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About this mod
Economy and realism mod for roleplayers. Reduces item prices and drains much of the world of its gold, creating an atmosphere of scarcity befitting an RPG set in the medieval age. Also introduces a strict merchant specialization system. A must for players desiring a realistic economy that "makes sense" and feels organic.
- Permissions and credits
Welcome to SME, the Skyrim Medieval Economy.
This is a comprehensive economy, item, loot, and questreward overhaul that attempts to bring the economic situation of Skyrim into line with what one might expect from a genuine late medieval setting. Gold is scarce, items are expensive, rare items are very rare and un-purchasable....
SME is different from all those other economy mods because it brings an unparalleled level of verisimilitude and balance to the in-game economy, a balance that reflects, from a rational perspective, how things “should be” if Skyrim were truly a real place.
SME accomplishes this through a combined approach to all the economic subsystems present within Skyrim, including:
1. Rigorously rebuilding merchant inventories based upon a lore, location, and real world/historical heuristic.
2. Extending this rebuild to cover the classes of items that a merchant will accept to buy and sell.
3. Modifying the prices of nearly every in-game item to reflect a more realistic value.
4. Modifying quest rewards to fit in with the rest of the economy.
5. Modifying asset (houses, land, livestock) and other miscellaneous (carriage, ferry, trainers, bribe) costs.
6. Eliminating nearly all of the “leveled” nature of Skyrim, including NPC equipment, reward values, and loot.
7. Complete overhaul/redesign of the loot system featuring scrupulously lore-friendly, entirely unique loot subsets that only appear within specific dungeon contexts (e.g. Dwarven ruin, Draugr crypt, necromancer, warlock, Falmer hive, Imperial fort, etc.).
8. Massive gold deflation throughout the economy, bringing costs into better alignment with actual historical values.
In the SME world, rural blacksmiths will only trade in iron; city smiths in iron and steel; general merchants will adhere to their role in the economy and sell only limited classes and quality of items (dry goods, clothes, salt, alcohol, tools, etc.); fletchers will only trade in bows and related paraphernalia; alchemists sell local ingredients and craft potions related to their geographical location; farm stands will sell local produce and products; and inns will sell local favorites befitting the economic “station” of the establishment.
Each and every merchant in the game has an entirely unique, custom-made Formlist and merchant inventory, meaning that there is specialization and variety for literally every merchant in the game, rather than the leveled, bland, homogenous mess that was vanilla.
In SME, you cannot sell Skooma to Belethor anymore; nor that you can traffic and trade in the sale of Dwarven relics; nor find Glass Armor in ancient Nordic tombs; nor buy heavy armor from the Drunken Huntsman; nor Daedric daggers from Adrianne; nor a thousand other oddities and irrationalities that Bethesda first left us with.
In SME, easy quests pay a pittance: if you want something expensive, actually work for it and do something worth being paid for.
In SME, a character's primary source of income comes from looting: but beware, items no longer fetch quite the price that they used to, and most items are too cheap to profitably be resold.
Hopefully the purpose of SME is coming into clearer focus. It is an acquired taste, but lends itself to very rewarding gameplay if you enjoy realism and a good roleplay.
COMPATIBILITY:
SME touches a vast range of vanilla assets (nearly all items, heaps of Globals, Leveled Lists, Formlists) and, as such, is not really compatible with other large overhauls of either gameplay or the economy (patches are possible, however).
SME is intended for a vanilla-ish playthrough and tends to be the centerpiece of a mod list.
Mods that add new things to the game, such as weapon and armor mods, should be fine, though their resell values will be somewhat inflated versus vanilla equipment. Mods that add in or change leveled lists for items or loot will conflict with or otherwise alter the distribution of gear in the game, though your mileage may very in terms of tolerating this.
Mods that change assets or subsystems unrelated to the vanilla economy, items, and loot, will be completely compatible with this mod.
NOTE: The SME file structure uses a Master File which will be overwritten by other mods that conflict with it. So you can use conflicting mods if you want to and they will “win” the conflict and thus appear in your actual game.
OPTIONALS:
There are a number of optional files listed under Downloads,each of which I recommend, but none of which are required to run the mod. They will bring more subsystems into alignment with the main mod, but you are totally fine if you want to ignore them and run another mod.
This is a comprehensive economy, item, loot, and questreward overhaul that attempts to bring the economic situation of Skyrim into line with what one might expect from a genuine late medieval setting. Gold is scarce, items are expensive, rare items are very rare and un-purchasable....
SME is different from all those other economy mods because it brings an unparalleled level of verisimilitude and balance to the in-game economy, a balance that reflects, from a rational perspective, how things “should be” if Skyrim were truly a real place.
SME accomplishes this through a combined approach to all the economic subsystems present within Skyrim, including:
1. Rigorously rebuilding merchant inventories based upon a lore, location, and real world/historical heuristic.
2. Extending this rebuild to cover the classes of items that a merchant will accept to buy and sell.
3. Modifying the prices of nearly every in-game item to reflect a more realistic value.
4. Modifying quest rewards to fit in with the rest of the economy.
5. Modifying asset (houses, land, livestock) and other miscellaneous (carriage, ferry, trainers, bribe) costs.
6. Eliminating nearly all of the “leveled” nature of Skyrim, including NPC equipment, reward values, and loot.
7. Complete overhaul/redesign of the loot system featuring scrupulously lore-friendly, entirely unique loot subsets that only appear within specific dungeon contexts (e.g. Dwarven ruin, Draugr crypt, necromancer, warlock, Falmer hive, Imperial fort, etc.).
8. Massive gold deflation throughout the economy, bringing costs into better alignment with actual historical values.
In the SME world, rural blacksmiths will only trade in iron; city smiths in iron and steel; general merchants will adhere to their role in the economy and sell only limited classes and quality of items (dry goods, clothes, salt, alcohol, tools, etc.); fletchers will only trade in bows and related paraphernalia; alchemists sell local ingredients and craft potions related to their geographical location; farm stands will sell local produce and products; and inns will sell local favorites befitting the economic “station” of the establishment.
Each and every merchant in the game has an entirely unique, custom-made Formlist and merchant inventory, meaning that there is specialization and variety for literally every merchant in the game, rather than the leveled, bland, homogenous mess that was vanilla.
In SME, you cannot sell Skooma to Belethor anymore; nor that you can traffic and trade in the sale of Dwarven relics; nor find Glass Armor in ancient Nordic tombs; nor buy heavy armor from the Drunken Huntsman; nor Daedric daggers from Adrianne; nor a thousand other oddities and irrationalities that Bethesda first left us with.
In SME, easy quests pay a pittance: if you want something expensive, actually work for it and do something worth being paid for.
In SME, a character's primary source of income comes from looting: but beware, items no longer fetch quite the price that they used to, and most items are too cheap to profitably be resold.
Hopefully the purpose of SME is coming into clearer focus. It is an acquired taste, but lends itself to very rewarding gameplay if you enjoy realism and a good roleplay.
COMPATIBILITY:
SME touches a vast range of vanilla assets (nearly all items, heaps of Globals, Leveled Lists, Formlists) and, as such, is not really compatible with other large overhauls of either gameplay or the economy (patches are possible, however).
SME is intended for a vanilla-ish playthrough and tends to be the centerpiece of a mod list.
Mods that add new things to the game, such as weapon and armor mods, should be fine, though their resell values will be somewhat inflated versus vanilla equipment. Mods that add in or change leveled lists for items or loot will conflict with or otherwise alter the distribution of gear in the game, though your mileage may very in terms of tolerating this.
Mods that change assets or subsystems unrelated to the vanilla economy, items, and loot, will be completely compatible with this mod.
NOTE: The SME file structure uses a Master File which will be overwritten by other mods that conflict with it. So you can use conflicting mods if you want to and they will “win” the conflict and thus appear in your actual game.
OPTIONALS:
There are a number of optional files listed under Downloads,each of which I recommend, but none of which are required to run the mod. They will bring more subsystems into alignment with the main mod, but you are totally fine if you want to ignore them and run another mod.