"loyal with coin"

[folo4]

my god, everytime I get my merchants' working, I would bet that five turns later, they have that trait, whilst a moorish merchant has 9 finance killing my merchants on scottish soil?

How am I supposed to use them effectively?

[Xeno_cws]

There was a big huge post on the TWC main forums about using merchants, but I have lost the link

In a nutshell, to stop the loyal to coin trait bring back your merchant to your homesoil for a few turns and the counter will reset. Too me this is way too much effort so I let him smuggle a few coins on the side

As for building up your merchants, have them close to your borders till they pick up exotic goods and the other trait (I forget the name), then bring him back to your soil to stop him getting loyal to coin.

Hopefully if you got bean counter as well you should be at the forth level. After this start trying to find enemy merchants /reload as many as it takes to seize his assets. You should be able to gain 1-2 more levels.

After that I don't know. Also building high level merchant buildings help increase their starting levels.

[folo4]

thing is, even though my merchants went to homesoil, they STILL get that trait.

I feel handicapped.

[headsh0ts]

no idea.

i try and use my merchants to pick off weaker ones. i generally dont settle on single resources unless i come across something very profitable.

[Irishmafia2020]

You can also use the exploit wherin you build a fort on a resource and then you can place multiple merchants in it. This is useful for silk, gold, or other rich resources, but it is cheating as the A.I. does not do the same thing. I won't tell you how to play your game...

[Rex Inanimatus]

from my experience moving your merchant from one trade object to another adjust to its traits. Though IMO what do they really add to the game? It just slows down the game. It might add to randimise it outcome of every single campaign game, though there must be another way than have this CA solution