Topic: Buying expensive items by selling boards, paw-boards, stakes and wooden bowls ?  (Read 5907 times)


Petike

« on: October 11, 2020, 11:00:53 PM »
I know what some URW veterans might think: "You should hunt or trap animals on a more regular basis, and then it will be easier to trade for more expensive items. Especially if you also tan skins and hides into useful fur or leather items."

Of course, I know this, and I use this approach as well. However, none of my characters to date were huge hunters or trappers, even with all the traps I've prepared and the animals I've hunted and caught. It also needs to be said that many of my characters have the bad luck of rarely getting adequate hunting weapons at the start, aside from tools like hunting knives. It might sound embarassing, but most of my successful ranged hunting to date involved throwing rocks and javelins. I almost never have enough rope or tying material to make myself a bow, nevermind even home-made arrows. Often, rope or any tying material is hard to come by in trade, and if I need any cord, I'm not going to destroy the few good clothes my character owns, for little return. For example, my current character only has a shirt, trousers, and footwear. I only recently made him a decent fur cap from the smaller animals I caught, and stored it at the cellar of his homestead, since winter is still far away.

Therefore, since I still need most of the leather-related resources for my character (at least earlier into the game, while I am still building up my supplies of warm clothes for the winter, and so on), I usually can't spare leather to make rope or cord, and I also can't sell my leather and fur products for profit. This is where my character's (and characters') woodworking skills come in handy.

Unfortunately, even if I craft entire piles of decent to excellent quality wooden bowls and put them aside (I tend to use the rougher quality ones for myself and burn the bad ones that I made while my skills were lower), I know it takes quite a while until I have enough of them to buy anything from locals. Having an extra amount of freshly caught and prepared fish helps as well. But some items, such as better hunting weapons, or just plentiful enough supply of tying materials, always seem completely off-limits to me. The character I'm currently playing found a very nice crossbow at the village he lives next to (even sharing the field with the locals, since he's partly a farmer) and I'd like to "save up" to eventually buy it for his needs. Aside from me being fond of crossbows in real life, they have decent stats as ranged hunting weapon, even if they are expensive and rare. Since I doubt I'll find another crossbow in an eastern culture village anytime soon, I'm hatching this scheme of manufacturing as many goods as I can (relatively on the cheap, but with good quality) and then trying to barter with locals until they accept my payment.

Is this a bit of a silly approach, or is it a good enough way to buy some basic tools and weapons in the early days, before the player character is comfortably supplied for all of the year's seasons ?

I know boards, stakes, paw-boards, bowls and fish only garner a certain amount of interest. Every villager seems to be more interested in taking all of my meagre but invaluable tools and clothes in "fair exchange" for the cheapest of items they offer. But is it possible to use large quantities of simple goods to barter adequately for pricier items ?
« Last Edit: October 12, 2020, 01:08:02 PM by Petike »

paulkorotoon

« Reply #1 on: October 12, 2020, 02:26:15 AM »
Yep, it's possible if you want a bit more fun and less pain in the early game.

I haven't played UrW for a long time, so when I started playing again a couple weeks ago I've decided to roll good stats and to spend some time grinding board so as to get my characted at least partially equipped for adventures. Somehow, making boards and trading ha turned out to be some kind of fun... so I've spent about nine hours grinding boards and buying expensive stuff. Honestly, I don't know why — . At long last I've got a plenty of masterwork items, mail armour, a couple cows, a bull, two dogs and a dozen bags of salt.

Here's how you grind my way:

1. Get an axe if you don't have one. Preferrably a woodsman's one.
2. Find a settlement (traveling to Driik is even more cheaty option).
3. Split one trunk, grab a board, try to trade it for something just to make sure that people in here do need boards.
4. If yes, fell several trees, make boards and trade them for food (enough for a week or more) and a splitting axe (or a woodsman's axe if you still don't have it).
5. Go to another village, once again, make sure that people need boards.
6. Start felling trees and hauling them somewhere close to houses. How many trees to fell depends on how much stuff you want to obtain. In my case amount has been ~25-35.
7. Make boards.
8. Grab everything you want.
9. Start picking up boards. It's going to take some time as your character probably won't be able to lift more then 10 board at a time. Don't get too excited as in a pretty short time villagers will urge you to pay for their goods. To avoid this, just drop all unpdaid items and grab them again intermittently (say, after each 250 grabbed boards).
10. Trade!
11. Goto step 5.

I would not recommend grinding THAT much, hovewer, as playing such a well-equipped character is far less risky and takes less effort, and thus you're going to have less fun. Right know I'm seriously thinking on getting rid of half of my stuff. Or even more. I've surely learned that it's really, really important to stop grinding at the right time...
« Last Edit: October 12, 2020, 02:31:52 AM by paulkorotoon »
Biggest Russian UrW fan

JP_Finn

« Reply #2 on: October 12, 2020, 06:36:17 AM »
One way to get decent supply of cord for new characters is to build light lever traps. 10 or so in the area where your shelter is.

FWIW: I always start in spring, even with the change of spring having still a deep snow. Just be sure to make withes of some saplings. One might get lucky and kill a deer or moose, then get the meat to dry, as backup food, should last to late summer, by that time should have steady supply of smoked meat and fish as daily nutrition

So the first few days is getting some fish to stay alive, build some traps, fish more, check traps. Make some boards or bowls for trade, javelins for trade or use. Repeat.
Checking those traps will yield decent amount of bird leather, once tanned, make them into bandages if they’re below decent. Then cut a cord of each bandage.
You can also micromanage those 1/2 bandages to even lighter, with meticulous use of tanned bird hide, and then a half bandage to make a cord. Bandage at full weight or 0.05lbs has same wound treating ability...

Trapping birds with light lever traps has the extra benefit of giving great supply of feathers for fletching arrows both for use and trade! (Carpentry is the skill that pays massive dividends here, aim for 50+)

Petike

« Reply #3 on: October 12, 2020, 01:37:16 PM »
Here's how you grind my way

Thank you. I certainly don't plan to outright grind, but trading boards seems to be one of the better ways of acquiring more expensive goods.

Just to make it clear what I'm aiming for with my current character: I don't want the character to be incredibly wealthy with all manner of goods, I just largely want to buy the clothes, tools and utilities that he still lacks, but would come in very handy in the short term.

What happens in the long term is still an open question. My current major goal is waiting for the year's harvest, then surviving the character's first winter. In the meantime, I am still working on the housing infrastructure, trading goods and building up supplies.

Interestingly enough, this is the first character I've started off in spring, while the conditions were still very cold, the lakes froze, etc., and the first time I've tried the agriculture scenario. Though living close to a village and a lake at the same time has helped a lot with the whole endeavour, things have gone surprisingly smoothly this time. It's also because I'm getting better at the game in general, but also because this scenario offers me a lot of different possibilities. Things were made somewhat easier by receiving a fishing rod and a handaxe for free from the game course, or having some of my latest trades actually take place after I fulfilled an easy quest for the locals (gather stones for sauna repairs).

One way to get decent supply of cord for new characters is to build light lever traps. 10 or so in the area where your shelter is.

FWIW: I always start in spring, even with the change of spring having still a deep snow. Just be sure to make withes of some saplings. One might get lucky and kill a deer or moose, then get the meat to dry, as backup food, should last to late summer, by that time should have steady supply of smoked meat and fish as daily nutrition

So the first few days is getting some fish to stay alive, build some traps, fish more, check traps. Make some boards or bowls for trade, javelins for trade or use. Repeat.
Checking those traps will yield decent amount of bird leather, once tanned, make them into bandages if they’re below decent. Then cut a cord of each bandage.
You can also micromanage those 1/2 bandages to even lighter, with meticulous use of tanned bird hide, and then a half bandage to make a cord. Bandage at full weight or 0.05lbs has same wound treating ability...

Trapping birds with light lever traps has the extra benefit of giving great supply of feathers for fletching arrows both for use and trade! (Carpentry is the skill that pays massive dividends here, aim for 50+)

Thank you, this is valuable advice as well. :)

I tend to always invest a fair bit of points into carpentry, it does indeed help a lot.
« Last Edit: October 12, 2020, 02:09:02 PM by Petike »

Tom H

« Reply #4 on: October 12, 2020, 06:17:03 PM »
Petike- It is possible that some of the information here is now outdated. Later updates have restricted the unlimited desire of the villagers for things like boards and traps. These days you may well find the villagers are no longer interested in trading for boards after a couple of loads, and likewise, pawboard traps.

I've never traded a lot of bowls so I can't say if those, too, have a low limit. 

raredragon

« Reply #5 on: October 14, 2020, 09:02:57 AM »
I don't bother with bows and arrows anymore, I just throw rocks at everything, including njerps

PALU

« Reply #6 on: October 14, 2020, 01:15:11 PM »
I don't bother with bows and arrows anymore, I just throw rocks at everything, including njerps
That might work until the Njerp has a bow...

Petike

« Reply #7 on: October 15, 2020, 02:20:17 PM »
Petike- It is possible that some of the information here is now outdated. Later updates have restricted the unlimited desire of the villagers for things like boards and traps. These days you may well find the villagers are no longer interested in trading for boards after a couple of loads, and likewise, pawboard traps.

I've never traded a lot of bowls so I can't say if those, too, have a low limit.

Yes, I know some of the value of goods (or NPC's' need for them) has been nerfed in more recent releases. I'll just have to try and see. I think varying up the types of goods I have on offer, especially handcrafted ones or more valuable foods, could help make this less of an issue, even if board-bartering has been nerfed to the point of locals rejecting boards for a while, before things "cool down" and they start accepting them again in a later trade.

paulkorotoon

« Reply #8 on: October 15, 2020, 03:46:10 PM »
Yes, I know some of the value of goods (or NPC's' need for them) has been nerfed in more recent releases. I'll just have to try and see. I think varying up the types of goods I have on offer, especially handcrafted ones or more valuable foods, could help make this less of an issue, even if board-bartering has been nerfed to the point of locals rejecting boards for a while, before things "cool down" and they start accepting them again in a later trade.
It seems cooldown doesn't happen. At least it didn't in 3.62, when I traded lots of boards. Even after half a year (or maybe one year, can't recall exactly) villagers kept saying they didn't need any more boards. I doubt this has been changed in the latest release.
Biggest Russian UrW fan

JP_Finn

« Reply #9 on: October 15, 2020, 04:09:44 PM »
I believe the boards traded to village will pretty much stay in the “village stock” forever. As there is no consumption for the boards. And you can see the board pile being dropped once the barter is approved , exactly where the bartering villager stands. Too heavy to carry.
You can see months, years, later exactly same number of boards in the pile when looked at.

Sometimes village has boards available, same as with stakes and slender trunks. If they have more than few, they likely “have already enough” and won’t take anymore in barter.

Maybe the villagers could construct a new building if they have enough stocked lumber to trigger the build?

paulkorotoon

« Reply #10 on: October 15, 2020, 05:00:29 PM »
You can see months, years, later exactly same number of boards in the pile when looked at.
Yeah, exactly. I proove it.

Maybe the villagers could construct a new building if they have enough stocked lumber to trigger the build?
It's a really good thought. It would be great if villagers would build new houses once in a while, say, each year or so. Up to a certain limit, of course. And new items (better than decent maybe) would appear there. This idea is good enough to go in Suggestions subforum, I think.
« Last Edit: October 22, 2020, 08:36:04 PM by paulkorotoon »
Biggest Russian UrW fan

trowftd

« Reply #11 on: October 15, 2020, 05:05:00 PM »
Usage of the traded boards can really go hand in hand with the building deterioration in the dev plans. The houses and the saunas deteriorate, villagers trade or craft boards and build new houses. It seems to be a really cool way to add more life to the villages.

PALU

« Reply #12 on: October 15, 2020, 06:40:53 PM »
Building more houses would make sense only if that also draws/spawns new villagers. Currently village populations slowly dwindle as villagers succumb to predators, Njerps, and hostile wells, in addition to being hired by PCs to hunt robbers.
Thus, I think a dynamic population dynamic needs to be added before/in conjunction with village expansion.

paulkorotoon

« Reply #13 on: October 15, 2020, 08:21:49 PM »
I've started a thread in Suggestions subforum. Guess it would be pretty good to develop this idea in there, so it won't be lost.
Biggest Russian UrW fan

JP_Finn

« Reply #14 on: October 24, 2020, 02:58:58 AM »
Building more houses would make sense only if that also draws/spawns new villagers. Currently village populations slowly dwindle as villagers succumb to predators, Njerps, and hostile wells, in addition to being hired by PCs to hunt robbers.
Thus, I think a dynamic population dynamic needs to be added before/in conjunction with village expansion.

I think the kids should grow up (nod to dev.plans for young girls, old women etc). And there’s always a possibility for people to migrate to new areas. Maybe a Frontiersfolk or from other cultures adapting to the local cultures? (I.e. spawn some people if there’s a heavy toll on a population. But don’t artificially keep a “doomed” village floating alive.