Quote Originally Posted by flogger View Post
Merchant has three main advantages.

1) in wars it lets you outpump to start wars (drafting deeper and having more troops to start, for example merchants can go 11 EPA and 9 DSPA where often non-merchants struggle to get 8 EPA and 8 DSPA). Combine that with a race that hits faster and that results in the ultimate farming situations where people can hit and run and take huge acres.

2) Compare how Rage ended its 4 day EoW period to how Fury will end its. Rage came out really pumped, whereas Fury will certainly struggle and be vulnerable for quite some time. Merchant is more adaptable and more able to fight multiple fights in a row, since 4 days allows it to almost completely recover.

3) The main advantage is early. Its not a coincidence that Rage and BIO were the only merchant kingdoms and got out to a huge lead to start. The first few weeks of the age the merchant kingdom can dice and get free waves off every non-merchant kingdom. Stubborn non-merchant kingdoms fight back and thus get in early wars and fall even farther behind than the dicing merchants. Often times Tact or Sage can beat Merchant in a 1 on 1 fight when both sides are of equal size and have weeks to prepare. At the top, rarely do the Tacts or Sage ever get to the same size as merchant though as a result of points #1 and #2.
Did simians come oop dicing tho? They came oop looking to war a top kd, so maybe thats their reason for choosing merchs i guess.

I still dont see how merchant is better than cleric for avians (unless youre specifically going for a top ~1-3 finish).