Merchants

[Indy1958]

Dear Gents:

Good afternoon from Canada!! I hope this finds you and yours well. As for me, I could complain...yadda, yadda, yadda.

Where would one get ivory? I know it's actually the tusks of elephants, but I don't see any of those in this game!!!!!

By the by, I wrote down the list for my own future reference. I also want to thank you very kindly as to telling me how to make money in this game!!!!!

Live long and prosper, take care and thank you kindly!!!

Sincerely yours always,

Indy.

P.S. What are your thoughts on sulphur? I remember seeing little yellow piles of the stuff--one of those being on Sicily.

[TevashSzat]

I know for a fact that it is next to at least Dongola which is right below Cairo and Alexandria

[tex_-]

timbuktu and arguin also have ivory

[mbrasher1]

The best trade goods seem to be clustered, so having control of certain areas guarantees a good supply of bankable income. Plus, there are so many trade goods in some areas that it attracts other faction's merchants, which can then be acquired by your now-skilled merchants.

The best areas for trade goods are (in no particular order)

Antioch
Constantinople
Northern Italy
Low Countries (near Bruges and Antwerp)
Timbuktu
Baghdad

[Daveybaby]

First of all, as has already been stated, work on getting your merchants guild - build all of your merchants from the same city, and refuse all guilds except a merchants guild there.

The most important thing to do with your merchants (as with most other strategic units) is to train them up.

Stage 1 : Early Training
Initially you need to sit them on a secure local resource (by secure i mean: protected from the AI's merchants coming in and taking out your merchants through acquisition). To do this you need to either:
(1) Find a safe resource away from the action (e.g. as england most of the resources on the british isles should be safe)
(2) Protect your low skill level merchants with your high skill merchants, by aquiring any AI merchants as soon as they wander into your lands
(3) Move your low level merchants off of a resource if they are in danger of being acquired by a higher level AI merchant - enemy merchants will only 'attack' yours while they are actually trading. This is a bit of an exploit as you can take out the AI's merchants at any time.
(4) Use the 'fort exploit', and build a fort on a resource and put all of your merchants in there. This is a totally cheesy exploit but thats up to you and your consicence.

Keep your merchants trading locally until they reach level 4 - the value of the resource isnt really important - whats important is that over time your merchants will gain skills from trading.

Stage 2 - Aquisition Training
Then you need to move on to phase 2 of your training - acquisition. Move your merchants to the borders of your lands and start taking out AI merchants. Initially try to find a couple of low level (0 or 1 skill) merchants to aquire as this should be a dead-cert success, but in general only ever tackle a merchant with at least 2 skill levels less than your own, and you should be fairly safe. You will find that pretty much every successful aquisition will give your merchant another skill increase. Plus, you get quite a bit of money from doing this.

If a high level AI merchant wanders into your territory dont try to take them out - just avoid them like the plague. Sometimes they will go away, and sometimes they will just settle on a resource and then never move again until they die - but sometimes they will actively prey on your own lower level merchants, so keep them out of harms way.

Stage 3 - Profit!
Once your merchants get to skill level 7 or 8 its time to move them to somewhere really profitable, such as the aforementioned gold, silver, amber, spices, silk and ivory. Check this thread for lists of reource locations and their relative values.

Note that:
(1) The higher the skill level of your merchant, the more the resource will be worth
(2) The further away a resource is from your capital, the more it will be worth
(3) If you have trade agreements with the faction that owns the land the resource is on, you will get more money
(4) If a region has multiple copies of the same resource, then controlling them all will gain you a monopoly bonus - e.g. i like to send 4 high level merchants down to constantinople and nicaea and monopolise the 4 silk resources down there.

By this stage your merchants should be of a high enough level that they are virtually immune from takeover by AI merchants, so you can just leave them where they are and let the money roll in. However, in some congested areas (e.g. constantinople), merchants can get barged off of a resource by a passing diplomat or army, so make sure to check on them every now and then to make sure they are still sitting on their resource properly.

Eventually your highly skilled merchants sitting on valuable resources on the other side of the map will die of old age. I always have a production line of merchants going through the training process so there are always suitably skilled merchants ready to replace them. Once you get a higher level merchants guild and the higher level trade buildings, you can train merchants who will start out at skill level 4, which will save quite a bit of time and effort.

[sableblack]

hi guys,

this is how i do it. first realise that your capitol location changes the value of every resource in the game. also realise that income for a resource also depends on the skill of the merchant.
first i make 2 merchants asap at start of game and put them to work in an region owned by me with 2 of the same resource type. one of each. they will then get monopolist line of traits. when they are level 4-5 i move them to the resource they will make the most money on preferably 3-4 moves turns away then they will get good traveeler traits.
then i leave them there and attack any lower level merchant to come along.
attacker has the advantage unless the defender is on a resource trading. in that case defender has advantage.
i then make new merchant.
i max out merchants as i do priests. once you have access to good resources you merchants will make 100-600 per turn and quickly exceed purchase price.
what you must not do is make new merchants in areas populated by even one high level foreign merchants.
some people use their high level merchants as hunters and get the massive rewards for acquiring high level foreign merchants. for me this involves too much micro-management and i prefer to fire and forget. if i notice an opportunity i will take it but otherwise too much like hard work.
merchant guilds make better starting merchants. also they give trade bonus to the city hosting them. i never reject merchant guild and often wait for one to be offered.

[phunkbot]

i dont bother with training merchants on resources in my starting provinces, i usually send them for contsantinople's silk / russia's amber as soon as they are created toghether with a spy. What i try to do is end as many of the turns they take to get there on a resource, once on the silk i try to use up all of my movement points while ending the turn on a resource, i think that gets you the traveler and market controller traits. Also, building a town hall and above in the city you train merchants gets you a Legal expert traid though i cant quote the mechanics on getting that.

as for not being acquired you just need to know that the AI wont do that unless your merchant is standing on a resource

[Tamur]

Nice clear post Davey, and some very good info in this thread. I've always had a devil of a time making merchants do anything besides get themselves acquired, and so I just don't build them anymore. Sounds like it's time to give it another go.

[Slicendice]

I usually send a general and some heavy cavalry to Timbuktu. I hire some mercs when I get there and I take that city. I then build a merchant building and a town hall. (town hall prevents your merchant from being crooked) Then I build a fort on the gold and start pumping merchants into that fort. After awhile the income from gold in Timbuktu will surpass all other incomes and it will be very steady.

Also I build lots of priests there and they become my Christian hit squad and they eventually move across North Africa to Egypt then up to Turkey converting as they go.

[Matty]

I know for a fact that it is next to at least Dongola which is right below Cairo and Alexandria

After 6 months of playing the game, I just found Dongola.....

I'm also not conquering the new world this time (as the Moors it seems somehow inappropriate), just sending battalions of guild trained merchants over. I'll also send a ranking diplomat to see if I can negotiate a trade agreement that should boost income.

Even at the late stage in this game (turn 200), the merchants with their 10K plus a turn are often the only thing keeping me solvent in some years.