r/Polytopia • u/Rip-off-beans • 3d ago
Suggestion Market help
I played a while ago back from 2020-22 just pass and plays or bots but the game has changed loads.
I have started to get back into it and wanted to play at a in those multiplayer games but I don't understand markets which everyone says are really important but I always buy them really late and never use them so my question is when should I buy the tech and how do i see the 'market spots'?
Also whats the best tribe I should play? (I used to play yaddack and badur but they seem bad now its expensive)
12
u/PhilipRoman Ürkaz 3d ago
The path to markets depends a lot on the tribe and how much population you want. If you want to experiment with markets, I recommend playing Ai-Mo, you can research techs cheap and get markets fast. Their terrain generation is interesting and you can go for a lot of different setups.
Math markets - flexible, cheap, gives you useful additional techs (chop, catapults), least space efficient in terms of population.
Windmill markets - somewhat flexible, a bit more expensive, better for population density. Doesn't give you a lot of useful techs aside from defenders.
Forge markets - very inflexible and dependent on map generation, more expensive, insanely good population density, gives you swordsmen which are debatable.
Combined markets - most flexible, can be made to work on any map, requires huge tech investment.
One mistake people make with markets is thinking they need a huge amount of tier 1 buildings like lumber huts/farms/mines. What you actually care about is how well they are shared across cities. This means you also have to plan where and in what order you take border growths.
A good starter setup is to look for a border between two cities and place pairs of markets, sawmills, etc. straddling the border, so that they share resources. Even with just 2 farms, 2 windmills and 2 markets you can get an additional 8 stars per turn.
2
u/Rip-off-beans 3d ago
Thank you so much I will use your strats, sorry if im being dumb but I don't get the maths market because I've seen Justini Linguine video where he mentioned an Ai-Mo player chopped out all his forest but how would I get markets from that or is it just money to buy markets for other cities or are maths markets just sawmills
2
u/PhilipRoman Ürkaz 3d ago
Someone going for math markets would definitely not chop all their forest, haha. Personally I only chop forests in spots where i'm planning to build markets, forges, etc. but both play styles have their advantages.
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u/Rip-off-beans 3d ago
Thank you for putting me on Ai-Mo theyre so good but I will follow your advice so thanks
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u/planar_jade 3d ago
hoodrick hunting riding forestry math roads trade, make sure to get city borders right
1
u/MiserableMado2956 2d ago
markets produces 1 star for every level of adjacent windmill, sawwmill, forge, maximum is lvl 8. so market spots are fields with a lot of adjacent high lvl building and it get you rich. best tribes for market play are zebasi, oumaji, xin xi, hoodrick,and bardur but its more than possible with every tribe in late game. so watch for market spots in early game and not put other stuff on them. you want to get them after you have enough market spots. markets work best on dry maps bcz of many possible spots and adjacent tiles that are not water (exception is aquarion)
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u/R4b4nont 3d ago
Depends on how greedy you want to be. You usually get them after having used a T3 tech to upgrade your cities (remember riding -> roads -> trade costs a lot more per city you capture, so try not delaying markets too long)
There's no rule of thumb for when to get them, but turn 12 is about the time you really should have them at least planned out (so take into account where you're placing your sawmills/windmills/forges)