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.

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.