The Sims Medieval Merchant Hero Class Guide

Trading, Leveling, and Earning Money with the Profession

by Tom "Metro" Schlueter

Hero Overview
Merchants buy and sell goods for the Sims in your Kingdom and they can earn a great deal of money in the process. That's their gig. Period. A lvl 10 Merchant has incredible profit margins, and he's the only Hero that has the unique ability to trade with foreign territories via the boat at the docks. In this Guide I'll show you why leveling the Merchant is easier than other Heroes, and I'll give you the list of items which will give you the best return on investment. So, let's open for business!

Leveling the Merchant
Admittedly, the Merchant seemed harder to bring up to speed in the beginning than some other Heroes. Part of the problem is keeping Focus very high at the outset when you don't have good ingredients to cook with and are only sleeping on a cheap bed. If Focus is just average or in the red, then you'll have great difficulty getting customers to buy your goods.

The Merchant can Balance the Books at a scribe table, which can be bought in build mode, or found at the Castle. But, balancing gives very slow XP gain, so I had Ron do this once just to check for verification and then that was it. Ron stinks at accounting anyway. He's a people person and needs to be on the sales floor.

Of the Heroes I've played extensively to date (Monarch, Peteran, Merchant, Knight, Physician, and the Spy) - the Merchant is the hands down winner for the Hero to reach level 10 the fastest. It's that 150 XP for each sale that's just fantastic. 1000+ XP in a day is not unusual if your Market is well stocked and you make lots of sales. I intentionally stretched out Meat Quest IV to make sure I'd get maximum XP for a Platinum performance. I leveled Ron to 9 and knew the Quest was almost over at that point. I wrapped it up and the experience gained from the Quest capped him to 10.

With only the standard starting $1k Simoles, I went for broke and bought a Staff of the Watcher on Ron's first day. That set him back $600, but he turned right around and sold it for $701. That was a nice profit for a single sale, and it just snowballed from there. The more profit Ron made - the more capital he had to buy more objects at the Village Shoppe = more sales. Stick with the big ticket items - items you can only buy one of in a given day.

Merchant Interactions (Market) Investigate Today's Market. This is one of the unique Merchant interactions which is accomplished by clicking on the Village Shoppe. Here's the problem - yes, you may see a slightly higher profit return on those items listed in the info popup, but if the items are cheap to begin with (i.e. grapes or barley), then who cares? Another issue that's a bit maddening is your Merchant needs to finish the Investigation cue completely before you'd be able to have him buy those "hot" items to sell at the Market. That means he walks all the way back to the beginning of the road to the Village Shoppe! Way too long. So, I quickly took a "Thanks, but no thanks" approach to Investigate Today's Market and simply stuck with the same high ticket items all the time.

Merchant Interactions (Boat) Merchants are the only Heroes that can trade with foreign territories. For more info on how to do this, see Daily Responsibilities.

Merchant Interactions (Customer) Assuming your Merchant is in the immediate Market area and stalls are open for business you have 5 customer interactions from the Merchant category: Ask to Buy Goods, Bribe $100, Butter Up, Compliment Taste, and Hustle. You'll quickly discover that you need to establish a certain rapport with a customer before Ask to Buy Goods is an Option. The funny thing is you can actually be Friends with a regular recurring customer, but you'll still need to jump through the hoops time and again of establishing that pre-sale rapport - "Goody Anna! I haven't seen you since...yesterday. Loveth the dress, girlfriend. Okay, enough buttering up. Ready to buy now?"

So, the bottom line is you want someone to get to the point of buying something from your carts-choosing Hustle or Butter Up is the perfect set up. Hustle earns you 20 XP vs 15 XP for a Butter Up. Typically, you'll need to cue up 2 of those interactions before you'll see the Ask Customer to Buy. The Bribe $100 interaction? I don't know...I did it once just to check things out, but it seems like an awfully steep price to pay just to get someone to buy something.

Compared to other Sims Medieval Heroes where you can make numerous traits work, for the Merchant-at least for me-it's quite obvious that Friendly and Haggler are the two standout no-brainers. You can't even ask a Sim to buy from the cart unless the Sim has a minor rapport with your Merchant, so the Friendly trait will save you gobs of time in the long run and will require less work to get to that point.

The Haggler trait is your most important choice because you'll save yourself literally thousands of Simoles over the course of playing a Merchant for weeks. How much of a discount does a Haggler receive at the Village Shoppe? Well, for the average Hero without the Haggler trait, Whaling Harpoons cost an even $100 at the Village Shoppe. Ron was able to snag one for $80, so that's a 20% discount. Needless to say, when you're talking about really significant purchases like the Staff of the Watcher, the Whaling boat, and the foreign territory maps, that 20% discount results in quite a huge savings.

I think a great Fatal Flaw for the Merchant Puny because the Merchant cannot engage in swordfighting anyway. Assuming you do not seek out Mean socials and fights, you should see absolutely no ill effects from that trait with a Merchant. No red buffs - score!

Earning Money as a Merchant
Things are quite a bit easier in the money department for a Merchant. Take my advice and purchase one or two expensive items from the Village Shoppe on Day 1 and put them in your stall. Go to bed, get a nice meal, do anything to cap your Focus and then open those stalls for business. Butter Up customers twice and then you should have the Ask Customer to Buy option - make sure it's green for a high chance of success. You make a nice initial profit and then you'll have more money to buy more items at the Village Shoppe the next time you go. It's really important you keep the most expensive items you can afford in the Stall. A cheap sale is a wasted sale where they could have bought something more profitable from you. Sort the shoppe's item list by price by clicking at the top to spot the most expensive things you can afford.

One of the nice benefits of your Merchant selling at the Market is a Made a Few Simoles buff which is long-lasting...+15 Focus for 11 hours.

As your Merchant gains levels, the profit margin increases. Again, if we're talking about low cost items like grapes, etc, then you might not even notice a difference. But, for big ticket items like the Map to Effenmont, then the profit difference between a lvl 1 and a lvl 10 Hero is pretty steep. Push those Market sales every day for that 150 XP per sale and you'll gain fast levels and the profits will soon escalate.

* Numbers are based on a lvl 10 Merchant with the Haggler trait. Note: I'm already aware that the most expensive items in the game are high end armor and weapons from the Blacksmith. These can be easily passed to a Merchant for sale. But, I did not have a Smith in my Kingdom when writing this and I wanted to make this Guide as simple as possible and without multiple steps/Heroes involved.

Additionally, I'm leaving it to the player to discover very profitable trades with foreign territories. Again, the list above is simple and will at least get you started with objects you can buy right off the shelf in your local Kingdom. But, there are many profitable trades you can learn of after spending some RP and aligning some territories. Have fun and set sail for the cha-ching.

The Market
The Market butts up against the Town Square area and is perfectly located for the Merchant given his frequent trips to the Village Shoppe. Like all Heroes' quarters, the Market comes complete with all necessary objects to sustain your Hero-a cheap bed (replace asap for a better Well Rested buff), a cauldron, and an eating table. There isn't much else so I'd suggest adding some decor to boost Focus and maybe a wine cask to top off the tank after a meal and receive an additional buff.

Daily Responsibilities
The Merchant has a wide assortment of Daily Responsibilities and nearly all of them are performed right at the Market:

• Open Stall for Business Are you kidding me? How about a bit more of a challenge? Well, at least your Sim still can't get experience from "Getting out of Bed" or "Breathing." Just click on one of your market carts outside and Open for Business. Assuming your Hero has not lost his arms from the Pit beast you're then good to go. All the coverings in front of the carts magically disappear and customers will start showing up - no matter if it's 3pm or 3am.
• Pay Taxes There's a Messenger Box conveniently located right in front of the market, ready to accept your contribution to the well being of the Kingdom.
• Compliment the Taste of Two Customers This is a Merchant specific interaction. Click on a customer and select the Merchant > Compliment the Taste social. "Wow, I love that new Caste Comfort Snuggie you're wearing!"
• Acquire 1 Wood Via Trading and Deliver to Carpenter Click on the boat at the docks > Open Cargo Hold. Add the items necessary for trading-in this case, you need cheese or mushroom to exchange for Crafthole's wood. Now click Sail to Trade. The Territory Map comes up...Click Crafthole, then Send Ship and off you go. Your Merchant Hero gains a small amount of XP during the trip. Open the Cargo Hold upon returning and move the wood to your Hero's inventory and deliver to the Sim that needs the item (look for a map icon). Note that for trading gems or wood you cannot stock up on the item to fill this responsibility later. Making the trade is a part of the Daily Responsibility.
• Acquire Gems Via Trading and Deliver to Jeweler The identical steps as above, but you'll be taking barley to Tredony for the gems.
• Butter Up Two Customers This is another Merchant social.
• Ask 2 Customers to Buy This can be tough in the beginning when you're getting your bearings straight with your Merchant. But, once you get a handle on things and his Focus is capped, the 1-2 punch of Butter Up and Ask Customer to Buy is like taking candy from a baby. Remember the interactions should all be green which result in a guaranteed sale.

More on Trading
Merchants are the only Heroes capable of exporting goods to other Kingdoms. They can earn more money than an item is worth by loading it into the ship's cargo hold and sending it off. Have a look at the Foreign Alliances page to see what countries import for Simoles, and a list of all the items they'll trade.

The Butter Up and Ask to Buy Combo...just set up the pins and knock ‘em down...

Butter Up: "Goatkeeper Norman, I'm guessing you're the smartest Sim in the Kingdom!" (Butter Up 1)
"You look so strong I bet you could beat our Lord in a swordfight!" (Butter Up 2)
And a risky bonus Butter Up 3 - "You're the kind of customer I would like to marry!"

Ask Customer to Buy: "So, are you ready to see my items for sale?"
"Yes, absolutely."
"I know you don't hunt for whales, but that full-sized whaling harpoon will get the job done. Buh bye."

Strategy

I got an email from Dennis Matthews, who had some interesting information to add about Merchants:

"First of all a big thanks for all the info. This was my first time playing a Sims game and your site has helped me tremendously.

I have recently made a ton of money with my Merchant and in the process I made my Spy, Doc, Smith and Wiz wealthy too.

For example I bought 200 bottles of Pestilence from my spy for a few grand and sold them for $150,000. Then 200 strong health from the Doc for $133,000. You can also sell Mystic Grog from the Wiz but the returns are not as high. You can't however keep flooding the market with these items and get the same returns. On my second voyage I doubled to 400 but got less money then on my first trip. You have to be your own Sams Club to make big money by selling in bulk.

Caution: I did the same thing with the Smith and bought 200 each of swords and armor to sell. Made a ton of money at the cost of queing up each sword and armor individually into the cargo bay. This was very time consuming.

Thanks to your suggestion of sharing the wealth, my whale angry sim gave my merchant a ton of whale meat which she traded to get the starter money to buy the potions.

Since the merchant is the richest and has the most yard space I had her buy all the cooking equipment, best chairs and tables. And with 600,000 bucks she can easily keep the town larder's stocked with every item. So there is always a place for my sims to get the best food. I've noticed sims take food from the castle larder so I only stock the market, wiz tower, spy room and barracks.

After I finished my game I then sent my merchant to start a new kingdom - hoping she'd take her 600,000 bucks with her. No such luck - but she can trade unlike regular monarchs so she'll be wealthy in no time.

So get on that ship and make some money!"

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