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This article is about the building in Age of Empires II. For similar buildings in other games of the series, see Market. |
| “ | Used to buy and sell resources, trade with other players by land, and research trade technologies. Required to send resources to other players. Enables you to see the line of sight of your allies. | ” |
| —Age of Empires II description | ||
The Market is an economic building in Age of Empires II that becomes available once the Feudal Age is reached and a Mill has been built.
Markets have a number of roles, particularly in team games: they enable the tribute of resources, they allow gold to be used to trade for other resources, and they can collect gold via trade using Trade Carts, which is especially important in later stages of team games. Finally, the Market is the place where trade-related technologies are researched to enhance these abilities, and building one also counts towards fulfilling the criteria to unlock the Castle Age. In summary, the Market is a rather important building, even though its importance may vary depending on the match. Furthermore, before a recent patch which enabled allied vision to be the default setting for multiplayer games, building one resulted in the player automatically gaining vision of all allied players' Line of Sight. This requirement can be enabled again in custom lobbies by turning off allied vision.
Tactics and placement[]
Trading[]
Markets make an essential part on economy especially in team games as they provide an unlimited source of gold, accumulated through trading.
The equation for gold received while trading with other Markets is almost quadratically proportional to the distance. The farther away the target Market is, the more gold the Trade Carts return. The productivity increases with the distance, so it is always worth it to build Markets far away from other Markets even though the Trade Carts take longer to reach their destination.
Ideally, allied players must place their Markets at the farthest possible location from each other. Once a Trade Cart is assigned to a target Market, it calculates which of the player's Markets it will return to, which determines the gold yield. The gold yield shown on the target Market shows the value which will be received from the target to the player's closest Market. In the Definitive Edition, this value is misleading if the player has multiple Markets, as Trade Carts choose to travel from the target Market to the owning player's farthest Market. If a Trade Cart carrying gold reaches the home Market location after the Market has been destroyed, it seeks out the closest Market and deposits the recalculated value of gold, as if it had traveled from the target to this new home Market in the first place. In the Definitive Edition, a useful trick to boost the first installment of incomes when trading on long routes is to build a Market right next to the ally's Markets, in addition to the intended home Market built far away. Trade Carts trained at this Market will automatically yield the maximum gold as they will return to the farthest Market rather than the one they were trained in, thus skipping the first leg of their journey.
When trading with allies, is important to know which Markets are better defended to prevent losing trade units. It is also recommended to protect trade routes with military units or defensive structures. If Trade Carts must travel through a wall, it is important to remember to keep the Gate open at all times to avoid losing Trade Carts, because when they reach a closed Gate, they will take another way to reach their destination even if the closed Gate is opened after a short time upon their arrival. Often, Trade Carts are lost because of this since the new route they choose is likely to be dangerous. Unfriendly Markets can still be used for trading even if the owner of said Market has resigned. Therefore, in games without teams or with no teammates left, it is wise to not raze Markets of resigned players.
Trading can also be established with neutral and hostile players' Markets too, thus emulating the real life practice of smuggling, even though this does not actually harm the opponent's economy. While this can be surprisingly efficient when trading with defeated players (especially in campaign scenarios), it is ill-advised when the player in question is still active, as they might notice and kill the Trade Carts.
Exchange of resources[]
Markets are also important because a player can exchange their resource stockpiles to balance their economy. This can greatly help to jump through Ages or to overcome a shortage of a particular resource.
The Market exchanges the three "commodities" food, wood and stone for gold at prices set by each commodity's exchange rate, which is shared between all players, as well as each player's commodity trading fee. Commodities are bought or sold at 100 units at a time. For example, at the starting food exchange rate of 115 gold per 100 food and with the default commodity trading fee of 30%, players sell at 81 gold per 100 food (0.7 × 115) and buy at 150 gold per 100 food (1.3 × 115).
The starting exchange rates in terms of gold per 100 commodity are 100 for wood, 115 for food and 130 for stone. The sale/purchase prices are therefore 70/130, 81/150, 91/169 gold respectively for wood, food and stone. When a commodity is traded, the exchange rate is incremented up or down by 2 to simulate supply and demand, and this affects all players since the exchange rates are global.
The exchange rate cannot go below 20, corresponding to 14/26 sale/purchase prices, or above 9,999. This means that the respective prices bottom out after selling 4,000 wood wood for 1,708 gold, 4,800 food for 2,285 gold, and 5,500 stone for 2,926 gold.
The commodity trading fee is reduced from 30% to 15% by the Imperial Age technology Guilds, to 10% by the Hindustani unique technology Grand Trunk Road, and to 5% by the Saracen civilization bonus. The effect of a changed fee if players make the same trades they would otherwise is that the gold gained or lost is multiplied by the old price multiplier and divided by the old one. For example, if players have Guilds and bottom out the wood and gold prices from their starting prices, they get 0.85/0.7 times as much gold, or an extra 366 and 490 gold respectively.
Besides their reduced commodity trading fee, Saracen Markets also only cost 75 wood, and these bonuses allow them to reach the Castle Age sooner than other civilizations and perform a Monk rush.
Regardless of the exchange rate and the commodity trading fee, the commodity purchase price cannot go below 23 gold.
Trade Cart gold[]
Trade routes should always be made as long as possible, as the increase in gold for Markets placed further apart is greater than the increase in time taken for a Trade Cart to complete the journey. The lines joining opposite corners through the centre of the map are optimal. Most players use an edge of the map as far away as possible from the enemy to try to keep the trade units alive, which yields about half the gold of the optimal route. The exact equation for gold received from trading is:
Graph line stops at max from edge, not theoretical max
, where:
- is the number of tiles along any edge of the map, and
- is roughly the Euclidean distance between the Markets and can be calculated exactly as:
- , where and are the distances between the Markets in either axis-aligned direction, measured from the center of each Market.
The 0.46 in front of the first expression for Trade Cart gold is actually calculated as by the game, where 2 is a constant, and the other two terms depend on the Trade Cart speed and whether the player has a Spanish ally - but can in general also be treated as constants.
Trainable units and technologies[]
Clicking on the icon links to the corresponding page.
- Blue: Units
- Green: Technologies
  Mill |
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Further statistics[]
| Technologies | |
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 Hit points
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 Masonry (+10%) Architecture (+10%)
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| Armor | Masonry (+1/+1, +3 building armor) Architecture (+1/+1, +3 building armor)
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| Conversion resistance |  Devotion (+1 min, +1 max) Faith (+4 min, +4 max) Heresy (die upon getting converted)
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| Line of Sight |  Town Watch (+4) Town Patrol (+4)
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| Build speed |  Treadmill Crane (+20%)
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| Other |  Guilds (reduces commodity trading fee to 15%) Grand Trunk Road (reduces commodity trading fee to 10%, Hindustanis only)
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Civilization bonuses[]
Burgundians: Caravan is available in the Feudal Age, and Guilds is available in the Castle Age. Both cost -33% food.- Burmese: Devotion and Faith are 50% cheaper.
- Byzantines: Markets have +20%/+30%/+40% Hit points in the Feudal/Castle/Imperial Age. Town Watch and Town Patrol are free.
- Chinese: Technologies that benefit Markets and Market technologies are 5%/10%/15% cheaper in the Feudal/Castle/Imperial Age.
- Italians: Researching Masonry, Architecture and Treadmill Crane is 33% cheaper.
- Jurchens: Researching Masonry, Architecture, and Treadmill Crane costs -75% wood and is 100% faster.
- Georgians: Markets receive -20% damage (-40% instead of -25%) when fighting from higher elevation.
- Khmer: Markets do not require a Mill.
- Malians: Markets are 15% cheaper.
- Persians: Researching Town Watch and Town Patrol is 10%/15%/20% faster in the Feudal/Castle/Imperial Age.
- Portuguese: Trade Carts cost -20% gold.
- Romans: Markets are built and repaired 5% faster.
- Saracens: Market trade cost is only 5%. Markets cost 75 wood.
- Spanish: Markets are built 30% faster. Researching technologies that benefit Markets provides 20 gold each.
- Vietnamese: Researching Caravan and Guilds is 100% faster.
Team bonuses[]
- Bohemians: Markets work 80% faster.
- Georgians: Markets cost 25% fewer resources to repair.
- Lithuanians: Researching Devotion, Faith, and Heresy is 20% faster.
- Malians: Researching Masonry, Architecture, and Treadmill Crane is 80% faster.
- Portuguese: Market technologies and technologies that benefit Markets are researched 25% faster.
- Teutons: Markets are more resistant to conversion (+3 min, +1 max cycles).
Changelog[]
The Conquerors[]
- Heresy introduced.
- Caravan introduced, with pre-requisite as Cartography.
The Forgotten[]
- Market HP staggered (2,100 (All) → 1,800 (Feudal Age)/2,100 (Castle Age)/2,100 (Imperial Age)).
- Saracens: Markets cost -75 wood (100 wood).
Rise of the Rajas[]
- With patch 5.7, Cartography is now hidden, automatically researched for free when a Market is constructed. Cartography is no longer needed to get Caravan (change visible only in campaign scenarios).
- With patch 5.8, Coinage and Banking are now available one age later (Feudal Age (Coinage)/Castle Age (Banking) → Castle Age/Imperial Age).
Definitive Edition[]
Dynasties of India[]
- With update 66692, the minimum buy price with Guilds researched is 25 gold.
Return of Rome[]
- With update 87863, Grand Trunk Road now also reduces the trading fee to 10%.
The Mountain Royals[]
- With update 99311, Devotion was introduced.
Victors and Vanquished[]
- With update 125283, Market base exchange rates for food prices increased from 100 → 115, so initial food prices are more expensive and selling provides more gold. Wood and Stone exchange rates are unchanged.
History[]
| “ | As the Dark Ages gave way to better economic conditions, the exchange of produce and craft goods increased. Towns of all sizes set aside an area for a market where farmers and tradesmen could set up stalls for selling their merchandise. One or more days each week were designated market days and became the social highlight of the typical workweek. The market was also a place for the exchange of ideas, entertainment (bards, acrobats, musicians), and the spreading of news. | ” |
| —Age of Empires II: The Age of Kings manual | ||
Trivia[]
- Without Guilds, the maximum cost for purchasing 100 of any commodity (resource) from the Market is 12,999 gold and the maximum selling price of 100 of any commodity is 6,999 gold. These values can be reached by buying 330,000 of any resource other than stone, assuming that the player has enough gold to make these purchases.
- Players can buy or sell in quantities of 500 at a time by holding the Shift key. This works the same as clicking 5 times.
- The Native American Market in the Imperial Age has a double-headed serpent on its entrance which shows its Aztec influence.
- The Saracens' reduced commodity trading fee allowed them to buy 100 of a resource at 26/27 gold and sell it for 1 gold more than they bought it in the Definitive Edition. This was probably an unintended result of the commodity exchange rates then changing by 3 per transaction instead of 2 like in The Conquerors. This was fixed in Dynasties of India. At some point, the exchange rate increment of 2 was restored.
- The price shown in commodity trading can be slightly different than the price that is actually used for the transaction due to rounding errors.
- In the original game, the Market was one of only two buildings, along with the Dock, which could be selected and its information box viewed by the player, even when no longer in the player's Line of Sight. This was in order to provide information about its trade value.
Gallery[]
