Merchants?

[Ambiso]

How exactly do you use ur merchants? I tried but they seem to generate only 10 t0 20 florins per turn and later get its assets seized by a foreign merchant...

[eXistenZ]

http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showthread.php?t=230023

[Silverheart]

In the early games, I use them to explore the map, and have them travel to distan places which have very valuable resources - Timbuktu, Antioch, Baghdad and Jedda, for example.
Later on, I attempt to gain control over these distant regions (colonies) and them spam as many merchants as I can there.
In the Late game, I usually let them die out, then mass-recruit them and send them to new world on the first exploration fleet. I also send an army with this expedition so as to be able to take control over those regions and then recruit more merchants on site.

[marco17042]

Its NOT bad to loose you 1-3 level merchants quickly. Infact, your level one or two merchants won't have a chance or make any real money anyway.
Attempt to take over enemy merchants of your enemies and either get lucky and uber up or loose them.
You can only have a limited number of merchants at one time.
As you loose them you can make more.
As you make more, you get Merchant Guild offers in more cities and can make merchants that will survive.
Keep loosing them and making more and you will get the Merchant Headquarters in you biggest city!
Now you can get out on the playground and make some real MFing money!

[eXistenZ]

Its NOT bad to loose you 1-3 level merchants quickly.

it's pretty bad though, especially in the beginning, they have a high recruitment cost. and when an enemy merchant wins over your merchant, he levels up, making him more difficult to beat the next time. also when your merchant wins, you get some money

Anther tip: try to recruit as many merchants in the same city, so the guild will come to that city, giving new merchants a bonus. also don't build high level churches in that settlement.

[Ambiso]

Thanks people. I will try it out the next time I start a new campaign....I have never used them before...

[marco17042]

Another idea.
If you get a Mercantile Genius or other slightly better merchant you think has potential:
Send a low grade army unit to sit on a resource in a territory, that you control that has with 2 identical resources.
Then send the merchant to that army.
The army will protect the merchant from other enemy merchants.
Leave him there for at least 5 turns to get "Capitalist" or another 5 turns and he will get "Market Controller".
He is now ready to go out into the world.
It takes a LOT more turns (10 more) to get "Monopolist" so its better he moves to a higher resource to uber up to that third level.

Capitalist (Monopolist 1)- +1 Finance, gained after 5 points of Monopolist
Market Controller (Monopolist 2)- +2 Finance, upgrade after 10 points of
Monopolist
Monopolist (Monopolist 3)- +3 Finance, -1 Personal Security, upgrade after 20
points of Monopolist

At the end of any turn, a merchant gains one point in Monopolist if he has a
trading monopoly. A trading monopoly seems to be defined (thorough
experimentation seems to agree) as- your merchant is trading a resource in a
region that has two or more instances of that resource, and the other
instance(s) of that resource are not being traded by any other faction's
merchants (though yours can). You can test this by hovering over the
resource with a merchant selected, and a trade monopoly will yield about
twice as many florins as trading the resource regularly.

[EmperorDan]

In the city with the guild, don'y build churches bt some lega buildings, like city hall to get the legal dealer or so trait.

[MarcoPollo]

Of course you can build a fort on the spot where merchants trade a resource and fill the fort up with all your merchants. This is seen by some as a cheat, but still workable.

In the mid/late game, I don't want to have any merchant pop out with less than 3 coins. If this is the case, then I find ways to get them killed.

1) merchant backfire
2) death at sea
3) death by assassins