Economic Warfare?? (Merchants)

[Jorrtappen]

Hi! I have troubles using the merchants properly. I always try to make as many as possible in the beginning to boost my economy and then after the initial phase turn the out from one city trying to get the guilds to that city. At this point I make a good profit and all is swell.

Then comes the problem: Hostile takeover! It seems that no matter how skilled my merchants are they are being pushed off the map and fight back with hostile takeovers myself because I simply fail.

I must be missing something and it is annoying because all the money spent in the beginning is lost as my merchants are gone. I've read about some "cheat" with a fort placed on top the resource but that is out of the question to use.

What are you're strategy with merchants?

I'd love to bring up a massive economy and have diplomats to put it into proper devastating use against my enemies.?

Any suggestions?

[Baron Thunder-ten-tronckh]

England! Going to Northern Italy and feasting on some green merchants with one of your merchants that was lucky enough to get a few good traits is pretty good training.. Micro-Managing, but that is what the campaign map is for, no?

I was kidding about England.. Although it is safe, the resources there a bolox if you are the English.

[Jorrtappen]

So basically you move around and attack others instead of camping at the best resource available? Or is the buildup of traits done to be impregnable once you start camping?

[pwijnands]

Taking over low-level merchants works two ways: your merchant gains experience and the enemy loses a merchant. I typically look around a lot before clicking end turn to see if any easy targets are within half of my merchant's movement points (so he can make it back to his resource).
Merchants also gain more experience by having a monopoly on a resource (two or more instances of a resource in a region are controlled by merchants of your faction and none of the same resource is taken by another faction's merchant).

[spanish_emperor]

doesn't Africa have good resources like gold and slaves??
Constantinople has awesome resources and so does the holy lands

yeah just make a fort ontop of the resource and put you merchant inside...that way no other merchant can get the resource without conquering the fort first

[Jorrtappen]

Yeah! That works, but.....well...the fort trick is something I'm not really sure I like. In a way it feels like cheating the game. Or more correctly like exploiting actually.

What I wanted to try was to use merchants as a real power on the map making my empire a stinking rich empire who could bribe and grease it's way out of trouble. And the way to go I think is ubermerchants, good diplomats, some spies to keep enemy morale low and a few assassins to mop up the more uncooperative enemies.......You see, the everyday peacetime activities of any selfrespecting medieval tyrant

[SDG]

doesn't Africa have good resources like gold and slaves??
Constantinople has awesome resources and so does the holy lands

yeah just make a fort ontop of the resource and put you merchant inside...that way no other merchant can get the resource without conquering the fort first

In the main Medieval Campaign, the most valuable resources I saw were (as far as I remember):

- silk (near Byzantium and Mosul)
- spicery (near Antioch)
- amber (near Stockholm)

Playing as France, these resources were so distant from my main lands that I got 900 florins per turn for one resource of silk near Byzantium (occupied by a merchant that had reached the top of his skills). Makes it absolutely worth trading and developing your merchants...

[Xamt]

adding to the resources above should be the gold in the sahara desert.

as for distance, the further a resource is from ur capital the more gold u earn.

conserning economic empires, playing as the byzantines i have over 1 million florins (no cheats) and i just buy cities i want instead of conquering them for 50-60k per city

[pwijnands]

Bribing is too costly, buying settlements is much cheaper and safer. Bribing stuff will make your reputation go down and I haven't been able to succesfully pull of a bribe yet.

[Habelo]

i just load and save untill i win...

[pwijnands]

You might as well give bad traits to the target merchant, saves you the trouble of re-loading.

[Gornard]

Merchants get experience just from sitting on resources. Sometimes more in foreign territory. I'm not sure if the value of the resource helps or not, though i think theres a trait you some times get from a monopoly. It's difficult to keep merchants in busy areas like italy. You should probably move your merchants to resources as early as possible. When a merchant appears throw yours at him untill success, under no circumstances let him take one of yours over because he wil become progressivly harder to kill.
There are two outcoems from this, either the defending merchant will get so much experience that he becoems impossible to take over or one of your merchants will gain some traits and be fit for further missions. Keep an assasin around, and train him up on any available targets, incase you come up on a powerfull merchant. They can be hard to kill but it's easier to train assasins then merchants.