Unrelenting Psycho Merchants

[irishron2004]

It's annoying but livable. I sent out a merchant to the nearest resource and immediately had three acquisition tries on the same turn. Thie first one I acquired, the second one I was acquired, the third one he was acquired. Someone got a pretty good payday.

[russveld]

I absolutly love getting merchants to a high level of finance and then simply hunting other merchants down. it a great way to make money.

[ReiseReise]

Does the AI have no FOW or do they simply have spies all over the place? Judging from the number of Thieves Guilds they build (gotten mainly by recruiting spies) it seems they may just spam the map with spies.

[Cheetah]

Train up your merchants in a safe place, then move the in a pack. Think of them as a wolf pack hunting for prey.
I have a division of labour within such pack, I have baits and hunters and young wolfs. Obviously you need a few 8 or 9 star merchant, these are the hunters. These clear the field when the pack moves. I have a good number of low level (1-3 star) merchants as baits; finally have a few 4-5 star merchant as young wolves that will be trained into hunters.
I ignore lone resources only interested in feilds like the ones you have near Antioch or Alexandria. Clear the field with your hunters then set up your baits on the frequented positions and set up the youngs on safer positions. The hunters should be waiting near to the baits. Soon enough enemy merchats should be coming hunting down your baits which in turn will be hunted down by your hunters.
By the time you run out of baits the enemy will run out of merchants (if not you can easily train baits) and you can use your hunters to sit (you can use them to sit if you dont have enough baits anyway, just close enough to the baits). Important thing is to make sure that your youngs grow up into full fledged hunters before your hunters die.

[Von Nanega]

Assassins. I tend to kill enemy merchants. Keep my merchies on resources. I take resources with merchants but kill merchants travelling with assassins.