Wild swings in Merchant income.

I'm playing Egypt, and recently took Godwanaland, or whatever its called, just south of Cairo. But the merchants I have trading the ivory earn wildly fluctuating incomes, and I'm not 100% sure why. Like one turn it will be 22 F, then 100+ F, then back to 22F again for a few turns, and now its 300+ F. And the whole time he's been a level 5 merchant. One thing which seemed to make it drop was when I built a port. One thing that seemed to make it go up was when I moved the capital from Acre to Cyprus. But that doesnt explain all of it. Like a few turns after I built the port and it dropped from 100+ to 22, it went back up to over 100 again. I never saw this kind of thing in previous games.

I think the mechanic for merchant trade is transporting those resource back to your capital. Therefore, if you relocate your capital it will a change in merchant income too.

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Originally Posted by steev

I'm playing Egypt, and recently took Godwanaland, or whatever its called, just south of Cairo. But the merchants I have trading the ivory earn wildly fluctuating incomes, and I'm not 100% sure why. Like one turn it will be 22 F, then 100+ F, then back to 22F again for a few turns, and now its 300+ F. And the whole time he's been a level 5 merchant. One thing which seemed to make it drop was when I built a port. One thing that seemed to make it go up was when I moved the capital from Acre to Cyprus. But that doesnt explain all of it. Like a few turns after I built the port and it dropped from 100+ to 22, it went back up to over 100 again. I never saw this kind of thing in previous games.

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Did pirates blockade you or rebel armies start trashing the road network?

No, there were no pirates or rebels. I have watchtowers and also sent folks out to look. Now I do have rebels right outside Godwanaland and they're having no effect at all. I've been on 300+ per merchant for the past few turns. And no I'm not using the Fort Exploit either.

Was the city you are trading with having their port blocked? One would think if your port needs to be clear so should theirs. SadCat :embarassed:

Install patch 1.1 or 1.2. Simple as that. If you already have done that, make sure you have the 1.1 .exe file, where the fix is located.

What you have encountered, is a bug when calculating distance from the capital for merchant income.

Steev,

What is the Fort Exploit for Merchants? I'm wondering because I've got Timbuktu all to my self as the Scots and I'm wondering just how much I can get out of it.

Basically you build a fort on top of the resource, and and you can have multiple merchants in it all making money.