Merchants and frustrations

[Musashi]

You get a message if they die from old age. The only time you don't get a message for an agent death is if an enemy assassinates them.

[Lochar]

I noticed on an enemies traits a few that earns more merchant skill also reduces his personal security.

I get frustrated with them too but the lkey seems to be moving them way away. I finally found a spot where I was netting 25 floring for a lvl 2 merchant and now he's lvl 6 and rakin in the cash. The home items seem to raise it way too slowly. Altho most of my merchant missions are for rival merchants on home turf so its hard to get another back in time.

[Wallas]

1. If you see a higher level enemy merchant zooming to your merchant move him off the resource. The AI won't attack merchants that are off an resource.

2. Allways try to make agressive merchant war. You will get alot of experience and money by taking over AI merchants.

3. Try to assassinate high level enemy merchants that you cannot by out. They will build new low level ones that you can buy out. Normally they come out from the capitals.

[Rameusb5]

Maybe it's just me, but I'm having a hard time understanding merchant buyouts. Sometimes I'll have a VERY high mercantile merchant try to buy out a lesser merchant and he'll have a very low percentage to do so. On the other hand, sometimes I'll have a lower level merchant "attack" a higher level one and get a very good percentage (and he won't have any traits that appear to help him in this department).

Personally, I think that MOST of the time, the buyouts should be a "tie." It seems like the "ties" are extremely rare though.

[Sir SillyDuck]

My Merchants lose 80-90% of the time. If I dont keep them in a back alley and watch them every turn, I lose all of em within 2-3 turns.

[Barry Fitzgerald]

I did play about with merchants, but came to the conclusion in their present form..they are realy not worth bothering with a whole lot. So currently I have ingnored them 100%...just not enough incentives to get me interested. I am sure if they get a tweak...then it may be worth looking at in the future. But for now...not a lot of interest.

[Aenlic]

It seems that the engine compares agent skill to agent skill when considering assassinations. This makes assassinating a high skill merchant almost impossible, even with a well-skilled assassin. The answer is to take out enemy merchants before they get highly skilled. If you see a relatively low-level enemy merchant sitting on a resource, take him out. Make it a priority, either with assassins or your own merchants. If you don't, he's going to show up later on much higher skilled and take out your better merchants that were generating nice income.

The lesson here is not to allow enemy merchants to get skilled enough to become a problem. Deal with them early and often.

As for merchants disappearing. Check your faction announcements and disaster events. Earthquakes and floods often take out nearby merchants, as do deaths. You'll often find them listed as deaths via "acts of God" in the announcements and it's easy to miss. If they're assassinated they also might not be seen, just heard, unless you have your "show enemy moves" option turned on.

[Ziem]

I did play about with merchants, but came to the conclusion in their present form..they are realy not worth bothering with a whole lot. So currently I have ingnored them 100%...just not enough incentives to get me interested. I am sure if they get a tweak...then it may be worth looking at in the future. But for now...not a lot of interest.

They can interesting however if you sent them down to Timbuktu and have them trade gold and ivory.I hade 2 guys trading gold there at 470 florins per merchant per turn. This however went down after I saved and later loaded a game to 50... So dont save & load too much if you want to cash in at the beginning.

Z.