Market Trading Vs Selling: An Analysis

[RicoJay13]

Seriously man this is insane. Why would nobody be safe for 14 minutes when they start making trade, if you are boomed and are making army you make markets and make trade whilst still queueing army and managing your eco, as all the natural gold runs out on the map you delete these villagers and they are replaced by trade carts and you begin to slowly shift your economy composition in to the unit you are making. For example to constantly stream out paladin you want to aim for around 50-60 farmers with around 60 carts to make 60-70 paladin.

Your math seems to forget that this is indeed a 4v4 so you have team mates that like yourself have an eco, have an army and are making trade so they able to help against this mythical 26 min onager condo raid on base. This game has too much going on especially in post imperial for you to claim your excel spreadsheet is some new gospel that everyone must abide by. Unfortunately for you, you are 1800 on HD which pretty much means you suck at this game and so whatever you think works for your games probably doesn't work in a game where people actually have some skill at the game.

It is really bizarre why you keep trying to prove your point when it is categorically wrong. I would love for you to really improve at this game and comeback in a years time to look at this thread and realise how so very wrong you are.

The line for insults is a bit busy with all the chicken clucking. If the rez are insignificant, and 1800hd is so lousy, I guess I just dont get why you and others keep telling me Im lousy but chickening away from my challenge.

 

[RicoJay13]

So u think i give u a 14 min window where i make trade and you dont, you could finish the game?? is that your challenge??

You can scroll up and reread the challenge if you didnt understand it the first time you read it, and then didnt accept.

 

[PlusNomad]

Why are people still giving this guy time? It's like a couple years older Tocaraca.

 

[bMyers]

Why are people still giving this guy time? It's like a couple years older Tocaraca.
[/QU
Yea i think this guy ******ed or something

 

[RicoJay13]

Yeah but my momma says my grammar is better than that of a chicken.

 

[zuviss]

go back to reddit, we have serious aoe discussions here

 

[Rylo]

You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make it drink........

 

[iViktorius]

Cant we just pop this guy in a bf game with gentle, mibble, memb, bullet, geen, kellar, others of the voobly bf scene. Have all of them promise to only wall and boom with trade. Then this dude can try his market shenanigans, straight up die and maybe the story is finished?

 

[derpina276]

your wrong

 

[RicoJay13]

Cant we just pop this guy in a bf game with gentle, mibble, memb, bullet, geen, kellar, others of the voobly bf scene. Have all of them promise to only wall and boom with trade. Then this dude can try his market shenanigans, straight up die and maybe the story is finished?

I have proposed a more scientific method of testing this theory. Nobody accepted.

 

[RicoJay13]

your wrong

So is your grammar. Open two google docs, learn grammar so that people cant immediately infer your IQ is lower than theirs, then let's talk math.

 

[Elvaenor]

So is your grammar. Open two google docs, learn grammar so that people cant immediately infer your IQ is lower than theirs, then let's talk math.

Weren't you the one that was salty about all the personal insults? Maybe if you didn't behave so arrogant people would actually take you just a little bit more seriously. You talk about scientific ways to prove your point yet you behave like a child that just entered college and feels like he's the king of the world.

 

[_Melkor]

I have proposed a more scientific method of testing this theory. Nobody accepted.

You proposed a mathematical method of testing your theory. Not a scientific one. Science takes into account the complexity of any system. Your method is equivalent to someone trying to analyse the data from the economic system based on data for one specific day in the last 10 years, then claiming everyone should listen to your analysis because of course the vastly complex economic system will obey the rules of your vastly approximated analysis.

A easier metaphorical example is this. You want to pick the fastest way to get home, and there are two different roads a) no stops but long road, b) lots and lots of stops but technically shorter.
One route is like start ------------------------------- finish
other one is like start --|--|--|--|--|--|--|-- finish where | is a traffic stop
You are metaphorically saying that route B is faster and everyone should switch to it because in an ideal situation where no cars are crossing route B IS faster. Regardless of the fact that 99% of the time you will wait at least 1 minute for a chance to cross at each stop, which makes route A faster 99% of the time.

Please stop saying you are taking a scientific approach. I know what a scientific approach actually means, and this isn't it 11. Feel free to message me on voobly if you actually want to discuss this.

 

[RicoJay13]

Weren't you the one that was salty about all the personal insults? Maybe if you didn't behave so arrogant people would actually take you just a little bit more seriously. You talk about scientific ways to prove your point yet you behave like a child that just entered college and feels like he's the king of the world.

I am not salty about personal insults. I pointed out that there were many hurled at me, instead of people checking out the math. I say that is childish.

My comment about grammar was simply a societal one, not my personal opinion. People assume those with bad grammar have low IQ and educational attainment. Whats your opinion on his "your wrong" comment? Are you glad hes on your side of this argument? Were you one of the people who liked his comment, which was basically trolly and devoid of any usefulness?

 

[RicoJay13]

You proposed a mathematical method of testing your theory. Not a scientific one. Science takes into account the complexity of any system. Your method is equivalent to someone trying to analyse the data from the economic system based on data for one specific day in the last 10 years, then claiming everyone should listen to your analysis because of course the vastly complex economic system will obey the rules of your vastly approximated analysis.

A easier metaphorical example is this. You want to pick the fastest way to get home, and there are two different roads a) no stops but long road, b) lots and lots of stops but technically shorter.
One route is like start ------------------------------- finish
other one is like start --|--|--|--|--|--|--|-- finish where | is a traffic stop
You are metaphorically saying that route B is faster and everyone should switch to it because in an ideal situation where no cars are crossing route B IS faster. Regardless of the fact that 99% of the time you will wait at least 1 minute for a chance to cross at each stop, which makes route A faster 99% of the time.

Please stop saying you are taking a scientific approach. I know what a scientific approach actually means, and this isn't it 11. Feel free to message me on voobly if you actually want to discuss this.

Agreed. Where do you stand on the math here? Agree with the 14+ minutes to payoff or no?

And do you believe me playing against memb and the other experts is a more or less mathematically relevant test than mine?

 

[_Melkor]

Agreed. Where do you stand on the math here? Agree with the 14+ minutes to payoff or no?

And do you believe me playing against memb and the other experts is a more or less mathematically relevant test than mine?

I haven't checked the math, but am assuming for the sake of the argument that it is 100% correct, that there is a 14 minute payoff exactly. My point is that even assuming that to be true, the strategy does not work.

The best "experience" test to see if this works, is if for instance I decided to play a series of 100 BF games while using your selling build. You need a large data set for any test to be even close to worthwhile, furthermore only a fraction of those games would be set under the conditions that make the test worthwhile. (would have to involve closed map/free boom/no one else uses market and see if it works)

The reality is that you will never prove this one way or another by experiment because there are too many factors and it would take probably 1000 games at least , to have some real scientific data.

If you want to be scientific about this, you should conclude that given your assumptions you have solved for the most efficient approach; but that assumptions hold very rarely. What to do with this? If you ever are playing BF and the game goes that way, you can use your build and it can work and that can happen once every 100 games or so.
The way you get better at this game, is by starting by learning builds, but the game is far too complex for those to be used at high level and everything changes based on waht opponents do. Builds are essentially a mathematically solved best solution for a very specific scenario. High level experience is when you take all the builds that you know as a starting point, and start learning to adjust them based on how the game goes. because the game will almost never go according to teh specific scenario the build was meant for.
This follows for waht you have mathematically attempted.

But again the problem is that you can never be 100% certain no one else will decide to actively spam burn the market. The whole build based off this data alone is inherently risky. If you have the option between two strategies where one is 100% going to work and the other is 25% likely this changes the decision making into expected values. Outcome A reward x probability against outcome B reward x probability.
If you take into account all the things that can go wrong with your build, then its safer to go for trade.

 

[chrummi]

There is one relevant test you could do, and thats certainly not a 1v1. I would suggest you find some people who are around the same level to play 4v4 bf on a regular basis, then play 100 (or whatever you think is enough so the data is statistically relevant) bf games with the same teams and 1 team (or just some players of a team, whatever you think is best) will not trade whilst the other one does. Then switch this and let the other team not set up trade. If the team that is not setting up trade wins more games in total then you can assume that not setting up trade is statistically better in 4v4 bf games at your level. But even then, if you switch just one parameter (amount of players, map, skill of the players) the result might be different.

 

[RicoJay13]

I haven't checked the math, but am assuming for the sake of the argument that it is 100% correct, that there is a 14 minute payoff exactly. My point is that even assuming that to be true, the strategy does not work.

The best "experience" test to see if this works, is if for instance I decided to play a series of 100 BF games while using your selling build. You need a large data set for any test to be even close to worthwhile, furthermore only a fraction of those games would be set under the conditions that make the test worthwhile. (would have to involve closed map/free boom/no one else uses market and see if it works)

The reality is that you will never prove this one way or another by experiment because there are too many factors and it would take probably 1000 games at least , to have some real scientific data.

If you want to be scientific about this, you should conclude that given your assumptions you have solved for the most efficient approach; but that assumptions hold very rarely. What to do with this? If you ever are playing BF and the game goes that way, you can use your build and it can work and that can happen once every 100 games or so.
The way you get better at this game, is by starting by learning builds, but the game is far too complex for those to be used at high level and everything changes based on waht opponents do. Builds are essentially a mathematically solved best solution for a very specific scenario. High level experience is when you take all the builds that you know as a starting point, and start learning to adjust them based on how the game goes. because the game will almost never go according to teh specific scenario the build was meant for.
This follows for waht you have mathematically attempted.

But again the problem is that you can never be 100% certain no one else will decide to actively spam burn the market. The whole build based off this data alone is inherently risky. If you have the option between two strategies where one is 100% going to work and the other is 25% likely this changes the decision making into expected values. Outcome A reward x probability against outcome B reward x probability.
If you take into account all the things that can go wrong with your build, then its safer to go for trade.

Oh no doubt more tests and samples would be better, just less realistic to expect us to all partake in. Its like saying the best test to prove global warming is to build a 2nd Earth and not have humans on it. I am trying to find an easier test. I noticed you didnt answer whether you thought my suggested test was better or worse than me playing vs Memb and other far superior players so they could teach me a lesson.

Also, my math shows 14 minutes to break even and 18.5 minutes for trader to be ahead by ~40 Mangudai which was the same as the initial edge. How you use the term "payoff" is what I am drilling down on here. I wouldnt give my opponent 40 Mangudai as a gift and then have them gifted back to me, plus another 40 mangudai 18.5 minutes later and call that a reasonable investment payoff. Its about 5 minutes past that when the trader is really economically dominant vs the seller (t=23). At t=23 the trader has his initial deficit 40 Mangudai back, plus another 76 as his payoff. As Ive said before, if we played a 60 minute treaty 4v4 I would set up trade EVERY TIME. The payoff is there and its substantial and endless in theory.

 

[RicoJay13]

There is one relevant test you could do, and thats certainly not a 1v1. I would suggest you find some people who are around the same level to play 4v4 bf on a regular basis, then play 100 (or whatever you think is enough so the data is statistically relevant) bf games with the same teams and 1 team (or just some players of a team, whatever you think is best) will not trade whilst the other one does. Then switch this and let the other team not set up trade. If the team that is not setting up trade wins more games in total then you can assume that not setting up trade is statistically better in 4v4 bf games at your level. But even then, if you switch just one parameter (amount of players, map, skill of the players) the result might be different.

See my response to Melkor. I love your idea Im just looking for an easier way to test this. Also, my plan admittedly suffers from other players, even just one crashing the market. So a whole team on one side of a 4v4 doing this has diminished returns. Thats one of the reasons Ive so strongly defended against accusations many have made that the market has crashed by minute 30 or 40. It doesnt in most cases. My point is, one player which is basically me runs this all in no trade scenario and has a strong edge against say my nearby flank or nearby pocket player to blast in. My anecdotal evidence of TGs is that the market is almost never at 14 and 14 prices for food and wood when I start burning it hard. I am in an argument where it is me, one person, against literally everyone else in this forum. That logically flows that its unfair to argue that lots of other people are burning wood at the market. The market prices disagree based on my posted viper TGs. And based on my experience. Also, the market prices arent some state secret. If they are rock bottom, and I/you dont have a good pushing civ, or I/you dont have a civ that can live without gold like Turks, I/you can decide to set up trade.

 

[amazing_knight]

I fear for the time when insurance market would entirely rely only on data modelling algorithms to decide who has a better probability of living/dying. Their justification would also be that 'Data/Math doesn't lie'.

There's a reason Homo Economicus is criticised. You have to account for human factors and irrationality, which math can't. Only human brains can feel that. Math is just part of the equation in this analysis, It's not the entire analysis.

 

[RicoJay13]

I fear for the time when insurance market would entirely rely only on data modelling algorithms to decide who has a better probability of living/dying. Their justification would also be that 'Math doesn't lie'.

There's a reason Homo Economicus is criticised. You have to account for human factors and irrationality, which math can't. Only human brains can feel that. Math is just part of the equation in this analysis, It's not the entire analysis.

You described the exact way life insurance models and quotes rates btw. If you fear for that moment, that moment is 40 years ago.

To attempt to simulate both the math and the game realities, do you feel you could withstand giving an equal player a 3k gold edge after you both boomed untouched for 35 minutes?

 

[chrummi]

I dont see everyone being against you, i think everyone agrees that there are situations where its reasonable to not start trade, but in most situations in team games setting up trade is the safer approach. I think the main reason for the somewhat harsh posts is the wording in your video, which isnt really nice too to say the least.

If you can deal enough damage to your opponents before trade kicks in youre in a better spot, but if you cant you have basically lost the game. Not setting up trade puts you on a timer the same way as many other decisions in the game do. Thats the reason why we rarely see players going for more militia instead of clicking up to feudal. you could create a lot more militias and attack your opponent so he doesnt have the ressouces to create military when he hits feudal. That doesnt usually work because you dont deal enough damage with them since its easy to wall them out and you can even fight them with vils if really needed. Same thing bith skipping eco upgrades like double-bit axe, this also gives you more ress to invest into army, but you need to do the damage quickly, otherwise you are too far behind in eco. What we see quite often is a full feudal/castle vs a player advancing to the next age, there you have 1000/1800 ress more to invest into army, but you need to do the damage before the opponents investment into the upgrade pays off.

Adding more TCs is exactly the same story, you invest ressources into eco, so lets say in a 1 tc vs 3 tc play one player invests into eco and the other goes for more army. The player on 1 TC needs to deal some damage to make this worth it, otherwise youre too far behind in economy and will lose in the long run. If we look at the probably most played maps as an example we see that on Arena players go for a 1 TC push quite often and this works a lot of the time. On Arabia players do it sometimes and it also works sometimes, but the safer approach there is to go for mulitple tcs and booming whilst also building military. On BF a 1 TC push basically never works unless you can sneak some vils on the enemys side, so the choice also varies greatly depending on the map.

Trade is the same thing, you invest some ressources into your eco and less into military. If you take a big amount of damage before trade kicks in you lose the game, but if you survive the push and can mostly hold you will win as soon as trade kicks in..

 

[_Melkor]

Oh no doubt more tests and samples would be better, just less realistic to expect us to all partake in. Its like saying the best test to prove global warming is to build a 2nd Earth and not have humans on it. I am trying to find an easier test. I noticed you didnt answer whether you thought my suggested test was better or worse than me playing vs Memb and other far superior players so they could teach me a lesson.

Also, my math shows 14 minutes to break even and 18.5 minutes for trader to be ahead by ~40 Mangudai which was the same as the initial edge. How you use the term "payoff" is what I am drilling down on here. I wouldnt give my opponent 40 Mangudai as a gift and then have them gifted back to me, plus another 40 mangudai 18.5 minutes later and call that a reasonable investment payoff. Its about 5 minutes past that when the trader is really economically dominant vs the seller (t=23). At t=23 the trader has his initial deficit 40 Mangudai back, plus another 76 as his payoff. As Ive said before, if we played a 60 minute treaty 4v4 I would set up trade EVERY TIME. The payoff is there and its substantial and endless in theory.

What I am saying is that there is no easier way. End of story. Thats not how science works. Thats how human guesswork and naivety works. That being said; you playing vs other good bf players is much better test than your proposed 1v1 resources challenge. 1v1 resources challenge is completely pointless as it ignores 1000 factors that become evident in a real tg.

As I said before. You are putting too much emphasis on a resource advantage. 3000 resources is practically nothing when you are with 200 pop min 38.
When I play BF I do a combination of using market and setting up trade and have a fully functional set up at approximately min 31. 3000 res is irrelevant if you can be upping to imp min 31 with a trade line set up and already building military buildings.
Out of experience I can say without a doubt that when my opponents put less emphasis on trade (theres always some game where people do a do or die with worse civs) I feel super confident about an easy win.

So again; the main problem is that in a good level BF tg many people will use the market. I don't know how to emphasise this more but you seem to forget that this factor alone breaks your build. Secondly; you put too much emphasis on 3000 res, which is a low percentage of net income eve at min 31!!
Doing experiments yourself to test out your theory is pointless; because I can already tell you that at min 31 when I have a half decent boom, I am upping to imp with at least 20 trade carts. (Dont need too much too early, just need to ensure you can keep building slowly as your miners work) And have plenty of time to mass before there is any danger whatsoever of opponents breaking through. (this being the case even vs some players who get trade way slower).

Maybe you are not taking into account that its not necessary to do a 40 cart trade boom. getting even 10 set up early is enough for your miners to provide gold for army, while trade gets the gold to slowly build up this number.
there is no rule to getting trade set up except that you need to be able to constantly produce your best combination of units. Usually there is a big deadlock which allows you to stack resources. So really this whole argument is useless. BF is too random.
Safest approach, once again, is to set up trade.

As ive said at least twice now. Your maths are pretty much pointless, because there are too many in built assumptions. Experience is the only thing that works in aoc. In game depending on how it goes, you improvise the rate at which you make trade or dont make trade.

 

[RicoJay13]

I dont see everyone being against you, i think everyone agrees that there are situations where its reasonable to not start trade, but in most situations in team games setting up trade is the safer approach. I think the main reason for the somewhat harsh posts is the wording in your video, which isnt really nice too to say the least.

If you can deal enough damage to your opponents before trade kicks in youre in a better spot, but if you cant you have basically lost the game. Not setting up trade puts you on a timer the same way as many other decisions in the game do. Thats the reason why we rarely see players going for more militia instead of clicking up to feudal. you could create a lot more militias and attack your opponent so he doesnt have the ressouces to create military when he hits feudal. That doesnt usually work because you dont deal enough damage with them since its easy to wall them out and you can even fight them with vils if really needed. Same thing bith skipping eco upgrades like double-bit axe, this also gives you more ress to invest into army, but you need to do the damage quickly, otherwise you are too far behind in eco. What we see quite often is a full feudal/castle vs a player advancing to the next age, there you have 1000/1800 ress more to invest into army, but you need to do the damage before the opponents investment into the upgrade pays off.

Adding more TCs is exactly the same story, you invest ressources into eco, so lets say in a 1 tc vs 3 tc play one player invests into eco and the other goes for more army. The player on 1 TC needs to deal some damage to make this worth it, otherwise youre too far behind in economy and will lose in the long run. If we look at the probably most played maps as an example we see that on Arena players go for a 1 TC push quite often and this works a lot of the time. On Arabia players do it sometimes and it also works sometimes, but the safer approach there is to go for mulitple tcs and booming whilst also building military. On BF a 1 TC push basically never works unless you can sneak some vils on the enemys side, so the choice also varies greatly depending on the map.

Trade is the same thing, you invest some ressources into your eco and less into military. If you take a big amount of damage before trade kicks in you lose the game, but if you survive the push and can mostly hold you will win as soon as trade kicks in..

The issue I have is that while drush and 1TC strategies as you provided are considered valid strategies with extensive build guides and lots of proponents, nobody but me seems to consider the expense of setting up trade to be as decisive as the numbers suggest or a valid strategy in spite of the math supporting it.

I have an abrasive personality in that video, borne of the insults and dismissiveness hurled my way in the reddit conversation that led up to the video. I apologize if that has dissuaded you or anyone from an unbiased review of my idea, math, arguments etc. I have seen math and arguments by people I thought were jerks hundreds of times and been able to admit then they have made a valid point. When will the first person on this forum or reddit make that first admittance? I bet it will be awhile as it's so much easier to just call me a noob or make broad unprovable statements like "trade is safer".

 

[amazing_knight]

To attempt to simulate both the math and the game realities, do you feel you could withstand giving an equal player a 3k gold edge after you both boomed untouched for 35 minutes?

Oh sure. Give them 5k gold edge instead of 3k, I don't mind. Just give me someone like FatSlob as a Flank.

You described the exact way life insurance models and quotes rates btw. If you fear for that moment, that moment is 40 years ago.

Well I wasn't born in 1979, but nobody told me that data was being used to make algorithms to determine quotes by life insurance agencies back then. Perhaps my history teachers didn't know either.

Btw the crux of my point was in the word 'entirely'. Not arguing that data/math shouldn't be used to make decisions, but your decision cannot be called 'rational' if it's based 'entirely' on it. This is the core argument in behavioural economics as well.