Idea for Merchants

[Foot]

what i deslike is the criticism of the author that always seems to fallow suit

Can you please show me where that happened? I cannot find it.

Foot

[Havok.]

Foot, how will the merchants be used in EB2?

[Ichon]

Whatever character is intended to replace merchants it must fit certain criteria:
1. It must be of significant importance to require control by the player. Armies are significant as they were not everyday occurences (and still are not) in antiquity. Merchants, by contrast, were everyday features of society like farmers and craftsmen.
2. The character must be under state control. Economies of antiquity were nowhere near as centralised as some modern economies, merchants were private buisnessmen. Likewise philosophers were not state employees. Diplomats and assasins would have been under the control of an elite (government) figure.

If you can think of a character which would have been an employee of the state and of such significance that it would not have been an everyday sight in society then you will probably arrive at an answer as to what is due to replace merchants.

Foot, now its your turn to tell me that all I have just written is nonsense.

Oracles, seers, etc? Many times the state and the religion worked together or in the extremes like Pharoahs were the same thing. Could be interesting to have some traveling Oracles that gain some bonus for the government/culture they represent. Not sure if merchants can be made to generate something besides money and not sure how prestige could be translated in the engine either.

They wouldn't necessarily be the same as priests because Oracles and such were often associated with a specific place- something similar was probably in many societies in this period of antiquity but I'm not sure how many... most greek, roman, phoenician, celts, and many germanics I'd guess.

[Ludens]

It's an interesting thought, but states didn't fund wandering prophets. If they found a convincing soothsayer, they would keep his or services for themselves, rather than use him/her as a cultural ambassador. Yes, the Persians paid the Oracle at Delphi, but they didn't establish it.

[vollorix]

moonburn´s idea was actually quite cool, but if it´s not possible, it´s not. Now, how about this:
Human player needs merchants in particular neighbouring regions, which he doesn´t control, but has a trade rights with, to get access to several ressources in an apropriate quantity to, lets say, provide his troops with superb armour ( ability to build and maintain the forge ), or horses ( to build and maintain stables/recruitment option for special units, wich are on the unit list of that faction, but are only available in those neighbouring provinces if the a player makes efforts to control the trade ).
If a script could damage the buildings, or cansel recruitment ability for those special units, every time a player loses the "monopolistic" control of the trade route ( just like some Roman barracks ), it should be possible to tie some special, happieness buildings, for example, to it too, so that once you loose control, you lose the cool features.
I know, it´s possible to create a dependence on trading goods to enable the settlement to "produce" the " follow products". Metro Naval Mod had this kind of features, FoE had them too, iirc.
So, the basic idea is: if you wan´t well equiped troops, some special troops from neighbouring region, or the benefits of grain imports en mass to boost up your population growth, or plentifull slaves for yur Latifundias, you should make some efforts to outmaneuver the competition :)

Hope i didn´t repeat some allready obsolete ideas, which has been denied.
AI, if it can´t "learn" it, would gain all the features anyway.

[jirisys]

Recruiters.

Kind of like generals, but they are the people who recruit mercenaries (at the price of local troops since he would be there for a long time).

Many things could be thought out for merchants. Yet almost none are possible to implement without forcing CA.

~Jirisys (too bad)