Market Trading Vs Selling: An Analysis

[RicoJay13]

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.

And yet despite all of that, you both cant answer my simple question about whether my proposed test or the one vs Memb is better.

I used 40 carts, trirem used 70 for his math. Arguing for less is fine and I would agree. As with any bad investment that might very well not payoff, the less you sink into it the better! It is very ironic that you would simultaneously disagree with my premise but then also argue for less carts. At what point does less carts become zero carts? Pick a number of carts you on average boom into and run the math. I could easily do it for you, either in my doc or trirems. Or if youve done the math Ill gladly take a look. Or did you just assume that since everyone else trades, you would do on blind faith? Note 20 carts will payoff sooner in trirems doc because he gets free 4 markets and Caravan for free and assumes despite lots of evidence to the contrary that the market is crashed by the time trade starts.

If you really think 3k gold is a low amount at 35 minutes, why are you unwilling to back that up in a simple 1v1 vs me? I assume you are a better player than me so why so reluctant? Is it because 1800hd or 2000 voobly realizes I would walk all over someone if you gifted me those resources?

 

[RicoJay13]

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



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.

What fatslob does only works because onagers cant cut trees, and he plays noobs who send rams up to walls as if theyve never seen an onager before. Weasel put of my challenge any way you like, but dont argue for AoK rules. This discussion is about version 5.8.

Life insurance has been around since the 1760s. Before computers they did the math by hand.

 

[_Melkor]

And yet despite all of that, you both cant answer my simple question about whether my proposed test or the one vs Memb is better.

I used 40 carts, trirem used 70 for his math. Arguing for less is fine and I would agree. As with any bad investment that might very well not payoff, the less you sink into it the better! It is very ironic that you would simultaneously disagree with my premise but then also for less carts. At what point does less carts become zero carts? Pick a number you on average boom into and run the math. I could easily do it for you, either in my doc or trirems. It will payoff sooner in trirems because he gets free 4 markets and Caravan for free and assumes despite lots of evidence to the contrary that the market is crashed by the time trade starts.

If you really think 3k gold is a low amount at 35 minutes, why are you unwilling to back that up in a simple 1v1 vs me? I assume you are a better player than me so why so reluctant? Is it because 1800hd or 2000 voobly realizes I would walk all over someone if you gifted me those resources?

I said in my last post, that a test vs memb (other bf players) is better than your challenge. I also said, that your test is too pinpoint for a complex game like aoc and is thus pointless. Not sure what the problem here is. Either you think the test is a good representation of the complex game (which it isnt) or there is some confusion about you thinking I disagree that it can work sometimes (which I dont)

The whole point is that in a real bf game you should be improvising. If you see an opportunity where no one has touched the market so far, you have the highest score (thus most likely best boom) and there is open map, then sure its a good decision to go ful market selling and push fast.
The answer to how many carts you should make depends entirely on the game (how much danger is your flank in/ how much extra golds do you have/ how open is the map) You make as many carts as you can while ensuring you can hold your side or push. This turns out to usually involve a pretty safe trade boom out of my considerable BF tg experience.

What type of 1v1? Is the purpose to show who has more resources after a period of time? (if so the test is a waste of time since no one disagrees that there is a window where market selling is more efficient)

If the purpose is to demonstrate that you could easily push in a 1v1 with those extra resources than again the test is a waste of time, because in a 1v1 you have no unlimited gold income, so 3000 gold is a huge amount since its a limitied resource!!!

If the purpose is to prove to you that I could hold your push easily (for a few minutes before gold mines run out) after losing 3k resources mn 35; then no problem happy to play a 1v1 vs you. I can guarantee that I would be 200 pop after losing that 3k resources, and the only way I could get pushed fast is with inferior civ.

Most people are reluctant to play the 1v1 not because they are scared but because they feel sure that it is a complete waste of time.

 

[RicoJay13]

I said in my last post, that a test vs memb (other bf players) is better than your challenge. I also said, that your test is too pinpoint for a complex game like aoc and is thus pointless. Not sure what the problem here is. Either you think the test is a good representation of the complex game (which it isnt) or there is some confusion about you thinking I disagree that it can work sometimes (which I dont)

The whole point is that in a real bf game you should be improvising. If you see an opportunity where no one has touched the market so far, you have the highest score (thus most likely best boom) and there is open map, then sure its a good decision to go ful market selling and push fast.
The answer to how many carts you should make depends entirely on the game (how much danger is your flank in/ how much extra golds do you have/ how open is the map) You make as many carts as you can while ensuring you can hold your side or push. This turns out to usually involve a pretty safe trade boom out of my considerable BF tg experience.

What type of 1v1? Is the purpose to show who has more resources after a period of time? (if so the test is a waste of time since no one disagrees that there is a window where market selling is more efficient)

If the purpose is to demonstrate that you could easily push in a 1v1 with those extra resources than again the test is a waste of time, because in a 1v1 you have no unlimited gold income, so 3000 gold is a huge amount since its a limitied resource!!!

If the purpose is to prove to you that I could hold your push easily (for a few minutes before gold mines run out) after losing 3k resources mn 35; then no problem happy to play a 1v1 vs you. I can guarantee that I would be 200 pop after losing that 3k resources, and the only way I could get pushed fast is with inferior civ.

Most people are reluctant to play the 1v1 not because they are scared but because they feel sure that it is a complete waste of time.

The 1v1 test Ive proposed includes the seller getting the 3k gold and then return tributing back to simulate the investment returns the trader has. Another word for waste of time is an excuse. Its also a waste of time for me to arm wrestle The Mountain. Or to race Usain Bolt. Etc.

 

[_Melkor]

The 1v1 test Ive proposed includes the seller getting the 3k gold and then return tributing back to simulate the investment returns the trader has. Another word for waste of time is an excuse. Its also a waste of time for me to arm wrestle The Mountain. Or to race Usain Bolt. Etc.

Another word for a mathematical analysis that is entirely dependent on 100 unlikely assumptions is "irrelevant"

Again, a 1v1 test has almost no significance since it will always end in a trash war which is not tg BF style.

Aaaaand let me say once more that I'm happy to do any 1v1 challenge you want as long as I'm allowed to leave before it gets to trash war; since this has 0 relevence to the argument.
But what do you mean by the seller getting 3 k gold. Do you mean that the trader tributes you 1500 gold and thus there is 3k gold delta? or you mean the trader generates this by using hte market? but then how do you take into account he other player needing to pay for his markets and trade. I wasn't reading this part earlier if you already said this.
Again im happy to do this 1v1 challenge if its the only thing that will make you see reason 11.

 

[RicoJay13]

Another word for a mathematical analysis that is entirely dependent on 100 unlikely assumptions is "irrelevant"

Again, a 1v1 test has almost no significance since it will always end in a trash war which is not tg BF style.

Aaaaand let me say once more that I'm happy to do any 1v1 challenge you want as long as I'm allowed to leave before it gets to trash war; since this has 0 relevence to the argument.
But what do you mean by the seller getting 3 k gold. Do you mean that the trader tributes you 1500 gold and thus there is 3k gold delta? or you mean the trader generates this by using hte market? but then how do you take into account he other player needing to pay for his markets and trade. I wasn't reading this part earlier if you already said this.
Again im happy to do this 1v1 challenge if its the only thing that will make you see reason 11.

I fully detailed the challenge in previous posts. It devolved into 3k gold cause thats a summary. Its the wood, food and gold edge that the seller has for that 7 minute window before he gets a single gold return on investment. 40 trade carts, 4 markets, caravan. And yes as you said its half of that tributed from trader to seller. Then to simulate them being dead even at minute 14, seller triubutes back same half amount to trader. Then at t=18.5 same tribute from seller to trader. The idea, the premise is that by that point the results should be clear one way or another. If its close, or unclear then at least we have that as a data point.

Not sure what you mean about no trash war. Im not going to outlaw you using trash. What do you mean?

Also you mentioned worse civ earlier but I believe the only valid test is mirrored civs. I mentioned this in the Spanish tatoh boom yt vid comment. I have also mentioned that certain civs are well suited for this. Its not fair to the argument to give me Turks in this instance. Using trash units in combination with gold units is one of the reasons the seller can push and do so well. Its a huge wood deficit for example. And part of that edge the seller has is that he can spend that wood where the trader cant.

 

[Double_N]

Wouldn´t you in that scenario get more resources than you could collect yourself? And the opponent doesn´t invest gradually, but all at once and does also not get the slow and steadily increasing gold payback? So effectively you would just get slung by your opponent? How does that translate to in game trade scenario?

 

[_Melkor]

My point about trash war, is that BF never goes into a trash war, so its a waste of time to keep playing if the game ever goes that far.
If all you want is to show that you can secure a quick win with me tributing you 1500 res at some point and then being given it back later. Sure, no problem. May it be noted that all BF on voobly is done with either no onager cut or onager cut when u need to research uprooting which costs the same as SO.

Let it also be noted, that even if it works, its irrelevant because most BF games people burn the market by min 38. Also BF teamplay depends on combos of units with your allies, and since combo is so important this delays fights a bit; lots of other reasons this is not an accurate representation of a real BF game 11.

 

[RicoJay13]

Wouldn´t you in that scenario get more resources than you could collect yourself? And the opponent doesn´t invest gradually, but all at once and does also not get the slow and steadily increasing gold payback? So effectively you would just get slung by your opponent? How does that translate to in game trade scenario?

Trader pays for 32 trade carts with steady production from 4 markets before the FIRST trade cart group returns with his FIRST gold paycheck. What you consider a slow investment in trade carts is more of an all at once investment given the length of time before the first returns come in. I promise you if you look at my google doc or trirems this becomes immediately clear.

 

[RicoJay13]

My point about trash war, is that BF never goes into a trash war, so its a waste of time to keep playing if the game ever goes that far.
If all you want is to show that you can secure a quick win with me tributing you 1500 res at some point and then being given it back later. Sure, no problem. May it be noted that all BF on voobly is done with either no onager cut or onager cut when u need to research uprooting which costs the same as SO.

Let it also be noted, that even if it works, its irrelevant because most BF games people burn the market by min 38. Also BF teamplay depends on combos of units with your allies, and since combo is so important this delays fights a bit; lots of other reasons this is not an accurate representation of a real BF game 11.

Ive never played on voobly or heard of uprooting. Version 5.8 rules. Obviously.

See various previous posts where market burn to the 14/100 has been repeatedly sourced to be not accurate. Minute 38 is later than trade has been started as stated by most others in this forum.

My hypothesis is that if I can overrun you with the edge in rez discussed here before the tributed back rez allow you to push back, that is a relevant test of this data. I understand that theres variables which make this an imperfect test, but testing in 4v4 is always going to have to be distilled down into more manageable bites. 1v1 works for that. Another test worth running would be a similar 1v1 where we again do mirror and same civs and test just me vs you with NO tributes. Ie a possible result from these boom 1v1 tests is that you slaughter me when I dont get tributed any rez, but I hold my own and win with the tributed rez.

 

[GmanStreams]

Cant believe people are still discussing in this pointless thread from 2018 lmao

 

[_Melkor]

Ive never played on voobly or heard of uprooting. Version 5.8 rules. Obviously.

See various previous posts where market burn to the 14/100 has been repeatedly sourced to be not accurate. Minute 38 is later than trade has been started as stated by most others in this forum.

My hypothesis is that if I can overrun you with the edge in rez discussed here before the tributed back rez allow you to push back, that is a relevant test of this data. I understand that theres variables which make this an imperfect test, but testing in 4v4 is always going to have to be distilled down into more manageable bites. 1v1 works for that. Another test worth running would be a similar 1v1 where we again do mirror and same civs and test just me vs you with NO tributes. Ie a possible result from these boom 1v1 tests is that you slaughter me when I dont get tributed any rez, but I hold my own and win with the tributed rez.

Would I be allowed to only sling you wood 1500 wood? Because this is actually the best simulation in a 1v1 considering trade carts cost wood and gold.
Honestly I can't see how 1500 resources slung can make any difference. The only thing I can think of is a 1v1 where both are celts and it had to be 1500 food slung; that might make a difference for overall woad mass and SO research. But still nah, it gets irrelevant pretty quickly.

I don't know what you mean by version 5.8 rules. No one on voobly plays with just research onager and you are able to cut. Cause it changes the BF meta for the last 10 years too much. If you are arguing in the case that onager is enough to immediately cut, then that is again irrelevant since NO ONE on decent level BF plays with that 11

 

[RicoJay13]

Cant believe people are still discussing in this pointless thread from 2018 lmao

Me either. Guess its easier to insult and blindly follow meta than open a google doc.

 

[Nick_]

This guy is a true zealot, holy **** man.

I challenge you to watch every expert TG tournament matchup 3v3/4v4 from the last 8 years and count how many times a no trade team won the match up without being significantly ahead in late castle age.

 

[RicoJay13]

Would I be allowed to only sling you wood 1500 wood? Because this is actually the best simulation in a 1v1 considering trade carts cost wood and gold.
Honestly I can't see how 1500 resources slung can make any difference. The only thing I can think of is a 1v1 where both are celts and it had to be 1500 food slung; that might make a difference for overall woad mass and SO research. But still nah, it gets irrelevant pretty quickly.

I don't know what you mean by version 5.8 rules. No one on voobly plays with just research onager and you are able to cut. Cause it changes the BF meta for the last 10 years too much. If you are arguing in the case that onager is enough to immediately cut, then that is again irrelevant since NO ONE on decent level BF plays with that 11

My proposed amount of rez is not negotiable. 40 trade carts is a good avg. Trirem used 70. In one Viper BF 4v4 he mentioned he had 59 carts. The rez to start trade are what they are.

Nobody on HD plays with only SO able to cut. Heres a compromise: lets mirror with an SO civ and we promise not to cut with Onagers (but can cut with SO). Teutons, Celts, Ethiopians, Koreans, Slavs etc.

 

[Double_N]

Trader pays for 32 trade carts with steady production from 4 markets before the FIRST trade cart group returns with his FIRST gold paycheck. What you consider a slow investment in trade carts is more of an all at once investment given the length of time before the first returns come in. I promise you if you look at my google doc or trirems this becomes immediately clear.

That doesn´t change the effect that from this point on you will get a gold income already and not only couple of minutes later when you pay back the gold all at once, altough it is probably a scam because you will be broke by then and can´t pay melkor back... In game all that matters is that you can keep army population up.

Also btw. in the time you spent discussing here couple of last days, you could have spectated 100s of BF games on voobly on various levels and there is enough games where at least one team won´t have proper trade and you can do analisis.

 

[amazing_knight]

There's actually another way to look at math.

Instead of calculating viability of a strategy based on how much resources it generates and then deciding whether that's winnable - how about - deciding the viability of a strategy based on the number of times it has actually won a game.

Just do the math and see how many games have been won/lost by not going for sling. This is a more reasonable way to look at data.

Isn't that how statisticians do predictive modelling anyway? The binary variable (win/loss) is known and they try to identify which variables led to that outcome. What you're doing is the opposite.

 

[_Melkor]

My proposed amount of rez is not negotiable. 40 trade carts is a good avg. Trirem used 70. In one Viper BF 4v4 he mentioned he had 59 carts. The rez to start trade are what they are.

Nobody on HD plays with only SO able to cut. Heres a compromise: lets mirror with an SO civ and we promise not to cut with Onagers (but can cut with SO). Teutons, Celts, Ethiopians, Koreans, Slavs etc.

So what is your proposed amount of res? I thought it was a total of 3k res. That would mostly be wood.

 

[_Melkor]

There's actually another way to look at math.

Instead of calculating viability of a strategy based on how much resources it generates and then deciding whether that's winnable - how about - deciding the viability of a strategy based on the number of times it has actually won a game.

Just do the math and see how many games have been won/lost by not going for sling. This is a more reasonable way to look at data.

Isn't that how statisticians do predictive modelling anyway? The binary variable (win/loss) is known and they try to identify which variables led to that outcome. What you're doing is the opposite.

Its true. In certain complex macro systems (e.g the economy of america) it is pretty well known that the best results come from looking at what outcomes have occurred in the past and not basing results off mathematical calculations assuming the system can be solved.

In this case it would probably be best to look at the top 20 rates BF players that most often play BF and see what they do in non rush scenarios.
The argument that would be used against this, is that it is irrelevant what those players do, since they only copy the meta and the meta is non-optimal.
But then again, the meta is formed by the best sort of strategy optimizing tool available. Excessive trial and error.

 

[iViktorius]

I do wonder, since you don't seem awfully familiar with the community, that of all people you can be arguing against, Melkor should not be the one.
Melkor is a pro BF player and a pro player in general, furthermore he is actually known for trying out stuff. If there is one guy not just blindly following the meta it's Melkor.

He also wears capes occasionally, dunno how that is supposed to prove a point, but I feel like it should help in some way.

What I'm trying to say is, trust Melkor.

 

[Elir_Kvothe]

Ok so seriously, a 1.8k HD player believes he will be able to beat Melkor with 3k res tributed. It will be funny if even after the tribute Melkor has more res and starts pushing.

 

[JT_CZ]

My proposed amount of rez is not negotiable.

That is the problem. You assume 40 or 70 or whatever many trade carts for the fastest return and you assume that a player will get all of that immediately when he starts trading. At this point I question whether you even play the game at all (nevermind your self-proclaimed rating). Getting the fastest return on your trade carts is not the priority in a game. The priority is winning. So a player might be willing to delay the return of his trade investment in order to produce military to survive (remember that when starting to produce trade en masse, you pretty much acknowledge you are in the game for a long run - what's a few minute difference for you then? ).
The proposition that a player instantly invests 3k res into trade upon deciding to start trading is simply insane (as I said before, a good player will keep 1 or 2 carts queued up in each market, but will NOT immediately sink 3k res into carts). Overall, the tests you propose simplify the game too much, and you end up with unrealistic situations.

I guess the problem is you take more of a pure math point of view, while most people on AoEzone take a more practical approach.

 

[green eggs]

It's incredible the lengths to which one person will go to avoid admitting that they're wrong.

At this point the only person you're trying to convince is yourself.

 

[LaochraGael]

I do wonder, since you don't seem awfully familiar with the community, that of all people you can be arguing against, Melkor should not be the one.
Melkor is a pro BF player and a pro player in general, furthermore he is actually known for trying out stuff. If there is one guy not just blindly following the meta it's Melkor.

He also wears capes occasionally, dunno how that is supposed to prove a point, but I feel like it should help in some way.

What I'm trying to say is, trust Melkor.

Pff ignore this guy. You can definitely take Melkor in a 1v1. Has all the makings of a classic showmatch. Maybe Escape can cast it...

Melkor + Trade vs RicoJay + Science Math

 

[PlusNomad]

I do wonder, since you don't seem awfully familiar with the community, that of all people you can be arguing against, Melkor should not be the one.
Melkor is a pro BF player and a pro player in general, furthermore he is actually known for trying out stuff. If there is one guy not just blindly following the meta it's Melkor.

He also wears capes occasionally, dunno how that is supposed to prove a point, but I feel like it should help in some way.

What I'm trying to say is, trust Melkor.

Timo is the cape king.