This post is a summary of the history of Baukunst and what all we've done and learned through it, from our founding until now. All commissioners will remain anonymous unless they would like to make themselves known in the comments.

Baukunst is a business I founded back in June 2013. I've always had the thought in the back of my head that I wanted to own and run an architecture and design business, but never got around to it in 1.0 since I was focusing all my effort into getting my factory running, which was sadly "destroyed" by the reset. In the beginning of 2.0, Koentinius and I were probably the two major guys to influence Breslau's design and appearance to what it is today, but, being summer and having too much time on my hands, I decided to create Baukunst (German for "architecture," or more specifically "the art of building") to offer our building and designing abilities to the whole server.

So it started off a bit informally just as the two of us agreeing to design together for pay, but had no idea for how much pay to ask for. Our first client was actually a non-Prussian who wanted to have a house built in Breslau. We got to it, and within three days IIRC, we had finished our first commission. The building is now one of the first you'll see coming into Breslau from the CIC/Hauptbahnhof and we have received several compliments on it. That, combined with the bit of pay we got from it (29d for materials, design, and in-game construction), made us think "yeah, this is a cool idea."

Our next two commissions came in simultaneously and were both pretty far away from Breslau, which was a bit more difficult since they both convinced me to build it for them in-game. For this we began using our pricing policy of "3.5d per hour of labor as the minimum payment", which, coupled with quick building, means the minimum payment was rather low. Since everybody's idea of pricing for design is so radically different, they would then add a "tip" on top of the minimum price to what they feel the building was worth. For both these commissions, the amount of labor was about the same, but one paid me close to the minimum price (40d), while the other more than doubled it (to 90d). So, what people felt was fair differs dramatically but mostly hinges on, as far as I could tell, their own wealth and activity in Civcraft. Active players with a good bit of d pay generously (in some cases very generously), while relatively new players with most of their wealth in property (not d) tend to scrap together close to the minimum payment, which is fine since it's a minimum that we set.

The next handful of small commissions all came and went without much of a hitch, bringing in 57d. Around then (autumn 2013), we got our largest commission. The idea was simple, but it was just such a big project and would take so much effort, I could only guess the minimum price between 100d and 250d. However, we accepted it and began working. The commission went on but neither of us really had too much time to dedicate to Civcraft and Baukunst at the time, so it dragged on. I'll spare the details, but eventually both Baukunst and the commissioner became frustrated with the project and it was canceled, but in our contract (an actual written one from something this big), the commissioner owed us 150d due to the huge amount of time we had spent on it so far. The commissioner disappeared for a while and we weren't paid... That was frustrating.

I then looked back at our previous commissions, since during this time (spring 2014), we didn't do too much. I noticed that the areas surrounding the two simultaneous projects had actually grown to follow the projects. Several of the new buildings near them matched their style! I found that really fascinating.

Then, in the summer and autumn again, we got a wave of new commissions, including three from the same very generous commissioner, which was exciting, though one of the commissioners, unbeknownst to me upon accepting it, was seen by the community as rather sketchy. However, the commission went excellently without a problem. These 7 commissions brought in 628d. The trend in prices appeared to be going up, even discounting the generous tips. For reference, I would have, at this time, given our first commission a minimum cost of 50d. The 3.5d/hour baseline was being slowly replaced by estimates, which received no complaints or scared off any potential clients. I also noticed some designs others were doing and posting here on the main sub and it seems we were still way undercharging in relation to what others did and offered. But, I'm personally still content with our income from Baukunst. At this time we also finally received a "bankruptcy" payment, I guess I'd call it, from the huge commission at 10% of what it was written to be worth. I left it at that.

Eventually we also hired two more guys, specializing in interior design and redstone machinery, and we still have one ongoing redstone/factory project that will hopefully revive my dream of also building and running a factory, but it will still take a while.

And this brings us to around today. 13 completed commissions (only buildings even though we offered just about everything), a handful of others canceled due to MIA commissioners, 863d and about 18 months later, I can definitely say we've learned a lot. Civcraft is interesting, its marketplace and people even more so. I certainly don't regret ever having founded and managed Baukunst and I have certainly improved in my designing and building abilities. Had I wanted to be rich, I would have spent my time in a mine, which I have been told can bring in 100d per hour, but I find no joy in hacking away at stone.

Don't worry, this isn't a good-bye post. Just a due summary after 18 months of work! Baukunst will continue to stick around and maybe even hire another designer or two. Hopefully we'll also get to work on something other than buildings someday (subreddit CSS maybe? ^{wink wink admins} ). However, Koen and I are awfully busy and thus unavailable for hire for the next two or so months, which is one of the reasons I'm writing this now.

As always,

Cheers,

Gotter

And feel free to ask me (or us if Koen would also like to join in) anything about Baukunst and our experiences with it!