Strategy guide

The Merchant's Guide: Aides, Caravans and Your First Fortune

A merchant in Kingdoms of Earth does not click every sale. You build a trading house that works for you. Here is how to get it running.

1. Watch your aides, not every price

Your procurement aide finds profitable goods within reach of your stores, and your marketing aide sells them across nearby towns. Open the Trading House and read their status lines: they will tell you exactly why they are busy or idle.

2. Haulage is the real limit

Early on the bottleneck is not money. Your team can only move so many units a day. A wagon and two draft horses more than double that, and it is usually the best early purchase you can make.

3. Add guards before you lose a shipment

Wholesale goods travel on real roads, and bandits take a share. A security aide with armed men protects what your marketing aide sends out.

4. Use clout at the farms

Horse and cattle farms price you by reputation more than gold. Build your standing, buy in bulk and take credit when you need it, but never miss a due date. After three missed payments they seize your stock.

5. Visit the guild and the vizier

A guild master can arrange cheaper rent, bulk deals and credit. A vizier can grant customs exemptions and army contracts. A refusal costs only a ten-day wait, so keep asking.

Do these five things and your treasury screen starts to look very different.