Overview
This is gameplay, inn layout, crafting, staff, happiness, recipes, profitability, gossip, few tips and tricks, DLCs.
Rooms
Initial Building – plan ahead, deleting tiles is costly. I like to start at the path, I don’t leave any space in front of the inn. It is better to have larger areas, easier to optimize the use the space.
Storage and Kitchen – I just have a larger kitchen and store everything there, less doors, less walking. Or I have a bit of storage outside, next to production buildings. You can set what is stored in the storage. Grain for chicken coop, hops for brewery.
Sausages and strange meat (from rats? does not work yet) can be stored on the shelves. For all other fish and meat you will need larders and ice. The ice does not seem to melt tho.
Kitchen is your main hub for producing, have all food preparing appliances close to the main room, less walking for servers. Put the wood holder close to cauldron etc and put it on higher priority so that your cooks and servers don’t have to walk too far for wood when cooking. Use the queue to queue food – cooks will prepare, servers can just grab a plate and serve it.
Some appliances have a high chance of burning. Try to avoid them, or place a water barrel next to them.
Gaming room needs fame 22, gaming table with chairs, guest who want to play and a scoundrel. It is possible to have the gaming table in the main hall.
Staff rooms needs beds, staff just sleeps there.
Private room needs a bed and other furniture based on the guest wishes. Guest with keys. Adventurers want usually a bed, chest and chamber pot, bards a bed, decorative table (not a regular one) and chamber pot. Chests and the antler head decoration are also on the map. Chest. elegant desk and chamber pot should unlock with unlocking adventurers. The Vendettas want their special bed, changing screen and a mirror desk (dresser). Vedetta furniture unlocks with unlocking vedetta. I usually have 4 square rooms.
Above all, have enough space so that guest and employees can move and not get stuck.
Don’t forget to open the inn:
Employees
Labourer – carry, carpentry, farm, clean, kitchen work and manual work.
Server – clean, waiting tables, room service, gossip and innkeep. Select each server and unselect tasks as needed. Cleaning and bed making (room service) can be done by labourers, gossip by guards and scoundrels, innkeep by kitchen staff.
Kitchen staff – kitchen work is mostly cleaning dishes, innkeep is at the counter greeting guests and letting them use the guest room. Cooking is preparing dishes and artisan is crafting beer, candles etc. Only cooks can prepare a 4 ingredient dish.
Watchmen does carry, gossip, watch and patrol. I think in the campaign it is a part of the game that they do not stop the soldiers. In sandbox I have seen them sometimes stop thieves. Or throw drunk people out.
Scoundrel does gossip, watch, gamble, entertain and steal. If you get your scoundrel before fame 22, when the gaming room unlocks, you can use him for gossip. Just unselect the gossip from some other employees, so that you don’t have too many with the same tasks – then they are idle. After fame 22 please check the guide section rooms. To steal, click on a guest and select steal. If you have other honest employees, this might anger them.
Click and un-click tasks in employees, so that you get a balance, or get work done. If you have a slow employee, he can clean, there it does not matter how slow he is. Bad service? Have servers only wait tables. No beer is crafted? Have a cook just with artisan. Dirty inn? Have employees who just clean. I try to avoid gloomy, drunk and chaotic employees. Other than that, I think the employees are similar. Drinker will steal booze, be sick from hangover. Sickly employees will get another sickness. Slackers and lazy will stay around and slack, smokers will sit at tables and smoke.
Use praise or bonus to boost employee happiness and morale. Scolding boosts productivity for a bit, but lowers employee happiness and morale, so I recommend not using it.
Start using the shifts (inn upgrade) when you have a spare inn upgrade point. You can split the staff to day, afternoon and night shift. I use the day and night shifts and then I have half of the employees awake at every time and working, staff rooms gets better used. Also I avoid all staff being awake at the same time and idling. When you start using shifts, you can disable the break activity for employees.
Happiness of employees is the total value of happiness for the tasks and environment that I observed.
- new job +10 for 3 days
- great mood +3 for 3 days
- fun +5 for 6 hours (darts, bard)
- praise +5 for 12 hours, can be renewed every 8 hours
- job well done +2 for 5 hours
- job screwed -3 for 5 hours
- slept badly -5 for 5 hours
- slept well +3 for 4(?) hours
- tiredness -3 – 7 until employee sleeps
- headache -4 for 9 hours
Praise, jobs done and fun can stack several times. So with praise 2x daily, darts, training dummy and bard you can keep employees happy. With bard, beds, darts, training dummy I can stop almost all praising. Happy leveled up servers do their job well – less job screwed.
An employee also wants to read some books. I place few bookshelves around the inn. Otherwise they went to private rooms, took books from decorative table. The the bard, adventurer were going onto other private rooms to borrow books, hated the decor and started to be unhappy.
And for some unknown reason employees want to stand in empty room (hallway) during their break. This is the strange behaviour when the employees walk up and down the stairs. 1.Have a hallway on each floor. 2.Have no hallways. 3. (not yet tested) Have shifts with no breaks.
Optimal tasks (what I see working)
Server – high waiting tables, possibly low gossip or low innkeep.
Laborer – all
Kitchen staff – all
Watchmen – all
Scoundrel – all (problem where he stood at the gaming table day and night was fixed)
You have dirty inn – have some laborer just cleaning. If you can’t hire laborers, hire a bad (lazy, chaotic, ..) server and have her just on clean and room service.
You have nobody cooking or crafting – hire more cooks. If you can’t hire them, add servers for innkeep, or add this task as low for servers. Add labourers for kitchen work. Unselect innkeep and kitchen work from kitchen staff.
You have low security – add watchmen or unselect carry, gossip. Add laborers for carry. Add scoundrels just with gossip and watch.
You don’t get gossip – add scoundrels just with gossip (or at least unselect gamble). Add servers with gossip, or add gossip to servers on low.
You don’t have clean dishes – have 1-3 kitchen staff just with kitchen work.
It is a bit of balancing between what you need and what staff is available for hire and what you have employed in the inn.
Recipes
When you buy ingredients, switch on the resources on the map. When you see a resource on the map, usually in the cities around it is cheaper. Try optimizing recipes – use recipes that have at least a few same ingredients. You can buy them in bulk and need less storage.
Different recipes have different preparation – cauldron, oven, stove, grill and counter. You can use also queue the meals.
You can get more recipes on the map for 200 guldens, the cook will get it.
Profitability of recipes – how I understand it on an example:
Distressed customers – all ingredients bought (average prices used)
Distressed customers – 0 cost for produced ale, beans, bread, cabbage, carrot, cereal, flour, garlic, honey, lager, onion, potato, tomato, turnip and water, remainder bought.
For example a honey toast sells for 70, you can buy 10 bread for 50-60 and honey for 170-180. Cost per honey toast is 23 = ((55+175))/10. If you produce honey in the garden and buy bread, the cost per one piece is 5-6. I am not calculating the overheard for employee wages or lost revenue if you would use the production space differently (e.g guest rooms).
And the recipes for others. Top is buy prices, 2nd includes produced. Sausage is at 6.7 – produced from pork.
Download excel here: https://www.dropbox.com/s/zxr3ytd7vz2hjj0/Crossroad%20Inn%20Recipes.xlsx?dl=0
A cool tip from Deathstroke: If you want to watch any resources easily. You can go to the resources tab, click a resource then click the eye icon. Then it will display the resource on the bottom of the screen for you!
Garden
Garden patch is for growing potato, cabbage, onion, garlic, grain, carrot and turnip. Trellis is for hop (lager and ale in brewery), tomato, grape and beans. Some things are cheap to buy – grain, onion, some are expensive – garlic. Garden produces 5 units. Decide for yourself what is available and what you want to produce.
Brewery uses hop for lager and ale, apples for cider, honey for mead. 5 units of resource into 10 units of alcohol.
Bees produce honey or wax. 2 units (I think one wax, one honey). Candle maker uses 2 wax to produce 6 candles. Even if you buy wax for base price 10, for 2 wax costing 20 you get 6 candles (20/6=3.3). On the market you can buy one candle for 10.
Chicken coop turns 1 grain into 3 eggs or 3 poultry. So, for base price for cereal is 3.75, you get 3 eggs (3.75/3=1.25). Base price of buying eggs is 4.37. Poultry is even better, for base price for cereal 3.75, you get 3 poultry (3.75/3=1.25). Base price of buying poultry is 18.7.
Smokehouse uses 3 pork for produce 9 sausage. Base price of 3 pork is 60 (3×20), you get 9 sausages (60/9 = 6.7). So if you produce sausage it costs 6.7, base price for buying sausage is 15.
Quern turns 3 cereal into 9 flour, Bread oven 3 flour into 9 bread. Base price for cereal is 3.75, you get 3x bread (3.75/3=1.25). Base price of buying bread is 5.62.
Chopping stump turns 2 planks into 8 firewood.
Dugout should be able to grow mushrooms, but is a bit buggy now.
Candle maker, mill and bread oven now have have a turn off button. The button that starts production also stops production.
Note: The base price when buying is for 10 pieces. So I have divided it by 10 to show the calculation for 1 piece.
Gossip
Green is for paying for opening trade routes with other cities, or discount when buying ingredient (5 gossip is 10% discount, up to 30%). Whatever saves you more money.
Blue is for gaining influence in other cities or revealing traits in employees. I keep it for revealing traits, you can get influence in cities by paying the town crier.
Red is for revealing the details of quests for adventurers on the notice board.
Customers
Distressed – inn should be clean and not pretty. This room looks neat gets -5, ugly +5. They want drink, eat, sleep, have fun, toilet, cards, gossip.
Travelers – inn should be clean and pretty. This room looks neat gets +10. They want the same as distressed + vendetta.
Outlaws – inn should be clean and pretty. This room looks neat gets +10. They want the same as distressed + vendetta.
Townsfolk – inn should be clean and pretty. This room looks neat gets +10. They want the same as distressed + vendetta.
Noble – inn should be clean and pretty. Really really pretty. They want the same as distressed + vendetta.
Clean inn +5, dirty inn -5. Noble +5 for clean,
Poor service -10. Noble poor service -15.
Pretty (decorated) inn +10, distressed -5. Distressed ugly inn +5. Noble +5 for pretty, -10 for dull.
Rats …(not sure). Noble -15.
Play with prettiness and cleanliness to offset a bad service. Or set prices to lower, most customers enjoy low prices. Low prices upset the nobles.
I think that with the patches customers are now more sensitive to decor. Customers from Yorevale like Yorevale decor, dislike other. Look for decor with blank attribute – e.g. decorated table, martyn’s portrait.
Bard, Adventurer, Vedetta
Bard, Adventurer, Vedetta are special guests that can stay in the inn forever. Bard plays in the inn, can entertain guests and employees, make employees happy, guests more welcome, patient, hungry for sweets, spicy. Vedetta seduces guests. Adventurers, Bards, Vedettas can go on an adventure.
Look for guests with a key.
Klick on the key, check what private room and equipment they want.
When they stay in the inn, they level up. Charisma by socializing, intelligence by reading books, strength, dexterity, endurance by darts, dummy. Everybody has some attributes that level up fast, some slow. You can select where to focus leveling.
When selecting quests, you can see success probability.
Dishes
Have one basic shelf just for dirty dishes, one just for clean dishes. Unselect clean and dirty dishes from all other storage. If your dishes keep multiplicating (bug) you will see when it is full of dirty dishes and you can delete it. And you will always have space to store clean ones, so your kitchen staff does not stop cleaning just because you ran out of storage space. Use more shelves if you have a lot of dishes, you can separate also clean mugs and plates into their shelves. Now the dishes keep disappearing for me, maybe bug, or maybe part of game that guest break or steal mugs and plates.
Have the dish shelves close to main room. Servers grab plates to serve food. Servers place dirty dishes in the counter, labourer bring them to dishwasher or shelf, labourer/kitchen staff to clean, clean plates and mugs from dishwasher to shelf.
Inn Upgrades
1 Point of fame equals to 1 point for inn upgrades. Check the map what is available. If you can get a better washer, tool shelf, smoke house, mill or bread oven from the map, you don’ have to spend the point in the inn upgrade.
Money problems
Is your revenue more than your expenses?
1. Rent can be a lifesaver. Once built, no extra costs, just staff to clean and lightning. Check “Rooms” section of guide.
2. Tips – upgrade in journal.
3. Food and drinks – Check “Recipes” section of guide.
Delete items
– Either wait a bit when nobody is using and then more or delete.
– Or in case of counter, close the inn, wait a bit. Then sell.
– Or close the inn, reload, quickly pause and then try to sell it.
Anything you would like me to add or have suggestions? Please let me know in the comments.
Pests and puppies DLC
Get a few bug repellents for customers. Bug repellents use herbs.
Cats and dogs are cute, need a bed and a bowl. Dog chases away garden pests – ferret, hog, cat mice. You can buy cats and dogs on the map in cities. Some posts suggest you can adopt strays with pets and bed and food.
Hooves and Wagon DLC
This DLC offeres a lot.
The extra land is in a shape of U around your inn, 3 squares deep.
New animals:
– sheep shed for milk or lamb meat
– cowshed for milk or beef meat
– goat house for milk or mutton meat
– pigsy for pork meat
– turkey coop for eggs or poultry meat
– duck coop for eggs or poultry meat
– geese coop for eggs or poultry meat
Buying meat is expensive, 200+ for 10 pieces. To produce it is one grain for 3 meat. So many recipes get far more profitable.
When buying meat and producing vegetables and ale and lager:
When producing meat, vegetables and ale and lager:
Customers can now arrive on horse or wagon. Place trough, so they can stop in your inn. Pathing is a bit problematic, customers try to go through doors on horse and get stuck. Use “Innkeeper Hand Mode” (upper left screen corner) to unstuck them.
Bath and Beauty DLC
The inn needs to have 36 fame. Check in the journal.
Build a bath room. Have bath tub and changing screen. Labourers will haul water into baths and sinks. Full bathtub will have froth. For me the customers will use the bath only rarely, but my customers are distressed, townsman and traveller. I noticed only travellers and townsman to take a bath.
I get 200 for 1 bath use. 0 for 1 sink use.
The DLC also offers some nice tables and chairs and benches and inside toilets. The tables and chairs and benches have none, townsman and noble prettyness.
