108.3 Great merchant bug

[Ahriman]

I built the great lighthouse, got a great merchant, took it to a city state, used the mission and I got..... 100 gold. Surely that isn't right?

 

[Sneaks]

I think the Gold from the mission is now scaling

 

[EsoEs]

I think the Gold from the mission is now scaling

It does scale so that you get more gold the later you use one. That being said, 100 gold seems terrible and its probably a bug of some kind. As it happens I built the GL in a recent game of mine, I popped the GM in classical and I got about 600 gold if I remember correctly.

 

[Ahriman]

I think the Gold from the mission is now scaling

I think it is fine to scale, but not that low. I guess I should have just settled him.

 

[Thalassicus]

Influence = 40 = 250
Base gold = +100
Era gold = +600 * (era-1)

The formula itself is in the game core; we can adjust those 3 variables.

Ancient = 250 + 100 + 0 = 350
Classical = 250 + 100 + 600 = 950
Medieval = 250 + 100 + 1200 = 1550

Great Merchants scale linearly while Great Scientists scale exponentially. Because of this, either the base gold or influence must be low for it to scale up to Great Scientist levels in late game.

Consider doubling the influence they give. Or consider having them scale in the same proportion to great scientists. If 1 science is supposed to be worth 1 gold, then let the merchant scale all the way up. I find a great merchant would be very useful in the early game, but you can't get one in the early game, because there are no slots until currency (engineer and scientist slots come much earlier). But then over time the scientist scales much faster.

The number range listed in the table is Medieval to Modern, the eras when most great people appear. In the current version of VEM Great Merchants are 2100-3900 in those eras, up from 1500-2400.