Market

[Lewin]

One can make 12 archers before 22 minute mark with standard starting resources and only storehouse to begin with. Sounds reasonable compared to producing these units manually?

Well then you've spent all of your starting resources haven't you? You'll be quite set back in the game. And if you play with peacetime of 45+ minutes (which I always do) then other players will have time to get soldiers.
But you are right, without peacetime the market does allow you to rush for archers. However, without peacetime you can also rush for militia which is the main reason players started using an agreed peacetime. So I don't think it's a problem. If you want to play super competitive without peacetime then you can make your own maps and block the market, but people will still militia rush you...

[batoonike]

Tried rushing for archers in 1vs1 on Grassland Clash or something similar sounding. We had 45 minute peacetime and starting gold was pretty low so I mass mined stone and traded it for everything else, exept lumber. Turned out pretty bad, cause enemy had equal number of crossbowmen by that time + huge production. Would've worked fine without peace time though, even if I didn't have much start gold chests to trade.

[The Dark Lord]

I doubt it: one militia in front of your market and you'd be done.

@Lewin/Krom
I'm wondering why 1 gold ore costs 5 timber, while 1 gold chest costs 6 timber (while it requires also coal and a metallurgist's to produce, and I believe coal also costs 5 timber)?

[Lewin]

@Lewin/Krom
I'm wondering why 1 gold ore costs 5 timber, while 1 gold chest costs 6 timber (while it requires also coal and a metallurgist's to produce, and I believe coal also costs 5 timber)?

To produce 1 gold chest in the metallurgist you need: 0.5 gold ore + 0.5 coal. (because he makes 2 each time)
Therefore the cost is 0.5*gold_ore + 0.5*coal + 1(for the extra production step) = 2.5 + 2.5 + 1 = 6.
So if you build a metallurgist and trade for gold ore/coal, then you will be paying 10 timber for 2 gold, or 5 timber per gold.
If you traded directly for the gold chests you'd be paying 6 timber per chest, which is the price you pay for being too lazy to make a metallurgist

[The Dark Lord]

...The metallurgist makes two gold chests each time...
HOW COULD I FORGET

Ok that sounds perfectly fair to me.

[GreatWhiteBear]

lol, last time I forgot that the stonemason mines 3 stones at a time.

[batoonike]

I doubt it: one militia in front of your market and you'd be done.

If theres no peace you can bump 9 or so archers before the 1 milita ever reaches the town. And you have tower because the laborers are unemployed really fast.

EDIT:

Following are 2 replays of spamming militia with the help of market. Trade coal for tree-trunks at ratio 1:1. Mass sawmills and axe makers. Make lots of gold chests. Train 50+ militia, right click inside enemy base. Also send in all laborers to eat arrows and stones.
Replays: http://batoonike.indrek.org/temp/marketmilitia.zip

The opponents are not extremely good but I doupt theres any way of countering this other than doing it yourself. I tried to spamm milita without market. Built like 12 woodcutters, but I didnt manage to make it work as well. And it's retarded Isn't the concept of market "You can trade that 1 gold chest if you forgot to make metallurgist at right time", not "exploit this building to extreme"?

I'm suggesting making the "trade loss ratio" higher, which is currently 3 I believe. Not sure if this is how it works but:

coal: 2+1 = 3 (2 non-renewable, 1 processing step)
tree trunk: 1 + 1 = 2 (renewable, 1 processing step)

1 coal = 3/2 = 1.5 tree trunks
3 times loss ratio:
1 coal = 0.5 tree trunks, rounded up?

4 times loss ratio:
1 coal = 0.35 tree trunks, 2 coals = 0.7 tree trunks. => 2x less axemen

[Jeronimo]

I saw your replay batoonike, that one you played vs Green/Cyan players at left side (you were dark yellow).

Liked how the dark red (at top) built his base, do you remember who he was?

I use the Market, but not for rushing Military (if 45/60 min PT).
Would only rush for Military use of Market if I had 30 min PT.

[GreatWhiteBear]

replay crashed

[Jeronimo]

There are 2 replays: 1 crashes, but I meant about the other.

[batoonike]

@Jeronimo Top right dark red player is highly likely me

[GreatWhiteBear]

either your bro or you played a double match, which would be epic

[Lewin]

45 minutes is very low peacetime for that map IMO, I usually play with 75 minutes or at least 60. By that time you can have a big iron army and more watch towers. Militia are very vulnerable to crossbowmen and I doubt the tactic would have worked then. Your village would have been completely screwed after 1:30 when you started to run out of food, so if the other players could hold on until then you would have lost. I think they could have with longer peacetime. With 30 crossbowmen and 30 pikemen (achievable by 60 minutes) those militia would have been completely destroyed.
That labourer tactic is interesting, but still it only works near the start of the game when people don't have many towers/troops. And it will burn up all your gold so it's not sustainable.

I don't think this tactic is a problem. Obviously it will beat noobs, but so does iron rushing if you know what you're doing. If you play with <60 minutes PT then there are rushes that will be more effective than conventional tactics. With >60 minutes I don't think any of these tactics will pay off more than conventional tactics.
Trading at the market is very expensive and if you try to make decent soldiers you'll find it very costly. Militia can easily be beaten so of course they're cheap to make.

[batoonike]

If PT is longer than 60 minutes then it wont work yes. I think 45-50 PT is very common. Also longer PT makes already long games even longer, which some people don't like, including me The longer the game the higher chance someone wont have time to finish it and leaves etc. Thus I would still suggest rising market trade cost from 3 to 4.

Frankly I don't care THAT much about the trade ratio but currently I can't see a single reason to not rise it and there is 1 reason to rise it.

[The Dark Lord]

I was about to complain about the market once more, but then I read the FAQ and ran across this:

It will be disabled in the early campaign missions and for those of you who don’t like change, we will have an option to play the game without it.

Hurray!

Now I'm hoping people will actually use that option. Perhaps we should make it standard without the market, and make an option to ALLOW it, like superweapons in C&C.