how do u use merchants?

[TechStrider]

It has been mentioned above, but not clearly enough.

The value of a resource is based in part on how close the first instance of that resource is to your current capital. If your capital is immediately adjacent to an Amber source, Amber will not be worth very much ANYWHERE in the game.

This leads to much confusion until you learn to take this into account. This leads right into the next issue:

As you grow, you will need to move your capital. You do this from the Settlement Detail button. Check your current financial projections and take note of the various sources of income. Move your capital to a different location and recheck. Note that by moving your capital many things change. By looking at individual regions you will see that as the capital gets closer or farther away there are many changes. When the capital is closer, corruption will go down for a direct income improvement. With the capital closer, the populace is happier and you can often increase taxes (which is not automatically taken into account on the financial projection - you have to learn to jigger all these about for a complete assessment). Do note, however, what effect all this has on the merchants.

In one of my current campaigns, the proximity of the gold resource NE of Ragusa made me move the capital so that my merchants on the famous gold fields in North Africa could make more money. Another excellent example is Constantinople and the nearby Silk resources. You may need or want Constantinople to be your capital but you must take into account that the local silk will take a dive and the merchants at Baghdad are going to be suddenly dressed in rags even though they are thousands of miles away. Overall this is a great subject for some finesse to be applied by the attentive faction leader.

One other often overlooked aspect of merchants: Even in a remote area with a terrible level of corruption, the merchant income comes directly into the coffers. This is incredibly important when assessing the overall value of merchant trade. The same area with greater than 50% corruption may make a mine that is supposed to return 800 give less than 400 net. A merchant that makes 600 here actually puts ALL 600 into the overall income. There is still considerable value in building the mines as the merchants on the affected resources will make substantially more which then goes completely into the till, so it is worth building the mines anyway.

Making great money with merchants requires attention to details. All the previously mentioned ploys are valid: travel with spies, protect with assassins (if you are willing in the specific campaign to take the rep hit), acquire other merchants or run and hide based on the observations of the spies and a realistic review of your merchant's chances, covering all like resources in a region to build the monopolistic traits, and other techniques. To really do a good job you need to understand how the value of the resources will vary based on proximity to the capital (and how to use the Move Capital function), and you need to value their impact on the faction bottom line based on their actual contribution which is NOT, so far as I have seen so far, reduced by corruption as so many other assets are.

I hope this helps. I've gotten very happy with merchants as I have learned how to use them well. I have not noticed any reference before concerning the issue of merchants and corruption. Having now made the correlation I find that I have modified the order in which I build or recruit for maximum net income. It seems to help tremendously.

[Monk]

The value of a resource is based in part on how close the first instance of that resource is to your current capital. If your capital is immediately adjacent to an Amber source, Amber will not be worth very much ANYWHERE in the game.

This bit of information, either through my own reading or just not seeing it has always escaped me. It was a point of the game i never grasped but makes perfect sense when i think about it now. Cheers for the clarification!

[PBI]

There is still considerable value in building the mines as the merchants on the affected resources will make substantially more which then goes completely into the till, so it is worth building the mines anyway.

Generally excellent post, but I should pick up on this point; I'm pretty sure I checked this once by monitoring a merchant's income before and after building mines, and found there to be no difference. This was in the Britannia campaign, but I doubt it's a game mechanic that varies between Kingdoms and vanilla.

Of course, mines are almost always worth building anyway in spite of the corruption, so it doesn't make too much of a difference strategy wise.

[TechStrider]

Generally excellent post, but I should pick up on this point; I'm pretty sure I checked this once by monitoring a merchant's income before and after building mines, and found there to be no difference. This was in the Britannia campaign, but I doubt it's a game mechanic that varies between Kingdoms and vanilla.

Of course, mines are almost always worth building anyway in spite of the corruption, so it doesn't make too much of a difference strategy wise.

Oh well, it always pays to check carefully. I would have sworn differently but I just checked in vanilla and you are correct. I will try again later with a bit more time as I was sure I have seen my original assertion be true in Crusades and the vastly profitable mines in the areas like Van, Yerevan, Tblisi, and the others.

So much for my memory, humbled here.

[HopAlongBunny]

An excellent post TechStrider

Clarified a few things for me; cleared up a cpl things that puzzled me about the whole merchant business ie: why stuff that was just a cash cow under one faction was almost worthless with another

Thanks!