Agent Madness

[Ryles]

Hi Guys, long time listener, first time caller.

Playing my first M2TW campaign with England on M/M. I never really paid too much attention to agents in previous TW games but as the new game seems to rely on them heavily, this is something I'm gonna have to change but I have some questions...

At the moment I'm fighting Milan but I can't remember the last time they assaulted one of my castles without the gates already being wide open. Filthy spies waging there dirty underhand war! But how do I stop it??

Also no matter how tall and impressive my Churches get I don't seem to be able to employ anything better than a standard priest yet other factions have Cardinals etc, do I have to level them up somehow?

Merchants seem to have no purpose, none of them seem to be able to cover their own upkeep never mind actually make me a profit, regardless of where I stick them. Anybody know what I'm doing wrong?

Thanks in advance.

[pevergreen]

Priests become Cardinals at piety 5, or from a Cathedral, but not a Huge Cathedral, 'tis a bug.

To stop spies, put spies of your own in there, it will get rid of them over time.

Merchants, get better with monoply of that type in the region (3 wines etc)
More money further away from capital, and even more if you have trade agreements with the Country that owns the region.

Send merchants to Timbuktu, and put them on the gold there. Lots of money!

[Musashi]

Merchants have ZERO upkeep. Any money they make is pure profit.

[seneschal.the]

Priests become Cardinals at piety 5, or from a Cathedral, but not a Huge Cathedral, 'tis a bug.

You are just so very wrong on almost everything in that sentence.

Priests do not become cardinals at piety 5.

Priests do not become cardinals from cathedrals.

Priests DO become cardinals when the pope appoints them.

Priests become BISHOPS when trained in a cathedral. (though you are right about them not getting the bishop status from huge cathedrals; some clown from CA forgot the > sign in the line = cathedral.)

Huge difference between bishops and cardinals. Bishops are just priests with a +1 piety from start. Cardinals have heresey immunity and gives you power to appoint the pope.



As for assassins: train assassins in one city only so you get the assassins guild there. Build a coaching house in that city so every assassin has a 20% chance at creation of getting a courtesan. Build a gunsmith ASAP so they get a 33% chance of acquiring the prototype handgun (also gives +2 to law!).

Blowing up stuff in cities is easier than killing, and gives you the conspirator trait. (plotter, schemer, grand conspirator). You get 1 point for each successful sabotage, and need 2, 4 and 8 to get the levels and bonuses (+1,+2,+3). Note that this affects the general subterfuge skill, unlike Explosives which are supposed to only help sabotage, and certain ancillaries which only help assassinations.



I'll paste in an earlier guide to merchant traits i wrote:

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. (bad)

If he is a level 1 religious merchant, he has a 33% of being a level 2 religious merchant. (worse)

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!

So how do you get your merchants better? Acquiring foreign merchants. Every turn you end on a resource and you have a monopoly on that you get points in the monopolist trait. The thresholds for monopolist are 5, 10 and 20 and gives +1, +2 and +3 agent skill. Being on a resource and far away from the capital gives you chance of becoming wordly merchant. Beware, being too far from the capital, regardless if you are on a resource or not, gives you the chance of getting self serving merchant trait.

So the best way to get good merchants is to have a good base city for them. Note that many times the penalties for "self-serving merchant" are well worth the great profit that can be made in e.g. Timbuktu..

[Ethelred Unread]

Sound like you need some counter spies in your own cities - they hekp kick out the enemy spies which are everywhere in this game.

As england on vh/vh i found it best to always keep some of my own spies in my frontline cities fopr this purpose.

To get priests to cardinals, send them through france to north africa to convert muslims, or to the east to convert pagans. Even better is to have a little "Kingdom of heaven" and send priests into egypt.

As for merchants they are hard to use, but as england I found that the amber deposits in scandi are worth approx 167 florins per turn. I always try and have a monopoly on the resources in the area and use the merchants guild to try and get them a little more effective.

Good luck!

[Deneldar]

What I've done with merchants, thanks mostly to advice read here, is this.

I send a fleet to Timbuktu with 4 merchants on board, 1 spy and 2 reasonable level assasins. The spy keeps watch because later in the game other factions do arrive. The assasins give me a chance to take care of any high level merchants that show up before mine are well trained, I keep the asassins in shape by sabotaging Timbuktu. Once the merchants are about 40 years old I start preparing another identical fleet to replace them when they die.

One important thing to remember is to match the fleet to the stage of the game. You don't want a single cog running into pirates and getting sunk with that valuable cargo.

It makes a huge difference my finances.

[Ryles]

some good advice, thanks!

[Elmo]

Send your merchants out to "attack" other merchants and put them out of business. You will usually get quite a few florins from this technique. I can't take credit for this idea, but I also can't recall where I read it.

[ShadesPanther]

Send your merchants out to "attack" other merchants and put them out of business. You will usually get quite a few florins from this technique. I can't take credit for this idea, but I also can't recall where I read it.

I also found the Near east (particularly antioch) and Baghdad to be great places to train merchants, as well as giving more money when you have Timbucktu

[cfc_kev]

Priests become Cardinals at piety 5, or from a Cathedral, but not a Huge Cathedral, 'tis a bug.

the way I understood priests was that a priest trained from a cathedral (or huge cathedral and possibly even an abbey) will come out as a Bishop and not as a priest. the only difference between a bishop and a priest is that they look different on the campaign map and get a +1 piety bonus.

priests or bishops can be elected by the papacy to become a cardinal but there will only ever be a maximum of 13 of them in the world and sometimes a few less. you cannot train a cardinal in anyway they can only be elected if there is a space for them. to get elected they need to be quite high in piety - I dont believe there is a set limit on the piety required they just need to be among the highest piety priests or bishops available. your standing with the pope may also have an influence on this.

[Goofball]

I'm not sure if this is an exploit or an intended part of the game, but I have been using the "trade fort" method which allows multiple merchants to trade on a single resource. I currently have 20 merchants trading gold in the Balkans, and 14 merchants trading amber in Scandinavia. Each merchant makes me between 200 and 500 florins/turn.

See this thread for details:

https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showthread.php?t=75540

[Kraggenmor]

Merchants seem to have no purpose, none of them seem to be able to cover their own upkeep never mind actually make me a profit, regardless of where I stick them. Anybody know what I'm doing wrong?

Thanks in advance.

Hello and welcome!

I'm going to state something here that would be considered 'common knowledge' but it isn't evident from your post that you know this or not so, I mean no offense:

You do know that merchants do nothing sitting in your cities, right?

They need to be sent into the field and parked on 'resources' that are all over the map. Take a good look at the map you will see things like sheep standing about - thats a 'sheep resource', black lumps on certain hills - coal resource, black ingot shaped things on other hills - iron resource, etc etc.

They're easy to miss when you first play and aren't looking for them. I know I did the same thing for a number of turns. If you select a merchant and hover your mouse pointer over a resource you'll be able to see how much that particular merchant will make per turn in trading that resource.


Move a merchant 'onto' a resource and he will say something like "Yes, theres money in this lord' or 'opening trade lanes' which is your confirmation he is properly placed. Then when you mouse over that merchant you will be able to see what he's making trading that resource.

Like yourself, I never dealt much with agent units in MTW and found as you have that in M2TW agents are ceritically valuable. Spies in particular can make or break your entire campiagn!

Keeping spies in your own cities can help keep other spies out. Placiing spies in other's cities will reveal the details of any army stationed there, allow a chance for your spy to open their gates for you, and sow rebellion amongst their populous.

I hadn't been using priest units nearly enough until the time one of my Cardinals became Pope. Having had that advantage for 20 or so years has been enough for me to make sure I'm actively producing and using priests!

Diplomats are something I know I'm not using enough. I need to get more of them out there so I can effectively grab the ear of anyone I need to but, I keep not quite getting around to it.

[Sheogorath]

In regards to the merchant issue, you may be experiencing the 'capital location bug'.

Basically, move your capitol to some nearby city, then move it back (on the same turn, of course), you should see a massive increase in your trade-gold income.

Also, send merchants to far away places. Constantinople, and the area north of Jerusalem both have tons of good stuff.
Also, as mentioned, Timbuktu and Baghdad have good income as well.

Less mentioned is the far north, where that Amber can really stack up.

[uibalex]

I when playing a Mediterranean (excuse the spelling) faction send my merchants to Constantinople area where there is silk. Keep sending more and more and just aqquire all the other factions.

[Sir_Hawkwood]

Good advice from all...
I'd say that merchants are the most difficult of all agents to use well.

All only have two comments to add to the above;

1, Keep out of central Europe, at least untill your merchant is well developed, because the competition from other factions is strong.

2, Make sure your freshly minted merchant starts trading alone in a region,(cant remember if he gets the capatilist, or monopolist trait?) It'll give him an early boost to his finance score.

[lobo76]

If you share a border with a different religion and find lots of priest/imans converting your population, the correct response is NOT defense. It is very hard to win, due to the way conversion is calculated. iirc, if both priest and iman can convert 5% each turn, it is actually 5% of the opposite religion. assuming you are a Chirstian city, 10k chirstians, 1k of muslims. An iman comes and start converting. The iman will be converting 500 per turn, while your own priest (not counting the church) converts at only 50 per turn. The 'invading' religion nearly always convert faster than the resident one.

What you should do to STILL build priest/iman units, but don't try to convert back your population. Go to the neighbouring country and start coverting theirs! Sooner or later, their priest/imans go back and 'defend' their religion instead of converting yours.

[Wizzie]

If you share a border with a different religion and find lots of priest/imans converting your population, the correct response is NOT defense. It is very hard to win, due to the way conversion is calculated. iirc, if both priest and iman can convert 5% each turn, it is actually 5% of the opposite religion. assuming you are a Chirstian city, 10k chirstians, 1k of muslims. An iman comes and start converting. The iman will be converting 500 per turn, while your own priest (not counting the church) converts at only 50 per turn. The 'invading' religion nearly always convert faster than the resident one.

What you should do to STILL build priest/iman units, but don't try to convert back your population. Go to the neighbouring country and start coverting theirs! Sooner or later, their priest/imans go back and 'defend' their religion instead of converting yours.

I found this too. Particularly helpful playing as Spain with the Moorish Imams all over Iberia!

[A. Smith]

I have a question about tumbuktu; i dont seem to be able to go there by boat, since the water seems to be impassable. am i missing something? because if i cant send them by boat, its not worth making thme wander in the desert for 20 turns as they will die of age a few turns afterwards.

[Quillan]

When you consider that a single merchant has the potential to make over 1000 florins a turn standing on one of those gold or ivory resources, I'd say yes. You can't reach Timbuktu by sea anyway; it's a landlocked province. Arguin is the seacoast one, and yes, it is unreachable by sea until after oceangoing ships are developed in the 1400s. You have to march overland. Go east from Marrakesh towards Algiers. At the mouth of the river turn south and head through the pass. Once across the mountains bear back west for a short distance and then turn due south across the Sahara. Timbuktu is way down there. It takes about 8-9 turns of walking from the coastline to the city, plus another turn or two to the nearest resource.

Once someone has taken the province, it's possible to build a road there that shortens the traveling time a little. The Moors will get it at some point, though there's no telling if they'll manage to keep it. In my last game it revolted on them.

Side note: Sahara is Arabic for desert, so wouldn't the name "Sahara Desert" be a multi-lingual redundancy? Desert desert?

[Zenicetus]

I have a question about tumbuktu; i dont seem to be able to go there by boat, since the water seems to be impassable. am i missing something? because if i cant send them by boat, its not worth making thme wander in the desert for 20 turns as they will die of age a few turns afterwards.

You can't sail around to Arguin (the coastal province west of Timbuktu) until the "World is Round" event.

It doesn't take that long to march down to Timbuktu from Marrakesh, and it's a very rich area (along with Arguin). If you can send an army for conquest it's even better than just sending a merchant or two, since both Timbuktu and Arguin can build mines on the gold resources, and you also have ivory and slaves that can be exploited by merchants. Once you take the towns, you can upgrade the roads to increase trade and movement speed, and you can start pumping out additional merchants directly in Timbuktu when the city is upgraded. It's remote, but it's a real cash cow.