Merchants... are they worth it?

[Quickening]

You know I love the micromanagement in this game. I love having to move my priests, spies, assassins, diplomats and princesses around the campaign map each turn.
Im playing a campaign as Spain at the moment and Im doing better than I ever have but I still haven't built any merchants because they just don't seem worth even their purchase cost. Does anyone have any tactics to make merchants worthwhile (without exploiting the game I mean).

P.S: Im on turn 87 just nowand due tomy penchant for taking my time I'll almost certainly never fulfill the victory conditions in the alloted time. I know when you are victorious you have the option to carry on the game, is the same true if you run out of time?

[FactionHeir]

Merchants can be worth it if you place them on a resources that is far away from your capital (note that the closest resource of this type to your capital determines the distance, not the one you actually end up on).
Resources also have differing base values, so some will always be worth more even if they are closer, such as gold, silver, silk, and spices.
Others are often worth very little, such as sulphur, timber, wool, coal.

Even without abusing the merchant fort/unit exploit, you can make a decent income of around ~6000 florins a turn if you leave your merchants on a far resource for a while, such as those found at Timbuktu or Antioch or Dongola.

As for time running out, yes you can continue. I think if you haven't won by then, you just get a defeat fmv and the option to play on.

[phonicsmonkey]

I think they are worth it in the early stages of the game when you're in need of some quick cash.

As FH said you can make a pretty penny if they're in the right spot.

For most, if not all factions, the right spot appears to be Timbuktu.

I tend to lose interest in them later when I'm rolling in so much cash I don't know what to do with it all...

They are certainly not strategically necessary in any way.

[foop]

As mentioned above, merchants are definitely worth it if you send them to Timbuktu. As the Spanish, you're not that far from the gold there. Only the Moors are closer, and then not by much - the biggest part of the journey is the trek across the northern Sahara. Merchants can quite happily earn several hundred/turn on the good resources there.

Ignoring the money aspect for the moment, Timbuktu is also a good place to train up your merchants. It's easy to get a monopoly on the resources there, and it's far enough away to get good traits. You could then move them back into Europe for the even-more-micromanaged part of the merchant game, aggressive takeovers of foreign traders. I usually avoid this, because I find it too tedious with low-level merchants, but with more experienced entrepreneurs it's a little more fun.

[diotavelli]

On the subject of Timbuktu:

When negotiating trade rights, map info and/or alliance with the Moors, it's always worth seeing if they've occupied Timbuktu and are prepared to sell it to you.

In the earlier part of the game (pre-turn 40 on 2 years per turn), there's a good chance that, if they have bothered to occupy it, they have only just done so and won't have had the chance to build it up. That being the case, they'll be more prepared to sell it to you for next to nothing - often alliance, trade rights and map info will do.

Once you've got your hands on it, build a town hall and a grain exchange, then pump out merchants. Total investment will be 3,400 for those buildings and four merchants but you can realistically expect to be earning half that back each turn in no time at all. No need to send an army or have a governor wasting away in the wilderness. Being so far from anywhere else, you have less to worry about from predatory merchants, too.

And, if you're a Catholic, you'll need to build priests but they'll be surefire Cardinalate candidates, so you win on that score, too.

I've done this as most of the major Catholic factions and it works a treat. I don't tend to bother with merchants otherwise, as I simply can make enough money without the bother.

[TheLastPrivate]

And for egypt there are stuff down near Dongola too.

Also merchants dont cost upkeep so thats worthwhile as well.

[Alpedar]

I think, that how much merchant generates depends on resource type, distance from capital to nearest type of this resource (moving capital can help here, but it can hurt a lot other things) and merchant skill. That is all obvious.
But not so obvious is that it depends on other things. Trade rights, developement (eco bonuses & number of trade routes) of province resource is placed in. And developement of target provinces. So best is highly developed distant province with expensive resource. I have merchant that generates more than 1000 per turn and probubly other people have even better (merchant costs 550, so he pays himself in one turn).

[Quickening]

Thanks everyone. Here is the world as it stands:




As you can see I own most of Africa including Timbuktu. Does the fact that I own the land have any influence on my merchants? My capital is still Leon so it isn't a great distance from Timbuktu. Judging by the above advice my best bet would be to send some merchants to the Middle East.

[TheLastPrivate]

Its better you own the land of resource than rebels having it. I believe whether you have trad erights with the faction that owns the province has something to do with merchant income. Note the spices and sugar around Antioch and Alexandria are amazing income as well, if you can ship them there.