Increased Alloy Sell Values is a very good 5.14 advancement for the players who run out of money.

Assume that every market has alloys. Below is a formula to estimate the profit from markets:
Market Profit ~ constant * (Alloy Value Modifier - 0.8) ^ 2,
where the default modifier is 1.

Assume that we get +30% alloy value tech. Then, +50% Increased Alloy Sell Values gives roughly 4 times the money from markets and +100% Increased Alloy Sell Values gives 9 times the money from markets.

trying to understand this. is this only far lands or all levels? Second ascension and old town is like 3 days... so slow.

and how do you know where hospitals are? fog bust everything or does someone have screen shots?

@MrP
A bit of both, we do some fogbusts, and we made notes from our 1st, 2nd & 3rd playthroughs. Sometimes b/c things change, the notes are useful, sometimes they're not. Plus with the FB superpower, large levels are easier to fogbust now.

After numerous playthroughs I just naturally remember where all the important things are lol

Give me a blank Europe Huge map and I can point out roughly where those 15 hospitals are, as well as the location of the biggest merc camp, the location of certain key recipes like nail, and the location of that one massive stack. The same holds for pretty much all maps, maybe not exactly remember the location of all hospitals but certainly I can remember where all the big ones are.

Edited 9/9/2021 02:46:54

lol same for europe huge. could probably play it blindfolded :p

please clarify, do we remove your sight or just make the territories invisible?

I think Market Visibility (150 AP for first three markets) is a great v5.14 investment as well

Interesting that there's no Hospital Visibility advancement.

I need a video or something to understand how the F you guys do this.

I'm on old town. finished first stage and took screen shots of all placements. even knowing this, how the heck on hardened levels am I supposed to get these hospitals in 2 and 3k territories?! To say nothing of the 8k big ones. it'll take months to save these armies up :(

@ Mr_Perfect

Money mainly comes from the markets as described in this thread. Go to the first market(s) as quick as possible and buy+sell items/alloys as long as sell prices are higher than costs - you need to invest AP in increased alloy sell values (later on also item sell values) to make this work (artifacts for higher alloy/item values and merc advancements/artifacts are also useful here).

Then you buy mercs with the money gained from markets. Take the nearest hospitals with the mercs. Repeat with (new) market cashing and merc buying in time before you run out of mercs to get all hospitals.

Get some techs when you can buy and/or produce the required amounts (particularly those of the last two branches, i.e. alloy/item sell values and merc discount). Depending on the level, also upgrade hospitals when you conquered most/all (useful on Europe huge but not necessary on early/medium levels).

It gets easier with more advancements but that's basically how it works.

Edited 9/11/2021 05:10:19

after abusing markets a little, for some reason the price randomly jumps to 1x the sell price

I've noticed this. If you dont nail each item in one wack when you go back the price of items is much higher than when you last were in the market. I did some iron bars like twice made a 100M, they were still 10k cheaper than sell price. Closed the market, went back about an hour later and they were 1x the sell price. I leave the market open now and dont stop until the slider gets up close to sell price. It also seems if you repeatedly buy the same amount of an item over and over the buy price "seems" to hardly move. Could be seeing things lol.

Edited 9/11/2021 06:23:10

but if yuo nail one item in one whack the other items still rise
you have to nail EVERYTHING in on whack

Unless I’m completely misunderstanding the 5.14 markets, prices increase linearly with each wollar spent in that specific market.

There’s no way to game the system by placing a bulk order or buying expensive or cheap items. It’s going to return a constant amount of value above the sale price regardless of how you do it.

The only thing that matters is whether you buy items or alloys. I strongly suggest buying the one which yields a better return based on your artifacts/advancements/techs.

The one watchout is that the sales price for a bulk order is an average price, not the price of the final alloy/item.

In other words, if you can sell for 100, you want to stop buying before you get to a 100 average, since the marginal cost of the final items will already exceed 100.

I usually put the slider at around the average of the starting price and the sell price.

For example if currently I can buy 1 nickel bar for 97k and the sell price is 117k, I put the slider at the 107k level.

That way, among all the nickel bars I've bought, the first one costs 97k and the final one costs 117k.

Note that the price of other items from the same market will rise by the same percentage. The price rise applies to each individual market, not item. So there's no much point to try to cash in for more than 1 item from the same market.

^^What Math said BUT note that the ratios aren't all the same, so you can get more profit by comparing the ratios and picking the best profit. Or maybe it's all the same for the same item type (alloys vs crafted items) and the prices are just rounded figures to give the illusion of different profits ... who knows?

But the price definitely raises as a whole for each item in a single market. And also be sure you're paying attention to whether you make more profit from alloys or items, which depends on your Techs, Artifacts & Advancements. The prices tell all, so pay attention to those.

Also I recommend you take what you need for Techs BEFORE you milk it for profit. Including the Techs you haven't unlocked yet, if money permits it, else you may get to a case where you need to buy lots of market items at a super high cost rather than initially low cost.

I just confirmed if you raid a market the price of all items increases.

Just to get this straight: As long as I have the market window open I can buy alloys and items at the shown prices, and as long as the window stays open buying one of the offers will only increase the price of this one offer. But closing the market after buying anything will increase all prices by some amount/percentage.

If this is true, can I buy and sell all of the offers one after the other (you can sell in parallel without the market window closing, right?!?) to make use of the low prices, then close the market and never touch it again?

You do not have it right. There’s no way to game the system. Prices are a function of how many wollars have been spent at that specific market. There’s no tricks here.

You’re going to get a consistent return out of the market based on your AP advancements + artifacts + tech. The only “clever” thing you can do here is to prioritize alloys versus items based on your AP advancements + artifacts + techs. If you are better set up for one of these options, use it exclusively for money generation purposes.