The Market
The market plays an important role in your economic success. Through the market you can buy and sell resources by trading with other nations, allowing you to specialise your production in one area and import materials that you do not mine or manufacture yourself.
The prices on the public market are set by supply and demand. If you place an order to buy or sell, you will receive the best available price, which will be shown for both sides of the market on the summary screen, and which will be the top entry for the material on the detailed view of one side of the market.
The market consists of two sides: a bid market where users place bids to buy a commodity at a certain price, and an offer market where users offer to sell a commodity. You can instantly buy from the offer market (at the cheapest available offer) or instantly sell to the bid market (at the highest available bid) from the summary screen or from the relevant market, or you can bid or offer at a better price and hope that someone fulfils the trade.
Buying and Selling
You can instantly buy and sell goods through the Summary pane, as long as another nation has placed available bids or offers. The left hand half of the Summary shows goods available to buy; the right side offers to buy goods from you. For example:
| 12 @ $90 (46) | Wood | 55 @ $88 (126) |
In this case, there are 12 units of Wood available to buy at $90, so you could buy up to 12 units in one transaction. There is a total of 46 units for sale; if you buy out the 12 at the best price then you will see what price the next collection is at. There are 55 units available to sell at $88 out of a total of 126 units (units 'available to sell' mean offers to buy placed by other nations).
If a commodity is not listed on the Summary pane, then no-one is offering to trade it and you will not be able to buy or sell it instantly, although you will be able to place bids and offers (see below). If one side of the row for a commodity states 'No bids' or 'No offers', then no-one is offering to trade on that side and you will only be able to perform the other action.
Your own bids and offers are not shown on the Summary pane.
Bids and Offers
If the price shown on the Summary pane is not good enough for you, or if there is no product available, you may wish to influence the market price yourself by placing a bid or an offer.
A bid is a request to buy a product at a particular price. Bids remain on the market and allow another nation to sell a commodity to you at that price. The price and amount on the right side of the Summary pane reflect all the bids for that commodity on the market. To place a bid, go to the Bid pane, fill in the price and amount fields in the stockpile area and press Bid. To withdraw a bid you have placed, press Withdraw in the market area (there is no fee charged for placing or withdrawing a bid). You can also sell goods instantly through the Bid panel by fulfilling someone else's bid; to do this fill in the Amount field in the market area and press Sell.
An offer is an offer to sell a product at a particular price. Offers remain on the market and allow another nation to buy a commodity from you at that price. The price and amount on the left side of the Summary pane reflect all the offers for that commodity on the market. To place an offer, go to the Offer pane, fill in the price and amount fields in the stockpile area and press Offer. To withdraw an offer you have placed, press Withdraw in the market area (there is no fee charged for placing or withdrawing a offer). You can also buy goods instantly through the Offer panel by fulfilling someone else's offer; to do this fill in the Amount field in the market area and press Buy.
Bids and offers (together known as markets) do not remove the money or resources from your nation's supplies when they are placed, so although you cannot place an individual market for more than your available money or stockpile you can place more goods on the market than you actually own. However, if someone attempts to trade with you via one of your markets, and you do not have enough goods or money to cover their order, your market will be removed automatically and your credit rating will be affected. So if you are using the market it is strongly recommended that you keep enough money and goods on hand to fulfil all your bids and offers.
Commission
Trading through the market is not free. Each trade you do involves a fee to be paid to the exchange, which is a percentage of the cost of the transaction. More financially advanced nations pay a lower commission, which varies from 20% for basic market access to 1% for the most sophisticated access. Research technologies on the trading branch to reduce your market commission. Note: the most advanced trade access is not currently implemented.
Until you research Marketplace, you are not able to use the global market at all.
Messages from the Market
When you (or anyone in your nation) place an order (i.e. an instant purchase or sale), the result will appear in the Game Messages area (white text in the chat). The results you may see include:
You bought 12 units of Wood for $1200, plus $60 commission
You sold 11 units of Wood for $940 ($990 minus commission)
The trade completed successfully. Your stockpile and finances will have updated to reflect it.
2 units of your trade were not fulfilled because you do not have $78000
14 units of your trade were not fulfilled because you do not have 14 Wood
You did not have enough resources to complete the trade. Depending on the state of the market, a portion of the trade may have completed, in which case you will see a success message (as above) for the number of units that were traded and this message for the part which was not.
If no message appears, the exchange could not find any available markets at the price you requested. This can happen if your market information is out of date and someone has already bought or sold the same commodity you are trying to trade. The market information should update so you can see the new prices and try again.
If you are placing markets, when they are taken by another user you will receive a message (accessible via the Messages button) from 'Market System'. If you are online you will see 'Market System sent you a message' in the chat. The messages you may receive are:
You bought 11 units of Wood for $990 (plus $50 commission)
You sold 12 units of Wood for $1140 ($1200 minus commission)
A bid (top) or offer (bottom) you placed has been fulfilled by another nation. Your stockpile and finances should have updated to reflect it.
Your bid for 104 units of Coal at $4000 was removed because you could not afford to spend $84000
Your offer of 60 units of Limestone at $2500 was removed because you did not have sufficient supplies to meet a request for 19 units.
A bid (top) or offer (bottom) was not fulfilled because you didn't have enough money or goods to complete it. The money or number of units specified is the actual size of the requested trade, which is not necessarily the total liability of the whole market.
If you cause a crossed market when placing a bid or offer, you will receive the following message in the chat:
A commission of $45 was also taken.
A crossed market is where a bid is placed at a higher price than a pre-existing offer, or an offer is placed at a lower price than a pre-existing bid. This means that you are offering a better deal than one which is already on the market, so your market is treated as an order and is performed instantly. If it is one of your own markets that you have crossed with, you will also see the message:
For the parts which crossed with other nations' markets, you will receive the same buy/sell confirmation as when you actively buy or sell a commodity, i.e.