Are Merchants in Vanilla Really That Useful?

[RuthlessChubbz]

Very nice post, thanks for the assist.

[FootSoldier]

After digging around I found landtuber's guide to merchants. This should be helpful for most.

The Glory of Merchants - Landtuber

[Omar K.]

Like people have said above they are invaluable. Great source of wealth before you are steamrolling the AI.

[HasdrubalsHead]

As a Catholic faction, I make it a priority to go on the first Crusade to the Holy Land. If you take a city from which you can produce merchants, the resources in that area will be far away from your homeland, and so will generate large revenues. Spices, etc., can easily produce upwards of 200 per turn for a lousy 550 gold merchant. Head down to the south of Egypt, and ivory may get you over 500 a turn. And that's all possible early in the game.

[muggl3z]

For some reason AI merchants in my campaign face away from the camera when they make it to a resource. Anyone know how to fix this?

[NotNapoleon]

If you train them they stack cash in the Americas and West Africa with no competitors. And if you have good enough assassins you can make the same as from Mexico in Byzantium from them. Otherwise, they're kinda useless unless you have an excess of cash and some high worth stuff (slaves, dyes, goldm tobacco) sitting around.