View Full Version : Best location for Merchants' Guild is ?
Antioch or Constantinople ?
:juggle2:
IRONxMortlock
12-01-2006, 03:19
Oops - ignore this post please.
Oops - ignore this post please.
Did you say something?
Antioch or Constantinople ?
:juggle2:
Depends on where you are expanding towards, and what you can foresee yourself trading with. There is nothing we can say that makes one place better than the other.
But I would say C'Nople. Easy access to most of the world.
There is one thing.. it's supposed to increase trade as well as merchant skill. Hence the question, because you would want it in the place where it would boost trade the most.
MTW that was Antioch, probably the same in M2TW.
Does anyone have the figures ?
Antioch made sense in MTW because of the way trade worked with the overland trade through Mesopotamia, especially the after the Marco Polo world event.
In MTW2, I suspect that Constantinople would make the best candidate simply because of the way the sea trade works. I have no concrete numbers to support that assumption, however.
In addition, as Kraxis noted, the more central location helps. Aside from the trade increase, your better merchants will have easier quicker access to the higher end resources, except for the silk around Baghdad of course. From Constantinople you'll be closer the amber around Vilnius, Riga and Novgorod which is highly lucrative. The faster you can replace deceased or acquired merchants, the better.
I'm playing as Venice and my capital is there. My Venice is way higher right now, and might be higher even with a capital equidistant to both Venice and Constantinople. Thessalonica and Nicaea might give Constantinople a run for its money as well.
Thanks guys.
Can anyone tell me where I can find the numbers for the base trade resource values for the two regions in question ?
I'm still thinking Antioch will win, probably wrong though as I'm not 100% sure how trade works in this game.
I think sea trade is more important. So the determining factor is the base trade resource value, then through extrapolation you can arrive at a figure which shows you which region would be best for a merchants' guild, not withstanding the need for merchants, purely on a basis of trade resources.
IrishArmenian
12-01-2006, 06:45
In my opinion, Palermo is the best location for a Merchant's Guild.
For the Turks it looks like Antioch is the best location for merchants guild, because, this is a rough approximation so far, but it begins to point this direction:
1. Antioch has more basic trading partner provinces, it can trade with more provinces than Constantinople.
2. It is within 2 sea zones of more provinces than Constantinople is.
3. It seems that the total of the base resource value is greater than the total of base resource value for Constantinople, florins/turn terms.
Got some questions:
1. Does anyone know which file has the base resource values and where I should be looking in the file ?
2. How far away can a city trade i.e can Alexandria trade with London ? As an exmaple what is the furthest Alexandria can trade ?
Salute !
I had a merchants guild HQ in Constantinople in my Byzantium campaign. Towards the end, the city was making over 7000 per turn. However, strictly from the standpoint of using it to boost merchant agents, the best location for a merchants guild is Timbuktu.
Everyone is wrong. Best place is Timbuktu! Keep the merchants close to the gold. My gold. All mine. :egypt:
I had mine in Novgorod, as the Rus of course. I had a complete monopoly on the world-wide amber trade...After a while, those merchants can make you a lot of money. ;)
Quillan, It's from the standpoint of overall income maximisation i.e which location (for the Turks in this case) will benefit the most in terms of revenue maximisation from the formation of a merchants' guild.
:oops: :inquisitive: maybe I forgot to mention that.
Hehe Í like chocolate so mine's going to be near a HUGE chocolate dump ! Who cares about gold when you got chocolate ?
No seriously though... we need the base resource figures. Any other comments/answers most welcome as well ofc.
:whip: :clown:
I would side with the opinion that the Merchant's guild has to be centrally located to minimze new merchant travel time. However, I think, if one gets Merchant's Headquarters, all the cities should give similar bonus to new merchants (If I read the description right).
There's a global bonus and a local bonus. The local bonus didn't apply to merchants after I'd upgraded it to a Master and then HQ level building, but the global applies everywhere. It might be a bug, but in my Byzantine game I build my merchants in another city that only had a guild. I'd get Legal Nouse there, plus Financial Training and Merchant's Guild Apprentice that way. If I built them in Constantinople, I wouldn't get the Legal Nouse trait.
Point taken.
The more central it is the faster merchants will get to trading, the faster they will pay themselves off, the faster you return on investment will grow.
Travel time is one factor, but there is another.
It increases the base resource value of the region itself. Naturally the increased skill level merchants will increase the overall revenue of the empire. The increase in local resource value will directly affect the local revenue of the city and hence the overall revenue of the empire.
The local effect of increase in trade of the region itself needs to be taken into account for the overall equation to be valid.
And you know what ?
In a moment of SHEER BRILLIANCE ! ... I got the idea of putting some merchants on ships and sailing them around. I think it'll be faster than walking... *ahem*
LegioScythia
12-04-2006, 17:24
In my campaign i built it in Constantinople i closed several trade agreements with the factions controlling the near islands that really boosted up my income
Point taken.
In a moment of SHEER BRILLIANCE ! ... I got the idea of putting some merchants on ships and sailing them around. I think it'll be faster than walking... *ahem*
This would be faster, agreed. However, I'm not sure this is faster in terms of merchants gaining additional stars. When walking them, I tend to leave them on some resource at the end of the turn (before walking further): this seems to accelerate them gaining new skills. Not sure what would happen on the boats.
Furious Mental
12-04-2006, 17:31
Not exactly on point but if you are going to get a high level merchant's guild I'd suggest you avoid putting it in a city with a high level religious building, or avoid building any high level religious buildings once you've put the guild there. I built a huge cathedral in Vienna, which was where I got the merchant's guild headquarters, and all the merchants I've trained there now have this "quite religious" trait which detracts from their finance skill.
Ouch, that's a good find, Furious Metal. I'll have to keep closer track of things like that. It may actually be necessary to highly specialize non-military building as much as military building. To avoid the problem you experienced.
Sinan, don't forget to factor in the costs of merchant deaths. At best, you'll probably get 50-60 years of service from each merchant and during much of that time the merchant isn't fully skilled. The time it takes to get a new merchant skilled up and moved to a resource will affect your bottom line; and so should be added into figuring values of various locations for resources and merchant guilds.
The winner is Antioch, hands down, no contest.
Antioch makes like 2-4k/turn more, on average than Constantinople on max development.
This is from my game experience anyway.
It's harder to max out sea trade for Constantinople. You need not only the Balkans but the Black Sea area in your hands as well which is a pain.
However, the central location for Constantinople is still awesome though for merchant warfare. Wolfpacks of 3 or 4 merchants freshly generated from Constantinople can quickly acquire a fortune for you.
darth_napo
12-30-2006, 18:04
Merchants Guilds are supposed to increase the trade in which city it was built, right?
if you look at these "facts" I would say Antioch hands down, followed closely by Constantinople and then Venice the 4th is Sofia and followed closely by Thessalonica :yes:
keep in your mind that I'm ignoring the merchants factor. Btw keep in your mind also that Antioch, while has the highest trade income, it is likely to be the most dangerous investment if you are playing with western factions since it would probably has much corruption, if you're playing Muslim/Russ/Byzantium it would be a constant target for Crusades; it also would be the main target for Mongols and Timurids. And at least keep in your mind that I had trade agreements with almost everyone.
https://img99.imageshack.us/img99/2889/medieval2exe21resizegl8.jpg
https://img100.imageshack.us/img100/9979/medieval2exe22resizefi0.jpg
https://img409.imageshack.us/img409/2306/medieval2exe23resizexb6.jpg
https://img413.imageshack.us/img413/3394/medieval2exe24resizedx3.jpg
https://img413.imageshack.us/img413/558/medieval2exe25resizeog8.jpg
https://img413.imageshack.us/img413/7088/medieval2exe26resizein3.jpg
https://img413.imageshack.us/img413/3037/medieval2exe27resizeyj1.jpg
https://img149.imageshack.us/img149/8934/medieval2exe28resizeei9.jpg
hope this help?:balloon2:
That was a great post Napo only just saw that.
I have a question: does anyone know if the Merchants Guild ACTUALLY increases trade income ?.
I think it does'nt, it says it does in the game files, and in the descriptive text but I've not noticed any difference. I'm not sure but I think the +20%, +30%, +40% trade bonus it's supposed to give is not working because that exact same bonus is being used by another building. Just a hunch.
What are everyone's observations ?
Salute !
Agent Smith
04-21-2007, 22:35
That was a great post Napo only just saw that.
I have a question: does anyone know if the Merchants Guild ACTUALLY increases trade income. I think it does'nt, it says it does in the game files, and in the descriptive text but I've not noticed any difference. I'm not sure but I think the +20%, +30%, +40% trade bonus it's supposed to give is not working because that exact same bonus is being used by another building. Just a hunch.
What are everyone's observations ?
Salute !
I'm not sure if this is right, but do the guilds and such also increase the value of the resources located in the province?
Caliburn
04-21-2007, 23:26
Don't forget Stockholm, at least I'm raking it in from Stockholm in my current campaign - 6000 or 7000 florins a year? I'm not sure how much of it is trade, but I believe quite a lot anyway.
Stockholm is excellent too.
I guess a list of ideal trading cities is in order.
Volunteer Hazardous Duty ! Who's up soldiers ????!!!
Frederick_I_Barbarossa
04-22-2007, 01:08
I, as a matter of house rules, always give building preference to my capital...
As above, always build prefer in Capital.
Sinan, you wanted the base resource file.........sm_resources in your data dir.
As someone pointed out, Constantinople, has not been given any extra bonus to show it's status as the greatest trading city.
And there is no marco Polo event for Tripoli. Hence no 2 trade item increase.
And way, in my game Constantinople trades land wise with the following...
Thrace
Macedonia
Bthynia
Mysia
And I was pulling 10480 Florins a turn while at war with the usual suspects....venice, milan, turks and Egypt.
With a Master merchants guild.
fenir
Thanks fen.
Also I think the Merchants Guild trade bonus is not working. Unfortunately I'd have to start a new campaign to find out, so if anyone else notices if it ACTUALLY increases income or not, shout !
I know the file says it does, but it does'nt as far as I can see.
Last game I played as Turks Antioch was doing 14K/turn IIRC.
I've seen a Byzantine player post a pic of his Constantinople doing 17K per turn, on twcenter.
Is the amount of money a city can make affected by the merchant bonus and how developed it's trading cities are?
For example would Vienna make more money if Prague, Nuremburg, Budapest, Innsbruck, Venice, and Zagreb were all huge cities with all the trade improving buildings (except for Merchant's Guild Headquaters).
HoreTore
04-22-2007, 15:09
IMO, merchants guild HQ should be at your capital, wherever that is. Better trade buildings there = higher income from merchants.
And yes, merchants guild adds to trade. If you want proof, easiest way of doing it, is to simply demolish it somewhere. The income for that city goes down... I haven't researched this, but my feeling is that the 1. level gives about 15-20% trade bonus.
Well, that's exacty the problem.
As you say, it SHOULD go down but it does'nt, it does'nt go up either. I'm gonna test this today, start a new campaign.
The problem with the capital decision is; do you want London to be your capital throughout the game ? Normally the capital shifts, hence that dos'nt work either IMO, at least it can;t work for the whole game.
However, it's totally a valid point that you capital should always be highly developed to maximise income from trade.
Philbert
04-23-2007, 09:38
If you are playing a European faction, then the resources around Antioch are worth a _lot_ of money. Placing a merchants' guild in Antioch will give your merchants a head start which will cause them to make more money from the beginning, and give better protection against hostile takeovers. Therefore, I would say Antioch.
hisn00bness
04-28-2007, 02:43
I would just like to reaffirm, that playing the turks; and placing antioch with a merchants guild as my capital; and keeping a good governor there (post-jihad crown prince); antioch makes no less than 9810 per turn by turn 100 !
Yeap, yesterday I played Egypt, day before actually, and Jerusalem as capitol. Antioch was making 7K by turn 65 or so. It can make a lot more. The Egyptains have it good, them and the Moors.
Meanwhile I tested the Guild, and it DOES increase income although I only noticed about 100/turn for base Merchants Guild.
I only got Antioch to 7k at the end of my Turkish game. When I played the Rus, I had Stockholm at over 10k.
hisn00bness
05-28-2007, 18:46
Odd I can't seem to get Stockholm over 6k so far as Russia. Granted it's relatively early in the game; but still.
Cabbage question here but why is Stockholm so good at tarding.
hisn00bness
05-28-2007, 19:23
I have no idea...
but I think its good at trading because of the central position relative to the other main ports to the sea there (arhus; helsinki; novgorod; riga) and has plenty of silver to draw from. Also I hear the salmon's not bad.
b_black68
05-28-2007, 20:22
Trade income is determined by many factors.
first off, each trade_base_income_bonus point is a 5% increase in income, so a merchants guild, trader, dirt road only gives a 5% increase, mmg gives 10%, etc.
Port location is very important, the farther the port that is being traded with is from your cities port, the less money the trade is worth. Two ports that are nearly adjacent to each other make an insane amount of money, even without many trading upgrades. Constantinople and Nicea would be the ideal situation, but the game seems to refuse to let them trade with each other.....
Likewise with land trade, the closer the city, the more money you will make(all other variables constant)
The trick is to get the game to have your trade fleets go to the right ports(ie, the closest ports) which it doesnt seem to do.
One more thing, import value is equal to 20% of the trade between the cities, so if a route exported from antioch makes 1000 and ends up in jerusalem, jerusalem will get 200 income from the import. Thus, increasing the trade value of neighboring cities increases the income of all the cities nearby.
From this standpoint, venice and antioch have very strong land trade opportunities, and many ports that are decently close. Constantinople and stockholm are weaker on land trade, but have the potential for massive sea trade from long distances, and very close ports(if you're lucky and the fleets go there). Also, venice is nearby many strong trading cities which can help to increase its income even more.
Hope this helps, and maybe someone knows how to make the trade fleets find the optimum port?
Kobal2fr
05-28-2007, 22:37
Cabbage question here but why is Stockholm so good at trading.
1) it has umpteen ressources. From the top of my head : 2 iron, 3 furs, 2 amber, 1 silver, and maybe some fish as well
2) Most provinces it trades with also have amber, which is an expensive ressource
3) it's central and borders two seas, meaning it gets to trade with russia, poland, hre, flanders and even england sometimes.
4) the mines are awesome, which makes it a doubly good town
E) it's usually far away from your capital, so merchants trading amber make fortunes.
1) it has umpteen ressources. From the top of my head : 2 iron, 3 furs, 2 amber, 1 silver, and maybe some fish as well
2) Most provinces it trades with also have amber, which is an expensive ressource
3) it's central and borders two seas, meaning it gets to trade with russia, poland, hre, flanders and even england sometimes.
4) the mines are awesome, which makes it a doubly good town
E) it's usually far away from your capital, so merchants trading amber make fortunes.
I don't include merchant income, just the city itself. A far away capital would have corruption destroy that income from Stockholm.
A few assorted thoughts regarding b-black68's post:
1. Constantinople and Nicaea has a land bridge in the game so it's considered land trade.
2. While I was plaing the Moors, Timbuktu's trade to Marrekesh went up from 200 to 500 when I upgraded from dirt to paved roads. I didn't see the other provinces get anything from upgraded roads. I'm wondering if there's some distance thing that got hit by it.
3. If both provinces have the same resource, it doesn't get traded. A province that doesn't have resources or if the exported province has all its resources only trades common goods. Still, some provinces like Rome that only exports common goods still get a ton of money.
4. What penalties do castles get versus cities on trade?
5. How much does population count?
Kobal2fr
05-29-2007, 05:24
2) stone roads give a HUGE boost to land trade. Seriously, in Venice or Vienna you can easily witness a 600/turn jump merely by upgrading the roads, and that's early in the game without banks/guilds/markets etc...
Shame M2 doesn't have the 3rd level of roads :laugh4:
4) Castles get the shaft big time. They can't build any +trade building, and AFAIK only get a percentage of the region's real trade values. The most I've ever seen in a castle is maybe 120 measly florins. Try turning a castle with a port into a city (or vice versa) to see what I mean. You'll notice the trade income is very different, all other things being equal.
The Moorish caravan building makes them a lot more profitable though.
5) Nothing. Population is used in taxation only, not trade nor farming nor mining.
Kobavelli roads do nothing for trade in vanilla.
Kobavelli roads do nothing for trade in vanilla.
I'm playing 1.2 without any mods and it looks like it does boost land trade.
Hi Andy can you please post a before and after image. It never does in my vanilla games. Although I did'nt check again in 1.20. Wonder if that's changed. In 1.10 it did not, that's 100% certain.
Valenica before -
https://i145.photobucket.com/albums/r220/andrewlt/Valenciabefore.jpg
Valencia after -
https://i145.photobucket.com/albums/r220/andrewlt/Valenciaafter.jpg
Tripoli before -
https://i145.photobucket.com/albums/r220/andrewlt/Tripolibefore.jpg
Tripoli after -
https://i145.photobucket.com/albums/r220/andrewlt/Tripoliafter.jpg
It's kinda a mixed bag. Valencia didn't get any improvement at all. Some rebel bandits spawned but they're blocking the road to the port so it shouldn't figure at all. Tripoli is the interesting case. Trade to Alexandria barely moved but trade to Cairo and Tunis both doubled. Alexandria and Cairo are both Egyptian and Tunis is mine so it isn't trade rights or anything like that that triggered it.
Note that some increased by 1 or 2. I'm thinking there might be something that's population or time based that's increasing trade income slowly like this.
Thanks a lot mate. Indeed the pop level does increase trade value.
Anyway this is something I should not need to fix as it's fixed in 1.20. Defintely was'nt before because I went and "fixed" it myself.
That's a nice empire. Any Camel Gunners ?
Turn 100, no gunpowder yet. :no:
Wouldn't the best strategy here be to build up a merchant's guild HQ in the city where it would give the biggest trade income boost, and then to build a merchant master guild in the centrally-located city where you want to build/spawn your merchants from (eg. constantinople)? The reason for this argument is that the Master guild gives all the same bonuses to locally trained merchants that the HQ does, while the HQ gives a global bonus (so the Merchants trained at the master guild city would get that too).
Basically, when upgrading from Master to HQ, the added trade bonus is the only consideration that should affect its location (all other benefits are global).
So I guess the answer for "where is the best place for a merchant's guild?" depends on what level of merchant's guild you want to have:
1. Master level - good trading city and well located for merchant travel
2. HQ level - best trading city (eg. Antioch for Muslims, Venice for Western factions), provided you ALSO get a master's guild at a city which is well located for merchant access to resources.
Just realised that I forgot about not being able to build more than one Master's guild of a given guild type for one faction. Doh!
BTW, I suppose having a guild HQ still counts against having another master's guild of the same guild type somewhere else. What about upgrading a guild to HQ, then capturing an enemy city with a master's guild of the same type? Is that possible?
vBulletin® v3.7.1, Copyright ©2000-2025, Jelsoft Enterprises Ltd.