Getting to Timbuktu!!!

[Indy1958]

Dear All:

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

I'm writing to ask the best way to get to the above town, not to mention the best way to go about it. I've been another thread on this very topic, and it's got me thinking. Right now, I"Ve got my merchants trading everything from soup to nuts but I think when I got a nice cash flow going, I'll start to specialize. The first commodity I'd like to specialize in is ivory. I do know that the people of the MIddle Ages used that stuff by the truckload!!!!

Secondly, could one of you nice people provide me with a list that can tell me what the most valuable resources were back then so I can get more bang for my florin!!!

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

Sincerely yours always,

Indy.

[Bijo]

Hmmmmm. The shortest answer would be to simply move your merchants or armies (or whatever) to the African continent until they reach Timbuktu and deal with trouble as it comes.

The most valuable resources to trade in in-game are possibly slaves. In any case -- going by my memory -- if you go southwards somewhere in the African deserts you should encounter resources you would find very profitable.

[John_Longarrow]

Play as the moors and produce your merchants in Marakesh. Send them all towards that gold you can see at the bottom and divert them as needed when they get close.

Of course as any faction you can always just march an army down there, take the place, and use it to create your merchants. Once you get the merchants guild going down there you get a LOT of money out of that area. No need to cheat and you can still make over 5K / turn.

[WhiskeyGhost]

Gold is probably one of the best trade resources, if not the best one (short of the Meso-American ones that show up late game)

The single gold mine in Zagreb, coupled with the ones in Timbuktu (making 3 total i was merchant on) brought me in a good 5k or so in trading.

[Ethelred Unread]

As someone else said in another thread on Merchants, send an assasin and a spy with them and then you can assassinate rivals.

I always send fresh merchants down there as they skill up quickly when they have a monopoly so a assassin is invaluable

[brandybarrel]

Hi Indy1958

If you are not playing as the Moors then bring a spy to navigate your way through the two paths through the Atlas Mountains. The area is wide and unit travel is slower across the desert so expect this to take some time.

Your assassins or merchants can help to knock off the incumbent merchants but this will not be an easy task since you should expect them to be of high rank when you get there - and more easily replaceable by their closer cities.

Taking the city is a better option but an investment in time because you have to fight off the Moors, deal with religious unrest, and distance to your capital.

Gold has the highest trade value in the game (see below) and you should find a few mines there. Ivory and slaves can also be found but do not give you as much return as gold.

If you are wondering, I played as Spain a while ago and oft sent an expedition to the barren area in search of legendary wealth - with some success, I might add.

Good luck!




Resource trade value
gold 20 (mine)
chocolate 15
tobacco 15
ivory 12
silk 12
spices 12
amber 12
silver 12 (mine)
marble 10 (mine)
sugar 10
iron 9 (mine)
wine 8
dyes 8
textiles 8
cotton 8
slaves 8
wool 6
timber 6
tin 6 (mine)
sulfur 5 (mine)
grain 5
fish 5
coal 4 (mine)
furs 3

Source: descr_sm_resource.txt

[hoof]

Owning the town helps, I vaguely recall that if you build a mine on a gold resource, your merchants can make even more money. I was playing the moors once, and had a merchant making 1200/turn on a mined gold nugget near Timbuktu (which I owned). The mine added 800/turn as well. Very nice :)

[hisn00bness]

nations with extreme capitals fare even better.
Scots can make over 2000 on the gold there per merchant.

[khaos83_2000]

I just get a general and build forts at all the resource points there. Instant monopoly.

[John_Longarrow]

Khaos83

Do you also use the fort exploit? ie, stick all of your merchants in the same fort?

[Didz]

Securing a monopoly in Africa has become a more or less standard merchant strategy for my games now.

Right from Turn 1.

I send my very first merchants to Africa using the first boat I can get to transport them to the North African coast. I then set up a ferry service to send every other merchant I can hire there as fast as possible.

The only real threat early on are pirates but they are rarely a problem and even if I lose a merchant its not a major setback compared to the return on the investment from those that arrive safely.

The main issue to watch for is hostile navies once you begin getting into wars. Both Byzantine and Sicilian navies can be awkward to get past if they are hostile and in my last game I was having to send fleets of four or more wargalleys to get my merchants safely through by mid-game.

By far the best solution if you can spare the ships and men is to send an army down to Timbukto along with your merchants and capture both that city and Argiun.

Once you have these under you control you can give preference to building markets etc. so that you can hire merchants locally and cancel the ferry service.

Personally, I've never had to bother with the fort exploit for my African merchants and in many cases I haven't even had a general in Africa to build them. I find enemy merchants rarely interfere and those that do are usually so outclassed by my locally trained guys that they can merely be acquired as soon as they appear.

Overall, the most profitable resource in Africa is Gold, with Ivory coming a close second and Slaves a poor third, so I usually target my merchants according to those priorities.

[khaos83_2000]

Khaos83

Do you also use the fort exploit? ie, stick all of your merchants in the same fort?

sometimes when i feel like doing it, sometimes i don't. It just take alot of time to train each merchant individually and moving it to the forts.
Getting 1/4 the map gives any empire enough resource for a huge standing army. But the forts definetely gives instant monopoly until they send an army after the region

Now when i use the "fort exploit", im just trying to get master merchant guild there, but i still havent achieve that yet...

[Hellenic_Hoplite]

huh, ive never actually taken it.
I fugured it was just a poor baren desert like in rome.

[Sheogorath]

huh, ive never actually taken it.
I fugured it was just a poor baren desert like in rome.

It is, but its also got the highest density of valuable trade resources in the game outside of the New World.

[Grog]

I appreciate the high value of gold trading, but also consider aquisition with your merchants.

I have found in my current Byz game, by holding merchants on the milan/venice textiles, and 2x silver mines west of vienna, you can 'snaffle' a lot of enemy merchants from the catholic factions and still have time to step back onto resource. I do tend to place 6*+ merchants in these reigons, and quite a lot of the chaps are over 10* by the time they hit their 40's

I train all merchants in nicea, which in my game has master merchants guild, is second/third place in revenue with constantinople/antioch and I only have a level 2 church in place, so all my merchants are born in 20's/4* or 30's 5* with a set of 4-5 good traits.

[supadodo]

Thing bout forts is they allow more than one merchant to trade on the exact same resource. Imagine if you could plop 20 merchants on a single gold mine with a fort.$$ $$

Also...there is a exploit that you don't need an army to garrison the fort. As long as an agent character is inside it will not rot away. And to make things better, enemy armies don't attack empty forts for some reason so don't worry.

The only problem with the fort exploit is that some forts just can't be built on some places.

[Askthepizzaguy]

In my opinion as a bloody warlord, I say the best way to get there is by doing the following:

Join a crusade on the very first turn (you can start one yourself), doesn't matter what the target is.

Get a general and a bunch of horsemen together (as many as possible) and head straight towards timbuktu. Get there by ship (to northern africa), and charge straight through the desert.

You can use the (leave crusade/join crusade) exploit to not lose any troops, or just use whatever surviving troops you have plus christian mercenaries from spain and nubian mercenaries from timbuktu itself. Should only take a few turns to reach it.

Once there, build a city and build a grain exchange. Now you can spawn your own merchants without making a long voyage.

I dont like wasting 20 turns to get there. Do it the fast way, through a crusade or a jihad. Use the exploit or don't, there is usually enough mercenaries once you get there.

Who agrees that this method is actually quicker and more productive?

Only the orthodox factions cannot do this, and their best bets are stockholm and dongola, (byzantium) and antioch/constantinople (Russia), not travelling all the way there.

[Didz]

Who agrees that this method is actually quicker and more productive?

Its obviously quicker....crusading armies move at double speed.

Whether its more productive is less certain. You're effectively using a general and a minimum of eight units and probably giving up the benefits of winning a crusade. That's probably a potential loss of around 10,000 florins in recruitment and pillaging.

Also, at this stage of the game you are probably not going to be able to build many merchants anyway, (perhaps two or three) and so there isn't really that much to be gained by rushing to capture Timbukto. It could probably wait until you have spare troops free to ship down there.

Its a clever idea though.

Mind you if you can call a Crusade or Jihad on Timbukto it would be brilliant, but you would have to wait until it was taken by a rival first.

[Askthepizzaguy]

Its obviously quicker....crusading armies move at double speed.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Whether its more productive is less certain. You're effectively using a general and a minimum of eight units and probably giving up the benefits of winning a crusade. That's probably a potential loss of around 10,000 florins in recruitment and pillaging.

Also, at this stage of the game you are probably not going to be able to build many merchants anyway, (perhaps two or three) and so there isn't really that much to be gained by rushing to capture Timbukto. It could probably wait until you have spare troops free to ship down there.

Its a clever idea though.

Mind you if you can call a Crusade or Jihad on Timbukto it would be brilliant, but you would have to wait until it was taken by a rival first.

Hmm... two things

1) You can send multiple generals on crusade, so this would not affect your chances of winning one. I highly recommend crusades in general. Unless you have no family members and dont promote captains. Also, you can always recruit more troops. Thats never a problem. The more troops you send on crusade the better. I would use only my most useless mad retarded general on this particular quest, and then hit Arguin and let him die in the desert like a fool.

2) the idea of waiting for the computer to take it... I dunno. They never take it in my games, because I destroy them quicker than it takes for them to get there. And it would defeat the whole purpose of getting there quickly.

But, I am glad the idea is out there being considered!

Thank you

[phonicsmonkey]

to get to timbuktu:

- select army stack

- hover the mouse pointer around in the bottom left hand corner of the map until it goes green (ie. indicates land you can walk to)

- right click

- let them walk there automatically at the end of each of your turns until they arrive.

takes some of the boredom out of the long hike...

[WhiskeyGhost]

to get to timbuktu:

- select army stack

- hover the mouse pointer around in the bottom left hand corner of the map until it goes green (ie. indicates land you can walk to)

- right click

- let them walk there automatically at the end of each of your turns until they arrive.

takes some of the boredom out of the long hike...

indeed, when i take it i do the exact same thing, send an army on autopilot to there and check on it once every 5 turns

[danfda]

I can't say that I've ever seen rival merchants sitting on any of the African trade resources. Nor have I seen any rivals attack Timbuktu, let alone Arguin. So there is really no rush getting there. The amber fields of eastern Europe are rife with enemy merchants, as is Italy, but thats about the only places I see the AI send their guys. Shrugs.

[atheotes]

I have seen Moorish merchants in Timbuktu... they also walked over to Arguin to take over my merchant!!!

[Didz]

I have seen Moorish merchants in Timbuktu... they also walked over to Arguin to take over my merchant!!!

Must admit that having said that I've never been bothered by enemy merchants in Timbuktu I have just had a visit by two Moorish merchants in my current campaign. One was acquired quite quickly by one my own men, the other proved a little more stubborn/successful and had to be taken out by an assassin.

But yes...I can now say that I have seen it happen.

[Monsieur Alphonse]

I had once captured Timbuktu with a general and some Sudanese tribesmen. When I marched further to take Arguin the Spanish attacked Timbiktu and captured it. I have been very lucky that they didn't cross the border and attacked Arguin. Very soon after they captured Timbuktu they had merchants on all the resources. The merchants even invaded Arguin region.

[gardibolt]

While I've seen Moorish merchants show up on occasion in Timbuktu, after a few turns the ones I have are leveled up so far that the Moors are easy feeding.