AWOIAF 2.1 Trade Guide

Note: Work in progress: criticism/corrections welcome!

Also note: Spoilers - avoid if you wish to discover trade prices etc on your own.

This is a basic trade guide to get you started in AWOIAF, either as someone looking for cash to fund a new start or someone looking to roleplay a full-on Merchant.

Build

For the sake of my testing, I rolled a merchant. If you roll a knight/warrior or whatever the prices won't be as favourable, but the guide should still generally make you a lot of money. My roll:

Male, Riverlands (average height) - I checked and background doesn't seem to affect starting abilities. Choose whatever background you prefer.

Father: Merchant

Childhood: Merchant's Apprentice

Vocation: Merchant

Fate: Lust for Money/Power

I chose The Seven and a Leader, but both are entirely up to you and shouldn't affect trade.

Stats after point investment: Str 6 Agi 6 Int 11 Cha 5 (looking to rush 12 Int for 4 in pathfinding/spotting for convenience).

Ability points that aren't zero:

Power Strike - 2

Power Draw - 2

Weapon Master - 1

Athletics - 2

Riding - 2

Looting - 2

Foraging - 2

Pathfinding - 3

Spotting - 3

Inventory Management - 5

Persuasion - 4

Trading - 6

Some of those are due to my chosen background, but I've gone for power draw out of personal preference and want decent pathfinding/spotting to avoid the many, many bandits everywhere.

I put proficiency into archery because I want a bow asap (pretty good damage vs bandits early on).

Starting out, I have in my inventory one unit of pottery (base price 172), one bread, one bag of grain (price 17) and one unit of wool (197). I'll keep the bread for food and sell the rest at Saltpans to begin trading.

Note, at the beginning you are faced with a choice about whether or not to accept a mission to warn Robb Stark. I like to leave doors open for personal preference, but if you want to RP a pure merchant it's best to turn him down and not get involved. This avoids the Lannister Men who chase you down if you accept the quest.

If you accept, you can beg your way out of a fight (you are pretty weak) for a reputation hit and the loss of your inventory. I'd avoid this. If you say it's none of your concern, you lose 5 relations with The Westerlands and enter battle. If you defy them you lose 10 relations with the Westerlands, gain a bit of rep, and enter battle. The latter two choices are ideal partly because you can get some XP (shoot for level 2 asap to get 12 INT and buff pathfinding/spotting) and a bit of money. You can repair relations later on by approaching a lord and initiating dialogue (don't let them chase you!) and ask how you can repair relations. Payment for -5 relations will be lower than for -10, but neither should be crippling after a couple weeks of trading.

After winning the fight I had 438 stags in my purse - up from the starting 300. Sadly, my arm was mangled and I had to pay 300 to a maester. Try to avoid this in your game!

Note: As soon as you hit the world map after waking up, go to the camp menu and click Options. From there, set it to "custom" difficulty and then go down the list changing the mod to your personal preferences. I myself dislike stumbling and the rest morale mechanic, so I turn those off. I'm also a wuss, so I lower damage to myself and companions.

A final note: you'll discover The Old Stone Bridge north of King's Landing. Visit it for a free 200xp. You'll get a further free 200xp from Inn at the Crossroads (can't miss it if you head to Saltpans, which you should be). Another 200xp from Oldstones, north-west of Fairmarket in the Riverlands. Please advise of other easy-to-reach XP locations. If you failed to level up fighting in the opening skirmish and against the Lannister men, this should help you get to level 2.

Making Money

Before I begin, in case you're new you should note that prices fluctuate due to in-game events as well as your sales and purchases. Buy one bag of salt, and the next will be slightly more expensive. Sell 20 bags of salt at one town and you'll flood the market, making it worthless to sell there for a while.

I head north from King's Landing to Saltpans to begin my trade career. I've read on here that Saltpans starts out with salt being expensive (was 143 per unit for me with 6 trade), and that you must buy them out so it resets the inventory at a lower price later on. I tested this by simply waiting for a week in town, and lo - the prices were now down to 97 stags. It's time that seems to kick-start the economy, which is similar to other mods.

No need to wait 7 days, however! Buy salt according to your purse and trade score.

Note: I went over to investigate other Riverlands towns for salt prices. On day 3, salt sold for 204 stags in Lord Harroway's Town and Riverrun, and 210 in Fairmarket. Saltpans has the best salt price to start.

Next, from Saltpans we're heading to White Harbour in the North. Be very cautious proceeding up the King's Road. If you use ctrl-space do so only in short intervals, otherwise mountain men, looters, bandits, robber knights and even that crabby old man who lives down the street will be trying to shake you down for lunch money. Be prepared to savescum. If you're against that, then, well... pour yourself a generous amount of something strong.

I arrived at White Harbour on day 4. There, I discovered that salt began selling from 298 stags. I sold two units for 298 and 280 respectively. I did not buy furs because they were priced at 261 stags. Yikes! That's outrageous.

I also went to some nearby villages that, from past experience, stock cheap furs. Broken Branch had one unit for 199, but that's still way too pricey for now. Villages are worth stopping at later on. I'll see if I can find some recommendations for you readers soon. For now, take a peek if they aren't out of the way / surrounded by mountain men.

Barrowton, to the west, buys salt for 311 - a great price at this point. They sell furs for 215. No thanks. You could sell your remaining salt here if you want, but it's better to skip Barrowton at this point and head for Winterfell instead. Winterfell had the same prices for buying salt as Barrowton (311 for the first sale), but also stocked furs from 62 stags. That's more like it! Sell whatever salt you didn't sell at White Harbour and buy about 5-6 units of furs.

Next, we're heading back down to the Riverlands to sell our furs for a killing.

I took the time to head to a bunch of different places around Westeros to investigate the sale price of furs, and take a look at commodities for sale in the south.

On Day 7 -

Riverlands Prices:

1 Saltpans buying furs from 504 crowns. Selling salt from 152

2 Fairmarket buying furs from 484, selling salt from 186

3 Lord Harroway's Town buys furs from 484, sells salt from 170

4 Riverrun buying furs from 480, selling salt from 170

5 Maidenpool buying furs from 465, selling no salt. Sells wool cloth from 303, linen from 328

Westerlands Prices

1 King's Landing buys furs from 488, sells linen from 328 and wool cloth from 255.

2 Stoney Sept buys furs from 477, sells nothing of interest

3 Duskendale buys furs from 469, sells nothing of interest

Note: I haven't checked Lannisport because I have poor relations with the Westerlands and don't feel like evading their armies as well as bandits to get there. I'll check it out eventually and will post an update with new prices including what I find (also - feel free to post your own findings!)

The Reach

1 Nowhere! The Reach cities I visited all sold furs as their primary commodity, but at outrageous prices. No town sold anything interesting except The Arbor, with wool cloth at 210.

The Stormlands

I checked The Weeping Town (owned by Dragonstone) and they were buying furs for a record-setting 512 stags! That said, it's a long haul from Winterfell and probably not worth it unless you want to RP a trader who gets the best possible deals. Weeping town also sells nothing of particular interest at this time.

Dorne

1 Planky Town buys furs from 461, sells pottery from 156

2 Sunspear buys furs from 461, sells pottery from 174

Note: Given that 461 is among the lower offered prices so far, and that the value of pottery elsewhere is yet undetermined by this guide, it's up to you whether you want to go all the way to Dorne. Also note that you may wind up taking a ship there, which will cost you extra.

Misc. Towns

Note: these towns all require you to purchase passage on a ship until you own your own boat. Consider that before heading there to trade.

1 Sisterton buys furs from 492. Not bad, and close to White Harbour (but you have to pay to sail there, and then pay again to leave)

2 Dragonstone buys furs from 477

3 Gulltown (Vale) buys furs from 465

No goods from any of the above three towns caught my eye for purchase, though rest assured I'll go back in the future 30-or-so days into a game and see what they've got.

Bonus - Essos

I sailed over to Braavos just for reference, and discovered... they sell furs! Not a good destination for fur sales, although I have yet to see if they buy salt for a high price.

Afterwards, I took passage on a boat all the way to Volantis, and it was here that I discovered some things that will compel me to return soon to flesh out the guide more:

Volantis and the surrounding cities sell furs, yet for some reason also buy them at pretty high prices. Is that a bug? Quirk of the economy still waking up early-game? Time will tell.

I ran out of time to explore and didn't save my game over there, but I noticed that Volantis sells fine velvet for 446. Surely, that must sell for a ton back in Westeros - worth checking out later. There are other products in the nearby cities (wine etc) that look promising. Don't worry, I'll get back there soon. In the meantime, anyone who has explored that area more thoroughly, or checked other Essos towns, please chime in to improve this guide.

Conclusion

For now, in a new game, it looks like an ideal trade route is to buy salt at Saltpans, ride up to the North, sell some salt at White Harbour and the rest at Winterfell, then buy furs at Winterfell. Head back south and sell 1-2 furs each at Fairmarket, Lord Harroway's Town, then Saltpans. Buy more salt, return north, sell at White Harbour, Winterfell and Barrowton, but more furs according to price, and repeat the route.

Once you have more goods in your inventory (you have a horse and some mercenaries, or expert bandit-avoiding skills), include Riverrun, Stoney Sept and King's Landing. You want to sell 1-2 at each because you'll get the highest prices that way, as selling 6 furs at Saltpans would not get you 504 stags for each unit, but instead only for the first and decreasing from there.

Alright, that's it for now! I welcome feedback and additional information. Look back for edits (I'll timestamp my edits or something of the sort - might move this over to a Steam guide page later on).

Note I'll cover enterprises later, as I haven't investigated them yet. If you have, please supply your findings and recommendations and I'll include them and credit you in the guide!

Submitted September 27, 2017 at 03:14AM by Woodall10 http://ift.tt/2xAIKb0