Merchants - Protected by Military

Let's say you have a low level merchant whose monopoly skill you are trying to level up in your faction's double resource provinces (for example, for France, the double wine provinces work). Imagine a situation when a high level foreign merchant is evidently coming to rob your merchant blind... What do you do? One solution: run for it.

Another one I noticed in my game yesterday: I put one of my own military units on the northeast corner of the resource and made my merchant (1 star) join the army. He still earned income from the resource (and continued getting monopoly experience), but... the foreign merchant (9 stars) did not attack...

Of course, unless you want to destroy your diplomatic standing with your neighbors this solution works only in your own provinces. I am not sure if this is a feature or a programming oversight though. In the latter case, it is an exploit. However, the way it is in the game now, with faction's military protecting their merchant, made sense to me.

p.s. I guess, it makes sense to send a general for this duty otherwise the lone unit sitting on the resource might turn rebel especially on harder campaign difficulties.

p.p.s. I suspect, under the current game setup, this allows one to knock foreign merchants off resources too. Just send a military unit with a merchant inside to the square with the foreign merchant harvesting the resource and the foreigner will step away.

I would take the chance for a militia unit going rebel rather than wast a general. Also a general is no promise of not rebeling.... I don't know quite how it works but I had a situation were my best general with a respectable loyalty score turned rebel with a full stack but I have never had a stack rebel when accompanied by an agent.

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Originally Posted by Fisherking

I would take the chance for a militia unit going rebel rather than wast a general. Also a general is no promise of not rebeling.... I don't know quite how it works but I had a situation were my best general with a respectable loyalty score turned rebel with a full stack but I have never had a stack rebel when accompanied by an agent.

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I actually have yet to see a general go rebel. However, lone captain units in transit between cities and castles frequently go rebel for me. On the other hand, I usually do not keep the low loyalty generals.

As to agent in stack: I have had militia unit go rebel with a diplomat in the stack.

I have had captains go rebel with priests and spies in stack. Not only do you loose your army but also your agent!

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Strange that my armies go rebel only in rebel territory (coincidence?)

Indeed they do! Often enough to make one worry about it. But like I said, I have never had units go rebel with an agent with the army. Usually they are priests and spies but who know....a merchant may do the job as well.

So far as generals going rebel. As I said he had more than respectable loyalties and was my best general in combat. All my generals in that game had come down with a bad case of royally extravagant and were kept outside cities. I won't pretend to know all the pitfalls in this game but as one gets nearer to victory all sorts of little things seem to pop up just at the wrong time....

Humm....well if you have had them rebel...who can say

Interesting strategy there...

But I would call it an exploit. The AI doesn't do it, and I really doubt it was intended to be like this. However, you can argue your point, that it is just an escort.

In any case it is up to your yourself to find out what you consider an exploit.

i have heard you can actually put the merchant in a fort! never tried that myeslf, but units in forts do not seem to rebel so a good solution their.

ideally you could garrison the fort with some kind of nearlly dead unit with say 9 soldiers left as the upkeep for theunit will be very low.

So you rationalize the fort as a trading post? Cool. Though that's more investment so it'd better be a worthwhile resource.

BUAHAHHA! Talk about camping the resource. You probably won't be able to do that on gold mines I suppose.

WOW! I haven't been that devious..but considering that each merchant is a 500f investment it isn't that bad and an agent can hold a fort. Seems it would keep those 10 agents from offing the poor guy. It may be worth a try but definitely sound like creative playing...after all the manual says that forts can be used to wall of an area...

Of course you can only get away with in in your own lands unless you are willing to cause your diplomatic standing to drop by sending the merchant around with a general.

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Originally Posted by Kraxis

Interesting strategy there...

But I would call it an exploit. The AI doesn't do it, and I really doubt it was intended to be like this. However, you can argue your point, that it is just an escort.

In any case it is up to your yourself to find out what you consider an exploit.

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Actually, the AI does at least part of this strategy/exploit (probably, unintentionally): it frequently knocks my merchants off resources by placing its troops on the northeast corner of the resource my merchant was harvesting. I have not borthered checking the composition of those stacks (whether there was a merchant of their own in). This frequently happens near Milan/Venice which are high traffic zones though.

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Originally Posted by katank

So you rationalize the fort as a trading post? Cool. Though that's more investment so it'd better be a worthwhile resource.

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Well, the key here is "a double resource" in a province. A double resource camped by your faction's merchants will allow them to raise their skill fast through the monopolist/market controller line. Once they are above skill 5/6, they become hunters themselves or can more or less safely travel to high-yield resources on their own (a level 10 merchant does not have a high success chance in a takeover of a level 6 merchant).

So, I would see a couple forts on a double resource a "merchant training school": a good investment in the long run. Well, it would be more fun if I didn't have that nagging feeling this was an exploit actually :)

Well, have anybody actually tried the 'trade post'? Can the merchant still trade from inside the fort?

Yeah, I know the AI seems to knock off merchants quite often, but generally this is where the resources are near roads that are welltravelled. I have accidentally done so myself a few times.

Wow, this is a nice trick. I had considered surrounding a merchant competely with peasants but 9 units of peasants cost 810 in upkeep per turn which would take so much profit out of even a master merchant that it would be impractical.

ONE unit of peasants on the other hand...

You can argue it's an exploit but honestly, it makes sense in real world terms. You've simply provided a valuable agent with a military escort, or built a fort to guard a valuable resource and house a trading post (As was certainly done in real life).

I hate those knocking merchants off the resource thing. Also when you set a long path to say Timbuktu, you sometimes have to replot the path coz of "path blocked. Well why not just go around ?!???

It cannot be an escort, because the merchant is not killed or harned in any way. He is just out out of business. No military can help with this.
So this is just an exploit.

Just give him a guard dog instead, and maybe a black stallion would help on those long journeys to Timbuktu.

The Spanish Merchants thank u :laugh4: Timbuktu trading post, gotta luv it

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Originally Posted by Handel

It cannot be an escort, because the merchant is not killed or harned in any way. He is just out out of business. No military can help with this.
So this is just an exploit.

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Actually, the failure screen told me that my merchant was trying to hire thugs to destroy the other merchant's assets, and i think a full unit of military grade troops would discourage most thugs :P

I'm still not going to use it though ;)

I thought merchants only made income when they are outside your provinces and yo have trading rights with the factions land your on????

Merchants make profit anywhere. They make more profit in land you own, or which is owned by a faction you have trade rights with.