Markets vs. Storage Barns/Stock Piles

[Daddo]

What are the pros of cons of these two storage methods? Like, maybe markets = more storage per square, or vendors move goods X times faster than laborers, etc.

I believe that barns/piles can perform all the same basic functions of a market... eh? Or am I forgetting something?

[Proteus]

Markets have their own workers who actively care for carrying the resources from Barns/Stockpiles to the market (and do so with wheel barrows, thereby being able to carry much more resources per tour than anyone else).

In contrast to this, Barns and Stockpiles passively receive their resources from the workers of the workplaces nearby.

With other words, the addition of the market allows you to have decentral nodes (with barns and stockpiles, surrounded by workplaces ... inorder to keep the distance the workrs have to walk to the nearest stockpile minimal) together with a central node (the market) where all resoruces are bundled in order to, for example, supply the population

[Daddo]

How much more do vendors carry?

[Lamp]

Same amount as normal villagers; roughly 20-40 of the resource, but they go around collecting from all the other barns and markets so it's always full of what the village needs. Alternativly, Markets are able to hold a lot more since they have to hold everything, but they will never hold the sole amount of one resource.

I'd say have one market in the center of your city, then maybe a few more at major population centers; everyone else gets a Storage Barn and Stockpile

[Onyx]

Markets are far more efficient for your citizens; they centralize necessary resources for them. If you just keep barns and stockpiles, your citizens may have to wander from one side of your town to the other in order to get what they need. If you want to ensure that doesn't happen, you have a lot more resource juggling to do.

[Playbahnosh]

Stockpiles and barns are just for passive storage. Markets have vendors that actively gather all resources needed by your citizens so they can get everything in one place. Food, firewood, clothes. raw materials, tools, etc. (The only thing markets don't stock is building materials, like logs, stone and iron.) That's why it's useful to build houses around markets, so people don't have to walk long to supply themselves and their homes. so they spend more time actually doing their jobs and not walking across town to get a sandwich or kindling.

Also, markets equalize stocks amongst themselves, so all markets have the same share of all resources you gather, given you have enough vendors. So if you have 200 herbs stored and you have 4 markets, each market will stock 50 herbs for the citizens living around them. This is great if you produce something (like herbs) only in one part of your town, markets will still do the distribution, so if the people living on the other side of the map have a market nearby, they'll still get their share regardless of the distace (the vendors will do the walking for them).

The only downside of markets is you have to assign quite a few of your valuable workfoce for them to work efficiently, but IMHO they pay for themselves in the long run for not having bouts of starvation and things like that.

[scardone001]

Originally posted by Daddo:

How much more do vendors carry?

I have seen a villager carry somewhere around 50-100 of a recource where as a villager with a wheelbarrow carrying aprox. 500+

but that was based off a trading post, market places would average maybe half that but ive seen them clear out a fully stocked storage barn with 5 or 6 trips

[dcbobo]

The only thing markets don't stock is stone. The only material used for buildings only. Since logs and iron are used for goods also, they do store them.
Markets can used to expand and to make an ineffiencent city run better.
You can build a city without them. But like anything, you'll hae to use them to maximize your city. You can use them early as possible, or you can wait till you've built your city to start using them.

It's hard to say "the best" way to use them, but there are several ways you can use, i consider markets and trapeports easily the most powerful buildings in the game. Though, unlike many other markets are usually my last buildings, besides houses.

[therealjohnconnor]

Slightly off-topic, but ypou'd be amazed how much you can store in a trading post if you need to 'clear the decks' elsewhere. Of course, you need barns/markets/stockpiles if you want to dish goods back out again to your people..

[Rogue]

Market vendors will go anywhere to get supplies. If you build a storage lot out in the boonies cause your getting resources out there, you can save your workers a trip back to town to get rid of their load.

[Rafein]

When you have a market, your villagers go there for goods. And Vendors do carry more with their wheelbarrows.

WHat I try to do is have my houses around the market, as that is where people will be. On n the outside of the Market Circle circle, I have storage barns with farms/pastures. Workers work their fields, drop off stuff in barns, vendor swings by the barns, picks them up, and takes them to market.

Basically, Storage barns work best as a stopgap storage, so your workers can drop off their goods and get back to work quickly.

Good example is placing a storage barn right outside the gather's/hunter's circle, so they gather, drop off into barn, and run back out and gather, instead of having to come back into town.

[Daddo]

Originally posted by Rafein:

When you have a market, your villagers go there for goods. And Vendors do carry more with their wheelbarrows.

I believe this might be a critical point that is often overlooked. I believe than once a market is built, your villagers restocking food will walk right past a fully loaded barn on their way to a possibly far more distant market. Can someone confirm or deny this?

Originally posted by Rafein:

Good example is placing a storage barn right outside the gather's/hunter's circle, so they gather, drop off into barn, and run back out and gather, instead of having to come back into town.

Of course, if you have no market and place your houses next to your food_production and barn, your villagers can work, drop off, pick up, eat and warm up all in the same small area. Why travel any distance at all, except for the occassional item?

P.S. Laborers will distribute finished goods (e.g. tools, clothes, fuel, etc.) to distant barns and piles also, even if they are less efficient carriers than Vendors.

[therealjohnconnor]

A side-point: markets tend to concentrate your village, barns to disperse it. With hi-population villages, the more dispersed it is, the more prospect of your population walking itself to death.

[Nox]

The most effective distribution method is to have a barn/stockpile near your food/low level production, and have markets within reach of those barns/stockpiles. That way market workers will pick up large quantities when needed.