A few questions I have thought of.

[juliusceasar]

i have discovered a few things I do not know about. can someone or somepeople please answer them.

1:What do the rotting cow carcuse shot of the trebutche do?
2:what is the most valuable resource in the world, including the new world?
3:um, I think thats it.

[In3x]

1??????????? I have never used it.
2 Ivory I believe, closely followed by gold, Timbuktu and Dongola are where it's at.
3 Ummmmm

[Silverheart]

1. The rotting cows are supposedly a demoralizer, causing the morale of all units affected by it (banners go green) to drop dramatically.
Also, I have noticed that the enemy has switched to using the rotting cows rather than flaming ammunition sometimes when they are aiming at cavalry. I have never seen a cow carcass cause any harm in this game, though.

2. The most vaulable? That differs greatly from region to region.
My tip is to go for the obvious ones; Gold, Ivory, Wine, Chocolate and Tobacco.
A good idea is to send a large mass of merchants with your exploration vessels to the new world - there, they are completely secure from other factions´ merchants and have easily attainable monopolies on expensive goods aplenty.

[juliusceasar]

ahhh thank you. the rotting cows have been bothering me becouse i thought they did nothing. at first I thought they woud slowly kill the effected unit off but they didnt so I got confused. also I thought of anouther, can multiple merchants use one resource spot? I want to play a "slow"(don't start wars but can go nuts on a faction that declares war on me) caimpain as the scots and the limited resources in my initial area will be vital to my economy untill war is declared on me and i have more provences. again, thanks ffor the answers.

[Portuguese Man-Of-War]

also I thought of anouther, can multiple merchants use one resource spot? I want to play a "slow"(don't start wars but can go nuts on a faction that declares war on me) caimpain as the scots and the limited resources in my initial area will be vital to my economy untill war is declared on me and i have more provences. again, thanks ffor the answers.

To my knowledge, multiple merchants can not use the same resource spot. I mean, literally, just go try it; place a merchant on an empty resource, then try to place another merchant there. The game simply does not let you. However, I remember reading a post a couple weeks back about a method that may work. Note, I have not tried this myself, but feel free to yourself.
* Create an army of one peasant or one town militia. Then add two or three merchants (or as many as you want) to that "army." Then move the "army" to an empty resource, and theoretically, all the merchants should be cashing in on that resource. An added bonus is that other merchants can not do a "foreign acquisition" and effectively run your merchant out of business.
****I have not tried this out, and personally, I don't even believe it all the way through. Don't blame me if it doesn't work.

[juliusceasar]

interesting concept. again, thanks for all replys.

[Silverheart]

Yes, but you have to play the little tricks of the game.
Technically, you can only have one merchant per resource, but you can place multiple merchants in an army - so you place as many merchants as you can in a small army (like, one Town Militia or something) and then order the troops to place themselves on the resource.
Once in position, your merchants will all trade that resource, AND they will be completely safe from other merchants.

[King William the Conqueror]

Yes, but you have to play the little tricks of the game.
Technically, you can only have one merchant per resource, but you can place multiple merchants in an army - so you place as many merchants as you can in a small army (like, one Town Militia or something) and then order the troops to place themselves on the resource.
Once in position, your merchants will all trade that resource, AND they will be completely safe from other merchants.

nice little trick. I will have to try this one!

[juliusceasar]

well i'm out of questions so if someone wants to use this for there own qurstions go right ahead.

[In3x]

What the others are talking about is a Merchant Stack. I find the best way to do it is to build a fort on the resource with a general and garrison it with one militia unit, the fort prevents the army deserting. You are then able to put as many merchants as you want into the fort and it is safe from competition from other factions' merchants.

[Portuguese Man-Of-War]

What the others are talking about is a Merchant Stack. I find the best way to do it is to build a fort on the resource with a general and garrison it with one militia unit, the fort prevents the army deserting. You are then able to put as many merchants as you want into the fort and it is safe from competition from other factions' merchants.

Thanks for confirming. I didn't know that either. + Rep to both

Edit: when I can, and i will + Rep

[the new username]

1st:decreases morale with the stink(yes that smell is worse than my stinking farts)
2nd:well i think the most valueable are gold, silk, chocolate, tobacco and ivory

[crzyrndm]

The one downside of the merchant stack is that if the unit rebels you lose all of the merchants. Also the fort trick appears to have been removed in 1.5 because I can't build one on a resource.

[Bloodly]

Related to the 'Merchant Stack'. The trigger for getting trade monopoly traits is something like having multiple merchants on a resource. Will having the merchants stacked so earn them 'Trade Monopoly' traits? Lord knows your starting merchants need serious help to get going and get eaten so easily...that'd help.

[Silverheart]

Your merchants develop traits like "Market controller" and "Monopolist" when they are the only ones trading that particular resource - no competition.
I´m not sure if it´s enough that your merchants control the trade of that resource in that particular region, or if they need to be the only merchants trading with that resource in the world, though...

[crzyrndm]

Probably regional, as the AI is too active with it's merchants for the entire world to have none on silver (for which I just got it in turn 100)

[Silverheart]

I meant, that there are only ever so many resource spots for the same resource.
And with only some two dozen factions in the game, that makes it quite likely that the AI merchants are more preoccupied with travelling to where other merchants are or standing on random resources that doesn´t appear in other regions.
Sure, wheat, wine, dyes etc. can be found all over the place, but they are low-income and not so often traded with.

But, of course, I also thinks regional monopoly is sufficient. It makes more sense, since "Monopolist" appears more often than not in my merchants.

[King William the Conqueror]

what is the point of Merchant Cavalry Militia?

[EP!anastasi]

what is the point of Merchant Cavalry Militia?

Well, they surely aren't a great unit, but i think it's the only kind of cavalry that can have free upkeep in a town. And being cavalry means that they are faster than soldiers on foot. Speed is often essential. Also, they are probably the only cavalry that can be recruited in a city for some factions - i'm not really sure about this though.

[PrestigeX]

what is the point of Merchant Cavalry Militia?

Free upkeep - Garrison troops.

You have a Family Member (Governor), then the usual spear militia / free upkeep infantry, maybe a unit or two of missile troops, and couple of units Merchant CAv Militia -- you're pretty secure here.

Merchant Cav can be used to attack brigands / rebels etc...

but they should not be relied on for foreign-campaigns etc... IF you need a few units to fill out your army, you can use em -- but send them back home after battles and fill out the army with professional grade troops.

IN vanilla, most militia troops are only good in defense of settlements -- some spear militia, then a unit of Merchant Cav right by them -- and the General/F.M. nearby you have a great chance to defend against top-notch troops -- but, they're not really that reliable in the field of battle - a lot of things you'd expect of cavalry, Merchants will flee - better to use Castle Grade cavalry even if its just Hobelars or Mounted Sergeants without armor upgrade