As someone who is trying to build a great village and establish themselves as a powerful Jarl in Norse: Oath Of Blood, your allies are very important. As the village grows, so do your opportunities, including those of trade and recruitment.
To keep building on the foundations you have crafted for a prosperous community, you must establish good trade between neighbors. This could mean the difference between your people starving and unable to fight, or growing strong for the next battle. Here is everything you need to know about how to unlock trade and recruitment in Norse: Oath Of Blood.
How To Trade And Recruit
When you first arrive at Sudrvík to establish your new village, you have very few allies and no established trade. A random trader turns up on a boat at one point, but he warns you that his return won’t be for a long while, so it is clear that’s not going to be particularly helpful in the long term.
You will need to build up the very basics of your village before you can unlock trade, and help out with a couple of missions in nearby villages first to gain allies. Trade is eventually unlocked by turn 16, and after that point, you can start trading goods and recruiting Hirdmen from any ally or neutral village.
To access Trading and Recruiting, open the Map and zoom out to see the entire area. On the map, you will see allied and neutral villages in white and enemy villages in red.
You will also see available missions in red, each one showing the rank level required.
To trade, click on a village and then select Trade. The screen will show the goods available to purchase on the right, along with the amount of Hacksilver the ally has to spend.
If the neighbor notes an item is ‘In Demand‘, you can use this to your advantage, as they are willing to pay more for this resource or item than others may be.
The items under the In Demand section are what they have to sell. If any of those items are highlighted in blue, that means they are at a 50% increased price due to being In Demand.
The item that the village requires will be highlighted in blue on your side of the screen, where you can also see other items you could sell, how much they are currently worth, and how many of each you hold.
Don’t sell all of your resources or items, as you may need them to craft weapons, armor, and clothing.
The trick to a good deal is to look over each available item in detail, including what each person has marked as In Demand. You can create some money from nothing by buying cheap from one village and selling it at a higher price to another. For example:
- Skiringssalr are selling Fiber at the regular price of 5 Hacksilver.
- Kaupang are buying it for 10 Hacksilver
- You make a profit of 5 Hacksilver per Fiber
If you have plenty of one resource and need to get a few of another, a healthy exchange usually means spending very little Hacksilver. Try to balance the books as much as possible by selling enough of what they require to make up the price of what you need to purchase. For example:
- You need Riches, and your ally is selling them for 89 Hacksilver each. This becomes expensive if you have nothing to trade, but luckily, you have a surplus of Fish Oil.
- They can buy Fish Oil for 10 Hacksilver each, so you sell 50 Fish Oil in exchange for 5 Riches, giving you an extra 55 Hacksilver.
All items for trade are restocked every few turns, noted on the screen when you open Trading.
Recruitment is easy, but expensive, hence the need for plenty of Hacksilver. Each new recruit has all details marked on the info panel beside them, including the warrior type such as Drengr, rank, and skill in the village.
They are usually priced between 600 – 900 Hacksilver, more if they are a high rank like a Housecarl, Legend, or Einherjar. Recruit only the best you can get, and don’t waste money on hiring a recruit just because they are available. As the game progresses, you will gain more village members just by completing missions and expanding your village.
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