View Full Version : Is theAI mean? Earth quakes in Timbuktu
I was building up a nice collection of merchants in a fort next to a gold mine in Timbuktu. The better ones were earning 606 Florins a turn. Then there was an Earth quake that killed them all. Is the AI mean, or am I just unlucky.
As an aside, do forts protect merchants from hostile take over ?
Darkarbiter
02-20-2007, 11:29
yes
AlphaDelta1
02-20-2007, 11:36
but personally I find in M2TW that unrest is easily managed.
By other merchants, yes, from other military forces, no.
Cheers
AlphaDelta1
02-20-2007, 11:42
Apologies, I pasted the wrong text. I meant to quote you as follows:
As an aside, do forts protect merchants from hostile take over ?
Cheers
well, eathquakes are not that bad IMHO (unless you keep all your merchants in a fort in the hit province). what I dislike more are flash-floods: takes away move points from that province for the durantion of the whole game.
I just had a full stack crusade going to bagdad , 5 family members in it for fun , and we got hit by a earthquake the turn after i started the siege. Lost everything except for 1 family member and two units of Infantry.
LordKhaine
02-20-2007, 18:05
Had an earth quake do the same to my merchants at Timbuktu. I can only advise capturing the city in that province. It's located close to the gold so you can easily and quickly replace merchants. And it's in such a remote place it's fairly safe from military attack. Place some watch towers around and you'll get years and years of advance warning as well.
Natural disasters have always scared me since my first family member heading to the new world got killed in a storm halfway through the journey :skull:
Taiwan Legion
02-20-2007, 18:17
how do you use forts with merchants?
LordKhaine
02-20-2007, 19:25
how do you use forts with merchants?
Send family member on resource. Built fort. Fill with merchants. Simple. Done on the gold in Timbuktu you can have a dozen merchants all gaining 500+ florins each.
Don't even need to keep any military units inside.
Send family member on resource. Built fort. Fill with merchants. Simple. Done on the gold in Timbuktu you can have a dozen merchants all gaining 500+ florins each.
Don't even need to keep any military units inside.
Wouldn't it be easier to open the console and give yourself a bazillion florins?
x-dANGEr
02-20-2007, 20:40
Wouldn't it be easier to open the console and give yourself a bazillion florins?
May be.. But doesn't have the same feeling.
LordKhaine
02-20-2007, 20:49
Wouldn't it be easier to open the console and give yourself a bazillion florins?
But that would be a cheat, while sticking merchants in a fort is only an exploit.
just call it a trading post - what happens when they discover gold anywhere? a "Rush" as it's called - not one guy goes and stakes a claim
Microwavegerbil
02-20-2007, 22:05
But that would be a cheat, while sticking merchants in a fort is only an exploit.
You guys are kidding yourselves, abusing exploits = cheating. If you're doing something the game does not intend to give yourself an unfair advantage, it's cheating. This is a single player game so it's only affecting you, but let's call it what it is.
"And I will strike down upon thee with great vengeance and furious anger those who attempt to cheat...":whip:
-AI God's Bible
shibbie1990
02-20-2007, 22:34
my very best merchants in timbukto (10 finance + extra traits) can only earn a max of 131 florins per turn. how can your guys get 500+? Im playing as france and normal/normal difficulty, is that making a difference? (also all - if not most - of them have been trained in marsaille where there is a merchants guild headquarters. any input?
thanks
Whats their actual skill level ATM, they should be about 8-10 by now (+1 for guild, +1/2 for LeagalDealer, +1/2 for NaturalMerchant, +3 for monopolist, and +2 for Knowlage of Customs).
You guys are kidding yourselves, abusing exploits = cheating. If you're doing something the game does not intend to give yourself an unfair advantage, it's cheating. This is a single player game so it's only affecting you, but let's call it what it is.
We don't even know it's an exploit till CA tells us it is. And please don't mention the AI not doing it, the AI dosen't have a clue how to use a lot of things. the most glaring examples being the New World and Arguin/Timbuktu. The AI never takes them or sends anything into those areas. That nearly a fifth of your territory total needed and 10-15K a turn from single merchants. In fact I suspect that if you put up a trading fort and then let the AI take it it would actually use this feature itself. it's the fact that it isn't programmed to make and keep forts on trade recources that does it (it baerly uses them at all, only when the defend_fortified condition kicks in actually, allthough I did see Milian put a fort over one of it's Textiles once, but thats was an exceptional case I think.
shibbie1990
02-20-2007, 22:56
well theres about 12 of them and the majority are about level 7 finance but some are level 10 finance but effectively more as they have additional traits and retinue which does allow them to produce more money, but as i said, a max of 131 florins. how did you get 500+ lordkaine?
Where's your capital, if it's near Constantinople, Poland, or Granada it's in the wrong place. Move it to Londan if you can:smash:.
UltraWar
02-20-2007, 23:14
You guys are kidding yourselves, abusing exploits = cheating. If you're doing something the game does not intend to give yourself an unfair advantage, it's cheating. This is a single player game so it's only affecting you, but let's call it what it is.
Does that mean it is wrong in a Multiplayer Campaign or would it mean that it is fine?
We don't even know it's an exploit till CA tells us it is.
You must be kidding. Forts full of merchants? It's obviously a bug. The game was intended to allow 1 merchant per resource.
well theres about 12 of them and the majority are about level 7 finance but some are level 10 finance but effectively more as they have additional traits and retinue which does allow them to produce more money, but as i said, a max of 131 florins. how did you get 500+ lordkaine?
Also, it's possible you may not have the patch installed. In which case, you need to reset your capital each time you open the file to get the merchant profits to calulate correctly.
shibbie1990
02-20-2007, 23:25
so the capital's important? well mine is paris bacause i started as the french, so i should move it to london? and dismal, do i need to reassign the capital every time or just every time i load the save file?
also i own the entire west side of the full map and the whole of the bottom right of the map. should that affect where my capital should be placed?
so the capital's important? well mine is paris bacause i started as the french, so i should move it to london? and dismal, do i need to reassign the capital every time or just every time i load the save file?
also i own the entire west side of the full map and the whole of the bottom right of the map. should that affect where my capital should be placed?
If you have installed the patch, you don't have to do anything.
The pre-patch version had a bug that caused the merchant profits to be calculated wrong when the game was loaded. Moving your capital and then immediately moving it back would cause it to re-calculate the correct amount.
You don't have to do it every turn, just when you load the game. Though I would recommend just installing the patch if you haven't.
Where your capital should be placed is a whole separate issue. As a rule of thumb, near the center of your empire to cut down on corruption and minimize distance to capital penalties from unrest.
shibbie1990
02-21-2007, 00:00
if i install the patch (V 1.1?) will i have to restart my game or will it still work?
Microwavegerbil
02-21-2007, 01:45
We don't even know it's an exploit till CA tells us it is. And please don't mention the AI not doing it, the AI dosen't have a clue how to use a lot of things. the most glaring examples being the New World and Arguin/Timbuktu. The AI never takes them or sends anything into those areas. That nearly a fifth of your territory total needed and 10-15K a turn from single merchants. In fact I suspect that if you put up a trading fort and then let the AI take it it would actually use this feature itself. it's the fact that it isn't programmed to make and keep forts on trade recources that does it (it baerly uses them at all, only when the defend_fortified condition kicks in actually, allthough I did see Milian put a fort over one of it's Textiles once, but thats was an exceptional case I think.
Well, because it takes away the ability to challenge merchants for that resource, thus removing all interaction between your merchants and the AIs. Also, it makes merchants able to stack with eachother on a single resource, and this is the big point and I think it marks this as an obvious bug/exploit.
Does that mean it is wrong in a Multiplayer Campaign or would it mean that it is fine?
Well, the game is only single player, so I assume you're setting up for a hypothetical argument on exploits in multiplayer games, which is a whole new can of worms. However, I love a good debate so I'll bite and give you my answer. My opinion is that an exploit gives you an unfair adavantage over an opponent, so unless you have both agreed that it is okay to use this exploit, then you're cheating him. The game is no longer an even match, because you have a handicap, in this case extra money.
In my current Spanish campaign I got a merchant down on the gold resource closest (just south of it) to Timbuktu and he's pulling in 1,505 florins. Running Patch 1.1 and LtC mod. Just thinking if I had 19 more merchants there making that. ChaChing! :dizzy2:
It's a singleplayer game so I couldn't care less if other people use cheats or exploits against their own computers. But one bit of warning: If you do cheat/exploit, It'll be very hard to go back to not cheating and you'll get board with the game much faster. I learned that the hard way with RTW, a fine game that I ruined by spoiling myself with cheats. :wall:
I find that the best games are played without cheats, save/loads, and (gasp!) losing a few provinces. Okay, I still use toggle_fow sometimes but only when I'm curious what the Mongols are doing. :sweatdrop:
Well, because it takes away the ability to challenge merchants for that resource, thus removing all interaction between your merchants and the AIs. Also, it makes merchants able to stack with each other on a single resource, and this is the big point and I think it marks this as an obvious bug/exploit.
1. My point was that until CA tells us otherwise it could be that they specifically made this possible on purpose.
2. I don't personally believe it WAS intended, however I like to play devils advocate for everyone, and regardless of what i think personally, it's not an actual exploit till CA says it is.
3. Regardless of what they do, theirs no way they can actually fix this, so the only sensible thing to do is re-balance merchants around it and let the AI do it. Why can't they fix it? Because you can do it with an army instead of a fort sat on the resourse, and if they took away the ability of armies to move onto resource squares, you'd have MASSIVE issues with moving troops around in some areas of the world, (Constantinople, Northern Italy, Stockholm and Kiev, also parts of France and the far middle east could cause issues in places).
4. even if this is an exploit, it's the only real way of training large numbers of merchants up quickly, and also the only way to make a decent amount of money without going to the new world/Timbuktu/arguin. Nowhere else, (for most factions anyway), generates enough income to really make the time and effort you put into merchants worth it. It isn't really an exploit, (if we make the assumption for a moment that it really isn't what the designers intended), IMHO when people use it to but a load of high finance merchants on a 70-150 florins resource. It only becomes a really bad thing when people do it in the New World/Timbuktu/Africa. In fact thats all I really use it for, a handy way to train merchants up and a way to get plenty of money out of the low grade recourses. I haven't got the time or inclination to go conquering i the New World or anywhere else thats worth a lot of money, and it takes too damm long to shift a lot of merchants to those areas rather than training them there.
1. My point was that until CA tells us otherwise it could be that they specifically made this possible on purpose.
20 supermodels could be patiently waiting or me to get home right now (with the keys to the new Ferrari they bought me) -- there's just not a lot of basis to believe it's true.
It's not documented, the AI doesn't do it, and its inconsistent with the otherwise general operation of merchants.
3. Regardless of what they do, theirs no way they can actually fix this
Presumably there is a piece of code that checks to see if a fort has been abandoned and makes it disappear. Can't they just make that check for troop presence only in that square as the criteria for abandonment?
Anyway, as I simply don't do it so there's not an urgent need for them to fix it as far as I am concerned. I would certainly prefer they not modify the AI to start doing it.
May as well just leave it in for the people who feel good about doing it (but don't feel good about opening the console and giving themselves cash).
20 supermodels could be patiently waiting or me to get home right now (with the keys to the new Ferrari they bought me) -- there's just not a lot of basis to believe it's true.
It's not documented, the AI doesn't do it, and its inconsistent with the otherwise general operation of merchants.
Their are a hell of a, lot of things that aren't documented or that the AI can/can't do that the player can in this game. none of those are PROOF that it's not intended.
That my point, until we can say with 100% certainty it was not intended, we cannot say it IS an exploit. and the only way we can be certain it wasn't what was intended is if CA states that. I'm not trying to say that it PROBABLY isn't what was intended, just that by pure logic, you also CANNOT claim it's an exploit with any authority until CA says it is.
I actually agree that it's PROBABLY an exploit, but it's a damm useful one when it comes to getting merchants to be worth the time and effort in this game.
Presumably there is a piece of code that checks to see if a fort has been abandoned and makes it disappear. Can't they just make that check for troop presence only in that square as the criteria for abandonment?
Anyway, as I simply don't do it so there's not an urgent need for them to fix it as far as I am concerned. I would certainly prefer they not modify the AI to start doing it.
May as well just leave it in for the people who feel good about doing it (but don't feel good about opening the console and giving themselves cash).
Thats not the issue here, they could make the square un-buildable if they wanted to, the issue is that you could STILL put a stack of troops containing 20 merchants onto a resource and do it that way, and their is NOTHING they can do to prevent this without making it nearly impossibbile to move armies around in some areas of the map. They don't really have any choice but to accept the situation and balance things around it, it'd going to be around whatever they do and their IS an MP campaign in M2TW. It's not working 100% ATM (which is probably why they disabled it by default), but if they ever want to actually enable it, they're going to have to balance the game around this to make it fair.
In fact I'd even go so far as to say that it HAS been balanced around this, it's the only explanation for why it's so easy to acquire merchants and why they provide no significant percentage of your income unless you occupy all the most distant resources at once. Ignoring the new world it's all but impossibbile to get more than about 8-10K of your income from merchants, and if you avoid Timbuktu/Arguin/Kiev/Stockholm that drops to about 2K. Without those distant high value recourses, it's just down right impossibbile to get enough income to cover the cost of anything, and it takes you so long to get it and get your merchants up thats it's not worth it.
Now that aside, I would personally PREFER it if they could prevent this and instead raise merchant income enough that they where actually useful on something other than the best resources. I just know that this isn't actually possible, so we have to work from that point on-wards. Which as I've pointed out simply means where going to have to accept it as an extra feature, (intended or not), and alter the game to deal with it now that it's there. If you really wanted merchants to stay as they are then you'd just have to cut the price of a merchant, and income rates to one twentieth their current values and allow merchants to attack each other even if they are in a fort/army, (RBH it doesn't make sense you can't attack a merchant in a fort/army anyway). Problem solved as it now takes 20 merchants to do the work of one previously.
Thats not the issue here, they could make the square un-buildable if they wanted to, the issue is that you could STILL put a stack of troops containing 20 merchants onto a resource and do it that way,
Hmmm, that's true. Still, there has got to be code that calculates each merchants income based on the square he stands on. They could re-write the code to test for other merchants on the square and pay zero if there are.
In fact I'd even go so far as to say that it HAS been balanced around this, it's the only explanation for why it's so easy to acquire merchants and why they provide no significant percentage of your income unless you occupy all the most distant resources at once. Ignoring the new world it's all but impossibbile to get more than about 8-10K of your income from merchants, and if you avoid Timbuktu/Arguin/Kiev/Stockholm that drops to about 2K. Without those distant high value recourses, it's just down right impossibbile to get enough income to cover the cost of anything, and it takes you so long to get it and get your merchants up thats it's not worth it.
Not sure I agree here. Merchants cost 550. I evaluate building them like any other economic investment. Number of turns to payout. Obviously, if you can get 200+ florins per turn on a resource, spending 550 on a merchant to cover that resource is a good investment. If you can only get 10 per turn you don't bother. My cut off is probably around 50 per turn.
Merchant income is also free and clear of garrison costs, etc. In my current game I am netting about 20,000 per turn total before build orders. I am getting about 7000 from my merchants. I guess if I had the same empire/military without merchants I'd be netting about 13,000. That's a pretty significant upgrade in cash flow.
I know how it's working. You see, any strategic unit can merge with an army. This allows protection for the strategic unit and benefits for the army.
And there's a key element here... you CAN do this without a fort. By merging several merchants into a military stack, you can accomplish the same thing by sitting the army beside the resource.
This is because all strategic units can merge with armies. A fort is handled with much of the same code as an army stack. The only way I could see to "fix" this would be to disallow merchants from merging with armies at all. BUT that would create another problem, because I'd bet you plenty the same code ALSO is used for the handling of city garrisons. Now you can't have merchants as part of cities either, and that's where they spawn...
I'm not sure if they anticipated it, but given the workings of the engine, everything is doing what it was made to do in this case. So I consider it more an undocumented, and possibly unanticipated, feature. But it is a result of everything working as fundamentally designed. So that would mean it lacks the characteristics of an exploit. There is no bug here being manipulated.
So the trick is teaching the AI what to do regarding it. For one thing, I'm not certain if merchants truly can't do takeovers of other merchants in army stacks. The AI clearly doesn't recognize ANY strategic units in stacks or garrisons. Ever. But the AI won't try to assassinate them either, or assassinate priests or princesses or anything else in a stack that's not an army unit. I can guarantee you you COULD try to assassinate the merchant in the fort if you wanted, I do it to strategic units in army stacks all the time. But since strategic units weren't capable of being merged into armies in MTW, the feature was added specifically to allow these units to merge into armies. Hence, strategic units... priests, princesses, spies, assassins, merchants... were meant to be able to merge into armies. The failing here is therefore in the AI.
Microwavegerbil
02-22-2007, 05:08
In fact I'd even go so far as to say that it HAS been balanced around this, it's the only explanation for why it's so easy to acquire merchants and why they provide no significant percentage of your income unless you occupy all the most distant resources at once. Ignoring the new world it's all but impossibbile to get more than about 8-10K of your income from merchants, and if you avoid Timbuktu/Arguin/Kiev/Stockholm that drops to about 2K. Without those distant high value recourses, it's just down right impossibbile to get enough income to cover the cost of anything, and it takes you so long to get it and get your merchants up thats it's not worth it.
Merchants can make a ton of money, it's all about heading towards high traffic areas, and sending the other merchants out of business. You can make a thousand or so florins quickly and easily by being aggressive.
Even without being aggressive, merchants are not a large investment to begin with, and very quickly turn a profit on even the average goods. Compare how many turns it takes for them to turn a profit to some of the other income generating buildings, and the resources seem to be quite balanced without the need for stacking your merchants.
Again, to me this qualifies on an oversight by the devs, and hence an exploit. I can't say with absolute authority that it's an exploit without the confirmation of CA as you said, but I'm 99% certain it is and would be miffed if someone did this to me without asking in a multiplayer campaign.
[QUOTE=Microwavegerbil]Merchants can make a ton of money, it's all about heading towards high traffic areas, and sending the other merchants out of business. You can make a thousand or so florins quickly and easily by being aggressive.
To do this without beinging taken over yourself unexpectedly requires some save and reload. How ethical is that?
It's definitely an exploit. If it was meant to be then the AI would do exactly the same. Presumably your merchants are safe from AI seizures while in a fort?
If it was meant to be then the AI would do exactly the same.
There is a problem with this reasoning. If you use that line of thought, then making balanced armies with advanced troops is an exploit. Using musketeers is an exploit. Training your assassins up by sabotage is an exploit. Charging through a gate your spies opened is an exploit. I'm sure there are other things the AI just doesn't do that are clearly meant to be.
That said, back onto topic. I'm pretty sure this wasn't the intended implementation of merchants, and I expect it's a fairly easy fix. Simply have a check for multiple merchants on a square, and if more than one, only the highest ranking one trades to the resource. I like the idea of forts on resources personally, and I even use it myself to protect vulnerable ones. Until I read about it, I couldn't use merchants playing Venice, because I couldn't get a merchant up to the point where it could even resist takeovers from AI merchants running around Italy, much less take over any himself. There is a little hidden side to forts, though. If you don't put any troops in it, I'm fairly certain it will be instantly taken over by any military unit that decides to own it, but I'm not certain if it would destroy the merchant or just eject it. If you use a stack instead, you have to keep a general in control or it might rebel, which will kill your merchant.
It's definitely an exploit. If it was meant to be then the AI would do exactly the same.
Then by that theory going anywhere near the new world is an exploit, grabbing Timbuktu/Arguin is an exploit. Blocking the Land-Bridge to Stockholm so that enemy merchants can't get their is an exploit. So is building a stack full of late era troops.
Thats just a list of the most glaringly obvious things you can do that the AI can't, just because something isn't done by the AI doesn't mean it's defiantly an exploit. I agree it most likely is, but we can't say that it defiantly is.
Presumably your merchants are safe from AI seizures while in a fort?
They appear to be, but then again non-Catholics are safe from Inquisitors, that doesn't mean an Inquisitor can't attack them, the AI just doesn't recognize them as a valid target, in reality they probably could attack them if their AI was corrected to recognize Merchants in forts.stacks as valid targets.
Merchants can make a ton of money, it's all about heading to wards high traffic areas, and sending the other merchants out of business. You can make a thousand or so florins quickly and easily by being aggressive.
As someone else put, to do this either requires save and reload or a considerable effort in building your merchants up first. It takes 10-15 turns sitting on a monopoly to get the Monopolist line to full, then 10-15 turns to get to a distant resource so you can get the Knowledge of Customs line. When you've done all that AND if they started out with Guild Trained AND at least one level of Legal Dealer you should have the 8+ Finance need to reliably acquire enemy merchants of sufficient level to actually grant 1000's to you each time you acquire one. thats a good 35-50 turns to get to that though, you now have maybe another 10-20 turns before he dies of old age.
The second problem is this: Merchants value doesn't just come down to how much they cost vs. how much they earn in total. Their are several issues at work.
First is that they take a LOT of micromanagement to get to a good level. For the amount of effort you have to put into them, they need to be giving a lot back. Buildings don't require even a fraction of the time and effort to get money out of.
Second, Merchants can be Acquired and can die of old age, that means they need replacing often, and also, My Treasury always seems to take a hit after i lose a merchant, so your losing profit every time you lose a merchant.
Third, if you don't go to the New World/Timbuktu/Arguin with your Merchants it's nearly impossibbile to get a decent income from them. this is the real key point 20 merchants on the best non-gold/Ivory/New World resources probably WILL make their cost back, but you'll still struggle to hit 10K income, and by turn 75 you really should be having a total income of more than 50K from non-Merchant sources anyway. 10K is still a nice extra, but with that much money coming in it's no longer as important as it used to be. Worse still, within another 30 or so turns you really should be able to double your income again to nearly 100K as your towns turn into cities and you start getting access to Wharfs, plus greater taxes and other money buildings. At 50K income, a 10K merchant income is a nice extra, at 100K base income, a 10K merchant income just doesn't matter anymore.
True, you really should be using the Gold, Ivory, and New World Resources, but my point is that non- of the other resources are useful for anything except training your merchants one, theirs CLEARLY something wrong with that idea IMHO, they should actually be useful as a source of income, thats the primary purpose of all resources. Stacking is the only way to get a truly significant income out of these resources, and even then it requires a stupidly large number of merchants to do.
You forgot one thing Carl... there is an absolute limit to the number of merchants you can have as well. If I have the maximum number of merchants possible; and cover all the most valuable resources with them, I'd actually block out the AI merchants from any decent resources. With the camp trick, The AI actually has a shot at more resources of higher value when I consolidate my merchants like that.
But one thing should change... merchants shouldn't be so ridiculously tough to assassinate. Honestly, I usually have an easier time killing an enemy king than one of his merchants... what sense does THAT make? Merchants should be as easy to kill as diplomats of the same level... maybe even easier.
Also, I'll throw in something else people aren't figuring in. Other strategic units ARE stackable in effects. I remember people back as far as Shogun saying putting a bunch of spies on something was an exploit. Interesting thing was, it was the ONLY way to get shinobi to have any impact on an enemy. Now when I put spies in a city what do I see? A bunch of slots letting me put whole teams in there? Who'd have guessed! Apparently it was never an exploit was it??? I can try to kill someone with as many assassins as I have around them. But by the reasoning some have, I should only be able to try to kill them once per turn... They'd think I shouldn't be able to enter diplomacy with another nation several times in a turn to get what I want... How about that I can have more than 1 army siege an enemy city at the same time? Then it makes it hard for the AI to break a siege by just attacking an army. (The AI does that to me.) Priests have to work in groups to change an enemy region... they have to "stack" on their target to work.
So really there is a lot of precedent for using groups of strategic units to accomplish something... in fact, some people's idea of how merchants "should work" would make them an exception to the rules for strategics.
As someone else put, to do this either requires save and reload or a considerable effort in building your merchants up first. It takes 10-15 turns sitting on a monopoly to get the Monopolist line to full, then 10-15 turns to get to a distant resource so you can get the Knowledge of Customs line. When you've done all that AND if they started out with Guild Trained AND at least one level of Legal Dealer you should have the 8+ Finance need to reliably acquire enemy merchants of sufficient level to actually grant 1000's to you each time you acquire one. thats a good 35-50 turns to get to that though, you now have maybe another 10-20 turns before he dies of old age.
I'm not sure what game you're playing. In my current game, I'm getting about 7000 from merchants with next to zero micromanaging. I'd guess this is from 30-35 merchants, so they're averaging over 200 each per turn. Less than 3 turns payout.
They are almost exclusively at work next to cities that I control. When one dies, I simply order another to take his place. I spend 0.0 time worrying about what level they are. I get one acquired every once in a while, but it's no big loss. I probably just as often end up reverse acquiring the merchant that tried to acquire me.
Microwavegerbil
02-22-2007, 22:08
You forgot one thing Carl... there is an absolute limit to the number of merchants you can have as well. If I have the maximum number of merchants possible; and cover all the most valuable resources with them, I'd actually block out the AI merchants from any decent resources.
I don't see this as a very good defense, because the AI is more than happy to send yours out of business.
Other strategic units ARE stackable in effects
Spies are, and diplomats are not, this is hardly indicative of a trend.
I can try to kill someone with as many assassins as I have around them. But by the reasoning some have, I should only be able to try to kill them once per turn... They'd think I shouldn't be able to enter diplomacy with another nation several times in a turn to get what I want... How about that I can have more than 1 army siege an enemy city at the same time?
You can feel free to use all of your merchants to take another one out of business in the same turn, I fail to see your point here.
So really there is a lot of precedent for using groups of strategic units to accomplish something... in fact, some people's idea of how merchants "should work" would make them an exception to the rules for strategics.
Most of the comparisons in your post didn't really make sense, so I strongly disagree that they would be an exception to the rule. In fact, my idea of how they "should work" really is better described as how they do work unless you build a fort on resources.
I also have to echo dismal here in regards to the work involved with merchants. I send merchants to nearby resources all the time, and unless the only nearby resources are timber, fur, or wool, they turn a profit from anywhere between one or two turns to maybe eight without basically zero micromanagement.
I consider the forts full of merchants trading post/colonies. E.g. opposite of Constantinople Genoa had a tax free colony at the time called Pera (Galata currently). Yes the AI doesn’t use merchant forts, but it is ofset by
1. the AI is better in deploying it’s merchants to the sweetest recourses, because it knows where the big money is
2. the AI merchants make more money for the same skill level than human ones make
3. the AI merchants have 10% to 20% advantage in the acquisitions for the same skill level
I'm not sure what game you're playing. In my current game, I'm getting about 7000 from merchants with next to zero micromanaging. I'd guess this is from 30-35 merchants, so they're averaging over 200 each per turn. Less than 3 turns payout.
They are almost exclusively at work next to cities that I control. When one dies, I simply order another to take his place. I spend 0.0 time worrying about what level they are. I get one acquired every once in a while, but it's no big loss. I probably just as often end up reverse acquiring the merchant that tried to acquire me.
I have to ask what provinces you currently own and where your capital is then because theirs no way you should own enough provinces to have that many resources and still have below 70-80K from non-Merchant income. Your also doing well to avoid acquisitions. In my experience any merchant sat on a resource for more than 10 turns will have an attempt made on him normally if it's worth anything worth putting him on. The only sane conclusion I can make is that you have Timbuktu/Arguin and most of the rest of your merchants are on really low income resources that the AI never bothers with. Anybody outside Timbuktu/Arguin/New World who is on Ivory, Silk, Gold, or Textiles will almost certainly be attacked, as will those on amber eventually, although it may take a bit longer.
I have to ask what provinces you currently own and where your capital is then because theirs no way you should own enough provinces to have that many resources and still have below 70-80K from non-Merchant income. Your also doing well to avoid acquisitions. In my experience any merchant sat on a resource for more than 10 turns will have an attempt made on him normally if it's worth anything worth putting him on. The only sane conclusion I can make is that you have Timbuktu/Arguin and most of the rest of your merchants are on really low income resources that the AI never bothers with. Anybody outside Timbuktu/Arguin/New World who is on Ivory, Silk, Gold, or Textiles will almost certainly be attacked, as will those on amber eventually, although it may take a bit longer.
I am venice, capital is venice. I own pretty much all of Italy, the balkans, Africa and the middle east. The merchants are mostly around constantinople, timbuktu, dongola, alexandria and antioch. Mostly on gold, ivory, spices, silks, and slaves.
It would take a long walk for an AI merchant to get near most of mine. Across all my merchants, I may get a takeover attempt one every 5-10 turns. I had a papal states merchant show up in, of all places, Dongola and take out two of my merchants. On the third try, his takeover backfired. Two turns later I was back up to four merchants in Dongola.
I don't tend to mess around much with merchants in Western Europe. All of your criticisms about the difficulty of making money with merchants apply there. I don't bother trying. But in most games I'll end up controling at least some area of the map that is a little less competitive and has some good resources. Scandinavia/NW Russia works pretty well.
I subscribe to a sort of conquer first, merchants second approach. Merchants are a fairly easy way to enhancing the returns from the lands you control that have high value resources.
Microwavegerbil
02-23-2007, 00:14
I consider the forts full of merchants trading post/colonies. E.g. opposite of Constantinople Genoa had a tax free colony at the time called Pera (Galata currently). Yes the AI doesn’t use merchant forts, but it is ofset by
1. the AI is better in deploying it’s merchants to the sweetest recourses, because it knows where the big money is
2. the AI merchants make more money for the same skill level than human ones make
3. the AI merchants have 10% to 20% advantage in the acquisitions for the same skill level
The AI rarely goes to Timbuktu and never the New World, so I'd say the player definitely has an advantage there. As for 2 and 3, I'm fairly certain neither of those are true.
Most of the comparisons in your post didn't really make sense
Yes they do if you just stop and think about it a minute. Each example involves the primary target of something on the strategic map, that has a single instance/location being accessed by a strategic unit more than once in a single turn. One item being used more than once per turn. Wait... that'd be like a resource getting used by more than one merchant wouldn't it??? :laugh4:
More than one army can siege the same city at once.
More than one spy can infiltrate the same city at once.
More than one priest can convert the same region at once.
More than one assassin can try to kill the same guy in a single turn.
More than one diplomat or princess can try diplomacy on the same target in one turn.
And people act like more than one merchant using a resource at once is a strange exception... get it now?
And people act like more than one merchant using a resource at once is a strange exception... get it now?
But you can't have more than one merchant on a resource. Except for the bug.
If they had wanted you to be able to have multiple merchants on a resource they could have coded it so you wouldn't have to bother with manipulating forts and armies to do it.
Microwavegerbil
02-23-2007, 16:47
More than one army can siege the same city at once.
More than one spy can infiltrate the same city at once.
More than one priest can convert the same region at once.
More than one assassin can try to kill the same guy in a single turn.
More than one diplomat or princess can try diplomacy on the same target in one turn.
And people act like more than one merchant using a resource at once is a strange exception... get it now?
Like I said in my last post, more than one merchant can try to put an enemy's out of business in a turn, which is similar to all the cases you mention here.
None of the actions you said involve stacking more than one agent in a single space that's outside of a castle/city, which is what the merchant exploit is doing.
Well, yes and no. You could put all your assassins in an army, station the army next to an enemy city, have the assassins all attempt to kill the commanding enemy general, and then lay siege to the city when they're done. Outside of an army, fort, or settlement, only one unit can occupy a space on the campaign map no matter what they are doing. You can't stack a merchant and a spy on the same space even if there is no resource there. I still think CA didn't intend us to make trading posts by building forts on the resources, but I can't be certain about that unless one of them posts a definitive yes or no on the subject.
Mega Dux Bob
02-23-2007, 18:04
That said, back onto topic. I'm pretty sure this wasn't the intended implementation of merchants, and I expect it's a fairly easy fix. Simply have a check for multiple merchants on a square, and if more than one, only the highest ranking one trades to the resource. I like the idea of forts on resources personally, and I even use it myself to protect vulnerable ones. Until I read about it, I couldn't use merchants playing Venice, because I couldn't get a merchant up to the point where it could even resist takeovers from AI merchants running around Italy, much less take over any himself. There is a little hidden side to forts, though. If you don't put any troops in it, I'm fairly certain it will be instantly taken over by any military unit that decides to own it, but I'm not certain if it would destroy the merchant or just eject it. If you use a stack instead, you have to keep a general in control or it might rebel, which will kill your merchant.
That is another weird thing with the merchant system in the game; the current system might be valid for some big, militarily aggressive faction but doesn’t work for Venice. For the faction that was The Traders in the period depicted in the game due to Venice’s small size they get few traders who will just get mugged by larger numbers of enemy traders the minute they step off the Riato. To say the Venetian Republic would allow some foreigner to come into their city or one of their colonies and drive their merchants out of business is ludicrous. It might be plausible with something like the HRE but those merchants are the government in Venice. Putting a high value resource at Venice and allowing a fort it is an easy way in game terms to vagely represent what happen.
If merchants are going to be in the game they should make a better effort to do them right. There should this whole separate merchant path in the building tree to follow that will give more and better merchants for factions that are just mainly traders. Right now it is just another way for a powerful faction to pile it on more.
3. Regardless of what they do, theirs no way they can actually fix this, so the only sensible thing to do is re-balance merchants around it and let the AI do it. Why can't they fix it? Because you can do it with an army instead of a fort sat on the resourse, and if they took away the ability of armies to move onto resource squares, you'd have MASSIVE issues with moving troops around in some areas of the world, (Constantinople, Northern Italy, Stockholm and Kiev, also parts of France and the far middle east could cause issues in places).
Of course they can fix this. It's no different from the commanding general issue. Just run similar code as that determining which general commands, except substitute total merchant skill for command skill, and have the "winner" play stack commander, and only the stack commander can "own" that resource. Likewise any takeover attempt would go against the "commanding merchant."
That would work in or out of forts. I think allowing forst makes sense, but not with more than one merchant being allowed to operate on a resource. At least that's how the present intent appears.
But I'd be happy with teaching the AI better tactics on this too.
I am Venice, capital is Venice. I own pretty much all of Italy, the Balkans, Africa and the middle east. The merchants are mostly around Constantinople, Timbuktu, dongola, Alexandria and Antioch. Mostly on gold, ivory, spices, silks, and slaves.
This partially explains matters TBH. From the sounds of it you've wiped out Milan, Byzantine, moors, Turks, Egypt, and are yourself playing as Venice. These account for at least 80% of the merchants produced in most games, with Portugal, HRE, and France making up most of the leftovers. As a result your not going to suffer for having unprotected merchants much.
I don't tend to mess around much with merchants in Western Europe. All of your criticisms about the difficulty of making money with merchants apply there. I don't bother trying. But in most games I'll end up controlling at least some area of the map that is a little less competitive and has some good resources. Scandinavia/NW Russia works pretty well.
I'd have to respectfully disagree with this, the hot-spots in reality are Africa, Northern Italy, Constantinople, Baghdad, the Iberian Peninsula, Stockholm, and around Antwerp. All are good places to either make a lot of money or to train merchants, and with the exception of Stockholm/Antwerp they are all near a major merchant power. Interestingly enough, Africa/Iberia/Italy never becomes a hot-spot if you play as a faction that starts in these places. Don't ask me why it happens, it just does.
I subscribe to a sort of conquer first, merchants second approach. Merchants are a fairly easy way to enhancing the returns from the lands you control that have high value resources.
This is only a valid and viable strategy if you blitz everything. It can take me 50 turns as Byzantine before I'm even preparing an attack n Venice, and experience tells me it would probably be another 50 turns before I had Northern Italy secured. I often have access to far more merchants that resources, and often have high level merchants sat on low income resources until i send them outside my provinces,. it also tends to mean that I have to put up with the full firepower of the other Merchant factions for quite a long time. I can easily have a new merchant arrive around Constantinople every couple of turns, once you add in the fact that I often have merchants out in northern Italy and probably even further afield if I can train enough up it become obvious that I'm probably going to have 1 or more acquisition attempts every turn and the nature of the competition around Constantinople and Italy means it's very hard to keep novice merchants alive. Thats why i tend to use training forts around Constantinople to get them leveled up, and then once they are leveled up enough I send them abroad where they can survive without a fort. Blitzing also helps by making the AI focus on Troops rather than agents, as a result you'll face less merchants that way.
I also have to ask how you've only got 20K income from all those provinces, with the areas you hold you should easily have 100K+. Milan, Genoa, Florance, Rome, Venice and the staring HRE one are worth over 30K with just a few upgrades from how they start.
In general it depends how you play as to how useful merchants are. When you blitz you can eliminate some of the big merchant factions early, (as they tend to have the best cities), so your merchants are in less danger to begin with. When you don't blitz you tend to face much stiffer competition, especially in your training grounds which tend to be merchant magnets.
In many ways your post on reinforces my position as you admit that when competition is fierce merchants are nearly useless, which has been one of my points all along.
Likewise, in the post above, you admit you've had to use an extremely large numbers of merchants to get any kind of income, which was also another of my points, that if you want any decent income from merchants without using insane numbers of them, (which is a micromanagement nightmare if you don't own the province the resource is in), your limited to just a few provinces and resources as most don't provide enough income to justify the travel times or micromanagement or acquisition losses. By letting you stack merchants, Forts make resources like grain/sulpher/silver/iorn/wool/coal/e.t.c. useful as you can get a decent income off them for much less effort.
gardibolt
02-23-2007, 21:56
Interesting discussion. I had just assumed this had to be an exploit, but Carl is making me seriously rethink that position.
Playing as England, merchants did seem useless for a very long time. They got more useful after I eliminated Milan, Venice, France, Spain, HRE and owned most of Italy. I truly haven't seen a lot of competing merchants in a while, except down in Egypt, where the Turks are still active.
This partially explains matters TBH. From the sounds of it you've wiped out Milan, Byzantine, moors, Turks, Egypt, and are yourself playing as Venice.
Yes, indeed. Actually the Moors still have a province in Iberia. As I said, I go for conquer first, merchants second.
This is only a valid and viable strategy if you blitz everything. It can take me 50 turns as Byzantine before I'm even preparing an attack n Venice, and experience tells me it would probably be another 50 turns before I had Northern Italy secured.
Well, when you secure them you can trade them. I have only recently secured Baghdad and in turn 100 or so. On the other hand, I had probably had Constantinople at turn 15 or 20.
I often have access to far more merchants that resources, and often have high level merchants sat on low income resources
Why do you bother making them? I make merchants when the return on them is good. I don't make them when the return is bad.
Nowhere is it written that Merchants are always supposed to be good everywhere everytime. It's a strategy game.
I also have to ask how you've only got 20K income from all those provinces, with the areas you hold you should easily have 100K+. Milan, Genoa, Florance, Rome, Venice and the staring HRE one are worth over 30K with just a few upgrades from how they start.
I said 20,000 net income. Net of all the upkeep and corruption, etc. I probably have about 140,000 of revenue, 120,000 of costs. Without my 7000 from merchants I'd have 133,000 of revenue and 120,000 of costs.
In general it depends how you play as to how useful merchants are. When you blitz you can eliminate some of the big merchant factions early, (as they tend to have the best cities), so your merchants are in less danger to begin with. When you don't blitz you tend to face much stiffer competition, especially in your training grounds which tend to be merchant magnets.
Agreed. All I was really disagreeing with was your assertion that "merchants aren't worth it without the fort trick". At the right time and place, they are provide an excellent return.
I agree with the poster a couple posts ago that you can't base a strategy around them. They help the rich get richer.
Likewise, in the post above, you admit you've had to use an extremely large numbers of merchants to get any kind of income, which was also another of my points, that if you want any decent income from merchants without using insane numbers of them
Not sure I understand the relevance of the number of merchants. The relevant thing is that they are an excellent return on the 550 florins you invest in them. If I only traded my 10 best resources, I'd probably average better than a 1 year payout.
Think of it this way: to deploy 35 merchants I need to spend 19,250 florins. that's about identical to the cost of 4 Great Markets. Which do you think will get me a better return?
I never hea earth quakes in tumbuktu, but in alpelo and tunis it's alot of times, merchant trixs just for newbies... earn ur cash without merchans and see how u can do....
Would like to add on that the AI seems to 'detect' and attack concentrations of armies and agents with natural disasters.
I had 10 full stacks of troops near Yerevan preparing for the Mongol invasion. However, the turn the Mongols appeared a flash flood wiped out half of my army. As a result I was beaten back in a humiliating manner.
Another time I was blocking the over-sea paths to the Middle East near Constatinople with lots of ships. However, every few turns a storm would hit them and I would have to continuously replace ships.
Snoil The Mighty
02-26-2007, 07:30
It's an exploit. The sky is blue, the Sun is yellow, the grass is green, and stacking a bunch of merchants in a military fort built on a trade resource in M2TW is an exploit. Is it a justifiable exploit? That's falls under the 'to each his own' category. Personally I don't do it because there is a much much better way to train merchants up than have em sit on a resource doing not a lot and that's travelling (and while I am at it being the predator when possible). You won't get any graceful traveller traits with all 15 (or whatever number) of your merchants sitting in a fort somewhere. Pretty unlikely to gain much knowledge of customs either I am guessing. If someone wants to stick em in a fort, that's a personal decision, but it's an exploit nonetheless. Though I am guessing not a very effective one since training them up by moving em out and getting em into the scrappy financial warfare world trains em up so fast
Microwavegerbil
02-26-2007, 10:20
I love you Snoil.
I meant to come back to this one but got sidetracked and forgot.
First
@Snoil: I wish people would stop saying "it is an exploit" until you can find a written statement by CA that says either A) "having more than 1 merchant IS an exploit", or B) (probably in the manual), "you may only ever place 1 merchant on a resourse".
I agree it PROBABLY IS an exploit, however until you find the above nobody can say "it IS an exploit" without being wrong simply because they have no way of proving it.
Several points you made that clearly show limited understanding of how merchants work.
First up. To have ANY chance of acquiring 95% of the merchants out their you need AT LEAST 6, preferably 7+ skill as most merchants are at least 4 skill, and they go as high as 8 in more distant parts of the world. Without a Guild HQ it is VERY difficult to get that level to begin with. you get 1-2 from legal dealer and 1-2 from natural merchant skill. It's just about possible to get 6 with a merchant guild, but VERY rare.
Second, you do NOT get Graceful traveler for traveling around even in distant lands. It is in fact the Second and final level of the Worldly Merchant trait and it tops out at Worldly Merchant, (+2 Finance), that means that with the more typical 2-3 starting finance you might just have hit 5 finance once you've hit the second level.
Third, the First level of Worldly Merchant is the Knowledge of Customs Trait, and both are acquired by sitting on a resource a long way from your capital. Do that and you'll probably have to acquire an enemy Merchant to get on the resource, (nearly impossibbile considering he will normally have double your own finance level), and even if you find a resource free, as soon as you put him on a resource, every merchant nearby will home in, (don't ask me why they do it, they just do), on him and since yet again they will mostly have a crazy skill level he's an easy acquisition. it take an "average" of 10 turns to get the full +2 from it BTW.
Yes, indeed. Actually the Moors still have a province in Iberia. As I said, I go for conquer first, merchants second.
Thats my point Dismal, Merchants SHOULDN@:T be only viable after you've wiped out most of the other factions and won/nearly won the campaign. They should be usable right from the start.
Well, when you secure them you can trade them. I have only recently secured Baghdad and in turn 100 or so. On the other hand, I had probably had Constantinople at turn 15 or 20.
And what if you don't Blitz, I'd be luck to have got as far as Economy, (turks capital), by turn 100, many other slow players would too. Merchants are no good if they generate no money for the first third of the game, especially since if you don't blitz, by the time you get to the distant resourses, your income and net income would be so high that merchants would barely change it. They simply aren't viable AT ALL using your method if you don't Blitz.
Why do you bother making them? I make merchants when the return on them is good. I don't make them when the return is bad.
Nowhere is it written that Merchants are always supposed to be good everywhere every-time. It's a strategy game.
You didn't quote me in full. I have high level guys sat on low level resources while I'm finishing training them up. With a merchants guild and a bit of luck I can have 2 levels, (out of 3 possible), of monopolist trait and be at about 5-6 Finance, they make plenty of money on High value resources but are still vulnerable to enemy merchants, I need another point before I can send them on their way to the high level areas, if i can acquire a few 4-5 finance merchants on route I can then usually take and hold the distant resources which gives me the finance to counteract the Loyal to Coin traits and that means now have a 8-10 finance merchant that can largely resist any attempts to acquire him, (which gives me the secure merchant line too). Once I get that 8+ Finance merchant on a good resource, I can make a killing in money, often 4 or 5 of these can make 3000+florins if placed correctly. But it takes a lot of time and effort to get them trained, nd one of the requirements is a secure training ground. If enemy merchants can pick on your training grounds it becomes much more difficult to train them up as you'll easily lose half your merchants o acquisitions, this costs you time, and money to replace them, it also costs you the time it took to train them up, and it costs you money from what you lose from your Treasury every time a merchant is acquired.
I said 20,000 net income. Net of all the upkeep and corruption, etc. I probably have about 140,000 of revenue, 120,000 of costs. Without my 7000 from merchants I'd have 133,000 of revenue and 120,000 of costs.
Frankly that type of net income with that many provinces is pitiful, with Rome Florance, Genoa, Milan and the starting Sicilian city, (I forget the name, sorry), I can make 15K net income inside of 10 turns of capturing the lot as the papal states. Which is another point about blitzing, your cities are rarely well developed considering the size of your empire and you have a large standing army, so you have poor net income. A slow campaign gives you FAR more Net income from that much territory, so much that 7K is a drop in the ocean.
Agreed. All I was really disagreeing with was your assertion that "merchants aren't worth it without the fort trick". At the right time and place, they are provide an excellent return.
I agree with the poster a couple posts ago that you can't base a strategy around them. They help the rich get richer.
The point is the ONLY right time and place is on resources that are valuable that are in your provinces when their are none of the merchant spamming factions around and when you've been blitzing. if you go slow by the time you own the good resources the income from merchants is so poor theirs no point bothering.
The only time they are useful to a slow expander is in the early half of the campaign when all/nearly all the factions are still around and you don't have enough interior provinces to get a massive income, (and thus overshadow the merchant income into insignificance). By the time a slow expander get to 20-25 provinces, (varies a bit depending on where you are BTW), he will have so much income that merchant income is largely insignificant.
Not sure I understand the relevance of the number of merchants. The relevant thing is that they are an excellent return on the 550 florins you invest in them. If I only traded my 10 best resources, I'd probably average better than a 1 year payout.
Think of it this way: to deploy 35 merchants I need to spend 19,250 florins. that's about identical to the cost of 4 Great Markets. Which do you think will get me a better return?
The great Markets of Course. You never have to replace the Markets ever 50ish turns, they never cost you 1000's when acquired, they never need one or two replacing every 10 turns or so and they give BIG trade buffs. The relevance of the number is that it takes 7 Huge Cities with great markets to have that many merchants. To a slow expander that still takes time in spite of the rapid growth and upgrade rates of slow expander cities, plus you'll need some castle in their too normally. so it's more like 15 cities. by the time you get to that many cities your within 50 or so turns of hitting such a high income that your merchants are going to be pointless.
Lastly, even with 45 provinces with 2/3 as Huge Cites you can only recruit 150 merchants, thats a Little over 7 forts and at least 1 fifth will be merchants in training so in total even with massive abuse of the fort bug on Gold and Silk, (ignoring the new world as it's not available for a long time and it takes forever to ship several forts worth of merchants over their), is about 40,000. It's a lot but compared to other sources it's still small.
My Final point would be that their are currently a LARGE number of resources that give very Little income and don't have many if any monopolies for you t train merchants on. Examples are (dyes, wine, fish, iron, coal, and for most Western Europeans silver). Who are these resources their for if they make no appreciable money. Forts actually give you chance to make money of these resources.
Don't get me wrong, I'd much rather they boosted the base income of merchants and nixed the merchants in forts trick as believe it probably is an exploit. But as things stand it's nearly impossibbile to use merchants as a slow expander without it, and a number of resources just can't produce enough income without it either, so in the end if they nix it they have to increase merchant income and acquisition chances ,(so that low level merchants have a better chance of acquiring enemy merchants who are about to attack them), before they will become useful enough to be considered working.
Thats my point Dismal, Merchants SHOULDN@:T be only viable after you've wiped out most of the other factions and won/nearly won the campaign. They should be usable right from the start.
I don't disagree. It would be nice if they were a better strategic option. I donb't see how it follows from this that the merchant-fort "trick" is not the result of a bug.
Frankly that type of net income with that many provinces is pitiful, with Rome Florance, Genoa, Milan and the starting Sicilian city, (I forget the name, sorry), I can make 15K net income inside of 10 turns of capturing the lot as the papal states. Which is another point about blitzing, your cities are rarely well developed considering the size of your empire and you have a large standing army, so you have poor net income. A slow campaign gives you FAR more Net income from that much territory, so much that 7K is a drop in the ocean.
Pitiful? I guess I shall have to console with the fact that I was out winning the game instead of making better buildings in Milan.
Actually a big part of the reason my net income was so low is I was playing past the end to enagage in an all-out war with the mongols and probably had 8 or 9 full stacks in the middle east.
The great Markets of Course. You never have to replace the Markets ever 50ish turns, they never cost you 1000's when acquired, they never need one or two replacing every 10 turns or so and they give BIG trade buffs.
The payback on a great market is definitely not less than 3 turns.
Sometime try opening a scoll and see what the game projects your additional income will be when you add a great market. It's often as little as 20 or 30 per turn for an investment of 4800.
The payback on a great market is definitely not less than 3 turns.
Sometime try opening a scoll and see what the game projects your additional income will be when you add a great market. It's often as little as 20 or 30 per turn for an investment of 4800.
I was talking over a prolonged period of time, and I don't know exactly what it adds in the way of income, (how do you find that out anyway), but I do regularly feel like I'm getting a lot out of my great markets so...
Pitiful? I guess I shall have to console with the fact that I was out winning the game instead of making better buildings in Milan.
It comes down to play style, most settlements have gone up at least one level in size after i capture them but before I move on. When your a slow player however you don't tend to attack something as soon as you possibly can. i tend to take my time and build up an overwhelming force to attack the enemy, I also tend to wait till they declare war on me, and if they Are catholics, i wait till they get Excomed. As a result I can be stood 15+ turns without anyone to conquer even once I've got an army ready to go. A few turns after the enemy has declared war I'll have as many settlements as I feel my former Field army can adequately Garrison (I tend to occupy), and at this point I'll hang around till I get the settlements built up a bit and get a good cheap Garrison in them, then move on again. Rinse and repeat.
I play slow because an aggressive sacking style where I'm taking a settlement every 2 turns or less just doesn't come naturally to me.
Actually a big part of the reason my net income was so low is I was playing past the end to engage in an all-out war with the Mongols and probably had 8 or 9 full stacks in the middle east.
Thanks for the clarification on that, thats actually a potential circumstance where merchants could be useful again, when for some reason beyond your control you have a lot of expensive garrisons/Field armies, it's quite handy to have a few thousand extra as it might actually give you something to spend.
I don't disagree. It would be nice if they were a better strategic option. I don't see how it follows from this that the merchant-fort "trick" is not the result of a bug.
I NEVER said it ISN'T a bug. It PROBABLY is. I merely said you can't say IT IS a bug till CA confirms it.
My only point was that as a slow expander it's the best and, (nearly anyway), only way of getting merchants to work in a useful way if you aren't a blitzer, as otherwise the prolific high finance enemy merchants will kill of a fair chunk of your trainees, losing you a lot of money. The forts trick lets you train a lot at once in safety and that makes merchants very useful then IMHO.
I fully agree with Carl, early on the fort technique helps bring in some money and makes merchants useful early on. Some people prefer to send them on missions trying to find other merchants for hostile takeover, I had that fail one too many times so I took to the fort deal. Whatever, it's not a bug unless CA recognizes it officially. For all we know this could simply be unintended behavior, but not neccesarily a function that they tried to explicitly prevent. I vote that it stays. :grin:
I NEVER said it ISN'T a bug. It PROBABLY is. I merely said you can't say IT IS a bug till CA confirms it.
I know. It seems we agree on most aspects of this discussion really. When merchants are good, when they are not worth making, etc.
To me it seems inconceivable to me that CA intended to have stacks of 20 merchants sitting in a fort, trading a single resource, immune from takeovers. I've written enough programs over the years to smell a bug. This smacks of the sort of thing that slips through because no one thought of this misuse when writing the code for the intended functions of merchants, forts, etc. Forts existed in RTW, the ability for agents to accompany armies existed in RTW, the code that governed this already existed and probably wasn't changed when merchants were added in M2TW.
Anyway, bottom line is, I don't use it.
If others want to use it, it's not really any concern of mine.
I know. It seems we agree on most aspects of this discussion really. When merchants are good, when they are not worth making, etc
I'd say the same thing.
To me it seems inconceivable to me that CA intended to have stacks of 20 merchants sitting in a fort, trading a single resource, immune from takeovers. I've written enough programs over the years to smell a bug. This smacks of the sort of thing that slips through because no one thought of this misuse when writing the code for the intended functions of merchants, forts, etc. Forts existed in RTW, the ability for agents to accompany armies existed in RTW, the code that governed this already existed and probably wasn't changed when merchants were added in M2TW.
I agree tottally, i'm as close to 100% sure this is a big as it's possibbile to be without confirmation from CA.
My only argument about it has been that whilst it probably wasn't intended, it's a damm useful way of making merchants useful for those of us who like to take our time about things.
I'd much rather however see it fixed and merchants tweaked so as to make them useful.
chickenhawk
02-27-2007, 18:05
The problem with merchants is that they exist. It takes a great deal of micromanagement to use them well and otherwise they just clutter up the map. They should simply go away and the income from various markets and such should be tweaked.
If anything else is required just make provinces with certain resources worth a lot more money. And make the player have to defend them.
The problem with merchants is that they exist. It takes a great deal of micromanagement to use them well and otherwise they just clutter up the map. They should simply go away and the income from various markets and such should be tweaked.
If anything else is required just make provinces with certain resources worth a lot more money. And make the player have to defend them.
Meh. I kinda like the whole Merchants thing, it adds a new bit of gameplay and strategy to the mix.
One thing that continuously surprises me is the number of folks who don't like micromanagement. What the heck are you doing playing the TW games for then? :grin: The SP campaign is all about micromanagement. Custom battles and MP are for the combat-driven folks! :smash:
Gingivitis
02-27-2007, 21:37
My merchants work just great early in the game. You just have to pay attention, not "micro manage." In my current Byzantine game I'm hardly a world power but my merchants are a big factor in maintaining my economy and there's only around 6-7 of them.
First thing is I use watchtowers more to detect merchants than armies. My merchants (trained at the merchant's guild in Constantinople) start out on the silk nearby. If they see merchants they can acquire, they do so, if not they move, but I'll usually keep one highly skilled merchant around there as protection for the other ones. If the lesser merchants can acquire, I let them, if not the big boy does it.
Once they get about 5 stars it's off to real resources in the Holy Lands or to Italy, but I send a spy with them to detect trouble/opportunities. The ones in the Holy lands start around Antioch on the spices until they get to around 8 stars and then they go to the Ivory in Dongola. I usually send a single one to Italy as it seems there's an unending supply of new AI merchants to acquire. Every other turn on average I get a takeover as well as 300-400ish from the textiles there. Sure, sometimes 95% chance fails, but it's just a chance to work up the latest guy in training around Constantinople. In maybe 20ish turns your merchant will generate enough coin to buy 1 decent military unit per turn, making the whole process worthwhile.
As for the fort/exploit thing, I'm with the people who say you might as well just open up the console and give yourself some money. Plus who cares if you call it exploit or what CA thinks about it? If you look at it logically and come to the conclusion that you should be able to stick 20 of your merchants in a fort on the most valuable resource you can find while the AI can't/won't/doesn't and think that's the way the game should work, great. I would think that's unreasonable, but If the whole merchant part of the game isn't your thing, that I can understand, but I think people are either paranoid about AI merchants having some "I win" button or crazy advantage and looking for excuses to cheese or just being lazy and expecting:
1: Create Merchant
2: ????
3: Profit
where ???? is doing absolutely nothing but moving a merchant to resource and doing nothing else. I think I've got a pretty good system of ???? and it works well, not as well as ~ add_money 99999, but it's a start.
[QUOTE=KHPike]Would like to add on that the AI seems to 'detect' and attack concentrations of armies and agents with natural disasters.
I had 10 full stacks of troops near Yerevan preparing for the Mongol invasion. However, the turn the Mongols appeared a flash flood wiped out half of my army. As a result I was beaten back in a humiliating manner.
When I started this thread, this was the question I was trying to answer. I believe the AI detects high concentrations of merchants and attacks them with natural disasters. If this is the case then I would suggest that using forts for merchants is not a bug, but an exploit that the AI is aware of and it may choose to punish you for using it.
Since the earth quake killed off my stack of merchants I have spread them out a bit more. Since doing this I have noticed that ivory is now more valuable than gold . My empire has expanded slightly, but my capitol is the same. Is this because of the changing year, New world is now there but I havent got there yet, or have all my merchants over used the gold resorce?
I think that's just a global market fluctuation that swings around once in a while. Sometimes ivory is more valuable than gold. Even with trading forts, while you can put most of your merchants on one type of resource, it's really not the wisest strategy long term.
Heck even inside traders often have diversified portfolios. :beam:
gardibolt
02-28-2007, 18:02
If you spread your merchants out, you may have established a monopoly on ivory, which gives your merchants the monopolist trait and makes them earn more (I don't know if the monopoly itself makes the resource worth more). Gold is much harder to monopolize because it shows up in more places.
You don't have to do that to get the "monopoly" line of traits. All you need is a province that has 2+ instances of any resource, and to make sure that nobody but you is trading that resource in that province. Timbuktu has two pairs, two gold and two ivory, and thus you can get monopolist by standing on one or both of either of those resources, so long as no foreign merchant is on the other.
The AI rarely goes to Timbuktu and never the New World, so I'd say the player definitely has an advantage there. As for 2 and 3, I'm fairly certain neither of those are true.
You can test 2 and 3.
Test for 2. Find a AI merchant sitting on a resourse send a spy to see his details, see how much money he makes. Select own merchant with the same skill level. Move the cursor over the same resourse and you will see that your merchant will make less on the same resourse.
Test for 3. Select own merchant and left click on an AI mechant with the same skill level and see the probability of successful takeover.
Another thought. On what level do you play? I play only on Vh/Vh may be you are right on the ohter levels.
Gingivitis
02-28-2007, 21:53
You can test 2 and 3.
Test for 2. Find a AI merchant sitting on a resourse send a spy to see his details, see how much money he makes. Select own merchant with the same skill level. Move the cursor over the same resourse and you will see that your merchant will make less on the same resourse.
Test for 3. Select own merchant and left click on an AI mechant with the same skill level and see the probability of successful takeover.
Another thought. On what level do you play? I play only on Vh/Vh may be you are right on the ohter levels.
Hard to say since 2 depends on the capitol location. There are times I make more than an equal AI merchant. As for 3, do you know what the AI merchant's chances of take overs are?
As for 3, do you know what the AI merchant's chances of take overs are?
You can't normally find out, but genrally the AI merchants raerly fail their aqqussition attempts even when they are of similar or slightly lower finance. hey only mess it up if they are signifacantly lower.
p.s. give me a moment and i'll respond to your other points in your previous post.
Microwavegerbil
02-28-2007, 22:31
You can test 2 and 3.
Test for 2. Find a AI merchant sitting on a resourse send a spy to see his details, see how much money he makes. Select own merchant with the same skill level. Move the cursor over the same resourse and you will see that your merchant will make less on the same resourse.
Test for 3. Select own merchant and left click on an AI mechant with the same skill level and see the probability of successful takeover.
Another thought. On what level do you play? I play only on Vh/Vh may be you are right on the ohter levels.
On number 2, that doesn't work properly at all, the value is affected by your capital's distance from the resource.
On 3, it seems to me that the challenging merchant has a disadvantage, so without some look at the code, no it can't be tested.
Also, I play only on VH/VH.
I've seen people claim that AI merchants never seem to fail, and like the original topic I think this is a case of people remembering the bad things more than the good. In my last campaign I lost a handful of merchants to takeover, and had several of my merchants be challenged and win. Likewise, I think people just tend to remember the one horribly unlucky disaster and forget the other three that didn't affect them at all.
My merchants work just great early in the game. You just have to pay attention, not "micro manage." In my current Byzantine game I'm hardly a world power but my merchants are a big factor in maintaining my economy and there's only around 6-7 of them.
First thing is I use watchtowers more to detect merchants than armies. My merchants (trained at the merchant's guild in Constantinople) start out on the silk nearby. If they see merchants they can acquire, they do so, if not they move, but I'll usually keep one highly skilled merchant around there as protection for the other ones. If the lesser merchants can acquire, I let them, if not the big boy does it.
Once they get about 5 stars it's off to real resources in the Holy Lands or to Italy, but I send a spy with them to detect trouble/opportunities. The ones in the Holy lands start around Antioch on the spices until they get to around 8 stars and then they go to the Ivory in Dongola. I usually send a single one to Italy as it seems there's an unending supply of new AI merchants to acquire. Every other turn on average I get a takeover as well as 300-400ish from the textiles there. Sure, sometimes 95% chance fails, but it's just a chance to work up the latest guy in training around Constantinople. In maybe 20ish turns your merchant will generate enough coin to buy 1 decent military unit per turn, making the whole process worthwhile.
As for the fort/exploit thing, I'm with the people who say you might as well just open up the console and give yourself some money. Plus who cares if you call it exploit or what CA thinks about it? If you look at it logically and come to the conclusion that you should be able to stick 20 of your merchants in a fort on the most valuable resource you can find while the AI can't/won't/doesn't and think that's the way the game should work, great. I would think that's unreasonable, but If the whole merchant part of the game isn't your thing, that I can understand, but I think people are either paranoid about AI merchants having some "I win" button or crazy advantage and looking for excuses to cheese or just being lazy and expecting:
1: Create Merchant
2: ????
3: Profit
where ???? is doing absolutely nothing but moving a merchant to resource and doing nothing else. I think I've got a pretty good system of ???? and it works well, not as well as ~ add_money 99999, but it's a start.
Thats a nice strategy, but how Viable it is depends on your position a lot and on who your playing as and what your starting area is like.
First, you actually need a decent number of monopolies close to each other to train them up on. Most provinces only have 1 monopoly of 2 2 resources of the same type, (e.g. the silver in London Province). If you don't have a lot of monopolies in 1 or 2 adjacent provinces it can take a turn or two to get your merchants from your training center to a more distant monopoly and it isn't really feasible to protect such spread out merchants with just one merchant.
Second, training up such a defensive merchant takes time as you have to get his monopolist line up to full then send him off to a distant spot, (as any of the Catholics except maybe Spain and Portugal I'd choose Constantinople. Probably the same for Russia and Egypt too, but I'd go for the textiles in northern Italy as Moors, Byzantine, and the Turks. Gold and Ivory in Timbuktu would be my preference as Spain or Portugal though). Sending them to said spots would normally take about 10 turns, sometimes 15 if I play as some factions or send them further abroad. then I have to sit them their while I level up. Then send one back whilst i move others onto more profitable areas. Overall with the travel and training times being what they are it's typically going to be a good 40+ turns before I have my first merchant up to the max of 7-8 Finance, (without guild traits it's VERY difficult to get 9-10), and back I'll only have about 10 turns of guarding out of him before he dies and thus I'll need to be sending his replacments along about the same time he arrives to protect my training grounds.
Third, as mentioned I'll have merchants training at (for example as Danes), Stockholm and Constantinople, but I'll also want to try to get some on the Silk round Baghdad, the Ivory in Egypt, or even, if I can get some boats in the Med, send some off to Timbuktu and Arguin. As a result that takes quite a lot of merchants. Including those traveling, (but not those training in the homeland training ground, (i.e. those being protected by an Anti-Poaching merchant), I've assumed only 1 anti-poaching merchant too), the total number of required Merchants is already 8. For every additional training ground or distant resource you need another 4. Theirs also the problem that until you have a lot of territory or until you have Stockholm your limited to about 7-8 merchants training at once, and you need one merchant in initial training for every 4 merchants elsewhere. even 8 merchants (plus the two initial trainees needed to support them), are far more than a I'll be able to build for a long time. You can cut it down by 4 merchants if you are willing to accept resources not being manned/training ground not being protected 100% of the time, but even then you've only got 1 distant resource. You need several decent sized cities before you can get together enough merchants to get a decent number on distant resources, and until you do the merchants aren't going to be making a lot of money.
Fourth, until you get a guild and/or a few other traits going, your going to have issues getting a 9-10 Finance merchant, as a result thats going to produce issues with protecting your trainees from 6-7 finance merchants, the AI seems to succeed on low chance a lot more than you do and your not likely to have better than a 50% chance. You could easily lose your protecting merchant to a backfire like that. So even then your going to need a good 30ish turns to get a guild up and get a protecting merchant trained from it then send him out and get him back.
Fifth, it's an insane amount of micromanagement, most people will not try to micromanage more than about 40ish merchants regardless. With this system, your only going to support 8 merchants that are either doing anti-poaching duties or are on a distant resource. typically with only 1 monopoly that can be guarded by any 1 anti-packing merchant you'll only have 6 merchants on distant resources at any one time making a lot of money (plus about 8 on medium distance resources making a fair amount). you may get your money back, but considering the time and effort put into it it's rather too Little profit for most peoples tastes. Thats an important point to remember, Time and effort put in factors into peoples considerations on weather to use something just as much as actually monetary cost does. for the effort they are putting in. Many people will expect much better total income than the 10K or so they'll actually get.
Overall point: The training forts allow you to train a lot of merchants quickly and safely, as a result they cut some of the worst micromanagement out and allow you more merchants on distant resources netting you more income and making it feel more worthwhile. it's still a Little low, but more acceptable to many people.
Lastly, regardless of the above, it is inarguable that their are a number of resources, and even resource types that have (because they have few or no monopolies), are unsuited to training, but are also very low value. this leaves forts as the only way of making any money off them worth talking about.
Gingivitis
02-28-2007, 23:27
Everything you wrote is true for the most part and I feel bad about replying with a trite response, but "you get what you put into it" is true in this case. If I can spend 15+ minutes "micromanaging" a battle I can certainly spare a minute or two every turn to make sure my merchants are working optimally. If I don't do that management of merchants there's a good chance I wouldn't be fighting that 15 minute battle because I couldn't afford the army to fight in it.
As for the fort thing again, people make it seem like you're forced to make merchants and it's their divine right that they can all make 500+ florins a turn on them. As has been said in the thread if people don't think they're worth making, then don't make them. There are limited resources in the game for a reason, artificially inflating them by using forts that basically add 20 new resources to the map doesn't seem reasonable, at least to me.
Everything you wrote is true for the most part and I feel bad about replying with a trite response, but "you get what you put into it" is true in this case.
Don't worry about sounding trite~:). Whilst i know this is going to sound suspicious, I was actually planning to add a section on this to my above post, but someone I wanted to talk to signed into MSN just as I started on it spell, and I can't run MSN and IE at the same time due to a buggy net connection.
I agree with most of what you've written in your reply, I've got to say that micromanaging a battle is a lot less tedious in my experience, (assuming the path-finding doesn't go all to hell on you), than merchants because your not doing effectively the same thing 40+ times, your also often dealing with a dynamic situation that taxes your brains, i can certainly manage 20+ merchants, maybe even 40, but most people lack the Patience for that level of tediousness.
In general what you've described WILL work if you have enough time effort and Patience, but it's going to cost you a lot of merchants early on till you get a level 9-10 protector up and running. After that it's just a case of repeating the same moves every few turns and away you go.
What I'd like to see changed is a strong increase in income from all resources, so that any resource more than 2-3 provinces from your capital is worth putting a merchant on if you have one to spare with nothing better to do, their are a fair few resources in HRE/France/Iberia/England that are of low value and aren't monopolies, it would be nice if these where worth using for someone, even the Islamic factions don't make a lot of money off them.
I'd also say they either have to treble basic acquisition chances, or reduce them to a third. This cuts the power of AI merchants by either meaning that level 4-5 merchants actually have a chance of acquiring the level 7-8 AI ones (not a good one, but enough to risk it), or cuts the AI's chances enough that they'll actually lose the odd merchant, which will help you a lot as it gives your merchant the odd finance point and gives you back money lost to the enemy acquisitions that do occur. You still need a high level defense merchant either way, but his job is made significantly easier now as he doesn't have to be level 9-10 all the time to do his job well.
I certainly don't want to see 500+florins from every resource,, but 50-80, (and maybe going up-to a hundred in some cases), would be nice, outside those Right outside the capital anyway. I don't want Merchants to become massive cash cows, just be useful additions without becoming tedious for most players before they generate a lot of useful income. if necessary reduce the maximum number available per city to compensate.
Gingivitis
03-01-2007, 02:06
I'm with you on the part where I don't think they should be major cash cows and there there needs to be some adjustment. I think there's too many resources that I wouldn't even put a free merchant on while OTOH the resources that do produce money seem to produce a stunning amount with high level merchants. There's just no viable middle ground for average merchants.
I do think, that even the least valuable resource, should be able to pay off the price of a merchant in 10 turns. This would include average levels of skill development in the equation from a starting level of 0 finance. But basically, it shouldn't take more than 10 turns on any resource at all for a merchant to pay off their investment. Otherwise, it doesn't seem like the merchant themselves would want to get involved in trading whatever it is... he is a businessman after all and DOES want to make some profit. If it can't make that level of money, it shouldn't be on the map because no one would bother sending merchants for it. I think this would benefit the AI because their merchants would be making them more money and thus make them more challenging.
Cash cows? I'm not so sure... but honestly, past a certain point, I think merchants should make the difference between simply being able to garrison your cities and defend your borders, and actually being able to launch offensives.
There is another piece of the economic puzzle there though. Armies in other nations should cost significantly more in support costs than ones within your own borders... and armies maintaining sieges should cost even more than that. Armies in recently conquered territories should also cost the same as ones on foreign soil, for 5-10 turns or so. Sort of the time it takes for them to turn from being an occupying force to just local troops. There would also be a good mechanic to make "steamrolling" harder, by making it take longer and be more expensive to integrate a new territory.
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