AtEM DD 6: Dorwin Merchant Houses

Coincidentally, it’s been exactly two weeks since I revealed the Burghers’ content. Their counterparts, the Merchant Houses, represent the noble dynasties who hold a near monopoly on trade within Dorwinion and control a significant portion of the shipping that graces the Celduin. While they are less entrenched in feudal tradition than the Winelords they still deeply value the power and prestige their social class grants them and will entertain none of this silly ‘democracy’ nonsense.

Bergholda Aldiana, countess of Illanavuld, leads both the Merchant Houses and the Great merchants as a whole. Her outstanding trait is a 25% trade cost reduction (getting you 10 resources instead of 8 for each factory). If you establish a Republic she will return to her position as a theorist; otherwise, she will lead you into the Fourth Age.

The Merchant Houses half of the BoP is less exciting but arguably more powerful than the Burghers half. You unlock options to spend market prosperity– which you should have tons of, given how many prosperity bonuses you get– on economic benefits such as leveling up other markets, importing more resources, or even gaining a civilian factory.

The political branch offers a wide variety of bonuses but with a strong economic theme. Most focuses here are either ‘internal’ or ‘foreign’; *Diplomatic Powerhouse* will provide influence (an as yet unimplemented mechanic) with all Rhovanion tags per each completed foreign focus, while *Economic Powerhouse* grants 3 building slots per internal focus.

The most interesting choice here is *Profit off Foreign Wealth* vs *Profit off Our Own Wealth*. The latter modifies your economic laws with prosperity & infrastructure buffs and a war support debuff, while the former founds a faction. Every country that joins The Celduin Trade League faction receives a 15% prosperity boost while providing you a 20% trade discount. In the interests of balance & immersion, only countries that can participate in Celduin trade + their puppets are allowed to join.

There are four mercenary companies (The Riverstalkers, The Mountain’s Vengeance, The Dragon’s Breath, and The Company of Winter) who you can spend civilian factories to hire. With *Arms Against Tyranny* these companies take the form of MIOs. Each hired division costs 0.5 to 1 (depending on the company) civs in upkeep and grants its MIO 10 to 20 funds per week. The MIOs’ traits can be spent on hiring more divisions, improving the company’s template, or buffing the company’s unique support company.

You can also spend company funds to provide all of the non-support equipment necessary to fully equip one division from the company.

Non-AAT users have access to decisions that spawn a unit, then cost a few civs for 50 days. The companies themselves take the form of design companies that increase the limit on how many of their divisions you can hire and provide buffs to the support company.

I designed this mechanic so that Dorwinion can rely on its vast civilian industry to defend itself without having to invest too heavily into military factories. I’ve played one pure mercenary campaign and it is definitely doable, at least until the mid/late game when you max out on your hireable mercenaries. It’s a great way to make use of your Celduin Trade income and civ-oriented focus tree. If you still find yourself coming up short on civs, you can always hire your mercenary theorist to reduce the cost.

The left half of this screenshot helps you build up your navy, though your starting fleet of 5 destroyers should be more than adequate until I update Rhun with some dockyards. The right half provides economic boons, including increasing the maximum market level in Riavod to 6.

*Strengthen Trade With the Lonely Mountain* initiates diplomacy with dwarves! In addition to directly improving relations with Erebor, you can invite prospectors to settle & exploit your mountains. You can either allow them to reestablish the Kingdom of Nurunkhizdín or maintain them as a smithing MIO/design company. Nurunkhizdín starts as a mining colony, a special type of puppet with a significant bonus to resource extraction that is super cheap to trade with. I plan to give it a unique mini focus tree, as well as characters and a flag, once *Realms in Exile* releases their dwarven update so that I can take inspiration from their take on the region.

You can, of course, improve relations with the other great kingdom of Northrons, Dale. *Petition our Northern Friends* starts an event chain in which you can spend political power to ask Dale for concessions ranging from a guarantee to increased weapon exports. Move our Embassy to Esgaroth will see you supporting Dale’s Merchant House Calmar against the ruling Barding dynasty– once I implement that mechanic in Dale.

*Seek Sanctuary in Dale* allows you (or rather, an AI, since annexation means game over for a player) to respawn in Dale even if you were fully annexed in a non-faction war. As soon as Dale goes to war with your conqueror you will become a government in exile (or puppet, without *Man the Guns*) and be able to take these capitulation only focuses. Each focus adds some resistance target to your occupied states with *Throw Off the Easterling Yoke* spawning 2 militia divisions in every state you reclaim through conquest or rebellion.

My next step is to implement the mechanics for Rhovanion Influence. That should take a couple of days, after which I will begin work on the Winelords branches. My goal is still to try and have a fully playable Dorwinion by the end of my winter break (middle of January). I doubt that Dorwinion will be in a polished enough state to release on the main mod by then, especially since I still have to fill all of Rhun’s states to make the war even slightly challenging beyond supply problems.