A detailed description of how the Trade Bazaar works and breakdown of its worth.
How the Bazaar Works
All credit goes to Catbert7!
How the Magic Happens
So, there’s massive confusion about how the Bazaar works. This is not surprising, as it’s very complicated. After extensive testing, I thought I’d share the details with everyone:
The Bazaar has it’s own resource generation (and storage) entirely separate from other production. Each Bazaar gets its production boosted by Quarries (except Gold) and Lumber Camps in range, ignoring any Warehouse bonus, but the 1st Bazaar also has flat production that is not related to that. It goes like this:
- Wood: +55w (1st) + 25% of covered, base production | ticks every 0.75 days.
- Stone: +33s (1st) + 33% of covered, base production | ticks every 1.25 days.
- Iron: +22i (1st) + 50% of covered, base production | ticks every 1.5 days.
And, when the Bazaar’s storage for any of those entirely fills, the tick for that resource afterward will produce the Gold value listed for it instead. Obviously you can Buy the resources from the Bazaar’s storage, or Sell the stockpile. Why you have the right to sell a thing, but have to pay to use it, I couldn’t tell you. Ask the Devs.
But Is It Good?
The Bazaar, on its own, once full, produces the equivalent of 31.5 Gold per Tax Cycle (Turn), taking 27 Turns to pay off it’s Cost (and, again, that’s not counting the time it takes to fill up its Storage). So, it’s not a great option for Gold income.
But, it is a good option for getting Iron early on, particularly if you get stiffed on Iron Veins, as the 1st Bazaar produces the equivalent of a Tier 1 Mine on a 5.6-Tile Iron Vein, which is pretty darn good! You’ll have to buy it but it’ll be worth it when you have tons of Gold but your progress is locked behind Iron. Happens to me all the time between Waves 1 and 3. Can help similarly with Stone.
So, situationally, it can be very helpful. Just don’t expect it to be the eco powerhouse that it is in TAB.
Cheeky way to get access to a bit more iron: You can currently (Build 12166681, Final Stand) stack Bazaars on top of mines, as long as the Bazaars are out of range from each other, but both reach the mine. They also gain a bigger bonus from advanced Quarry over the normal one, so its possible to stack up to 3 Bazaars and 3 Warehouses (Yes, also works with warehouses) on top of an advanced Quarry on an iron node and get a huge bonus.
The bonus seems to be additive, not multiplicative with Warehouses, which is still ok
Disappointing, I assumed it worked like in TAB. The material caps are so low, warehouses increase them only by a little and take up way too much space. Not sure if having to micromanage selling excess resources is a good thing to have in the game.
Not sure what you mean by micro-selling resources? The Bazaar sells its resources automatically, and other resources can’t be sold, only used. I agree it would be nice if the Bazaars worked like TAB’s Markets, selling off ALL excess resources.