Shortly after the magical midnight that causes four years to pass in the blink of an eye, I notice that Georg has quite a lot of unspent experience points. Apparently achieving milestone events in life earns you XP and gaining the Yeoman title counts as a milestone. You need to spend those XP to gain levels and since access to higher tiers of buildings is linked to levels, I go ahead and put some points into Handicrafts and Constitution (don’t want to keel over and die before I manage to beget some young ‘uns). This is enough to push Georg up to level 2.
I’ve also shrewdly saved up enough to build a Public House, which is the good and wholesome kind of pub. I believe that the rogue class can open another type that is really a front for a brothel. I’ve chosen the Public House for a couple of reasons: 1) at 1,750 it’s not too expensive and 2) it produces both weak beer and porridge, at least to start with. Weak beer is made with wheat and alcohol, while alcohol is made with fruits. Since I own an Orchard I have plenty of fruits but I’ll still need to buy the wheat that’s required for both the weak beer and the porridge from the market. The game automatically picks the name ‘The Laughing Scoundrel’ for my pub. I build it right across the road from my orchard but there’s a pesky carpenter’s shop between the two buildings.
I also learn that the day-night cycle isn’t just cosmetic. Your employees actually go home in the evening and come back when it’s morning. Except for the poor handcart pusher who doesn’t count as an employee. But your business will stay open and sell goods on its own as long as it’s stocked. While I’m busy finding out how a pub works, I unexpectedly get a message saying that Georg has been elected Guildmaster of the Patrons. This comes as a surprise since Georg has gone nowhere near the guildhouse. In fact, I didn’t even know Georg was a member of the guild! I suspect Georg was elected only because he’s the only patron in town to own two patron-class businesses. Wait, this Muresan dude who is guildmaster of the tradesmen has a little flag next to his name, just like Georg. Gasp! Does that mean he’s the head of my rival dynasty?
At about 10.00 AM the employees of new pub finally show up for work and we get our first customer who comes in for a breakfast of porridge and beer. I discover that I can tell Georg or my employees to perform the “Serve Customers” action but it doesn’t actually seem necessary and I have no idea how it helps so I leave everyone on food production. With my pub up and running now, I set my sights on getting a wife since Georg isn’t getting any younger. The game helpfully provides you with a list of the most suitable partners for Georg. I notice that 90% of the women on that list are rogues who I eliminate because I want someone capable of helping to run the businesses I already have. There are no patron-class eligible women at all. So I pick Julia Halliday, the youngest of the available craftswomen.
Georg tracks down Julia in town and suavely approaches her. And that’s all it takes to start a courtship. Georg get a bunch of special actions such as “Compliment”, “Embrace”, “Kiss” etc. but except for “Gift” all of them are on a cooldown so you can’t spam them. You get a progress bar on how far long the courtship is going. Georg duly buys Julia an oak ring as a gift and settles down to a routine of running to her to perform a courtship action whenever it’s available while spending the majority of his time in his pub.
And before I know it, it’s evening and the end of the season already. I spend quite a bit of money on improving my pub. There’s a sort of tech tree for each building with each tier locked to a specific level of building. I pretty much upgrade everything that I can at my tier, which according to the descriptions, improve my pub’s attractiveness to customers and reduces the risks of fire and burglary. I’d hoped to marry Julia in the summer but like the employees she goes to sleep (in a common worker’s cottage that I’m not allowed to look inside) in the evening. Georg spends the whole night working at the pub making more beer. He doesn’t seem to need any sleep. We sold our whole stock of beer that we made in the daytime!
Georg marries Julia as soon as possible in Autumn 1408. The game asks you whether you want to get married right here, right now for free or in the church for 900. I picked the free option because I’m saving up for something big. Julia turns into a controllable character and I whisk the two of them straight back home for the consummation. You get a special action to “Spend the night together”. They go into the bedroom and close the door.
With both of my characters unavailable I spend some time mucking around in the interface. I discover that there’s a diary that records all important events in the game. The game occasionally tells me of special deals, so-and-so offers a bounty for a certain number of weapons etc., but I don’t know how to work them. All this is recorded in the diary. More interestingly, I notice that Georg is an eyewitness to a crime. Unfortunately the crime seems to have been committed against my rival so there’s not much incentive for me to go to the town hall to do something about it.
Eventually Georg finishes his business in the bedchamber and Julia gets a little nursing icon on her portrait. She stays in the room and I suspect she’ll be out of commission for a while. Georg decides to renovate the house while Julia is still inside it. We wouldn’t want the baby to be born in a hovel, do we? It costs a pretty penny and takes a long time to complete, but it’s gratifying to see the hut turn into a proper house. But then I notice that my next-door neighbor already has a house and it has a little flying pennant on it! It turns out my rival dynasty was living next to me the whole time and I never noticed! Is it just me or does his house even look shiner than mine?
Next: welcoming a baby and spying on the neighbors!
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