Merchant skill/how to save lots of medals (updated)
Mar 19, 2015 4:07:16 GMT
via mobile
Napoleon Bonaparte likes this
Post by saltin on Mar 19, 2015 4:07:16 GMT
In the 1st pic a campaign item store is selling a defense flag at the price of 790 medals, if you use a merchant skill the price is reduced to 632 medals.You just saved 158 medals on a single transaction (eventually you will need many items,even spare ones)
The second set of pictures shows the effect of the merchant skill on a town buying and selling of ressources,notice the price difference is a factor of 3 with a without a merchant. No merchant=300% price increase!
Is it worth spending lots of medals to upgrade to a 5 stars merchant general? Is it even worth it bothering with the merchant skill at all?
As is often the case, it depends on how and what you use your general for,but I think for many players the short answer is Yes to both questions. First of all there are several merchant trainers and one of them is like 3xx medals so if you upgrade one of your generals from say a 3 stars to 5 stars you would spend like 700 medals for a 10% discount (5% discount on buying and selling per stars)
Merchant skill is one of the cheapest skill you can upgrade in EW4 so just refresh a few times (massive amount of unit kills required to be able to refresh often,like 1 dead unit generate 1% refresh) and wait untill you find the general with the right price. So..if you want to finish the campaigns without spending too much RL money you have to do 2 things (besides good in game tactics), one is have a good selection of the best items and two is to have *levelled* generals.In the latter part of the campaigns low rank/nobility generals just get obliterated/massacred/crushed/stomped and then diced and sliced :-D. ..well you get the idea,this is because the AI starts to have lots more of units and lots of strong (in health and regen) generals,and you find yourself outnumbered and outranked and outgunned..not to mention out-ressourced. You might ask yourself what has this to do with merchant skill??
Well it's all related.Let's look at:
## Items:
Without a merchant general you will waist lots of medals everytime you buy and sell an item.The 5 stars merchant can buy and sell items at the *same* price.This means you can buy an item,use it for a while then sell it back without loosing any medals,do this in the campaign store not the HQ. This is almost like a bug or a cheat really.I have bought, used and resold almost *every * item in the game and never lost a single medal,except for the items that I really liked and kept.You can do the same too! often time I buy just to test for a while ,but I also needed to buy and sell every time I upgraded like going from +2 to +4 gun and then again from +4 to +6.Remember the game won't let you buy the best items right away (except in the over priced HQ) as you are forced to sell weaker items in other to upgrade when you find the better versions.
## Levelling generals:
Getting your generals to max or near max rank and nobility is extremely tedious and quiet a bit boring too since you have to grind a lot (see my other guide on an example/method of griding) so ..if you want to do it free_and still keep your sanity intact_ you gonna need the leveling items like the "crown" and the "on war" and guess what ? Stuff like the crown cost 9xx medals each.So with a discount/merchant general you can buy these items cheaper,train your generals for a few days or weeks and then sell the items back and get ALL your medals back as if you never bought anything at all! Without a merchant you would loose hundreds or even thousands of medals depending how much you buy/sell.
Notes:
1/You can also use a 5 stars merchant to facilitate some missions in campaigns or conquest games.Even better it was reported as a way to help get the last 2 princess.A good combo: econ general+merchant skill,like the princess Fatima.An optional economic book could also be used.
2/This buying and selling at same price method doesn't work in HQ ,you can only do this in campaign stores.If you decide you want an item bad enough to buy from HQ you will have to pay an extra (estimated) 25% premium.
3/Finally keep in mind that only consumables like med kits/wine/etc..refresh and are available again everytime you exit and re-enter a campaign,the rest of the items do *NOT* refresh.So you don't usually want to sell an item untill you are sure you are done using it,although even then you might still be able to buy it again from a different campaign store eventually.
4/Campaigns gold stars (not to be confused with skill stars,or experience stars or nobility stars,or campaign award of 5 stars for the perfect mission...hell can't the game have more imagination and use something other than stars?) :
The large gold stars in campaigns(lets call them upgrade stars as they are not the same as skill stars) are used to upgrade units,and you can buy and sell these at the same price of 4 medals each with a 5 stars merchant (4 stars merchant would still pay 5 medals for these). In that way you can sell all your upgrade stars at a good price if you don't need them or buy them back and even add more and upgrade your units if you decide to do so .
Ok,that's the long and short of it. Happy buying and selling!
The second set of pictures shows the effect of the merchant skill on a town buying and selling of ressources,notice the price difference is a factor of 3 with a without a merchant. No merchant=300% price increase!
Is it worth spending lots of medals to upgrade to a 5 stars merchant general? Is it even worth it bothering with the merchant skill at all?
As is often the case, it depends on how and what you use your general for,but I think for many players the short answer is Yes to both questions. First of all there are several merchant trainers and one of them is like 3xx medals so if you upgrade one of your generals from say a 3 stars to 5 stars you would spend like 700 medals for a 10% discount (5% discount on buying and selling per stars)
Merchant skill is one of the cheapest skill you can upgrade in EW4 so just refresh a few times (massive amount of unit kills required to be able to refresh often,like 1 dead unit generate 1% refresh) and wait untill you find the general with the right price. So..if you want to finish the campaigns without spending too much RL money you have to do 2 things (besides good in game tactics), one is have a good selection of the best items and two is to have *levelled* generals.In the latter part of the campaigns low rank/nobility generals just get obliterated/massacred/crushed/stomped and then diced and sliced :-D. ..well you get the idea,this is because the AI starts to have lots more of units and lots of strong (in health and regen) generals,and you find yourself outnumbered and outranked and outgunned..not to mention out-ressourced. You might ask yourself what has this to do with merchant skill??
Well it's all related.Let's look at:
## Items:
Without a merchant general you will waist lots of medals everytime you buy and sell an item.The 5 stars merchant can buy and sell items at the *same* price.This means you can buy an item,use it for a while then sell it back without loosing any medals,do this in the campaign store not the HQ. This is almost like a bug or a cheat really.I have bought, used and resold almost *every * item in the game and never lost a single medal,except for the items that I really liked and kept.You can do the same too! often time I buy just to test for a while ,but I also needed to buy and sell every time I upgraded like going from +2 to +4 gun and then again from +4 to +6.Remember the game won't let you buy the best items right away (except in the over priced HQ) as you are forced to sell weaker items in other to upgrade when you find the better versions.
## Levelling generals:
Getting your generals to max or near max rank and nobility is extremely tedious and quiet a bit boring too since you have to grind a lot (see my other guide on an example/method of griding) so ..if you want to do it free_and still keep your sanity intact_ you gonna need the leveling items like the "crown" and the "on war" and guess what ? Stuff like the crown cost 9xx medals each.So with a discount/merchant general you can buy these items cheaper,train your generals for a few days or weeks and then sell the items back and get ALL your medals back as if you never bought anything at all! Without a merchant you would loose hundreds or even thousands of medals depending how much you buy/sell.
Notes:
1/You can also use a 5 stars merchant to facilitate some missions in campaigns or conquest games.Even better it was reported as a way to help get the last 2 princess.A good combo: econ general+merchant skill,like the princess Fatima.An optional economic book could also be used.
2/This buying and selling at same price method doesn't work in HQ ,you can only do this in campaign stores.If you decide you want an item bad enough to buy from HQ you will have to pay an extra (estimated) 25% premium.
3/Finally keep in mind that only consumables like med kits/wine/etc..refresh and are available again everytime you exit and re-enter a campaign,the rest of the items do *NOT* refresh.So you don't usually want to sell an item untill you are sure you are done using it,although even then you might still be able to buy it again from a different campaign store eventually.
4/Campaigns gold stars (not to be confused with skill stars,or experience stars or nobility stars,or campaign award of 5 stars for the perfect mission...hell can't the game have more imagination and use something other than stars?) :
The large gold stars in campaigns(lets call them upgrade stars as they are not the same as skill stars) are used to upgrade units,and you can buy and sell these at the same price of 4 medals each with a 5 stars merchant (4 stars merchant would still pay 5 medals for these). In that way you can sell all your upgrade stars at a good price if you don't need them or buy them back and even add more and upgrade your units if you decide to do so .
Ok,that's the long and short of it. Happy buying and selling!
) and Gazan (Arty trainer that I will use on Sophia, when I have medals for new useful trainer). In how many turns I should complete a conquest in order to have a shot at Isabela (when I have completed more campaigns, of course)?
