are my merchants bugged?

[pat the magnificent]

how much cash should a 7 finance merchant be making on the gold mines in Timbuktu, with a monopoly?

I own the province, I have paved roads, mining network, and a market built.

I've heard talk of 1000s per turn, and I'm no where near that.

[Borluc]

I believe that the amount traded is increased if it is the first instance of that resource as FAR away from your provinces as possible. Having a 7 finance merchant in your own province is counter-productive.

[Arksa]

No it's not. My brother owned Timbuktu and northwestern africa as moors and had his own merchants in Timbuktu, which he owned, and one of his merchants made 2000 florins per turn...

[chewy]

its far from your capital not far from your province.

[pat the magnificent]

so... what do i do about my merchants? why do they suck butt? ...those stupid butt suckers.

[Lusted]

Well where is your capital?

[pat the magnificent]

i've kept it at milan, as its nearest the center of my empire.

[smitty]

i've kept it at milan, as its nearest the center of my empire.

Mine's at Sicily and my maxed out merchant made about 450 or so per turn, not too exciting from all of the crazy stories I've heard around here. Granted, Palermo is pretty close to Timbuktu. I assume if you're Russia, Scotland, or even anything in Northern Europe Timbuktu would be a great place for Merchants.

[Garnier]

You could buy a province in russia or something and then make it your capital to get more money.. But you really dont need to.

As milan in my current campaign, I have 14 merchants, 6 in timbuktu and arguin, 4 at the nile delta and 4 at baghdad. They are making some 15,000 florins per turn in all I think. I have had one merchant making 2,300 per turn on ivory in timbuktu. Ivory is one of the best things.

[eoyarzui]

i think you should all say if youre using mods.

i dont, and no merchant, where or what so ever, makes 2000 f.


its really confusing when you just tell that youre winning 2000 or 1000 f per turn.

[Lusted]

i think you should all say if youre using mods.

This thread is in the sub forum for the Lands to Conquer mod, and is a discussion about part of the mod.

So yes everyone in the thread is likely to be using the mod.

[eoyarzui]

You are right. My bad.

But:

1) You must know that you dont find these specific threads in general discussion. And if you just post your question, you will normally get answered much later than if you post something in a very specific thread.
2) You correctly say "So yes everyone in the thread is likely to be using the mod", because no one could know for sure that every guy that posts something knows if the last post was talking of a mod, or if he did, what mod was that guy referring to. It would be great that every gut knew for sure what mod and version is everyone talking about. Im just guessing that Im not the first one to not know im not in the appropriate page.
3) It is still my mistake that I just searched this thread from the "general discussion" page, and didnt look the category.

Considering that I got a quick reply, I rephrase my question:

What is the maximum profit you can get out of a merchant in a vanilla or no mod version game?

Thank you.

[Lusted]

What is the maximum profit you can get out of a merchant in a vanilla or no mod version game?

You much better off asking that in the M2Tw General Discussion forum.

[Garnier]

I think there are some problems with the way agents work in M2TW, and LTC specifically since thats what I play. I can always get the theologians guild HQ because the AI will have spy guilds in all their cities. Once I have the theologian HQ, I automatically have all the popes be mine because all I must do is train a priest at the HQ and he comes with 5-8 piety from the start. The AI cant keep up.

Then with merchants, I think they are overpowered for the player. In my Milan campaign I was making 20-25,000 per turn from merchants, mainly in timbuktu and arguin where I can have 10 merchants stationed each making 2000 - 2500 florins per turn. This is a HUGE amount of money for each turn. The AI never is up to par with trade. Sure they will have a couple merchants on a monopoly here and there, but once I captured timbuktu for example, no rival merchants came at all. And even if they did my 10 finance guys could take them out easily.

Until something is done (if its even possible to make the AI use them as well as the player) about merchants I'm going to houserule them out of my faction. It basically ruined my milan campaign because I was infinitely rich and could simply not spend it all without winning the game automatically.

[smitty]

In my Milan campaign I was making 20-25,000 per turn from merchants, mainly in timbuktu and arguin where I can have 10 merchants stationed each making 2000 - 2500 florins per turn.

Wow, in my LTC 2.0 Sicilian game my 10 finance merchants make roughly 500 florins a turn. I have all of the ivory/gold in timbuktu capped, but the Arguin ones are hardly worth the effort of building merchants as they make significantly less than the Timbuktu guys.... I didn't think Milan vs. Palermo was that big of a difference in capitol distance but I guess that's the deciding factor in why you're so filthy rich.

[chewy]

I don't even see how you aren't rich without using the merchants. Its very easy to get money for any country. I owned stockholm and i was able to generate 9k florins from that one city alone. All my other port cities would range from 6k to 7k florins per turn. Its just too easy to get money in general to even bother with merchants.