Great Merchant!

[Ayrton Senna]

Hello,

Im playing Civ IV (Warlords) for about a year or 1,5. Currently im playing at emperor level with Hyana Capac.

The reason why i always play with him is because he is Industrious and Financial. So building wonders and the Forge is easy and commerce is better because most of the time you get 1 commerce for free.

His Unique Unit, Quecha, I love the most! With his 100 % bonus vs Archers, you can keep the barbarians away. Plus they are the cheapest unit available and you don't have to invest in Archers or stuff.

I recently found out the next strategie:

Build The Great Lighthouse and The Colossus. Both wonders generate extra commerce and are relatively cheap(Industrious remember?). But they also generate the Great Merchant. Most people hate the guts of that guy, but give the man a big hug.

The special trick is to use the Caravan. In most of my games i get a 4-6 great merchants (with 2 fingers in my nose) and they generate 1100-1900 gold each if you send them on a great holiday to a far far away land ;-)!

To my opinion this is the more easiest way to hold your economy up and running, especially in the hard game of emperor.

But...

What to do with al the money?
I use it for keeping the tax low and the science high.
But maybe someone has other ideas?

And then how to win the game?

I hope for some nice discussion,

Ayrton Senna

 

[vanatteveldt]

for the first couple merchants, consider settling rather than trade mission. Probably, the trade mission won't be so valuable as you don't have intercontinental contacts, while the money starts coming in immediately and doesn't stop. Moreover, the 1 food (times #merchants) can really help grow your city even bigger...

 

[FlyinJohnnyL]

Early merchants can make for an interesting bulbing path, just to do something different if nothing else. I'd agree with Van though, settling early merchants (especially in a holy city/future wall street) is probably the best bet. The caravan really comes into it's own in the mid-game when you wanna mass upgrade a bunch of CR2/3 maces into Riflemen or something like that.

 

[Ignorant Teacher]

@Ayrton:

Spoiler :

Vai, Rubinho!!!

 

[Freedom]

I would say the best uses for a great merchant are : 1.) trade mission to upgrade obsolete troops for an upcoming war or 2.) sid's sushi. Perhaps the best corp in the entire game. Population is power!

That early in the game I'm not sure what I'd do with one. I would probably save one or even two for a golden age and then 1 more for upgrades and then finally sid's sushi.

Although on second thought a settled great merchant is almost like a free gold mine that could support an extra couple cities in early REX. Really depends I guess.

 

[Fluxx]

new bulb paths are really what makes GM's interesting.

You can bulb Currency in 1000-500 BC

After that you can run merchant specalists for more GM's!!!I bulbed Economics once with a GM, was ironic

 

[Sian]

hmm ... appear that you use HC as a crutch (based merely on the fact that you say you allways plays him) ... go play some others

 

[Shurdus]

hmm ... appear that you use HC as a crutch (based merely on the fact that you say you allways plays him) ... go play some others

+1. If you need to play him then perhaps you should consider going monarch with another leader and see if you can improve.

Using the money from a GM in order to get some huge amount of cash to upgrade your pre-produced troops with can be pretty powerful. Upgrading trebs to cannons costs 110 gold each so a GM is great for this. This will give your power a huge boost and against longbows this pretty much secures a victory in war.