Market/No market. Market not op.

[EDMatt]

Hi guys!

NOTE: THE FOLLOWING MARKET STRATEGY IS WITH VALUES OF 1 COAL / IRON / GOLD FOR 1 TREE TRUNK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Today I wanted to compare market/no market on one of the most difficult locs to build on golden cliffs (one of the best balanced maps out there), location 1
is picked because most struggle on this loc , best test subject IMO.

here we go!


MARKET

market10.jpg

First 10 minutes of market strategy: Unlock 5 stonemasons , 2 saw mills , build 2 woodcutters and rush for
gold as quickly as possible, the faster the better ( You would want to start expanding as soon as possible.

market20.jpg

20 Minutes of market strategy: 2 gold smythies should do for a while, but make sure to build 3rd one soon enough
as you this is the phase where you constantly keep building serfs and builders, you would want at this point to have
either gold mines or coal mines or even iron mines dedicated to your market (2 or 3), in this case it is iron and a bit
of gold that Romek is trading.No harm is doing a few farms, but 3rd and 4th saw mill is more important, therefor
most buildings will have to be postponed.

market30.jpg

30 minutes of market strategy: At this stage Romek has a steady supply of iron/gold comming into his market thus
having a steady supply of wood to to build with, between 30 and 40 minutes is where the biggest expansion is going
to happen, make sure you have around 5 or 6 wood cutters at this stage as trading for iron will soon not be an option
any more, iron production is being built.


40 minutes of market strategy: Now that the main focus of iron production is no more (built) and few farms were
added , at this stage be prepared to get wood supplies from woodcutters, Romek has 7 , but he will be concentrating
on adding more at this point, swine farm is up and going, bakers were added little-bit before 40 minutes, between
40 minutes and 50 minutes the main focus is going to be barracs , tannery, armory production and weaponaries, also
increasing farm count is important too.

NOTE: 40 minutes is the time when transition from acquiring wood from market is made to real woodcutters, you must have
a steady supply of wood from woodcutters.

50 minutes of market strategy: at this stage armories are placed, should be built any time between 50 and 1 hour.
3 swine farms so far, but I would imagine that Romek will be expanding to 4 or even 5, food production, weapon
production and armor production is up, just few more expansions such as 1 extra woodcutters and perhaps 1 or 2 swine
farms and extra weaponaries and Romeks base is compelete, main priority now is towers









NO MARKET


10 minutes of no market strategy: Woodcutters is the key, spam down woodcutters (3 or 4) around your
store house, preferably where wood is present, make sure you cut and plant, otherwise it should be
standard start.the reason we are doing this is because we wont be needing this space anytime soon.


20 minutes of no market strategy: dont rush for gold, the key is to find all the tree around your base and set as many
woodcutters as you can (dedicate 25 minutes with top priority being woodcutters. Also you dont need to train many
serfs or builders, limited wood means you have to set yourself for a BIG BOOM effect where you place plenty of
wood cutters and when all planted will provide you with infinite building wood at a certain point. chill out tactic!


30 minutes of no market strategy: 4 woodcutters that are at the base have now provided you enough wood to expand further,
at this point romek actually has 13 woodcutters, 4 of them will cut only at this stage (base woodcutters) and will
be moved further away from town, this wood is essencial at this time, iron production is the focuse at this phase,
also now serfs and builders will have to be pushed through the school, happy building hour!


40 minutes of no market strategy: BIG BOOM IS HERE GUYS~!! infinite wood, enjoy spamming down buildings and wine yards,
no need for bread so build 5-8 wine yards and go for leather only, at this point you should have iron production running.
so at this stage make sure you build around 40 builders and 90 serfs , build away!


50 minutes of no market strategy: Armories and weaponaries are being built, and with 6 sawmills there is no wood shortage.
also with corn going 100% towards leather , you cant go wrong here! at this phase you should be focusing on adding as
many wine yards as you want(need), the final result should be around 10 farms and 6 pig farms.







If you compare the 2 armies , if anything the no market army has actually got more leather units and a more solid economy faster, and because bread is being ignored, leather production is better with no market ( no bread) strategy my friends

Give your opinion below!

To all those who were always saying :"OMG MARKET IMBA , REMOVE, REMOVE, Matt / ROmek or pizza are good because market is there", I hope this proves to be otherwise

[EDMatt]

And sorry for image shack , forum wouldn't let me attach any more pictures.
Also notice that with market, the horse was traded, but the trade is now fixed, so horse cannot be acquired with market easily, the market game was done on the previous release, the non market game was done on this one.

[T*AnTi-V!RuZz]

And sorry for image shack , forum wouldn't let me attach any more pictures.

Thanks for noticing, I'll fix it immediately.

[Lewin]

It's great to hear that the market is still a viable option, and it sounds like it's not overpowered and requires skill to use properly
We don't want the market to be overused OR underused. In the previous release we think it was way overused, but in this release it sounds much better (and given that you've just shown a viable strategy that uses the market, it looks like it's not underused). Do you anybody have any comments on this? I actually haven't played a full game in this release (due to exams) so I haven't been able to fully judge it for myself.

[EDMatt]

It's great to hear that the market is still a viable option, and it sounds like it's not overpowered and requires skill to use properly
We don't want the market to be overused OR underused. In the previous release we think it was way overused, but in this release it sounds much better (and given that you've just shown a viable strategy that uses the market, it looks like it's not underused). Do you anybody have any comments on this? I actually haven't played a full game in this release (due to exams) so I haven't been able to fully judge it for myself.

No , this market strategy was played on the previous release vs no market this release, as of now, market strategy (trade for tree trunks ) is not worth it at all.

All I wanted to do is to compare Current no market release vs previous market "abuse " strategy, and I think I have successful proved that the previous market values weren't all that overpowered .

[Mulberry]

- Market wasnt overpowered release before (it was unbalanced), market isnt overpowered (maybe a bit overpowered now and it is still unbalanced in this release).

- Marketplace saved time on certain locs and gave a chance to players to use different strategies(now they dont have this chance). Peace time building is easier now, but in fact, less inteligent.

- There were lots of possibilities to use various stretegies. There is only one early game strategy now (30 min).

- Leather was more needed in 4001, there is less need for leather in 4179 (ofcourse no leather strategy was always imbalanced wich i cant count how many times i pointed on). Ofcourse you can still go full leather suicide, you can even add some horses but would you do it if you know that i am going no leather? I guese no way. Matt, remember our wilderness game. Little remark: leather stretegy is good for certian maps where you can use only 2 iron mines.

So i still see all the problems wich were in a game before and some new problems: unbalanced/unplayable maps, for example. The only problem wich have been sold is a frustration of people on marketplace topic.

Lewin, Mattew practicly showed you that you overreacted (increased prices few times) and made decision on market to fast.

[EDMatt]

- Market wasnt overpowered release before (it was unbalanced), market isnt overpowered (maybe a bit overpowered now and it is still unbalanced in this release).

- Marketplace saved time on certain locs and gave a chance to players to use different strategies(now they dont have this chance). Peace time building is easier now, but in fact, less inteligent.

- There were lots of possibilities to use various stretegies. There is only one early game strategy now (30 min).

- Leather was more needed in 4001, there is less need for leather in 4179 (ofcourse no leather strategy was always imbalanced wich i cant count how many times i pointed on). Ofcourse you can still go full leather suicide, you can even add some horses but would you do it if you know that i am going no leather? I guese no way. Matt, remember our wilderness game. Little remark: leather stretegy is good for certian maps where you can use only 2 iron mines.

So i still see all the problems wich were in a game before and some new problems: unbalanced/unplayable maps, for example. The only problem wich have been sold is a frustration of people on marketplace topic.

Lewin, Mattew practicly showed you that you overreacted (increased prices few times) and made decision on market to fast.

I am planning to show how unbalanced small town is with Romek together, I will make a similar comparison to help people understand logic behind it.

[EDMatt]

TO everyone reading this topic
NOTE: MARKET STRATEGY ABOVE WAS USED ON PREVIOUS RELEASE WITH ITS OWN VALUES 1 COAL = 1 TREE TRUNK.

[Bo_]

I think people got that.
Anyway like you said, just 1 strategy left.
I don't enjoy kam anymore this way,
probably the reason that I haven't played for 2 weeks.

[EDMatt]

IMO , 1 for 1 is already equal to no market, I think Market values should be lowered considerably to bring upon variation in the game, remember people lose even for 1:1 trade, and if it was 2 for 1(2 being coal/iron/gold) Market will be used once more and therefor more variation to the game! something this game needs badly enough.

[Lewin]

Ah sorry for the misunderstanding. I read your post (before you edited it) like this:
"Here's a strategy using the market,
Here's a strategy without using the market"

I just assumed you meant both strategies were in the current release since I thought most people were using the latest release and it's been out for quite a while now.

Well currently trading costs 2.5 items to buy you 1 item if they are of equal value. So the trade-loss-ratio is 2.5:1 (it has always been this way, the only change we made was to make resource values more correct). IMO the current prices reflect this quite accurately. All trades have a fairly equally high loss to them. Note that if we made the trade ratio 1:1 (no loss at all) then 1 iron/gold ore would buy 1 trunk, so the game thinks ore and trunks are roughly equal value. I certainly don't want to make trading no loss (free) like this, but perhaps we could lower the trade loss ratio to make the market place a little bit more viable. I don't think 50+% of strategies should rely heavily on the market like in r4001, but certainly there should be some viable uses for the market other than getting non-renewable resources when you run out. Maybe we could make the trade loss ratio 2:1 (instead of the current 2.5:1), since now that we have more accurate resource values it doesn't need to be so high to prevent overuse. Of course this would need thorough testing and consideration, I'm certainly not making any promises, but I'm open to testing some tweaks at the same time as we test the other balance changes. Balance is a very fragile thing, changing one thing can completely change the balance of another. For example if people use more axefighters/swordfighters with the shields changes that may change the demand for wood and the need for the market.

Just a few other points:
- I don't think the market was especially "overpowered" in r4001, but I think it was "overused" and it allowed you to smooth over mistakes in your economy. It was certainly possible to use strategies that matched marketplace strategies, but it was far less forgiving and mistakes could really cost you (compared to with the marketplace). I'd rather see the marketplace used less than r4001 but MAYBE more than r4179, although I still don't have a clear idea of how often people are using it.
- If some locations don't have enough trees then that's easy enough to fix by placing more trees. I don't think the marketplace is the correct answer for slight imbalances on certain locations. I also think it's possible to balance maps without making locations all the same. For example one can have closer iron, one closer gold, one a few extra trees. You can choose to play to the strengths of your location. Of course that's a bit trickier to balance but there's no reason why it can't be done.
- It would be nice if full leather and half leather/half iron were both viable in some situations (compared to full iron) since that means a lot more strategies are available, I guess when bowmen get a slight buff (which we've agreed to test at the same time as shields) that might change the balance a bit. But at the same time iron weapons should be better so I'm unsure if full leather and full iron should really be equally viable, that doesn't seem right.
- Yes the game needs more variety of viable strategies, I'm hoping the shields bonus and bowmen buff will help with this (after some testing and tweaking) since currently axefighters and swordfighters are unused, so that's a lot of variety going to waste. If lance carriers/pikemen are used less then hopefully scouts/knights will be used more which is more variety again. If it's well balanced we should really see some interesting strategies around army composition. Yes the market should add it's own little bit of variety but IMO it's not the main way to get variety into the game.

No promises on when I can organise the balance testing, I finished exams on Friday but I've got some other stuff coming up so I'll see how I go. I certainly still intend to do it, don't worry, and it should be before Christmas.
Lewin.
P.S. We've been regularly reaching 100-120 players online at once so the game obviously isn't too broken or people wouldn't play it so much. Things are not be perfectly balanced (and they never will be) but the game is still fun to play and we're always interested in improving the balance and adding more variety.

[EDMatt]

I don't think I would go as far as saying I lost interest in the game just because of some balance issues. After some testing and changes I am sure the game could be much more fun, but for now it is quite limited (possibilities) for both building bases and units.

[Private.NL]

(.....)
Just a few other points:
- I don't think the market was especially "overpowered" in r4001, but I think it was "overused" and it allowed you to smooth over mistakes in your economy. It was certainly possible to use strategies that matched marketplace strategies, but it was far less forgiving and mistakes could really cost you (compared to with the marketplace). I'd rather see the marketplace used less than r4001 but MAYBE more than r4179, although I still don't have a clear idea of how often people are using it.

So start getting replays! As much as you can and watch them you can easily do this at times 10 just to see how players use/or don't use the market.

(.....)
- Yes the game needs more variety of viable strategies, I'm hoping the shields bonus and bowmen buff will help with this (after some testing and tweaking) since currently axefighters and swordfighters are unused, so that's a lot of variety going to waste. If lance carriers/pikemen are used less then hopefully scouts/knights will be used more which is more variety again. If it's well balanced we should really see some interesting strategies around army composition. Yes the market should add it's own little bit of variety but IMO it's not the main way to get variety into the game.

I think, more variety is always a good thing. The big question is: should this be acquired via market or via more balanced maps (i.g. more trees as Lewin pointed out). IMO the market is a good and easy tool in order to achieve it, but the trade rates should be good. In my opinion we should start a discussion on what trade rates are wanted. Just implement them manual and keep in mind how much time it takes to make something will do. I think that a formula does not work really. (I believe you use a formula right?) Why not listening to the community (the players ) and take an average of all votes (for instance: coal --> trunks make a poll with the options 1-->1, 2-->1, 3-->1 and 4 -->1 if you think 1-->1 should not be possible don't ad it.) If the average is 1.5-2.49 select 2 first. Then test it. If 3 works out better select 3.

Testing is the magic word.

P.S.

(.....) I finished exams on Friday but I've got some other stuff coming up so I'll see how I go.

So how was your exam? Do you think you passed it?

[Krom]

@PrivateNL: Polling is not gonna work, we have 28 wares, thats 784 combinations, we cant vote on all of them (not mentioning cross-values). Lewin has published wares cost formula, it seems to be quite fair. We might reduce the coefficient of trading from 2.5 to 2 perhaps. But as already explained several times - to be fair - all trades must be equally unfair. r4179 seems to be quite balanced now.

[EDMatt]

Voting wont work because often people don't know what they are talking about when it comes to balance, especially about such a delicate thing as a market.
What if the majority is wrong?

As I recall last time I checked the main argument against market was that it was too easy / overpowered, now that it was proven to be otherwise, I don't see any other arguments against market left other then its not natural, and in fact using the market takes more skill then building with no market.

I am predicting that 2 coal for 1 tree trunk is more then enough, but again testing will be needed ( but i am certain that this will be the case as already 1:1 is not any more powerful then playing with no market).