Merchant Guild (TWS2)

Merchant Guild (TWS2)
Chain	Market Type
Requires	Buildings: Rice Exchange Arts: Tax Reform Resources: Crafts
Enables	Buildings: Kabunakama
Spawned Defence Forces	-
Basic Building Statistics	Cost: 3400 +1000 to wealth from commerce in this province +20 per turn to town growth from commerce within this province Consumes Food: 2 Enables recruitment of Rank 1 metsuke
Clan Effects	Each market chain enables you to sustain one additional metsuke
See main article; FotS Buildings

Description

Wealth may buy comfort, but will it buy peace?

A merchants’ guild greatly improves a province’s wealth and growth. Rather than competing with each other, a town’s merchant class work together, pool their resources and information, and look forward to enlarged profits. They can at last start to plan beyond the next harvest, or for the arrival of the next shipment of trade goods.

Associations of merchants were useful for collective risk-taking and collective bargaining. One merchant alone had little chance of getting any concession from his samurai overlords, but an entire town’s worth of merchants could present a united, if still respectful, front. Guilds were granted trading rights within a lord’s territory, in return for certain considerations. From a lord’s point of view, he could influence trade, tax it effectively, take a share of the wealth and still not actually sully his hands in the dirty business of trade. By acting together, the merchants could help finance major trade enterprises when one man alone would have difficulty raising the required working capital.

Other Information

This building, like the Rice Exchange before it, is usually a dubious investment. Compared to the previous Rice Exchange it provides +10 to Town Wealth per turn and +500 to region wealth. This is a better upgrade than the Rice Exchange. However, because it consumes an additional 1 food it provides another -1 to Town Wealth per turn to ALL provinces. If you are trying to increase Town Wealth in your Empire (as opposed Taxing it to death for short term gain) you may want to burn down Merchant Guilds when you capture regions with them.

If you have already built the Rice Exchange in a rich region and wish to keep it, upgrading it to the Merchant Guild is a better investment.