Is it possible that the marketplace can evolve into a trade center?
Is it possible that we can upgrade to "trade routes" from marketplace to marketplace by building additional marketplaces near other castles and So reflect an increased demand to allow a descent return for selling 500 units of a resource?

As it stands now in the "Ultras", when you get up past turn 70 or so, even with "expert trading" 500 Gems will return less than 200 gold and 500 metal or stone will return zero gold. It gets progressively worse and I don't even want to consider being able to sell a 1000 of a resource at a time just to get 5 or 10 gold. The only consolation is that it becomes possible to buy 500 of a resource like stone for under 600 gold. The trade economy tends to seems to go into a recession with resources having little or no value in the later turns.

TR

I find that 90-95% of my marketplace usage is to get gold. Rarely do I use it to buy other resources. The prices at the marketplace drop because the vast majority of the transactions are selling resources, especially for the few players who have conquered more resource units than they need to produce troops (because there is a limit to the number of barracks you can have).

One way to make the marketplace more important to game strategy is to have an imbalance of resources. If one player has three mines but only one quarry, and another player has three quarries and one mine, they'll need to trade resources in the marketplace. But only if on the average you need two quarries and two mines to keep your normal production rate going.

Then not only is the marketplace more important, but ALSO the acquistion of certain regions. So there would be an increase in military strategy related to resources as well.

Along the same lines, the ability to produce buildings and troops might also be made more dependent on certain resources.

The market prices are awful and nearly useless. They need a major revamp. I suggest that they give at least double what they pay now. If you don't have wood, you are in a mess. If it costs 4000 gold for 200 wood, you are in a quandary. If you then sell the wood and get 50 gold, you are now miserable.

Ohhhhhhhhhh, the new version will fix it all
the new version will fix it all
the new version will fix it alllllllllllllllllllllllllllllll
but first we'll all be dead.

yes it will, but when??

Post mortem!

how about elimnating resorus piles that would make the buildings and your development choices alot more stratigec aswell as lessen the sell off of resorses that begins whith the first marketplace to be built. Thereby stablizing the market somwhat

althoe i would leave a few resorces for the players in the center of the map as they have it alot harder then the ones in a courner or on the side

the marketplace is ridiculously useless when it comes to obtaining resources. perhaps something could be done to alter this problem (by reducing the cost of buying resources). I don't think the "trade route" idea is so good. That only means that the first person to capture a castle has an even larger advantage over the other players (besides getting double the trained troops and numerous other resources)

Yes that's true about the guy with two castles gaining an additional advantage but again when I got up to about turn 70 in the Ultras, 500 of any resource with I think maximum market tech was returning zero gold;
So I think some "gimick" is needed to change the market value of goods.

PS:
That wasn't intended to need any special unit or anything for a trade route ... it was intended to be just a "tech or upgrade" and the same for the trade center.

TR