Market Trading Vs Selling: An Analysis

[MaSmOrRa]

I don't even know why OP thinks Math is going to help with anything in this case.

Trade is an investment just like any upgrade or unit you create: you lose something in the immediate in hopes of getting a higher return in the near future. If you make 3 scouts you are putting yourself behind in economy in hopes those 3 scouts will cause enough damage that in the end amounts to more resources lost for your opponent than those you had to spend on those scouts. I believe every AoE player understands this.

It's the exact same thing with Trade vs Market abuse.
Yes you get an immediate power boost from selling on the market. But what you don't seem to understand just yet is you can't just assume you can finish a game with your first push, no matter how powerful it is, especially not in a 4v4 game with a closed map such as BF.
Maybe in lower levels that might actually work every time, but you will eventually learn that the higher the level, the better people get at walling and defending and camping hills and placing good castles and stalling etc. More often than not, you need a series of very strong pushes to finish a game and if you can only afford 1 strong push, you will die badly after it has been stopped and at higher levels, it will be stopped. You probably just never witnessed it because you still haven't reached that level yourself.

TL; DR: At lower levels, its probably absolutely viable to skip trade and sell resources for a temporary power boost. The higher the level, the less viable it becomes.

 

[RicoJay13]

I don't even know why OP thinks Math is going to help with anything in this case.

Trade is an investment just like any upgrade or unit you create: you lose something in the immediate in hopes of getting a higher return in the near future. If you make 3 scouts you are putting yourself behind in economy in hopes those 3 scouts will cause enough damage that in the end amounts to more resources lost for your opponent than those you had to spend on those scouts. I believe every AoE player understands this.

It's the exact same thing with Trade vs Market abuse.
Yes you get an immediate power boost from selling on the market. But what you don't seem to understand just yet is you can't just assume you can finish a game with your first push, no matter how powerful it is, especially not in a 4v4 game with a closed map such as BF.
Maybe in lower levels that might actually work every time, but you will eventually learn that the higher the level, the better people get at walling and defending and camping hills and placing good castles and stalling etc. More often than not, you need a series of very strong pushes to finish a game and if you can only afford 1 strong push, you will die badly after it has been stopped and at higher levels, it will be stopped. You probably just never witnessed it because you still haven't reached that level yourself.

TL; DR: At lower levels, its probably absolutely viable to skip trade and sell resources for a temporary power boost. The higher the level, the less viable it becomes.

Then why does every response up to this point, from noobs to pros, argue that trading is a must and a no brainer? Yours is the first message saying skipping trade MIGHT finish a game. Im not even sure you meant is as generous as I am taking it. Ie you might have intended to say only a noob would avoid trade and try to win.

 

[Double_N]

Then lets test it. Find me a comparable opponent (1860 hd), BF, boom for 35 minutes and they tribute me half the gold and wood edge that the seller has per my calculations. By the consensus logic, that so called minimal edge shouldnt give me a decisive advantage. Btw that minimal edge is 4 markets, caravan, plus 36 trade carts before the first has even returned 6 minutes later. Then 18.5 minutes after that I tribute that same minimal edge back to my opponent to simulate his payoff on his investment.

How about looking at this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=owZ0YkF7t8w

35 Minutes, pop cap with 155 vills and 45 FU Paladin. 1k wood, 2k food, as well as 0,5 k gold in the bank and couple of paladin queued up while still having enough gold to mine to replenish units and or make trade. The best way to lose from this spot is to think you can just overrun your opponent by keep making paladin and taking bad engagements, even if you delete vills and go to 60-70 paladin instead of transitioning into trade. It will work some time, especially on 1700 HD level, but without trade you are in the tough spot were you on the one hand can´t take bad fights forever since you eventually can´t replenish, while at the same time having to take fights to get a decisive military advantage to push. I mean with a pure paladin boom you are not even guranteed to break into your opponens base by 40 minutes. So with the excess resources given above and all the income you have when you are fully boomed, you would be already way better of if you had invested some resources into trade.

 

[MaSmOrRa]

Then why does every response up to this point, from noobs to pros, argue that trading is a must and a no brainer? Yours is the first message saying skipping trade MIGHT finish a game. Im not even sure you meant is as generous as I am taking it. Ie you might have intended to say only a noob would avoid trade and try to win.

Many of those pros skip trade when playing casual rated games. Mbl does it all the time when he plays BF or even Arabia.
But people around here always assume you are talking about a high level-high stakes situation. And in those cases it's just too risky to skip trade altogether because the power boost you get from selling on the market is almost never enough to finish a game. That's where everybody is coming from.

If your strat wins you games, then by all means, keep doing it! But I'm afraid you might develop the bad habit of always skipping trade and when you get to higher level team games people will call you out on it.

 

[TriRem]

They should be bottomed, but they arent in my experience, nor in the BF viper matches. Ironically what I do only works so well because Im the only one doing it. If everybody ran a major wood operation and was selling it like I was, it would crash as you presume.

I need more than anecdotal evidence, it's general convention that at 30 minutes in 4v4 BF market prices should be crashed, or at least pretty low, it only takes selling 6k wood to crash the market.

And as I said, the trader can sell almost as much as the seller initially, so initial market price is irrelevant.

 

[RicoJay13]

How about looking at this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=owZ0YkF7t8w

35 Minutes, pop cap with 155 vills and 45 FU Paladin. 1k wood, 2k food, as well as 0,5 k gold in the bank and couple of paladin queued up while still having enough gold to mine to replenish units and or make trade. The best way to lose from this spot is to think you can just overrun your opponent by keep making paladin and taking bad engagements, even if you delete vills and go to 60-70 paladin instead of transitioning into trade. It will work some time, especially on 1700 HD level, but without trade you are in the tough spot were you on the one hand can´t take bad fights forever since you eventually can´t replenish, while at the same time having to take fights to get a decisive military advantage to push. I mean with a pure paladin boom you are not even guranteed to break into your opponens base by 40 minutes. So with the excess resources given above and all the income you have when you are fully boomed, you would be already way better of if you had invested some resources into trade.

I am not understanding any relevance of that video to our team game scenario. If anything, that shows that a great player didnt have 3k gold lying around and had he invested in trade, it would have certainly delayed him getting to 45 Paladins. Im not even sure we can look at the market prices (not close to being bottomed at 35 minutes) and say anything useful from them.

 

[RicoJay13]

I need more than anecdotal evidence, it's general convention that at 30 minutes in 4v4 BF market prices should be crashed, or at least pretty low, it only takes selling 6k wood to crash the market.

And as I said, the trader can sell almost as much as the seller initially, so initial market price is irrelevant.

How to Black Forest

Twitch ► https://www.twitch.tv/tyrant_theviperSubscribe ► https://www.twitch.tv/products/tyrant_theviper/ticketTheViper Merch ► http://theviper.themonetizr....

youtu.be

I took the attached screenshot from a viper BF 4v4 which i linked. You can see that at 30 mins the wood and food prices are 66 and 76 resp. Do you consider 66 and 76 crashed, or pretty low? Is this more relevant than my anecdotal evidence? Do you still consider it reasonable to use 14/100 for the huge initial wood outlays required to ramp into trade? 700 wood for 4 markets. Caravan. 100w per cart.

That video shows how the early pushes dont prove decisive and how 20 minutes later vipers team wins with their superior trade income.

Just kidding its over 5 minutes later.

 

[Double_N]

I am not understanding any relevance of that video to our team game scenario. If anything, that shows that a great player didnt have 3k gold lying around and had he invested in trade, it would have certainly delayed him getting to 45 Paladins. Im not even sure we can look at the market prices (not close to being bottomed at 35 minutes) and say anything useful from them.

It shows that you can be fully popped and fully upgraded at 35 minutes with enough leftover resources to start trade or already have started it with only slightly less military. I didn´t say there should be 3000 gold worth of trade carts at that moment, but maybe just the 500 that is left in the bank and another 10 paladins worth of gold on top of that. You can still make extra trade and more paladins with just the gold you collect from your mines and keep the number of 40 paladins. Without starting trade, you either stockpile the resources, try to force trades all the time will being less sustainable and having attackers disadvantage or you delete villagers to go up to 60-70 or 80 paladin, which is as all in as it gets.

 

[RicoJay13]

Many of those pros skip trade when playing casual rated games. Mbl does it all the time when he plays BF or even Arabia.
But people around here always assume you are talking about a high level-high stakes situation. And in those cases it's just too risky to skip trade altogether because the power boost you get from selling on the market is almost never enough to finish a game. That's where everybody is coming from.

If your strat wins you games, then by all means, keep doing it! But I'm afraid you might develop the bad habit of always skipping trade and when you get to higher level team games people will call you out on it.

Again, if i agree will you explain to me why EVERYONE ELSE answers noobs, intermediate players that trade is a no brainer? I only got back into this argument because a person asked on reddit if anyone had done the math of trading payoff, i responded with a link to my vid, OP thanked me and said great vid, then moderator Pete said its not a good video, my logic is flawed, and that I hadnt addressed all the issues in this thread. I reread this thread, then pete and I ended in a back and forth which got us no closer to resolving this issue. Im glad the conversation is somewhat productive on this forum.

 

[RicoJay13]

It shows that you can be fully popped and fully upgraded at 35 minutes with enough leftover resources to start trade or already have started it with only slightly less military. I didn´t say there should be 3000 gold worth of trade carts at that moment, but maybe just the 500 that is left in the bank and another 10 paladins worth of gold on top of that. You can still make extra trade and more paladins with just the gold you collect from your mines and keep the number of 40 paladins. Without starting trade, you either stockpile the resources, try to force trades all the time will being less sustainable and having attackers disadvantage or you delete villagers to go up to 60-70 or 80 paladin, which is as all in as it gets.

Heres the problem with that: trade is an in for a penny in for a pound thing. If you burn wood for multiple markets, pay for caravan, and then can only afford 10 carts, it takes longer to payoff. I get that he'll continue to earn rez while those markets are built and while the first carts come out. But my whole point is he then starts a breakeven clock and its 14 minutes, or 15+ per Trirems math before he has broken even in rez vs the non trader. I feel that is decisive. If you gave me a clone of what Tatoh has, army, econ, vils, etc, and then made him tribute half of the wood gold and food to make 40 carts, Im pretty sure its gg. He'd have to essentially sell back half those Paladins to afford the tribute, hed be at zero rez, and Id have those 45 paladins PLUS the rez to queue up more and stroll in. If you cant look at that video and come to the conclusion that 40 trade carts is more than a minimal investment....

 

[Fall]

Again, if i agree will you explain to me why EVERYONE ELSE answers noobs, intermediate players that trade is a no brainer? I only got back into this argument because a person asked on reddit if anyone had done the math of trading payoff, i responded with a link to my vid, OP thanked me and said great vid, then moderator Pete said its not a good video, my logic is flawed, and that I hadnt addressed all the issues in this thread. I reread this thread, then pete and I ended in a back and forth which got us no closer to resolving this issue. Im glad the conversation is somewhat productive on this forum.

Most people go through the phase where they don't trade and try to finish team games earlier, and for a while at lower levels it definitely does work (or if you already have a large advantage from earlier in the game, or if you're just far better)!

But once people stop making errors it stops working. You realize how to exploit people who try to not trade and use the market instead and move on to work on something else.

In general if you're talking about strategy/theory here people will assume you're talking about 2k+ on voobly and higher levels (unlike reddit probably), which is why everyone has said that trade is a 'no brainer'.

 

[Flow]

Again, if i agree will you explain to me why EVERYONE ELSE answers noobs, intermediate players that trade is a no brainer? I only got back into this argument because a person asked on reddit if anyone had done the math of trading payoff, i responded with a link to my vid, OP thanked me and said great vid, then moderator Pete said its not a good video, my logic is flawed, and that I hadnt addressed all the issues in this thread. I reread this thread, then pete and I ended in a back and forth which got us no closer to resolving this issue. Im glad the conversation is somewhat productive on this forum.

Because trade is the safer option. Of course abusing the market can give you a power boost with which you can finish the game. However, if you don't you are dead because you don't have any way to catch up in trade cart numbers.
Everyone here knows that delaying eco gives you a power boost since you can invest those ressources directly into army. There are players out there that specialise in that. But, as i mentioned before, adding eco is just safer.
And I would argue that goes double for a map like BF where your push can be stalled for minutes by layers of stone walls.

 

[RicoJay13]

Most people go through the phase where they don't trade and try to finish team games earlier, and for a while at lower levels it definitely does work (or if you already have a large advantage from earlier in the game, or if you're just far better)!

But once people stop making errors it stops working. You realize how to exploit people who try to not trade and use the market instead and move on to work on something else.

In general if you're talking about strategy/theory here people will assume you're talking about 2k+ on voobly and higher levels (unlike reddit probably), which is why everyone has said that trade is a 'no brainer'.

Thats probably the smartest response I have read on this topic. You should pass this along because most if not all of the people on this thread cannot acknowledge it.

 

[TriRem]

I took the attached screenshot from a viper BF 4v4 which i linked. You can see that at 30 mins the wood and food prices are 66 and 76 resp. Do you consider 66 and 76 crashed, or pretty low? Is this more relevant than my anecdotal evidence? Do you still consider it reasonable to use 14/100 for the huge initial wood outlays required to ramp into trade? 700 wood for 4 markets. Caravan. 100w per cart.

That video shows how the early pushes dont prove decisive and how 20 minutes later vipers team wins with their superior trade income.

Just kidding its over 5 minutes later.

Anecdotal evidence again.
And again I must reiterate : initial market price doesn't matter : the trader can sell just as much as the seller, just with less than one minute delay.

Thats probably the smartest response I have read on this topic. You should pass this along because most if not all of the people on this thread cannot acknowledge it.

Case in point then. Not trading can work at lower levels because people are noobs. But it will never work at high level. Everything can work at lower level because people don't know how to defend properly.

It's exactly the same as saying that building additional town centers is a trap, you can get so much more military out when staying on one TC. Sure it can work sometimes, but if you lose your army you are dead. Can work in 1v1, but in 4v4 you can't get a high enough of an advantage to close out the game, and once you lose army you are essentially a dead weight to your team.

 

[RicoJay13]

Anecdotal evidence again.
And again I must reiterate : initial market price doesn't matter : the trader can sell just as much as the seller, just with less than one minute delay.

Case in point then. Not trading can work at lower levels because people are noobs. But it will never work at high level. Everything can work at lower level because people don't know how to defend properly.

It's exactly the same as saying that building additional town centers is a trap, you can get so much more military out when staying on one TC. Sure it can work sometimes, but if you lose your army you are dead. Can work in 1v1, but in 4v4 you can't get a high enough of an advantage to close out the game, and once you lose army you are essentially a dead weight to your team.

The seller can sell 700 wood from the 4 markets, 400 wood from the first team of carts, and the food from the caravan upgrade. That is all in excess of what the trader can sell. But yes beyond that 1300 f/w plus 400 gold which sell at vipers game prices to a net of around 1400 gold, I agree they can both sell excess wood or food. But 1400 is not nothing.

Me saying this wont work as well in games with below 2000 elo voobly players... that isnt an admission my entire premise sucks. There are a boatload of lesser players and as I said above, this all started back up because a player I would bet my life is below 2000 voobly ELO asked if anyone had done the math, I posted my video, he said thanks great video and Pete jumped in to say the video really wasn't good and had been disproved by experts in this thread. I responded that I still like my math, then you and only you did the math and ran out of rows in your spreadsheet showing the breakeven point on gold was past 15 minutes even if you ignore the cost of 4 markets, caravan.

 

[Double_N]

Heres the problem with that: trade is an in for a penny in for a pound thing. If you burn wood for multiple markets, pay for caravan, and then can only afford 10 carts, it takes longer to payoff. I get that he'll continue to earn rez while those markets are built and while the first carts come out. But my whole point is he then starts a breakeven clock and its 14 minutes, or 15+ per Trirems math before he has broken even in rez vs the non trader. I feel that is decisive. If you gave me a clone of what Tatoh has, army, econ, vils, etc, and then made him tribute half of the wood gold and food to make 40 carts, Im pretty sure its gg. He'd have to essentially sell back half those Paladins to afford the tribute, hed be at zero rez, and Id have those 45 paladins PLUS the rez to queue up more and stroll in. If you cant look at that video and come to the conclusion that 40 trade carts is more than a minimal investment....

What is decisive about it? 10-15 minutes is not much, especially not on black forrest. As I said, you can keep very decent army pop while making trade. Overpopping on army without trade is a risk. If you have 75% chance of winning without trade from the position you are in and 90% chance of winning with trade, what do you chose? Starting trade is just the saver play.

And why do you always assume it is instant 40 trade carts or nothing? If you have leftover resources, make some tradecarts. If you have a map position where you can afford to make slightly less military, make more tradecarts. If things go sideways, fall back or stop making carts for a while. And even if you start to trade slower and it kicks in slower, as long as you have some trade a longer game is better for you.

 

[RicoJay13]

What is decisive about it? 10-15 minutes is not much, especially not on black forrest. As I said, you can keep very decent army pop while making trade. Overpopping on army without trade is a risk. If you have 75% chance of winning without trade from the position you are in and 90% chance of winning with trade, what do you chose? Starting trade is just the saver play.

And why do you always assume it is instant 40 trade carts or nothing? If you have leftover resources, make some tradecarts. If you have a map position where you can afford to make slightly less military, make more tradecarts. If things go sideways, fall back or stop making carts for a while. And even if you start to trade slower and it kicks in slower, as long as you have some trade a longer game is better for you.

Because if you build 4 markets, buy caravan and dont take advantage of it... bad investment. Its the initial outlay to set up trade that is so costly. Any flexible changes you make to the steady cart production just delay the breakeven. Think about it this way: you build 4 markets, buy caravan, but by the time your carts get to your teammates markets (4 minutes ish) they get raided. You never see a return. In fact, its a very generous assumption to assume trader has perfectly steady production from 4 markets for 8 minutes. Again maybe 2000 elo players are that perfect but most players arent. Lets not tailor every piece of advice such that its beyond the capabilities of the majority. I never see people respond to boar luring questions by saying pros lure it with their scout so do that only.

 

[RicoJay13]

What is decisive about it? 10-15 minutes is not much, especially not on black forrest.

Look trirem is permitted to not respond to the sarcastic burn that linked viper vid was, but you should ask those 4 presumably over 2000 elo voobly players how long 10-15 minutes was in that match.

 

[RicoJay13]

Heres another viper game scraped at 32 minutes showing wood and food far from being bottomed.

4v4 Black Forest - #6

http://www.twitch.tv/tyrant_theviperhttps://twitter.com/TheViperAOChttp://www.facebook.com/TheViperAOCBusiness Inquiries: tyranttheviper@gmail.comYou can don...

youtu.be

 

[Skittle]

Don't listen to all that n00bs Rico, you are right of course.
But why wait until min35? I would just suggest to stop building any farms or villagers in feudal age, then you can immediately go archers from 4 archerys and kill everyone min15. That strategy even works on 1900 HD elo (proven by game) and I can upload a spreadsheet where you can see the superiority of archers vs 2-archery-nubs if you are interested. (spoiler: you have the double amount of archers!)

 

[n0brain]

also not sure what random viper games are supposed to prove? he is god tiers above the rest in that game and could have played pretty much however he wanted too. at that lvl he could probably play monkrush vs archers or whatever (maybe slightly exaggregated...). he allmost never plays serious games when not in training or actual tournaments.

thinking he(or any other player there) would do market optimization in a trolly bf game seems just plain wrong...

 

[RicoJay13]

Don't listen to all that n00bs Rico, you are right of course.
But why wait until min35? I would just suggest to stop building any farms or villagers in feudal age, then you can immediately go archers from 4 archerys and kill everyone min15. That strategy even works on 1900 HD elo (proven by game) and I can upload a spreadsheet where you can see the superiority of archers vs 2-archery-nubs if you are interested. (spoiler: you have the double amount of archers!)

Sarcasm huh? Another typical post where the author doesn't care about the math. These are played out. If you want to keep doing the meta, freedom is yours.

 

[RicoJay13]

also not sure what random viper games are supposed to prove? he is god tiers above the rest in that game and could have played pretty much however he wanted too. at that lvl he could probably play monkrush vs archers or whatever (maybe slightly exaggregated...). he allmost never plays serious games when not in training or actual tournaments.

thinking he(or any other player there) would do market optimization in a trolly bf game seems just plain wrong...

It disproves common arguments seen earlier in this thread that A. Players are floating plenty of resources around the times we are talking trade and B. The market prices are nowhere near crashed even in 2000 elo voobly games.

 

[n0brain]

1) if u talk about math all the time u should know how reliebale smaplesizes of one are. post again after obtaining a representative samplesize...
2) this is black forrest. if u wanna tell me that those players did a serious game there, specificly viper, than i just cant take you serious... can this thread be closed as the weirdest successful troll of april 2019?

 

[RicoJay13]

1) if u talk about math all the time u should know how reliebale smaplesizes of one are. post again after obtaining a representative samplesize...
2) this is black forrest. if u wanna tell me that those players did a serious game there, specificly viper, than i just cant take you serious... can this thread be closed as the weirdest successful troll of april 2019?

1. Tell you what, Ill wager you $100 usd that if we took a representative sumflesyze of 4v4 Black Forrrrressst games played by over 2000 elo players, at the average time when players started trading, the wood and food market prices weren't on average below 20/100. So as an example, we take say 10 of the youtube 4v4 BF matches that viper has played and average the market prices at 25, 30 minutes, whatever the avg is. If that wood avg market price is over 20, then this consensus that wood prices bottom out is wrong. Btw, I've already looked at 10 of vipers zpesifikk games on youtube. 66 and 55 are not aberrations.

2. The classic response to insult and poke fun vs making a ralyiable argument. I would argue that is the action of a troll.