Merchants : how to (get 20,000 florins a turn)

[Vlad The Impaler]

i tried to use a merchant. as is written in the description he must travel to distant lands and increase commerc & stuff. i play as a spanish and i travel with my merchant to byzantium and then to russia but no town/city,castle , anything wanted to have any kind of interraction with my merchant. i tried with allied pt trade treaty factions but no result.
so, how the merchant could be used?

[Lusted]

You put them on a rescource and they start trading it, if you have more than 1 merchant on a type of rescource you get more cash.

[econ21]

Are merchants worth bothering with? The resources around England early on promised only 3-7 florins per turn - what's the upkeep of a merchant, 100 gold? Plus my merchant was "killed" by a French one early on, so I gave up on them. Any tips/experience from others?

[Maizel]

I think erchants are upkeep-free

[Debe2233]

While playing as Scotland (och aye and jimmy lad and so on and what not) i found the tin deposites in cornwall (Southwest Britan) to be worth about 38 per turn, whole not amazeing the amount goes up with the experience of the merchant (i was getting 70 odd at 4 merchant skill i think)

And i've "heard" you get more cash if you own more than 1 type of resource (there are two tin deposites in cornwall and one in ireland)

[Divine Wind]

Merchants cost 550, and their upkeep is 0.

So far playing as England (turn 88) I have around 6 merchants, all paired up in twos and sitting on the same resource in the same provinces. I have two in western france trading with wine, two in north east france trading with silk, and another two in HRE trading with iron. With each two im making about 60 - 90 florins a turn, depending on their level of experience.

I did have a guild in one of my cities that gave a bonus for two of my merchants (they both started on level four), I think it was the Theopalian (sp?) guild.

The best tradable goods ive found around England so far, is wine, tin, and silk.

[Freedom Onanist]

Hass anyone got any idea how to improve your merchants so that they don't just sell out? My merchants always seem to be of a low value and cave in to hostile takeovers every time.

I have left a merchant on a tile close to "home" to build up experience - nada
I have sent a merchant out to the furthest reaches of the world to build up experience and valuable trade routes - nada

They all stay useless in the face of economic warfare. Anybody know what to do to make them a bit more like the boss rather than the apprentice?

[Strappy Horse]

I've noticed that if I leave a merchant on the same trading resource long enough (must have been 20 turns at least), he earns up to a +3 on monopolist or something.
One of my other merchants gathered +2 as a gracious traveller, by, well, travelling.

[Vicarious]

I should be careful to throw criticism on my first posts on this forum, but I really think the moderators should be more active on merging threads and so on.

This post is also about merchants, and gives som advices:
https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showthread.php?t=71833

But cutting to the case, I have the same problem. The merchants cost 550 to recruit but luckyily they have free upkeep. Anyway, sending my stack of merchants all over the world, my highest income so far has been 6 florins per turn... And you don't have to be an econom to see that this won't win you the game.

According to the other thread I see a few advices:
- 2 merchants on the same resource
- Merchants guild

[AussieGiant]

Advise given on the COM:

"oh btw: the farther away the resource is from your land, the more money it generates per turn

Im currently playing the english and i got a few merchants around Jerusalem and they're racking in about 80-100ish per turn, more than my merchants in england generates, even tho they have been there longer"

Econ can you get some of your dudes over there.

I seem to be playing vicariously through you at the moment. Hope you don't mind.

[econ21]

Econ can you get some of your dudes over there.

OK, I'm on it.

[R'as al Ghul]

I seem to be playing vicariously through you at the moment. Hope you don't mind.

A new game style: "Play by Message Board Campaign" or PBMBC.

[Vicarious]

Advise given on the COM:
I seem to be playing vicariously through you at the moment. Hope you don't mind.

You're quite a funny guy, aren't you?

Anyway, this has become a really useful thread. In my first campaign, I recruited 5 merchants that right now are earning from 1-6 florins each turn... Had I only listened to Jimmytwohand first..

[Jimmytwohand]

Merchants are definitely worth having but not in my experience in the early game. They are quite expensive at 550 and you are much wiser using that cash for building and conquest. Once you have a few secure provinces under your belt and a little disposable cash however they can rake in a tidy sum. I would advise to only start with merchants properly once you have a merchants guild. This normally gives them a bonus trait or two which increases their business acumen.

As an example i am playing with england and only started using merchants once i had a sizeable chunk of france conquered. I poured out 6-8 merhcants when i was flush and as someone else mentioned paired them up in my secure provinces where i had assasins handy to deal with any foreign merchants coming in. Particularly London for tin, Antwerp for silk and Angers for wine. Operating like this they will quickly get the monopolist traits and be boosted to +3/4/5 finance. At this point those resources are worth 30-40 florins each per year.

At this point it is not a bad amount of cash and they will quickly recoup their cost. However you can now send out your trained +4/+5 merchants to either explore more profitable reserves abroad or wage economic warfare with your enemies. The latter strategy will boost your merchants ranking even more making greater profits available. In the meantime you can replace your travelling merchants with fresh ones from your city with merchants guild helping towards the progression to master merchant guild and merchant headquarters. It may also turn out that higher levels of market like fairground or merchant quarter give a merchant boost too.

In summary during the early game merchants are a poor investment and only provide fodder for other nations to train their merchants. Once you have a secure homeland and guild however they can help reinforce your economic empire and destroy others trading as long as you are willing to give them some time to get up to speed. Definitely worth bothering with, just not right away. Build a secure empire, then strip it of resources.

[Spendius]

According to the other thread I see a few advices:
- 2 merchants on the same resource
- Merchants guild

Is it the same resource or the same type of resource ? I can't seem to be able to put 2 merchants on the same resource...
Also, does anyone knows whether it is more profitable to put merchants in foreign lands with trade rights or on one's own land (distance to capital being equal) ?

[Quillan]

Directly, I think it's the same. Indirectly, it will work out better with the foreign merchant, providing you maintain trade rights. I moved one of my 7 finance merchants from the silk by Constantinople all the way over to the silk by Baghdad. After sitting there for a few turns, he picked up another 1 finance from knowledge of foreign customs. His profits are down now, though, since the Turks called a jihad and declared war on me.

[Vicarious]

Is it the same resource or the same type of resource ? I can't seem to be able to put 2 merchants on the same resource...
Also, does anyone knows whether it is more profitable to put merchants in foreign lands with trade rights or on one's own land (distance to capital being equal) ?

I was just reffering to another post in this thread:

So far playing as England (turn 88) I have around 6 merchants, all paired up in twos and sitting on the same resource in the same provinces. I have two in western france trading with wine, two in north east france trading with silk, and another two in HRE trading with iron. With each two im making about 60 - 90 florins a turn, depending on their level of experience.

When I read it now, I think he means the same type of resource not the same resource. Haven't got to check this out myself yet, since I follow the advice not to build merchants before I have a merchants guild.

[Darkmoor_Dragon]

playing english h/vh

I've posted this methodology elsewhere but it got lost at the tail end of a thread. Hopefully not breaking too many rules by making it it's own thread to properly highlight the technique for using merchants effectively and ending the debate over their worth.

(original post follows)
- - -

Folks be MUCH more aggressive with Merchants:

Use them to actively attack the opposition merchants - it doesn't even matter if they are on a trade resource or not - if you take them over you get a LUMP SUM from "acquiring" their business e.g I've just taken out a French level 3 merchant who was wandering near to my borders, he wasn't on a resource - but acquiring his business netted me a lump sum of 1100 florins (this is on h/vh fwiw).

So nab the other guys businesses then trot back to you own little resource, or go on extended walkabouts taking over any merchant you find and can "assimilate".

The ENTIRE equation for Merchants, as to whether they are worth their 550 florins cost, is completely re-written when you use them aggressively and only hog a resource when they've got no available targets to take over.

- - - -

After posting the above I went and did some experimentation by using all of my "senior" merchants to attack the foreign merchants around high-population areas such as Italy using 11 merchants and attacking in the same turn (to make it easier to check results).

Using merchants with 3 levels or more I racked up over 20,000 florins (yes, 20K) in a single turn with 7 successful take overs and 4 failure. (Or to put it another way - I made a 14,000 florin profit AFTER the cost of the merchants and in just one turn)

After the initial wave I pulled the merchants back to allow the AI to bring out more merchants and moved my own to other parts of the map to hunt down other merchants.

By the end of 10 or 12 turns I netted in excess of 35k from mercantile take overs alone.


From continuing mercantile warfare it appears that the money from merchants falls outside of anything to do with factional money - so even if a faction is bankrupt the merchants still have large amounts of money that can be taken from them by acquisition.
Similarly when you lose your merchants the money does not come from your own coffers.

The amount of money is determined by the mercantile (acquisition) rating of the merchant and is not fully dependent on the resources they may, or may not, be sitting on. (Somebody may want to experiment to see if acquisition money is higher when a merchant is sitting on a resource as opposed to just wandering around the map).

Too produce merchants with higher acquisition ratings the following may help:

Get a merchants guild as soon as one is offered to you (you only need one as it seems that the effect is faction wide).

Place the merchant on a local resource in order to gain a rank or two, the money from this is low as most people have discovered but its better than nothing at this stage - just regard it as training.

Move merchants to a foreign resource to gain ranks such as "knowledge of customs".

Don't leave merchants on a resource a long way from your capital (other side of the map) for too long as they start to pick up negative traits.

Use a spy or two to scout out foreign Merchants and make a note of where they are (The ai tends not to move them around very much. although they do move around a fair bit in their local area, especially if there is a juicy merchant target of their own within the "radar" of their faction troops/agents)

If you see foreign spies, diplomats or assassins in your local area, especially near merchants, kill them off ASAP - they will encourage foreign merchants into the area in acquisition bids.

It *appears* that if you clear out all the resources in your local area then foreign merchants will stay away form the area (don't repopulate the resource with merchants) - hence the reason to scout out areas a few turns away, attack, then withdraw. (leaving them their also tends to draw the attention of assassins)



So there's a fair chunk of micro-management in there but it is most assuredly worth it. What I've been doing is attacking in a wave then moving the merchants back to pet resources to allow the AI to re-populate their merchants and resource spots. It cuts down on having to manage them every turn but is a great cash reserve if you get strapped for florins.


20k in a turn was a beauty of a result, and not typical for a turn (obviosuly you wont always have the number of viable targets), however 1100 florins a bash for taking over a wandering low level merchant who came into radar is something that is almost management free and definitely pays off the cost of the merchant in one turn, with some profit.


So, try it: get aggressive, rake in some florins.

[Eques]

Very nice posta! Thank you for this tip.

[chunkynut]

Cool :) I've been fairly passive with my merchants and worked out that at 40 florins on a resouce a turn they will pay for themselves before they die anyway and I normally take out merchants that come my way pre-emptively to protect my low level merchants.

1100 florins makes a fair difference to that, I wondered where I got extra cash from sometimes :)

[AussieGiant]

Excellent stuff Darkmoor_Dragon.

Thanks for stating your difficulty.

[therother]

Well, this is all very confusing. Started up a new game as the Scots, VH/VH, trained a merchant and toggled the fow off. First odd thing, as I mention above, it that my merchant can trade the dyes in the Edinburgh region for 10 florins/turn. Odd. Even odder is this is more than I can get for any of the local dye resources in other provinces (generally 7 florins/turn). So not only can I trade items available in my capital, I get more money from them? (*)

Other observations: if there is more than one resource in a province, the base (single) resource value appears to roughly double. For instance, fish resources would give me 4 florins/turn when there's only one, but 9 when there's two. Interestingly, when there's 3, it's still just double.

Another oddity is that the distance to the closest instance of a particular resource didn't seem to be having a great impact on the value of the resource. For instance, the nearest ivory resource to Edinburgh is 170+ squares away, yet with two in a province, each resource was only worth 21 florins/turn, which is half what I get from a single silver resource only 25 squares away from Edinburgh. Similarly, amber, which is also quite close, was trading at 11 or 21 florins/turn for 1 or 2 resources respectively. Which suggested that the "distance from your capital to the nearest resource of that type" mechanic wasn't working as I expected.

So I loaded up my old English game, where I have a much greater spread of settlements, to find that the instant I changed my capital to Antioch (from London), the value of merchant trade changed significantly (as the manual suggests it would). Odd. Even stranger is that, yes, my merchants trading silk close to Antioch went down a bit, but my merchants trading in Europe shot up by far more. From earning 800 florins/turn, I was earning 4000+. Fair enough says I, obviously the choice of capital does matter. Strange thing, though, is that I have to switch it back to London because of public order problem. When I do this, the numbers in the mid east rocket up as well, again to for significantly more than I was getting previously. No idea what is going on, but it must be a glitch in the system of some sort. I doubt just changing your capital back and forth was intended to increase your merchant revenue 5 fold...

Which all means I think I know less now about the system than before I started. Gah! Has anyone else observed this odd fluctuating merchant income behaviour? Is it a bug? It would seem to be on the surface.

(*) I suppose it's possible that, due to the lack of any trade agreements and that I'm at war with the Rebels, this suppresses the value of trade resources in their regions. Might also explain some of the odd behaviour I mention further down the post too. But this is all unsubstantiated handwaving.

[Kobal2fr]

Think I nailed a big commerce/merchant bug, that may very well be what's causing so much confusion regarding what ressources are worth what when.

I had a 6 finance mogul on his way to Venice to sit on that gold ressource in Zagreb. When I first considered that trip and wether it was worth it, the value given when glancing at that ressource was 188. 188 gold each turn, when I'm poor as dirt ? Sounds good. On your way, little fellow.

A couple of turns later I reloaded from autosave, because my best princess had gone from 6 to 1 (1!) charm in one go, thanks to a botched negociation which not only destroyed her +4 experience bonus, but ALSO saddled her with a stalker (-1 charm, -2 security). I'd been carefully building that hottie up for the longest time, and was understandably a bit miffed. Reload autosave, redo the same nego, this time is works (might be a comeback of the "AI forgets diplomatic relations/plans/state after a reload" bug from Rome).

But the interesting part is that, checking on my merchant, I noticed that each and every ressource I knew on the map had switched back to their base values. Especially that gold nugget, which was now worth a mere 40g a turn. And here comes the best part : when I switched my capital from one city to another, then back to the original Leòn, the gold ressource again was worth 188g.

So, in short, what I believe happens is that

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

on reloading, the game doesn't automagically re-calculate the relative value of ressources (liable to severely bork your economy in the process)

. You have to give it a nudge.

I'm not sure wether it's just a display bug (ie it shows up as 40, but it really gives you 188), nor if it corrects itself after a couple turns playing like the diplo eventually did in Rome (I just rushed in here to tell you guys ;) ). I don't know if it affects the AI either, which would be quite severe a bug then, considering the AI probably doesn't switch its capital around so often...

Anyway, take that into account when you're doing tests and trying to understand how those pesky ressources work : always hop your capital right after a reload.

[holycow]

merchants are def worth it, and there's zero upkeep, here's how i work them

send out one or a group of merchs w/ a spy or two and scout for a resource far away, have the merch's camp at resource till they get ~4-5 skill, start sending them back to around milan/venice where it seems allfaction camp their merch and try to take them over usually nets 800-1200 flrins/enemy merch, your spy is to keep an eye or for other faction merch that will try to do the same to you, and they will especially if your merch is below 3,

if you keep your merch camped on a resource, then thy're not worth the initial expense.

[Musashi]

They are on the right resources. Unless you don't consider 1000 florins per turn per merchant worthwhile...

[Shahed]

I can't seem to get every single one at 1000 though, some die before the get there. Usually have 3 on 1000. Any tips ?

[Darkmoor_Dragon]

if you keep your merch camped on a resource, then thy're not worth the initial expense.

what rubbish

In a new game i have 6 merchants earning 3974 florins a turn and haven't lost a single one to takeover (and have done 5 takeovers myself)

how is that "not worth the initial expense"?