Market & Grocer

[TheDanish]

I've always been iffy concerning if the Market and Grocer are worth building. Both are a considerable hammer investment, the Market especially so considering how early it can be built.

Where and when should these two buildings generally be built?

 

[joanne]

Any city that needs the extra happiness/healthiness. I don't care much about the +25% , unless running high gold slider or in shrine cities

 

[ABCDPuppies]

Where:

1. Cities with hard gold producers -- shrines, settled merchants/prophets, corp HQs, and the like.

2. Cities with lots of commerce, if you're going to run the gold slider significantly.

3. Cities that need the happy/health, if you've got the resources.

When:

Well obviously it's situational. If you've got 2-3 Market resources and you're pinched for happiness they're a good investment right away most places. If not I'll probably just put them in my best couple gold-producing cities.

I find Grocers aren't often needed for health until Factories/Coal Plants.

 

[Cam_H]

[Crosspost]

Further to joanne's and ABCDPuppies's replies;

You're right in that you should be pretty selective about these buildings, at least in the early and mid game. Later on, with so many multipliers (Forges, Factories, Power Plants, Corporations, etc.) those hefty price tags for getting up the Market or Grocer become pretty mild.

Theoretically you've specialised your cities, and Markets and Grocers can be well suited to cottage-rich sites. Better yet, cities that have worthwhile shrines, corporation HQ's, and Wall Street.

Hybrid cities (mix of , , and ) with rampant unhealthiness or unhappiness that can't be addressed effectively by other techniques (e.g. the whip) could well qualify for these buildings.

The Romans get the Forum as a replacement building for the Market, and this should go in cities that are serious about popping s, as well as natural sources.

Likewise, the Persians get the Apothecary, which is well suited to any city on the fringe of .

Also, consider your resources base. If you happen to have access to several of; Fur, Ivory, Silk, or Whale, whipping out Markets could quickly pay for themselves in that the whip unhappiness is countered by the happiness derived from Market-friendly resources.

Grocers are prerequisites to Supermarkets - so again, affected cities, and those who are growing with optimal tile use at +1 might well benefit from the benefits of a Supermarket. The extra +1 could lead to another specialist citizen. If you get well into the Industrial Era, is likely to be increasingly problematic, so the Grocer and Supermarket present themselves as one tool to offset your Factories and population filth, etc.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Markets are good builds if your gold slider is going to be stuck low for a while (typical after a big early war). Otherwise these buildings are only soso outside of top gold cities...UNLESS they give you +2 or more /. If you get something like fur/silk/ivory through having them or trades, a market is pretty strong in any city for pushing the cap. If by some miracle you get all 4 markets become one of the best investments in the game.

 

[Cam_H]

It's possibly also worth noting the extra two Merchant slots that each building opens. It's very situation dependent, but shooting for Great Merchants (e.g. founding Cereal Mills or Sushi, or needing quick for upgrades) or propping up your economy with Merchants in a crisis (it can happen) while in a civic other than Caste may prove to be of value.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Desperation merchants are generally inferior to building wealth + working commerce (outside of caste especially) because the hammer sink to simply attain the market is fairly high. You get 3 gold for a merchant...and 3 gold for working a mine building wealth at the cost of 1 less food. If you can/will get a GP in the city, running the specs might well be worth your while, but barring that wealth is probably the way to go.

Of course if you're pushing strike and the city has decent commerce the building gives a better ROI than a library, so it's worth considering for certain in those conquest sprees early on. The reason wealth multipliers are usually shunned is that people just broker techs out for more gold for more deficit research and find other ways to keep the slider high; but in situations where you pound out 15 cities with early warfare that's not really an option (or necessary) most of the time and you have to adapt. Of course on deity non-mara pounding out 15 cities with early warfare play is no gimme (even on mara it isn't) and often impractical, but on most difficulties you can get away with it.

 

[Cam_H]

Yeah ... it's inferior generally, but there are times and circumstances (as I say "situation dependent") ...

Can't comment on Deity - I've plateaued on Immortal.

 

[vanillasine]

Where:

I find Grocers aren't often needed for health until Factories/Coal Plants.

i also find this.

 

[ahcos]

... but after factories/coal plants they become mandatory in alot of cities from what i've experienced, unless you want to be stuck with 10 pop cities in the 1800's.

Markets OTOH are alot more situanional, very useful to more or less useless for a loooong time.

 

[AutomatedTeller]

Markets run into the problem of becoming less useful as the game goes on, as well - 3 of the thing they give happy for become obsolete with time (ivory, fur, whales)

 

[Choeimok]

I usually build Grocers right after Coal Plants, but Markets only if the extra would allow me leaving HR, or of course in Shrine/Corp/highly developed cottage cities.

 

[ston]

...and 3 gold for working a mine building wealth at the cost of 1 less food.

Wouldn't you need a 6H mine for that to be the case? Or are you considering other factors (e.g. a forge)?

TIA

 

[Steve the Noble]

Early game, markets and grocers are nice +25% boosts to commerce cities, but have little benefit to smaller cities. Of the two, I'll build the one that gives the bonus (health/happiness) that the city will be needing soon.

Later in the game Banks are a better bang for the buck (double the commerce bonus as markets/grocers, but only 50 hammers more to build.)

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Wouldn't you need a 6H mine for that to be the case? Or are you considering other factors (e.g. a forge)?

TIA

No? 3 ----> 3 via build wealth working a grass hill mine. We're talking BTS here, it worked differently back in the day.

A merchant is 3 at -2, while a grass mine only costs 1 (riverside grass mines compare even more favorably of course).

 

[Blitzrr]

I'd say markets and groceries are not in the same league as granaries, there's just cities which will never really benefit from either. I'd go so far as to call them supplementary - I'd say you should never prioritize them over flat growth, granaries (or usually libraries as well I assume).

I'm no expert but the games I've played prioritizing food and growth over bonus infrastructure is usually the better choice. Think an average cottage city, I'm fairly sure growing by 3 pop in ~20 turns and working new tiles is more commerce efficient than spending those 20 turns or the 3 pop hammering/whipping a market.

Holy cities might be an exception to this, though.

 

[cabert]

markets and grocers are also very interesting when you go heavy on universal suffrage
I like that, and I often pay for them first thing (after banks that have a better effect) when going for universal suffrage production power.

 

[Mylene]

I would say both buildings come a bit early, markets in particular cuz you always want currency asap.
150 hammers are a big deal at this point, makes them look bad.
As the game goes on, a market is usually a pretty nice building thou.
Grocer i usually don't build till all the industrial stuff raises up, as mentioned

 

[TheDanish]

Thanks for the answers. This pretty much confirms my suspicions. I was always reluctant to build the market early unless I absolutely needed it.

 

[AutomatedTeller]

You also build markets/grocers when you aren't running caste and want the GPP points for merchants, of course.

But TMIT's point on building wealth vs. a merchant has a problem.... which is that you cannot build anything else when you are building wealth. I mean - you can't build some wealth and something else.