TRADESMAN Deal to Dealer Settlement Reputation
Sell the category on the demand row. The pillar tells you the prize before you grind.
Every settlement in TRADESMAN: Deal to Dealer keeps a personal score for you. It is not a hidden friendship flag. It is a progress bar you fill by selling the goods that town typed in the demand row. Hit the historic cap — 10,000 — and the starting pillar in that town pays a unique reward: a legendary hire, a squad book, extra scroll or food slots, a unique ware. This page is how to farm it without turning the game into a spreadsheet prison.
What reputation is (and is not)
It is experience for bringing the category the settlement wants. Military towns want axes, picks, armor, ammo. Industrial towns want planks, saws, bread, meat, honey, spirits. Civilian / “people” towns want fish, grain, flour, eggs. Selling the exact demand line converts value into coins plus standing. Selling a cousin item in the same family still helps, usually at a discount. The UI marks the useful sales with simple shapes so you can play at a glance.
It is not combat XP, not a morality meter, and not a multiplayer rank. The game is single-player. Standing does not decay if you skip a week of real time, but ninja patches have rewritten values before — copy your Tradesman save folder if a news post mentions migration (controls).
During 2025 AZAMATIKA doubled reputation income (same 10,000 number, less repetition). If your muscle memory is 2024 Early Access, you are faster now. Do not grind a town to cap on day two anyway; you need those hours for talents and a real squad.
Read the pillar first
The reward is visible on the town pillar before you start. If the prize is a legendary you will not hire (wrong talent gate, duplicate epic cap), skip and trade for coins only. If the prize is a hauler Bigfoot or a crit-aura book, put that town on the weekly loop. Examples players still chase:
- Guard-camp style military towns — squad crit or combat books after cap.
- Fishpool line — epic bear cubs early, legendary roar-bear at cap.
- Bigfoot village — hauler Bigfoot at cap; a fighter Bigfoot may appear with fewer gates in the southern mountains.
- Miner towns — named legendary diggers.
- Wild / rebel towns — barbarian and wanderer legendaries at cap.
- Furryfoot — the brick that opens Beastborough, which is a gate, not a loot piñata.
Confirm names in your localisation; English and Spanish Steam strings differ from community nicknames. The mercenary hub and animals pages keep the hire side.
How to fill a bar without dying
- Stock only that town’s category on the way in. Extra unrelated legendaries inflate combat for no standing.
- Use the trade-route tool so the previous town buys something else. A two-town oscillator (food out, tools back) is the whole mid-game.
- Dump Go and taxi quests that target the same settlement. They were buffed as extra standing sources.
- Stop when the pillar pays. Overflow standing is ego.
Region bricks are the other reputation product. Beastborough’s red brick wants max Furryfoot. Cemetery and snow approaches have their own keys. You cannot punch a brick with a bigger axe; you sell eggs until the mason is happy.
Books, slots, and the 1.0 party cap
Some caps grant books that buff the whole squad. Equip them, then stop buying duplicate epics you cannot field — 1.0 limits identical epic copies. Extra scroll slots matter because mercenaries can hold two legal scrolls. Extra food slots feed the cooking loop. None of these replace Leadership; they multiply it.
If a cap used to give “Y” currency in an old patch, that is gone. Trust the pillar text in your build. Updates tracks the 1.0 reset of expectations.
When to ignore reputation
During the first two hours. Getting Started is about not going broke. During a plot taxi. During a cart-upgrade run where the plank well is sacred. Reputation is a mid-game hobby that becomes an end-game checklist. Wasteland towns will add more bars — Wasteland — so leaving a few 1.0 towns uncapped is not failure.
Sell honest goods. Read the demand row. Take the pillar gift. Then leave before you hate the mill road.
Frequently Asked Questions
Quick answers to the most common merchant questions.
What is the reputation cap?
The unique pillar reward historically unlocks at 10,000. Gains were doubled in 2025, so the number is the same with less grinding.
Does selling random loot raise standing?
Only if it matches the town’s category. Off-tag sales are coins without much bar.
Why can I not enter a region?
Many bricks are reputation gates, such as Furryfoot for Beastborough. Check the quests page.
Can friends boost my standing?
No. Standing is single-player only.