Are Merchants Useless?

[Myth]

Merchants are great - their income is "pure", meaning it does not lessen by corruption. In fact, the more distant they are from your capital, the better the income. Also, each faction values different resources, so be sure to check which give the most to you. Moving your capital around and placing merchants on key resources can give you a lot of gold quickly.

And they don't get bought out that often once they are not in your frontier regions.

[oldandcrotchety]

I wouldn't say useless, but They are more trouble to mess with than what I think they are worth. I usually ignore mine and let them die of old age.

[Egypt]

One word: Timbuktu.