Ah, okay. It sounded like only one price goes up while the window is open and the others would only adjust when the window is reopened. Then this was a misinterpretation of what actually was said. I haven't used markets before the update and even since than I haven't really used them much because they are still a mystery to me.

Therefore, with the last updates we traded a predictable market that you could use to generate consistent money from by crafting, for a less predictable market that you can use to make some quick money. Right? I'm not sure, whether I understand the intent behind this change. Sure, if prices are constant all the time and you know a good strategy you can (over time) make consistent money out of thin air. I don't see this as a problem, but so be it. But this still means that you can't just get money for nothing. You have to put your crafters on this particular recipe and wait. With the new markets you can't do that anymore. Or at least not for long. If you can switch to a different recipe with different ingredients as soon as one ingredient gets too expensive, then this strategy can still work. But now, I have the feeling that everyone is meant to be abusing the markets for quick money and invest in Increased Alloy/Item Sell Values to make even more money from markets (by keeping the buy price under the sell value for longer). That I don't like being forced to spent APs on particular advancements, should by now be a known fact, I said this before several times. We have options for where to spend our APs on, but apparently if you spend them wrong, you will have a hard time. I don't have a problem with this causality, but with the fact that there are "wrong" advancements in the first place (and that you are forced to spend APs sub-optimally in order to unlock other - sometimes better - advancements).

I once started a discussion, why there are soo many army caches that leave you with less armies than before conquering the cache. Because without any APs spent on Increased Army Caches this is very well possible. My argument back then was that instead of the army cache why not just reduce the territory cost and remove the cache entirely. Similarly, for the new markets you might ask, why not make them money caches? Sure, if you spend APs in the right spots you can increase the money you can make from markets, but they aren't real markets anymore. They are sources of immediate money, nothing more. Or, you see them as your way to unlocking all techs, but then the smelters serve no purpose anymore. So, either way, the update leaves me puzzled.

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

The outcome of a market raid is still determined by your mines and smelters, right? So, higher prices don't influence how much a market raid will give you on subsequent usages. Even if prices go up, each used MR power will give you the same outcome (assuming no changes in mines and smelter techs), right? Then, only use the market raid as soon as you have no more use of it. Otherwise, you will lose profit from gaming the markets.

Wait, using an MR increases the cost of items in the market?

@Phoenix
Tbh, I haven't found that using the markets the same way as before the update is largely impacted. You can still buy ingredients and craft using them. It only becomes difficult if you've drained the market already and drove the prices up so the crafted items aren't profitable anymore. Don't do that, and you should be able to to continue crafting as you did before the 5.14 market update.

I’m trying this strategy to get AP quickly across levels, but I find that there’s a fatal flaw in the last 4 levels (Afro-Eurasia gargantuan, Triskelion, US, Europe Huge). Despite cashing in all the markets, acquiring all the hospital and merc techs and maxing out the merc discount advancement in phase 2, I find that I run out of money to acquire all the mercenaries and as a result am unable to complete each level quickly even after waiting for the drafts (I calculated the amount of drafts I would obtain and it still wouldn’t be enough). Is there something that I missed here? How would you guys suggest I improve on this strategy if I were to repeatedly do it over a few ascensions with no (or minimal) use of powers? Thank you!

what are your stats?

What do you think is the baseline for when you can start doing this efficiently?

90% mercs? more?

@riskboy88

depend on the level....

+other advancements. You can't walk on mercs alone

Are my advancements and artifacts enough

8323 Invested AP100% IACP100% !MoneyCache25% JS67.5% AdMerc4 Stats
180 IdleTime5% AutoConq
50% !MercDisc70% !AlloyValue+ Rare Alloy Value (28%), Rare Merc Discount (8%)Is this enough to do the market strate efficiently on any levels? Am I balancing things wrong?

Edited 10/5/2021 12:21:45

My stats are as follows

IACP 280%
Joint strike max
Mine discount max
Merc discount max
A.M. 127.5%
Stats max
Idle time +2h (total 4h)
Money cache, resource cache max
Increased draft sizes 250%
Ore and alloy sell values max

Artifacts: rare: army camp, money from territories and bonuses, merc discounts
Uncommon: alloy and item sell values, hospital and mine discounts, cache sizes of each type, …

Again, it’s not that I don’t have enough mercs, it’s just that I am unable to hire all of them due to running out of money (after upgrading most of the big hospitals and hiring mercs, even after cashing-in all 7 markets)

With at least 120% A.M., I have been able to consistently clear the level rapidly using this strategy, within 8-12h (with or without time warps!), starting from Europe 1066 AD up till Netherlands, but except for Old Town and Scandinavia. But starting from Afro-Eurasia gargantuan, that’s where this falls short when I am no longer able to hire all the mercenaries. I have already abandoned and skipped Triskelion due to not being able to find any other sources of money except by using the SM+MR combo on the last market, which is in itself an extremely expensive and unsustainable strategy if I were to repeat the level after repeated ascensions.

FYI, I have completed one ascension, so this run is my second playthrough of all the levels.

@Darryl Chow

Screw the Triskelions. Both Triskelions are hopeless. I still haven't found a way to do Triskelions without running out of money at the end. Just skip them.

After being deep into phase 4 and upgrading Alloy Sell Value artifact to at least Rare, the market strategy should work for all levels except the Triskelions.

This is a demonstration of me using the market strategy as a late phase 4 player:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2dts87Xsa3w

As you can see, I don't need to use powers. Maybe you'll still need help from powers in the next 2 ascensions or so before you can get those good advancements in phase 4, but it's not unsustainable because you won't need to rely on powers anymore in long run.

@riskboy88

Your setup is not too far away from the one functor used for the 8h Africa speedrun with 10k AP invested. So I guess you can try to power through levels with market strategy for levels before Africa.

I don’t think there’s a hard cliff where this “stops working”, but it becomes increasingly more likely that you’ll run out of mercenaries by the end of each level as AP increases.

You can get by up to ~China without Level 4 advancements from a base of joint strike and 150% additional mercs assuming you know where the hospitals are and what level you plan to upgrade them to. Then you can do “waves” where you make minimal pushes towards all the L3 hospitals + markets which make sense, then wait two hours, then towards all the L2 hospitals + markets which make sense, then wait two hours, then finish.

You might be left with a couple drafts on the later levels and your definition of “later levels” might vary slightly if you aren’t at +150% mercs or don’t know where the hospitals are.

If you want to run this strategy beyond ~China, you need to accept that there will be hours of drafting at the end (probably still faster than any other approach but annoying) or you need to push for Level 4 advancements (hospital boost, increased army cache, auto-drafting).

Unfortunately there’s a HUGE lull in effective AP advancements between alloy sell value and the Level 4 advancements with the current meta.

The best strat I've used ONCE YOU KNOW WHERE THE LOCATIONS OF THE MARKETS & HOSPITALS is:
(if you don't know, ask around in GC, lots of people can tell you)

TLDR:
- Start with SAC+FC
- Get a market, merc camp & hospital
- Use money from market to get more merc camps, use those armies to get all hospitals
- Upgrade all hospitals
- Clear the level

Full details:
- Use whatever small money you have at start of level to upgrade army camp (AC)
- Pop SAC (artifact or power, doesn't matter) + FC
- If you want to amplify the start boost, get a 2nd or 3rd army camp (AC) before doing this, then pop 1 SAC per AC, or if you're really limited, grab the 2nd and/or 3rd AC while the 1st SAC is still activate, then pop more SACs & FCs
- Get first market (MA), merc camp (MC) & hospital (HO); order of the above 3 doesn't really matter
- Use as many SACs & FCs as is required to get the first of each of these (MA, MC, HO); if you capture quickly, you'll still have time in the SAC left and can pop more FCs to compensate if you need more armies/money
- Capture army caches along the way ONLY IF YOU NEED TO in order to avoid running out of armies; it's best to leave them for after the +50% cache Tech is acquired; if the level you're on doesn't have this Tech, then go ahead and capture them
- If you're having trouble doing this, use the OPTIONAL SAC/FC open, and this should enable you to comfortably get 1-2 ACs, 2-3 MCs, 1-2 HOs, minimally 1 MA
- Beeline directly to next HO, capturing MCs along the way
- Focus on conservation of armies, don't even bother with doing JS attacks
- Use MA to get money to empty MC, but only take as much as you need until you get the proper Alloy/Item techs; don't want to drain the MA more than required before you can get the max benefit from it
- Monitor your remaining armies; if you get low, ensure you have MCs with mercs available
- Find more MCs if you need to - don't run out of mercs, else you will get stuck
- Continue until you have all HOs
- Ensure you have all MAs that have the items needed for Techs for merc discounts, alloy/item values, +50% cache bonus, HO discounts, HO buffs + anything else you want (but the ones I've listed here are really all you need)
- Smelt/craft anything else you need for the Techs mentioned above
- Upgrade all HOs
- Wait 2h or pop 2x TW
- HOs now upgraded + all smelting/crafting should be finished
- Upgrade all pertinent Techs
- You are now ready to conquer the world, using normal strategy (JS, grab caches, etc)

There are actually some variations. If you have high Mercs (+100-150% Additional Mercs) and have enough money (depends on level + your Adv's), you can even skip the HO upgrades on some levels.

If you don't have high Mercs or have low Money, you may benefit from a 2nd round of HO upgrades and grabbing a few more Techs beyond what I've listed above.

The more AP you get, the more of the above steps you can fast track for speed runs through levels.

Fyi, here is a pic of what the "ready to conquer the world" state looks like for Europe Huge. At this point, I had captured all HOs and had kicked off the upgrades. For Hard levels, I typically do a couple HO upgrades on the first few HOs as I move across the map.

@Darryl Chow

I am pretty sure that all revision 17 levels have enough money to support this strategy with your current advancements.

On revision 18 levels, there are several ways to address the possible money issue.

1. Skipping Afro-Eurasia Gargantuan, Triskelion, United States suggested by Mathematician.
2. Better advancements suggested by graemes.
3. Reducing the wasted armies and money following the details given by krinid.
4. Doing some appropriate amount of crafting. In general, crafting can provide a lot more money than markets at the cost of waiting. There are a lot of highly profitable recipes on the last four levels. Some calculations are needed to determine the optimal amount of crafting.
5. Getting better artifacts: Hospital Boost, Mercenary Discount, Alloy Values.

Or, you can simply do a slow Europe-Huge and grind early levels for AP.

Edited 10/5/2021 18:25:37

Thanks everyone! I’ll try the strategy by @krinid and hopefully 3 ascensions later I’ll be able to attain the phase 4 advancements as suggested by @graemes. In the meantime I’ll just skip the Triskelions until I’m sufficiently deep into phase 4 advancements.
As for the profitable recipes, not only do they take extremely long to craft (even if I upgraded crafters speed in phase 2, it’s still a long time), until I max out item sell values in phase 3, these recipes are in fact unprofitable- I have verified these using the recipe stats dialog in the level.
In the meantime I’ll try option (3) while upgrading my artifacts to rare grade (eventually), and see how it goes!

@Darryl Chow

I do not have recipe stats, hence I cannot check it myself. However, according to my calculations, the following recipes are profitable on revision 18 Europe Huge with an alloy value modifier 2.3 (tech + advancement) and item value modifier 1.3 (tech).

Copper Wire, Tin Can, Welding Rod, Twine, Glass, Boiling Flask, Solenoid, Transformer, Capacitor, Circuit, Antenna, Battery, Motor, Speaker, Welding Torch

I agree with you that crafting is not desirable due to the time it takes, and we should avoid it if we have enough money. But it is not totally unprofitable.

Crafting is totally profitable, the only thing that's changed on that point is that you have to be careful when you're buying ingredients from the market. Whereas before you could just buy 500+ platinum and come back hours later to 25+ ebolts and repeat the process as required, now you have to be careful that you don't drive the price of platinum up so high that you're losing money by making ebolts. This depends on a lot on which market the platinum is in (the early ones tend to get expensive more quickly), and if you're using that market to earn money through buy/sell (in which case, be careful!) or just as an means of buying Techs and ingredients for crafting.

Also note that there are almost no universally profitable recipes. For the most part, the ones that functor listed are profitable, but even then (a) some levels are negative profit with Antenna, Solenoid, etc, (b) depends on your Advancements (if you have high Alloy but not Item sell values, you may be better off selling bars rather than crafted items - you'll never _lose_ money but will waste opportunity to gain more profit), (c) the hard levels are an entirely different case of their own, whereby even the most usually profitable recipes are often not profitable; iirc barbed wire is more profitable than tin cans on the Hard levels, ebolts are relatively worthless, etc. Hard Trisk doesn't even have platinum in the markets anyhow.

So there's no surefire way to know which recipes are profitable on a level without playing it and looking (or getting that info from someone who has played them).

But one thing for sure, if you need ingredients from a market, do NOT drain it of money up front, else it's worthless to you for crafting purposes.

oh, does the merc and market strat work better on earlier levels?