Market strat math

[wolf bite]

I have been working on the best way to work markets strategies.  It has long been contested what is the best way to have markets v. tents and tax rate.  The only way (besides studying the code) is to run 100s of turns with different buildings and let the workers per land even out to find the results.  People have asked me for years what is the best way, so I finally did some tests.  Thus I have been running several accounts and doing just this.  I find it interesting and much different then I would have thought.  Here are my preliminary findings.

First the basics:
Workers come much faster than the leave.
The higher the tax rate the less workers that will stay.
Any tax rate over 11% will not let you get back to full health.

Findings at a 10% tax rate.
About 2.25 workers live on most types of built land.
5 workers live in markets.
7 workers live on vacant land.
61 workers live in tents.

Using Earn for some reason makes more workers come to your horde.

When the Tax rate is increased and the workers leave and even out, there is very little benefit by having a higher tax rate even up to 40% tax.  However there is no reason to ever have less then an 11% tax rate.

Now for the surprise:
Because the value of the markets is based on the % you have of them to land, and you get an extra $500 bucks for each market, having no tents and just markets makes more money!  It seems that the 5 workers that live in markets is more valuable than the 61 workers that live in tents because of the way the math works.

An interesting strategy that has come up would be to either lower the tax rate or build tents to have lots of workers come fast, then make sure you are all markets and raise the tax to 40%, the workers leave slowly as you make a ton of money.  Then repeat over and over.  Tiring, but it does work.

I am willing to listen to opposing views and test them.


Wolf Bite

[cloud]

gold mine stills owns markets  :roll:

[taekwondokid42]

Yeah, even the best market strat cannot even come close to 50 bil cash on 30k land with 300 turns.

[Shadow]

what is the best way to get masses of workers to come to your army without using more then 40% land on tents?

is there any way to get extra to join other then lower tax rate?

[Shadow]

I suspect that building all tents and alternating 5 turns at 5% tax followed by 20 turns at max tax would net you more cash than all markets. That's how it goes at FAF anyway, the values may be a bit different here. Worth a try though.

[lonewolf1817]

interesting idea..... have u tryed the math to back it up?

[Shadow]

at FAF yes, but not here

[lonewolf1817]

hum i think i wanta tinker with that next run.

[Shadow]

I did some playing around on a test server - tents work differently here, and markets are far better

[lonewolf1817]

so wait.... running a all market set up far surpased runing a joint tent-market strat?

[Peace Alliance]

thats the thing about workers, they come quickly and leave slowly. With every promi you can usually find the most efficient way of altering them by tinkering around a few runs. I currently can't remember what i had decided was the best way to do it...

And last time i tested, a combination of markets and tents with the altering tax, made more money then 100% markets. And if you get it good enough, it could even make as much as a Painted One makes using loot... Which is pretty good for an indy!

[taekwondokid42]

I did some playing around on a test server - tents work differently here, and markets are far better

Redwall test server?

[Juska]

70% Markets and 30% Tents. Or 70% Tents and 30% Markets, each will net you optimum cashing gains, however markets are better because when you don't have full tents they still make you money.

You have to manipulate taxes in order to max the most money doing this. 5% till full tents, 40% for 20 turns etc. etc. The biggest upside to this strategy is by having little to no huts and barracks you can run your turns with almost 0 upkeep. The problem is RWL does not contain a race that is suitable for cashing AND buying it's own troops, and so you end somewhere in the middle, and that just isn't efficient.