Wolf of 0ad Street - Market pump exploit

[Dakara]

market is fixable ? and how 

[guerringuerrin]

6 minutes ago, Dakara said:

market is fixable ? and how 

Here:

On 27/07/2025 at 8:49 AM, Atrik said:

Yes, it's just a small mistake of using a wrong variable for price calculations to make it alike a constant product market maker.

 

[Senator_LEVi]

I don't see how it is entirely accurate to make this is deal-breaking exploit. I think this calls into question the balance of the game as well. In an adequately balanced game with a fair teams (no significant rating differences between both team, >= 300 between the weakest and strongest on both sides) the chances of this aren't as high; compared to teams that are balanced with 1/2 very experienced players VS 4 novice/intermediates 

Let's apply this to another "OP"/"broken" feature in the game. Champ cavalry, or naked fanatics. How effective is it when teams are fairly balanced? Not as much.

The brokenness of a unit or feature is only as good as a single game's lobby. And the counter to the aforementioned units are available to all players. It's also quite simple to spot if a player's end game is champion cavalry. Irrelevant as the next point is, but there are plenty of early game plays that can be made. And only a few players are good enough to even completely change the tide of the game when using such units en masse. 

It would also require a lack of market activity from all players. 

Additionally, "exploit" trade rates appear naturally towards end game, due to an obvious resource mismanagement of any degree of players. It's not uncommon to see sudden spikes in trade rates (500 metal for 1500 food or wood, and vice versa) and profit from them. 

All in all, I would like to bring it back to paragraph 3. However, an easy fix to this is for hosts to simply ban this from their individual games. I do not understand however why players are banning naked fanatics. There is increasingly a pro -ban lobby appearing within the game, overusing terms like "OP", for no apparent reason. (Vote for me and I will ban the next game unit that you don't like.)