Wait, follow up reply to my earlier one, when you say mercenary army, what exactly do you mean? Does that include guys like Armand, Aiko, Jack, and Loren or do you just mean the expensive $300+ combat oriented ones with Ammo Pack? Because while the expensive Ammo Pack mercenaries can be ignored and not hired, mercs and servants like Armand and Aiko are more crucial and your financial straits might be helped by Armand.
I should probably explain how to gain cash passively outside of workshops and selling slaves at auctions.
Here is my current economy screen at day 357 and I will break down how I got each source of passive income:
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City Investments is done via interacting with certain stores and red human icons around the city and outlying regions. You will know it because they have an Invest button option. Read the fine print first. Some of them have demerits like Falth's mercenaries. Some aso have risks like Gero's who can straight up be eliminated by police forces. The risk for Gero is lessened a lot by having Rebecca as Skullduggerist.
Aimee's Goods is easy. You probably already have access to her store. You just upgrade things in the Location Menu and it earns her profit. Orphanage, located in the swamps, allows you to invest in them too (through Location Menu again) once your power value is high enough. Toshi's Garden requires you to have Mai Lynn, asked her background while at Amiable+ affection, and you bring her as a follower in your party while you go to Toshi's Garden. The problem here is how to gain enough money to afford these upgrades which is where the Workshop comes in
(note: Toshi's Garden income will be at $600+ once I purchased the last remaining upgrade at ~$1mil.
The small time investments should be pretty self explanatory and you probably already have them so lets go straight to the big ones.
First, the fixed price ones (you pay one time, they give you money):
Wrool Cat Wranglers just requires you to pay a one time investment of $90k. They are located in the Procoms district.
Walton's Smithery requires your Influence to be at 10k (note:
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). You initiate conversation with the owner and you pay $200k upfront. Workshop is crucial in earning this much money faster.
Roo's General Store requires either high influence or a decent MC power value (15) according to the wiki. Could be wrong, its confusing, I will check later. You pay $75k upfront.
Caitlyn's Clinic is done by completing Caitlin's long questline, asking her her Hopes and Dreams, going to NPC Menu ---> Actions ---> Free Slave makes her a Servant and not a Slave. You do it and then you dismiss her. She will automatically build a clinic in Westside. You upgrade that clinic via its Location Menu and once you reach certain upgrades like hiring a spare doctor, it will tell you that you can hire Caitlin back to your house again. You can enslave her again if you wish to. Save before dismissing her in case you fuck up.
Now for the scaling investments (note that some of my income from these do not represent the cap for them because I am still at day 357; day 1000 players will have these even higher):
Carozza Hall. You can invest in them once your influence reaches 20k. It is best to donate swords and rifles to House Carozza. You can opt to create those in your workshop. It is best to donate after political events where their power is lowered by ~90. You can get up to 70 standing legitimately with House Carozza. Any more than that might require some exploit I do not know of.
Taverns is from you
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. There are two of them. You can build a tavern in one and assign workers and a bartender in it. Doyle Bekker is the recommended bartender because of his age and Extroverted trait, intelligence, charisma, and a bonus roll that he has (same bonus roll as Ansel). Taverns slowly grind reputation which determines their income and you can speed it up by carousing in your own tavern. You can also enable gambling and enable prostitution there which provides more income. My tavern has 1000/1000 reputation, fully upgraded, but prostitution is turned off so you can earn more income than mine.
Caliphate is from donating Merchandise to the Mosque in Procoms, which is where NPCs with Scavenger trait come in handy (Laika, Loden, Kelly, Ansel, Jack, Bud, etc.). I do not need to be a Muslim to donate or earn income from there. This here is still at low standing so you can earn much more when it is capped at 70 standing.
Odensborg is from the Warrior's Hall in Watery Eyes. Aesir is my religion and I own the Warrior's Hall after donating a lot of slaves, swords, and rifles to it to get to 100 standing. I currently am at 150 standing and that income can still grow if I keep donating to them. Alternatively, you can for the Catholic Church instead.
Fort Sera is a quest that automatically pops up at 4k influence. You will own it at the end of the quest chain and donating captured slaves to it raises its power to 100. Donating captured slaves with ID number between 5 to 15 raises it higher than 100. The more power, the more income. Having 200+ men is important for Fort Sera because it can trigger the Political Event where Ikaanos recruits men from Fort Sera and in turn gives you Republic Standing.
Lastly, Accountants: That is the power of a 120 Administration stat Accountant. Armand Blackford and Adrienne Keller has +45% bonus to their accountant earnings and Armand starts with a much higher statline than Adrienne. You can only assign one accountant. So what you do is assign Armand, put Adrienne to school in Administration and Domestic Art so she gains 120 Administration. Then you remove Armand from his job and assign Adrienne. You can then put Armand in school or dismiss him if you do not like having guys around your house.
(One properly domesticated wrool cat does better job at night than a house full of mercs who can't be bothered to work the night shift.)
