This article details a number of user submitted guides to making money in ACOK.
Lann The Clever's money making guide (Does not apply to 6.1 and beyond)[]
This works for version 4.1 you can do this without damaging your honor or reputation with anyone, and make huge profit very quickly. I suggest starting the game as a merchant/shop assistant for maximum starting power on this strategy. The entire guide is organized on Imgur.com with detailed screenshots to make this easier: https://imgur.com/gallery/DRm62[]
Go to Sarhoy, a small ruin, bottom right corner of the world map to the left of Volantis
You'll see this aqueduct upon entering, go to the broken tower on the far back, youll cross a creek that has a dead whale on the way, jump up the rocks to get to the other side
After shimming up the rocks, youll be in front of the ruined tower and some walls, go to the broken down room with 2 broken windows next to the tower
in the corner of the room among the bushes between the broken window and the tower wall you'll find a chest
its hard to miss if you're looking from behind your character, turn to a birds eye view and youll find it, its worth 10,000 but resells for 3,100 if you start the game as a merchant/shop assistance, less if something else but it'll get you started. Dont spend it on gear! This is your trading fund.
Go to the north sailing on the sea, avoid getting auto routed through the land as you can easily run into some bandits and get robbed of your gold nugget.
Once you get to White Harbor buy all the furs the shop is selling, up to 300gold/each.
If you want a quick buck just buy at white harbor and continue south on the route,
if you want to do a full turn go hit village by village on the east side of the north territory and buy any furs and dyes they have, ignore everything else.
i encourage you to do the entire lap since it takes a few days for everything to restock so might as well just do the entire route since youll have to wait around for restock if you dont.
plus by time you get back to white harbor to head back south the merchant price may have reset back to -100 for the remaining furs you didnt buy before because it was over 300gold/each.
Stick to the east villages, the west villages dont ever have any furs or dyes in stock, just overpriced stuff.
Take all your furs south, sailing around the coastline of the Vale, towards Saltpans
Don't stop anywhere else on the way trust me its a waste of time,
they all sell the same goods and most are overpriced you'll be skimming -100 gold per sale when you can stick to the route and make thousands without the headache.
Stop at Saltpans and buy up all salt under 150, and head to Qohor on the far east of the map. This place buys furs for 800-1000 each! just dump all of your furs on the merchants here,
no other place comes even close at most you'll get 450 some where else, after selling 30 furs at Qohor i was still getting 500 for them.
If the merchants run out of money trade it for gear you want or just keep the furs to resell on the next trip, the more you trade on a city and if it stays safe the wealthier it gets with time,
eventually the merchants will have 10k+ in stock. Sell the salts for 200+ on the way back up north if you want to make stops.
Go to the iron bank at Braavos and deposit all your excess gold into your account, I keep 10k to pay my army and buy furs and salt again.
Do this once or twice and you'll have enough to get yourself a small army. Carry 6 foodstuffs and get yourself a 30-50 man army to defend you while you roam around selling.
once you got around 50 troops the outlaws usually run away and you can just click to go and forget. I play at the hardest difficulty and once your army is upgraded to veteran elite or above,
a 50 man army of 30 infantry and 20 archers can take an army twice the size, its all about the landscape. make sure your infantry is 20 feet ahead of your archers,
and downhill so they dont block the archers view while shooting. set your archers not to far back from your infantry on high ground.
If you have any cavalry have them hold until the enemy is attacking your infantry, they send the cavalry in. I don't even bother with cavalry usually they just get isolated against multiple enemies and die,
they are not worth it unless you have mostly cavalry and thats way too expensive to maintain.
I usually only take cavalry that I get for free rescuing prisoners and send them in as fodder or keep one or two to charge once the enemies start running.
Don't sign up to any factions until you have at least 100k in the braavos bank,
because factions declare war on each other all the time and youll get locked out of your profit route or have a huge hassle fighting lords on the way.
Once you have enough to upkeep your troops and turn a profit passively from your bank account, sign up to a faction and dont worry about gold again!
Taking and keeping a hold is very difficult in this mod, so this is the safest way of getting established and not losing your revenue stream later on.
The only issue is that the profit from your bank account is kept in the account, so you got to go back and withdraw if you run out of cash.
It's best to leave it there though as it will compound interest over time.
Crypt's Guide to early game money[]
This is incredibly simple, and builds you around 10,000 in shorter time the most others, depending on your luck. Its as simple as this, hire a small band of men (a couple companions, 20-40 Stormlands men, level them as you choose) for protection, then travel around Westeros, visiting the landmarks and historic locations. in each one, each discovery (of which there are usually about 5) will give you 200 exp, great for early game leveling, most should have 1 spot that gives you some money (sometimes it might be more) and some have a chest, in which the contents are usually good to just wear/use, or sell for a lot of money.
Once you have done that, use the other guides from here to continue making money (essentially, productive enterprises in good places to help you make a profit,a bakery in your future capital, an iron bank account if you wish, and buy some land.)
Then you should be able to build an army of about 200-ish men (id go for 100 cavalry, 60 archers and 40 hammermen cavalry in that number tends to smash smaller lords and bandits on the open field, and when sieging castles provides you with some tanks, the hammermen are great for knocking people out, capturing and selling them (this became a main income source, with high prisoner management and taking higher units, you can make thousands off of some battles) and archers so you have some ranged backup.
Now enjoy fighting for whoever, taking what you want when you can, and essentially doing what i said but more of it in a larger scale, and you'll have fun, learn some lore, and get cool stuff (there's a cool sword up north. Get it when you can at a higher level with a decent army, great weapon.)
The Bowerer's Guide[]
Hello everyone! Today I will tell you how to make a fortune for yourself in the game!
Establishing a Weekly Income[]
For starters, let's assume that you have a starting capital, let's say 10 000 coins. "But Bowerer," you might say, "How am I supposed to get that much money?" Easy: join an army as a soldier, a small one that will get defeated often (I joined Ser Mylex Brax). When you get captured you won't lose anything, but you will get a 20 day leave. During that time, sell any loot you get and participate in any tournament you can find.
Well, now. So you have 10 000, right? Now, what you want to do is find two cities where you can establish a productive enterprise. A toolery or an oil press are the best choices, but make sure that they yield at least 500 or so a week. Now, you should have no money, but a surplus of about 1 000 a week. Quit the army if you want to (I didn't untill much later.) Keep on building enterprises that give you 500 each per week in other cities.
A small notice about enterprises. You generally don't want to buy the most expensive one, the dyeworks, unless it will bring you a thousand or more. The exception is if it is the only viable enterprise available (say, the others bring 100 coins or so). Example: If you can get an Oil Press that brings 400 or a dyework that brings 500, go for the Oil Press. If said press brings 100 and the Dyeworks bring 500, go for the latter option.
Setting Up Tax Routes[]
Do note that after ACOK 2.1, You can no longer buy land in Braavos. Instead, you can open an account with the Iron Bank that gives you a flat 2.5% interest every two weeks on the amount of coins in your bank account.
Once you have some money coming, you will want to seek out town and buy land from merchants there. By buying uncultivated land, not only will you get money, you will also increase the welfare of the town. The money accumulates every two weeks, and the more land you have, the more money you get. You might want to make "tax routes" for easier money collecting. I'll show you what I mean
As you can see on the first picture on the left, this is my tax route (I depart in White Harbour and end in Braavos). I mark the cities where I own land in black and the route in red. You might notice that the route doesn't lead to neither Ashford not King's Landing, meaning money will simply accumulate there without being picked up. I decided to change that.
As you can see on the left, I have a branching off route (marked in blue). It lies through the cities that I didn't go to before and some more. Having two tax routes like this pays off as you can get more money.
Why do they both end in Braavos, you may ask? Well, I was preparing Braavos to become the capital of my kingdom, so naturally I invested more money into it (I was also trying to get it from Rich to Very Rich).
By doing this, you will find yourself making a lot of money in no time (well, actually, in quite a long time).
Trivia, Tips and Tricks[]
- If you are going to start your own kingdom then, instead of a high profit enterprise, you should build a bakery in the future capital to be able to feed your army.
- Betting on yourself in tournaments is a great way to make money (provided you win).
- Once you become a vassal/king, your weekly money will go to your treasury rather than your wallet. To pick it up, simply visit your castle/town, talk to the guy in charge, go to the economy menu and withdraw some money. Make sure to leave some (50,000 to 100,000 should suffice) in the treasury. If your fief is a village, the only way to access the treasury is by hiring a senechal.
Kiri Kaneko's Guide[]
Do bear in mind that parts of this guide is no longer relevant in A Clash of King's version >1.5.
I'm Kiri Kaneko and I'd like to offer my own advice on how to make money. I recommend a cha character with at least a couple of points in prisoner management to begin with. Why not str/agi? Because it's a game of thrones and it's all about political cunning!
The two cities near Casterly Rock sell cheap iron, buy it for less than 200 denars and sell it for more than 200 denars at King's Landing and the town nearby up to Saltpans. I made a Cha character and raised my leadership/trade so that helped me make quite a bit of money from it. Make sure you pick up some companions, the free ones and ones that cost less than 1k, you will need them for the next step.
Once you have about 15k, buy yourself 20 stormlands mounted sergeants which cost 700 each from stormlands towns/castles. These guys come with heavy warmaces, medium armour and horses and you can just tell them to charge the enemy at the start for effortless prisoners to sell for a lot of money. Tell your companions to gather the loot and set them to autosell it at towns to speed things up. Give them int and split them into 3 types, ones with pathfind/spotting/tracking, wound t/surgery/first aid, and ones with tactics/engineering. You might want an agi type for foraging/looting as well. Make sure you get your prisoner management to about 5. Stop raising cha at 26 as you get a book that increases it to 27 for lvl 9 leadership/trade and 2 more books to raise leadership/trade to 10.
The best bandits to capture are outlaws, raiders and robber knights as they sell for the most and give the most valuable equipment. You might want to increase your party size to about 35 when you can afford it. Get your companions mounted (the enemies I mentioned often drop horses) and equip them with warmaces or clubs as well. They'll get KOd a lot without armour but just tell them to equip what they want from the loot you get and they can assist a bit.
Spend your gold on productive enterprises. I usually get silk and dye. They are expensive to set up and it takes longer to get a return but in the long run they will bring in the most income. There are exceptions however, at least in the free cities half of them were bad for silk/dye so do make sure to check the other options of silk/dye gives less than 500 per week. It isn't really worth buying land from the merchants since they take longer to give a return and you need to collect your taxes personally which you just won't have time for when you begin your conquest.
By the time you have the most valuable productive enterprises in every city (mostly silk/dye) you will be earning 17k per week with zero effort, and it takes approximately half a year for them to fully return your investment and begin making a profit. You will always be able to count on them for weekly revenue without a fuss except for the cities owned by factions you are at war with as they will be blockaded til the war ends, though you should never be at war with more than a couple of factions at a time anyway.
I recommend you save at least 200k and have a full army of mounted sergeants before you decide to play the game of thrones.
Despot’s Guide[]
As many things changed and I picked up playing the mod again I decided to create another guide for making money. Spice trade is no longer valid as the main source of income, you can still do the quest and get around 7k clear profit(after 2k travel expenses and buying all available spice).
Currently the most valid option is general trade and raiding villages. Note that when it comes to trading min-maxing is not really a good option since it requires a lot of travel, while the price of the product drops a lot with only 3 sold. Generally you want to find a "sweet spot" when selling, and sell only 2-4 products per town. This means that despite Golden Goblets selling for 1700 in volantis, you might as well sell them for 1500 in King's Landing after you bought them at Maidenpool which is a 10 second travel away.
But why should I trade when I can raid!?[]
Raiding will net you around 2500-3k per village raided(including meat from slaughtering the cattle), while also lowering your reputation with the lord and that village. While the option is completely valid(you need to be a merc/vassal of enemy faction to raid without losing honor and being hated by everyone), there are also dangers. You might get caught by overwhelming odds, you won't be able to trade in that territory painfree and because of how wars go in ACOK you could get locked out from safe travel in numerous factions if your king decides to start declaring war to everyone(I'm looking at you Stannis, war with Stormlands+Westerlands+North+Riverlands+Dorne+Targaryens calm down man).
Trading on the other hand can net you the same amount of gold by selling 6 furs, or 9 bags of salt, or 2 golden goblets without any risk.
General location for trading, note that you should stop in nearby cities on your travels to sell products. Make sure the price is decent, doesn't have to be perfect.
Saltpans - Buy Salt (your main trading port, buy from 30-100g sell from 280-220(Fine) and 260-200(Normal))
White Harbor - Buy Furs (buy from 150 down, sell from 350-400 up - doesn't produce much furs but if you combine it with visiting north villages it's great)
Scour the Northern villages for any fur, almost every village should sell at least 1 for around 70.
At some point Golden Chalices are going to start getting produced en-masse in some towns. In my game it was Maidenpool and Fairmarket. I'm not sure if it's always the same.
Buy any golden chalices that are "exquisite" or "masterwork"(they have base price of 1.50, look at the tooltip). Buy from 1000 down, most I've seen they came down to 150. Sell them from 1400 up. Best if you sell 1 goblet per town, since the price for the next is going to drop for a good 200-250g. This is a HUGE profit.
Lannisport - Buy Iron for 150 and down(in my game Lannisport only produced 3-4 iron products so it was not worth the travel, later on it started producing golden chalices which made it worth visiting)
My route is Maidenpool(when goblets start producing)-Saltpans(at start)-Gullettown-White Harbor-North Villages-Fairmarket --- After this it's up to you. You should have some salt left, a lot of furs and goblets now. Go to Essos or just start going down to Dorne and drop by every town to sell your products.
End Tip[]
The iron bank in Braavos gives you 2.5% interest rate. If you follow my trade guide you should make a lot of money in a decent time. Hold on to 15k-20k for trading and put everything else in the Iron Bank. Having 100k in the bank will net you a weekly(? not sure if it's a week) profit of 2500. If you have 10 enterprises that make velvet you'll get 5k per week IF they give you around 500, AFTER investing 100k WITH fluctuating income AND with your business being stopped if you happen to be at war with the owner. A lot WHAT IF's with enterprises, so putting the money in the bank is much better. Not to mention you can always just take all of your money out if you really need to, when you build an enterprise that money goes down the drain.
Tip from Dale[]
The previous paragraph regarding the Iron Bank is mostly correct, but I believe it fails to truly sell the Iron Bank for what it is. As of 3.0, you receive a flat 2.5% of your current account every two weeks. With 100k in the bank, every two weeks you will receive 2.5k (or 5k a month.) which is deposited into your iron bank account. This interest rate of 2.5% is flat and does not scale with the amount in your account, meaning that the amount you receive every two weeks will continue to grow. Meaning, as you accumulate more, you gain more. 2.5% of One Million is 25k, or 50k a month. 2.5% of Ten Million is 250k(every two weeks, meaning 500k a month.) This continues to scale. Myself, after about 1700 days worth of depositing enterprise money into the Iron Bank and letting it accumulate, I reached 90 Million and receive 2.25 million every two weeks (roughly 5 million a month.), applying patience to an Iron Bank account means receiving an inevitable mass fortune to the point that money is no longer a consideration in your decision making. Pray to the Seven that this is not nerfed in the next patch, because it takes a long time to actually get this fortune.
Tip for 3.0 and 4.0[]
First, when start in character screen chose next 1.Landed Knight 2. A page at nobleman court 3.Squire. My advice is to Gather companions.
Second, go and find Mace Tyrell near Highgarden, join his retinue. Ask for personal leave and then return do that twenty or more times. Retire from service.(each time you return to retinue you get +1 relation)
Third, do same with Arwyn Oakenheart but until you reach +100 relation with her.
Fourth, join the Reach and marry Arwyn Oakenheart (you could mary someone else but best is to mary her, maybe you would need to restart the game until she acept your proposal).
Now you have command over the garrison of Old Oak, take the best of them (knights and vungard), go and attack dothraki camps in essos. (duringthe battle you must not die because battle will be lost). Each raid would bring you 2.5-5 thousand.(good source for horses and food)
Get the money and put in Iron Bank in Bravos.
Build army and renounce oath to Mace Tyrell, take Volantis and other three cities.(they make me during peace 50-70 thousand each two weeks)
Then conquer the Planetos.
Additional Information[]
- Due to ACOK being built from Floris Mod, many of the tactics to getting money in Floris are the same for ACOK:
- Productive Enterprises are a native Warband feature.