Market Trading Vs Selling: An Analysis

[RicoJay13]

Fair enough, I tend to make long posts. That's my bad.

I my defense though, I do read everyone else's long posts. Yours included, of course.

Did you read mine? And the part where I suggest you look for recs on Voobly where you have a huge ammount of data that could prove (or disprove) your theory?

Frankly I have no interest in reviewing and using voobly games as my basis for this argument. I get enough flak when I use viper games, or the suggested tournament BF team games which was about 20 pages back. I did appreciate whomever provided that the average BF teamgame for several regulars on voobly is around 50 mins. To me that's pretty good data to show that it's going to be very hard for trading to pay off in the average game. It's basically 14 minutes to payoff if you play it perfectly in an untouched boom and there's no raiding etc. It's longer if your micro isn't perfect, production from a market isn't perfect, your trade route needs Onagering and you don't realize it until you've sunk costs, there's raiding anywhere on your route, etc. All of that occurred in that viper vid. And 18:30 minutes after he started trade he still hadn't reached ROI. So I go back to my original advice: if you're going to start trading, you better feel VERY secure that you have 14+ minutes for this large investment to pay off.

 

[RicoJay13]

And just a general comment because it seems that a lot of people are making the argument that since you don't know how long the game will last, it's safer to ramp into trade. That is a perspective. Another perspective would be that based on the same fog of war, since you don't know when the pivotal battle will occur or when you will really need the resources to fight it, you should NOT take the risk that it will occur inside of that 14+ minute window before trading will ROI.

 

[nimanoe]

My entire premise is that the pop he (or anyone) uses for trade carts could instead be used for vils you either create or DON'T murder.

But you assume in your spreadsheet that they're all vills that don't get murdered and don't account for the costs if they had to be created.

Had he done that, he'd have more resources than if he did what he did which was ramp into trade. I respect that his (and I assume yours) opinion at that point in game is that he'd rather ramp into trade in the preparation for the possibility that the game goes on long enough for it to pay off. I completely understand that that is the idea behind trading. But in this instance, it absolutely DID NOT pay off. Easy math. End of discussion on this one data point. And none of the other players likely had their trade pay off. I think a few had 0 trade revenue so it's not all 8/8, but I think it was 6/8 or so.

Agreed with you here, however at the time Viper set up trade, he didn't know the game would be over so soon. So in HINDSIGHT it wasn't worth it, but at the time it was a good investment. Especially if you consider that when he invested into trade he was already close to pop-capped, so efficiency in his eco would leave more room for army.

If the average pro game is ~50 total minutes, I view that as almost an ironclad case that trading isn't paying off in most games.

Come on, you take this one game as reference for all games? This game was very different in that there was a LOT of aggression early on, which forced people to delay making trade. I also think Viper was one of the few people who had a proper boom, so it's not that odd that there wasn't a lot of trading going on. In some games there will be some early aggression, especially if they have worse late game civs (like in this game), but in general there won't be nearly as much aggression as in this game.

Especially because constant production from 3-5 markets is not a given even for elite players. It's a lot of wood and gold and micro, even moreso if your route requires onagering, protection etc. In that Viper video he spends a lot of time flaring and asking his teammates to clean up an area in the middle of their trade route as an example.

Sure, it might take more time to set up trade, but while your markets are idle, the seller doesn't gain anything over the trader. The return of Investment will be longer, but the trader will have more resources to spend on army during the time he's not investing in trade.

What you say is both true but belies the point. Which is that if most of the time trade is NOT paying off, then you should NOT be doing it.

Unsubstantiated claim

Obviously some games will go on so long that it does pay off. I lose plenty of games I play in where they go so long that trading puts my opponents at a major advantage. Obviously that doesn't appear to be the case most of the time based on my experience, games I've posted that pros play in, my assumption if the average 4v4 BF voobly match only lasts ~50 mins, the challenge matches vs TheHand, etc.

When do you think players start trade in general? From my experience by watching plenty of high level games on streams and the occasional game in a tournament they start trade before 35 min in, so the trade would've paid off already by your own calculations of a ROI of 14 min.

Does he though? Or am I supposed to just assume what you say with no backing data must be correct?

I've been around the community for a few years already and have watched plenty of high level games on stream. If you know any better way to find when players start trade instead I'll gladly hear it.

 

[Rylo]

This argument that "you don't know how long the game will go so the safe play is to ramp into trade" is silly. That's like saying "you don't know whether you will have a car accident so you better get car insurance to be safe". The obvious retort is "yeah and it's a bad investment to do so which is why insurance companies have their names on stadiums and jerseys."

WTF?

 

[orangereaper]

Only way to settle this..

Daut's Apartment Cup
4v4, exclusively RageForest maps
Winner takes all booze

Honestly though, isn't this similar to 1tc push against 3 tc boom.
If the rusher can make enough eco damage he will come-out victorious.
If the boomer pulls a fatslob, then he booms free and wipes off the rusher.

Risk/Reward.
If these things were so black and white, then you'll only see single meta.
(akin to 20-22 pop feudal into sc etc.)

 

[Syphax]

Honestly, this is probably the most ******ed thread I've ever read in my 20+ years on the internet and I've read a lot of crap. Congrats

 

[RicoJay13]

Come on, you take this one game as reference for all games? This game was very different in that there was a LOT of aggression early on, which forced people to delay making trade. I also think Viper was one of the few people who had a proper boom, so it's not that odd that there wasn't a lot of trading going on. In some games there will be some early aggression, especially if they have worse late game civs (like in this game), but in general there won't be nearly as much aggression as in this game.

The ~50 minutes I'm taking from what others have posted based on them citing pro players who exclusively play voobly 4v4 BF TG's. The Viper game was longer than that and yet no one turned a trade profit.

We are trying to both say the same thing on game length and trade payoff. I'll put it this way: if you told me I would get to untouched boom for 50 minutes so that around the time I set up trade around 30 minutes I could definitely ROI setting up trade, I'd do it every time. I don't believe that the average BF game involves 50 minutes of certain untouched boom. For flank, it's almost always well earlier than that often in castle age. Even for pocket, I often see where pocket has to be ready to help and cannot untouched boom for the amount of time required to have trade ROI. The only way trade would always pay off given the average BF TG is ~50 minutes would be if every game involved untouched boom. That's obviously not the case. ~50 minutes is a super fast game from the perspective of trade taking 14+ minutes to ROI. Look at the Viper game: 58.5 minutes and nobody ROI'd trade and he couldn't do it in 18.5 minutes.

Somewhat ironically, noob BF games where everyone just walls up and booms to late imperial age are about the only surefire way to play in a game where trading will almost always pay off. Once you get to 1700+ HD 4v4 BF, which is admittedly still pretty far from being elite aoe2 player, forget it: The action is starting a lot earlier than that and before your trade has paid off. And the games (assuming ~50 minutes endtime) aren't going long enough to justify that cultist level of surefire investment that the masses subscribe to.

I'm not sure what evidence you are looking for with your claim that the costs for villagers isn't included. Keep in mind this is completely baked into the scenario which I tested both as seller and trader. So if you're looking for a way to bake this in without crashing the food cost for villagers, that's a great way. Nobody seems to want to spend even an hour to simulate it so that's why we are stuck here.

 

[RogganWololo]

Thank you for bringing this thread back to life @HyunAOP
Thanks for giving me something to read while having breakfast everyday, it's usually quite boring otherwise

 

[HyunaOP]

Thank you for bringing this thread back to life @HyunAOP
Thanks for giving me something to read while having breakfast everyday, it's usually quite boring otherwise

Appreciate the sarcastic love bro ❤

 

[AgentJCDenton]

Are you sure you aren't RicoJay's smurf-account where he lets his arrogance loose?

No, but I guess I would say that if I was.

You know you're losing an argument when you not only believe the other side has a personality disorder, but write that in a forum as a means of trying to insult a stranger.

I'm not sure it was an insult, since you're obviously very bright just strangely inspired shall we say. Also I just joined not only this thread but the forums at large and I would love to see the conventional wisdom disproved, although the overwhelming consensus against selling makes me skeptical. I'll go with whatever is shown to be correct.

 

[HongeyKong]

All Hail RicoJay!

 

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I actually lost brain cells reading this

 

[Carlini8]

Can we have new data with Khmer farms please?