The Point of building markets

[Waleed]

I've always wondered sine Rome what's the point of upgrading markets. If you select them and check in your income scroll most of the time you only get like 20-60 more florins per month compared to a multi thousand florin investment. It says it increases the number of tradable resources but what exactly does that mean?

[OMGLAZERS]

I think research on the levels of market increasing income needs to be studied, but the more merchants you have on resources, the more markets should provide for you. Also, docks and roads are important.

Just a market won't do diddly for you.

[Prodigal]

In RTW if you didn't upgrade markets then you couldn't access the higher level blacksmiths, so it restricted your armour & weapons upgrades. Also you get better spies & assassins, and finally it increases population growth & the cash you get from trade.

[Freedom Onanist]

I think the OP has a valid point. When you consider the price of upgrading markets in your cities what is the pay off? What opportunity cost are you loosing by not spending on troops?

Merchants are very hit-and-miss for me. No matter how long they have been standing on a resource, no matter how far they go and no matter how much profit they are making they seem to be very easy prey to other merchants. Again, I am not convinced they are worth it either given their price. I know about taking other merchants and you can't stand 2 merchants on the same resource, you have to have 2 similar resources in the same province. But even then the return is relatively minimal.

[Kobal2fr]

It all depends on the number of ressources in a given province. Higher markets give a bonus on trade, so if the province has low trade to begin with it's not that much of a benefit, but in rich province who have many types of ressources, the bonus is quite substantial.

Also, I believe that merchant efficiency is bolstered by buildings which increase trade, because I've seen the same ressource be worth much more money later in my campaign as they did early on, for equal experience merchants. What I don't know is wether only the buildings in your capital have that effect (since ressource types are worth more the further they are from your capital) or wether it's an empire-wide bonus total.

[Quillan]

It does seem to vary depending on the size and resources of the province. Markets in Constantinople pay off very well (two silk, one wine, one grain resource). Also, the educational line of buildings require great markets and merchants quarters to build.