I feel like by the time you get a market for a specific item that item is already easily craftable smeltable so there’s no point in buying anything. Maybe I’m using them wrong?

I don’t use markets
#BoycottMarkets

i use markets to pillage them. yeahhh.

What's a market?

On later levels you definetly want to use markets to buy lower tier bars.

If you need an item that you can smelt for a tech you need to get, look at what else you need, and switch the ore you're smelting to something you can't buy in the markets, then keep buying the ones you can get. The markets are also useful for quickly getting ingredients for crafted items that you can quickly sell for a massive profit to go towards stocking up more or upgrading your buildings.

Other things to consider:
How quickly can you get each piece by smelting/craft alone? Can you buy the item faster in bulk than waiting for the desired amount to be crafted?
Is there any lack of production forcing you to wait long to get the ingredients than to smelt/craft the item? Can you smelt/craft something quicker to sell at a profit to buy the ingredients needed or upgrade the mine producing the ore for said ingredients?

I am just using market raid on those when I need a bit of money to get from selling goods, never bought a single item from them.

Definitely use.

I really changed in one of the last updates. Markets used to be useless, but now with the high craft prices they are really useful. I bought almost all my resources for the Techs in the markets

In most situations, and in particular if you rush to a crafter tech earlier than you “should” have it, you will come out ahead by putting every single crafter against the highest priced alloy and filling in any gaps that creates with markets

Tbh, if you're not using markets, you're playing wrong. (;

Seriously though, you can play any way you like, but if you're not using markets, you're likely either not getting all the Techs, not getting as many upgrades as you could be (army camps, now hospitals, mines, buying mercs, etc) or just taking much longer to finish levels.

I can't speak to the earlier levels anymore (they've changed so much since I've played them) but in the later levels there definitely comes a point where you're faced with decisions such as spend 10 hrs to craft a bunch of items OR buy them from the market.

Buying spends money which could be used for upgrades/mercs/etc, but if you're getting Techs for them, it's probably worth it, and sometimes it's worth buying ingredients to craft items that sell for high value.

I like to cook, so yeah, I use markets. We got amish places that sell produce cheap.

When all (or most) of your Techs are bought, you can turn completely to a highly lucrative 'export' economy. All your smelters and all your crafters are busily working producing the highest value alloys and items.

In such a case it's a waste to tie up a smelter to churn out copper, tin or iron bars or a crafter for copper wire. Much better to buy these in large lots in the market in order to keep the crafters churning.

In such a case it's a waste to tie up a smelter to churn out copper, tin or iron bars or a crafter for copper wire. Much better to buy these in large lots in the market in order to keep the crafters churning.

100% agree - and it's actually not only a waste, but detrimental depending on which bars you're smelting b/c some of the later, more precious metals actually require ore of the lesser valued metals. I forget the combos, but I think platinum requires aluminum, and I think gold requires tin (used to be copper, but I believe it changed), etc.

You can buy bars, but you can't buy ore ... so using it to make bars you don't need isn't wise. And copper/tin/iron bars aren't good to sell either since they're worth so little. So save that ore! Buy the bars if you have the money.

Maybe it depends on how far along you are. I'm currently on Geopolitics and am almost halfway done. So far I only have one market and it sells copper, tin, iron and copper wire. I have WAY more than enough of each of the ores to need to buy more. My crafters are running constantly and have no issues getting material.

This is true for every level I've played so far. I max the tech tree every level and the problem is never having raw materials for my crafting items, it's always that I don't have enough nickel & lead when my markets only have zinc or worse. Or I need more silicon when the markets only have nickel, etc.

I usually end up selling raw copper, tin and iron because I have so much of it I will never be able to craft it all into anything. Buying these resources from a market would be a negative value for me.

i use them very very rarely, when there is some very little ammount left to unlock something

Market Raid = Best Power.

I assume here, by reading the above posts, that the market is a maths feature and is usually used for late-game money grinding when all techs are unlocked. That's how I play it anyways.

Yeah, markets give a way for more efficient crafting... although the stats on cost vs profit per sec are not calculated from market cost..

RAID!