Market Trading Vs Selling: An Analysis

[RicoJay13]

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.

I will make sure to have resources by the times when I have to tribute back. I am not trying to scam anyone. If I dont have the rez and hes holding just fine, my argument is wrong and I concede. Likewise if he builds 53 mazes of walls all around his base to try to stall, I will assume victory of my thesis as he devolved to shenanigans to defend.

 

[RicoJay13]

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

Its the wood, food and gold to set up trade by buying 40 carts, Caravan, and 4 markets. Half of that.

 

[RicoJay13]

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.

"Of all the people".... Melkoir is only only person who has come anywhere close to accepting my proposed challenge to test this in game. Perhaps a better way to look at it is that it took a spectacular player who is genuinely interested in BF to dance with me. I dont take any offense to that, and neither should Melkoir.

 

[green eggs]

I will make sure to have resources by the times when I have to tribute back. I am not trying to scam anyone. If I dont have the rez and hes holding just fine, my argument is wrong and I concede. Likewise if he builds 53 mazes of walls all around his base to try to stall, I will assume victory of my thesis as he devolved to shenanigans to defend.

@_Melkor can you please just do it so we can be done with this ridiculous thread.

 

[Rylo]

Unfortunately there is such a large skill difference here with you and Melkor that I am pretty sure he would just go supremacy villagers and no military in a Spanish mirror and still hold v your proposed idea - no insult just reality.

Also, for entertainment sake, why not just build a scenario where you both start with a fully boomed eco (with the gold etc that would have been collected removed) where your opponent has a trade route to an AI market. Your opponent then has to make x number of trade carts constantly and you can use your selling method. To me, this would seem like the most plausible way of testing your statements, even though there are still considerable flaws using this idea and extrapolating to a 4v4 TG. However, maybe a more evenly matched opponent, say like @Shed_ would be more appropriate.

 

[green eggs]

Unfortunately there is such a large skill difference here with you and Melkor that I am pretty sure he would just go supremacy villagers and no military in a Spanish mirror and still hold v your proposed idea - no insult just reality.

This. It's hilarious that OP is trying to spin this as "everyone else is too scared to face me." I mean, a thread on aoezone might just be the worst place in the whole community to find someone who wants to play a BF game on HD.

 

[RicoJay13]

Unfortunately there is such a large skill difference here with you and Melkor that I am pretty sure he would just go supremacy villagers and no military in a Spanish mirror and still hold v your proposed idea - no insult just reality.

Also, for entertainment sake, why not just build a scenario where you both start with a fully boomed eco (with the gold etc that would have been collected removed) where your opponent has a trade route to an AI market. Your opponent then has to make x number of trade carts constantly and you can use your selling method. To me, this would seem like the most plausible way of testing your statements, even though there are still considerable flaws using this idea and extrapolating to a 4v4 TG. However, maybe a more evenly matched opponent, say like @Shed_ would be more appropriate.

I am totally game for this. But in the meantime, I've created an HD lobby entitled "RicoJay's Game". Password "aoezone". Here's the tribute logistics: the losses from tributing are acceptable.

Minute say 35, simulating t=6 after trading started opponent tributes the equivalent of 40 trade carts, 4 markets and Caravan to me, halved to me:
2350w
1100g
100f

Minute 43, t=14 when we are breakeven I tribute that same amount above back to opponent. Then at minute 47.5, t=18.5 when opponent is ahead by the same initial edge due to trading, I tribute the same amount AGAIN back to opponent. At minute 50 or thereabouts, we will decide as adults what the conclusion is. If I'm in and the base is completely being overrun, to the point where logically no trade would be coming through it, I'll call that a win for the seller. Otherwise, win for the trader.

The other rules would just be unimpeded booming to minute 35. I'm ok with a "no trash units" policy if my opponent wants to. Pop 300 because that is the HD standard for BF TG's. If you're upset about this pop, my question is why hasn't anyone prefaced their complete distaste for the non-trading plan by stating that in 300 pop games sure don't trade, but in 200 it's mandatory. I'll split the difference at 250 if someone whines hard enough. If your argument is trading is an almost always thing, pop 300 shouldn't concern you. No player can go onto the opponent's half of the map, I'm setting a treaty for 35 minutes also. You wall off your standard nearest choke and that's it. This isn't to simulate shenanigans or to test vil war skills. I'm cool with mirror Celts, Ethiopians, Teutons, Slavs.

I'll wait 14 minutes for any takers, out of respect for how long it takes for trade to pay off to breakeven.

Edit: No takers.

 

[Influenza]

jeez man this topic barely deserves 12 replies let alone 12 pages

 

[n0brain]

I am totally game for this. But in the meantime, I've created an HD lobby entitled "RicoJay's Game". Password "aoezone". Here's the tribute logistics: the losses from tributing are acceptable.

Minute say 35, simulating t=6 after trading started opponent tributes the equivalent of 40 trade carts, 4 markets and Caravan to me, halved to me:
2350w
1100g
100f

Minute 43, t=14 when we are breakeven I tribute that same amount above back to opponent. Then at minute 47.5, t=18.5 when opponent is ahead by the same initial edge due to trading, I tribute the same amount AGAIN back to opponent. At minute 50 or thereabouts, we will decide as adults what the conclusion is. If I'm in and the base is completely being overrun, to the point where logically no trade would be coming through it, I'll call that a win for the seller. Otherwise, win for the trader.

The other rules would just be unimpeded booming to minute 35. I'm ok with a "no trash units" policy if my opponent wants to. Pop 300 because that is the HD standard for BF TG's. If you're upset about this pop, my question is why hasn't anyone prefaced their complete distaste for the non-trading plan by stating that in 300 pop games sure don't trade, but in 200 it's mandatory. I'll split the difference at 250 if someone whines hard enough. If your argument is trading is an almost always thing, pop 300 shouldn't concern you. No player can go onto the opponent's half of the map, I'm setting a treaty for 35 minutes also. You wall off your standard nearest choke and that's it. This isn't to simulate shenanigans or to test vil war skills. I'm cool with mirror Celts, Ethiopians, Teutons, Slavs.

I'll wait 14 minutes for any takers, out of respect for how long it takes for trade to pay off to breakeven.

Edit: No takers.

u waited 14 minutes? lets say melkor is online surfing on the zone right the moment u posted this and read it lets say 3min later. probably took him the other 11min just to finish reading whatever stuff was between his last post and this...

not sure if thats ur only problem, but seems the concept of scheduling is new to u? aoezone has many forums specificly for that, i recommend trying it in the future when setting up a match.

and considering the entire competetive scene is on voobly i recommend trying userpatch for meta tests as serious as this. the performance could obviously influence the games outcome.

300 and 250 pop also suggest u might need to catch up a bit on the aoe scene. the "meta" is formed for tournament/competetive standards which is 200 and playing on voobly. (which should even favor ur theory since 40 extra mangudai should have more impact on lower pop numbers)

i also recommend repeating ur experiment at least about 20 times under different, as close to real games, circumstances to reach statistical significance. with different map generations for different trade routing etc. probably start with mongols since that was ur first example and than repeat the whole process for multiple civs u think the powerspike would be most beneficial for.

ps: not sure why but writing here makes me feel good :P

 

[RicoJay13]

u waited 14 minutes? lets say melkor is online surfing on the zone right the moment u posted this and read it lets say 3min later. probably took him the other 11min just to finish reading whatever stuff was between his last post and this...

not sure if thats ur only problem, but seems the concept of scheduling is new to u? aoezone has many forums specificly for that, i recommend trying it in the future when setting up a match.

and considering the entire competetive scene is on voobly i recommend trying userpatch for meta tests as serious as this. the performance influance obviously influence the games outcome.

300 and 250 pop also suggest u might need to catch up a bit on the aoe scene. the "meta" is formed for tournament/competetive standards which is 200 and playing on voobly. (which should even favor ur stuff since 40 extra mangudai should have more impact on lower pop numbers)

ps: not sure why but writing here makes me feel good :P

My invitation wasn't only for Melkior. As someone suggested there may be other players closer to my skill level.

 

[n0brain]

My invitation wasn't only for Melkior. As someone suggested there may be other players closer to my skill level.

yea im not sure about the number of people hat actually have a working HD setup, are bf players and read ur aoezone post at 2:30 central eu time. u might wanna address the other issues i pointed out though. might help with ur project :P

 

[dataidiot]

Whenever I'm trying to set a new strategy or just play in a different way(both happen a lot as I'm always testing new maps and a mix of weird settings), I think of the game as a machine as much as possible: each part doesn't have to be perfect, but all of them must be functional so the whole thing works. Even if the numbers showed a real improvement(40 Elite Mangudais are not so impressive, units die no matter how good you're on micro and decision making, you also don't mass them instantly; 14 minutes is not that much time as your opponents can camp and avoid big engagements, camp and make trash units to "burn" until they get rid of your precious extra army), the reality of a game could still be go for trade and don't risk a very important part of the "BF machine" to get broken.

 

[dodageka]

I’ve tried it before, and I will try it again. All the discussions here are irrelevant because your maths is wrong. Not the actual calculations of course but the scenario. I’ve raised the point of additional villagers. Your scenario is based on the trader deleting villagers for every trade cart they make. There is no magic rule to do that. The only reason people delete villagers is because they either are pop capped or have enough resources to do what they want to. In neither case the additional resources will make a difference, because you can’t put them to use anyways. If however you include the additional 40 vills required in your calculation your advantage crumbles (this might be different in 300 pop games but like has been pointed out before, they are simply not relevant for meta, and then the premise of your video is a completely different)

The second, much bigger flaw in your simulation is that you do it in the absence of gold. In a normal game, when you are boomed and reach imperial age there is still more than enough gold on the map to fund building trade, so any meaningful simulation would need to take that into account and focus on potential redistribution of villagers etc, but that is very situational. I invite you to follow me through the following logic, tell me where you disagree

1) to sustain four market takes around 28 villagers
2) after ~7 minutes the first trade carts return. After that you get ~500 gold/minute from trade, equal to about 16 villagers. At this point your net investment into trade is 12 villagers.
3) after ~ 10 minutes you have produced your 40 tradecarts and investment into trade is zero.
4) if you start trade with around 120 villagers and keep booming to 140 or so, not investing into trade means you work with an additional 20-25% villagers for 7 minutes and 10% more villagers for another 3 minutes
5) therefore, in order to defend and stall, you need to fight only 25% more efficient than the attacker. That is easily achievable by camping hills/chokes/castles, fighting close to home and spamming trash that trades cost effectively and you the attacker cant afford to overrun because they are on a timer and can’t replenish their gold army as easily.
6) after 14 minutes investment into trade has paid back and it only goes downhill from there for the attacker that doesn’t trade

Third, people don’t trade boom from 4 markets right away with continuous production unless they have the time and space to, it adjust their trade investment to military needs. You are right that a slower trade boom leads to a longer payback period, but the relative disadvantage per minute becomes smaller, making it easier for the trader to camp hills/chokes/sit behind walls etc. if you change to two markets in the example above the numbers change to 14 vills for the first seven minutes, 6 vills for the next six minutes and after that trade more than pays for the ongoing investment. This just leaves you at single-digit economy investment for most of the time, an advantage that is super hard to push (idling tc in feudal or staying 1 tc in castle gives you a much larger advantage percentage wise and still most people opt against that) - one fight that doesn’t go perfect and you’re essentially gg.


Also, a few more general points. Every now and then someone in a similar position like you (very low rating, limited experience) comes up with a supposed ground-breaking insight and tries to explain that the meta is wrong. Do you really think that people that play that game for a living and for many years and have way more than a thousand hours/year in this game have never thought of burning the market instead of trading when it is so obvious like you claim?
Many people try to understand the game mathematically, and while there is a lot of merit to that the experience shows that most of it is not applicable because it only works in ideal situations - like Melkor said it gives you the optimal behavior in a specific situation but you win by picking a behavior that is the across all situations (because you never know how things will unfold).
Also, Vipers BF games are a bad example. He almost exclusively plays low level players and just does random stuff, so nothing in those games tells you anything about how meta is played - I would trust Melkor way more than those games.
And don’t take that personal, but in this community people below 2k HD rating are considered as noobs, so calling you that

 

[dodageka]

I am totally game for this. But in the meantime, I've created an HD lobby entitled "RicoJay's Game". Password "aoezone". Here's the tribute logistics: the losses from tributing are acceptable.

Minute say 35, simulating t=6 after trading started opponent tributes the equivalent of 40 trade carts, 4 markets and Caravan to me, halved to me:
2350w
1100g
100f

Minute 43, t=14 when we are breakeven I tribute that same amount above back to opponent. Then at minute 47.5, t=18.5 when opponent is ahead by the same initial edge due to trading, I tribute the same amount AGAIN back to opponent. At minute 50 or thereabouts, we will decide as adults what the conclusion is. If I'm in and the base is completely being overrun, to the point where logically no trade would be coming through it, I'll call that a win for the seller. Otherwise, win for the trader.

The other rules would just be unimpeded booming to minute 35. I'm ok with a "no trash units" policy if my opponent wants to. Pop 300 because that is the HD standard for BF TG's. If you're upset about this pop, my question is why hasn't anyone prefaced their complete distaste for the non-trading plan by stating that in 300 pop games sure don't trade, but in 200 it's mandatory. I'll split the difference at 250 if someone whines hard enough. If your argument is trading is an almost always thing, pop 300 shouldn't concern you. No player can go onto the opponent's half of the map, I'm setting a treaty for 35 minutes also. You wall off your standard nearest choke and that's it. This isn't to simulate shenanigans or to test vil war skills. I'm cool with mirror Celts, Ethiopians, Teutons, Slavs.

You realize that those settings don’t make any sense? It has been explained countless times that the whole discussion is based on 200 pop games because that’s the relevant setting, and you didn’t limit your video to 300 pop games. I don’t think anybody here will make a claim that you need to trade in 300 pop games off the bat because no one cares about 300 pop games.
Also, if you want to simulate trading by paying tributes you have to pay the tributes gradually over time, not in one amount - that doesn’t reflect reality at all. And lastly, I am not an expert but 35 minutes seems like a long time. Regardless, I have no doubt that Melkor would completely destroy you even with the rules you suggest

 

[green eggs]

Every now and then someone in a similar position like you (very low rating, limited experience) comes up with a supposed ground-breaking insight and tries to explain that the meta is wrong. Do you really think that people that play that game for a living and for many years and have way more than a thousand hours/year in this game have never thought of burning the market instead of trading when it is so obvious like you claim?
Many people try to understand the game mathematically, and while there is a lot of merit to that the experience shows that most of it is not applicable because it only works in ideal situations - like Melkor said it gives you the optimal behavior in a specific situation but you win by picking a behavior that is the across all situations (because you never know how things will unfold).

Great post overall but this in particular bears repeating. A few times I've heard top players get asked what their single most important insight into the game is (or words to that effect). More often than not, the answer they give is that everything is situational and there are no formulas beyond the super obvious. Technically, it's possible to give a mathematical answer to any question in the game. But there are so many variables, the real skill is knowing which question to ask in the first place—something you can only get through experience.

 

[gmischa]

The funniest part is that this 1800HD player thinks he survives 32min vs melkor in the first place

 

[King_Marv]

This is still going ?

 

[n0brain]

This is still going ?

yes, its amazing

 

[Henkdesupernerd]

Your 1v1 test has many shortcomings (tribute fee, gold instantly appearing for whoever receives it, the one who tributing not having enough resources at the time he has to tribute, no pop wasted for the 'trader' in the lategame, no infinite source of gold income, 1v1 setting)

Id be willing to make a small scenario which provides better settings, eventhough its a 1v1:

We play on a black forest map. On my side there is an allied market. We both play a normal BF game (no tower rush or sneaks because that ofcourse beats the purpose). In lategame you sell your wood and I make tradecarts to trade with that market. I should be allowed to use market as I please (but I wont deliberately crash the market)
To even things out even more lets play mirror civ and ill put 1 relic on each side of the map (1relic per player is still a lot for 4v4 setting). Ill make the map as fair as possible (equal golds on both sides etc) and send you the scenario file so you can take a look at it and confirm no cheats were implemented.

For civ lets choose one that is generic, that is not extremely defensive and not extremely aggresive, and one that can cut trees with onagers, lets say Franks?

I prefer playing on voobly but we could play on HD. On HD i'm 1900 ELO.
Im very not used playing on 300pop, but Im fine playing to try that for one game and then the other game on 200pop (then we immediately see if that makes a difference)
Since I'm not really excited to play 100+ games on this, I propose a best of three? (would keeping the same civs and same map be an issue?)

 

[RicoJay13]

Whenever I'm trying to set a new strategy or just play in a different way(both happen a lot as I'm always testing new maps and a mix of weird settings), I think of the game as a machine as much as possible: each part doesn't have to be perfect, but all of them must be functional so the whole thing works. Even if the numbers showed a real improvement(40 Elite Mangudais are not so impressive, units die no matter how good you're on micro and decision making, you also don't mass them instantly; 14 minutes is not that much time as your opponents can camp and avoid big engagements, camp and make trash units to "burn" until they get rid of your precious extra army), the reality of a game could still be go for trade and don't risk a very important part of the "BF machine" to get broken.

Everybody says 14 minutes isnt long, nobody accepts my challenge so we can test it.

 

[RicoJay13]

The funniest part is that this 1800HD player thinks he survives 32min vs melkor in the first place

Read the thread. Its untouched boom.

 

[RicoJay13]

I’ve tried it before, and I will try it again. All the discussions here are irrelevant because your maths is wrong. Not the actual calculations of course but the scenario. I’ve raised the point of additional villagers. Your scenario is based on the trader deleting villagers for every trade cart they make. There is no magic rule to do that. The only reason people delete villagers is because they either are pop capped or have enough resources to do what they want to. In neither case the additional resources will make a difference, because you can’t put them to use anyways. If however you include the additional 40 vills required in your calculation your advantage crumbles (this might be different in 300 pop games but like has been pointed out before, they are simply not relevant for meta, and then the premise of your video is a completely different)

Are you conceding that in 300 pop, trading is a much worse payoff and that market burning can easily end up a decisive advantage worth pushing in many instances? Zero people have conceded this, and yet you and many have stated that at 300 pop it's irrelevant. Is there any pop limit under which trading becomes less relevant as a meta strategy?

The second, much bigger flaw in your simulation is that you do it in the absence of gold. In a normal game, when you are boomed and reach imperial age there is still more than enough gold on the map to fund building trade, so any meaningful simulation would need to take that into account and focus on potential redistribution of villagers etc, but that is very situational. I invite you to follow me through the following logic, tell me where you disagree

1) to sustain four market takes around 28 villagers

Irrelevant and un-mathy.

2) after ~7 minutes the first trade carts return. After that you get ~500 gold/minute from trade, equal to about 16 villagers. At this point your net investment into trade is 12 villagers.

I've done the math, therefore bullet point lists no longer make any sense to me. Do you see any "~" in my google doc? Yeah, cause tildas are for people guessing.

3) after ~ 10 minutes you have produced your 40 tradecarts and investment into trade is zero.

Agreed. But again more tilda guesswork math. No need for this now that me and Trirem have crunched the numbers.

4) if you start trade with around 120 villagers and keep booming to 140 or so, not investing into trade means you work with an additional 20-25% villagers for 7 minutes and 10% more villagers for another 3 minutes

Tough to follow because it's not in spreadsheet form.

5) therefore, in order to defend and stall, you need to fight only 25% more efficient than the attacker. That is easily achievable by camping hills/chokes/castles, fighting close to home and spamming trash that trades cost effectively and you the attacker cant afford to overrun because they are on a timer and can’t replenish their gold army as easily.

More idle promises that your defense will outweigh the rez involved. Not sure what the count is up to, but we're still close to zero in terms of willing participants in actual game testing.

6) after 14 minutes investment into trade has paid back and it only goes downhill from there for the attacker that doesn’t trade

Correct. But the trader has to survive untouched for those 14 minutes is the entire premise here.

Third, people don’t trade boom from 4 markets right away with continuous production unless they have the time and space to, it adjust their trade investment to military needs. You are right that a slower trade boom leads to a longer payback period, but the relative disadvantage per minute becomes smaller, making it easier for the trader to camp hills/chokes/sit behind walls etc. if you change to two markets in the example above the numbers change to 14 vills for the first seven minutes, 6 vills for the next six minutes and after that trade more than pays for the ongoing investment. This just leaves you at single-digit economy investment for most of the time, an advantage that is super hard to push (idling tc in feudal or staying 1 tc in castle gives you a much larger advantage percentage wise and still most people opt against that) - one fight that doesn’t go perfect and you’re essentially gg.

This is a long way of saying you don't believe the invested rez outweigh the long term benefits of trading. I understand your point of view. From my useless mid/low level HD experience, people definitely boom from 4 markets as a general meta. I show up in their base by onagering into where I assume or have scouted their market to be and there are buku trade carts coming/going. Everybody thinks they are safe until they aren't. Before you say my experience is useless, you should realize I posted a Viper video where he did just that with Koreans.

Also, a few more general points. Every now and then someone in a similar position like you (very low rating, limited experience) comes up with a supposed ground-breaking insight and tries to explain that the meta is wrong. Do you really think that people that play that game for a living and for many years and have way more than a thousand hours/year in this game have never thought of burning the market instead of trading when it is so obvious like you claim?

I don't only think they haven't considered this, I also haven't seen a single one come forward to say "here's the math on why I do this". I would think that someone who does this for a living would put at least as much effort into understanding the 'why' and the 'justification' for trading. Heck at least as much as some 1800HD noob like me.

Many people try to understand the game mathematically, and while there is a lot of merit to that the experience shows that most of it is not applicable because it only works in ideal situations - like Melkor said it gives you the optimal behavior in a specific situation but you win by picking a behavior that is the across all situations (because you never know how things will unfold).
Also, Vipers BF games are a bad example. He almost exclusively plays low level players and just does random stuff, so nothing in those games tells you anything about how meta is played - I would trust Melkor way more than those games.
And don’t take that personal, but in this community people below 2k HD rating are considered as noobs, so calling you that

Melkor do you think that in the two Viper vids I showed that he was just doing random stuff, or was he playing somewhat close to his best game?

 

[sozey_]

There is such a lack of quality drama here lately that this thread is the outcome. I demand better drama!

 

[RicoJay13]

Your 1v1 test has many shortcomings (tribute fee, gold instantly appearing for whoever receives it, the one who tributing not having enough resources at the time he has to tribute, no pop wasted for the 'trader' in the lategame, no infinite source of gold income, 1v1 setting)

Id be willing to make a small scenario which provides better settings, eventhough its a 1v1:

We play on a black forest map. On my side there is an allied market. We both play a normal BF game (no tower rush or sneaks because that ofcourse beats the purpose). In lategame you sell your wood and I make tradecarts to trade with that market. I should be allowed to use market as I please (but I wont deliberately crash the market)
To even things out even more lets play mirror civ and ill put 1 relic on each side of the map (1relic per player is still a lot for 4v4 setting). Ill make the map as fair as possible (equal golds on both sides etc) and send you the scenario file so you can take a look at it and confirm no cheats were implemented.

For civ lets choose one that is generic, that is not extremely defensive and not extremely aggresive, and one that can cut trees with onagers, lets say Franks?

I prefer playing on voobly but we could play on HD. On HD i'm 1900 ELO.
Im very not used playing on 300pop, but Im fine playing to try that for one game and then the other game on 200pop (then we immediately see if that makes a difference)
Since I'm not really excited to play 100+ games on this, I propose a best of three? (would keeping the same civs and same map be an issue?)

I like this idea and accept. If you create it, I will come. Few suggestions to make this easier and more realistic:

1. I'm fine with all 3 games being 250 pop if that's easier than game 1 at 200, game 2 at 300, game 3 at ?
2. No relics I feel would be a better test. My reasoning is that nobody has said that if you get some relics, trade becomes a worse investment and not worth doing as meta. In a 4v4, your'e essentially 50/50 to get a relic so it's certainly not something either the seller or trader can count on in a regular game.
3. HD please.
4. I'm not sure the Franks are the most realistic civ for this. Again, nobody has come out and said that yeah if you have an offensive civ you should burn the market and Siege Onager into their base vs trading. I would propose mirrored civs with Ethiopians, Slavs, Celts, or Teutons. They all have fairly full tech trees, and are considered good/great BF civs. And as I said with Melkior, I'm fine with a "no trash unit" policy as part of this test.
5. The only true test is to have you invest heavily, say 40 trade carts, into trading. Is this something you will do? And I realize how it sounds when I say that I will need to know when you have done so, like it sounds as though I am cheating. But my whole premise is that this investment puts you behind for a window of time. If I wait to attack AFTER this window, the test is useless. If you wait to start trading at 40 minutes and I attack at 35, the test is useless. What I would propose is a 35 minute treaty, and for you to simply pause and notify me when you start trading with the understanding that you will ramp into a minimum of 40 trade carts. This should be somewhere around when you would normally begin trading in a BF TG (others have posted around minute 25ish). Again, I'm not saying that I will DEFINITELY attack immediately, or 6 minutes later, but this is the entire premise of the test. Two equalish players, one burns rez into 40 carts while the other plans an assault with that rez advantage.

 

[Henkdesupernerd]

you make it more complicated that it needs to be.
Your hypothesis= A player who keeps selling resources is better off than someone who invests into trade.

That is what we test here. No need for a notification or a 35min treaty. We just need to setup the game that way that I will have to invest into tradecarts and you will sell resources. How you capitalize on your ' window of oppurtunity' is on you to figure out. I'm making the simple scenario now. Notify me here or in pm and I'll host a gameroom, I'll be online for most of the afternoon/evening (GMT+2)

Let's do 200pop, 250pop, 300pop then.

Im fine with any civ except for: turks&huns(no Onager), spanish(better trade), goths(no stone walls), portuguese(feitoria). So the civs you listed are fine.