I know the merchant affinity allows you to do this.  However I feel that when you enter an alliance or when you vassalize an opponent you should be able to build extractors in their territory.  I've had a few games where my allies/vassals had a strategic resource that they hadn't exploited and it was something that I needed badly.

I know there is a diplomacy expansion in the works which will include improvements to the vassal system so this is just a suggestion.

Thanks. 

Yes to this. 

While I agree that it could be interesting my doubt arrive as, if you build them the "gains" will be shared? What will hapens if you are at war?

I imagine it would work the same way as it works currently, if your vassal rebels, then tough luck, you provided them with those resources.

I don't think OP suggests building *our* extractors in their territory, just building extractors that will belong to the vassal and automatically provide us with resources because, well, they're our vassals and that's how it works.

DNLH wrote:

I imagine it would work the same way as it works currently, if your vassal rebels, then tough luck, you provided them with those resources.

I don't think OP suggests building *our* extractors in their territory, just building extractors that will belong to the vassal and automatically provide us with resources because, well, they're our vassals and that's how it works.

Agreed.  The extractors would belong to the empire who owns the territory, and they get to do what they want with it; but you would get it as a liege/vasssal or have purchasing rights as an ally.  It would just be nice to be able to do this without being a Merchant Culture.

Isn't that kind of why Merchant cultures exist at the moment though? Upgrading my vassals resouce extractors is why I pick them. If everyone gets to do that then the Merchant trait would become rather useless.

That's what Merchant ability used to be all about, but I agree with RedSirus here, ever since affinity rebalance (Vitruvian, I believe) their main strength is a huge money boost, imo, even in Contemporary I was able to get 10-15 (Endless speed) turns of Income from using it at appropriate spot. It's good to see it too, because the money gain was so negligible, that I think people pretty much forgot you could use it that way and used it only to upgrade resources.

And it's not like we're asking here to be able to do that for free, money, influence or industry still would need to be paid in some form, so Merchant ability would still have an upper hand.