after 4 starts, I've just given up. I can't commit to timed guild quests with penalties or even villager quests if I don't know where the town is, can't see it on the map, or don't know if I'm likely to unlock it soon. That leaves little payoff for me early game, considering repairs and equipment. I can't seem to catch up to the news, either can't raise the cash fast enough, or else I don't know the town yet. Sales, demand, and discounts change too fast for me to stay on top of any of them, and I end up taking a loss on most of my meager wagon loads of goods. It's probably just me. I want to enjoy it but I'm not increasing my cash and it's just too frustrating for me. It's a beautiful game and I'm sure it'll be popular with shrewd players.
Fun game. Just a tip for people getting hung up in the early game: Don't worry about the guild quests. Most of them are bad deals. You make much more money simply hauling the most expensive items you can to the next town. Take the quests that reward you for finding the lost animals, or for buying and selling 1000 gold worth of goods to a city, or that give 300 gold for finding a new city. (The last quest in particular helps subsidize your trip to a town where their demands are still unknown). Second tip: Don't obsess over bringing goods to cities where they are in highest demand. If the city that demands gold is five cities away, you will struggle to make a profit unless your wagon is strong enough to take little or no damage on those routes. Better to sell the gold at the next town, and load up with new goods.
it seems like there red down arrow on a resource that the city sells when I've just bought a lot of them - I assumed it meant their stock was getting low? I assume a green up arrow on a resource that the city wants means they are going to pay more for it?
Things I've learned after I finally bought the house When I first played this game, I was put off by how difficult it was. Luckily I gave it another try, enjoyed the heck out of it, and even bought the house. Below are the things I've learned along the way: Focus on exploration early in the game. There are 3 reasons for this: To familiarise yourself with the mechanics and the game world. The game is easy to get into but difficult when it comes to optimising profits. Learning how trade works, how long it takes to go from city to city, and what goods can bring you the most dough are something you'll gain from exploration. It's also important to understand the news you received from the people in the city and implement them into your trading plans. To record the various city events you discover into your calendar. Events can bring you a lot of money if you can keep up with them. I say keep up because the events are usually held for one day. For example, there is an event at Altos Mine which makes the goods (gems and metals) supplied by the city uber cheap. If you want to cash in on the discounts, you'll need to plan your route so you can arrive at the place in time. To unlock the rest of the continents. To get good wagons, equipments, and goods, it is important to have access to all the continents. In addition, it also helps the flow of your travel because you can travel around the world continuously instead of having dead ends constantly. Weapons and Addons This is only my opinion and you experience might differ. I didn't manage to buy the wands and staves that are above 10,000 gold so I can't vouch if they're good or not. What I can say is I hate all the staves below 5,000 gold because they are not as effective at killing monsters as my sword which is only 500 gold to buy. I wished there was more melee weapon so I can upgrade that sword of mine. I can only advise that you buy the cheap sword (500 gold) if you're confused about what weapons to buy first and supplement yourself with any ranged weapons that you like. It's quite funny how the cheap sword carried me throughout the game while the 3000 gold staff was rarely used. In the matter of addons (I don't think that's the term), which is the one you put into the green slot in contrast to the weapon's blue slot, I don't have any specific advice. I only used the health and armor addons. Don't die too much. The death penalty is quite punishing in this game. You lose 10% of your gold whenever you die. On top of that, if the monsters stole your goods (especially the expensive ones), you are actually losing more than 10%. The penalty doesn't seem bad early in the game because you are not attached to your money yet. Though, once you're loaded with money after some trading 'grinding' and then tried forcing yourself to get to the other city no matter what, even if you manage to get to the city and sell the goods, the profits are offset by the repair costs which are quite expensive. Worse - arrived at the city with no goods at all! It's better if you use routes that you're confident you can routinely use without suffering too much damage. Wagons There are only two wagon archetypes: 1. Big storage space wagons - use this if you like raking in money quick and know how to survive monster attacks. 2. Tough wagons - sacrifice space for health and armor. I am not good at combat so I use this wagon instead. After getting the more advanced wagons, I manage to make considerable amount of money while having high survivability. Trading There are two options: 1. Buy cheap goods from a city that supplies them and sell it to a city that demands them. 2. Be a next stop trader. Buy anything you can from a city. Stock up from the most expensive to the least expensive. And then go to the city next door and sell all of them. Most of the time you'll be profitable although it's not that much. Still, at times it can be highly profitable. This method is good if you're lazy of planning too much. My system of playing (From early to getting a house) 1. Explore until I unlock all continents. At the same time, do the non-quild quests which can be found while talking to people. 2. After I've unlocked all the continents, I used the calendar to plan what I want to do next. 3. If I'm bored with the calendar, I use the news I get from the city people and plan my routes accordingly. Anyhow, I hope what I wrote above helps in any way. It is a really fun game and I appreciate the dev for creating it. After getting the house, I was burnt out because I played too long without stop. I'll probably pick it up later and make being the number one trader as my goal. Cheers everyone.
Just chiming in that I'm finding the early game quite brutal also. I get the feeling that it's meant to be that way from other people's experience, and that it takes a few restarts for the game to 'click'. But I can tell that it's a great game because no matter how many times I get knocked down and close the game, it's only a matter of time before I try again, trying something different this time. It's almost like Don't Starve as in you learn something new each time. A thought I had that would make the game more forgiving (but also add an extra element) would be to have like a storage shed you could buy in each town. When the timing was right and something in your storage was in demand the next town over you could make a run instead of being forced to sell it at a loss. Maybe it's already in the game, I don't know, haven't got far enough yet. The game is much deeper than I expected (which is a good thing) and I realise I now have to pay close attention to travel times and what the people say, and plan accordingly. I kept getting stuck in a loan/repayment loop but I'm getting better. Awesome game, thankyou for making it. Edit: Dear everyone else in this thread, thankyou for posting your tips, they are very valuable, keep em coming!
I think *just assumption* that it means demand has gone down/up since (maybe?) yesterday, which lowers/ups the possible selling price. Sometimes it might be worth it to camp until demand rises again. And thank you, N2L... It was nice to confirm (and learn) a couple things that have worked for others. =oD
Having trouble with this... I took a quest to deliver a spear and I'm now in that town, the guard is saying he needs his spear but how do I give it to him? The only option against the quest itself is to abandon it... It may be a bug because I also had a guild assignment to visit the same town... Perhaps only one mission can be completed per visit. Hope not because that seems wrong. I have five days left of the quest but the nearest town is 3 days away so I can't try travelling there then back. Any ideas?
You just have to talk with the guard again, and for the guild quest, you have to enter the guild to complete the quest.
Unfortunately not. I can talk with him many times but he just moans about not having his spear. I guess it's a bug. I'll abandon the quest - shame though.
It would be nice if, once you have visited a town, the wagons it sells are displayed in the town information, like the equipment and products it sells are.
Red arrows mean it's in low supply Green means they have an oversupply making it cheaper In the demand section the green arrows will indicate that's what the need the most
I really appreciate all the recent tips about getting started in this game! I tried to follow advice from the first few pages in this thread, but that turned out to be more helpful for established players. I want to keep trying a bit more, I don't like giving up. Thank you for the suggestions for beginners. Next time I'll stick with the idea of not chasing news and prices while first getting established. I did try buying whichever item(s) I could afford, then selling them in the next town, but this didn't work out for me. I had read that when I buy supply from one town, as long as I was selling in another town which did not supply the same thing, I should make a profit. This didn't turn out to be the case, which is why I kept losing money. In my case it was salt and lumber. I could only fit/afford 2 at a time, but the next town over bought it for less than I paid for it. I didn't have much choice of what to buy, with little cash. Any advice? On a related note, apples only were profitable once; the next town didn't need more when I tried it a second time. The arrow thing: I hadn't noticed the arrows, but reading everyone's guesses about their meaning, I can see there's a lot of confusion about their meaning. I noticed something similar in the "news" that villagers give. Sometimes they specifically talk about the "price" of an item in a particular town, but it's unclear if it's the purchase price or the selling price that they refer to. @badmanj: As for the spear quest, I made same mistake you did, with the lumber quest. First I didn't realize I needed to fill my wagon with it, so couldn't complete the quest. Then I didn't realize I needed to continue tapping on the conversation with the guy receiving it until he rewarded me. I guess some restarts were a good way to learn a few things. In the future I won't fill my wagon until I check all the available quests in that town. Also wondering if the end of the year is the end of the game. Are we working against a timer? Something helpful if you don't mind spoilers: on the Facebook page there's a world map with all the cities marked. I will try to use that information when choosing quests.
I did try buying whichever item(s) I could afford, then selling them in the next town, but this didn't work out for me. I had read that when I buy supply from one town, as long as I was selling in another town which did not supply the same thing, I should make a profit. This didn't turn out to be the case, which is why I kept losing money. In my case it was salt and lumber. I could only fit/afford 2 at a time, but the next town over bought it for less than I paid for it. I didn't have much choice of what to buy, with little cash. Any advice? On a related note, apples only were profitable once; the next town didn't need more when I tried it a second time. There's no guarantee you can sell anything in the next town and make a profit, but often with some goods you can. Obviously you have to read the Bought at / Sells for info when touching an item in your wagon. If an item shows a loss, sell something else from your inventory that doesn't, and carry the loss item on to the next town or beyond. The idea is to try to keep assets rolling in to offset the damage liabilities you incur between towns. Admittedly, this approach is difficult at the start of the game when you have little cash or wagon space. If I remember correctly, I spent a good bit of time running apples, salt, and ham between Giam Peaks, Cassiopacca, and Altos Mines to afford an upgrade.
Yes I understand this, but maybe you forget that using the first wagon and the cheapest supplies from the early towns, there isn't room for "something else from your inventory". In order to keep turning over assets you have to dump all two items at a loss, or else only buy one item in each town.
