HoMM3 Marketplace Guide

Overview

Marketplace can be built in all towns, and it is used for trading between resources and other players. It is one of the cheapest structures in the game and always has a fixed building price of 500 gold and 5 wood. One town can have one marketplace - and that marketplace will have certain rates when it comes to trading and they will not be so favourable. But, having more towns allows you to have more marketplaces which affects the rates in your favor.

Artifact Merchant will offer the same artifacts for every player in every town that has it. This means that the offer is the same for all players and if one player buys an artifact, it will no longer be available for purchase by others. So, if you have your eye on some artifact, be sure to buy it before your opponent does!

How are marketplace rates affected?

All the marketplaces you have built in your towns are taken into account. This means that more the marketplaces you have, the better exchange rates will be. However, there is a limit and it is reached when you own nine marketplaces. Having more than nine marketplaces will not affect rates any further. That many marketplaces allow us to get the best exchange rates, meaning we will be able to trade more and build more, which can be a great advantage over our opponent. Take a look at the table below to see how rates are changed with every new marketplace you build:

Resources

It is worth mentioning that there are a total of seven resources in the game. We can then say that the basic resources are wood, ore and gold (these are mostly required for building) - while precious (or magic) resources include sulfur, mercury, crystal and gems.

Trading Post

This adventure map object can be very useful early in the game - trading posts have the same trading rate as five marketplaces. We need not say that it is best to use them when we have four or less marketplaces built in our towns. If we own six or more marketplaces, rates in them will be more favourable than those offered by trading posts. Trading posts always have fixed rates, no matter how many of them we find in the adventure map.

Resource silo

This structure is an upgrade to the marketplace and can also be built in all towns. It will provide extra resources to your Kingdom depending on the town it is built in. It will supply the town with resources mostly needed in it - e.g. Rampart will get +1 crystal, Dungeon +1 sulfur and Castle will get +1 wood and ore.

Unlike the marketplace, resource silo is very expensive - but it is very useful, especially if the adventure map lacks required resources for your town.

Marketplace effects on other structures

The number of marketplaces will also affect other town structures - Artifact merchant and Freelancer’s guild will also have different rates with every marketplace you build. Learn about these effects in our next guide!