So maybe I'm missing something but the way I see it is that there are a lot of mediocre players who do fine early on and then once the top players start grabbing one layer of mediocres after another succumb to an onslaught of farming.

Many of the guys I'm grabbing have been playing their turns, exploring and building mostly I guess and buying mostly defence and are still equal or lower NW and land than they were a week ago. That must feel so useless. And I'm sure it makes them quit the game before they learn it. Bots would allow these players to survive and learn. Why is this not a good thing?

Also when I say bots, I do not mean that every other country must be an npc. You could easily have variation in this so that land doesn't suddently become extremely easy and that you would never get anything out of grabbing a player like it is in express nowadays.

Tell me one good reason not to have a smaller ratio of bot.

And don't worry about me I'm not posting this because I'm not doing well. I just feel bad for the players I hit that might be hit 20 times each week until they are out of humanitarian range.

Remove all attacking of real players across all servers. Remove ingame messaging and ally relations as well.

If one more "griefer" landgrabs my 0 def point morbidly obese landfat techer, I am going to quit this game. Anyone attacking a real player should be deleted. This is the case in all other solo player games that allow me to collect rings during my Quests all evening long like Sonic the Hedgehog on Amphetamines - are you really trying to claim that Sega is WRONG???

Also, you cannot argue with me. The game is dying and this exactly why. This is indisputable.

increase bots, each player 5 personal bots to farm.

You have got to be the most uninspired game mod in the history of game mods. Any change or suggestion is a bad one, you are even against some of the ones that have been implemented.

My suggestion to you is that you make an actual argument for a change.

Any interaction is not per se a good interaction. We have special GDI in primary already prevent certain interaction. We have humanitarians, we have protection, we have DR, we have NW ratios for attack returns. We already have bots on other servers, you must think this is a horrible idea there as well. Why are you mod for express if you think it is so bad?

I make a post asking a question and get mocked instead of getting an answer. By a game mod nontheless. You are doing a really bad job at creating a good atmosphere, so congrats on that. I think I have yet to see you saying anything constructive on these boards. Maybe not your job but it wouldn't fluffing hurt either.

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Mashal you are also making a mockery of my post because you have nothing to say. As I said a small ratio of bots would still make players interact while reducing the "farming to smithereens"-effect for new and mediocre players.

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Does anyone with an actual clue have an actual argument either way?

Game has asshole players...always has, always will

The argument against bots is that they're a glorified explore button, with no risk of retaliation, no allies to op, and little defense. Hitting them is now the only way to win on alliance and express. If we want more land, reduce the exponential decay function of exploring losses as you get bigger. That would level the playing field for new players if that's what you want.

Before the bots were introduced, sure there was less land to be had, but that just meant that finishing numbers were lower, and well played all-x countries had a shot at finishing well. Skill and knowledge were the ultimate factors in winning.

Very good post, thank you.

I do disagree with some points. While I do agree that bot farming is too easy in express and in alliance, I think it takes a little more game knowledge as you actually have to do things like avoid DR, calculate attack returns, calculate breaks based on NW and NW/land or by ops as well as calculate when it is not worth it to grab any more. When hitting the explore button you can just tell a player "go to x acres, then hit cash button" while when grabbing it depends on how much you have to invest in grabbing, how many turns left and so on.
On the other hand it is not much harder when hitting players as long as you are in GDI and single-tap.

And as I suggested, the ease of grabbing bots can be solved by putting in fewer bots. In express maybe 40% of countries are bots, what if it was 20%? what if it was 10%? If 10% then techers could probably not grab bots at all. They would still add land and create some kind of liquidity on the markets, but they wouldn't be very good targets most of the time.

The bots drive the markets as well, it would be reasonable that players should have more impact than the bots as a whole but if you look at the tech markets in alliance and express you see that is not the case. And if you go to the AI-server you will see where bots push the markets (food: always $30, troops $40ish, tanks $200ish, income techs $6000-9999, non-income techs $500-600). This is why techers almost always win express even though the late-start could be an amazing tool for a casher as they don't have to wait for sales to go through.

I do love bots but i tend to agree with Zorp. All ex just isn't a viable strat now. You can start off pretty good then as soon as you start falling behind in growth you get farmed and can never catch back up. It would be nice if the explore rates didn't drop away so fast. Some of us just love to hold hands and sing Kumbaya.

I don't know that all-xp should be a viable way to win. :) At least not all servers. But in team and tournament it really is from what I understand.

The fact that all-x countries compete for top finishes in team and tourney, two servers that have no bots, and where anybody can go off at any time for no reason, show you that the game mechanics allow all-x countries to compete. The bots are an invasive species that have consumed the environment.

I'm not even against the idea of bots and never have been, only as they are currently programmed. They need to act somewhat like a human to make any sense to me. They need to be capable of making a retal. They need to have a 'willingness' to war against abuse when possible. They need to stop undercutting the markets by 50% and buying tech up to 6k 3/4 of the way through the set, as both of these have terribly altered the market, actually making them less stable, while putting their selves at a major disadvantage. There's an incredibly easy calculation to be done to determine at what price your country will benefit from tech, and the bots go 2-3x over that.

I could go on but alas I've got fluff to do.

I disagree on the retal capability. knowing these countries dont retal is an aspect to weigh against hitting a country with better gains. That works IF, and only if, bot numbers are reduced to the point at which they are always in DR.

All market related things you said are reasonable but you miss the main problem which is the production imbalance. When cashers, farmers and indies get more tech they get more cash for tech, while the techer bots just tech a set percentage of their turns all reset.
Techer bots need to start teching all their turns at one point in the reset and I also think all bots should get more military to balance the fact that they don't retal. Should be both pros and cons of hitting bots, not just pros as it is right now.

Also all these market related issues are only problematic is the npc's are a significant portion of the countries on the server.

Fewer bots create none of these problems.

I stopped reading here after you 1) opened with an insult/jab, and then 2) stated something that is completely false.

Then we will disagree. I think the bots should be able to retal. Regardless, less bots can only be a good thing.

This also reminds me, it shouldn't even be possible to recognize a bot just by it's name. Attacks should be made based on previous news and country build like they always have been. My recommendation now, and just before the bots were implemented, was that they should draw their names randomly from previous sets. At this point, they should choose names from sets more than three years ago before the bots were implemented.

U guys can farm the bots. Serp and I will still farm you. It's win-win.

These posts are very bigly hilarious and constructive at the same time.

No successful grabs on me this set or last, so there. I am concerned for the game, not myself.

Hey leave me out of it. Lol

I'd farm viable bots and single tap everyone else.

Look how lucky I am: I didn't understand anything about bots still and play like 3 years ago, therefor I single or multi tap basing on my level of defence compared to my target offence.

Imho whatever helps the game is fine :)

well, that's why i dont tap smaller active players more than once per round.. it's kinda sucky that u get multi tap, but are not able to do anything.. there are always mean & unreasonable players around.. i got hit by a guy earlier on in the round, and then recently i spied him ços i was hitting his ally.. he thought i was planning to retal him, so he msg me and told me he dont mind ROR if i did retal him.. so there are ppl who cant accept getting hit, but can hit other ppl & expect no retal lol..

He's probably just trying to scare you out of hitting back. He'd probably be too scared to break his gdi on a ror.

That's one of the interesting things about primary. You do what you want,and try to enforce whatever policy you want. It's up to others if they will let you get away with it or not. Some people will bow down, others will fight for every inch to enforce their own will upon you. Lol. That's the whole game of it. It'd be boring hiding in gdi protection all set.

well, he has nothing to lose cos i dont think he can win this round from the lazy frequency of hits he made, unless all the top guys went to war and no one retal him lol.. nowadays there are tonnes of ppl who doesnt play to win strangely..

its been a lazy set

Hey, is that a shot at me? I'm coming for you now Delphi....

warrrrrrrrrr

huh what u talking about? u mean u dont play to win? u did win the round few rounds ago..

Oh I'm coming... just give me a second to get my techs back up. The low military prices have put me behind. I'll be with you in a second. Grrr....

I shipped my pants!