Medieval 2 Tutorial - Early Game Mastery - Explanation on Merchant Boycott

[@Palladium1010]

14 years in and tutorial is finally out!

[@paxromana1841]

Finally i can play the game better

[@aliveandwellinisrael7944]

Enemy merchants followed mine to the new world just so they could one shot my merchants.

[@PwnZombie]

Jeeeeeefffy

[@datswassup9902]

assassin escorts

[@epsdudez]

I'm afraid you're wrong on this. 1v1 me, merchants only.

[@bekincai]

ha thats hilarious

[@user-ho9pz1ps3f]

best comment ever.

[@vmthelegend5140]

i think you are joking but you want to go one vs one against a man who conquest almost the entire world in 54 turns and says"he has been lazy on this one"lol.

[@placeholder8768]

Vomito Mentale Yeah, but can he beat Merchants? I didn’t think so.

[@canecorsomolosser3294]

I don't use them and get tired of those silly merchants. 😏 Won several games very hard and don't use merchants. 😂

[@ashina2146]

Who will win A Level 8 Player Merchant or A Level 2 AI Merchant

[@babyplaneswalker341]

With my luck? The ai merchant every time

[@lolasdm6959]

@Paul Thomas Johnson that's why you use a army to run them out of their bussiness first.

[@_caracalla_]

a level 1 ai merchant

[@juncheok8579]

​@@_caracalla_I don't think I've seen an ai merchant below 2

[@_caracalla_]

@@juncheok8579 *exaggeration*

[@timurdemetres5041]

Merchants are like a mini-game. You either bother or don't.

[@_Gandalf_The_White]

Who is to be a pauper then my lord? -chuckles-

[@ChaseMcCain81]

Lol

[@ChaseMcCain81]

True

[@sporvath]

This is the comment that I was looking for thanks

[@DanMcLeodNeptuneUK]

It's like they put them in for flavour due to all the Italian factions...

[@chickensforthechickengod9337]

Legend confirmed anti-merchandist activate the doges and we shall block out the sun with ducats!

[@MrJaguarDesert]

also call a crusade and take constantinopolis while we're at it

[@PanzerblitzRnR]

Merchants are completely useless, unless your playing the Beginning of the Endtimes mod where the AI merchants never try to seize your merchants' assets.

[@feanorn8409]

​@@PanzerblitzRnR If you re conquering and sacking alot, they re pretty useless. But i like to play tall, and here merchants are nice. If you got skill 7-10 Merchants on the trade goods at Timbuktu and some on ivory, silver mines or slaves, you ll get 2-4 strong armies payed for it. Not everyone likes to blitz this game. Having upgraded knights guarding huge Castles or going on crusade is much more entertaining for me than rushing around with ugly armies of T1 units and mercs thrown in. If thats "Progaming" of Medieval 2, then im happy with being not a "Pro".

[@mythos-tz1lw]

It's what they call gold

[@yordanazzolin]

@@feanorn8409 but that's what the vid says, T1 and mercs is effective. He never talked about fun or beautiful

[@hyper_5pace902]

Legendoftotalwar's campaigns: Achieves victory conditions by turn 50 in a long campaign. My campaigns: Conquer 10 settlements then give up after 3 seperate factions have randomly declared war on me and at least 1 of those is always fucking milan.

[@slaughter2517]

It's 2024 and fk milan

[@TheMaxter2000]

"Slaves are a good trade resources" - Legend 2018

[@soos1885]

I can be your slave Haahhh gaaaiiiii Just a jk Fuck that was cringe End of my comment

[@KootFloris]

Trick: I put manned forts on merchant spots and then fill them up with up to 5 merchants. That can add up very much like on 1 gold mine.

[@DanMcLeodNeptuneUK]

That's amazing!

[@InfiniteDesign91]

exploit

[@crisptos251]

I’m not sure if it was patched but in my campaign I wasn’t able to build a fort over a resource. But for anyone reading this comment now, you can achieve the same thing by putting a unit of peasants over the resource and then having the merchants merge with it.

[@BOIOLA08]

@@crisptos251 figured that by myself and it makes a huge difference especially on N. Africa, sahara province with gold mine there (20k in merchant trade - all merchants allocated there).

[@Carbonific]

@@crisptos251 This works, but comes with the downside that if those peasants turn rebel, you lose every merchant that was attached to them.

[@Tommoslasguitaros]

"The merchant guild will remember this"

[@JanneRanta]

My favourite wrong way of playing is playing pacifist. Unite the british isles. Have only 1½ army for defense. Huge ass navy. Great economy and development. Never conquer anything and only fight defensive battles and naval battles. Technically I lost the campaign but it was fun as hell.

[@y.z.6517]

For that way to work, you need to help the weak and weaken the strong. Whenever a strong nation is expanding beyond control, declare war on them. Bribe their weaker neighbours' to join the war. Give them money, and form temporary alliance with them. When the strong one is weakened enough, cease the war and break the alliance, so things will balance themselves again. Give strong nations' rebels troops and money. Then you have very strong Russian and Ottoman empires, and unite everyone against them, until they become weaker than your co-religious nations. This is so British history. ;-)

[@TheDawg1212]

Did the same with the moors. Literally just kept the 4 starting settlements and built them up while not getting into any conflict. Made myself the richest faction and when the time came after gunpowder was invented I built up many armies and fucked the world up.

[@daltonater1212]

Right!? I simply love this play style. I get so bogged down whenever I create a super empire and have to manage over 50 settlements with 7 different stacks of armies at a given moment.

[@BobMcBobJr]

My pacifist play through I decided my rule was to not declare war on anyone ever and I could attack them only if they sent an army into my territory. Then all bets are off. By turn 200, I had still conquered most of the map and people were still declaring war on me.

[@RedbadofFrisia]

@@y.z.6517 Roleplaying as the eternal anglo lol

[@moonman2051]

Legend DESTROYS merchants with FACTS and LOGIC.

[@kjp8251]

Capitalizes RANDOM words even THOUGH it is NOT necessary.

[@wfr1108]

KJ P it’s a joke mate

[@moonman2051]

@@kjp8251 lol

[@kjp8251]

@@wfr1108 No its not.

[@wfr1108]

KJ P yeah it is it’s a parody of “____ DESTROYS liberals with FACTS and LOGIC”

[@nergalsmom]

100% agree with everything you say in this video, but... you should have taken the time to talk just a little bit about merchant's guilds. Everything you do relating to merchants (recruiting, aquiring, building markets etc) earns you points toward the merchants guild chain. Using merchants in the early game sets you up for advanced tier merchant guilds. These guilds give passive bonuses to trade as well as cavalry recruitment in cities, two very useful assets. Now, I fully aknowledge that this video was focused on the most effective playstyle in the early campaign, and using agents to rush merchant guilds certainly isn't. I still think it would have been worth a mention, just so people can't say "hurr durr, Legend doesn't know how guilds work!" Anyway, great video mate.

[@_Gandalf_The_White]

Yeah after I get HQ thieves, assassins and swordsmith I put merchant guilds throughout, after 10 years of playing only found out a couple of weeks ago that masons guild was a thing haha

[@chofa135]

Cavalry merchant is a joke. No bad intentions here 😊

[@TheOriginalTuhat]

@@chofa135 Italian cav militia is pretty solid tho thanks to their lances

[@chofa135]

@@TheOriginalTuhat indeed, im talking about merchant militia

[@TheOriginalTuhat]

@@chofa135 yessir, also dayum lightning fast replies considering how old this vid is 😆

[@mackmasters325]

It's so funny to me how angry he must have been to go this far out of his way.

[@generalrendar7290]

Watching you play has really opened my eyes on effectively building assets and jump starting the campaign. I've generally in my RTS campaigns blitzed for unclaimed territory, avoided war as much as possible in the early game and defeated my foes in detail. My campaigns have been very slow and I've managed to lose a few because I stretched myself out too thin or I let the AI runaway with the game after trying to out dice roll, or directly compete with their cheats. My favorite victory strategy has been to turtle with limited and opportunistic wars, build up a regional production center then send stack after stack of cost effective armies all over the map as if I'm the swarm, laughing as my economy crushes the war hungry and petty squabblers get washed away in the tide. You usually finish about 50 to 100 turns ahead of me though with much less risk and worry. Also this is because I've played more paragon in the early game only sacking cities of bitter enemies of my campaigns. Population growth, law, and public order, and static bonus increases like you said are much better investments for the early game over percentage bonuses. I never really understood how to use power in order to get more power effectively. I came into it thinking that I had to nurture my economy before I could start pushing my weight around. Your saving disaster campaigns are incredible, especially the French monster Debt campaign! I've got some new tools in my tool belt now and look forward to having fun with them.

[@tomtom34b]

You are making good points and yes ofc, rapid conquests early beat merchants. I just wanted to share what I do and why, when I play with merchants (you explained the most important mechanics of trade ressources, but not all of them): In addition to everything what you explained what affects merchant profit, there are 2 things not mentioned: 1st: your merchant earns more money from the same good if it is in a province that you own or in a province of a faction that you have trade rights with, compared to if you send him to the same ressource in a neutral or hostile territory (so the timbuktu goods would yield even more, when you eventually conquer that region, than what you showed in the video). 2nd: A merchant doubles the income, all others things equal, if the trade good is present more than once in a province (for example silk in constantinople). So the Timbuktu gold mines are twice as good as the one in the balkans. Idk what guilds you play with in your campaign, but I prefer merchant guilds, because they increase the trade (not the merchant trade!) of your provinces. Also, one important mechanic is to train your merchants: To do that, you have to place them on a trade good that is present in a province twice and make sure that no foreign merchant is sitting on the same type of good in the same region. Then your merchant aquires traits towards marketcontrol/monopoly over time, up to 3 levels (monopoly is the +3 max). I usually build all my merchants in one place, to get to the merchant guild HQ asap: It has to have the minimum administration building It should have a church, but it must not have a cathedral. These are just requirements that prevent negative traits for the merchant when he is recruited. A merchant recruited at the province where your merchant guild HQ is gives you a +2 to +4 bonus to his skill, ideally, after training him up to monopolist, you have +5 to +7 skill, and then I send him to the juicy goods. One last thing: Ofc you can win the campaign even before major events happen (like the plague roaming across europe). My trade income during the plague drops quite a bit, affecting my economy in general drastically, preventing recruitment of new troops, stopping expansion into new regions, or forcing me to stop buildings in my provinces, unless I have huge savings beforehand. Merchant trade is not affected by the plage at all. So the merchant income is a nice cushion of alternative income that softens the blow of this mostly scripted event. By the time the plague hits you, you should be making up to 20k/turn, but at a minimum 10 grand of extra income. Well, I hope my tips help, if you want to go the merchant route. It is not effective for a rapid early expanse strategy though.

[@uncletrash3278]

6 million merchants

[@wfr1108]

Seems like an awful lot

[@unifieddynasty]

I remember back before ETW came out, the TW community trashed on M2TW for its flaws compared to RTW. But now, we're all just harping at all the amazing descriptive features of M2TW that have since been removed to streamline the games.

[@jaymz6473]

I always found just watching his style of play was tutorial enough for me. Wouldn't say I'm nearly as good at any TW game as Legend, but I'm a lot better after watching his content.

[@lifeistotallyabsurd1454]

I always wanted to be as good as Legend himself, however I also love to roleplay during my games and conquering entire Europe during the lifetime of one general isn't the most realistic thing you can do.

[@wilhelmrk]

Unless your General is named Alexander or Temudjin

[@AstalDLyon]

wilhelmrk true, Legend is a follower of Genghis Khan style

[@Finwaell]

or Napoleon or Hitler or Caesar or Octavian or Attila or Justinian or.... you get the point xD

[@mackmasters325]

dude

[@BarnabyBear69]

Darius the Great has entered chat.

[@coyotefire69420]

"I paid for it in blood... and so did my enemies." What a metal thing to say

[@runswithbears3517]

Merchant income and trade income are very different, and I haven't figured out all the details about trade income yet, but in terms of merchant income you are skipping over several very important factors which are precisely what make the difference in making money off your merchants in M:TWII. I'll divide these factors into two rough categories; maximizing merchant income and protecting your merchants. Maximizing income: - Trading goods in provinces you own will get you 33% more cash than when that same province is owned by an rival state. A trade agreement will rectify this difference and make the difference zero. War will not affect merchant income, other than breaking any trade agreement. Clearly this is a very significant boost and could make a huge difference in what trade resource is the most beneficial. Timbuktu is very often owned by rebels, which essentially robs you of 25% of what you could be making. - The number of trade resources in a province are also a major factor in the amount of revenue you receive. A province with two nodes of the same resource will increase your income per node on that resource by 100%. In other words, always look for provinces that have two of the same node. Constantinople has 2 Silk nodes for example. - Another factor which you glossed over, is that the buildings in your capital (and only your capital) globally increase revenue from trade nodes. The building chains that globally increase trade revenue are: Trade (Grain Exchange, Market, etc.), Sea Trade (Merchant's Wharf, Warehouses), Ports (Port, Shipwright), Merchant Banks and Merchant Guilds. Roads have no effect. These buildings globally increase the revenues from trade nodes by percentages ranging from roughly 5% - 15% per tier. This effect stacks up as you develop these buildings, easily reaching 100%+. The level of the buildings in the province of the trade resource (unless that trade resource is in your capital) is not relevant and does not affect revenue. - Further away is not always better, for several reasons. Firstly and most importantly, your merchants will develop bad traits if they are positioned too far away from your capital, cheating you out of income. Furthermore, like you have mentioned it takes time for your merchant to get to a resource. This time is forever lost, but the merchant also ages during the travel time which means you will be able to benefit for a shorter time when he finally reaches his destination. For this reason it is often better to find a middle-ground in terms of distance and income. My rule of thumb is I try to find the best resource that is right at the edge of where my merchants would start receiving negative traits. - Transporting your merchants by ship makes a ton of difference in travel time, and also seems to increase the distance before merchants start receiving negative traits (though this needs confirmation). Additionally, much of the best concentrations of trade resources are close to the sea. Protecting your merchants: - The AI will generally not try to seize merchants that are of a higher level than their own. In addition, the higher the level of both merchants involved, the lower the chance the AI will try to seize them (risk / reward). Seizing enemy merchants is generally not worth it, and I avoid it unless I have a particularly good reason. Certain areas will have more merchant traffic, making it riskier to place low-level merchants there. I advise, especially in the early-game, to level up your merchants somewhere with low traffic, and possibly move them later if there is more profit to be had. - Group up your merchants around profitable regions. This allows your high-level merchants to protect your low-level ones. - If you're afraid one of your merchants is about to get seized, move it off the trade node, and the AI will ignore the merchant. Sometimes the AI will not even bother to capture the node you just vacated and continue on its way, after which you can safely go back to making profit. - If a merchant is occupying a valuable trade node, but you do not want to seize him, move onto the trade node through the fog of war. It will kick the rival merchant out. If the rival merchant is not of a higher level than yours, they will usually simply vacate the area. - When revenue is starting to roll in, it may become worthwhile to protect your merchants with other agents, like assassins and spies. Spies can give you an early alert for any high-level rival merchants coming your way. Assassins can be used to murder rival merchants that are in the way of your profit. Only do this if you are making significant income from those trade nodes, though. Concluding remarks: - Not every faction stands to gain equally from merchant trade, however factions positioned on the Mediterranean almost always stand to benefit greatly. Also resources around the Baltic region, especially amber and slaves, can become very profitable. Factions with land-locked capitals by default will earn less from merchant trade by virtue of having no ports. - Merchant trade is an investment. If you are diligent in recruiting your merchants in the right provinces (Merchant Guilds/Town Halls/Markets give good traits) and doing a minimal amount of planning to decide where to focus them, you will be raking in cash before you know it.

[@iofaccioitubi]

My pacifist way is: pick Milan, turn 1 attack Bologna and Venice. Turn 2 is time for the Pope. I'm from Italy, I don't like city-state.

[@_Gandalf_The_White]

Italian units with upgraded armour are the coolest in game, style points for sure

[@Athalfuns]

"My Pacifist way(...)", turn 1 fails at being pacifist xD

[@officialromanhours]

What are you talking about? That is Milanese pacifism!

[@hengineer]

​@_Gandalf_The_White why bother attacking bologna? I just buy it. It's really easy to buy bologna for a few hundred for a few turns.

[@cccpredarmy]

Monopolization of a resource (e.g. Constantinoples 2x Silk) grants you another x2 income PER MERCHANT (so practically x4 income). So ALWAYS keep track of cities which have 2x same resource in a region. Even some shitty tier resource will bring you decent $ if you monopolize it. Conquering a new city with a market already built, grants you another slot to get a new merchant. Invest 550 once and place him and your starting merchant rightly to monopolize a resource. Building and moving a merchant is tricky. You should move him from resource to resource until your destination. That way he'll start making money every turn and lvl up until he gets there. It might make you loose a turn or two though but I personally go for income only. Timbuktu and most southern resources are only good for african/middle eastern merchants. Spain/Portugal maybe too but for my preference I'd search for closer opportunities first. Correct me if I'm wrong but doesn't trade agreement improve the merchant income/income from a resource placed in a faction you have a trade agreement with? Timbuktu does NOT grant you the highest income! Constatinoples 2x silk DOES so aim for THAT!

[@ge3neva]

I have 1200 hours on m2tw and have never seen the income breakdown😂

[@volcelraptor3983]

You must be terrible at the game if you have 1200 hours and you haven't looked at all the basic information screens.

[@mackmasters325]

@@volcelraptor3983 nah i've got around that many hours and i never did either

[@tastycookiechip]

I bet you're the kind of person who doesn't see the Grand Theft Auto tutorials when they pop up in the corner of the screen

[@warwickthekingmaker7281]

Those are newbie numbers. I have spent way more time on M2TW, but never knew the trade income breakdown existed.

[@PwnZombie]

Same

[@RevarBB]

1. I think it totally depends on people playstyles and what effective means in their playstyle. It's a fact and i agree with you that merchants (in vanilla m2tw) are definitely not worth it if we're talking only about pure efficiency/effectiveness especially in early game and fast rush games. You're 100% right. But ofc not everybody is rushing with furious aggresion to conquer the whole world in X turns, some people play realistically simulating a kingdom, without using AI weaknesses in first turns etc. so merchants can be very important and key in this case. 2. Merchants should be a midgame thing. I see no problem doing what you said in your video (building farms first, then other important buildings, conquering etc.) and then later make one trade city with merchant guild and produce already high skilled merchants. No one said you have to spam merchants in first turns and block other important buildings. But in fast rush games it probably still doesn't make sense. More for balanced playstyle maybe. 3. I'd like merchants to have 2x or 3x movement speed to be more useful. All that long traveling is the worst, even more when you lose them due to rival merchants. Also they start at higher age than other characters so they get old quite fast after the long distance travel. And in mods ofc it's much better than in vanilla m2tw. Tbh to make it simple i should have written something like this: 1. Fast aggresive rush games - avoid merchants they are not effective. 2. Slower games w/o aggressive expansion - merchants are very good and effective, still better in mods tho.

[@sophiaisbased9621]

Oy Vey!

[@LiezAllLiez]

Lemme just chip in here as i am a proponent of merchants and merchant trade - while i always underline that my merchant trade gives me about (or over) 20k florins per turn - i never even bother with merchant buildings or merchants themselves until a town has reached "minor city" level. The reason is simple - its at that town level that a merchant guild is offered. If you spam merchants from a town different than a minor city - youre wasting time. The merchants come out wrong, weak, old and never make anything of themselves. Up until the moment i reach a minor city level i do what Legend does - farms, barracks and smiths - settlement growth and military expansion comes first. Heres the difference between me and Legend - while i could go on what i assume would be called a "medieval blitzkrieg" over Europe - i never do that. I enjoy prolonging my campaign as much as possible for one reason only - most games i try to reach gunpowder units. So even though i would be sitting at, say, 40 provinces (with all other objectives completed already) i would not expand any further until gunpowder has became common. The only real exception from this rule is when im playing Cumans - their unit roster is available from the start provided you have the required settlement level. If i dont finish the campaign before 1350 - i will run into units like Polish Guard, Royal Banderium Knights, Royal Mamluks and other heavily armored cavalry. Those are a real problem when all you have is a (n excellent but still) horse archer with 6 missile attack. So in the meantime im growing my wealth via merchants. Its a nice distraction when war is NOT the only thing youre after. Hell - im instigating wars by funding one faction to fight another. The results vary (with the funded faction oftentimes turning on me) but i find this type of gameplay fun. To each their own.

[@laszlomiskei9138]

Legend, you've just hit the nail on the head with these points: Strategic resources' prices NEVER change Merchant's trade DOESN'T have influence on trade income If merchant play had any significant impact on the campaign, I bet you, Legend would master it (too) Owning strategic resources in the medieval ages, and expanding them in the age of discovery sohuld be an important part of the campaign map, as resources gain/lose prices exponentially even. You would be able to use your merchants to corrupt prices or take over enterprises (hostile actions) and break the economy of your rival. This would enrich the campaign gameplay. It would even have an entire research tree dedicated to merchant/mercenary sinergy. It is not just histroically accurate, but would also (again) gave you more options to play with. PS: Medieval II TW is the pinnacle of the series (no wonder people are modding the living shit out of it), it is a shame, that since then, every aspect of the franchise has been dumbed down ( while some things had a great streamlining, but generally speaking). Even with the insignificant impact of the merchants in Vanilla M2TW the franchise is less without them. PPS: Where the hell is the quasi manpower limit from this franchise ??? Castle/Free city dinamic?? It was among the best features! You just dont fucking recruit 20 elite units (Im loking at you Rome 2). We need unit limit to be brought back! I have hopes for M3TW but I know for a fact, that everything will lean toward cnematic moshpit battles BS and shallow campaign gameplay with barebones agent mechanics. (hope Im wrong)

[@sakesaurus]

btw merchants should betray more if you make armies fully out of them, like venetian land armies did

[@madwellmusic8995]

yea remember m2tw was the beginning of CA's decline in attention to detail, creative strategy and complex empire building concepts. they nerfed politics, economics, and regional/geographical relevance with cut and paste management that paled in comparison to earlier TW games. merchant class, feudalism, fiefdoms everything that made the middle ages completely disregarded (for whatever reason, doesnt matter its all about final product). They succeeded in laying down a very skeletal structure of a game that only left players wondering wtf happened to a fleshed out game. Merchant resources should most certainly be utilized into importing exotic or common goods to certain regions lacking in resources to buff up a settlements economy or satisfy a tech chain ect ect. Having the ability to organize your own trade routes would have been a great addition as well, controlling the direction of your empire economics. possibly AI would have difficulty managing complex systems but players need every potential advantage possible in order to combat a system strictly designed to fuck the player over in as many ways possible.

[@drpill1230]

In the Britannia campaign it’s massively different than the regular game, merchants in the Britannia campaign is instantly useful trading around 100 per turn for wool, textiles, wine later 300-500+ per turn while in the regular 5-30 per turn.

[@HBK0137]

But can you get a third civil war when not using merchants?

[@Juanhop]

By the way, playing Spain, a couple or merchants in Tombuctu gives you around from 800 to 2000 a turn. Yes, it takes time to reach, but many more turns delivering real money.

[@Blixulee]

Seems to me that merchants can achieve typically 1-2% of total income, ultimate midmaxing maximum 5% income (If played perfectly) by turn 50-55. It would account for 1000-2500 gpt. Making 2500 gpt is probably easier achieved by midmaxing your garrisons than hypothetical perfect merchant play. Merchant ROI (return on invest) is just way too low. In conclusion, should merchants be buffed? I really like the mechanic but after your demonstration How they account typically 2% of total income, they are insignifcant. It's a shame that an interresting mechanic is so useless. Good video!

[@christianflores3437]

timbuktu and conquer it. of course timbuktu is expensive af to maintain . 3 merchants 700-1000 gold per merch on gold. hire mercs.

[@peasant7214]

im fine if merchants cost 200 instead.

[@MAKGaming30]

The best way to make merchants good is for example if you're playing for England going to the Edit file and give England a couple of carracks and exploit the multiple high-level resources in the new world and conquer it all before you make any moves in mainland Europe your make finding the Americas more fun relevant and make merchants better all in one go with 7 gold resources alone worth over 300 with a level 1 merchant! Have fun

[@battlez9577]

Completely breaking the game isn't a good idea

[@MAKGaming30]

@@battlez9577 it all depends if you're an experienced player then you just give yourself limitations to give yourself challenge, ie you must conquer the Americas before you step foot in Europe

[@bradroff8575]

This is good man, I think you should do more of these, there aren't enough informative high-quality channels anymore after a certain SOMEONE got hired by C.A

[@nicholasschneidermadsen370]

I think merchants are a nice supplement to one's economy, especially in the late-game. I always go blitzkrieg like you when I play a campaign, but if I do come across a region with great trade ressources and few competing merchants I always invest a bit in the merchants (for example the two settlements down in the sout-west corner of the campaign map), because then you'll easily get up to 2500+ florins each turn purely from merchants. So in my opinion, it's quite good to have a bit of balance in one's strategy. Merchants alone can't really win the game or earn you a shitload of money like sacking big settlements. They're certainly not good either for establishing early-game prowess, but they're a nice supplement especially if you like wagering expensive wars on many fronts throughout the game. Either way thanks for a very informative video on the matter!

[@vmthelegend5140]

This tutorial helped me a lot to understand how to play the game way more efficiently.Thanks Legend

[@mdtexeira]

I love the effort you put into ensuring no one would be butthurt. I mean, wasted effort, obviously. This is KZbin.

[@KP-ek7qu]

Merchants are OK, but are only supplementary and really depends on the mods. In my recent SS6.4 Hungary high campaign I got Constantinople before t10, and a merchant guild popped up immediately, so started producing them each turn. I sent them towards Damascus, stepping from one resource to another, "financing" their travel cost. In 30 my total income was about 40k, merchants making cca10% of it. But when I moved my capital to Scopia the merchant revenue got halved. To conclude my views, merchants can be nice, but I find the micro they need is mostly tiresome and often frustrating (if I did not savescum). So my actual preference is TATW DAC, which get rid of them entirely :)

[@futuregohan2398]

K P In ss 6.4 merchants make much more money.

[@KP-ek7qu]

Thanks for the input - I did not play Vanilla since ages.

[@BaDitO2]

there are wrong ways of playing medival 2, I gave all my provinces to the pope and then my capital got targetet for a crusade :(

[@silverrain530]

Lol. I must have played a buggy SS mod because the pope called a crusade on my city but it never failed, they just kept coming.

[@johnroscoe2406]

@@silverrain530 I've yet to play SS but if it didn't change the Crusade/Jihad mechanic, they end when all Crusading/Jihading generals are killed. It's kind of a pain sometimes.

[@silverrain530]

@@johnroscoe2406 Then there must be some lazy general who is taking forever because it was going on for 30-ish turns when I last saved.

[@mihalybiro298]

Thanks for the video, Legend! I already knew most things you said about merchants but some little details were new even for me. I prefer multiplayer campaigns, where I have ~6 years of experience against skilled opponents. There is very little use of merchants apart from your starting one. In special circumstances you can make a lot of money with them (Dongola is probably the best/most accessible spot if you play as Egypt / Turks / Byzantines / Venice), but in a hotseat it doesn't have a big significance. You can use the merchant fort bug but the number of merchants are limited so unless you have a big empire (in that case you will probably win anyways) you won't make that much money with them. I never got much more than a few thousand per turn. Economy is my biggest strenght and I'll always try to gain an advantage over my opponents financially but it's just to support my military which ultimately decides the game. If you can afford one more mercenary unit you might turn a war around. In peacetime you can invest in things profitable on the long term but if the war kicks in, you better spend on agents (spy, assassin), ships and troops. And you always have to be prepared for that.

[@the_rover1]

agreed. to make merchs more significant they should have a higher input into a players economy. it takes too long to level them up. some regions just have shitty resources, especially those who also lack sea access, which got a wee bit better in SS6.4 (camels, weapons, etc). the money earned per turn on low priced resources like wood, grain, sheep, iron, tin, etc. may be increased by 300% or even more.

[@danfiorini101]

I was looking and hoping to find some Medieval II tutorial content from your channel, happy to see this!

[@GerNiels]

Watching this video is like reading Mein Kampf

[@PwnZombie]

Jeb!

[@SolarpunkEnjoyer]

Please, clap

[@ranfan1820]

Legend of Total Nazism.

[@danielhall6354]

It would be good if there was some way that the merchants could interact with your normal sea and land trade routs to boost them - like you have to send the merchant to where you are importing form to get a significant bonus or something like that

[@ben_swolo6191]

Thank you legend, I love this video. I learn so much from watching you, I think a lot of people do too and would love to see these kinds of videos. Again love your work keep it up man

[@Canaris3]

>Legend hates merchants Legend is anti semitic - CONFIRMED.

[@williamfisher4037]

I compose my armies entirely of merchants and buy all my settlements because I have honor!

[@kongfeet81]

*plays Crusader Kings 2* EXPEL THE JEWS

[@maiamaya381]

not before loaning 250 gold

[@aerojetrocketdyners-2538]

not before getting shoad

[@nathankozak9184]

I really hope you do more of these videos on Medieval 2. I picked up M2 as my first Total War game (Shogun 2 after I finally get my first vanilla win) and I'm good up until about turn 80 when I'm in 4 wars and my trade goes down

[@Ye-Hu]

21:23 21:55 Alexander the great in a nutshell

[@CharlysBonada]

yeah, I thought the same xD

[@tamerofhorses2200]

Except Alexander never really sacked settlements all that much. Tyre and Halikarnassos would've been the exceptions to his generally benevolent conquests.

[@AthensLaser]

@@tamerofhorses2200 alexander the pinnacle of martial history. ignorant of history yesu alehandro

[@silverrain530]

This is one of the funniest things I've seen on KZbin 😂

[@Agent_4547]

Tamer of Horses “benevolent conquests” lol you mean sparing the people who recognize you as king and gave you a portion of their riches and slaughtering and selling into slavery anyone who resisted. It’s just that most put up no fight because they saw the Persians as oppressors and the Macedonians as another set of less oppressive oppressors, if not out right liberators. Plus there was no real hope of putting up any meaningful resistance against the Macedonian army.

[@warspaniel]

I feel your pain on the bad luck. I live in Louisville, KY -- home of the Kentucky Derby -- and went to the track once and was doing OK. I was only betting a small amount (never been big on gambling because of my bad luck), but on this particular day, I was up $15 on the day when we got to the last race. The last race of the day was a "maiden" race (none of the horses had won a race yet, so ONE of them was going to get their first win). Looking over the racing form, there was this one horse that was head-and-shoulders above the rest of the field, so I bet all $15 on that horse to win. I even commented to my cousin that "The only way this horse doesn't win is if he doesn't finish." The race starts and due to a poor post position, my horse was in the middle of the pack. By the first turn, he had moved up to 4th. Entering the back stretch he was in 3rd. Down the back stretch he moved up to 2nd, then into 1st and was opening up a lead. He goes into the final turn (which due to where we were seated put him out of view briefly) and disappeared...Watching the leader board, he's in first...2nd...3rd..then off the board. Once the field had passed, the little horse ambulance go rolling out onto the track. My horse had pulled up in the final turn and did not finish. THAT is how my luck goes...and why I don't gamble.

[@krichardj]

As role-play I will send a navy with small army and general to North Africa early, March to Timbuktu, build the market and start rolling out merchants immediately. By mid game the area can pay for two full stacks easy and no one ever attacks. Can’t say if this is the most effective use of force so no argument with your position.

[@krichardj]

1kvolt1978 good idea, I always neglect the use of mercenaries until I need them for emergency. Good idea!

[@edwardbailey2570]

Just to confirm, yep, having control of the region grants a bonus to it's value, as seen by the silk in byzantines territory being worth more than the silk in egypts territory. Another thing that can increase the value of resources is having trade agreements with the faction that owns the region the resource is in.

[@irohn]

Hey, I just want to say another factors that affect the value of a trade resource: 1st, and this is a big one, is if the region have 2 or more of the same resource, like Silk in Constantinople, the value of the resource will be multiplied by 2 if you are the only one with merchants in one of the resources. So, for example, if you have 1 merchant in one of the two Silks, you will make x2 money on that resource, but, if another merchant goes and sit in the another Silk Resource, then you will no more make x2 money, you will loose that bonus, and so you will earn half of the income you could have got. Your own merchants do not count, so you can have 2 merchants, one in each Silk, and each merchant will make x2 money on that resource. The same rule applies to the AI merchants. That's also the reason why the gold in Timbuktu made to you 198 gold while the other in Europe made to you 99. Another important thing that mechanic also affects, is that you will only get the traits Market Controler, Capitalist and Monopolist (the last one will provide +3 to the agent skill), if you are in one of that double resources. If your merchant is trading with a unique resource of a region, not only he will not get the x2 bonus, but he will not get that good traits. So, always aim to double resources. 2nd, you will get a boost to the trade resource if you have trade rights to the faction in which that resource is. Or in your own territories by extent. That is why you are getting less money with Dyes in Egipt, because you don't have trade rights with them. One will never get trade rights with Rebels, so is better avoiding rebel controlled regions. Nice video, I will never be able to make such a quick campaign, so, for me, merchants forever

[@vahleeb]

I only use merchants if I have quick access to Kiev, Caffa and Sarkel (4 slave spots), so Russians, Poles, Hungarians (maybe) and Byzantines if I go north. Beyond that they're pretty useless. Even then, they're pretty useless considering it takes between 6-9 turns of them sitting on a resource to pay themselves off (recruiting costs). If you add the time it takes for one of them to get down to the resources from a place like Smolensk plus the money it costs you to get the marketplace (which isn't going to pay for itself in early game for 20 turns)... they are just not the best ROI in early game.

[@doubledouble4g379]

Return On Investment, if I had to guess

[@rossperry1253]

I always seem to find that the steppe slaves don't do well for trade, normally it's just the ones in timbuktu and dongola that trade well for me

[@vahleeb]

ross perry that's probably because you capital's too close by, like legend mentions in this video... On my most recent Russian playthrough I wanted to test this, slaves in Kiev went for about 50 and the ones in Caffa went for about 80 with the capital in Smolensk in early game. Later in game, slaves in Caffa were going for about 140 while my capital was at Prague. As legend says, it's probably not worth the investment, and this is just a borderline example of when it might work, marginally.

[@rossperry1253]

@@vahleeb Yeah you're probably right, I only ever use merchants when desperate or near a resource worth harvesting, otherwise I don't bother

[@MidlifeCrisisJoe]

They're not the best ROI *early* game, sure, but early-mid they can start to become one, easily. One of the most important things to do is get a Merchant's guild in your capital, and early, and building enough merchant base buildings in your expanding cities to raise your merchant cap. Then you only pump out Merchants in your capital to keep its guild building up so you can eventually get that HQ level building once you hit the huge city size. This allows you to have Merchants who start at base with generally 3 ranks upon creation, which makes them infinitely more useful and who can usually hit ROI and get into profit in 2-3 turns on the better trade goods. It *also* allows the city to produce more trade goods for its internal city income and you get access to those merchant cavalry for most factions. Also, the other pretty obvious area you're going to be getting good trade good to investment ratios is in Egypt, for most Catholic factions. Because most Catholic factions will inevitably get called on a Crusade into Egypt pretty early in the game, you have to make sure you take at least one city on this crusade (if the crusade target ends up being a fortress I mean). Then, while you should be continuing your war against Egypt for dominance in the region (if you can afford it) you pump out some merchants in that town and send them south of Cairo to that Dongola region - there's two slave resources and two ivory resources right there, and a bunch of sugar and stuff on the Nile proper. For almost all of the Catholic nations, these are rare resources far away from their home capitols, and worth quite a lot of money per turn.

[@michaelmuller6890]

I do to some degree agree with your considerations on merchants far away. but there is one thing missing: they do not have to be "idle" on their way to the target resource. You can try to do the way by having them end their turn on a resource on the way whenever possible. If you are western european and target at the silk around constantinople, you can often use the nearby grain for the last step, for example.

[@chofa135]

2 years later but im here and I wanna say. First, sorry about my english hope you understand. Second, you are totally right about your way of playing the game because you just wanna win the campaing the fastest as posible. But I think the majority of players "im assuming and myself incluyed" just want to have fun using a faction and his own army "of course mercenaries are a valuable add to the army" But I have more fun if I train my army slow and atack a full stack of the enemy looking for a Epic Battle or siege using the advantages of my unique faction vs the advantages of the enemy faction. As you said: There is no wrong way to play this game, only play at your own pace. For example I dont like fire weapons because this game is MEDIEVAL total war, so I try to win before everyone got handgunners. Mercenary crowsbowmen are op as hell 💪🏻 Thanks if you reach this point and keep having fun with the total war series 😘

[@MoonDoon]

finally getting un-merchant pilled all these years later

[@dgmetaxa]

I'm gonna assume that we're not "save-scumming" in a pro-strat campaing. A lovely choise of words :)

[@lionelhutz5137]

*my assassin confronts greedy bastard merchant stealing my gold by Ragusa* Merchant: "You here to negotiate with us?..."

[@RobertPotrie]

You already know about the merchant stacking "feature" and that's the only time I've ever found them useful.

[@maximinomorgado2150]

However you wanna play medieval 2, thats up to you. Loving the content here Legend.

[@merlball8520]

The first thing to build in every province are roads, then trade buildings, then upgrade town guard buildings, then town hall/mayor's palace buildings. Upgrading farming should only be done first at the smallest settlements and castles. Only upgrade them in cities after roads, trade, town guard, and town halls. Send out 3 diplomats asap to secure trade rights and alliances and map info with every faction as quickly as possible. With this approach trade income magnifies and far outpaces income gained from upgrades to farming, and population growth will keep up just fine. Also, obviously build churches in clusters when your cash flow allows for it. Try to have a general present and their chivalry score will go up. Generals with high chivalry scores make populations grow faster. Having at least a couple such generals is useful for plopping on either low population towns or castles. If such a general is placed on Toulouse or Hamburg or Corinth or Bran or Toledo early, you can end up with a fortress rather early in the game and start churning out dismountrd feudal knights and other superior troops long before opposing factions and it makes either a rush attempt or a long game much easier.

[@J0krswy1d]

I was watching your live stream today (12/9/20) and asked why you had so many mages as high elves. Someone answered, which led me to that vid of yours correcting Spiff. Somewhere in those was mentioned merchants in Medieval 2, which led me here. Very good watch! Reinforces what I've always thought.. build up your infrastructure.

[@stevoboh]

The only time I have found Merchants to be worth their weight is in the crusades campaign for Byzantine and Antioch. Having a stream of Merchants running into the NE corner of the map for the gold and silver can yield very high and consistent income for the early game.

[@MegaKossak]

I would argue roads are more important (dirt roads especially: cheap, quick to build and they greatly improve your army's movement and trade) after that, churches if you need public order, then land clearance.

[@TheGeoCheese]

sure they can be but farms provide more growth and more growth means more cash. Farms, ports, town halls, and then roads. All this while carving the campaign up.

[@leofwulf268]

And churches give public order bonus for health And I think that's tied to population growth Not to mention extra priest if you need to convert your settlements or free pope rep

[@BarneyFife1776]

Old video, but I appreciate you making is as I'm about to play the SS mod and need to refresh my memory on how to build up my economy!

[@absoluteinfinity1197]

man awesome this is teaching me alot. I never knew the details with merchants but I just observed that you get results way faster and more reliable by building other buildings like farms or ports. one reason i didn't recruit much merchants is also that its a risk and another factions merchant can overthrow them and boom you loose lets say 500 florins (plus your enemy merchant got some traits)

[@zaatas]

If you are coming from the simple, win fast as possible, use as much as cheese as possible, stomp the poor AI ruthlessly angle then you probably won't give merchants any high priority. It still gives some benefit later on whenever your empire gets large enough. You end up with trade rich resource regions far from your capital. So it becomes a boost in the mid game to improve your coffers with little effort. Those merchants will still help you push out a few extra units. Starting location also really makes a huge impact. If you play one of the factions in Iberia, Timbutku isn't that far away and you can take it easy with a lone spare general. You don't even really have to rush it either, getting it by turn 30-40 is still a huge boon to your economy. Another instance where merchants can be helpful is when you get sent on an early crusade. For example, you are playing England and get sent to take Antioch at turn 40. There are like 15+ good trade nodes in reasonable distance to Antioch. Merchants are one of the best ways of mitigating the pain of holding split kingdoms. Even if you are making the blitz argument that it takes a recruitment slot, most far away cities you conquer will not have any compatible roster units. You end up not being able to make units for 2-3 turns anyways. In these scenarios you might as well take a small glance around the map to look for some trade opportunities. Its not a bad investment in every situation. The things that I don't like about them is getting poor ones with negative stats, which tends to happen more often with merchants recruited far away from your capital. Also dealing with other merchants. That's why Timbutku is the dream land. Because its very rare that an AI merchant gets sent there unless the AI owns it. I think just not using them ever is the wrong strategy, I'm sure I could easily point out parts in your campaigns when building a merchant would have been the right move to play min/maxxy if you trying to make the most fruit for your labor argument. But it is extremely easy to avoid this mechanic and still succeed. It just gives you extra options that help spice up play mainly.

[@Snoil]

One thing wrong is that you are comparing the effect on trade of the early game grain merchant building from turn 1 (adds 9 gold/turn in this video's case), with 0 trade agreements, and the game-start minimum amount of sea trade/ports. That number goes up very quickly as both you and the AI build ports, and also as you acquire trade agreements... or even just simply adding more territories of your own via conquest that have more lucrative routes. So the return is way way faster than 60 turns. On top of that, the additional gain over break-even continues going up the longer the game. For instance some of the tech breakthroughs that occur boost certain trade types, warehouses/dockyards get built, etc. Is the fastest route to victory spamming armies and sacking for florins? Of course! Most of us can do a Grand Campaign long version in 80 turns or less I'm pretty sure. Playing as Turkey you can win in 60 turns very easily on any difficulty as I am sure you and most viewers know also. But for a leisurely roll through the map, where you get to use at least some mid-game, if not late game units, the trade buildings pay off quite nicely. Additionally, the merchants if you use them (you're spot on that they are not necessary to win, in fact no agents are), make the investment even more lucrative even if they only average a lowly 100 florins/turn over say a 70 turn lifespan. and it's very easy to average more than that as well. Love the channel and will keep coming back to watch 8>D

[@HunterPhenomMakoy]

Sometimes when moving the merchant far you can land on a resource on each movement and always make something.

[@MachinegunnerMugZ]

8:50 the chance of acquiring merchant is only 40% because he is positioned inside his faction territory. On your faction territory the chance of acquiring same merchant is going up to 64%. This is a game mechanics not AI cheats.

[@fordyce8386]

I tried that with a foreign merchant on my territory, I had 4 points and he had 2. I tried save scumming and 2/3 of the times it failed, and the asset acquiring rate was still below 50%.

[@MachinegunnerMugZ]

@@fordyce8386 It's totally fine if a foreign merchant had any traits/retinue bonuses or if you are playing other than vanilla game mode.

[@fordyce8386]

Yeah, I'm not disagreeing, just giving my opinion from experience. Cause from recent and past, It's been like that on vanilla GC and SS for me.

[@themarco6507]

I have a few merchants as Venice that bring in more than whole cities. And I like the little minigame

[@elyastoohey6621]

The merchant has saved my campaign in the welsh Britannia campaign. Considering you are making no money. Especially as the “uprisings” happen. And England is still very powerful on your border the merchant keeps you profit and loss per turn in the positive. The merchant also offers for players, who aren’t sure of the A.I’s typical action priorities, information on when the enemy is about to attack. When the enemy is about to attack, their merchants often turn hostile to yours.

[@InceyWincey]

You missed one, you get a small bonus if you own the region, and a slightly bigger bonus if you don’t but you have trade rights with the owner of the region. I don’t mind a merchant or two, they pay for a couple of extra units, but only once you’re established, and only if you’re settling in for a long campaign. They’re very useful if you’re trying not to get excommunicated because you fight so much less that you don’t need to prioritise literally anything else more than them.

[@saenes6295]

Yesss! I must admit LTW, i'd love to see more of this content if you feel like you like making these tutorial videos! I always use merchants in my medieval 2 games, my excuse was; Stacking money, If you manage to crank out a couple of merchants, say 6 early on after your inital conquests, depending where you put em, if you manage to get 6 of em on a 20 or 25 florins tile as example (or beter) early on, 6x25 = 150 florins. Multiply 150 florins by turns, 150x10 turns = 1500. So if i could get this contínuos investment, assuming that i ain't getting haggled by other merchants. Every 10 turns i should get 1500 Florins or better depending on where i put the merchants. With that money i could crank out a extra Army with money gained from them, or hire some mercs. To potentialy sack another settlement. In the long term it might be usefull. But then i guess after watching this video if you don't waste making em you can get a few more units and sack more.

[@strykar4744]

Nice video, a guide for first 20-40 turns for all the TW games would certainly be very helpful. Just a suggestion :) Also, I do agree with the point that the lack of administrative info + building limitations in the new games is very irritating.

[@fenrir7878]

I like the Merchant more so for role playing reasons and I always do a lot economic development which is slow, but yea, they can be ineffective if they cost 500 florin and you trade goods for a few dozen florin per turn.

[@MaximusOfCaceres]

Merchants are very usefull, but only with some factions: 1.Moors - (you can use Merchants with Portugal and Spain to get to Timbuktu), with other factions it's just not worthy cause you will lose a lot of time, need to use ships), if you make a fort at gold mine and have good merchants you can have more than 10k florins per turn 2. Egypt - you have a lot of good positions near Antioch, Alexandria, Baghdad, Mosul, but not as good ad Timbuktu reagion 3. Byzantium Emprire - you have good postions near Constantinople and you can use Antioch reagion Important thing to point out is that is merchant income is higher as distance to capital is longer, the best way to use Merchants is to play as Christian faction, take Jerusalem in a Crusade and then take all the positions with merchants (Alexandria, Antioch, Mosul, Baghdad, Constantinole, Nicea, Aleppo) and make 15k per turn, or even more. There are 2 ways i play M2TW campaigns, one way is more peaceful, economic, cultural etc. and then i do use merchants a lot, and the other way is complete total war, attacking every faction that is bordering me, expanding like a maniac, after some time i get to the point where i can take 5 settlemenst in 1 turn, or even more, and i prefer the 1st way to play.

[@Nonya969]

You can build a merchant network up over the course of 100 turns to +10k per turn, but it takes a fair bit of continual management so I get what you’re saying 100%

[@SolarpunkEnjoyer]

21:27 The very definition of Raubwirtschaft (plunder or rapine economy in German).

[@opusa]

Maybe I have overheard it but a very important point is: if you have to acquire a merchant for 500 gold in Vanilla, this merchant has to make from his trade 500 Gold for you before he gets profitable. So if it takes you 5 Rounds just to make the first 500 Gold with a Merchant, you are making a profit at round 6 after buying the Merchant. Then you have to add how many turns your merchant needs to get to the resource on top. In the end it could take you 10 Rounds just to turn a profit on a Merchant. If your merchant, you bought, gets bought out by opponents before he turned a profit, it's an instant net loss.

[@sligacheese6470]

Im playing as the Scott’s and it’s cool. Great game.

[@2SSSR2]

I agree with Legend. I usually go Conquer and develop route and I get Merchants with extra cash I get. They do have their worth, but you must really invest in them to be effective. And in early game that is not good idea. Best to conquer, establish basic economy, forge center of your Empire and only them start investing in Merchants, only if limited. They are good later on to bring extra 10 to 15k once you send several really good Merchants to gather resources. And of course, once you get Merchant HQ and high level trade post you will have high level Merchants that can earn 300 or 500 at the start.

[@MrMaxence1]

Merchants only generate a lot of coin in Darth Mod, they’re useless in vanilla or stainless steel Keep going Legend, you’re doing great 👍🏼

[@GermanConquistador08]

Thinking about history, economics, geography and agriculture - All of this makes total sense. Entrepreneurial Trade is at best a Late-game/Late-Period endeavor. A King in 1080 would absolutely be more interested, in most places, in building a new farm before new market, but a King in 1454 might have other ideas.

[@nugsnjugs9954]

I only really used merchants as Morocco because the gold gave like 250 gold per plot and really never contested

[@the_rover1]

put a single peaseant onto that gold spot and invite a dozen more merchants to that party. moors gonna be rich as rothschild family!

[@ЯковН-ю9х]

Can keep it in myself everytime when i see M2TW review/gameplay saying this - i love Medieval Total War

[@ruerua1589]

Remember in the early legend video of Medieval 2 explicit guide provided the merchant encampment method. So now i'm just stacking them in one of the kinda far away city's explored mine or something. They can still make a few hundred to supply another few unit without bothering much.

[@hubristicmystic]

Thanks for this I learned - delay markets merchants until population is high, mines and crops instead, use mercenaries early, so cool! You feel unlucky with dice rolls because you remember when it goes bad and forget when it goes well. P. S. I feel so judged for being a scum saver

[@rudamachoo]

trade rights via diplomacy also affects resource price. the dyes were worth less in egypt not only because of what you explained, but also because you didn't have trade rights with them. not sure about the exact number, but there's a multiplier there as well =). it's more noticeable on mods, where resources are worth even more (like in stainless steel). cheers legend

[@FumblsTheSniper]

There’s something about just looking at this game map that makes me happy.

[@elliotchinneryhinks8554]

It all comes down to well rounded common sense, the early builds of any strategy game with an economic element to it are all about population growth and infrastructure, this video is a great way of showing ignorant people who message moaning about merchant hate you don't actually hate the merchants it's just all about common sense, unfortunately it's a rare thing. I love the dynamics of this game and although the merchants are only well established financially late game i really enjoy sending them all over acquiring other merchant assets and resources and so on it's very immersive. I find them a really cool addition.

[@skyrim654]

To ME. Medieval 2 TW IS the best of the series.

[@georgeiv6925]

Spice in aleppo is a very valuable source of income early game as east roman empire. You get to 350-450 per turn quite fast. Calaphates is 6 turns away from spices. When antioch is reached just train enough merchants to trade sugar cotton and spices. Best trading income comes from timbuktu, if u play any of iberian factions you just get tons of money. Colonial products are another matter.

[@ryang58]

Merchants are like women in the workforce. It's been around for ages (Just like Merchant in the start game) but they haven't been really useful until recently (the late game: ie, Merchant in the new world post-turn 80)

[@Elephantstonica]

ryang58 Nonce are we?

[@Fopalope]

This is so needlessly edgy

[@zakback9937]

And the New world is soo far late in the game, that you have already finished the game long ago.

[@hernandogaribaldi8627]

>The gay community.

[@Anilomu]

Playing as the Byzantine Empire and talking about those pesky merchants, oh man this gives me flashbacks.

[@ThatOliveMrT]

At least in stainless steel I've seen high level rebel merchants camp on gold. Pulling like $1.2k a turn and most factions can't hope to muscle them over unless you happen to have a merchant guild. Even at the Byzantines my economy can do without. Unless you know where the good stuff is you're better off spamming four diplomats to get trade rights with everyone before turn 20. Instant $5k a turn before the AI inevitably of starting a war

[@googleistdoof6656]

There is one strategy you are maybe missing; Merchants don't make a lot of cash, need micromanaging and time and are a bit broken, granted. But most broken mechanics can be turned against the AI. Build one merchant (more likely a few) and nurse them up to 6-8 XP in a safe spot (granted, this may take you 20 turns). Now take a weak merchant as honeypot and put him on a resource in say, northern Italy. All the AI merchants will zero in on him because the AI always knows where your units are. Snipe them with your 8XP merchs. This brings coin in your purse but worse it ruins the AI economy of potentially *all* factions; They keep building shitty merchants and that really drains their coffers. I decided for myself that this cripples the AI so badly that it qualifes as exploit; We all know the AI doesn't really need help to cripple their economy as it is.

[@firstnamelastname489]

But they're AI nations. They can still field 10 full stacks with only 1 gold in their coffers.

[@googleistdoof6656]

Not in vanilla.

[@striderfox71]

If you can grab the holy lands, your prime to exploit the spices, ivory, and slave trade. 4 resources of ivory and slaves located in the far south of the map easily gives you almost 800 to 900 gold with low teir merchants and then sky rockets with time. Spices are located through out the middle east and are worth the effort to exploit with your merchants.

[@desnicar]

I've read a bunch of merchants gathered up in Constantinople and decided to open the gates in 1453. Turkish bombards can't melt Constantinople stone. Never forget.