How do you get your tenants to rise?

I have several houses and they make a profit but
they are nowere near being full my workers tend to stay in the AI housing.

(02-07-2011 05:04 AM)Easy Bakes Wrote:  How do you get your tenants to rise?

I have several houses and they make a profit but
they are nowhere near being full my workers tend to stay in the AI housing.

There is a correlation between the number of your businesses and the number of your houses The higher your percentage of businesses in your town, a corresponding percentage of tenants will be in your housing. That is, if all you build is houses, all you will get in the way of tenants will be your competitor's overflow.

There is also an aspect of whose houses have been in the town longest. At start, ALL tenants reside in your competitor's housing. Once in place, tenants tend to stay put. (Who actually enjoys moving? Unless your situation has improved and you can afford a better residence.) But new residents will make a "dice-roll" as to whose housing they move into: Say you own 25% of the housing in town; you _probably_ have a 25% chance that a new resident will move into one of your houses.

The quickest way to fill up your housing is to fill up everybody's housing. Go to another town and hire every sailor you can find in the tavern. Sail them to your town and then fire them in the local Tavern. Depending on the job situation in town, most of them will stay and move into whatever housing is available. For every 1 new employee, there will be 3 non-employees that also take up residence. [1 business = 25 employees, but 1 house = 100 tenants. This is why you _should_ build one house for each business you build.]

So Say I have about 3000 employees in Lubeck population of 10K
i only own 4 houses the other guy owns the rest of them.

the offer to buy his houses is 800K would that be for each house or all of them?

That's only one house.

So it's a lot cheaper to build a lot of houses yourself, equal to the amount of industries you have, instead of spending your money in buying the competitors housing early on.
Later in the game when you're swimming in cash, buying their houses would be "easier", since you can afford it; however housing prices do increase accordingly with your rank and wealth.


Thorin

What ^^he^^ said. First, the prices the competitors demand for their houses, businesses, and ships is just flat out insane; it would take centuries (well, decades at least) before you received enough profit on the "investment" to break even on the deal. Second, any money you give a competitor is a double whammy: it reduces your Treasury while at the same time increasing his -- and allows him to immediately turn around and pend that money to pay for _several_ constructions (houses, businesses, or ships).

(02-07-2011 10:02 AM)CaptainPatch Wrote:  allows him to immediately turn around and pend that money to pay for _several_ constructions (houses, businesses, or ships).

Therefore if you buy a house from the UK-AI do that only if there is really no space left in all towns of the UK-region

(02-07-2011 08:37 AM)Thorin Oakshield Wrote:  That's only one house.

So it's a lot cheaper to build a lot of houses yourself, equal to the amount of industries you have, instead of spending your money in buying the competitors housing early on.
Later in the game when you're swimming in cash, buying their houses would be "easier", since you can afford it; however housing prices do increase accordingly with your rank and wealth.


Thorin

but is there any point to it now? as all my workers live in his housing.

i dont need any new buisness at this point.

(02-07-2011 04:57 PM)Easy Bakes Wrote:  but is there any point to it now? as all my workers live in his housing.

Generally speaking, buying _anything_ from a competitor is a Bad Idea.

Why do you buy anything in this game? To make money, right? But buying a building from a competitor starts you out "in the hole" soooooo deep, it will take practically forever to show a profit on the investment.

If the main problem is that there simply is ZERO room inside the city walls to build anything, but you are desperate to expand your housing, consider demolishing a business within the walls and replacing it with a house. Then rebuild the business outside the walls. [Pretty much the ONLY reason you don't want structures outside of the city walls is because when a siege starts, those businesses shut down. HOWEVER, if you are a Councilman or higher, you most likely are paying off the local lord's demands = improved lord mood = NO siege = no businesses being shut down.]

I always try to build two or three houses as soon as I can in a town - as close to the Church or Minister and the centre of the town, these get upgraded to Patrician Houses first.

Then I try to "reserve" space inside the first town walls for housing I may need later - build some of the "Cheaper Businesses" - Sawmill / Clay Pit - or Farms - again try to get them in the best of the prime positions around the Church or Minister. These "Cheap Businesses" can be demolished later and houses built on these plots. The business can be rebuilt outside the city walls - if space is tight - or further out if the city walls have been expanded.

Houses are a good steady source of income and I believe that they increase your reputation in a city.

(02-07-2011 08:12 PM)billyplod Wrote:  I always try to build two or three houses as soon as I can in a town - as close to the Church or Minister and the centre of the town, these get upgraded to Patrician Houses first.

Then I try to "reserve" space inside the first town walls for housing I may need later - build some of the "Cheaper Businesses" - Sawmill / Clay Pit - or Farms - again try to get them in the best of the prime positions around the Church or Minister. These "Cheap Businesses" can be demolished later and houses built on these plots. The business can be rebuilt outside the city walls - if space is tight - or further out if the city walls have been expanded.

Houses are a good steady source of income and I believe that they increase your reputation in a city.

I may try that. Seems to be a better way then just waiting for them new ones to fill.
it also seems it would work as your demolishing a bussiness your freeing people to move in to your houseing if you rebuild the bussiness a day or 2 before you demolish the old one espesialy if its near your own houseing.and build a new house( condo's) close to the central area to attract the hoity toity set.

Early on I stop the AI from building by placing squares - I demolish these later when I want build new houses and businesses. At the same time I build three business outside the city wall and at the limit the wall will expand two. The AI will expand the wall. Then it is a case of building more squares. It is expensive (and an cheat) but it does restrict the AI.
Later in the game I also move around the towns as lord mayor and develop the number of Churchs, hospitals etc.

(04-07-2011 01:03 PM)Sharpe Wrote:  Early on I stop the AI from building by placing squares

I thought you had to be the Mayor to build those (as well as placing fountains). I must have been making an erroneous assumption.

Hmm. You place a square and you _own_ the lot. What a sneaky way to become the local real estate tycoon with total control of the city's development!

Don't need to be Mayor just sneaky :-))
One of the reasons I do it so I have total control of town layout.
However, you do waste a lot of money but I think it is worth it.

yea as long as you have a counting house you can build the large wells close in and move them farther out later to put houses, i think the wells also provide you a rep boost and prevent plague and all that.

I keep 1.5 house per business in every town, that's 15 houses of mine for every 10 workshop total in the city, that way the AI doesn't build any more houses and getting them to take down businesses later in the game is much easier than their houses

The only problem with 1.5 houses is when you have built everything (filled all the space up) I found I had an in balance of houses and businesses. Using the squares it is easy later in the game to fine tune.

Tear down the houses and build facilties...in that case it doesn't matter at all!

Lebe jeden Tag, als wäre es Dein Letzter! / Live each day as it would be your last!

For me building squares is cheaper up front and a quick fix

(07-07-2011 10:32 AM)Sharpe Wrote:  For me building squares is cheaper up front and a quick fix

In my current game I am following your advice and early on filled up ALL of Reval with squares, so now I am the ONLY one that can build anything inside the town walls. An interesting side-effect has been happening: Normally, the current "owner" of the town runs these videos of outrage when you start building things in "his" town. But once I built the squares -- which I demolish whenever I build a house; businesses are going outside the town walls -- I haven't heard a peep from him since. Nor has he attempted ANY sabotage, despite having built about 10 businesses and 10 houses. I'm wondering, if _he_ can't build anything in town, does he no longer care that _you_ are expanding your holdings?

Followup on the "build squares everywhere" strategy.

Since having done so, I've built 20+ businesses and 20+ houses in Reval. During 11 game-months that I have been doing this, the competitor in Reval hasn't done anything to hinder my development. I even scaled the warehouse guards back to 3 (in a town of @6000) and _nothing_ bad has happened there.

Meanwhile, over in London (population <5000), I've annoyed the guy that "was there first" by building _4_ houses and _4_ businesses and he has already sent saboteurs at me twice (prompting me to hire _18_ guards, which foiled both sabotage attempts).

it probably also forces the other guy to force the city wall expansion.

the sabotage missions must be offered in the tavern of Reval. Only then the local KI can use it. He also has to have enough money for it (600k? i think). I get messages about this more often from towns where a "stronger" KI is based (Lübeck, Danzig,...)

Lebe jeden Tag, als wäre es Dein Letzter! / Live each day as it would be your last!

(12-07-2011 03:55 AM)Easy Bakes Wrote:  it probably also forces the other guy to force the city wall expansion.

Hasn't happened since I filled up the town with square five months ago (June 1370; it's now November). No indication that a new wall has been started.

---

(12-07-2011 09:34 AM)Dorimil Wrote:  the sabotage missions must be offered in the tavern of Reval. Only then the local KI can use it. He also has to have enough money for it (600k? i think). I get messages about this more often from towns where a "stronger" KI is based (Lübeck, Danzig,...)

The saboteurs have been showing up at the Tavern on a regular basis. (They've practically taken up residence, they can be found there so often.) I'm definitely not using them, and either the NPC can't afford them or isn't interested in using them either.

I use saboteurs often, just because I got money to throw away and sometimes it works, sometimes...

I did notice some AIs being very aggressive and some being the complete opposite. I like that they're different, but they still all fail to provide significant competition!

(12-07-2011 07:23 PM)ReCeVeR Wrote:  but they still all fail to provide significant competition!

That pretty much describes the entire game. Competitors, pirates, whatever, the outcome is pretty inevitable: you win; they lose. It seems the interest in P4 isn't so much winning as it is simply the appreciation of seeing what you are building grow and prosper.

After filling up with squares the AI often builds a few businesses outside the wall, if not I do, then the AI will often build the wall.

(16-07-2011 02:49 AM)luluxiu Wrote:  If the main problem is that it simply is zero room walls, to establish what, but you are desperate to expand housing, consider the removal of the business within the walls of the house instead....

yes that what they are trying to do for this sceanerio, to promote
houseing for the upper classes.but the AI merchants always fill up
the closer spaces with their own houses very soon in the game if you dont beat them to it. you fill it with cheep squares and big wells you remove later for houses when you need them.