It's a catch-22: Without lots of spies, you can't defend your missiles from being diffused. With lots of spies, people can't see that you have missiles. If someone attacks you not knowing that you have a ton of missiles and you missile them, they'll probably lay the smack down on you so your missiles didn't act as a LG deterrent as you intended.

Solution: Just get a healthy amount of military instead trying to play as a psychopathic missile lord.

I need one more tech ally. You must actually be teching. PM me your country # and I'll give you mine.

Angry or hungry?

Walls Of Stalingrad (#44)
Toilets of Stalingrad (#43)

LMFAO

Heh, I did a single grab on a guy this set and logged back into a fresh parking lot. He didn't appreciate the "taunting" message that I left him after my grab so he BR'd me to nothing. All's fair in Express, I suppose.

You might have difficulty doing that if Slag gets the new GDI implemented in time.

Missile silos could increase the number of missile that you could hold and increase the max production (would still need warfare tech) and/or missile damage.

Wouldn't a cap based on NW make more sense?

I just found an H indy. Not an H indy start, a full-blown H indy.

Is that legal info to post here?

"The Global Defense Initiative (GDI) is an open organization dedicated to the protection of our members. As a member of GDI, you will receive the protection of GDI forces. No country more than twice your size or less than half your size will be able to go to attack you without first formally declaring war. However, we require your assistance in return. You will be required to pay $3 per acre of land you own to the GDI fund as long as you are with us. In addition, you will not be allowed to commit offensive acts against countries greater than twice your size or smaller than half your size. You cannot join the GDI unless you have not made an attack for at least 18 hours.

After the minimum membership, you may leave us at any time. However, once you do, you will not be readmitted for 72 hours."

It does not tell you that it's 72 hours until after you join GDI.

MBs decrease private market sell prices.

As someone who has previously wondered and posted about clans controlling Express, I don't think it's an issue. Express is just a bunch of jackasses being jackasses.

The water's fine, jump on in.

If my post was solely responsible for the market prices changing, I am impressed with the amount of influence that I hold.

What should I change next? Hmmm . . .

I also think that food prices are too low. They should be $50 minimum. How else will farmers be able to afford all the expensive tech? Ag tech is nearly 5k so maybe $100 bushels would be better.

*evil laugh*

"After the minimum membership, you may leave us at any time. However, once you do, you will not be readmitted for 72 hours."

What is the minimum membership? It should be stated somewhere.

T gains 20% more of everything while I gains a higher % buildings with the normal amount of land.

I like grilled cheese sandwiches.

The second one told me that I had already voted today after I got the capacha wrong once.

Check the market hx. Some people have been selling for 800-2000 when there is no reason to do that.

Tech prices are way too low this early in the round. I suspect that someone is sabotaging tech prices by throwing cheap tech up on the market and people are stupidly undercutting the current prices. Sell your tech for what you think the price should be. Right now, I think it should be in the mid-upper 3000s but people are selling for at low as 2000! You're just hurting yourself and helping every non-techer in the game by selling too low.

How does the current formula for reducing SDI tech work? Does it consider the size of both countries and/or the damage that the missile would have done if it made it through? Is DR a factor?

I'd support raising max SDI to over 100% and allowing missiles to take out a greater amount of SDI tech as long as there were some controls. A small country should not be able to significantly lower the SDI of a large country with a lot of SDI tech. A country with tons of missiles should also not be able to quickly obliterate another country's SDI so some sort of DR should factor in. Tech is also worth a lot of money/NW. How much damage the missile would have done vs how much SDI is being lost should be balanced so that stopping a missile is always less of a loss than it getting through.

Good points. I was just looking for a way to balance out the effect of certain players having access to the black market. Maybe disallowing them from GDI membership is enough?

Or how about a boost to max SDI % for GDI members? For lore purposes, GDI could give its members the plans for a more effective SDI system.

Check out my idea for a "black market" here: http://forums.earthempires.com/...missiles-to-public-market

I think it could be fun but it would be a major change to the game.

When you say a tech start, do you mean building only CS and labs right off the bat? Can you explain more?

I always just do something like:
1) Build ent/res, farms, or ICs and CS until desired BPT is reached. Total acres should be around 2k.
2) Mass explore to about 3k acres.
3) Build labs on empty acres until land is full.
4) Tear down existing buildings and convert to labs one turn at a time.
5) Start teching when conversion to all labs (+a few ICs for spies) is complete.

No one really uses medical, military strategy, or spy tech. I just put a few points into each when teching to get the initial cheap boost to each category and also to benefit if my tech allies research those at all.

I like the idea to combine medical and military strategy. I don't like the idea of combining weapons and spy. Just make spy tech more effective--much higher max tech %.

I'm currently a solo player so my questions and thinking are solely from that perspective. So on Primary, Tourney, and Express, I think cash starts are best for H and R techers. I don't know which starts are best for D or T techers and would appreciate advice from the experts.

Thanks, Mrredmandbhs!

My point was with the limited number of players in tourney, oil does not add anything to the game. It's just frustrating.

I would like to discuss the advantages and disadvantages of different start-up techniques with the final goal of playing a techer. I would like advice on which is best mathematically. The ones I'm aware of:
*Cash
*Indy
*Food

__Cash__
Pros: Allows you to keep expenses low and play your turns mostly independent of the market (you will probably still want to buy bushels vs building farms unless there is an issue with food on the public market). Good start for Express where you can store up a bunch of turns and play through your starting phase with little or no defense as long as you play quickly. Cash also does not decay like food and does not consume resource like military. It's also very easy to play: just build ent/res, CS, and don't run out of food. Several teching gov't also have bonuses that increase the effectiveness of this strat.
Cons: You could be vulnerable during this phase since you have to buy your military from the market. High market prices or low supply could leave you with little defense. Although ideally you would have a low amount of land so you would not be an attractive target anyway. Maximum effectiveness of this start requires changing the tech rate nearly every turn.

__Indy__
Pros: Gives you a strong military right out of the gate. Could allow to you take advantage of early LGs that will save you turns exploring.
Cons: Units consume resources--money and food. You're dependent on the market for cash to play your turns. If your goods don't sell, you're screwed pretty bad. Unit prices on the public market can be low at the beginning of the game if supply > demand. You can't just store up a bunch of turns and power through them like with the cash start because you have to stop to sell unit occasionally. Also, selling units uses turns. This start takes more skill than a cash start. Teching gov'ts do not have bonuses for industrial production.

__Food__
Pros: Food can be sold on the private market by gov't types other than theo for nearly the same price as the public market so it can be played independently of the public market. High public market food prices can increase the effectiveness of this strat. You also never have to worry about running out of food :)
Cons: Food decays so you should sell bushels after every turn for max effectiveness which is a PITA. Selling food on the public market uses turns. Teching gov'ts do not have bonuses for food production.

My suspicions of which start-ups are best:
H tech: H cash start
R tech: R cash start
D tech: D ??? start
T tech: M ??? start
C tech: C indy start (does anyone actually run a C tech?!?)

Your Type is
INTJ

http://keirsey.com/...mp;tab=5&c=mastermind

# distinctively expressed introvert
# very expressed intuitive personality
# moderately expressed thinking personality
# moderately expressed judging personality

Are you one of those guys who sits around with almost zero D and then gets pissed when someone farms you because of it or do you actually have decent defense that takes a little effort to break? I say that the zero D guys are fair game to farm. Of course it's at your own risk if they have a ton of missiles and/or spies.

You don't get to choose your gov't type--you get a random one OR you get a country with random advantages and disadvantages. Maybe also a random bonus to starting number of turns, acres, buildings, military, food, tech, and/or cash. Deleting/restarting is not allowed and you have to have games in other countries before you can start a random country. Then you make the best of what you were given.

Nah, make it 70%!

I just found a theo farmer LOL

2 free turns for everyone!

Just get rid of it in tourney, please. It's pointless since it either sells for way too little or there's none of the market. Also, maybe deleting it would help encourage some friendly grabbing.

People in Express would get PISSED if you EM'd them a bunch before an LG. Might help with top farming though.

I think what gregg was trying to say is that EMs are useless in individual games because no one uses them properly and no one is scared of them. NMs and CMs act as a good deterrent for LGs and using them as retals can deter others from grabbing you in the future. They can also be used to effectively cripple a netting player. A strategically launched battery of NMs and CMs can definitely keep a netter out of the top 10. He wasn't saying that NMs and CMs helped with grabbing.

I was able to get the other 2 bonuses but MMORPG Top 100 tells me that I've already voted today. I only visit that site to get my EE bonuses so I have not voted there today. I've tried to get my bonus a couple times now. Any chance you could just give me the turns?

Can you at least make a couple of the easy changes: max turns/stored turns and min ally time--especially min ally time!!!

I like it.

I was fluffing around with what I thought were bad ideas but the way you spun it makes it a pretty cool idea.

Maybe income and/or industrial production could be depressed a little during the missile building phase. You know, to pay for the high costs of building a missile. Allow warfare tech to decrease # turns required to build a missile and also allow missiles to be sold on the black market.

Another idea is that missiles could vary in destructive capabilities based on the # of turns invested in them and the % of warfare tech. (Perhaps also the income or NW of the country building the missile since larger countries would be putting more $$$ into building missiles.) The market listings could show the destructive capability of each missile and more destructive missiles would sell for more money. This would give missile strat countries incentive to grow their size vs. just staying small with max tech and hitting the missile button all set long.

Reading comprehension = F

The farmers are really making a killing now. $56 food and all the cashers are playing their turns. A smart farmer could have won this set!

Can you add an override option to this feature? Maybe I want to buy the more expensive public market goods for some reason. I appreciate getting a warning that I'm about to do something that is potentially stupid but I should be able to do it anyway if I really want to!

Selling tech too cheap hurts all techers and helps the cashers, farmers, and indies. Cash or food is going to win this set. Tech will be shut out once again because techers crashed their own market too quickly.

I think it will be an R that's been sitting at low NW all set.

Gregg's country names are way too easy to pick out, just like his forum posts: Multiple words, all lower case, and no spaces between the words. He might was well name his country "gregg" every set.

Bleh, the tech market has crashed. Not much profit there except for maybe ag, military, and SDI now.

True story: I set up orders to buy tech at ~2000 early in the set. You'd be shocked at how often people actually sold their tech for that little when it was going for over 3k!

We have some real winners playing express. I check the market history before buying and selling to see what stuff should be selling for. Numerous times have I found things on sale for 20% under what they should be according to the history. I'll buy the underpriced tech up and then sell it along with mine for a profit. I've also done the same with units a couple times. If jets are selling for $155+, why list them for $130? Laziness and ignorance since the game gives you all the tools to be successful with the market.

Fun idea. I remember this in 2025 10+ years ago.

A couple ideas:
1) the buying and selling of missiles could be limited to only certain govt types. You know, the "evil" ones: C, F, T, and I. The "good" govts could get a boost to SDI so they're not totally screwed.
2) missile sales could be restricted to the black market. Maybe spies and/or spy op reports could also be sold on the black market. Countries in GDI could not see or use the black market and using the black market would prevent a country from ever joining GDI. On the other hand, GDI members could get their own special market with reduced fees (but no missiles or spies). A general public market would be available to all players.

Also an indy button, oil button, super tech button, steal goods from market button, and make a missile button please.