Vassal Merchant Republics not building Trade Posts in liege lands?

[Snake_Squeezins]

Just a quick question that I have always wondered about:

Do vassal Merchant Republics actively avoid building Trade Posts in their liege's lands?

In most games, I establish a MR fairly close to my capital, which is always one of the wealthiest counties in the region. But I cannot remember the last time a MR set up a Trade Post in my capital. Instead, they generally appear to aim for one of two things: 1) wealthy provinces far outside the realm that have no hope of ever connecting back, and 2) extremely poor provinces in and near the realm that are not owned by me.

Does anyone know the algorithm for how MRs prioritize where to build Trade Posts? Is part of the selection process to prioritize weak counties from whose owner they can perhaps usurp a city? Otherwise I can't figure out why a vassal MR wouldn't aim for a rich, safe province right in its neighborhood. Non-vassal MRs certainly don't seem to have this resistance - anytime I play near Italy I get my personally-owned rich holdings quickly saturated with Trade Posts from Genoa, Pisa, and Venice.

 

[Gans]

Well.

1. Trade post costs depend not only on distance but on the opinion of the county owner so if your vassal MR hate your guts it makes sense if they build elsewhere first. If they don't hate you and they still won't build.... well ai is gonna ai.
   
2. Newly set up MR's are dirt poor and the ai is a trainwreck. They can only afford 2 trade post/patrician families if even that. If you start in the earlier bookmarks it might take them a century to upgrade their mansion.....
3. ...Because when they do get a bit of money they immediately DoW someone and blow it all on mercs. And they usually don't even win.
4. AI Patricians just can't breed. Lot of families die out and the new one starts with an empty mansion so that isn't helping either.

But well, who knows, maybe the ai is smarter than I give it credit for, so it might think rich provinces will get raided anyways and the trade post will be burned