Is playing as merchant still viable?

[Wehveechen]

Hello folks who already tried the new patch changes. The notes looked a bit like doomsday for players trying to go for merchant types of characters with workshops and caravans getting nerfed. Is it as bad as it sounds and the peaceful factionless and fiefless playstyle is, de facto, impossible or do you think it's still possible to get a fun way of playing out of this now?
(On a related note, I am still smad you can't really do anything with smithing because you're better off selling everything you get from looters and forest bandits if you want profit.)

 

[YariAshigaru]

you can be a caravan yourself since you dont suffer a 30 man party limit and can have good quality troops to defend you. other than that no.

 

[Maximum997]

By the way:

I am selling horses for like 50K in a row, and i gain like 2-3 times morey money then i spend. But for some reason my trading is still 19.

 

[Wehveechen]

By the way:

I am selling horses for like 50K in a row, and i gain like 2-3 times morey money then i spend. But for some reason my trading is still 19.

Yeap. The trading skill seems to only be affected by caravans because I only started gaining skill points after making one. However, after the recent patch...

 

[Flauvious]

you can be a caravan yourself since you dont suffer a 30 man party limit and can have good quality troops to defend you. other than that no.

Sure until all the cities run out of money and the price of goods skyrockets

 

[Stromming]

By the way:

I am selling horses for like 50K in a row, and i gain like 2-3 times morey money then i spend. But for some reason my trading is still 19.

I never tried trading horses.

If you sell "trading goods" like food, clay, wood, iron, wool, linen etc then it should level you. I am way above 100 in trading skill doing this.

 

[Maximum997]

I never tried trading horses.

Before that patch it was the best trading resource

They dont slow you down, they dont need capacity, and they cost alot, so you can ezpz spend 200K on them. And you can sell them for 2-4 times better price