Whats the worth of merchants?

[The Spartan (Returns)]

usually merchants would make of an average, 10, 15, 20 florins per turn. whats the use, later in the game i found a resource worth of 100+ per turn- only to be taken by another merchants. whats the use?

[JCoyote]

Go to Timbuktu or Arguin (subsaharan Africa) or to the new world. Suddenly you'll find them fueling your war machine at 500+ florins per turn. Each.

The biggies for value are Chocolate, Gold, Ivory, Silk, Tobacco, Spices... things like that.

Send a team to Timbuktu at the start of the game. Take the city, then take Arguin... it's west of Timbuktu and up the coast. Crank out merchants ASAP. If you want to get a bit exploitish, once you have all the resources tapped with merchants, take a general and build a fort on the square next to a resource that a merchant usually stands on. Then cram merchants into the fort. 20+ merchants making 500+ florins a turn? Yeah, merchants are worth something...

[TevashSzat]

Merchants make more money on places far away from your capital and on resources that you have a monopoly on, that is only your merchants are trading it. Amber, silk, and gold tend to be the best resources so try to monopolize those. Silk is located around Constantinople and Baghdad i think. Amber is eveywhere in northern Europe including Sweden, Denmark, and the Northwestern part of Russia. There is also one on sicily too. Gold though is much more spread out, but there is like two or three right next to each other in Timbuktu

[Bearclaw]

In addition to what JCoyote said, you can also pick up lots of cash by seizing an enemy merchant's assets. For rank 1-3 merchants, you get like 800-2000, for the very high level merchants, you can get like 7000. Basically what I do is put merchants on any worthwhile resources in my homelands, and then when they're higher rank I send them out to seize enemy merchants and find more profitable resources.

Quick breakdown of decent resources in each region:

Russia: practically nothing, except for several amber spots in Riga.
Middle East: Sugar, Spices, and Cotton are all over the Turkish and Egyptian lands.
North Africa: Gold and Ivory in Arguin, Timbuktu and Dongola.
Northern Europe: Amber fields in Riga and Sweden and wine in France
Southern Europe: Not too much really. Silk in Northern Italy, Wine in France, or send merchants to the amber fields or Timbuktu right away.

[pdoan8]

I try not to put an inexperience merchant in the hot spot (Europe and around Constantinople, Antioch and Dongola). Trade goods are great, but it is not a good place for merchant with 3 finance or less.

In my Spanish campaign, I found that ivory (4) and slave (1) trade in Arguin and Timbuktu are great. Even better if I own those 2 towns. My merchants make between 300 to 600+ for ivory and about 200-300 for slave and there is no challenge yet. Also, the spice spot in Jedda (spelling?) is great. Much safer than around Antioch. The Egyptian Merchants have been very aggressive around Dongola and Antioch.

[zverzver]

I usually train my mechants up at first on some local monopoly like wool in England or Wine in France. Then when they level up I send them out into the world to camp on some good resource and take out any foreign merchant on the way there. Make your home country a training ground for merchants, I currently have four merchants on cloth in and around Venice and they only pay about 25 - 30 each a turn but they get valuable experience. Dont forget to live one high level merchant at home to protect your MBA schoold from high level foreign merchant (or a high level assasin would do).
Bearclow I disagree with you about Russia I found that three slave resourcess in Kiev, Caffa and Bulgar (Not sure about Bulgar but somwere there) provide good income as well as good training opportunities.

[Rollon]

do I have to control all resources of the same type in one province or all over the world to get the Monopolist line of traits?

[sapi]

In the same province (or the others untraded), i believe.

[SnowlyWhite]

There are 3 things you care about merchants:

1. make them, and they'll give you merch guild. This increases trade by it's own(the building) and at 1k it's definitelly worth the money.
2. usually at merchant hq, you can easily get a merchant with skill 4-5 from the start; from there, there are 2 things you'll care about:

a. monopoly; a province with 2 of the same resource - let 2 merchants there for 5-6 turns and should get the monopolist line; that should place your merchant around skill 5-6.
b. at 5-6, search around in italy or south france or wherever for merchants with low skill.
Seize their assets; beside getting ~1k for each, 1st 2 succesful seizing give you 1 skill point. At 7-8 skill you can decently seize any merchant of the ai for good cash, or send himi on a resource that makes at least 400/turn.

Remember that the ai is usually very agressive and tries to seize other merchants; due to this, and to his high failure rate, you'll find many merchants who reached 0 skill on which you have 95% of success.
Also remember that the ai tries to seize a merchant ONLY if he's on a resource; if you notice a very high skill ai merchant that seized your merchant, reload and move your guy off that resource.
Lastly, remember that the merchant costs 550 gc and 0(nil, nada, zero) upkeep. At this cost, even if he sits on a 100gc/turn he's more then worth the invesment. Leaving aside that the seizing of other merchants at the start, when you're low on cash, is invaluable.

[Carl]

The Danes have it best as they can use a fleet to block merchants of the enemy from getting to Stockholm and Oslo, but have about 6-7 monopolies and about 20 recources their. Thats plenty of traing spots and a good 200+ income while you do it to mention nothing of just how fast you level up their. I tend to keep a transport fleet handy so if a merchant starts to wonder into my territory I can transport my best merchent across and take him. Only works on low finance merchants but still good...

[gardibolt]

Remember that the ai is usually very agressive and tries to seize other merchants; due to this, and to his high failure rate, you'll find many merchants who reached 0 skill on which you have 95% of success.

Partly right....the AI is very aggressive in seizing other merchants, but it almost always succeeds. I've seen exactly 1 AI merchant with a skill of 0 or 1. Almost all of them are from 5-8 skill in my game. My merchants are pretty much just used for target practice.

[caius britannicus]

Protect your merchants with forts. Build a fort over a valuable resource (gold or ivory) and stack your merchants in it. In my lands to conquer campaign I have 12 merchants stacked on gold in timbuktu making me 37,000 per turn.

[HoreTore]

Freshly recruited AI merchants are just as bad as your fresh merchants, so they are easy to take. Remember to have a town hall in where you train them however, they'll get the legalmerchant skill and doesn't get shadydealer. If you train a merchant with only 1-2 starting skill, put him on a small boat and ram a pirate fleet!

[Doug-Thompson]

Another benefit, although minor, is that merchants help prevent other factions from making money off your resources.

For instance, suppose you have a low-skill merchant near a city. A high-skill enemy merchant starts heading your way. Obviously, your low-skill guy is a target for a takeover attempt. You click on the enemy merchant to see his movement range. When he's close enough to your guy to attempt takeover on the next turn, you simply move your merchant off the resource. His high-skill merchant -- which could have been making hundreds of florins a turn -- has now wasted his trip. He wastes more time wandering away, and you put your merchant back on a resource when it's safe.

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I like to build up lots of experience by stopping on resources on the way to remote, safe and very profitable locations, like Donagl (sp?) and Baghdad, then move some of those very experienced merchants to someplace where there are more competitors, like the Constantinople. That experienced merchant becomes the "bodyguard" of newer merchants.

Finally, if a competing merchant is from a faction I'm at war with anyway, I'll send an assassin after him. Even if I don't kill him, the merchant usually scurries away to safety. Spying on enemy merchants is also a cheap way to get spies experience points.

[Snoil The Mighty]

Well oddly I was considering doing a full cost-benefit analysis of this. Total sunk cost vs total income from all sources. I got so bored of the process of testing to see if there really is a random generator bug I am not sure I'll do this though LOL (By the way, I have yet to find anything that would point to the random generator as bugged so far in over 1200 reps under so many circumstances that I am having a hard time dividing them up into categories that make sense anymore) However I digress. If one was to test this, there would have to be more than one faction tested. For instance, Venice rocks merchant-wise, starting with a good one and seemingly out of reputation spawning good one after good one too. But take say Russia, mentioned earlier. Their corner-map capital and relative isolation makes merchanting for them an absolute cakewalk, I do better with them than I do with Venice so far. Train em up on Amber as they walk to the slaves, then a short boat trip to silks. I was making sick money just at Constantinople. The Vienna silver mines and Venetian/Milanese textiles were just icing on the cake. Rich, creamy icing! And that was long before I got to Aleppo spice *insert Dune sub-reference of your choosing*. And since they can train as they go so easily, by the time I see other merchants, I'm the predator far more often than prey. And other than amber, valuable goods are all so distant-yet oddly reachable! Now all this can be true of other franchises depending on capital location and where you put your merchie guild(s). And I never use forts-to each their own but I just don't (for trade anyway - I use em for military purposes quite a bit especially as Russia). Nor assassins anymore, i just send a spy with every batch. Makes it easy to find prey for my commercial warriors. Offhand I'd say that I lose perhaps 1 in 4 merchants to predation overall (including the odd badly handled attempt to acquire), but more like 1 in 6 in my Russian campaigns (have now done 2 of those). I seemed to lose the most as Milan oddly enough, but I was spawning rookies into a hornet's nest a lot as Milan. Not my best idea. Anyway, if one has the will to micro them -I'll pull their journey all the way out and note goods to "rest" on for the walk for instance- I would hazard a very vague guess that a 30-1 payback is on the low side, properly managed of course. Ive had guys stand on those ERE silks for 50 turns making 600+ even over 700 depending on faction. Times 4 guys. That's a minor city worth of income. Sure, it cost me 5 merhcants in price to get em all there, but such a small price to pay for 2000-2800 per turn for a long long time. And a good whacking of my opponents' merchants is always such a nice way to buy that totally unnecessary extra 2 units of (insert a very fun unit here).

So after boring everyone to tears (except the sensible folk who stopped reading 3 minutes ago and didn't get to this part) the payback overall is huge in percentage terms in my experience-and if anyone wants a serious cost-benefit analysis, I wouldn't mind co-ordinating with one or more like minded folks to do a few factions each. Obviously we'd have to setup certain rules like "no taking your 1-star noob with a horsefeed store and trying to acquire a 7 star stud who owns a goldmine in Africa @ 8% chance of success" that kinda thing. Drop a message to me anyone who'd be interested

[zstajerski]

Most money i made per turn with ONE merchant was a little more than 2000 per turn on the mines near Timbuktu