Is Weapon Production Worth it?

[Asophix 45]

In previous Stronghold entries, weapon workshops are a cornerstone of a steady industry, sparing money in the long run. As it is well-known, workshops pay for themselves by using much cheaper resources from your stockpile.

Legends is the first Stronghold game toying with the idea of expensive buildings. The game tried to promote a much slower development to slow down industrial output, therefore putting a dent into workshop accessibility. How has this affected overall trends?

Workshops in SHL cost uniformly 50 wood - barely 4 woodcutter trips - and a variable amount of gold. Moreover, they also produce at different paces (fast is roughly 1.5x speed, slow is 0.5x - 0.66x compared to normal speed) and every one of them delivers one unit. The workshops have the following statistics:

• Poleturner (costs 150 gold, wood included):
  • Spears: requiring 1 wood (2g), one spear (10g) brings +8g profit. Would cost 15g if bought. Fast production speed. Pays for itself after 11 cycles.
  • Pikes: requiring 1 wood (2g), one pike (18g) brings +16g profit. Would cost 20g if bought. Average production speed. Pays for itself after 6 cycles.
• Fletcher (costs 250 gold, wood included):
  • Bows + crossbows: requiring 1 wood (2g), one weapon (15g) brings +13g profit. Would cost 30g if bought. Pays for itself after 17 cycles.
    • Bows are produced at average speed, while crossbows are made slowly.
• Blacksmith (costs 300 gold, wood included):
  • Swords: requiring 1 iron (50g), one sword (42g) brings -8g profit. Would cost 48g if bought. Average production speed. Does not pay for itself! If iron is not bought, then pays for itself after 151 cycles (breaking even in 150).
  • Maces: requiring 1 iron (50g), one mace (42g) brings -8g profit. Would cost 44g if bought. Slower production speed. Does not pay for itself! If iron is not bought, then pays for itself after 151 cycles (breaking even in 150).
• Armorer (costs 250 gold, wood included):
  • Requiring 1 iron (50g), one plate armor (44g) brings -6g profit. Would cost 50g if bought. Slow production speed. Does not pay for itself! If iron is not bought, then pays for itself after 43 cycles.
• Tanner (costs 150 gold, wood included):
  • Requiring nothing(!), one leather armor brings +12g profit. Would cost 15g if bought. Fast production speed. Pays for itself after 11 cycles (breaking even in 10).

Without factoring in distance from the stockpile and armoury each, we can clearly see that tanners and poleturners give the biggest return of investment over time, if their required material is supplied from the market. Tanners are the best choice for pure profit, since they don't require anything.

The key takeaway is that refining iron into equipment yields very negligible profit. Iron sells for 40g apiece, therefore the blacksmith/armorer must operate for an excruciatingly long period in order to pay for itself.

The final nail in the coffin for ironmakers is the vast selling price of iron. Selling for 40g apiece, the loss on buying up metal equipment ranges from 4g to 10g. These marginal differences eliminate the large need for our smithies. While tanners are far from the most ideal income generators, it is most wise to build them if all deposits are saturated and space is limited, as food production vastly outclasses them.

TL;DR: if you are forced into workshops, build tanners and maybe poleturners creating spears, otherwise ignore workshops if you can't place iron mines! 😄