Unrelenting Psycho Merchants

[Daveybaby]

It's random... ish. Every turn your merchants monopolise a resource there is a percentage chance that they will gain a level. By the way, IIRC you are only monopolising a resource if there are two (or more) of the same resource type in the same province, and you have merchants sitting on both of them.

Edit : correction, there seems to be no random element involved - it's 20 turns to get to monopolist level (see below).



Here's a repost of something i wrote ages ago:

More on merchant skill levels
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Natural Skill
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On creation of a merchant, you have:
1/2 chance of skill level 1
1/3 chance of skill level 2
1/6 chance of skill level 3

This is completelty independent of any buildings etc you may have


Merchant's Guild effects
------------------------
If the player has a master merchant's guild, or a guild HQ anywhere in their empire, then all created merchants get skill bonuses:

Master Guild : Merchants Guild Trained Trait : +1 Skill
Guild HQ : Merchants Guild Member Trait : +2 Skill


Legal/Shady Dealer Traits
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On creation of a merchant, if the settlement has a town hall or better, there is a chance of the merchant having the legal dealer trait:
1/2 chance of no trait
1/3 chance of skill +1
1/6 chance of skill +2

The inverse of this is, if the settlement does NOT have at least a town hall in it, the merchant instead has a chance of aquiring the shady dealer trait:
1/2 chance of no trait
1/3 chance of skill -1
1/6 chance of skill -2


Religious Merchant Trait
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On creation of a merchant, if a cathedral or better is present at the settlement, then there is a chance of the merchant aquiring this trait:
1/2 chance of no trait
1/3 chance of skill -1
1/6 chance of skill -2


Monopolist Trait
----------------
Every turn that your merchant monopolises trade in a region then the value of this trait is increased.

Value 5 to 9 -> Skill +1
Value 10 to 19 -> Skill +2
Value 20 or more -> Skill +3


Aquisition Skills (good merchant trait)
---------------------------------------
For every successful aquisition your merchant makes, this value goes up by 1

Value 1 -> Skill +1
Value 2 to 3 -> Skill +2
Value 4 to 7 -> Skill +3
Value 8 or more -> Skill +4


Failed Aquisitions (bad merchant trait)
---------------------------------------
For every unsuccessful aquisition attempt by your merchant, there is a 1/3 chance that the value will go down by 1 (this is tied to the good merchant trait above).

Value -1 to -2 -> Skill -1
Value -3 to -5 -> Skill -2
Value -6 or less -> Skill -3

Dont worry too much about the bad merchant trait - if youve failed enough aquisitions in a row to get a significant value to this trait, chances are your merchant will have been eliminated in the process. In order to get skill -3 your merchant will have had to fail 18 (on average) consecutive attempts, and yet not have been eliminated - pretty unlikely.


Making Enemies
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Every time your merchant performs a successful aquisition mission, they have 25% chance of increasing the value of this trait.

Value 1 or 2 -> Personal Security -1
Value 3 to 5 -> Personal Security -2
Value 6 or more -> Personal Security -4

In theory this makes more highly skilled merchants easier to assassinate - in practice this will probably just cancel out some of the effects of the skill level rise itself.


Surviving Aquisitions (secure merchant trait)
---------------------------------------------
Every time your merchant survives an aquisition attempt by another merchant, they have a 50% chance of gaining an increase in the value of this trait.

Value 1 or 2 -> Skill +1
Value 3 or more -> Skill +2


Surviving Assassinations
------------------------
Every time a merchant survives assassination, they have a 50% chance of increasing the value of this trait

Value 1 or 2 -> Personal Security +1
Value 3 or more -> Personal Security +2, Finance -1

Note the -1 to finance. If you repeatedly attempt assassinations on enemy merchants they will eventually lose 1 finance. However, i'm not sure it's really worth the effort.


Worldly Merchant Trait
----------------------
Trading a resource far away from your capital (distance >= 40) has a 20% chance to increase the value for this trait each turn.

Value 1 or 2 -> Skill +1
Value 3 or more -> Skill +2


Self Serving Merchant
---------------------
If your merchant is very far away from your capital (distance >= 60) then he has a 3% chance every turn of increasing the value of this trait.

Value 1 or 2 -> Skill -1
Value 3 or more -> Skill -2

Moral : dont let your merchants get too far from your capital, unless its really worth it for the money.


Ancillaries
-----------
There are 3 merchant ancillaries, each of while can only be obtained at initial creation of the merchant, and each of which gives +1 to finance skill.

Counterfeiter - 15% chance to obtain this if the settlement where the merchant is trained has an Alchemists Lab

Merchant Clerk - 50% chance to obtain this if the settlement where the merchant is trained has an Alchemy School or greater

Trick Abacus - 5% chance to obtain this if the settlement where the merchant is trained has a Town Hall or greater (note - this trigger occurs twice in v1.1 - so this probably increases the chances to around 10%)


Notes
-----
w.r.t. the Legal Dealer Trait mentioned by Foz above -
this trait seems to be bugged in that it seems to be impossible to get the second level of the trait (trigger adds 1 to make a total of 2, but the threshold is 3)

There is a trait series called 'Exotic Tastes' mentioned in the game textfiles, which gives penalties to finance skill and personal security. However, i havent found any triggers listed for this trait.


Caveat: all of the above stuff is (i think) from vanilla 1.0 of the game. Some stuff may have been tweaked in the patches.