merchants trade reduced

[Armenia_Byzantium]

Can someone tell me why merchant's trade would go from like 400 florins per turn to something like 70 fl per turn, given the merchants traits never changed

[FactionHeir]

The location of your capital changed.

[Must`]

Or maybe another faction took that province

[Armenia_Byzantium]

The location of your capital changed.

yeah true i changed the capital to another province

is the trade going to increase though later on?

[Slicendice]

I had something similar happen. I am playing VanillaMod and I'm not sure if that has anything to do with it.

But anyway I've got a pile of merchants in Timbuktu and all the sudden their income drops by half. I don't think my Capitol had anything to do with it though because I don't remember changing it.

BTW VanillaMod is pretty good.

[Zaleukos]

Besides merchant skill merchant income depends on:

Resource type (ivory and gold are always worth more than timber)
Distance from your capital to the nearest resource of that type (Byz makes less from silk resources than France since it has the stuff near the capital, and Scotland makes more from Wine than France would).
Trade agreement with the owner of the province where the resource is (or owning the province) gives a bonus.
More than one resource of that type in the province gives a monopoly if no foreing merchants are on the reources (double income).

Then there might be a penalty for being at war with the owner of the province, but I'm not quite sure about that.

Halved income could be a sign of an enemy breaking your monopoly. The timbuktu resources come in pairs (except for one slave resource?) and at least one of the gold resources is outside the field of vision of the city.

I dislike the merchant side of the game rather strongly since it includes so much tedious micromanagement (not to mention stupid interruptable pathfinding that makes it take way too long for your guys to reach their destination), so I tend to just build forts on valuable resources and stuff them with one town militia tonnes of merchants. It's an exploit/cheat but also a time-saver, and I dont want to waste my youth moving merchants around.

It would be nice if CA reduced the number of movable agents in Empire, but there is absolutely no sign of such a development...

[Must`]

What is the highest amount of florins your merchant was making per turn?

Mine was 1762 florins.

[FactionHeir]

Afaik the monopoly bonus was never realized. The only thing you get from monopoly (i.e. holding all resources in a given region) is that your merchant gets the monopoly line of traits (which thus raise income) but having a monopoly alone won't raise your income.

[FactionHeir]

I had something similar happen. I am playing VanillaMod and I'm not sure if that has anything to do with it.

But anyway I've got a pile of merchants in Timbuktu and all the sudden their income drops by half. I don't think my Capitol had anything to do with it though because I don't remember changing it.

BTW VanillaMod is pretty good.

Thanks

In addition to what Zaleukos posted, you can also lose income from your merchants acquiring bad traits (especially when they are far from your capital), which reduce finance by up to 2.

Also possible is that your merchant died and you didn't notice, or he got bumped off.

[Dead Guy]

Afaik the monopoly bonus was never realized. The only thing you get from monopoly (i.e. holding all resources in a given region) is that your merchant gets the monopoly line of traits (which thus raise income) but having a monopoly alone won't raise your income.

In my experience, sometimes your merchants income will be substantially lower (is it halved?) if another factions merchant occupies the other instance in the same region, but I've never figured out what determines which merchant gets the higher income. Should be skill I think but I seem to remember sometime the less skilled merchant got the higher income. But if you mean that the income does not increase over time like I think I've read in the manual that it should, if you have a monopoly for a longer time, then I concur.

[FactionHeir]

From passing observations (not actual testing) your income does not go down nor up if a foreign merchant takes the other instance or you acquire a foreign merchant in the same province trading the same resource respectively.

As for who gets the higher income, its both skill and (closest resource instance) distance to capital based as well as worth of the resource. You will notice some of the cloth in Italy is worth more than others as an example.

[Zaleukos]

Monopoly works as intended and has done so since 1.0.

If you have a monopoly you get double the default income. Without monopoly the resource behaves just like a lonely resource.

You can easily verify the monopoly bonus if you dont believe me. Start as France, create a merchant in Paris, explore Bruges and Antwerp, and look at projected merchant income for the Textile resources in Bruges (lone resource) and Antwerp (two resources). With the exception of a rounding error the Antwerp textile should be worth twice as much as long as both provinces still are rebel and there is no other merchant hanging around...

You will also sometimes see that the projected income for the same resource varies within the same distant region, that is usually because one resource is occupied by a merchant and the higher value assumes you knock this fellow out.

[Dead Guy]

Monopoly works as intended and has done so since 1.0.

If you have a monopoly you get double the default income. Without monopoly the resource behaves just like a lonely resource.

You can easily verify the monopoly bonus if you dont believe me. Start as France, create a merchant in Paris, explore Bruges and Antwerp, and look at projected merchant income for the Textile resources in Bruges (lone resource) and Antwerp (two resources). With the exception of a rounding error the Antwerp textile should be worth twice as much as long as both provinces still are rebel and there is no other merchant hanging around...

You will also sometimes see that the projected income for the same resource varies within the same distant region, that is usually because one resource is occupied by a merchant and the higher value assumes you knock this fellow out.

That's my observation exactly. I observed it by mousing over an occupied resource and the other one in the same region with a merchant selected. Should be the same thing. If that's how it's intended to work I have no idead :p

Is it always lonely resources that are worth less? That's not my experience in all cases I think, but I'm not sure. The Balkan gold is worth less than the African (Timbuktu) though isn't it? Bah, can't remember how many gold/Ivory Arguin has or if it's worth less than the Timbuktu ones.

[FactionHeir]

Tested and does work.
My memory must have been regarding resources within 1 province vs all resources of the same type over the map then regarding monopoly.

[Zaleukos]

Well, the game use the word "monopoly" in a somewhat weird way. When I first heard the term I thought that it referred to a map-wide monopoly (which seems like the most natural meaning of the term), but it refers to province-wide monopolies:) Having a monopoly across the map means feck all.

Is it always lonely resources that are worth less? That's not my experience in all cases I think, but I'm not sure. The Balkan gold is worth less than the African (Timbuktu) though isn't it? Bah, can't remember how many gold/Ivory Arguin has or if it's worth less than the Timbuktu ones.

I havent found any exceptions. And it seems like having more than two resources (I think the Kingdoms Britannia map has some Scottish province with 3 wool) wont add to the income per resource compared to two.

[Armenia_Byzantium]

What is the highest amount of florins your merchant was making per turn?

Mine was 1762 florins.

so far my max was 600 fl, till it suddenly dropped to something like 70 fl

[Old Geezer]

Could the merchant or the capital having the plague affect such? The plague in the capital would stop all of its trade income; maybe that would lower the merchant's trade since the amount is based on the capital, IIRC. I don't see how the merchant could get enough bad traits to drop income from 600 to 70. He's probably embezzeling. Put him on the rack!

[FactionHeir]

Nope, plague only affects the settlement and eliminates all its trade, but merchant trade is different.

[Old Geezer]

If you have a level 10 mechant and he get another pip does he then go back to level 1 due to the "wrap-around effect"?

[FactionHeir]

No, he gets even more income as finance counts after the cap as well.