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.

[Philbert]

First, even if you don't move halfway across the world, merchants are worth it. I consider them profitable once they produce more than 55 florins per turn, so they pay for themselves in 10 turns (they don't cost upkeep). You don't have to go that far to achieve that. In my estimation if you send a three point merchant into France you can already find resources that give you that.

However, the real reason I use merchants is for the HUNT! Taking over enemy merchants is a nice minigame which gives me a lot of satisfaction.

Here is how I handle merchants:
Early on select a single city to be my mercantile center. Only train merchants from there and make sure that all buildings in the market range are built as soon as available. The starting credentials of merchants from that city will become better and better. BTW, often, merchant guilds also come with nice military additions as well.

Initially I keep my merchants close by, to be able to protect them from hostile takeovers. This is difficult in the beginning, since for some reason the AI can come up with ninja merchants early on. Later on I always keep one highly powered merchant around to kill intruders.
Locate resources that are in a pair and put merchants on both of them, so that both merchants get the monopoly traits. Once you have a merchant with 5 points, pair him up with a spy and go out hunting enemy merchants. Your merchant will become stronger and stronger and can be retired to a far off resource to yield hundreds of florins per turn.

[FactionHeir]

Merchant skill doesn't actually improve with market structure.
The town hall on the other hand prevents them from being crooked to start with and gives them legal nouse and better.

[Philbert]

Hmmm, well that may be true, but at least building the market buildings increases the chance of getting merchant guild buildings, those do have an effect on merchant quality.

But I certainly should have mentioned the town hall line of buildings.

[Grog]

I don't tend to make many merchants early game (sub turn 20) until I have all the nearest rebel provinces taken.

Then I will pick a good strong city and always train my merchants there, I usually get a level 3+ market before building too many. Once I have a merchants guild I will keep plugging away for the merchant HQ. Also, from tips I learned on here, never build over a level 2 church in your merchant training city, as merchants can get negative traits from this.

By doing all this, you should be getting regular 5*+ merchants on creation before turn100, while the AI is still only making 1-2*

I mainly use merchants to monopolise my favorite areas, and a bit of robber-baronning on the side never hurt the old treasury

Africa is good, but on florin/turn average, N Italy-Vienna-Zagreb triangle, constantinople/nicea, antioch area and baghdad silks are often quicker to get at, enabling better income for the life of the merchant, while offering far higher aquisition potential. I usually go for these first then do egypt/N africa once I'm training good merchants. I'll also always leave a strong merchant near to my training city until I'm making 4-5*.

So for me, merchants are worth it

[Alpedar]

What is better, build merchants in "merchant production city" which is usualy close to capital and walk/sail them to distant resource, or in some distant city near that resource? I had merchant guild in venice, but pumpred merchants in antioch and soon they were so awsome, that i never bothered with creating them in venice.

[phonicsmonkey]

If you control Northern Italy (this is easiest in the early game as Milan or Venice), build forts in the Alpine passes to wall off the provinces of Milan and Venice, and train up some merchants by monopolizing the local textile industry (or is it marble? light blue anyway)

then you'll find the forts act as fishing nets catching enemy agents, including the many merchants that for some reason always seem to flood through the area

sometimes you can acquire the assets of three or four merchants in a single turn using this method

[WhiskeyGhost]

I personally don't like using merchants to gather tons of income, just makes me feel bad about how the AI doesn't know how to counter it. What i do is make them into acquisition machines, which roam the lands taking over any and all enemy merchants. Of course, its damned near impossible on Very Hard with that giant bonus enemy agents get (wtf? my 9 skill merchant has 5% success against a 2 skill?)

[TheLastPrivate]

AI WILL send tons of high lvl merchants that are trained elsewhere to grab ur merchants near contantinople. In retrospect, constantinople area makes for excellent aquisition hunting grounds for u too.

[Joh]

Playing as Turks VH/VH.

I find merchants mainly useless for bringing cash. No matter I get merchant guild or master guild, there is a single Venetian/Sicilian/Milanese/Byzantine killer merchant that destroys all my guys (Byzantium or Antioch regions) in a few turns, picking them one by one. Relentless, methodical and mechanical elimination. So, who says the AI does not know what it is doing?. As an average, they do not live 3 turns while making cash. Acquisition is out of the question, just a throw your guys and see them die type of thing.

I have trained guild and master guild assassins with rebel generals and different characters trying to kill those merchants, but they keep on dying against them. Anyway, as an average, my assassins also suck.

So all and all, I am wasting my money not only on merchants, but also assassins without a major revenue.

I keep on trying though. The AI is not going to outsmart me, is it? I will try destroying some high level mosques as someone suggested.

[lancelot]

When I used to play this game, sending English merchants to Sweeden was good for cash.

Probably goes without saying but the american provinces are worth it, IIRC you can get 500 florins per turn out of a decent merchant there.

[SingandSmile0]

Sending English merchants to Sweeden was good for cash.

Is this way useful?

[Shahed]

With that map, they are worth it.

Amyway even if u have an income of 150FL/Turn and they paid themselves off, they are worth it. Every cent is another cent closer to a million.

(let's not take that to an extreme.)

[Quillan]

The problem I always had with merchants was having them survive long enough to gain some skill. A merchant starts with a random skill level of 1-3, plus the potential for a couple of other bonuses if the correct buildings are in the city where the merchant is recruited. The most valuable experience for a beginning merchant is the Monopolist line of traits, but to get that the merchant has to spend a bunch of turns working a resource that occurs twice in the same province. Most of mainland Europe would be more accurately referred to as the "Merchant Happy Hunting Ground". Every time I've tried to train up merchants in the center of Europe, I wind up losing them to roving AI merchant sharks, who can always manage to take over mine regardless of the skill level.

Timbuktu is a wonderful place for them, especially if you own it and can get a merchant guild there. Build them on site with the bonus skills from the town hall and merchant guild buildings, and there are two gold and two ivory in the province so you can train up 4 merchants at once. It's so far out that you generally don't have to worry about the sharks either. England and Scotland can do extremely well also once they have total control of the British Isles, as there are three pairs of resources in the regions of London, Nottingham and York to use. Admittedly, tin and wool aren't nearly as valuable as gold and ivory, but in my current England game I train the merchants in the Isles then move them to the mainland to hunt. I generally earn between 1k and 2k florins per takeover of a foreign merchant, and I've noticed that the AI clears out whenever my merchants move into an area now.

[Zaleukos]

You get 250 gold per star of the enemy merchant in a takeover, so it's not hard to make a profit using the little buggers.

I dont appreciate them for other reasons. It's an extra layer of micromanagement that I think would have been better left abstracted. Agent management overall takes too much time.

The merchant guild quests where you are supposed to take over an enemy merchant can also be quite frustrating if that merchant is "in transit" to jis final destination...

Since I find the minigame annoying and tedious I tend to end up building forts on a pair of decent resources (anything that yields more than 50 florins per turn) and put my merchants into those. I dont feel bad about cheating/exploiting my way around something that I consider a bad design decision.

[Grog]

Well I was thinking about this thread the other night when moving my merchants, so took a few screenshots:

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Heres a new merchant just spawned at my vienna training centre (capital, strong economic city,merchant HQ, level2 church). Good set of traits and no bad traits, but at 37 and 5* this is quite a weak spawn, considering I can get chaps in their early 20's with 6/7*from this city.

Btw, note typo when holding cursor over 'merchants guild apprentice', although I do tend to kill off a lot of ai merchants...



However, by the time my merchant chain has shuffled along the silver/dyes/mines then run to thessolonica docks for a ride to nicea, then wandered down through antioch, holylands, across Egypt and down into the desert, aquisitioning and resource hopping all the way, then you get chaps like this:

[ColIndyJackson]

Gentlemen:

Merry Christmas from the snowy nation of Canada!!! I hope this finds you and yours well.

I do believe that merchants are worth it for how else are you going to conduct trade and/or business without them? You look at all the goodies the other countries have to offer and drool, but how does one get them without a merchant?

In my recent games, I've been sending my merchants for merchandise that IS OVER 50 florins per turn. I'd like to get more bang for my florins, so before I send him on his merry, I make sure that the certain commodity is OVER 50 FLORINS before I send him to it.

I always make sure that I look before I take a jump in the nearest body of money!!!!

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

Sincerely yours always,

Indy.

[Robespierre]

well training merchants is the way to get the merchants guild, which is the default best all-round guild.

[Quillan]

I sent a 10 finance merchant down to Timbuktu in my England campaign; with the capital in London the gold makes 2100 florins per turn. The gold in Zagreb is only worth 1050, although I'm not sure if that's due to distance or if it's because I own Zagreb. At those prices, it's certainly worth getting a good merchant there.

[Alpedar]

What makes merchant guild superb?

[Zaleukos]

Quillan: If you have 2 or more instances of the same resources in a province, and no AI merchant is occupying any of them, the resource is worth twice as much (and trading it gives your merchant the monopolist line of traits). Timbuktu has 2 gold resources while Zagreb only has 1.

Alpedar: It increases trade income of the city, master guild gives the financial training (+1 finance) trait to merchants trained in the city, and the HQ gives a global +1 finance to merchants trained anywhere. It's a good guild in a city where you are training your merchants (Timbuktu, Constantinople, or Antioch), but I'm not sure I would call it the best. Well, maybe the best "secondary" guild as a passive income bonus always will be useful.

I tend to only have one merchants guild, one explorers guild, one theologicians guild, (possibly one assassin and thieves guild, but they result in annoying missions) and knightly orders or swordsmiths everywhere else. Masons guild is probably the most useless one.

[predaturd]

i have a 10 finance merchant thats earning only 100 and somethijng on the gold in timbuktu what gives?