It shouldn’t get a utility because it could break a lot of scenarios.
Making a new building with the same appearance would create confusion.
I never got why there is no infinite wood building in any AoE game not even in AoE3 or AoM.
I think it should generate less Gold to make it still the better option to trade with allies.
One idea would be to replace 50% of the Gold with Wood, which is usually the least valuable resource but it runs empty on some maps. This would make island maps more playable.
The building should probably be a little more expensive to build, maybe even costing Stone to make it not too powerful in 1v1 games on closed maps.
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If you can only get less gold at Trading Post than at Market, then Market is definitely the better option to trade with allies.
But it makes sense to make the Trade Post suffer a disadvantage in trading with allies, because the main purpose of its introduction is just to allow players to trade with themselves in 1v1.
Why not make this trade post a building where you can set the type of resource you can generate while trading? You have buttons like the market where you can select wood food stone and the trade cart going to that will bring gold and the other resource.
Or you garrison villagers inside the trade post and they can generate the selected type of resource out of it.
I don’t think ideas like those are good for AoE2 base game. Maybe as a Chronicles type spin off. But I don’t want more of those.
Perhaps a trading workshop can decrease siege and tradecart buildtime.
New Building: Saloon
After building it, you’ll be able to recruit a randomly selected unique unit from the saloon.
So, you could have Cataphracts with Bloodlines + Blast Furnace, Longbowmen with Thumb Ring, or Mangudai with Ring Archer Armor.
Of course, just joking.
But the idea is that the ability to recruit one random unit would make each game feel much more different from the others, if balanced properly. It’s kind of like having a different tech in each game, which could be worth considering.