Best use for an early Great Merchant

[Culture Bomb]

In games where you build the Great Lighthouse, there is a very good chance that one of your first great people will be a GM.

So, what do you think is the best way to take advantage of one? (Yes, I know, it depends on the map. .)These are my thoughts...

Bulbing: There are a number of strong techs that can be bulbed by a GM if he appears early enough - Metal Casting, Code of Laws and Currency. These are especially valuable if they can be traded to multiple AIs for more techs. Later on, Paper and Guilds are available as bulbs, but are not as good as if you had a GS to bulb with instead.

Trade Mission: Can give enough gold to run 100% science for a while and get several techs, but limited by the ability to safely get to an AI capital without being attacked by barbarians. Also, having a big pile of gold is likely to result in AIs demanding it in tribute, which you would have to either agree to (and waste the gold) or refuse (and anger your aggressive neighbors.)

Settling: Could be powerful over the course of a game, but in the short term would take a long time to gain as much gold as a trade mission. (More likely to be worth it if you have Pyramids/Representation.)

Golden Age: Unlikely to be the best option at this stage, especially if you think you can get the free GA from Music.

 

[Gumbolt]

Trade route seems logical. 700-900 gold to push science at 100%.

Barb issues??? Do you really get that many barbs by the time the GM has arrived?? T 50-T70+?

Settled can be okay i guess but I would rather have the gold. As for bulbing currency. 550beakers vs 1800 beakers you might get for bulbing a tech like philosophy. Not sure if such a small return is worth it.

Golden age I would save too. Chances are with 800 gold you could power towards music anyway.

 

[Gwynnja]

Trade missions are all I ever use these guys for.

 

[Culture Bomb]

I guess the value of the trade mission also depends on how much you actually gain from running science at 100%. If it's the first GP then you won't have an academy yet and depending on the map might not have many cottages or commerce resources to work, so might not get that many beakers from the slider - though if most of your commerce is from trade routes (GLH) then commerce tiles don't matter so much.

I'm also thinking that if you've built the GLH then it's probably a water-heavy map and bulbing Metal Casting could give you a shot at the Colossus as well, which might be worth it.

 

[plastiqe]

Early on I'd use it for a bulb; Civil Service would be my most likely target.

Early-mid game Trade Mission is suboptimal because of ToA. If you've found the ToA city then likely it's nearby and you won't get much $ from the mission. If you haven't found it then you're not getting the best out of the Trade Mission. Pro tip: don't build Temple of Artemis yourself if you wanna do Trade Missions. Sometimes you'll have met a Civ with a large, far enough away capital but I'd say that's the exception as opposed to the norm.

I'd just look at what my best option for a Trade Mission is, and compare to how many beakers I could get bulbing and decide from there.

 

[MarigoldRan]

You get more from bulbing and then trading with the AIs. Also you have to take into account it takes a lot of turns to move GM to a distant AI location.

 

[enKage]

1) Pangea - trade mission, but rarely build GLH on pangea (except roosevelt)
2) other types - it depends.
a) other civs are not easily reached - bulbing - especiialy MC for Collosus (if financial civ) or currency / CoL - some crucial techs you want to get ASAP and far faster than AIs
b) settling - if your GP farm is in HolyCity, especiialy when managed to oracle own religion and able to get gret prophet early. Additional food from settled GM is extremely powerful in this case. Get a try with Gandhi, vanilla Saladin (even better, as religion acts as espionage) or other philo leader
c) isolated start - a;ways settle. bulbing will not give trade benefits, the only possible bulb is MC making a way to optics easier

Wasting GM for golden age is always a waste unless late game, when GA benefits from wealth overpower trade mission

 

[Ian Kognitow]

Have him lounge around the city for the next millenium to establish Sushi. If a second GM spawns in that time then Golden Age around late Renaissance to speed Lib/Taj or Steel/Rail.

 

[vranasm]

this early mission (if you can get) or settling... if you happen to build Mids too, then it's good start for SSE

 

[GodSendDeath]

I like to bulb him for a monopoly tech if I can get a lot of value from it after I've met multiple AIs. I'll settle him if I'm on an isolated start, which happens a decent amount on the maps where I want to beeline The Great Lighthouse.

 

[Izuul]

I've bulbed Currency a few times with them. The circumstances have been pretty much the same each time I've done it. Built GLH early, attacked with Construction, bulbed Currency with GM to get the economy back on track.

 

[Sun Tzu Wu]

An early Great Merchant should be used to conduct a trade mission. A trade mission with the city with The Temple of Artimes is best, but the wealth received in another city is almost as good. Distance to the trade mission target city has virtually no effect (very early in the game with low population cities - distance doesn't matter below 10 Pop), so the only reason not to do a trade mission is complete isolation. In isolation or even when not, I agreed that saving the Great Merchant for Sid's Sushi is a good idea, assuming that founding this corporation is part of the game winning strategy.

Bulbing Currency with a GM seems somewhat wasteful. There are larger techs it could bulb, especially on smaller maps, where the size of techonologies is much smaller than on larger maps.

Sun Tzu Wu

 

[Strickl3r]

Remember that Civ is a snowball game. A small advantage now most often pays out more than a bigger advantage that comes way later. If you wanne play a corps game with Sushi just win economics
Use the GM early, if you get it early. Bulb Currency is by far better than saving it for Sushi imo. (If isolated with Mids settling might be better though).

In a normal game trade mission early is almost always the best option, even 900 gold is quite a boost.

 

[Sun Tzu Wu]

The best use of an early Great Merchant, depends on one's situation. Using it to bulb Currency only makes sense if one can trade Currency for technologies from several different opponents. This assumes one already has Alphabet and enough AIs know desired technologies such that they are willing to trade them. One is unlikely to have friendly relations with any AI this early in the game, epecially Quick or Normal speed, when one will not have had either peace, open borders or resource trades long enough for any diplomacy bonus from any of these sources. Thus, unlikely to have friendly relations to enable such lucrative technology trades.

It would be far better to get a 2nd Great Scientist to bulb Philosophy later on, when one can easily be friendly with several AIs and get even better technologies in trades. First Great Scientist can construct an Academy, most likely in one's capital.

Other than fairly certain conditions as described above, use of an early Great Merchant will depend highly on the game situation. It is very hard, if not impossible, to make general recommendations.

Sun Tzu Wu

 

[Sun Tzu Wu]

While it is easy to say be 1st to Economics to get the free Great Merchant and use it for founding Sid's Sushi, that only works when that is synergic with one's over all game strategy. One may have to choose between being first to Military Tradition or Economics, especially at Deity level. One's strategy may also depend on generating many Great Scientists or Great Artists and may not want more than one Great Merchant. Thus, one may want to save an early Great Merchant to found Sid's Sushi later in the game.

Sun Tzu Wu

 

[Strickl3r]

Well ok ''one'' might not have a great reward in trading currency, if ''one'' plays lower difficulties.

 

[Yxklyx]

Currency generally costs 400 and a Great Merchant can give ~1300 gold. I'd rather cash in and put the slider at 100%

 

[Manco Capac]

^
To be fair, such value would be seen on lower levels like Prince. Normally, a bulb strategy is used to gain a quick edge, which is often for higher levels where the AI advances faster. And on higher levels, Currency is per experience approx. 630 beakers.

Still, I admit 1300 gold is much better, but that early, one must find the ToA city.

 

[drewisfat]

Worst case scenario, you could trade the gold for techs from the AI and get more beakers out of it that way. Of course we kind of instinctively cringe at that prospect, because trading gold is bad because gold is more valuable, but that reinforces the idea that getting the gold is better. You can run at 100% for a long time and get more out of trades, and use the extra gold to help get the most efficient trades possible.

Settling is never a good idea, and while not using the GM for a long time isn't efficient, still saving it for a later GA would be much better than that option, and might be a good idea if you're isolated.

There's also that neat trick someone showed a while ago about using shift clicks to figure out how much gold each city would give, before going there. I usually end up messing this up though and accidentally moving my GM (I still clearly don't get something here).

 

[Strickl3r]

To be clear. I'm not saying a Currency bulb is better than a trade mission(in most of the cases), but it certainly is better than saving the GP up for a Corp.