fable: how to own the town of oakvale
fable is one of the greatest games ever made, and as far as how free will is implemented in fable, few video games even come close. that said, i've started to have some fun to see just how far i can push the game's limits. this post documents my findings. here i list various things i've done, how well they worked out if they worked out, and how you can do the same things. but first i've got a little q and a.

q and a

"tyler, what do u have that i don't?" you say. well i don't know what you have, but here's what i've got. currently in the world of albion, i own the entire town of oakvale: nine houses [one's really a barn, but it lists as a house], the weapons shop, the clothes shop, and the tavern. the combined purchased property value of the town is 200,000F [i don't know the albion denomination, so i'm gonna use F for Fable cuz it's my site and i can do what i want]. i've rented out the entire town netting about 4,000F every day. i own a fully upgraded 16,000F house in bowerstone where i live with my lovely "ode to a tree" singing wife, belinda [yes, i named her]. i also own a fully upgraded 20,000F house in knothole glade where i live with my second wife, nadia. she doesn't sing as much and doesn't tell me i'm norty in bed, but she's still a pretty decent wife. i also right now have a little over 100,000F in cash.

"tyler, have you beaten the game yet?" no, surprisingly. the last quest i finished was rescuing my mom from the prison. after that i decided to take a little break, and screw around. thus the birth that it is this post. i've recently just started the courtship with lady grey, but i don't like her much [in an alternate timeline i beat the crap out of her until she cried. then i felt better].

"so what have you done?" well, as i said, i own the town of oakvale. this was a little bit of a challenge, but a very cool learning experience about the world within fable. so here's how to do it.

"owning oakvale" tutorial

1. kill the homeowners. you can do this by killing people randomly and seeing if any real estate comes available, but i've got a few recommendations based on my own trial and error.

1a. location, location, location. the first rule in real estate, and the first rule in killing real estate owners. the best place i've found to kill the people of albion is right in their home. its less likely that someone else will see you if you kill your victim in the privacy of their own home as opposed to when they're out and about the town. this is also good if you want to start your empire by buying houses in proximity to one another. this way you ensure you're getting the right property. i first bought all the houses on the block where i grew up.

1b. time of day. the best times i've found to visit someone in their home are either just before sun up when they're still sleeping [oakvalians are night owls so they're always up pretty late, and they don't sleep very long either], right at sunset if its a shop owner [they come home and rest before going to the tavern] or randomly in the middle of the day when they're doing their little strolls. if you kill everyone that lives in that home, or in the case of shops, everyone that works there, the house will almost immediately come up for sale. many times, i've no sooner resheathed my sword than i receive a message indicating that a house has come available for purchase.

1c. weapon of choice. any melee weapon. get in their space [cornering them works well] and lay into 'em. don't waste time and risk getting caught using spells. even if you're a preferred will user. just handle it and get out.

1d. lockpick. for entry, i suggest upgrading your guile to level 6. you'll earn the lockpick expression which allows you to gain entry to homes in a very unnoticeable way [that is unless someone is home and possibly awake]. its similar to the steal expression in that it is a timed expression which you can get busted committing if you're caught before you're finished. without lockpick, you can still enter via a locked door, you just have to bust the door open, which is highly noticeable, and sometimes you may not even get into the house before you get busted by the guards. sure you can fight and kill the guards, but you can't kill them infinitely which is how they'll replenish.

1e. assassin outfit. i also suggest the assassin outfit, especially if you're going the stealthy route. i didn't understand it till i got the whole thing and put it on, but it actually does reduce your visibiliy. people just don't seem to notice you. especially at night. if you're standing on a porch by a front door in the assassin outfit, a guard can walk right by you and many times won't even see you.

1f. slow time. get it. use it, and for fun [though not needed here], upgrade the shit out of it. besides being EASILY one of the best combat spells in the game, it proves very useful in other areas as well. like here. i use it right after i finish picking the lock and the door opens. that way i can move quickly through the house, negotiating furniture with speed, can locate and eliminate all homeowners on the property, and can then recall out before anybody even sees me. almost literally. before i started using slow time, once i got stuck between some stupid chairs and the homeowner had enough time to yell to a guard before i could negotiate the stupid furniture to kill him. guards were on me almost instantly. this is compounded when there are multiple people living in the home. handle your business quickly and get out before you get caught. i don't even grab the bags they live behind. just the orbs.

1g. creeping. if you click and hold down the left thumbstick when you move, supposedly you move more quietly. you definitely move slower. you also have a much wider turn radius, so you need to account for that by going widely around things, otherwise you get stuck between some stupid chairs [ie: me]. so far, i haven't seen any benefit to creeping. they always still notice i'm there. it may be because i just opened their door, but even when i creep upstairs, they wake up as i approach them. so i don't know. more on creeping if information comes available.

1h. getting caught. "what if i get caught?" you say. breaking a door open is a fine of 150F, but killing someone is 2,000F. if you can't afford that, recall out of there. the "statute of limitations" on murder is 8 minutes. so do something somewhere else till the time expires [ie: using slow time to win at bar games]. you can always check how much time is left via the map. for a while, when i'd get caught [it took me about two hours to get the whole skillset down], i'd just bail. but after a while, i got tired of waiting the 8 minutes for the fine to expire [you can't sleep it off. i tried]. and i had made enough money already, so i just started paying the fines [it as also 2am in rl and i was getting tired myself]. everybody hates you for a while cuz you're a known criminal, but sometimes if you do some good deeds, they'll love you again. but if you're worried about your own alignment, or are just a greedy bastard, bail. your choice.

1i. the tavern. once you've built up enough capital by collecting rent on your homes, you can then try to get the taverns and shops which are significantly more expensive. i learned this one the repetitive way. in order to make the tavern become available for purchase, you have to eliminate several people: the bartender, two waitresses [who i always thought were just women hanging around, but apparently have some vested interest in the property, thus i say waitresses. course there are beds upstairs so you could say whores just as easily], the guy that does the card games, and the bard [i didn't mind killing the bard so much. he's annoying. that smug little "i know your life" attitude. i didn't appreciate it. in fact, i did the town a favor. one less wandering minstrel in albion. they should be thanking me].

1j. the shops. if you've already purchased all the homes in albion and now want to purchase the shops, then you're in a quandry like i was. killing someone in their own store is very difficult to do without being seen [i haven't been able to do it]. "but if i don't kill him in the store, how do i find him later?" you ask. well as it turns out, the clothing shop owner lives directly across the street from the house you grew up in. i'll have to look into where the weapons shop owner lives [by killing him and seeing which house comes available]. the way i found this out was just pure old school detective shit: stakeout. i waited outside his shop for him to close up, and hopefully go home. it took about 20 real world minutes, but pretty much right at dusk, he closed up shop, stood outside for a minute just looking around, then chatted it up with the guard. then finally, he casually strolled home [where i followed him in, killed him, and cullised my ass out of there, it still being daylight, and me being in my civies].

2. buy their property. go to the sign outside the house near the front door, and click the a button to purchase the house or shop. the houses and shops in oakvale range between 4,500F and 16,000F [fully upgraded]. the weapons shops is worth 31,000F, the clothing shop is worth 34,000F, and the tavern costs a whopping 36,000F.

3. rent it out. as soon as you buy it, you'll receive the option to rent it out. do this. here's the thing with renting: your occupants pay you rent daily. they do this by leaving a bag of money outside their door [near the rent sign] for you to pick up. you just show up and walk over it to get the money. here's the catch. they will only leave up to three bags of cash [one for each day of rent] outside at any one time [the clothes shop will only leave two. i don't know why]. if you don't come by the house and pick up your cash at least every three days, you're basically letting them live in your house rent-free.

3a. cost. "how much is rent?" you ask. for all homes, rent is 5% of the homes current value paid to you daily. so if you're collecting every three days like i do, then every three days, you're collecting 15% of the house's worth. that's pretty good. also, with the first home you purchase in oakvale, you'll have a few different levels to which you can upgrade it as well. each time you upgrade your house, it will also be reflected in the rent. minimum rent for a house is 225F. maximum is 800F. again, that's daily. the two shops and the tavern work a bit differently. the tavern will only pay rent at 2% of the building's worth, but because the tavern is worth considerably more than the houses, 720F is still a nice sum to receive daily. the weapons shop and the clothing shop is where it gets sucky-sucky. both only pay rent at .2%. for the weapons shops, that's a whopping 62F. the clothing shop fetches 68F, and also maxes out at two days rent [real nice on a 34,000F property]. i'm sure there is a reason for the huge discrepancy [the guys who made this game did a great job building complexity into the world of albion], but i haven't yet figured out what that reason is. i've heard that once you own the shop, you get a discount on its items, but i've yet to see it. the little pricks even try to overcharge me. do they not know i killed the guy before them for less? i guess not. anyways, i may not be seeing the discount on account of the fact that my scary quotient currently sits at -24, or maybe i'm not wearing the right outfit. currently i sport the fully fashionable bright villager outfit [i try to be like william shatner and live like common people, and do whatever common people do]. more on this alleged discount as information comes available.

4. sleep six times and go collect your rent. sleeping six times equals the passing of three days in albion. "but where do i sleep?" you say. at first i would just cullis recall back to knothole glade and sleep there. you know, spend time with the mrs. [second mrs]. but then i remembered the abandoned house on the southeast beach of oakvale. nobody lives there, and you don't get in trouble for sleeping there, so when i'm visiting oakvale for cash, i sleep there. no cullis travel, and its pretty quick to run through town holding down the b button and collecting just under 12,000F for about 3 minutes of work [by work, i mean sleep]. i even have a little course i run where i never even have to stop moving. its nice. anyway, i suppose you could buy another home to sleep in, but id rather get rent money and sleep in the beachhouse. its a nicer view to wake up to, anyway.

5. repeat step 4 till you have enough cash to buy another house [or other desired items]. then repeat the whole process. so far, there seems to be no adverse effect to sleeping three days at a time, then collecting rent, then sleeping for another three days, and so on. not only does your health not dissipate, it actually regenerates when needed. i suppose the wives may feel neglected after a while, but while i was working to take over oakvale, i figure i was gone for about a month albion time, and they didn't seem to mind when i returned, but were just as happy as ever. tho that may have been because when i returned, i fully upgraded both of their houses [among other things]. they definitely noticed that. in fact, if i do say so myself, my two houses look pretty nice inside.

and that concludes my "how to own everything nailed down in oakvale" tutorial. Matt @ 5:30 PM