The Merchant is an agent type in Medieval II: Total War, recruited in grain exchange (or their next level buildings). Merchants is limited per trade buildings(one Merchant for one trade building).
Introduction[]
The Merchant's main purpose is to trade resources on the map. Merchants increase settlement trade income. The higher the merchant's Finance skill, the higher the income from resources. Merchants can remove other faction's merchants, and in doing so they earn some money and increase their Finance skill.
Trading monopoly[]
A trading monopoly seems to be defined as- your merchant is trading a resource in a region that has two or more instances of that resource, and the other instance(s) of that resource are not being traded by any other faction's merchants (though his factions other merchants can). This can be tested this by hovering over the resource with a merchant selected, and a trade monopoly will yield about twice as many florins as trading the resource regularly.
Merchant Ancillaries[]
| Name | Building required | Chance % | Effect | How to obtain |
| Caravan Driver | Caravan Stop | 50 | +25% MovementPoints AND +1 LineOfSight | Agent Created |
| Merchant Clerk | Alchemy School | 50 | +1 Finance | Agent Created |
| Counterfeiter | Alchemists Lab | 15 | +1 Finance | Agent Created |
| Caravan Driver | Caravan Stop | 10 | +25% MovementPoints AND +1 LineOfSight | End turn in settlement |
| Trick Abacus | No Town Hall in settlement | 5 | +1 Finance | Agent Created |
Caravan Driver only transferable ancillary. If the merchant gets too old, transfer to younger merchant . Some bad skilled merchant should be placed in settlement with Caravan Stop to gain ancillary for all merchants in faction.
Merchant traits and gaining trade skill[]
| Traits good | Max level | Level and effect | How to get |
|---|---|---|---|
| GoodMerchant | 4 | +1(1)/+2(2)/+3(4)/+4(8) Finance | A merchant gets a point in GoodMerchant each time he successfully acquires another merchant. Antitrait BadMerchant. |
| SecureMerchant | 2 | +1(1)/+2(3) Finance | A merchant gains a point in SecureMerchant with 50% probability if he suffers an acquisition attempt. |
| SecurityMerchant | 2 | +1(1)/+2 AND -1(3) PersonalSecurity AND Finance | A merchant gains a point in SecurityMerchant with 50% probability if he suffers an assassination attempt. |
| Monopolist | 3 | +1(5)/+2(10)/+3 AND -1(20) Finance AND PersonalSecurity | At the end of any turn, a merchant gains one point in Monopolist if he has a trading monopoly. |
| LegalDealer | 2 | +1/+2 Finance | A merchant gains first level in LegalDealer on creation with 50% probability if he is created in a settlement with a town hall or better. If he gains first level, and the settlement has a city hall or better, he possibly gains second level with 33% probability. Antitrait ShadyDealer. |
| WorldlyMerchant | 2 | +1(1)/+2(3) Finance | At the end of any turn in which a merchant has a distance to capital greater than 40 and ends his turn on a resource, a merchant gains a point of WorldlyMerchant with 20% probability. |
| NaturalMerchantSkill | 3 | +1/+2/+3 Finance | A merchant gains a first level of NaturalMerchantSkill on creation. Then he have chance to gain second level with 50% probability, and if he gains second level, he has chance to gain third level with 33% probability. This makes the probabilities 1(50%), 2(33.3%), 3(16.7%). |
| MerchantsGuildMember | 1 | +1 Finance | Notably, it seems the game designers forgot to include "Merchant's Guild Journeyman" as the second level of this, if they wanted the agents to be consistent. A merchant gains a point in MerchantsGuildMember on creation if the faction has a Master Merchant's Guild or better, and another point if the faction has a Grandmaster Merchant's Guild. |
| MerchantsGuildTrained | 1 | +1 Finance | A merchant gains a point in MerchantsGuildTrained on creation if he is trained in a settlement with a Merchant's Guild or better. |
| Traits bad | Max level | Level and Effect | How to get |
|---|---|---|---|
| BadMerchant | 3 | -1(2)/-2(3)/-3(6) Finance | A merchant gains a point in BadMerchant with 33% probability each time he fails to acquire another merchant. Antitrait GoodMerchant. |
| MerchantEnemies | 3 | -1(2)/-2(3)/-3(6) PersonalSecurity | A merchant gains a point of MerchantEnemies with 25% probability on a successful acquisition. |
| ExoticTastes | 3 | -1(2)/-2(3)/-2 AND -1(6) Finance AND PersonalSecurity | No triggers, impossible to get(BUGGED). |
| ShadyDealer | 2 | -1(1)/-2(3) Finance | A merchant gains a point in ShadyDealer on creation with 50% probability if he is created in a settlement with no town hall or better. If he gains this point, he gains two more points with 33% probability.. Antitraits ReligiousMerchant, LegalDealer. |
| ReligiousMerchant | 2 | -1(1)/-2(3) Finance | A merchant gains a point of ReligiousMerchant on creation with 50% probability if he is created in a settlement with a cathedral or better in a region that has more than 80% of the faction's religion. If he gains this point, he gains an additional two points with 33% probability. Antitrait ShadyDealer. |
| ServesSelfMerchant | 2 | -1(1)/-2(3) Finance | At the end of any turn in which a merchant has a distance to capital greater than 60 and ends his turn on a resource, he gains a point of ServesSelfMerchant with 3% probability. |
Merchants don't gain more than 10 Finance skill. Some traits in the tables have numbers in brackets: this denotes how many points one needs to raise that skill (for example, to get Good Merchant to the third level, one needs very least 4 successful Acquisition missions in a row without fail). Antitraits mean that they can replace one trait with another. An example would be if a Merchant successfully completes Acquisition missions and gains GoodMerchant, but then fails spying three times in a row, GoodMerchant is removed and the Merchant now gains first level of BadMerchant.
Strategy and tips[]
Early game recruit merchants in towns with Town Hall, so that they won't get bad traits. If playing Moors then in settlements with Caravan Stop (for 50% ancillary Caravan Driver). Late game recruit merchants in settlement with master merchant guild and city hall. Don't recruit in cities with cathedral, or you'll have a chance of getting bad traits.
To maximise Finance you must Acquisition other faction merchants or/and trade monopoly in distance from capital from 40 to 60. Merchants have limited ways to get high Finance skill.