Benefits of Multiple Markets

[albiedamned]

I've been toying with the Nubians, who so far seem to be one of the least popular choices. One of their advantages is that Markets cost 50% less and have 50% more hit points. However I rarely ever build more than one Market. I just don't see a strong reason to build multiple Markets. I can only come up with three reasons to build more than one Market, and none of them are particularly compelling:

1) Each Market gives you +10 Wealth. Bottom line, +10 isn't very much, and this number never goes up (there is no research you can do to increase it). Compared to taxation, caravans, and fishing, the wealth you get from a Market is miniscule.

2) With multiple Markets, you can create Merchants at the Market closest to the rare resource, decreasing travel time. This is minor at best - it will get you the benefit of the rare resource a little bit sooner.

3) You have backup Markets in case one is destroyed, so that you aren't cut off from buying and selling resources. This is also very minor. If your Market is destroyed, throwing up a new Market should be a very minor task. And if your game position is such that you can't easily put up a new Market, then you're probably about to lose anyway!

The other economic buildings all have strong benefits per building. Temples affect the border and hit points of their city. Universities each provide the means for +45 knowledge and that value can go much higher later with research. Granaries, Sawmills, and Smelters affect resource production only in their city and so must be built in each city with Farms, Woodcutters, and Miners respectively. Markets are the only economic building that don't provide a direct benefit, other than the miniscule +10 Wealth.

I would love for someone to point out where I am wrong and show me the value of multiple Markets. Anyone?

[deadfuse]

Yeah, you make a good point. Then again, not everyone has the advantages of the nubians in gathering wealth. That extra +10 wealth gathering could be important in the early game of a civ that gets no gold/trade gathering bonuses.

[lockstep]

Another minor benefit: markets should count as yet another building towards the large city treshold. (I'm not sure about the exact formula - maybe 6 (buildings + age advances).)

[HalfLotus]

I find on land maps that its hard to maximize your wealth rate early without building multiple markets(I play german usually). Wealth is the most versatile resource, for this reason I build a market in nearly every city.

Some minor benefits are that it increases your caravan bonus by one, and (as lockstep pointed out)gets you one building closer to large city!

[lockstep]

On second thought, +10 wealth also isn't that different from the granary's initial effect of +10 food (assuming 5 farms and no additional research).

[albiedamned]

Markets increase your caravan bonus? You mean the amount of gold you get from each caravan? I did not know that. Is that documented somewhere?

[lockstep]

HalfLotus probably meant that you can build one more caravan with each additional marketplace (not sure if he's right about it).

[Q Classic]

caravans are limited by the ec techs, not marketplaces.

however, i still build one in every city, because +10 wealth right off the bat makes a city that much more productive.

[lockstep]

I found some hints about caravan income at the official RoN website - seems that I misunderstood HalfLotus, and he was right.

Every single thing you build inside the city radius increases the income from caravan routes to that city by one wealth per building. Farm, mine, temple, market, barracks, tower, lumber mill-they all count.

A certain number of buildings plus Age advance brings about an increase in city size (for instance, five buildings plus Medieval Age turns a Small city into a Large one). Each increase in city size increases the value of caravan routes to that city over the income provided by the buildings within city limits.

http://www.microsoft.com/games/riseofnations/hints_resources.asp

[Caesar Saladus]

While +10 doesn't seem like much, if you have 7 cities that is +70 wealth every 30 seconds. Even +50 with 5 cities is at least a little bit. Especially on maps with no lakes, every little bit helps.

If you have 5 markets, over the course of 30 minutes that is 3,000 wealth in total. Nothing to scoff at really.

[DarthVeda]

Multiple markets help make up for a lack of fish on land maps. On fishing maps they aren't too necessary but can really help boost you up.

[albiedamned]

Originally posted by Caesar Saladus
While +10 doesn't seem like much, if you have 7 cities that is +70 wealth every 30 seconds. Even +50 with 5 cities is at least a little bit. Especially on maps with no lakes, every little bit helps.

If you have 5 markets, over the course of 30 minutes that is 3,000 wealth in total. Nothing to scoff at really.

I can't argue with the math. However by the point in the game where I have 5 or even 7 cities, I'm almost always hitting the commerce cap in wealth anyway even without extra Markets.

[Caesar Brad]

I have nothing really to say here, but that markets are good and that Caesar Saladus should change his name.

[Jaybe]

You don't care for Caesar Salad, eh?
(Sorry for yet another post totally off topic)

[Sarxis]

Caravans pull in more money with cities that have more infrastructure. Not only do they pull in more based on city class (small, large, major), but also more for each building.

So there's really no point in not building extra markets until you hit the wealth commerce cap.