Religion having negative effect on trade and diplomacy

[Glade]

Has anyone noticed that whenever you get a city with a high concentration of one religion all the diplomats and merchants trained in that city are full of bad traits derived from being raised in a religious community? Having concentrated a lot to get a theologists guild as soon as possible i unknowingly sabotaged myself in two other fields, namely trade and diplomacy. I need to know what is a safe level of religion to have in a settlement i mean to acquire a merchants guild in so as not to get bucketfuls of defective agents. Also does anyone know if having a city with many religions helps give good traits to agents?

[Smikis]

never heard of such thing O_o

wasnt rly using merchants/diplomats in vanila mh2 , as they were useless there
curently play lands to conquer addon , and dont face such problems as you there , playing as moors , i have 90~ islam in all of the cities, and high lvl buildings tends to give extra lvl for merchant/diplomat like last lvl of city hall or trading post

dunno if its same in vanila , as those wasnt my focus

[Glade]

You never got religiously ignorant trait or dogmatic beliefs? I always seem to get those. Kinda wish the Egyptians would sent a couple missionaries my way so i can get decent agents again.

[Soulvaki]

Well in my current game I have a Theologists guild HG and soemthing like 3 Merchant guilds including I also feel i am getting close to also having it's HQ so are you sure that a high concentration of a relgion effects trates? even so they agents don't even need to have good trates to get the points for the guilds, jsut need to be trained etc, I like to keep all my cities as high percentage of which relgion my faction is as I can get, which is usually something like 95%-100%

[Glade]

I want to get the guild for them to have good traits. If i get dogmatic beliefs -1 finance or other religious traits that will cancel out any good that comes from the guild. Im thinking of setting up a merchant hob in egypt to get some bilingual and torrence traits.

[Soulvaki]

Well once you have the guild try training an agent and see if it comes without the neg traits, I don't often have the problem your getting, I mostly get good traits, and the odd occasion a abd one

[Spong]

I have noticed what you describe to some extent but don't think the Theologians guilds have much to do with it, it seems to occur anywhere that has a cathedral level building or higher but I'm sure the overall religious rating of the region comes into it too - what I would recommend doing is having particular cities dedicated to particular agent types - for example; I don't like the boozing and womanising traits my generals get from taverns and brothels so I tend to pick one or two cities to keep them away from and have those buildings only in thos settlements and have those cities as my spy and assassin production centres, I tend to make my thieves and assassins guilds in these places also. Likewise for merchants and diplomats i might have a town that has no higher religious buildings than an abbey at most and that might also have a merchants guild - though with diplomats, assassins and spies these can be trained in the library line of castle buildings later on and this neatly avoids the religious aspect in the case of diplomats as castles can have no larger than a chapel or similar. I tend to build the theologians guild in places which have a cathedral level or higher, with most guild types i will only have one or two in the realm - theologians benefits are realm-wide from one guildhouse, wheras merchants guilds, thieves guilds and the like are specific town based benefits.

[Glade]

Ive already adopted the same policy but i dont like the idea of one of my ideal trading cities Genoa to go to waste because of its starting 92% catholic population. Though i suppose i could make it my priests base of operation with its high religious value and available port with quick access to Islamic lands. I could take one of the Moorish or Egyptian cities in a crusade to set up as a trading hub. Alexandria or Jerusalem should be ideal places for trade though ill have to set some spies to roam around the neighborhood to see if there are any more lucrative trading settlements.

[Spong]

It should still be ok with 92% just don't build a cathedral there and it should work, build a merchants guild and it'll be great

[darox]

This is the cause and it's probably similar for diplomats;

Trigger merchantinit10
WhenToTest AgentCreated

Condition not AtSea
and AgentType = merchant
and SettlementBuildingExists >= cathedral
and PopulationOwnReligion > 80

Affects ReligiousMerchant 1 Chance 50


So, when you're above 80% faith and have an additional cathedral+ you have a really decent chance of getting these ill traits. One possibility is to create merchants/diplomats in new regions but in terms of merchants that will cause them to miss some of the merchant guild benefits, as well as ancillaries like the 'merchant clerk' which needs a great market or so to trigger on creation. It really depends on how well that newly conquered city is constructed. Also, be aware of creating merchants in cities which have no town hall, this can cause them to become 'shady dealers'.

In terms of diplomats you can only profit, since if the region is far away and has low faith in one's own religion you get a similar chance on getting 'non dogmatic', which makes him tolerant and you also have a chance of getting bilingual, both can amount to 3 pts each I believe.

My merchant guild HQ is in Toledo, which is 100% Catholic, but it's also miles from Timbuktu and other prosperous places so I tend not to create merchants there any longer and dismiss that one point of the guild and settle with the HQ bonus which is factionwide. Antioch is 90% as well and has a merchant guild. Never less I still build merchants there due to the proximity of Baghdad and Aleppo. But overall my advice would be to let Imams convert some of your pop from time to time to get below 80% and build as many merchants as you can once they have.

[Glade]

Thanks for the advice. Does the great market place trait trigger in a big city or is it dependent on the number of trade routs going in to in?

[darox]

It's independent, all you need is the building in the city. But I've made a mistake, the great market allows the 'exotic gifts' ancillary for diplomats. For merchant clerk/counterfeiter you need an alchemy school/lab.