Marketplace

The Marketplace is a place where Empires can hire units and heroes, and buy and sell Strategic Resources, Luxury Resources, Stockpiles. Two technologies are required to unlock the marketplace: Mercenary Market enables hiring units and heroes, and Imperial Coinage enables buying and selling resources.

Heroes

There is a list of (usually 7) heroes are available to all empires; each empire also has a list of (usually 3) exclusive heroes that are only visible and hire-able by the empire. These lists are continuously and randomly generated. For a list of all heroes that can appear, see Heroes/Comparison Table. There are no biases: a hero can be exclusive to any empire, and any hero from the pool can appear, even those belonging to factions not present in the current game.

The marketplace hero generation algorithm is roughly the following::

• Internally, the game stores multiple lists of heroes:
  • A hidden hero pool that initially consists of all hire-able heroes.
  • For each empire, a list of exclusive heroes, 3 by default.
  • A list of heroes available globally to all empires, 7 by default.
• Generally speaking, heroes first go from the hero pool to the exclusive lists, then from the exclusive lists to the global list.
• An exclusive hero is only exclusive for 15 turns by default, affected by Game Speed. When no longer exclusive, they are moved from the empire's exclusive list to the global list. This is why the global hero list appears to refresh on turns 16, 31, 46, 61, and so on.
• If the global list size exceeds 7, then 7 are randomly selected and the rest are discarded.
• Hiring an exclusive or global hero will remove them from the respective list.
• If, at the beginning of a turn, an empire has less than 3 exclusive heroes, then heroes are randomly moved from the hidden hero pool to their exclusive list.
• When the hero pool is empty, it will automatically refill with all hire-able heroes.

ELCP Changes

ELCP increases all hero list sizes by 1, to 8 global heroes and 4 exclusive heroes per empire.

Units

Minor faction units are generated into the marketplace based on the current set of non-destroyed minor faction villages in the world.

Any units that are purchased from the Marketplace are Mercenaries, which cannot be retrofit, even if the unit is of the same type as a unit you can normally retrofit. For example, if you have assimilated the Sisters of Mercy minor faction and are able to produce, edit, and retrofit Justicere units, you will not be able to retrofit a purchased Justicere mercenary. However, after researching the Mercenary Corps technology, it is possible to turn armies composed entirely of Mercenaries into armies of Privateers that appear as roaming armies to other empires, and can be used to attack another empire's units in their own territory and even siege their cities without you needing to declare war with them. However, Privateers have increased upkeep, and cannot perform the Bribe, Parlay, or Search army actions.

When it comes to selling units and heroes, any units or heroes that you sell on the market will be made available for every other Empire in the game to purchase, and you will not be able to repurchase them. There are some units - such as Settlers or unique Heroes - that have the "Unsellable" Capacity, which, as the name suggests, means that you cannot sell them on the Marketplace.

Because the number of factors to take into account for a given unit - unit design, equipment, level, skills in the case of heroes - the value of a unit or hero can vary wildly from one to the next. Generally speaking, the higher the level and total Industry cost to produce the given unit and it's equipment, the higher the price will be. Exact equation for this TBD.

Resources and Stockpiles

After researching Imperial Coinage, it is possible to buy and sell Strategic Resources, Luxury Resources, and Stockpiles on the Marketplace. At turn 1, the Marketplace will not have much available to purchase from here, but will gradually develop a stock of most resources and stockpiles over time and from other empires selling those things to the Marketplace. Only up to 100 of a given Strategic or Luxury Resource will be available on the Marketplace at any given time, and while the same limit may exist for Stockpiles, there is very rarely more than 10 of a given type of Stockpile on the market at any given time. You may only purchase up to 10 of a given resource at a time to allow for Supply and Demand to recalculate, but there is no limit to how much you can buy on the marketplace in a turn.

To sell resources and stockpiles on the Marketplace, simply go to the "Salable Items" box in the upper left corner of the Marketplace screen. Then select the resource you wish to sell from one of the three tabs, enter the amount you wish to sell, then press "Sell". As with purchasing resources and stockpiles, you may only sell up to 10 at a given time.

TBD: Costs

Taxes

While the Marketplace can be very useful as a versatile way to quickly gain some extra resources, units, or Dust, it should be noted that you cannot buy something from the Marketplace, and then sell it back at the same price. This is due to Taxes, which are a constant property of the Marketplace. Every item on the Market has a base price, and then this price is increased or decreased due to taxes depending on whether you're buying or selling, respectively. Goods purchased on the market have a 25% increase to cost from taxes, while goods sold on the market have a 60% reduction to value due to taxes.

Roving Clans

While all major factions are able to use the Marketplace if they have researched the appropriate technology, the Roving Clans have a much more intimate connection with the Marketplace due to a number of traits they possess.

First and foremost, the Roving Clans start with Imperial Coinage and Mercenary Market already researched, meaning they have full access to the Marketplace from the start of the game. The Roving Clans also have the ability to see all transactions that take place on the Market due to their "Insider Trading" trait, receive 8% of the Dust from every transaction made on the Market due to their "Cuts Both Ways" trait, and are able to use the "Market Ban" diplomatic action which bans an Empire from using the Marketplace at all due to their "Keys to the Market" trait, which also protects them from another Empire banning them from the Market.

The Roving Clans are also able to make much better use of Mercenaries purchased from the market for two reasons; first, they have the unique Freelance Guards technology, which replaces Mercenary Corps. The technology does the same thing - allowing the Roving Clans to turn armies of Mercenaries into armies of Privateers - but is available in Era II instead of Era IV. Additionally, the Roving Clans have the "Mercenary Comforts" trait, which grants +1 Movement and doubles the Life of all Mercenary units, as well as reducing the upkeep of Privateers by 33%. These traits both serve to make the use of Privateers far more viable for the Roving Clans, which helps to balance out the fact that they are unable to declare War on empires from their "Make Trade Not War" trait.

Supply and Demand

While all goods on the Marketplace have a base price, this price can vary depending on how much a specific good is being bought or sold among all Empires in the game. Anytime a good is purchased, the demand for that good goes up, and so does the price; conversely, if a good is sold to the market - or it simply isn't purchased for a long time - the demand goes down, and the price goes down as well. However, this effect is not infinite, with the maximum price for any given good being three times the base price, and the minimum price being one-third.

Exactly how much each buy/sell changes supply/demand TBD.

Inflation

As time goes on, the base price of every item on the Marketplace increases by a small amount due to inflation. This mechanism is largely present due to the fact that, as time goes on and Empires grow, the amount of Dust they produce grows in kind. As such, increasing the cost of items on the Marketplace helps to balance things so that different goods are never too cheap.

Exact equation TBD.