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

[Kobal2fr]

Yes, but you've also denied money to your opponents if you've driven their merchants bankrupt. That's part of the calculation, too.

Actually that's a moot point. Spending money to cripple one faction is counter-productive. The end result is that while you have lost x*550 florins to destroy his y*550 florins (give or take the ressource profits), every other faction but you two have lost nothing (you might even say they've won something, since they may very well have spent the same kind of money on ports & trade houses (generating even more cash) or stacks of knights and the like ("gamble" expense - a successful conquest might net them much more cash longterm than a bigger port, but there's always the risk of not being able to use those soldiers for, or worse yet lose them).


But the fact that winning a merchant face-off gives insta-cash is *very* interesting, and it completely trumps that issue.
But now I wonder : if you lose your merchant, either by having your attack fall on its head, or the enemy merchant attacking yours and winning... do you lose a lump of cash ? Or is the cash generated by a hostile take-over generated out of thin air ?

[Skott]

I havent gotten the game yet. Its on order but I did want to ask a question after reading this thread. I read wheresome people suggested putting two merchants on a resource. Is there a limit as to how many merchants you can place on a resource?

Thanks,
Skott

[therother]

Ok, to summarise my case for using them:

• Merchants cost 550 florins, absent any discounts.
• They age, as all characters do, at the rate of 1 year per 2 turns, so can be expected to survive, absent other factors, for ~80 turns.
• Therefore they need to make at about 7 florins/turn to make your investment back, assuming they survive to die of old age.
• Over the course of their lifetime, the likelihood is that they will make significantly more than that, unless they stand on a very low value resource that can be obtained close to your capital. They should also gain financial prowess from just trading, so an older merchant should make more money than a rookie.
• A hostile takeover of a rival faction's merchant can net 1000s of florins. Try not to "attack" your allies merchants too much though: it'll annoy them, affecting your relations (*).
• When travelling between high value resources, or going after a rival merchant, try to find resource to temporarily trade.
• If there is more than one instance of a resource, try to monopolise it.
• Protecting new merchants by having them trade resources in safer parts of the map allows them to valour up, and gives them a chance to survive against merchants from other factions. Try to train them in a settlement with a Merchant's Guild, if you have one. Also look for governor's with agent recruitment discounts.
• Merchants can be used as strategic weapons, costing your rivals money (the 550 florins to train) and preventing them for gaining access to profitable markets. Economic warfare.

From a economic pov, Merchants make a great deal more sense than other agents. You don't make a lot of money from spies or assassins, and they cost you a lot more in the long run.

Having said that, the title of this thread is now somewhat misleading though. You can possibly make 20,000+ florins in one turn, but it would be highly unlikely that you could sustain that for more than a few turns at the very most. Regardless, a just one successful buyout will pay back your money for that agent, and potentially many more than just the one.

From a strategic pov, I think the case is strongly in favour of maxing out your meagre Merchant limit. I suspect this is the reason why there is a limit in the first place!

BTW, the manual doesn't say it's the distance from your capital to the specific instance of a resource that your merchant is standing on that counts. It says, "The further the closest instance of a trade resource is to a merchant's capital, the greater a bonus he will get to the trade income he will earn from it." So if you are standing on a gold resource on the other side of the map, it won't be all that more valuable (if at all) than one closer to home if your capital has gold in the next province. Of course, if it has gold in its province you get nothing.

From what I've seen and heard, the top resource appears to be gold, followed by silk, silver, spices, ivory and amber. I guess the new world resources may be pretty good too, but I haven't got there yet. Bottom of the pile would seem to be tin, wool, fish, grain, sulphur, coal, and lastly, and certainly least, furs.

(*) Actually, I do tend to go after all merchants, regardless of their faction, simply to help my merchants gain experience. However, if I want to maintain good relations, I often give back a percentage of the cash (usually 1000 florins) to the faction via diplomacy, which helps smooth things over and may help improve your diplomat.

[Darkmoor_Dragon]

A hostile takeover of a rival faction's merchant can net 1000s of florins. Try not to "attack" your allies merchants too much though: it'll annoy them, affecting your relations

Merchant activity has NO effect on faction relationships - clearly stated in the manual and visible in the campaign game due to total absence of any "relationship" changes around any merchant activity.

[therother]

Acquisition is not an act of war, though it may well annoy the faction that you are attacking in this economic manner.

It has been my experience that it does affect your relationships: I often go from reasonable to so-so relations with the Danish after acquiring 2 or 3 of their merchants. If it doesn't, then it would seem to be a bug.

It may also affect your reputuation, although mine is bad anyway as I tend to use spies and assassins a lot.

[econ21]

Merchant activity has NO effect on faction relationships - clearly stated in the manual ...

Untrue - read p34.

[Darkmoor_Dragon]

Untrue - read p34.

Indeed - apologies to all - that'll teach me to rely on my ageing memory!

(Although I've never had a diplomatic incident when acquiring other merchants - can anybody confirm they have?)

[Proletariat]

After reading this thread, I decided to start taking my merchants seriously, and spent a turn making about 7 or 8 of them. Most of them were bought out after a few rounds (think I had two left after two more turns), so I'm wondering what's the easiest way to get your merchants those first few finance levels? I had been just letting them sit on the nearest resource, but that seemed to just leave them vulnerable to other roving merchants.

Is there an easy way to cheese through those first few levels? Maybe I just had a bad round, or my neighboring factions just have too strong a foothold with their merchants by now in my campaign, but on page one of this thread there was another poster describing the same situation, but saying it was because it was too early on.

Think I'll do another turn just creating merchants, but this time pair them up with assassins and try to keep a close watch for other merchants, but odds are my assassins will all die trying to clear out the opposition.

[Darkmoor_Dragon]

Scout out an area that isnt populated by AI merchants (using your spies) and send them there, or send them to the UK. I've never seen an AI merchant in the UK unless it was english/scottish, so if there are none there you may be safer.

Certainly though merchants seem to suffer the same issue as beginning assassins - they really struggle to get off the ground. once going theya re fine, but that first level is often fatal.