Training merchants?

[pytech]

In my most recent game (Milan) I noticed some merchants around me from foreign countries were making over 400 Florins per turn! I've never been able to train my merchants high enough to make that and survive take over attempts. I've tried finding enemy merchants to take over, but it's hard to find enough of them close enough together.

Any tips?


Eg, are there ancillaries I can gain from leaving them resting in my merchants in a town for a few turns? What's the probability or what buildings should I use? In one of my towns I have the 2nd level merchant building as well as almost every trade building, yet they still only recruit with 2 finance points.

[Saibot]

Well all the Merchant buildings improve their finance skill. But also sending them around in different territories gaining money from different resources will get them extra finance. Taking over other businesses or surviving attempt of other merchants also get their skill up. The same goes for standing on a single resource for a longer time.

[odrid]

merchants guilds help a little if you have them; just let the merchant on a resource for a while, he'll gain some skill eventually;
or attack other merchants that are weaker then yours

[pytech]

I know they gain skill fairly frequently when you do takeovers, but it seems even on 75%+ success rates, I lose more often than I win...

[JMonroe]

Aside from the 4 possible points in a merchant's Finance skill you can gain from Aquisitions:

Your merchants gain skill from the monopolist trait line by leaving them on a resource that has another of the same type of resource in the same region, provided that the other source isn't occupied by another faction's merchants. You get 1 point per turn you have control of the resource and the maximum level (Monopolist, +3 Fiance) comes at 20 points (20 turns).

Having a Master or Grandmaster level merchants guild in a city gives your merchants another point to their finance skill if they're trained in that city.

Make sure you have at least town hall in any city you train merchants from to avoid the "ShadyDealer" -1 or -2 to finace line of traits and give you a chance at the "LegalDealer" +1 or +2 to finance line of traits.

You also gain points from the "Worldly" line of traits +1 or +2 finance by being on a resource that has a distance of at least 40 from your capital. Distances of 60 or greater also give a chance at picking up the "ServesSelfMerchant" traits -1 or -2 finance.

Another possible - 1 or -2 to finance comes from the "ReligiousMerchant" traits, which can be gotten when you train a merchant in a city with a cathedral or larger religious building and more than 80% of the people in the region are of your faction's religion.

Merchants can start with 1, 2, or 3 points of base finance skill.

Ancillaries seem to mainly have a chance to appear when the merchant is created based on the buildings in the settlement. Counterfeiter with an Alchemists Lab, Merchant Clerk from an Alchemy School, Caravan Driver from a Caravan Stop or sitting in a settlement with a caravan stop (Only faction that can build this in vanilla is the Moors), Trick Abacus if the town doesn't have a town hall (5% chance, lower than the 50% chance the merchant will come out with "Shady Dealer").

Optimally, you'd want to train merchants from a city with exactly 80% or less your own religion or less than a cathedral built, a Master or Grandmaster Merchants guild, an Alchemists Lab, a Caravan Stop and at least a Town Hall to have the best chances at starting with the most points in Finance.

In practice, you can go the whole game without building a single merchant just fine. I treat it as a side game and only really work on merchants who are created with at least +3 to their finance skill. The rest are sent off to a resource and left to either gain skill or die. If they live and gain 4 or 5 finance from trading I send them off to do aquisitions. If they get taken over I don't really care. If you're going to make merchants send them to Timbuktu, best trading resource region in the old world and the AI rarely sends merchants down for takeovers. For takeovers of your own try sending merchants to the traffic jam areas (Milan, Venice, Constantinople). Those usually have a few merchants around for you to aquire.

[daffyff]

jmonroe.....you're awesome. It's so rare for someone to answer a question so well.

[JMonroe]

I keep copies of the export_descr_character_traits.txt and the export_descr_ancillaries.txt files on my desktop for easy reference. Helpful if you happen to be obsessed with those kinds of things.

[Greg89]

Doesnt Explorer's guild also increase finance? Trade Route to India i think increases finance as well as Marco Polo Trait which also increases the distance your merchant can make.

[Don in the North]

how does the distance work?

say from venice to constaniople, is that 40?
can you give me a city span example for 60?

or is there even a better way of calculating distance?