Just as there has been some discussion on the economics of glass and preserving food, I see another issue with furniture. The manufacture of furniture for luxury items is needed as rarely does a trader have any for sale, though they will purchase them. To manufacture 1 piece of furniture it costs you 12 boards and time to build it. A single worker will build approximately 5 pieces of furniture a year. This is one of those resources that once created your asset depreciates. Those 12 boards (72-144) it took to build a single piece of furniture will sell for much more than that single piece of furniture will (40-72).
Why bring it up? If youāre building furniture build it for your cityās luxury items, not to sell. Sell the boards and save the work time.
In my previous village I havenāt seen a trader selling furniture, not even once over 60 years and I was desperate to buy some as Iām always struggling with wood.
One of them are shirts - no cost but labor to manufacture (they donāt eat any of your resources like clay/coal/wood etc) - because they just grow and you can start making them super early.
I asked because Iād just done a build based around a clothes monopoly. It worked but it wasnāt great, so I was hoping someone wanted to do the math. My next build is going to be around beer, because with the upgraded trader almost everyone wants to actually buy it.
I havenāt studied the numbers completely to give you a specific answer. I find itās best to not concentrate on only one resource, but several, and to sell the surplus of anything. Donāt try to sell items which use resources that you have minimal of. Baskets shouldnāt be sold for example, unless you have a good supply of willow that doesnāt rely on a trader.
Beer is good and you can sell the honey early in the game before you build your beer facility. A lot of players avoid using pubs, I donāt. Theyāre good money makers and as long as your town is happy you wonāt get any of the negative effects such as fighting. Candles, because they use the wax of the apiary go well with beer which uses the honey.
Other goto items are pottery when clay is abundant, clothes when not in arid lands, hides and coat hides when hunting is abundant, and combine soap with the hides/coats if herbs are readily available.
Iāve never struggled with wood. If itās not in abundance, such as on arid land, plant decorative oaks close to your villagers homes and āfarmā them every 3 years. Youāll get 7 logs for each gold ingot spent in planting. Far cheaper than the traders, though Iāll buy it from them too.
A guy over at the FF subreddit did calculations on average market prices vs. Cost to manufacture yourself.
From memory the best sellers were a lot of the items you describe but can add planks as a real moneymaker compared to cost of production, and consequently as mentioned furniture is not a good sell, but a good buy. Most of the āsimpleā manufactured goods nearly allways make sense to produce yourself and sell surplus (not a big surprise there honestly).
Also most of the metal goods are good buys and poor sellers, esp. Tools are better to buy than manufacture, doubly so when discounted. Surprisingly heavy tools are a good seller. Armors also i seem to recall can give you good profits if you manufacture.
This is a great analysis minus the fact that the cost of the labor involved wasnāt calculated for the cost to manufacture yourself. Itās almost always the highest cost for real life products.
Thatās pointed out in the discussions in the thread as well. He said he was working on a full analysis but i have āt seen that, understandably so itās a very big undertaking for just a game the table still gives great insights IMO.
After some testing Iāve found beer and candles to be the best export focus so far.
Wheat has a huge yield, water is free, honey is free, wax is free, and firewood is easy enough to keep up with. The brewery has netural desirability so you can house the workers adjacent for a very tight setup with minimal travel distance. The wax piles up too, so you need to make candles, but they sell often enough.
Selling furniture doesnāt make mush strategic sense either. As furniture usually starts production at the same time as you upgrade homes, and every other building needs planks, itās near impossible to build enough furniture to sell any surplus
Cheese and beer is my strongest sellers. Not sure if they are the most profitable, most likely shirts are more profitable, also available earlier - which is hugely important
Cheese and beer is end game territory in tier 3, but it is also what I find the easiest to produce a huge surplus of. Beer and cheese will sell for 4 gold. I make sure production and storage is close by the trader so they wont have to run that long when stocking, and most years one trader will want at least one of those
Strategically you will want a surplus of planks early, as they sell good as well and later on the production will be needed to build your buildings. And get into shirts after that. Add candles along the way, but itās more difficult to produce large quantities here. After this, beer and cheese. Early on you will want to sell whatever you have alot of, so you can get into cows early. And then beer
Cows are essential to large populations, not only the economy, usually I have surplus meat and milk in order to produce hide and tallow enough for other production. Beer will take you farm fields which could produce other food so I prefer selling cheese, and space here is important in late game, and beer will take up more space with the fields needed I think. Also I find it difficult to produce enough grain for mills/bakery, breweries and cow feed, as space is usually limited here
So sure, furniture is poor for you economy, but the calculations as to what to sell, and when is more complicated. Selling logs could be the go to from day 1 as well, as it requires the least amount of work to be honest - use an auto clicker to plant trees and save your fingers!
Grain wasnāt the problem, three 12x24 fields at 95-100% fert running wheat one year, buckwheat the next, and then peas and carrots for food. Most of my grain was rotting. Honey was the limit, but Iāll get it balanced out with more hives tomorrow. Iām doing a vegan no-bows playthrough to see if itās more of a challenge, kinda fun so far. Just making a lot of beer and trading that to buy everything else.
Thatās 52 villagers working in this industry not including your farmers, firewood choppers or laborers to cut down trees. How much revenue are they bringing in yearly?
