Merchants: You CAN use many on one resource.

[Kobal2fr]

HAhaha, now that's thinking outside the box, or I don't know what is . Of course, it's borderline cheating, and you can only do it in your own lands, but funny still.

[past caring]

I dunno about only being able to do it in your own lands......

Not tried it with merchants, but you can certainly build forts in both rebel and non-player faction lands. My current game as England I got a tonne of forts in Turkish territory to channel the Mongols away from my holding in the Holy Land. Turks don't seem to mind a bit - only a direct attempt to take a province seems to bother them....

[Bob the Insane]

I don;t know if it is cheating... I mean a single enemy combat unit could capture you fort full of merchants and kick them all out with no chance of them stopping it or getting back in again. And using military units to secure and hold economic location for your personal use sounds a reasonable tactic.

The only thing that would make it an exploit is that the AI does not do the same thing...

[SMZ]

forts can be built anywhere - it's just watchtowers that must be built on your own land.... so yeah, you could go to any resource you want and grab a monopoly on it for a whole guilds worth of merchants....

yeah, I suppose a rival miltary unit could capture your fort - but without any military units there, the AI will probably ignore it... areas like Timbuktu and the amber fields are so far in the boonies that nobody bothers them anyway

[Kraxis]

Fort + Merchant(s) = Trade Post

Sending a lousy general to Timbuktu with an entourage of 5-7 Merchants would be highly profitable. Double Gold, here we come!

[Chrisky]

1 General + 5-7 Merchants = Trade Commision! :D

[Musashi]

It's hardly an exploit... I mean it may not have been intended by the devs but it mirrors real world practices of the nobles in the medieval period.