Merchants: Suggested tactic's and deployment area's

[Didz]

The following is a summary of the advice given by OG Gleep on the use of merchants. I thought I would post it here for people who want a quick answer to their merchant questions and issues.

MERCHANT OVERVIEW
Merchants make money by two means:

Trade: By standing on a trade resource they earn trade income from that resource every game turn. The amount of revenue earnt per turn depends on a) the type of resource, b) the skill of the merchant and c) the distance of the resource from your capital.

Hostile Takeovers: By attacking another merchant they can take over that merchants business and in doing so they earn an instant profit of 250 florin’s per level of the merchant taken. E.g. An 8 star merchant earns you 2,000 florin’s.

Merchants gain star’s by trading and from takeovers.

OPENING TACTIC’S
Unless built in a city with a Merchant Guild, new merchants are created without any stars, they are totally unskilled and are therefore not going to bring in much income and are vulnerable to hostile merchants. Merchants trained in a Merchant Guild emerge with 1 Star.

INITIAL TRAINING
Before putting your merchants at risk they need to be given some basic training. Find some local trading resources in an area away from enemy merchants and just leave them to trade peacefully for a few turns. Keep an eye on them and make sure that if a hostile merchant approaches to move them away from their trading resource so that they are not eliminated.

NOTE: AI controlled merchants only perform hostile takeovers against merchants that are actively trading. So, moving a merchant off the trade resource will protect it from enemy merchants.

Keep your new merchants trading locally until they achieve a 3 STAR skill rating.

3 STAR MERCHANT TACTIC’S
Once a merchant achieves a 3 STAR skill rating pair them up with a spy and send the couple into hostile territory.

The objective now is not necessarily to trade but to indulge in some hostile takeovers. The best area I found for this was northern Italy, but you may find other area’s equally as good.

The spy’s job is to spot enemy merchants and warn your merchant whether they are dangerous or ripe for a takeover. If the enemy merchant is a Noob then consider trying a hostile takeover even if it isn’t actually trading. This will gain your merchant 250 florins per star and rapid experience. When there are no merchants in the area use your 3 star merchant to earn some quick revenue by trading local resources. You should be able to make about 200 florins per turn from a 3 star merchant.

Keep operating your merchants like this until they hit the magical 8 Star skill level.

8 STAR MERCHANT CASH COWS
As soon as a merchant reaches 8 stars its time to go for the big bucks.

Choose an area where the trade resources are worth bg money and move your merchant and his escorting spy there asap.

The best area’s are:

1. Russia – Trading Amber
2. North Afrika, South edge of the map near Timbuktu – Trading Gold and Ivory
3. Asia Minor (Around Constantinople) – Trading Silk
4. Stockholm – Trading Amber (watch out for Danish Merchants, they like it here.)

Use your spy to keep overwatch for income enemy merchants whilst your 8 Star merchant cashes in on the big profits to be earnt from these remote resources. Daily income from each 8 star merchant should be about 700 – 1000 florins depending upon resource etc..

Keep the chain going, as merchants and spies grow old and need to be replaced.

Don’t try and trade blindly, if your spy dies stop trading until a replacement can be found, its not worth risking your 8 star merchant getting mugged by leaving him on a resource without being able to see who is coming.

Merchants need a lot of micro-managing but if properly trained and deployed they can earn good money.

[Tristrem]

Just to help I think you should include the spices and ivory in egypt, the linen and spices in anitoch , and the linen and silk near Bagdad (spelt wrong)

[TevashSzat]

Where is the New World? There are a ton of highly valuble goods there like chocolate and tobacco

[FactionHeir]

While some of these resources surely have a high value, it is important to note that the location of your capitol influences the base value of the resources.
I.e. if your capital is Arhus, you will not get any thing decent for fish and amber, regardless where you mine these. If your capitol is Frankfurt, you get a lot for amber and fish on the other hand.
Similarly, setting your capitol to be in the Middle East lowers the value of gold and ivory, even if found in Africa.

Everything is relative.

[Didz]

As long as the patch works of course. Otherwise it is irrelevant, unless you switch capitals on reload.

[Furious Mental]

I think this might be the third time I've said this, but I figure it's worth since this thread is specifically about merchants- if you have a city where you train all your merchants (e.g. one with a master merchant's guild or the guild HQ) don't build cathedrals and whatnot there- all that religion detracts from their ability to be avaricious confidence tricksters.

And yeah, Italy is probably the best place for hostile takeovers.

"Where is the New World? There are a ton of highly valuble goods there like chocolate and tobacco"

It's where the chocolate and tobacco are. Lol (lame joke, sorry). Anyway, to get to the new world you have to wait until the "world is round" discovery, then build a naval drydock, then train carracks (at least, that's what you train as the Europeans), then sail them into the black space that appears on the east of the map. New world is over there.

[FactionHeir]

Errr you surely meant West didn't you.

[Furious Mental]

Oh yeah, oops.

[gardibolt]

Training up your merchants works more quickly if you put them in a province that has 2 or more of the same resource, and put a merchant on all of them. This gets them the Monopolist line of traits, which can add another 3 coin to skill over time and make their adventures in the outside world easier.

[Captain Pugwash]

You should be able to make about 200 florins per turn from a 3 star merchant.

Keep operating your merchants like this until they hit the magical 8 Star skill level.

Daily income from each 8 star merchant should be about 700 – 1000 florins depending upon resource etc..


Capital is London. 2 x 8* traders doing silk at Constaniple only earning 110/90 each and both are pretty well traited up. How are you getting the above figures.

Please explain this capital switch/load trick again

[alpaca]

You should be able to make about 200 florins per turn from a 3 star merchant.

Keep operating your merchants like this until they hit the magical 8 Star skill level.

Daily income from each 8 star merchant should be about 700 – 1000 florins depending upon resource etc..


Capital is London. 2 x 8* traders doing silk at Constaniple only earning 110/90 each and both are pretty well traited up. How are you getting the above figures.

Please explain this capital switch/load trick again

When you reload the game, switch your capital to some city, then switch it back :P

And I like the Constantinople Area, it has 4 silk resources that you can control nicely, and silk is expensive (as well as a resource you don't find further west than this).

By the way, the reason for the capital thing is why I usually put my capital to some corner of the map if I can afford it public-order-wise. Can make a huge difference (seen several thousands of florins for large trade empires between Edinburgh and Jerusalem).

[HoreTore]

When you reload the game, switch your capital to some city, then switch it back :P

Or....install the patch.

[Didz]

Yes I'm pretty certain that the patch has resolved the problem. I'm not making quite as much money as I did in my last game using capital switching but I think thats due to the fact that I'm playing Venice rather than Russia this time and so my capital is more central trade-wise.

[gardibolt]

That could certainly account for it. Factions with capitals in the corners, like the English, can make a lot of money on distant merchants. Central capitals, not so much.

[zaher]

You can also add slaves from Kiev and town near Timbuctu. Also i think there is somewhat like basic gold value percentage for each resource in world - more merchants standing on same resource- less profit from it. If your merchant standing on silk near Constantinople and get lets say 100 gold, and near you on same kind of resource standing foreightn merchant, after you accuire him, you starting to get double profit (200 gold ). thats why important to be monopolist and seize merchants which trading same resource

[zaher]

P.S. Even if you place 2 your merchants on same resource you will get only half profit from each.

[Didz]

I tried Garibolt's suggestion putting merchants on all the textile resources around Venice and Milan and managed to acquire one of them the Merchant Controller trait as a result. So, thats worth remembering.

I am also being far more aggressive with my merchants in this game and deliberately hunting down unskilled merchants from other factions. It not only brings in good money but increases your merchants skills far faster than passive trading.

[Alsn]

Just send an army down to timbuktu and take it and train your merchants there and trade all the gold/ivory/slaves down there, the AI never goes there(with the exception of maybe the moors) but if they do having a watch tower north of timbuktu will give you like a 7 turns heads up.

I was making 4k florins per turn just camping all the spots at timbuktu and i didnt even skill up them anywhere or anything, just trained the merchants in timbuktu as they died off naturally.

[WhiskeyGhost]

I've found the mines in Zagreb are dishing out extreme. I had like 1 merchant pulling over 1000 a turn on it (my home city is Jerusalem as Egypt in this occurance) The only better resource i could find on the map was also gold in Timbuktu, but its way too far for my 56 yr old 11skill merchant to make

[Ciaran]

It´s the only gold mine apart from Timbuktu, I think.

While some of these resources surely have a high value, it is important to note that the location of your capitol influences the base value of the resources.
I.e. if your capital is Arhus, you will not get any thing decent for fish and amber, regardless where you mine these. If your capitol is Frankfurt, you get a lot for amber and fish on the other hand.
Similarly, setting your capitol to be in the Middle East lowers the value of gold and ivory, even if found in Africa.

True, I made early fortunes with wine when playing the English, playing as French I can completely ignore the wine resources.
One odd thing, though, the silk resources in the Bagdad area seem to be worth less than the ones in the Constantinople area (using the same merchant toch check the value, of course). Maybe resources in provinces with ports yield more than landlocked ones. It would make sense, too.

[Katana]

IRT topic title

stop abusing the apostrophe!

really, it's not that hard to figure out. use an apostrophe to make a contraction or possessive. anything else is wrong, including making a plural, as in: look at those apple's, or, i have read those book's. this is totally incorrect, and, if there was any justice, would result in instant death via firing squad.

the one exception to the rules outlined above is the case of its/it's. the rule here is that you only use "it's" when you can replace it with "it is" and still have the sentence make sense. for example, "look out, it's stinky jim!" is grammatically correct because the "it's" can be replaced with "it is," and the sentence will still make sense. on the other hand, "man, halo 3 sucks. it's graphics aren't even equal to gears of war!" is incorrect.

(note: i am already aware of the irony inherent in writing a hoity-toity grammatical post using all lower-case.)

[Didz]

Yes, a severe case of pots and kettles, methinks.

Punctuation: A set of rules invented by those who can think of nothing more worthwhile to write to silence those who have.

[hisn00bness]

some additions using a 8 star merchant;indicative numbers based on a few savgames; your mileage may vary.



For a western european crusading state (+ moors):

The sugar(500); cotton (700) and spices (1000) around Antioch; the Silk (1100) around Baghdad. The ivory in Dongola (800)


For a muslim or orthodox faction :


the textiles (400-600) around venice and milan; the silver mines of vienna (750); the wine above bordeaux(450)




the ones that are ALWAYS worth alot:


- gold in Zagreb
- Everything in timbuktu
- Silk in constantinople ; provided you are not byzantine
- The amber on the steppes; provided you are not Russia. Mileage may vary ALOT depending on what state you are; but at least 250 a turn is to be expected.

[Silverhawk]

NOTE: AI controlled merchants only perform hostile takeovers against merchants that are actively trading. So, moving a merchant off the trade resource will protect it from enemy merchants.

From my latest patched game, this is no longer true. Merchants on resources will "attack" other merchants who are adjacent to those resources but not trading. I can't say if that means they'll attack well off resources, as I've not seen that (and tend to play merchant-light games as England). Lost a 9-star to a lucky 5-star venetian merchant the other day like this though, I swear those venetian merchants have ungodly luck...

[Omisan]

This is all too complicated and time consuming for me. I played entire games making tons of cash without ever using merchants.

Unless I have a quick access to Timbuktu, I don't use merchants at all. And even when you control the entire Timbuktu/Arguin region with skilled(but not maxed) merchants on every resources, it only generates the same amount of money as one good large city.

[Ellesthyan]

regarding punctuation: It might be wise to, on an international forum, keep in mind that the Dutch language actually uses the apostrophe in the earlier mentioned manner.

[alpaca]

Omisan: It usually constitutes 10-20% of my income in the early game, so it's decent, but not overwhelming. It can get a lot better than that if you are a poor faction like scotland though.
I tend to agree with you that the late-game advantage is pretty minor, but that's mostly because the larger markets don't add to your merchant limit, which they should imo

[Thurak]

Everything is relative.

That's it! If you traded maps and/or explored with spies you can easily determine how useful a special ressource for your chosen capitol/faction is: just select ONE merchant and move your mouse cursor over the ressources. So you can compare the different ressources in the different provinces as the tooltip tells you how much this merchant would earn per turn:
This merchant makes 200 at metal in zagreb region but 300 at the gold mine, 400 for sugar near Aleppo, but only 150 for fish in Tripolis... and so on. Of course, the income you will get depends on the skill of the merchant you finally send to a ressource.

[Slaists]

From my latest patched game, this is no longer true. Merchants on resources will "attack" other merchants who are adjacent to those resources but not trading. I can't say if that means they'll attack well off resources, as I've not seen that (and tend to play merchant-light games as England). Lost a 9-star to a lucky 5-star venetian merchant the other day like this though, I swear those venetian merchants have ungodly luck...

Hmm... still holds true in my game (after patch). AI merchants would ignore my merchants off resources.

On a different note, there is a suggestion to build merchants in a city with merchant guild. I have noticed the following:

1. High level religious buildings tend to spoil merchant qualities
2. Law buildings enhance merchants in a sense that they do not get negative "crook" traits. I have stopped training merchants in cities that do not have at least a city hall.
3. High level market buildings + merchant guild tends to train merchants with high rating (I have seen +5 skill merchants coming out of those).

[Didz]

Unless I have a quick access to Timbuktu, I don't use merchants at all. And even when you control the entire Timbuktu/Arguin region with skilled(but not maxed) merchants on every resources, it only generates the same amount of money as one good large city.

I agree that in the late game when cities are fully developed and generating large amounts of cash merchants are not as critical. But, by that stage merchants are also easy to acquire and manage so why not grab another 5,000 florins a turn.

However, I find merchants most valuable in the early stages of the game when even 250/500 extra florins per turn can make a big difference.