Small Tip for merchants

[Ataegina]

Maybe some more experient players already know, but for who don't know yet some tricks, here's one very useful !

Everybody knows the merchants can make trade in everywhere,even in your lands, and sometimes they strike you and steal it.

how prevent they to make trade in your lands or strike your merchants !?

easy... sent your merchant and 1 army unit to where the resource is, so you can keep the merchant trading alone and every enemy merchant ill get "path blocked", but if you just want keep them away of your lands, just do the same with 1 army unit, send to the resource place, and nobody ill get closer to get it

[hecatonkheir]

u know, u r supposed to get money from foreign merchants trading resourses on ur territory. and since u can recruit a limited ammount of ur own merchants, its better to send them trade gold and ivory in africa instead of fish or wood at home.

[Hesus de bodemloze]

i always lost my merchants to foreners but sins i placed them as far as possible thy get me lots of money so to trik is kick there ass as hard as you can so thy fly from europ to the middle east

[Chim]

It seems as if the AI always starts off with 5 or 6 stars on their merchant while I have like 2 max.

[Frankie1]

The best way to claim a resource for yourself, that is already occupied by a foreign merchant, is to move him onto the resource when you CANNOT see the enemy merchant (Fow is on and you can only see the resource location). When you do this the enemy merchant gets booted off the resource, and he has to attack you in order to get it back. 50% of the time they will decide to wander off somewhere else, when they do attack, I'm pretty sure you have much better odds defending then attacking the merchant (not sure on this, but I keep getting odds of 30% or something when I want to attack an enemy merchant, who is the same level)

I also noticed that this raises your skill levels sometimes, as the game counts that as an aquisition (it seems). I've had my merchants go up one or 2 levels just from booting other merchants off their res, while I'm on my way to my intended resource target.


The other thing I do is make merchants from the same city, usually whichever city is one of my cash cows. This means you get the merchants guild headquarters all the sooner, allowing you to create level 3 and 4 merchants. I used to always lose my merchants like you do, and hated them. Experiment a bit and find out what works and then you will love them, like I do now

[Ataegina]

people, this isnt about claim, but prevent some merchant arrive before you !

points is, you've found silk,gold,ivory and you dont want nobody arrive before you, so send 1 units army to stay there,and nobody ill be able to trade, except you so nice way and without any risks, even without need get back 50 or 30% , its 100% just for you =D

so he ill only get off when he dies, of old age, but you can always replace...

[Frankie1]

people, this isnt about claim, but prevent some merchant arrive before you !

points is, you've found silk,gold,ivory and you dont want nobody arrive before you, so send 1 units army to stay there,and nobody ill be able to trade, except you so nice way and without any risks, even without need get back 50 or 30% , its 100% just for you =D

so he ill only get off when he dies, of old age, but you can always replace...

If I was going to do that I might as well auto_win attacker every battle I fight, and process_cq every building I want made. What is the challenge then if you can make unlimited money?

[Kyias]

people, this isnt about claim, but prevent some merchant arrive before you !

points is, you've found silk,gold,ivory and you dont want nobody arrive before you, so send 1 units army to stay there,and nobody ill be able to trade, except you so nice way and without any risks, even without need get back 50 or 30% , its 100% just for you =D

so he ill only get off when he dies, of old age, but you can always replace...

Depends where the resource is, how expensive a unit you intend to move to occupy that location, etc.

If the upkeep of that army is 280 and the resource location due to distance is only worth 100 then I'm losing 180 possible florins by having them guard that location just to make it exclusive.

That tactic could put me in the red on trade.

On the other hand, if I send those army units into a foriegn Kingdom to occupy a resource then I risk a relations hit and possible denial of alliances and maybe even a war.

[Ataegina]

well this is a clean way to make money, not a "cheat"

auto_win, etc its cheating, its about play smart wich doesn't mean cheating or not being a challenge , pretty different stuff !

what the point of not make a good money using a simply estrategy, just to be more challenging ?????

anyway, maybe problem is know the difference between know the tricks and using cheat codes ! personaly i'm anti-cheat codes , thats yes takes off all challenge (auto_win,process_cq).

however who wants use it, use, who don't i don't really care, i was just sharing sth with the community

[Frankie1]

well this is a clean way to make money, not a "cheat"

auto_win, etc its cheating, its about play smart wich doesn't mean cheating or not being a challenge , pretty different stuff !

what the point of not make a good money using a simply estrategy, just to be more challenging ?????

anyway, maybe problem is know the difference between know the tricks and using cheat codes ! personaly i'm anti-cheat codes , thats yes takes off all challenge (auto_win,process_cq).

however who wants use it, use, who don't i don't really care, i was just sharing sth with the community

But it is a cheat because the computer can not do it itself=advantadge for player. This way you can hog all the resources and the computer gets the leftovers, and has no way of doing anything about it. If the computer garrisoned units on resources, on the other hand

[Tsarsies]

i dont think its a 'cheat', but a strategy. but seeing as the AI cant strategise like a human, are you saying having a strategy is cheating... sorry, just had to play on your words

the only problem i have with placing a single unit on a resource to 'guard' it is the fact that all the resources i want arent in my territory so i need military passes or declare war!, so its actually a bad strategy for me

then theres the little problem which someone already stated about moving your merchant onto a resource and 'dislodging' ai merchants from the resource using the 'fog of war'. AI merchants can dislodge your merchants this way, and they can dislodge your armies aswell! and you can dislodge there armies this way also!. so guarding a resource with a unit doesnt work all that effectivly.

[Iscariott]

The technical term you're looking for is exploit.

[Ataegina]

seems Iscariot and Tsarsies got the idea !

[Chim]

I still do not use exploits....
















I only use cheats....

j/k

[Ataegina]

depend the army ! you can even use peasants wich is very cheap, also don't say this dont worth if you're going trade like gold,silk,ivory,slaves !

also relations soon or later ill become poor,abysmal, and war ill always knock your door so, i think the priority is earning the max of florins you can, for faster upgrade city/army

i've played with jerusalem wich have enemies in everywhere and i've controled the silk,slaves (near dongola) and gold and my trade was very far of red, money make good armies, good armies crush your enemies... screw them if they dont wanna make alliances

[Kyias]

depend the army ! you can even use peasants wich is very cheap, also don't say this dont worth if you're going trade like gold,silk,ivory,slaves !

also relations soon or later ill become poor,abysmal, and war ill always knock your door so, i think the priority is earning the max of florins you can, for faster upgrade city/army

i've played with jerusalem wich have enemies in everywhere and i've controled the silk,slaves (near dongola) and gold and my trade was very far of red, money make good armies, good armies crush your enemies... screw them if they dont wanna make alliances

We play 2 very different styles of play then.

Diplomacy is my number 1 tool in SS mod. I isolate my enemies, form powerful alliance blocks and pull the strings.

Pissing off my neighbor isn't an option when my resources are 100% dedicated to maintaining the diplomatic strings put into place.

[TempestKhan]

u can just build a fort on top at that resource an then put as many merchent on the target u desire that way the enemy merchant cant take it + u can have a tons of merchant on gold fx..

[Trenthian]

u can just build a fort on top at that resource an then put as many merchent on the target u desire that way the enemy merchant cant take it + u can have a tons of merchant on gold fx..

Holy Crap!

Is that an exploit? or by design?

Ive got all my merchants sitting in a fort built on tin in the early scot game... they are generating soooo much money!

[pwijnands]

u can just build a fort on top at that resource an then put as many merchent on the target u desire that way the enemy merchant cant take it + u can have a tons of merchant on gold fx..

I think SS removes this feature.

Oh and placing a single unit somewhere is a quick way to get it to rebel.

[Chim]

Exploit.
Whatever you can do but the AI can't is considered an exploit.