This Merchant Life – Useful Tips & Tricks

by Falagar / Articles, Misc. Guides / 08 Sep 2019

Hints & Tips

Increasing rapport with heroes reduces how quickly their morale drops, and thus, how often you have to pay them.

Some fighter types will lose morale more slowly, meaning you don’t need to pay them as often.

You can set fighters and heroes to be automatically paid on the Security sidebar.

Press <SPACE> to toggle game speed between normal fast forward while your cart is traveling.

Exotic goods are only available to buy in a small number of specific settlements.

Your cart’s speed and security rating are reduced overnight, while conceal are increased.

Fighter morale drops more quickly when traveling on dangerous roads.

Cart condition drops more quickly when traveling on lower quality roads.

Travel is especially slow on mountain roads.

Travel is especially dangerous on desert roads.

Increasing your reputation in a town can unlock new locations to visit there!

You can choose between two styles of character portraits in the options menu, accessible from the title screen.

Once unlocked, heroes will sometimes appear for recruitment in taverns.

The higher your cart’s target rating, the higher the chance you will be attacked on the roads.

Carrying more goods will slow your cart down and make it more likely to be attacked.

The lower your cart’s condition, the more its stats will drop—repair on the cart tab in most settlements.

Not all settlements have an apothecary, so watch your health!

Guild houses offer unique bonuses depending on which towns they are established in.

To build a guild house, you first need to reach 60 reputations in a settlement.

Increase reputation in towns by running missions for them, constructing buildings, and exploring events.

Intel unlocks hidden locations in settlements. Earn intel through exploring settlements and specific events.

Factions will reward you with unique cart parts if they favor you enough.

Mouse over settlements on the map screen to see a preview of which goods are particularly cheap and expensive there.

Right-click settlements on the map for more information on them.

Missions become increasingly difficult but also better rewarded as your reputation in a settlement increases.

Heroes will like you more or less, depending on your personality traits—mouse over their rapport for details.

Personality traits can go up or down depending on the choices you make in events.

Specific events making particular goods unusually cheap or expensive appear on the map with a timer.

Some fighters have traits that make them more effective in particular situations.

Earn XP by traveling, selling goods, winning battles, exploring settlements, and through events on the road.

Leveling up unlocks skill points; you can use these to unlock skills on the Skills sidebar. Skills!

You can abandon missions you’re currently engaged in on the Missions sidebar, although it will cost you gold.

Challenge missions pay very well but reduce your cart’s stats until you complete or abandon them.

Losing a battle may fail any missions you were running at the time.

You can see your merchant’s traits on the Profile sidebar.

Improving your relationship with friends can award points towards personality traits and unlock heroes and cart parts!

Sometimes goods that you are carrying can open up specific choices in events, often with positive results!

There is a degree of chance to how certain choices you make in events will play out.

You need to have certain levels of a particular personality trait to become close friends with some people.

To win a battle, you need to defend all directions that the enemy attacks from successfully.

Timber, Hides, and Herbs are generally cheap in Forest region settlements.

Grain, Ale, and Wool are generally found cheaply in Heartlands region settlements.

Iron, Salt, and precious metals are unusually cheap in the Mountains region settlements.

The general price of goods tends to vary a lot between towns in the Desert region.

All goods are especially cheap in one particular settlement.

The more you buy, goods become more expensive in a settlement, although they’ll slowly return to their natural price.

Goods become cheaper in a settlement the more you sell there, although they’ll slowly return to their natural price.

The Tailor location allows you to change your look for a price!

The Kingdom sidebar allows you to see an overview of your reputation and unlocked locations for each settlement in each region.

Heroes earn XP from battles and travel, allowing them to level up over time.

Each hero offers a unique boost to your caravan, which increases as they level up.

Heroes will improve their security, defense, and health ratings as they level up, eventually becoming extremely powerful.

Goods that cost less than the average are shown as green on the market screen within settlements. Red for above average.

A settlement’s stock of goods will replenish over time.

Skills in the Expedience tree are focused around speed, concealment, and fleeing from combat.

Skills in the Heroism tree are focused on cart defense and unlocking more mission slots.

Skills in the Recruitment tree increase the maximum number of fighters in your caravan and the potential quality of recruits.

Skills in the Bargaining tree reduce various costs for hiring, cart repair, and upgrades.

Skills in the Purchasing tree unlock higher tiers of goods that you can buy and sell and make marked-down market events better.

Skills in the Smarts tree provide helpful bonuses to cart capacity, XP gain, and combat deployment.

Each type of fighter has a specific selection of talents that they may have when you recruit them.

There are three classes of heroes; Scouting, Organisation, and Combat. You can have one of each type with the caravan at any given time.

You can fire firefighters and heroes from your caravan immediately from the Security sidebar.

You can spend coins in taverns to unlock rumors, which will cause a specific good to become available at an excellent price for a time.

Once unlocked, you can pay trainers coins to earn XP and increase or decrease a specific personality trait.

Each of the major cities has a townhouse available to buy for an exorbitant fee.

When you have built a guild house, you can use it to store goods so that you don’t need to carry your entire inventory in the cart.

The Friends sub-menu (found on the Profile sidebar) shows your current relationship level with known friends and the locations of others.

Mercenary locations within settlements allow you to hire particularly deadly fighters.

Crafter locations within settlements will take one or two specific goods and turn them into another type of good.

Some faction headquarters are known at the start of the game; others are in secret locations unlocked with intel.

Earning minor traits will unlock new clothing options for your merchant; check the Profile sidebar to see which side traits you’ve earned.

Taking missions will increase your caravan’s target rating, making it more likely that you’ll be attacked on the roads.

Well-paid missions will tend to increase your caravan’s target rating to a greater extent; beware of making yourself too much of a target!

Different types of enemies can attack your cart depending on which region of the map you are traveling.

On the cart tab within settlements, you can upgrade your cart’s wheels, structure, and horses to increase its stats!

The Charter sidebar allows you to buy merchant charters to unlock higher tier skills, more cart upgrades, and more regions on the map.

Hero-specific events will occur on the roads when traveling with each hero; your choices will affect your rapport with that hero.

Enemies that can attack your cart in desert and mountain regions are particularly dangerous!

If you sell goods at a market in a settlement, that market won’t have those goods immediately available to sell back to you.

You will have to pay market taxes for every good you purchase in a settlement – keep an eye on the total market tax in the top right of the market screen.

Due to market taxes and general travel costs, it’s generally a bad idea to sell goods for a small markup from what you paid for them.

You can choose between several different cart icons for the map from the options menu, available from the title screen.

As your global reputation increases, so will the rewards and the dangers of merchant life!

The recruitment level of a settlement affects the quality of fighters available to hire there. You can see it on the tavern screen for that settlement.

Many of the best fighters available to hire are found in settlements in the more dangerous mountain and desert regions.

Combat strength is how good a fighter is at attacking and damaging enemies in combat.

Defense is how good a fighter is at deflecting and avoiding damage from enemies in combat.

Completing Donate missions in settlements is a good way to increase your reputation, although the requirements will gradually increase with each donation.

Ranged fighters offer no defense where they are deployed but add to the combat strength rating in the opposite quadrant – great against difficult groups of enemies!

The regional sub-menus on the Kingdom sidebar shows the unlocked locations in each settlement, the building types available there, and their completion costs.

You can see an overview of your reputation in each settlement on the regional sub-menus of the Kingdom sidebar.

In the deployment phase of combat, you can see the quadrants that enemies will be attacking from – and whether one or multiple enemies will attack from that direction.

You can only have one combat mission active at a time.

Many minor traits offer bonuses to your reputation with a set faction and a particular settlement.

If a battle is going badly, you can cut your losses and withdraw your remaining fighters.

Even if your fighters are defeated in combat, the attackers will also need to best your Caravan Defence, otherwise, the amount they can loot will be greatly reduced.

Keep an eye on the status of each region, particularly the one you are in right now. The current regional status can lead to anything from slower roads to better recruits!

You can wait in settlements until nightfall or daybreak if you want to set out in particular conditions. Press the button next to the calendar when in a settlement.

You can see the status effects currently active in a settlement over it on the world map and the top right corner of the town hub screen.

Having located the required item or person in a Search mission, you will also need to transport it/them back to the settlement where you received the mission!

Enemies get an opportunity to loot your cart from each direction they win, so losing in many directions at once is more costly.

Each month three goods will affect their prices across the entire kingdom – check the top bar on the map screen for more details.

The Deployment Time cost of better fighters tends to be higher, so you may need a balance of fighter types to defend your caravan best.

The Deployment Time cost of heroes will increase gradually as they level up and become more fearsome in combat.

You can rebind keyboard controls on the Controls menu, available from the title screen.

Missions given out by factions tend to be especially difficult, so beware!

Lancer is home to the aptly named Lancer Cart Company, a great place to buy new specialist parts for your cart!

Town descriptions may give you a sense of what goods are likely to be inexpensive there. Goods are generally cheaper and more plentiful where they are produced.

Combat can often be avoided in dangerous events if you make the right choices or have the required amount of particular goods/coins available…

Negative outcomes from some events experienced on the road can damage your cart, hurt your fighters, reduce their morale or, worst of all, injure your merchant self!

When fighter or hero morale drops to zero, then they will leave your caravan; top it up through regular payments and smart choices in events.

Your cart’s target rating is affected by how dangerous the road is currently considered to be. You’re less likely to be attacked on safer roads!

The skills tab will pulse when you have unspent skill points available to use.

Market tax is automatically deducted when leaving a settlement. If you can’t afford to pay, your reputation in that settlement will decrease.

Heroes are not killed if their health reaches zero, but they will leave your caravan to lick their wounds and need to be rehired.

The fighter health icon will change on the Security sidebar if their current health is below their maximum. They have a chance to heal whenever you settle.

Fighter morale increases slightly whenever you settle travel.

Fighters and heroes with health below their maximum have a chance to heal whenever your caravan settles at the end of a journey.

You will only fail to Search and Collect missions after losing a battle and being looted if you have already collected the item/person you were tasked to find/retrieve.

Paying a fighter or hero from the Security sidebar will increase their morale by 50 points unless it is already above 50, in which case the cost scales.

Explore events sometimes become available when you arrive in a settlement. Sometimes they are beneficial, other times not so much…

Some cart parts can only be gained from special events that can occur on the road.

Your fighters will always get to attack first when combat begins; you may be able to take out enemies before they ever get the chance to attack.

Deployed fighters can be moved to different quadrants of the battle during the movement phase, which occurs between deployment and combat phases.

If you lose a battle and are successfully looted by the enemy, then in addition to losing goods, your cart will be damaged, and surviving fighters will lose morale.

Watch out for tougher enemy sub-types (leaders, veterans, and the like) appearing in battles!

If a battle goes the full six rounds without a winner, then you as the defender are victorious, the enemy scattering before you!

If your merchant health reaches zero, then you may face some exorbitant medical fees…

Each month one settlement will have a market tax hike, where market taxes will double for the month.

In Payback mode, you need to pay back escalating fees each month to a debt collector to keep your merchant enterprise afloat!

Free play mode lets you build up your merchant empire without worrying about any pesky overarching narrative or starting debts to be repaid!

Cart parts are unique items that can be fitted to your cart to offer distinct bonuses or to help specialize certain stats!

Cart parts are either for your cart structure, wheels, or horses and are fitted to specific slots from the cart screen available from the town hub.

This Merchant Life will save your progress every time you reach a settlement or exit back to the title menu.

Monster enemy types tend to have particularly high health, making them especially hard to take down.

Soldier enemy types tend to have fairly high defense, making them difficult to damage.

Bandit enemy types tend to have lower defense and higher combat strength; dangerous but vulnerable to attack.

Animal enemy types generally have lower stats than other enemy types but often attack in greater numbers.

Rumors abound that the current twin Queens of Peregrine, Elysande, and Theodora, are not on the best of terms with each other.

Political turmoil in recent times has made Peregrine an increasingly dangerous and difficult place to travel, not great news if you’re a traveling merchant…

Red Bards are known for using emotive, often inaccurate lyrics and for pushing their agenda.

The Silver Suns are an almost mythical group of monster hunters that do about exist.

Honey Wizards are a mysterious sect of magicians whose power stems from their control of bees.

Exposition Bards attempt to make their lyrics as factually accurate as possible, sometimes resulting in bland songs that are impossible to hum.

TOLA Heavy Industries, based in March, is perhaps the richest and most powerful guild in all of Peregrine.

Missions must be completed within the specified number of days otherwise, they are automatically failed! Keep track of the time remaining from the Missions sidebar.

Right-click a settlement to see recruitment level, currently active status effects, and whether the settlement offers apothecary and cart repair/upgrade services.

You can see your merchant’s current level from the Profile sidebar and at the top right of the map screen.

You can turn hints for unlocking settlement locations and heroes on or off from the options menu, accessible from the title screen.

Your global reputation is the cumulative total of your reputation across every settlement in the Kingdom of Peregrine.

The difference between total attack and defense determines the number of wounds inflicted on each side during combat.

Wounds are randomly assigned to one side’s fighters within a quadrant after each round of combat.

You earn a small amount of XP from selling goods in settlements that normally have none of that good available.

Getting a crafter to produce goods will also earn you some XP.

You can increase the security and speed of roads in the kingdom by constructing specific buildings within settlements.

Increase road security by funding Wall Repairs, Watch Towers, Town Guard, and Protection Festivals in the buildings tab within settlements.

Increase road speed by funding Road Repairs, Watch Towers, and Bridge Repairs in the buildings tab within settlements.

If your cart defenses hold while looted, then the amount looted from that quadrant is halved.

If your cart defenses hold in all directions after a defeat, your cart suffers no damage, your fighters lose no morale, no missions are failed, and you can’t be injured.

In Campaign mode, you can mouse over the current goal displayed on the top bar to get further hints on how to complete it!

To trade rare and exotic resources, you need to unlock skills in the Purchasing tree.

To buy and sell rare goods like Weapons, you must first unlock the skill ‘The Finer Things’ in the Purchasing tree.

Rapport with heroes will increase gradually as they travel with you. It can also be increased through choices in-hero-specific events on the road.

Falagar

He is the founder and editor of Magic Game World. He loved gaming from the moment he got a PlayStation 1 with Gran Turismo on his 7th birthday.
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