Quote Originally Posted by Bob the Insane
One of the fustrations I have is that at some point during the campaign some AI super-merchant will turn up and like a free-enterprize inquisitor starts to put the smack down on all ther other merchants (including all of mine)... And this super merchant is partically indestructable because his high merchant skill protects him not only from other merchants but assassins too... And you can't bribe them!
Yep. I had a bunch of midlevel merchants minding their own business in northern italy. Suddenly a couple of rival merchants come along and slaughters them. I lost THOUSANDS of gold.

IMHO, merchants aren't worth messing with AT ALL unless you want to micromanage them. And even then the concequences of losing them is disastrous (I went from having 12000 gold down to almost nothing).


I haven't made it down to Timbuktu yet (partially because I don't know where it is!) but that seems to be the only reasonable place to put them.