Merchants--Less is more

[Hosakawa Tito]

I would also suggest building Law & Order buildings, town hall levels, in the city you train merchants to lessen the chance of negative finance traits in your newly minted merchants.

[Stig]

doesn't a Merchant Guild give you a higher chance on good merchants?

[Musashi]

It gives you +1 or +2 finance to start, but that can still be offset by random bad traits.

[seneschal.the]

Sorry, but you are dead wrong on the numbers of merchant having some kind of impact on the traits.

This is what affects merchants skill when being created:

At creation, start at level 1 for "natural merchant".
You then have 50% of having him advance to level 2 at birth.
If he is advanced to level 2 at birth, you have 33% of having him advanced to level 3 at birth.

If there is no town hall in the settlement, he has 50% to be a level 1 shady dealer.
If he advances to level 1 shady dealer, he has a 33% of being a level 2 shady dealer, right out the gates.

If there is a town hall in the settlement, he has a 50% to be a level 1 legal dealer.
If he advances to level 2 legal dealer, he has a 33% of being a level 2 legal dealer.

If he is created in a city with a cathedral or higher, and the population in the region is 80% YourReligion,
he has a 50% chance of becoming a Religious Merchant.
(Note: in my mod I raised it to 95%)
If he is a level 1 religious merchant, he has a 33% of being a level 2 religious merchant.

If he is created in a city with a master merchant guild or above, he gains the MerchantGuildTrained level.

If he is created in a city and the faction owns the Merchant HQ, he becomes a MerchantGuildMember.

Ancillaries:

If he is created in a city with an alchemists lab, he has a 15% of getting a counterfeiter.

If he is created in a city with an alchemy school or higher, he has a 50% of getting a merchant clerk.

If a caravan stop or higher exists, he has a 50% of getting a caravn driver at birth.

If a caravan stop or higher exists in the city where he is staying, he has a 10% each turn of getting one.

If a city hasn't built a town hall, he has a 5% of picking up a trick abacus!

[seneschal.the]

I just noticed that merchants won't ever gain the level 2 legal dealer level. The trigger is faulty and does not award level 2. Easily fixed.

[the_mango55]

You forgot Spices in your "best resources" list.

Slaves are also really good.

Amber is great because there is so much of it in scandinavia and the baltic.

[Handel]

And building merchants in a town with cathedral or huge cathedral is disastrous. He gots quite religious (-1) or extremely religious (-2).

[IrishArmenian]

I've found that tobacco has been the best. I have two merchants in the new world. One has a merchant skill of 3 and generates 400 florins per turn. The other has merchant skill of two and generates 350 florins per turn.

[Basileus]

Tobacco? i have 6 Merchants in the New World and each trade 1.1k per turn as Spain.

[Kraxis]

I just noticed that merchants won't ever gain the level 2 legal dealer level. The trigger is faulty and does not award level 2. Easily fixed.

Yup, either lower the requirement to 2 or up the points awarded when getting past level 1 to 2. Right now you can only get 2 points at most, while level 2 requires 3 points.

[Snoil The Mighty]

The ivory around Timbuktu/Arguin is really good too. I keep that area fully staffed on the ivory and gold

[dismal]

Well, it seems I have a rather different philosophy of merchants than the one in the OP.

Mine is all designed around minimizing merchant micro management.

General rules are as follows:

- Cluster merchants in areas that have multiple high value resources. As a rule of thumb, I like to see at least 4 or 5 high value resources in relatively close proximity. (e.g., get a merchant on all of the gold, ivory and slaves in Timbuktu/Arquin, all of the gold, tobacco and chocolate in the New Word, etc.)

- Don't bother much with merchants until you get close to controlling a valuable area. When you take Timbuktu (or at least have your borders start to get close to it), set it up to make merchants, and make them there until the all the resources are covered. When a merchant dies, replace him there. Shift the merchants in a chain to the dead guy's spot so the newly created guy doesn't have to walk all the way.

- If you have room under the agent cap, make the merchants in a core area and put them on lesser value resources in your core areas. This gets them some exp and speeds replacement. Don't bother training them where they'll be 10 turns away from anywhere useful.

- Let your merchants level up at their own pace. They don't need much special training, if you monopolize an area and leave them alone you'll have lots of 6 or 7 rank merchants before you know it.

- Take out enemy merchants who attempt to come upon your cluster. If you have done all the above, you should have a) multiple attempts, b) decent rank merchants, c) home country advantage, and d) easy replacement of any lost merchants.

Doing this as Spain, I got my merchant trading up to over 18,000 per turn with clusters in the New World, Timbuktu/Arquin, Dongola/Alexandria, Baghdad and Antioch. Once the cluster is set up, it takes only minimal effort to sustain.

[gardibolt]

There's no need to take Timbuktu; as soon as I as the English took Marseilles, I put four merchants on a boat to north Africa with a couple priests and let them have at it. The priests have become cardinals in no time (two became pope) and the merchants have leveled way up, garnering between 400-700 each off the gold and ivory per turn. So I'm sending the merchants home to become Acquisitors, and new ones down to Timbuktu to take their places. But I'm still nowhere near actually owning Timbuktu; it's still owned by the Moors, who have been my allies for nearly 100 turns.