Merchant's house



Leonid turns his hut into the Merchant's house when you complete his tasks. There are 4 sections in its interface window.


 * 1) "Come out from" / "Come back in" countdown clock. This is terrible Russian-English translation that means "Leonid will be closing shop in:" and "Leonid will be re-opening his shop in:" and the clock counts down with his shop being open 1.5 hours and closed (Gone to hunt lions) for 1 hour. As of v1.2.1 he goes away and returns in real time, whether you have the game running or not.
 * 2) The Shop - the main section - where Leonid offers 4 items at any one time for sale. These are mostly scrolls, but occasionally you will also be offered blueprint "pieces" for one of the three new buildings. See the section below on how to get different items to be offered.
 * 3) Catalog - provides a description of all of the scrolls that may randomly be offered when the shop is open for business. It does not mention the blueprint pieces.
 * 4) Refresh / Return - A button to restock (replenish and refresh) the 4 items for sale. Costs 5€ for the pleasure. If the shop is open, Refresh will give you another 4 items for sale, but no guarantee as to whether the offerings will be any better for you. If Leonid is out hunting, Return will make him re-open immediately, whether there was 59min or 1min left on the clock, but does not change the offers on sale from when the shop was last open.

How to prompt Leonid to change the items being offered for sale?

You wait for Leonid to go hunting and return and notice that the 4 items being offered that you didn't want are (mostly) still there. What's going on? Think of his shop as having 4 shelfs only: The 1st (top of your "now on sale" list), 2nd, 3rd, and 4th (bottom). If you buy all 4 items, when he goes hunting and returns, all 4 items will be replaced with new random items. But if you buy only 1, 2, or 3 of the items, think of it as buying those items from that shelf. When Leonid goes hunting, (think of it as "Leonid has gone to his warehouse which is a 1hr return trip away"), Leonid only brings back enough new random items to refill those shelfs. "New" items are not placed at the "top" or "bottom" of the "list" as it is not a "list" as such, they are "shelves" or "slots".

So, say there is a scroll you don't want on the 1st shelf and a blueprint you already have on the 3rd shelf, but you buy the scrolls on the 2nd and 4th shelf. You wait, Leonid goes hunting (warehouse), you wait, Leonid returns. The 2nd and 4th shelf now have 2 new items. The 1st and 3rd shelves have not changed at all. If you keep buying something from the 2nd and/or 4th shelf, the 1st and 3rd shelf contents will NEVER change. Okay, now lets say you buy nothing during his 1.5hr "open" time. What happens? Leonid sees that his stock is stale, he takes the oldest item with him back to the warehouse and brings one (just one) new item back. So in the above example, he would replace the scroll you don't want on the 1st shelf. If you buy nothing again, he will then go and replace the 3rd shelf blueprint. Thus we can be tricky in seeing more choices quicker without spending Piastres. We get to the stage quickly where the shop has 3 or 4 items we don't want. If we buy an item we want as soon as we see it or if we buy nothing, then only 1 item is changed each 2.5+hrs. Do this 4 times and on the 5th visit there is still just 1 new choice for sale. But instead, when we see an item we want to buy appear, we leave it and come back in 2.5hrs, it will still be there and one of the other shelves will have changed. It may be something we want or not. Still don't buy anything, come back a third time, don't buy, come back a fourth time. There are now 1, 2, 3 or 4 items we want. Buy all the ones you want. If it's only that first one, you have gained and lost nothing. If you want to buy 2, 3, or 4 of them, then on the 5th visit you will have 2, 3, or 4 new choices and just gained 2.5, 5, or 7.5 hrs of waiting time (or purchasing stuff you don't want) to see those extra choices. Then repeat.

Note: The times above assume you are in the game. You can't just quit the game, wait 10 hours, come back and expect he's replaced 4 items. If you don't visit his shop during the 1.5hrs he is open, then when he goes hunting he does not take any item to replace. Further NOTE: I have not yet tested whether you have to actually visit his shop or just have the game open for all or part of that 1.5hrs.

Note: the replaced item is chosen randomly (weighted of course, the small scrolls are more common than the large ones), meaning you can have more than one of the same item on offer at any one time. I've not checked enough times statistically to see if when he replaces an item just sold or expired whether that item is checked to be a different one, or if randomly the exact same item is replaced. So far I've not seen it happen.

Protips


 * The Awards for restocking Leonids shop cost a total of € 250 to complete. Only do this when you have those or real money to spare.
 * When Leonid is out hunting lions and you tap the 'Return for €5' button you only make Leonid come back home early. This is not the same as restocking for the purpose of the aforementioned awards.
 * Leonids shop will restock bought items after Leonid has returned home from hunting. If you do not wish to spend any € on getting the Awards other than the restocking awards, you will need to be very patient. In a realistic scenario it would take you around two months to complete them.