The Hidden Blade Assassin's Creed in Depth

AC3 has a fantastic economic system. It is very complex and applies some actual stuff from real life economics. Feel free to jump to the Step-by-Step part, if you're not very interested in the details. Anyway... sorry about the length.

1- Resources are scarce. You no longer win money for performing missions in those non-sensical ways of precious AC games. And now you do have some expensive and exciting stuff to aspire for and to make you greedy: The Achilla upgrades. Seriously, this upgrades are a key motivational aspect of the economic system.

2- I don't now the terms in English, but it's something like: the more the consumers look for a certain good, the higher the price becomes. Well, in AC3, the more you make use of an artisan, the more he will charge you for his services. Therefore, to make a good management of your homestead economy, you gotta make a balanced use of your artisans. If you do not use one of them, you will be loosing a lot of efficiency... it would be something like unemployment.

3- Complex goods can render greater profits, but the choices are not simple. You gotta take into account the uses of your artisans. Even if you make a balanced use of them, they may become overwhelmed with work and start to charge too much... so, sometimes, it might be better to sell basic/uncrafted goods. One very special thing that the increasing complexity that becomes available in terms of crafting is... hunting doesn't become obselete. What I mean is: at first, hunting has a relatively small pay-off, compatible with an early stage in the game... later, you can craft your hunting goods and they will generate more profit, compatible with a late stage in the game.

Now, lets go to the actual guide. (This is about the system... it doesn't contain spoilers about the story or about specific items.)

a) The management of the Homestead economics should focus on the Artisans. They are the key variable! They shall be your most prioritary criteria, when you decide what to craft. Here are a few things to know about the Artisans (some of them took me a long time to realise):

* Not all Homesteaders are Artisans. Some of them provide you with 'raw goods', instead. This goods can be bought in the Stockpile. From now on, I shall refer to these basic goods as 'Stock'. When these Stock Homesteaders are upgraded (by Homestead Missions), they start selling new types of Stock.

* The Artisans have levels. You can upgrade them by completing Homestead Missions. When you see in a recipe that it requires a certain artisan that you already have, but the icon is still red, it means it requires this artisan at a higher level. I took a while to realise this and was confused by the red icons quite a bit.

* The price per crafting does not depend on what is being crafted. It depends simply on how many craftings that artisan has done lately (per convoy combo you send). This is probably a very important and very counter-intuitive rule. The price per crafting starts at 25 pounds. The second costs 25 again. The third goes to 50, the forth, 75 and so on... increasing in 25 per new crafting. So, make sure you use every artisan in equal or close to equal measure!

* Artisans may work together to craft something. In this case, you pay them both... the price is the sum of what you would pay each of them separately.

b) You shouldn't worry much about the Stockpile. It seems to me that the prices do not vary. So, just buy whatever you need to craft the stuff you choose to craft, basing such choice on balancing the use of the artisans.

c) The buyers... there are 4 buyers for the land convoys! I've spent most of the game thinking there were only 2. Just press down and see the two buyers from New York. It seems that each buyer always páys the same for a certain item, no matter how much of the same item you push to him. However, each buyer has his own preferences. When mounting a convoy, try to bundle together the items so that all of them are sold to the same buyer who pays the most for them. If you can't do that, then it might be worth to send the same convoy to a second buyer, but that will take more time and increase the risk. Oh, the risk... you might also make choices based on the risk. If you think you won't be very much available to defend the convoy if it gets attacked, you might wanna choose to sell to lower risk buyers (and maybe even choose your crafting so that it's sold better to the low risk buyers).

d) The convoys... you can have three land convoys and you can upgrade their capacity a lot. Its eems that if you loose a convoy (because it was attacked, though I not sure you actually loose it), you can replace it by crafting another. You can craft a new convoy or upgrade the capacity (for all of them) at Special Items in the Crafting Menu. It's worth it. Go for it! There are also naval convoys, but I didn't get them... I was missing a certain Stock and I'd rather not say which, as it would be kind of a spoiler.

e) The goods. There are many types of goods (and I'm using the term 'goods' in a general sense.

* There are 'Stocks' (which you can buy from the Stockpile or hunting), which are basic, uncrafted goods (the game doesn't call it Stocks).

* Materials, which are crafted from Stocks and might still be crafted into something else (which I call Items).

* Items, which are crafted from Materials and/or Stocks and are supposed to be sold.

* Consumables and Special Items, which are supposed to be used buy Connor, not sold. Crafting Consumables is probably not a good idea, though. At least some of them seem to be clearly cheaper if bought from a Peddler or General Store.

* And there are Categories of Items (Food, Alcohol, Clothing, etc.), but do not be distracted buy these categories! When you're choosing what to craft, you should not try to balance things out according to these categories. You should focus on the artisans.

* And the Stock or Material required of crafting an Item is always 1 of each type it requires. It may require 1 to 3 different types, but of each type, it requires always only 1 (it may be obvious, but I had my doubts for a while).

Now, lets try some sort of step-by-step guide... (this guide should probably be more relevant once you have at least a few different artisans).

1- Go to the Recipes menu and see which ones do not have Red Icons on the artisans. From among these, see which ones require the materials that you already have, or (if the Icon is Red) can buy from the Stockpile. These are the Recipes that are trully available to you. Now you gotta choose from them what you're gonna craft. (To facilitate your search for available recipes, you might wanna buy one of each Stock you have available... not the optimal way to go, but helps with the menu boring part of searching the actually available recipes... just don't buy a lot of Stocks that don't intend to craft and sell immediately).

2- To choose what to craft, many things come into play. Your first concern should be making a balanced use of the artisans. It may be harder than it seems, because some Items actually require multiple craftings, because they require Materials, which might be crafted by a diffrerent (or the same) artisan that makes the final crafting. So, I'd say:

* Craft the complicated stuff, first... you know, the Items that require Materials or that require two Artisans to craft. The more complex the item, the higher the profit. The complexity is more about the number of crafting and level (the artisan level required) for the crafting... and lastly about how many different Stocks or Materials it requires (1, 2 or 3). So, start by crafting a few of these fancy Items.

* After that, check the prices each of your artisans is charging per craft (it doesn't matter which craft). Then, plan your next crafts so that you even out the prices per each artisan. I recommend going for 150 in every artisan (late in the game). When they start charging 175, just stop the crafting and fill the rest of the convoys with Stocks, specially hunting Stock. But keep in mind that this is a rough estimate of mine. The important things is that there is a point when selling Stock is better than crafting... if you go happy-trigger with crafting you will loose money!

* There is also a special criteria to be consider, which is to craft Items, using your Stock from your huntings. Keep in mind that balancing the use of your artisans is still more important! Don't be in a rush to craft Items if all the hunting Stock you currently have. It's OK to leave some of this Stock for later craftings for later convoys. But, as long as you are balancing the artisans, you should prefer crafting items that make use of your hunting Stock.

* Also, beware of the Medic. He is tricky to use, because most of the Items he crafts require a material crafted by someone else. You may wish to plan how to use him early on, or you might get kinda stuck, without being able to craft items, because they would require materials from already overpriced fellow artisans.

* Stop your crafting when you think the artisans are charging too much (I roughly recommend around 150 per artisan).

3- Now, you gotta fill the convoys. Try to bundle the items according to the preferences of your buyers. If you're a super manager, you may even plan your crafting according to the buyers. If you run out of crafted items, do not despair, simply sell your hunting Stock or buy Stock and sell it (you may even experiment with the tastes of your buyers, in terms of Stocks, if you have the patience). Do not get back to crafting and end up overwhelming your artisans, because this will make you loose money!

You may also want to consider the risks... if you think you will be unavailable for defending the convoy, you might prefer lower risk buyers (and even plan your crafting accordingly, since some items are worth more for the lower risk buyers... it doesn't have to be lower risk -> lower profit).

Don't be shy about sending a full convoy with Stocks... the profit will look small (specially if you don't have pelts), but you gotta think in terms of your convoy combo. Remember that you would actually loose money if you would insist on crafting too much. It would be an onus. By seeling filling the last convoy with stocks you get an extra small profit instead of an onus.

4- After sending you convoy combo, go about your buiseness. If it gets attacked, you will get a message on screen. Then, go to the frontier (I recommend going by horse, instead of fast travelling). When you get to frontier, look at the map and search for a shield icon. That is the convoy... gallop there as fast as you can and help defending it. But the convoys usually do not get attacked. After your convoys come back, you get a message and the profit. After this, when you have the time, go to the Homestead or a General Store and make a new convoy combo. When you do, the prices for the crafting will be refreshed at 25 per crafting for all artisans. Yay!

Extra Section - Hunting and Farming

If you really want the money very badly... should you farm... like... looting guards? No. Just loot the ones you had to kill, if you're in the mood. Farming guards is not worth it. Hunting is better.

And should you just hunt... like... blatantly hunt? No. Commerce renders more money.

If you're in a greedy mood, my recommendation is that you hunt while going from one secondary objective to another, in the frontier. So, don't go completing the secondary stuff in the Frontier all at once. Save them for when you wanna hunt, so you can hunt in your way from one to the other.

And if you wanna get money after you have nothing to do in the frontier, just hunt, but keep going back to the Homestead to keep the Commerce going. Trading is still the most important thing.

To hunt, take the clues seriously. At first, I didn't, but later I found them very useful. If it's deer clue, hide in a bush (there usually one just beside it) or stay still up in a branch... and use the Bait. When the a deer comes (not necessarily the one revealed by the clue), assassinate it. If its a hare clue, leave a Snare (and a bait, to be safer) and go about your business... then retuern for you prize. Raccons and Beavers are slow... you can just chase them and kill them. And if you wanna shoot an arrow from horse back, don't do it with the horse facing the prey, or you may hit the horse in the back of its head and it will fall. It happened with me... true story. The main thing is that you don't really need to spend your time stalking the prey... you can be oportunistic and hunt quickly.

If you take this pace I recommend, you should be able to fully upgrade the Achilla quite a bit before the end of the story. And that's pretty much the only stuff you need to buy. You don't really need to buy melee weapons. In AC3 we can sheath the weapons we pick up from our enemies. Buying weapons is only good to make them available to be picked up again (for free), in the General Store or in the Homestead Manor secret basement, in case you loose it (usually by throwing it in someone's head and not picking it up).