where do you guys think the line start and where the line ends?

i know most people in this server think grabbing and interaction between players is good but some don't think landtrading is legit.

just wondering what people think is this magical line where it crosses from on side to another...

p.s for me personally i think landtrading is when two people are in one chat and they hit each other back and forth to cooperate while grabbing each other via the terms of the pact are from random encounters.

it's just that i don't think sometimes it's easy to tell what is what though...

honestly as long as there are GHost acres and we allow Retals "landtrading" will exist.

alliances that don't support land trading should have a NO RETAL policy, and lets see how far that takes them.

Now hear me out; being in a chat and hitting each other every 3 minutes is wrong, because both countries are breaking their retal policy, as such countries that embark in such behavior aren't protected by retal policies.

I think that is how we should take this.

If you are exchanging hits without paying attention at your own clans Retal policy, that means you don't abide by them and you are free game in my book.

and with Free Game i mean that you have no retal rules, I won't allow you to hit me back, and certainly I will farm you if I can, that is the best compromise we can reach.

^

ah good point chaoswind.

you are right. all of us don't allow RoR as a policy and hitting each other back and forth entails that.

i think that is a very valid solution =) thanks for bringing that up to me...

really stupid point.. cause all alliance make exception now and then..

that argument would mean that anyone who deviate, out of kindness or some other deal from their retal policy should have it completely ignored? dont think so...

if a a player is new.. hit a country from clan b 3 w/o knowin the rules. FAs settle on 3 retal instead of maybe the 6 that their policy dictates, then that clans retal policy is no longer valid???? it becomes another "where's the line" situation..

I'd rather have retals occuring then alliances declareing war to get farmland.

Fact is its hard to ge ahead with landtrading without taking it to far, when you are big you will always lose out on a landtrade unless you are tradeing with someone who is just as big. Having opponents just as big equals you not beeing ahead. Only way to really get ahead is intratag-trading keeping ghostacers on both sides of the hit wich I belive all agree is taking it to far.

Retal land is more yummy than traded land.

Hmmm, I would agree with Chaoswind to a point. As long as retal policies are observed, would you still consider the constant exchange between two countries as legit hits? or landtrading? I see it as landtrading. Although, I don't have a problem with landtrading...

*Shrugs*

Last set I did. This set, there were many hits exchanged legitimately between several different alliances and pretty much ended up with the same amount of land in the same time frame. I think with proper grabbing, (aka: Smart grabbing), people can overcome the idea of land trading.

Grabbing pacts, on the other hand, encourage friendly grabs between alliances through a list of "voluntary" grabbers. The problem becomes when one of the two sides start outgrowing each others' victims and they're not willing to lower defense to appropriate levels to encourage "good faith" grabbing. If you're grabbing in a ring of people, it should be fairly easy to pick targets and grow well... but, here again, I still prefer the "grab/retal" scheme we followed this set. I maintained a 400k PS up until last week so the people I grabbed could easily grab back and both sides benefited greatly. I like growing, others like growing, I believe in a win-win situation for all. My 2 cents' worth at least

yea this is all new to most of us so i'm just getting some feelers =)

This game might be becoming too care-bear for me with the lack of land and small player base. I think I may be too cutthroat to put "the good of the game" (and trying to attract new players/not bleed current players) ahead of my desire to win.

I liked it when the attitude of the game was "I'll take your land, and then minimize the amount you can take back from me" and "You took my land, so now I'll take back as much from you as possible to deter you from ever hitting me again." This win-win friendly grabbing stuff... I dunno.

back when it was still a lot of fun

well grabbing pact doesnt necessarily mean the person who got hit. is going to retal.. therefore someone is losing out

Personally i prefer to get grabbed and to be able to retal and hit back for 150%.

Landtrades are too easy: grabbing pacts involve some fine calculation.

I think open honest communication between two parties who are involved with grabbing pacts can solve a lot of issues.

If each side is willing to take a step back if grabbing does go out of hand, then there can be at least some control measure so neither side will be screwed over.

Land trading is when they are cooperating imo. Grabbing is when one side hopes to come out on top of the exchange.. Not though outrunning the retal in this case, just through getting the better land out of the deal.

i like the idea of it but it really stops people from getting ahead by trying to look out for everyone that is involved in the land trading... i would prefer to see a couple of hundred bot countries added to the game.

I've said it internally and I will say it externally, L:L policies promote landtrading. What happened this reset between several major alliances was essentially alliance-condoned landtrading except it wasn't organized as such. I'm fine with landtrading, but I find it amusing that folks oppose it and support L:L because it strikes me as hypocritical.

If everyone wanted to spice up the game then I would suggest eliminating L:L pacts and going back to the old 1:1/2:1 etc. And also eliminating ghost acres or severely reducing the number. Folks would be back to having to landgrab and it would make it very interesting.

For me personally, the line is competition vs. collusion. GraB-friendly pacts allOw each couNtry to decide how much offense vs. defense to bUild, with the conSequences that follow that decision. It also allows alliances to differentiate themselves vis-a-vis how disciplined they are with grabs and retals, and how much land they net as a result.

Two players messaging each other breaks, PSing tanks, etc. removes any competitive element from the picture.

I think it's the same thing.

The differences I can see are..

1. Higher entry level barrier for those with grabbing pacts, they must have more of them and spread things around between a few countries rather than 2 or 3.

2. A chance of some A-hole player on one of the sides trying to pump himself up to 40mil turrets or something and farming.

However, if both sides are following it as it is layed out.. they are virtually identical.

ummm who cares? this is a game, and landgrabbing is part of it. Its just people who cannot do it worth a crap will complain because it adds another level of competition to the game.

The simple answer is there is no difference.

The ghost acres system is new to me. When you do a land:land are ghost acres counted on the retal? Like say I get grabbed for 300A +150A. when I retal do I get to get the 300 back regardless of how many ghost acres I gained? Or do you lump that in? Like my first retal is 200A +100A. I got my 300 back, but would I still get another hit?

Ghost tend to not count, but that is why PDM has a C:C L:L 80% policy, if you get +80% on the first hit, then the ghost acres make up for the rest, so no need to keep hitting (we aren't assholes, unless you piss someone off)

L:L retals encourage land trading.

Exactly. So folks shouldn't be opposed to land trading and support L:L simultaneously.

The only reason L:L pacts look like landtrading is because the custom is L:L "excluding ghost".

If your intent was to make sure an alliance got the message to "never grab our members", the retal policy would be:

We will take everything you got from your hit back from you, at a minimum. Land would be all land, including ghost. Other stuff would be translated to a common cash value and the retals would continue until the land and common cash value had been taken back.

This changes the perception from "its ok if both countries benefit from the exchange" to "you WILL NOT benefit from the exchange."

Correct and in doing so it would effectively destroy all grabbing. Therefore if folks oppose landtrading and want to maintain a retalitatory system then they need to go backwards to 2:1, which will encourage grabbing so much as to even spur the old retal-divisions within some alliances.

Right.

- Entitlement to land enforced through pacts (topfeeds, etc) is silly.
- Farming untaggeds / news camping is not something I want to do.
- I don't see a problem in following commonly-held retal policy to make mutually-beneficial grabs between alliances.

I'm not against landtrading in general. What I don't like seeing is how coordinated it was becoming. Retal policies that encourage grabbing I don't mind.