The real issue with trade is similar to the issue with water. If it’s not shut down quickly, it can easily get out of control, with little chance for comeback. That boils down to 2 issues: firstly, killing a full trade route is simply impossible, as it spans the whole length of the map, unlike destroying 2 or 3 TCs; secondly, the max gold provided by trade is insane.
My idea (which I already shared in another thread) to change trade involves 3 steps (some of which have been suggested by other people, I’m just combining ideas to make the best possible rework).
1- buff trade income by ~40%, but cap gold at ~150 gold / trip (obviously these values are just off the top of my head). This will have the effect of making trade routes shorter in length (because to optimize gold earned you need less distance), which makes traders clump up more. This allows attackers to kill traders more easily, while also making defending them more straight-forward. It improves the experience of both players in 1v1, while maintaining max. gold at less crazy levels.
2- Change all maps to have a single neutral trade post in the middle. This combos well with the first change, because it’s harder to make very long routes when the neutral trade post is in the middle of the map. It also has the obvious effect of making trade posts a resource you need to fight over.
3- New mechanic: when you are building a market, the game assesses the distance between your market and the neutral trade post. Maximum value / optimal placement would be a market that reaches the 150 gold cap, while not being unnecessarily far from the neutral trade post.
Overall, this would allow trading to be easier (shorter routes yield more gold), while making it a lot more interesting to fight over. I wouldn’t increase the cost of markets and traders because the whole point of the change is [get map control → quick payoff with trade], instead of [massive investment → become unstoppable]. What do you think?
instead lowering the trade profit they should make the traders more expensive but their training time needs to stay same.That way early trade becomes more risky and the problem solved.Also previous nerfs need to removed it kills the trade civs.
Sometimes I wish there were more maps without a market. It would increase the competition for gold mines and lead to the part I like about Aoe2 where the enemy wastes his army’s money and runs out of funds to invade and you can then come back.
I can only experience that in Aoe4 when you play King of the Hill, one of the few maps without markets, other than that there are some custom maps.
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Why should it cost more? It was already nerfed with the removal of the exploit. There are civs that are not so good at trading.
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For this reason, the boom is already a problem, cheap springs and trade make it worse, according to me the trade is to be used in the late game, not early
Trading so early, ridicules relics!
Yes it beats 2 tc because market is cheaper than tc so you can start gaining resource more early but its hard to defend so it has pros and cons.If you see the enemy making trade you need to play agresive
Not only that but AoE 2 also has inflation whereas market prices in AoE 4 reset.
if i remember correctly prices goes to normal in aoe2 too but i didnt played it for a very long time so im not sure
They inflate + prices are universal which is why it can be nasty to play against Saracens 
The prices reset after 6 or 7 minutes for each resource, so it’s very good
wait so if i buy something from my market it will make the price go up in enemy market too thats really nice maybe its like that in aoe4 too it needed to be tested
With civilizations with passive resources like Mali, a global market is not viable, imagine that the population was also global, Abbasid would beat you in population
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Yep, that’s why it’s sometimes nasty against Saracens since their markets cost 75 instead of 175 wood and they only have a 5 % trade fee, so they might as well just go heavy on gold and buy their resources as needed
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But @HasanIchess is right in this game everyone has access to trade so no one will sell resource to turn it gold but it would be great to have global market it would add some realism to the game
Trade already took a significant nerf.
So because one game that the guy that went 2 TC lost that now means trade is OP?
I could probably also show you games where the 2TC guy won and use it as bait to tell devs to buff trade.
Also if you actually watch that game you will see even in just the villager count, excluding traders, LucifroN was always ahead when he had no extra TCs. The HRE TC went up late(7:24min), he didnt contest the trade early and lost a lot of villagers.
Plus that style of playing french is rarely viable in ranked and will loose against most civs.
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bring those games, or that the only source to believe in is you, ha
If you were to ask me, there is nothing inherently wrong with trade.
Some Civ’s just have a strong advantage with it.
And those who dosn’t usually have stronger Villager advantages.
If you were to ask me, Trade is far more “fun” than multiple TC’s allowing the opponent to turtle hard.
Trade inherently dosn’t allow you to turtle up and hide ujndernieth towers, TC and walls.
It’s far easier to stop someone going for hard trading than it is to stop someone going into hard multiple TC.
Trade promotes a more engaging and in my opinion, far more fun gameplay than Multiple TC.
In my personal opinion, I wish they would remove the ability to make multiple TC, forcing everyone to only rely on the 1 TC that they have, and be far more preserving with their villagers.
TL;DR
Villagers are boring.
Traders are fun.
