Merchants... are they worth it?

[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