resources

[gingergenius]

sorry if i'm being stupid but here goes.

Obviously, I want to make as much money as possible. But do I have to have a merchant on a resource to make money from it, or does that just increase it?

At one point in my game, I had a merchant on every resource in Britain, France and Spain, but even on 0.5 they died too soon and I couldn't be bothered to replace them.

Also, say I had 5 merchants - is it better to put them on all the resources in one province, or on all of the nearby wool, for example??

[Shahed]

Merchants:
https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/search.php?searchid=54572

https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showthread.php?t=71833&highlight=merchants

https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showthread.php?t=73645&highlight=merchants

https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showthread.php?t=73471&highlight=merchants

https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showthread.php?t=74341&highlight=merchants

There is stuff in the FAQ Sticky on top of the forum as well.

Anyway:

1.You have to have a merchant on resource to gain income form that resource, through the merchant. Note you gain trade income from that resource anyway.

2. If you want to monopolise a resource put all of them on one resource TYPE all over the map. They get a bonus for monopolising. You cannot put more than one merchant on one resource point.

Resources:
https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showthread.php?t=72609&highlight=resource

[FactionHeir]

From my own experience, there is nothing like a "monopoly on one resource".
Resources in provinces are independent from what you see in your trade summary scrolls. Its basically a different system of earning florins.

A few things to note however:
Having only merchants of your faction in a given region's resource (even if there are 5 resources you only need 1 merchant and be the only merchant) will give your merchant(s) the monopolist trait, meaning he gets up to 3 extra finance over time.

Different resources are valued at different prices. Even resources in the same region of the same type may have different values attached (for example cloth in northern italy) Different factions value different resources more or less, as the manual states, but I have found this not to be completely true.

The main impact on how much a resource is worth to you is the distance of the resource from your capital AND how much this resource is usually worth.
Wine, wheat and sulfur seem to be worth next to nothing while ivory, gold, spices, silk and cotton are worth a lot.

You can also place merchants on a mine to generate extra income.

Your best bet of getting the most out of merchants is to place them on a high earning resource well away from your capital (if you are playing moors, even nearby resources are actually worth quite a bit. Same with other islamic factions), you can figure the price you get by hovering your cursor over the resource while having your merchant selected.

Depending on your merchants skill, the income will vary, so for a skill 3 or so merchant which seems fairly common, you want to aim for a resource hat gives you say at least 30 florins a turn to make your investment worth it, as there is risk involved in having a merchant (you paid 550 you could have spent eslewhere better at the given moment in time, he could get acquired, he might die from an assassin or natural disaster, he takes time to travel). While merchants have no upkeep, you do want them to earn substantial amounts instead of barely making up the cost by the time they die.

Lastly, acquiring foreign merchants gives you florins dependin on the skill they had. Quite a nice income especially early on!

[Quillan]

From the game files, the trigger for the Monopolist trait line is "TradeMonopoly", but what that is specifically isn't explained. From in-game experience, it only comes up when there are more than one of a specific resource in a given province, and probably only when nobody else has a merchant on one. You don't have to have your own merchants on all of them, just make sure no one else does. It doesn't matter who else is trading silk in Baghdad, just make sure you're the only one on the silk in Constantinople or in Nicaea and it will eventually show up. Sitting a merchant on the wine that's on Rhodes or Corsica, or on the silver in Sardinia will never give that trait, because there is only one instance of each in the province.

As the Byzantines, I used the silk resources near Constantinople to train merchants. As Venice, I'm using the silver and dyes in Vienna and the wool in Naples to train merchants. There are two iron resources in Zagreb and two textiles in Milan, but that area is on a MAJOR road and everyone's merchants run through there, so keeping one surviving long enough to skill up is very difficult. As Spain, I used the gold and ivory in Timbuktu.

[Shahed]

So what is the monopoly bonus ? Are we referring to the trait ? Or an increase in the value of the rincome from the resource due to monopolisation (and selling at higher prices) ?.

I think nobody knows for sure.

[FactionHeir]

As I said, monopoly means (as it says in the manual) to be the only one to have a merchant sitting on a resource in a given region. The bonus is that your merchant will accumulate the Monopolist line of traits over time, which increases finance and thus your income from this merchant.

[Shahed]

Ok that's simple enouogh.