private market shrinking? I am only buying troops, but with each new turn there are less of all military types available.

when you are logged out the game uses the difference between what is on your PM the last turn you were logged in, vs your maximum theoretical based on land to calculate a 'per turn' increase

this increase applies for every turn your remain logged out until you log back in again

this can result in your PM having more than its theoretical maximum

when you log back in the gam e recalculates PM growth - because you are over maximum, this is a negative value

(this is my understanding, im sure someone can correct me if im wrong)

So, you are saying that my private market levels have risen and fallen, despite me not using it, all along and I just wasn't aware of it?

Thanks for responding.

yes they tend towards a theoretical maximum based on your acreage (I dont have the formula to hand)

if you are actively playing turns the rate of change adjusts, if you are logged out the rate of change is whatever it was when you were last logged in

this means you can over/undershoot your theoretical maximum

Damn. I was counting on buying out my private market to finish and as it continues to shrink that may not happen.
I always thought the levels would just keep increasing until I hit my land ratio max and then it would just stay at that level.
Thanks again.

There is no theoretical maximum PM. Your PM keeps growing at a constant rate as long as you are logged out. That rate is acres*3 troops per turn, acres *2.5 jets and turrets per turn, and acres *1 tank per turns.

On the turn after you log in, your PM starts to decay. I'm not sure what that decay rate is, but the bigger your PM, the more the decay. At some point the decay rate equals the growth rate, and your PM will hover around that point if you log in regularly, as the two formulae reach a sort of equilibrium.

On Express you can log out for 24 hours to maximize your PM, and you can try to play all your turns (360 plus) in 4 minutes and buy out the entire PM before it decays. The PM would get even bigger if you logged out for longer than 24 hours, but usually (with anything except a Military Base reseller) you want to play all your turns before buying the PM out if you are destocking, and 24 hours takes you to the maximum turns. On other servers the time to maximum turns is 40 hours, or a bit more on Tournament with its turns every 25 minutes. On Primary 40 hours = 80 turns; Alliance, 40 Hours - 120 turns; Team, 40 hours = 160 turns.

Hope that helps

ahh interesting - not quite what I understood then!

Thank you, Getafix.

The exact decay equation is 0.985^(turns gained since last logoout).

^^Which means the private market will hit an equilibrium at around 66.7 times a full turn regen and then it will go up and down around that number if you stay logged in for a long time. If you log out tho it will fill up more as Geta says.