Re: Merchants
Adventurer guild would be completely "fancy" like the actual "explorer" guild for instance. If I remember correctly, I've mentionned my idea about guilds in the General Discussion thread a few weeks ago.
Regarding the other economic guilds, I'd appreciate if we could have had a discussion about it before implementation.
Anyway, to go back on the merchants case, pagan doesn't mean they didn't have any commercial "skills". On contrary, there were numerous trading posts recorded in their territories. I need to check but I'm pretty sure it was quite similar with Lithuania.
How this would work for Serbia who starts with a single castle?
How this work with Norway who is somehow underdevelopped compare to other Western factions but had quite good commercial relations with some other factions?
If I take your mention of Venice, don't you think that North Italian cities have already quite a huge income compare to others? As far as I get it, your proposal would give them (Venetians) another bonus.
I'm sorry but I can't get your view about merchants