Countryside and City Gate

This is a short guide to the countryside and city gates. This page is what you can expect and what I think is the best way to play these areas.

Workers
This is where you start the game. I suggest getting workers in this order Blacksmith(bs) -> Tailor(tail) -> Carpenter(carp) -> Sorceress(sorc). Others suggest getting sorc first then the rest in the same order. If you are not experienced at merchant games, keeping workers under your lvl is a good idea. This saves money on wages. Simply wait to train the workers every 20th shop level or so.

Improvements and Guilds
Save your money for your last two workshops as each costs 25K. Once you buy an improvement, you will need a guild to build/improve the improvement you bought. You should also give your co-op points to your guildmates. Your workers generate co-op point while busy crafting or researching. To give them click on a worker then the button that says "Improve"; a list will come up telling you where you can put those points. Sometimes the list will be empty.

Selling, Crafting, and Researching
When selling there is "usual price." People often offer less than this price. Do not haggle. Sell the item, you will still make money. You should craft the best items you can, best being highest in price. Researching is very important to level your workers and to make more money. Before researching have a stock of items to sell, because you cannot craft while researching. Two of each type of my items was good in the countryside. For researching and crafting you should do the most expensive items within reason as some research times are very long. The times will get shorter as you train (level) your workers.

Leveling and skill points
You gain experience, for your shopkeeper (you), from selling items and later in the game from quests. When you fail a suggestion or at haggling you will lose experience. Try not to haggle too much. Although you can lose experience, you can never have negative experience at the end of the day. You will just get 0 xp points.

Invest your first skill point in mercantile (merc) until you have 10. Market affinity just means that customers will offer more money for an item. After you move to the city gate, you shouldn't leave countryside til lvl 10) put your next 20 points into adventurer(adv). Basically for the next while you should be putting points into merc and adv. 2 adv for every one merc.

Other skill that is useful at this lvl is famous(fame), it is suggested not to get more than 25 fame.

Story Line Quests:
Some of these may not happen until you are at the city gates, but they can all happen in the countryside. If someone asks for money, always give it!
 * 4 Leafed Clover - although this quest cannot be done until you are at the city gates. I'll add more info on it there.
 * Money for the Poor - Costs 1k gold.  This opens the quest line and pays off greatly in the end. If you feel like you don't have enough money tell them to come back later.
 * Welcome Taxes - Costs 4.5k, again opens a quest line.

Moving to City Gates
info gathering in progress....