Merchants how do they work?

[MANWHATADONGA]

I put merchants on trade resources,some have good income other nil.Do enemy merchants when you take over a provenice become yours.This has happen to me.Thanks for any tips.Watched google on merchants none the wiser.

[General Idea]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-CWtD-vk5lA

[Menthalla]

I'm not quite sure myself yet, but I've already figured it out. Merchants will generate income if you put them on tradable goods, the income varies by source (right click gives the info). You can also click on a rival merchant to see if an enemy takeover makes sense to take their goods/trade route). You can also put them on elephants and camels, so that mercenaries with elephants and camels become available for your own group. When territories are conquered, merchants also come in sometimes, I've noticed, but I don't know yet whether that's the rule.

[J.I.Error]

I would add some basic tips:
1. Further they are, they generate more income.
2. You need trade agreement if they are not on your territory. That means if you at war with a faction and your merchant is on their territory, they won't generate any income.
3. They will never generate any income in the territory of their home town.
4. You don't really need to put them directly on the node, however if you do, they generate a little bit more money (depends on the resource, of course). However, if there are more than 1 merchant in the territory, you will trade only the resource you are standing on.
5. You can hold shift with mouse cursor over a territory to see how profitable for merchant it is.
6. Enemy merchants are great way to train your Assasins. ;)
7. AI doesn't use assasins much but it really like to spam merchants and use hostile takeover against your merchants. I play on VH/VH and it seems that enemy merchants are always better than mine. I don't bother with hostile takeover unless my merchant is at least 3 pips better than enemy target.

Hope it helped little bit and if I messed something up, be sure to call me out. ;)

[suenchai]

merchant is the only reliable way to obtain cutural import related ancillaries. serveal of these ancillaries are very powerful. e.g. MacedonianSymposia + 10% public order.
you can go to export_descr_ancillaries to find out more

[Rhalius]

I tried them one game, then turned them off. It's just as annoying and useless as in Medieval 2 where the AI will always buy them out before they can be any good and the AI always has better merchants than you.

It's just not worth the hassle.

[E]

Originally posted by suenchai:

merchant is the only reliable way to obtain cutural import related ancillaries. serveal of these ancillaries are very powerful. e.g. MacedonianSymposia + 10% public order.
you can go to export_descr_ancillaries to find out more

Sounds nice. Certain ancillaries were always restricted to certain cultures before, looks like you get a chance to import them now.

[Messsucher]

Originally posted by Rhalius:

I tried them one game, then turned them off. It's just as annoying and useless as in Medieval 2 where the AI will always buy them out before they can be any good and the AI always has better merchants than you.

It's just not worth the hassle.

I agree merchants in Medieval were super stupid, but this appears to be not similar in Rome 1 remastered.

[2GenL]

Send them to a settlement far away from the one they were recruited from, garrison them and then they'll trade to boost the income of their home settlement. Can use stand them on top of resources to trade, a box round them appears when you place you mouse over them to show their tile

[komninosm]

Originally posted by Menthalla:

I'm not quite sure myself yet, but I've already figured it out. Merchants will generate income if you put them on tradable goods, the income varies by source (right click gives the info). You can also click on a rival merchant to see if an enemy takeover makes sense to take their goods/trade route). You can also put them on elephants and camels, so that mercenaries with elephants and camels become available for your own group. When territories are conquered, merchants also come in sometimes, I've noticed, but I don't know yet whether that's the rule.

I'm pretty sure most of that is wrong or misleading. Just watch the video linked in the first post by General Idea.