Merchant based economy

[Shafi]

Of late in most games i play i tend to run merchant specialists (2,3 or more based on how close i am to hapiness / health cap) in most of my commerce cities.
I would use the GP farm for scientists.

I use all of my Great Merchants generated on trade missions + all the gold from the merchants allows me to keep teching at very high % like 80% + throughout the game.

The thing i like is it gives me options - as i can decide to use te gold on research / culture / espionage or warmongering.

Now what i usually see is that most people tend to run a lot of scientists and maybe merchants in only their wall street city.

is it because what i am doing is sub optimal in some way? do any of you use a lot of merchant specialists as well?

 

[DaveMcW]

I would use the GP farm for scientists.

all the gold from the merchants allows me to keep teching at very high % like 80% + throughout the game.

If you used the GP farm for merchants too, you could tech at 100%.

 

[JBossch]

I think whats suboptimal is that, in most games, it is difficult to get a lot of the gold multiplier buildings up early because they are so costly. I often only have a market in my best 1 or 2 commerce cities for quite awhile. Its much easier to get libraries up everywhere. Are you running merchants from building slots or CS?

An alternative would be to just use binary research. If you turn research off for a couple turns you can run science at 100%

 

[Shafi]

Caste System

 

[JBossch]

Caste System

This is the problem, you aren't getting good multipliers. People run scientists because the libraries are multiplying the beakers. Without at least markets you aren't getting the +25%.

 

[mirthadir]

It is not just the multipliers, though I'd also toss in that an academy and Oxford vs WS also is factor there.

The other huge problem is that missions require a good number of turns before you get your payout. Something which greatly decreases the utility of getting the early GP. Likewise it takes time to work the massive spike back into , time during which the AI feels more than free to try to extort ALL of it from you. The time issue cannot be emphasized enough; getting to Lib or Philo first greatly increases the value of your potential trades, getting there second, even though you would theoreticly get SM or Lib before the AI due to superior mid term returns, means you can't do the monopoly trades and that will often more than eat up the difference in raw efficiency.

 

[Yamps]

Merchants are great after Education and Liberalism: Caste scientists for fast Education bulb, slaving grocers and markets in other cities while waiting for that 6th city to build a university, stockpiling gold at 0% science, spending it all when Oxford is up and keeping 100% science with great merchants...

 

[Shafi]

so you guys are saying - that running research at mayb 60% with scientist spcialists in all my cities except maybe the WS city would mean more research - correct?

What about th flexibility i was talking about? is it really a factor or if you need gold for something else do i just drop the research to 0% for a few turns?

yamps - if i get you right i run with scientists until i win lib and then switch to my method including merchants in the GP farm correct?

Thank you all for the assistance!

 

[TheMeInTeam]

It is not just the multipliers, though I'd also toss in that an academy and Oxford vs WS also is factor there.

The other huge problem is that missions require a good number of turns before you get your payout. Something which greatly decreases the utility of getting the early GP. Likewise it takes time to work the massive spike back into , time during which the AI feels more than free to try to extort ALL of it from you. The time issue cannot be emphasized enough; getting to Lib or Philo first greatly increases the value of your potential trades, getting there second, even though you would theoreticly get SM or Lib before the AI due to superior mid term returns, means you can't do the monopoly trades and that will often more than eat up the difference in raw efficiency.

Does this imply that farming and using merchants might actually be better for isolation?

 

[mirthadir]

TMIT:

Isolation is a tricky case. Firstly the value of the early astro bulb run is not to be overlooked. As far as I know, no bulb shot is nearly as powerful nor as early with GM for isolation (as an additional benifit their, the GL allows you to get very good GSc production without going caste; nothing spares you that with merchants). Unless I'm missing the numbers, I don't see how you can use settling or missions to get that huge of a bang for the immediate term pre-optics. Post optics, you are going to hit the same concerns: it takes five to ten turns to get the mission under way (unless you have some screwy caravel chain) and again gets you a risk that you will either lose a good portion of the cash to extortion or face the diplo hit to deny (part of the reason I don't use 0/100 research values with certain diplo situations).

Likewise, in isolation a greater percentage of your early economy is in transition so equavalent multipliers becomes even more disadvantageous.

All that being said, I have had good shots before using isolation merchants, not to offset research, but production. Flipping up to CRII grenades or rifles let's you skimp on serious military production for the early game, but go kill some backwards AI and get mass land to drive home a solid US/FS economy without having to dip into PS, Nat, or even unit building B. Working 4 merchants in your future WS/GPfarm city allows you to get off a war before your production is made decent by US. Power promoting either warriors (no hunting or linked metal), spears (no linked iron) or maces/pike can be viable. Ragnar, obviously owns with this; Izzy does surprisingly well with this also.

Shafi:

Slider is the easiest thing in the game to change. In the current immortal university I dumped my slider several times to 0% in spite of having strong (+75%) science mods against weak (+50%) gold.

The problems that using merchants early have are:
1. It takes time to leverage them back into . You often may get higher net returns by doing the trade mission than bulbing a GSc, but it takes longer to get the returns and inter-civ dynamics makes the absolute efficiency moot.
2. You risk an AI, with whom you need to make nice, demand the cash. Note, some AIs (like wrong religion Monty), you may as well tell to go suck an egg, however getting +1 for some petty cash is an easy way to get to friendly while getting -1 to protect 500 is not so easy.
3. Multipliers matter. Early on (pre-currency) you have +25% on and zilch on . In addition an early academy weights more towards science. Up until banking you normally will have either unis or obs which tends to mean you get a bit more bang out of science.
4. Rep merchants are a mixed output. In order to get full use you need a lib and a market; which is not always a trivial amount of production.

Generally, merch specs are always good in WS (though if you have high slider to , cottages become better) and trade missions ove time become more powerful than GSc Bulbs.

You should always have a plan on to best maximize the individual yields of specs and how to best use the GP generated. Merchants a longer term than scientists for both of the above.

 

[Brian Boru]

Don't forget the other early Science multiplier, Monasteries. 2-3 of those in your Science cities is a serious early boost.

 

[Yamps]

yamps - if i get you right i run with scientists until i win lib and then switch to my method including merchants in the GP farm correct?

Thank you all for the assistance!

The point is Oxford, you'll get the most with 100% science and running merchants in other cities to sustain the slider because by far the highest multipliers and beaker income will be in the Oxford city. GP farm to produce merchants would help too. Wealth building is also often used for that purpose, check out some HoF space games for example.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

2. You risk an AI, with whom you need to make nice, demand the cash. Note, some AIs (like wrong religion Monty), you may as well tell to go suck an egg,

Not necessarily true. Monty and many other AIs are coded such that refusing demands can lead to war (aka trigger it DIRECTLY). If you don't mind that and are expecting war with him anyway, it's fine. If you'd prefer he chose a different target (and he actually has another closer/more viable target), antagonizing him with a refusal is dangerous.

Note that the above does not apply to stoptrades or joinwar requests, only demands for the likes of gold, tech, or resources.

Overall though, what you've said here has been very helpful to me, not so much in terms of the direct strategy but in terms of the line of thought leading to those decisions.

 

[cabert]

I use merchants quite often because I go for currency early.

But I don't use trade missions. It's just too tedious for (very) little return. I use the great merchants for bulbing if it leads to a monopoly of something like metal casting (colossus here I come) or I settle them. 1 food 6 gold for 300 turns, in my wanabee wall street city is good enough for 1 or 2 notches of science slider.
Since I get the Gmerchant from a market, it means I have a market (duh!) so I get really 6*1.25 = 7,5 gold per turn just to begin with. In most cases, in the eraly game you have a hard time getting more than 1000 gold from the trade mission. So it's 130 turns, giving no value to the 1 food. Since you need often 20+ turns just to reach the best target city, I don't think a trade mission is really that great.

side benefits :
- 1 food! it's worth at least half a merchant = 1.5 gold * 1.25. So the base is 7.5 gold * 1.25 = 9.3 gold per turn. If you look again on the return from the trade mission, it's barely around 90 turns. And with the delay (bringing him there), it's more like 60 turns left when you finally get it. (edited, maths in the early morning isn't working out)
- no load of cash an AI can ask for. remember I get currency early. So they CAN ask. If an AI asks for 50 gold, I give in. If it wants 500, I just can't (early game).
- it's now! no waiting for the guy to reach the target=instant economic boost. I know 6 gold isn't 1000, but very often it means going from 40% to 50 or more. this is good enough to get the next tech earlier than you could with the trade mission.

 

[UncleJJ]

- 1 food! it's worth at least half a merchant = 1.5 gold * 1.25. So the base is 9 gold * 1.25 = 11.25 gold per turn. If you look again on the return from the trade mission, it's less than 90 turns. And with the delay (bringing him there), it's more like 60 turns left when you finally get it.

True, and this doesn't take account of Rep beakers, if the Pyramids have been built or captured, and the GPPs. The 1 food from the settled merchant used to feed half of another merchant not only give extra gold but beakers and GPP.

Under ideal circumstances in the early game we get:
Gold: (6 + 1.5) * 1.25 = 9.3
Beakers: (3 + 1.5) = 4.6 base beakers
GPP: 1.5 merchant GPP

Later the Grocer and Bank make the pay back and long term return much more attractive.

The Trade mission is much more effective in the middle and late game. The returns are better and there is by then not enough time for a settled G Merchant to pay back his value. Also the mission can be timed with a troop upgrade and turn 10 macemen with CR promotions into rifles, or whatever, so the 2000 gold or more is not hanging around ready for the AI to demand or even beg.

 

[Divaythsarmour]

I like to settle great merchants in the wall street city. I must have settled 4 of them in a vanilla game I played this weekend (as Tokugawa). I was even settling some great priests there. It's amazing how much income you can generate over time from settled merchants.

I thought about making that city my capitol and running beuraucracy, but didn't do it.

 

[Grey Fox]

I like to settle great merchants in the wall street city. I must have settled 4 of them in a vanilla game I played this weekend (as Tokugawa). I was even settling some great priests there. It's amazing how much income you can generate over time from settled merchants.

Yeah, to compare the value of settling a Great Merchant to the 2100 gold I generally get from their trade mission it "only" takes 117 turns with bank+wall street+grocer+market to gain more from the settled great merchant. And that's not even counting the +1 food, if we count that as half a merchant specialist it will take 94 turns to make those 2100 gold.

I thought about making that city my capitol and running beuraucracy, but didn't do it.

That wouldn't have helped though. Since Bureaucracy only boosts commerce, and Gold != Commerce.

 

[Flying Pig]

I do use merchants heavily, since they cost less food to run and can make a lot of money, but you need to build banks and courthouses to make them work

 

[mirthadir]

Not necessarily true. Monty and many other AIs are coded such that refusing demands can lead to war (aka trigger it DIRECTLY). If you don't mind that and are expecting war with him anyway, it's fine. If you'd prefer he chose a different target (and he actually has another closer/more viable target), antagonizing him with a refusal is dangerous.

Note that the above does not apply to stoptrades or joinwar requests, only demands for the likes of gold, tech, or resources.

Overall though, what you've said here has been very helpful to me, not so much in terms of the direct strategy but in terms of the line of thought leading to those decisions.

Yes, I know. However, many times given the game's geographical/religious dynamics make it painfully obvious that Monty is headed your way. Generally speaking, I prefer to either bribe Monty to go immolate himself against another AI (Hammy, SB, and Toko being my favorites to have him die against) or expect the worst. Normally this also entails not adopting a religion until after Monty's economy starts to tank. There are situations where even if you give in to tribute, you still know the war is coming and 10-15 turns just isn't all that helpful. Sometimes I debate starting the war myself, just to get the AI stack o doom in my borders before some key tech is reached (construction being the biggee and to a lesser extent engineering and machinery); tirggering the war sooner can be downright helpful.

 

[Grey Fox]

I think one of my next games is going to be merchant based. Probably with Elizabeth, cause of the nice traits PHI to generate the specialists, FIN for the cottages/coast etc.
The Bank UB is also nice for this strat. A few great scientists for the commerce cities and then as many great merchants as possible for the Wall Street city to hopefully keep slider up at 100%. Prolly make that city food + National Epic.
Then Oxford in one of the cottage cities, possibly the capital (or move capital to it).
If I build the lighthouse + artemis here I'll get the possible early merchants and even more commerce from trade routes. As long as it doesn't have too much water, and enough room for cottages.