Cheers,

Long time STW/MTW player here never bothered with RTW not intrested in the time period. Got an upgrade on my PC so took the plunge with MTW2. What a difference from MTW !

I have read through the forums for a while so i have a rudementary understanding of these concepts but if you would help me out I would appreciate it.

1. Trade routes/trading. While I get the concept I dont quite see how its all networked. I am fooling around with denmark now, around the 5th turn my merchant makes it to where lithunia would be and starts trading a resource (amber i believe). How is that a trade route for me? It goes through many rebel provinces, and I have one sole merchant so I dont have adjcent regions linked by merchant. I am just not getting the trading concept here it seems the further away I go the more I make off of one guy?

2. Cardinals/priests: other then converting and dealing with heritics they dont seem to be of any other value (not that that is minimal), save for being in line for the pope. Do they provide any kind of bonus for town order if I place them in a city?

3. Marriages: seem random unless I offer a princess and if she isnt charming it gets rejected. Often i get a window pop up of some local commander who is a suitable prospect for her and he would then join my family as a potential heir. Is this random? I guess what I am really curious about is there a strategy here i am missing to get a solid random guy to pop up? (I know that sounds juvenille, but i dont know how else to word it).

these are 3 that have me slightly baffled right now, perhaps i am still thinking in the prior MTW mode and need to hit the refresh in my brain. Still I cant seem to get a good handle on them.

Any comments are appreciated, thanks.

Odin