AG3 fucked around with this message at 02:37 on Aug 20, 2010

• I love lists
  
• Some of the interface mechanics are pretty obscure. One of the most frustrating is the cart manipulation. It works by simply highlighting the cart in your shop then hitting the destinations button and sending it to the market icon on the map. After a short while you'll be able to see the cart at any market stall. You can click and hold thee LMB and move the mouse up and down to move quantities.
  
• As soon as you can afford it, buy one or more walking sticks. You can find these in the "Wood & Iron" market stall and they are pretty cheap all things considered. You can buy goods like this without a cart in the market. Basically click and pick up up to 3 of them and then click over to the little bag icon on the market window. That'll open up your personal bag so drop them in there. To activate the walking sticks close the market window (right click) and click the bag in the lower right corner of the screen. Then just click the stick once. Once activated the stick gives you 1 extra AP for 4 consecutive years. AP are hard to come by early in the game and this helps a lot.
  
• I also find Endurance Potions to be useful to keep on hand. You buy and activate them them the same way as walking stick. When activated you get 2 bonus AP and you can only use one per year. If you are behind on AP and have the cash I suppose you could chug one a year, but I think that doesn't make a lot of sense. I keep them on hand for those moments when I need emergency AP like when I need to visit the doctor or I am just a couple shy of a new master grade or something. Other potions/perfumes can be very useful but are more up to personal style.
  
• Likewise, anything you can do to help AP income is good. Improve your house with the +AP upgrades ASAP.
  
• A lot of options are under the menu that comes up when you click your name on the top bar. Again, this page can have a lot more options than you can see, so use your scroll wheel to see all the options. Here is where you set laws, see your perks, go to the doctor, change occupations and many other useful functions.
  
• Clicking on your shield on the top bar is also useful, but exclusively for family tree actions such as giving your kids money and sending them to school/uni. It's also useful to see which rich relatives are about to kick off and give you sweet cash.
  
• Always have a little cash in hand at the end of the day so you can pay your taxes and other yearly expenses.
  

• Mmmm...bullets
  
• The first few years in the thieves guild is very slow money wise, but will eventually skyrocket into amazing lucrativity. Yeah, I made that word up.
  
• There are three available thief slots in your guild to start. One of these slots is occupied already. The first thing you want to do is hire a second thief.
  
• At first your thieves are not good enough to be good burglars, which is where the real money is. We need to build up a bit of cash for basic improvements and for a third thief. So, keep your thieves constantly out pickpocketing. The income isn't great here, but should afford you basic upgrades.
  
• When you have enough money to buy a third thief, do so. Immediately start this thief training his stealth skill while keeping the other two still out pickpocketing. When he has 5 or more stars in stealth send him out pickpocketing too. He will make a bit more than the others, but not enough yet to be useful. However, when you send him out, put one of the other two on stealth training until 5 or more stars then do the same to the last thief. Make sure to upgrade them to journeyman thieves as soon as you can.
  
• Once all thieves are up to 5 or more stars in stealth it is time to start pulling down the real cash. First, you must send out two thieves to scout out a local house. Don't bother with businesses as they rarely have enough cash to make it worth it. If your thieves are properly trained and both journeyman, two of them should bring a house up to 100% reconnoitered. Check this status on the paper that sits on the table in the rec room. Since you can only send 2 out to scout at a time at the first building level you may want to send the third out pickpocketing to maximize his time.
  
• Once the house is at 100% reconnoitered, send your highest stealth thief there to break in. I have heard that success rates are better after 8pm, but you can be reasonably successful any time of the day. Now is when you can stop worrying about money.
  
• If you get caught trying to break into a place, let it "cool off" until the following year. I find that chances are high you'll get caught again if you try right after being caught. Don't worry, the scouted home will still be on your intelligence dossier and still robbable the next year.
  
• Upgrade the Thieves Guild ASAP. This lets you have more scouts out at one time as well as lets you rob greater level houses. At level 1 you can only rob Houses. At Level 2, Townhouses. At level 3 Palaces. Upgraded Guilds also let you have cool poo poo like the prison to kidnap people (including your wife, parents, or even your children if you're especially wicked).
  
• From here you probably have the hang of it. Bring in more thieves and train them up to a high stealth level. Lather rinse repeat. I find that the guild can hold far more thieves than I can manage so at level 3 I usually don't have a full complement of thieves. Saves money on wages, anyway.
  
• When you have thieves free, you may want to train up their combat skill. Of course this will help you storm the robber's den if you choose to do that. But, if you notice when you get caught your thieves fight with the police for awhile. Higher combat skill allows them to take less damage during these fights and also gives them a chance at getting away without you having to pay a fine.
  
• Choose marks closest to you for best usage of time. If a mark close to you is particularly poor, hit them over and over again and they'll eventually go tits up and move out. Hopefully to allow room for a richer neighbor. You can bankrupt rival dynasties this way, all the while getting rich as poo poo yourself.
  
• While you are building your thievery business, spend AP ONLY in advancing your master grade and your own personal stealth skill. Your skill trickles down to all things thief-y.
  
• Believe it or not, once you get to Grand Master in Thievery I find that the best second profession is Tailor. Tailor can be run automatically like a lot of other professions, but it has a meeting place where you can call people in and for the cost of only 1 AP you can get pretty much ALL the dirt on someone. This is by far the quickest and cheapest method to get dirt on people. The only downside is that you get dirt on random people. I have even gotten quite a bit of dirt on my own wife before. However, if you want dirt on someone specifically, choose someone in the same court as them and you are more likely to get dirt on the target person. From there if someone is particularly troublesome to you call them out and have them imprisoned and tortured or blackmail them, your call.
  
• Indulgences are your friend. Because you are committing a sin every time you steal, church members will always hate your guts. You can spend AP in the confession booth, but I suggest you Get Thee to a Chancery! Indulgences are actually pretty cheap once you have a bit of cash and you can absolved your sins in one fell swoop. The upside to keeping your rap sheet with God clean is that there will be less dirt on you that opponents can get their grubby hands on.
  
• From here the game opens up and you can do whatever appeals to you. It's natural that you will ignore your thieves guild a bit as you expand, but that's okay because it's a great springboard into the wider world! If I remember correctly, if you put a boss in place in the Thieves Guild he trains your thieves and pretty much just sends them out pickpocketing. This is fine and a good way to make your guild do something if you plan to ignore it.
  

Overwined fucked around with this message at 19:05 on Aug 20, 2010

The MSJ fucked around with this message at 02:55 on Aug 21, 2010