The offensive ally bonus combined with the planned strike bonus is too strong on individual servers, and it is being exploited by some players to give them a huge advantage over other legit players.

If your ally's military is going to help you while you do a PS, your ally's military should also be unavailable for 20 hours (or 2 hours if express).

I suggest that on all servers, planned strikes should not have the ability for offensive allies to help out. But even if we don't go that far, at least remove that ability on individual servers.

An alternative solution:

A good way to balance out planned strikes would be to remove the 50% attack strength bonus on planned strikes, but make it so that planned strikes do not use offensive allies AND the target of a planned strike cannot use the help of their defensive allies. This would still make planned strikes quite useful, especially since they would retain their 50% attack gains bonus. And it would be great for those who are still learning how to calculate an attack.

I would suggest: Remove OAs on individual servers

ya get rid of OAs, grabbing would be a lot more annoying without the attack bonus. Most top players don't use OAs anyway because it's tough to do it equally without one person benefiting a lot more. Keep it in alliance though, it's good for retals.

We've discussed off and on about just removing allies from solo servers, as it does seem to weight things unfairly away from solo performance....

Hi qz, glad you guys have looked at it.

I just wanted to say I don't have a problem with def or int allies. They get people talking and help add an extra dynamic to the game, namely spying on alliances and spying on allies before attacking.

And without def allies, my tourney experience has shown me that PS becomes too powerful, and it's fine for tourney... but I don't like that also being the way it is on Primary or Express.

I would just recommend removing res allies and off allies only because of how easily they can be abused. Res allies obviously can be abused if someone is giving you free tech for nothing. Off allies obviously can be abused if someone gives you free jets for nothing.

Say I send 2.5m jets. *1.2 for weap bonus = 3m. Now I get 3m jets leeched, * 1.5 for PS, = 4,500,000 jet power leeched. And I only have 2.5m jets? That's absurd.

You can look at a country like this one and spot exactly when he started leeching jets: http://www.eestats.com/primary/country/132

Btw there was a thread last set on Primary where a majority of players (not everyone) agreed they'd like def and int kept while removing the others :)

mmm but having two def allies and no off allies makes it difficult to break most people no?

If we leave the 50% PS bonus, and the ability to stockpile cash before buying jets to make a grab, then not at all.

Agree with Rockman. I never use offensive allies, and almost everyone I attack has defensive allies. It's not a problem, I get nice and fat. :)

this

I disagree with you. Look at the majority of the top grabbers on any solo server, they do not have O-allies. The ones that do have an accelerated growth rate from using way less oil and being able to do an extra PS per day.

Agree with removing all allies from solo servers. They're called solo for a reason. Plus I hate doing the extra math when I make a grab.

Hah, lazy kingofthezulus! :P I hope Xinhuan doesn't mind if I quote an old post of his:

Although if non-techers spy everyone, they can really run into spy problems, the vicious circle of more spying -> less spies -> more spying, etc.

ya i agree, PSing would be too powerful without D allies, and, as people have said earlier, you don't need OAs to grab effectively.