What on earth?

[Darth Nihilus]

Okay, I'm really confused about something. How do the ai merchants make so much money? Case in point right here;

In the Timbuktu region there is ivory that can be traded by merchants. I put my merchant on it and he is generating 46 florins per turn on it. His skill is a 5 out of 10. So I move him and put him on the more profitable gold. 2 turns later a Spanish merchant starts trading the same ivory for 264 florins per turn! And the worst part is that the Spanish merchant had the exact same amount of ability as my merchant (5 out of 10)! What the heck is going on here. Earlier in my campaign I saw some Moorish merchants on gold generating 790florins per turn on gold. What am I missing here. Obviously merchant skill isn't the key to making this much per turn.

[PaulTa]

In my experience, the further the merchants are away from your territory, the more money they generate.

A spanish merchant, for instance, would generate a lot of income on a trade resource in africa, while an egyptian merchant wouldn't generate as much. I think it might be related to the fact that you'd already generate tons of income on regular trade in the first place.

[Darth Nihilus]

Well, when I saw the Moorish merchant making 790 florins per turn, it was in his own territory. I have seen to many merchants in own territory making crazy money, so its more than likely somthing else.

[Senta]

trade agreements, proximity, having monopolised the resource etc all comes into play, just as merchant's skill do

[Spendius]

There is a bug with merchants. Try to change your capital to another city (and back), and the game should display the correct values. You need to do that every time you load your game.
My spices merchants in Antioch went from 47 to 200 after that.

[Wandarah]

Interesting! Hadnt heard that one.

[Werner]

My merchants seem to always stay around 2 or 3 skill level and the amount of money is never very much. Whenever I try to expand my merchants enemy merchants come in with full skill ratings and take over all my merchants, I've had four brand new merchants all disappear by their second turn. Until CA tones down the large disparities I'll stick to assassins and priests

[Oleo]

There is a bug with merchants. Try to change your capital to another city (and back), and the game should display the correct values. You need to do that every time you load your game.
My spices merchants in Antioch went from 47 to 200 after that.

tnx for the advice: 66 -> 476 per turn is a very nice improvement, especially since I have two merchants with those numbers.

[OMGLAZERS]

There is a bug with merchants. Try to change your capital to another city (and back), and the game should display the correct values. You need to do that every time you load your game.
My spices merchants in Antioch went from 47 to 200 after that.

SAY WHAAAAAAAT!!!



I hadn't heard this!

[LordMorgan]

I dont even bother with merchants until I can figure out some other things with this games like stopping the frikken Inquisitors from frying all of my faction members.

[BigTex]

SAY WHAAAAAAAT!!!



I hadn't heard this!

After reloading your game from a save it will no longer factor in all the capitol effects on trade. Changing it from one to another will provide som major boosts. Those silks on constantinople are worth 300+ to a western European factions.

[Darth Nihilus]

Spendius, it worked, thanks a bunch man.

[Aenlic]

I dont even bother with merchants until I can figure out some other things with this games like stopping the frikken Inquisitors from frying all of my faction members.

Look in the tips and FAQ's sticky in this forum. The best workaround for inquisitors so far is to trap them in a circle of 8 militia units. You can even use depleted units. Just surround the sucker and he can't move - ever.

As for merchants, you get some nice bonuses for travelling around with your merchant. Send a couple of them off to a far off resource (you get income bonuses for resources based oln distance away from your faction lands). As you travel, stop for a couple of turns on resources as you pass them. When you finally get to your destination locale, you'll have reasonably high skill merchants just from the travelling and stopping. Then try to monopolize a resource in the endpoint region, by having a merchant on all the resources of that type in that region. The payoff is lots of income.

Some high value resources that are easy to monopolize:

For southern factions, try getting your merchants to the far north - between Novgorod, Riga and Vilnius - for the amber.

For western factions, go for the silk around Constantinople, Nicaea and Baghdad.

For northern factions, go for the gold and ivory near Timbuktu and in the Arguin region just west of Timbuktu (quicker access from Timbuktu). This is by far the best resource spot, with 2 gold and 1 ivory east of Timbuktu and 2 ivory and 1 gold west in the Arguin region just over the border. With improved mining you can generate massive amounts of money, even as the Moors.

Other nice monopoly resources are the ivory around Dongola and the iron near Zagreb/Ragusa.

Wine is another easily monopolized resource, but doesn't pay as well as the more exotic goods, unless you're playing one of the eastern factions.

And for gold and the other metals, building a mine really ups the income from those resources. A caveat, however - building mining improves the resource itself; so if an enemy merchant comes along and takes it from you, your mining build gives them the improved resource.

[katank]

Also, according to the kill tip thread, if you move in an extra militia to the square the inquisitor is occupying, it automatically dies (dislodged from its location and having no valid location to retreat to).

Thus, arm your mobile 9 unit inquisitor hunting militia squads now!