Beginner Guide Part VI: Early levels efficiency strategy

Welcome to Swords & Potions! an online shop management game in which your goal is to become the greatest shopkeeper of Tomagar by taking care of all kinds of customers in an RPG-like world. Indeed, you will meet Knights, Healers, and many more, browsing through your store and willing to buy your valuables to make their quest expeditions easier.

In this sixth part, you will be given the shortest way to financial safety: finding that old man's clover bag.

Or click here to get back to the table of contents of the guide.

'''/!\ Warning /!\ This section of the guide is particularly subjective. This is a strategy course rather than an explanatory guide. There are many other ways to get through the early levels; this one is likely to be one of the easiest you'll find.'''

A senile ultratrifoliophile saves your shop
Remember that guy that walked into your shop on Day 2, asking you to help him find an old man's clover bag? Now is the time to go out looking for it. Not you personally, though. You will need to send an adventurer on that "quest".

Meanwhile, 2 other NPCs might have visited your shop already: one asking you 1000 gold to help the poor, and another one asking you to pay a 4500 gold welcome tax. If you paid them before reading this, it's OK. If you refused to pay them, start a new game. But for the moment, you will tell them to come back each day, and keep your money as a buffer.

Also, you should have had your second workshop for free on Day 3. I'll assume you chose the tailor as your second worker.

Moving your shop
As soon as you reach level 5, this guy will visit your shop and tell you that you may now move your shop to the upper district, City gates. To do so, however, you'll have to spend 1000 gold, and 100 extra gold each day for the rent. That would make a total of about 300 gold of daily expenses while you're there, maybe more if you had to level your blacksmith over level 5 to reach the recommended 17/9 crafting skills. As tailor items require creativity (her second crafting skill) as soon as you will want to upgrade her items assortment to the next level, 17/9 would be handy too. The sooner they reach those amounts, the better it is. Once you've moved, you'll probably see that your customers offer much less money for the same items, and ask for more expensive ones. That's a feature of moving to upper districts, and will be counteracted by your increasing shopkeeper skills. You're not here to make money by selling your items, though, so while you're waiting for an adventurer, pick the best offers and don't sell too much just for the sake of selling. If you're running too high in stocks, start some research, it will be helpful.

First adventurer
Your first adventurer finally entered the shop! (Click the link)

After a short introduction, delegate the clover quest to your adventurer: don't give or suggest him an item, instead click on Quests and choose the clover quest. Then, wait for a few days (2 or 3) until he comes back to your shop. You can tell right away if he succeeded or failed the quest by the happy or sad bubble above his head. Click on him when he stands still in front of your desk.

The whole thing here is about getting an adventurer quickly to waste as little time and money as possible. If your cash is being drained away, you're better off restarting the game than moving back to the previous district and refill your stocks and wallet.

Clover bag found!
If the adventurer succeeded, move back to the Countryside (it's free!) and stay there until you reach level 10.

If he failed, assign the quest to another adventurer, until it succeeds.

From level 5 to 10
From now on, your game experience will be particularly linear. No other quest will trigger before level 10, so you'll be mostly crafting, researching, and selling. Also, each time a NPC comes and ask you for money, pay him. They will come back later on when certain conditions are met and the rewards are significant. You don't need to pay the Thug to unlock quests, but he will probably harm you much more than if you do.

So, while you're leveling your way up to level 10, there are a couple of things you'll want to do:

Worker level ups
Now you might just think I'm emphasizing too much on that, but trust me, I'm not. You will spend ± 60 days before hitting level 10, so each coin you can save on wages will be worth it. So as said earlier, stop leveling your blacksmith and tailor as soon as their crafting skills reach 17/9. If you don't hit 17/9 by level 5, you'd be better starting again from scratch.

''Should you want to craft items faster for whatever reason, you can try to reach 25/13, but be aware that the wages will be about twice as high as those of a good 17/9 crafter. To save up money on the leveling process, stock up some level ups before spending them all at once until your goal is reached or you don't have any anymore.''

Bin upgrades
Don't forget about those. The more expensive items you can craft are, the more materials they'll burn up. If you're running out during the day and can't craft anything else, either upgrade the corresponding bin and/or research items that use another or less materials. For instance, Apprentice's hat for the tailor is nice because it doesn't require leather to be produced: only fabric.

Also, if you followed this guide and choose blacksmith and tailor, keep an eye on the wood bin.

To give you a concrete example, both my workers were around level 12 with 25/13 crafting stats, and my bins were upgraded as seen on the picture to the right. Upgrade with care though, don't risk running bankrupt because you spent a bit too much on the bins.

Improvements
At the back of your shop is a chest which allows you to buy improvements for your shop. There's one word to remember about it for the moment (or maybe 3): DO NOT TOUCH!

Your first two improvements you should buy are the two missing workshops. Once they're bought, it's your choice which to buy and when. Remember though that you will need other people to build your improvements, including the workshops, before they appear in your shop. This means you need to be in a guild: this will be detailed later in the guide, but for now you can click on the link, as a video tutorial is provided there.

Knowing your customers... again
If you're not used to RPG environments, it is advisable to make up a table with every class of customer and the usual offers you've got so you can keep track of which are the nice ones and which are the hard ones. You will encounter 20 different classes through the game, although some are only present in certain districts (there are no evokers in the last district, for instance). This could help you decide which items to produce en masse in order to satisfy the easy buyers even if it means refusing the sales to the harder ones, or not producing too much for them.

Researching
To survive in the City Gates, it is preferable to have some expensive items (Gladius and Dirk for blacksmith; Apprentice's hat and Sturdy shoes for tailor are good examples) so that even a few sales can turn into daily profit. It isn't that difficult to make profit, but you will soon have 3 and even 4 workers to pay, thus selling a few cheap items won't make up for that.

However, try not to have all your workers busy researching on the same time unless you have a large stock, or you might end with no more item to sell and not being able to produce any will drain your money away on daily wages.

To complete the above paragraph about customers, know that the Darts and Throwing knives can only be sold to Thieves and are probably not the most important items to research. Illusionists and Ninjas will buy Thrown weapons but you won't see any before a long time, so don't bother too much with those items.

'''/!\ Avoid starting a research once you're level 9. You will want your workers to be available as soon as your first new day starts once you reach level 10. /!\'''

Right before hitting level 10
The very day you are level 9, start paying attention at your reputation star at the bottom right of your screen. It will fill steadily according to your sales, and turn yellow once it's full. Once it is, level up your blacksmith and tailor to at least level 10 before the end of the day. It is even better to do it once you're halfway to level 10 so you don't forget it, or are unable to level them up before end of day as they're working on an item.

Right after hitting level 10
At 8 AM, a NPC will tell you that "It is your duty as a citizen to repair the king's armor" or whatever.

Your workers will now build up cooperation points again, accordingly to their cooperation stat. Don't forget to spend them up regularly so you don't waste any. You can spend them anytime you want, there's no minimum amount required.
 * Once your workers are free, don't start crafting right away. Instead, click on Improve.
 * Then, select the quest in the list and add your cooperation points by clicking on "Improve" at the bottom of said window.
 * A window will pop up asking you to enter an amount of points to spend on the quest (or improvement, if you chose a guild member's). Entering 0 works as a "cancel" button.
 * Points will be deducted from your crafter's total, and added to the selected quest (improvement).

Also note that you don't need to be in a guild to complete your quests, and that you're the only one who can contribute to your own quests.

Shop experience caps
You can't grow any higher than level 10 in the Countryside. You are still allowed to gather all the necessary experience to level 11, minus one point. If you exceed that amount, it will be lost. However, you may stay as long as you wish before moving if you don't feel financially safe, at the cost of not gaining any more experience. This is not advisable as your shopkeeper skills are your main asset to make the difference, so move up to the next district as soon as your reputation star is glowing yellow.

Now that you've made your way to the City Gates, completed your first oursourcing quest and are busy on your first cooperative quest, you shouldn't ever be in trouble anymore unless you're spending money far too carelessly.

Walkthrough

 * Recruit blacksmith
 * Research Toy sword or Knife
 * Level your blacksmith up until he gets 17/9 crafting stats
 * If his level is higher than 5, start a new game
 * Upgrade bins: metal, wood, leather, to 6
 * Hire tailor, reach 17/9 crafting stats
 * Delay paying every quest (NEVER REFUSE)
 * Unlock a couple recipes for her
 * Unlock new recipes if you have too much stock
 * Level 5: move to the City Gates
 * Complete Lost clovers quest
 * Move back to Countryside
 * Pay all delayed quests
 * Optional: Reach 25/13 crafting stats
 * No more research from level 9 on
 * Level up workers to level 10 just before your shop does

General tips

 * Upgrade bins if necessary, or unlock higher grade (more expensive) items depending on current stocks
 * Always haggle if offered price is under usual value
 * Suggestions: see previous chapter

Miscellaneous tips

 * Don't spend tokens if you got any to boot
 * Don't abuse the "Hurry" command
 * Browse the wiki to learn more about the game
 * Consider finding people to trade cooperation points with, or a guild

&lt;&lt;&lt; One more headache please!