Unless tech prices drop, 15k might be a pretty good goal. 220% Ag would be 186k points. Whether you want to get more tech would depend on market prices since 225% would take 211k :P

As high as you can possibly get during the first three weeks? I got 24.2mil with a 21k D farmer in Express which has about the same number of turns as tourney...I think the exact optimal amount will depend on Ag tech prices. How are they in your game?

The other thing is it's impossible to know the skill or experience level of the player so it can be tough for me to give relevant advice. I don't want to be condescending to an experienced player who is just trying to sharpen his skills by explaining every term and gameplay basic but that would be helpful for noobs.

Well the mobile login page gives you more info than the regular one and if you're <top 10 in tourney, it gives you information that you can't otherwise access without logging in.

A dashboard of all of your countries with name, gov't, NW, land, $$$, and bushels would be really nice to have but part of me thinks you should have to log in and lose your 12/18 hour bonus if you're so antsy about goods selling.

NOW3P makes some great suggestions. Halogen bulbs get dimmer over time and just replacing them can make a huge difference. The "lenses" or the exterior plastic of the headlight housing might also be quite oxidized and can be refinished to allow more light to shine through.

Whatever you do, please do not go out and buy an aftermarket HID kit. Your headlight housings are not intended for HIDs and you'll end up blinding every other driver on the roads and you could even damage your car.

I need more land and I doubt you'll help me with that :(

Reposted from the Express Help forum for critique here. I used this start for my recent 26.6mil and 24.0 NW H techers.

I'm not sure if it's any good but my H cash start is super simple:
Save up 360+ turns
Set tax rate to 35-36% depending on food prices
Build 1 turn ent/res in approx 10:9 ratio (e.g. if BPT is 7, build 4 ent, 3 res)
Build CS one at a time until BPT increases by one (it's usually 2-3 CS with H so I actually build 2 CS and then 1 more if needed)
If more land needed to build, explore 1-2 turns
After reaching 2-3k acres in this fashion, activate exploration bonus and batch explore max acres (using explore bonus at this point might not be ideal if you're playing all-x)
(You can build to your desired BPT either before or after the batch explore. I'm not sure which is better.)
Use level 3 reduced construction cost bonus (-40%) to batch build on all the acres you just explored

If you're quick enough, you can do all of this in Express with zero or near zero military since the scores only update once per 15 minutes.

The bonus works with batch building so he could have done all of the building at -40% cost by spending only 4 points.

Very interesting choose of gov't type + strat. I don't see many I cashers...I've thought about playing one and just might try it sometime.

Assuming this country's intentions are to net, I would work on getting bus and res tech levels up a bit more (170+), build ent/res in about a 10:9 ratio, and maybe bump the tax rate up to 36%. I would also work on getting the BPT up a little more but that can be done gradually. I'd probably shoot for at least 30k acres with an I casher which would be best with a BPT of 85+.

This gov't's strengths are +25% military strength, +30% spy effectiveness, and increased building capture percentage. I would attempt to capitalize on those strengths by maintaining a spy to acres land ratio of at least 15 and going heavier on offense. The high SPAL+bonus would allow me to get spy ops on cashers who I would attack to take their buildings and tech, reducing my need to build and buy tech. The SPAL would also help protect against others getting ops on me to make me a less desirable target and would also defend against retaliation by spy ops. Since I would be grabbing other players a lot, I would also get some weapons and military strategy tech points to further increase my military's strength and the amount gained by attacking others. R gov'ts would be a great target for my grabs as they are frequently cashers and have a -10% military strength penalty making my military units effectively 38% stronger than theirs.

Because this gov't does not have any bonuses for population or PCI, it would have to obtain and maintain a greater landmass and more ent/res zones and tech to be competitive with gov'ts that do have bonuses that increase income (mainly R and D).

Some bus/res tech might make sense for any country, even an F farmer. You have to run a cost/benefit analysis of the cost of the tech, and how much income it will give you over the rest of the set vs how much income you would have gained putting that money into Ag tech instead. The eestats.com tech calculator is very useful for this.

For an F, I suspect it doesn't make sense to get much bus/res tech at all (it is pretty cheap to get to ~120%) especially if your Ag tech isn't maxed out. Personally, I like to put a few points into every category with any gov't type as the first few %s of gains are very cheap :P

Thanks to Slag for translating my post! I sometimes forget that Earth has its own lingo and it must seem very foreign to new players.

Sort of like what you're shown when logging in with the mobile interface? I would like to have access to that same info when logging in from a computer!

I'm not sure if it's any good but my H cash start is super simple:
Save up 360+ turns
Set tax rate to 35-36% depending on food prices
Build 1 turn ent/res in approx 10:9 ratio (e.g. if BPT is 7, build 4 ent, 3 res)
Build CS one at a time until BPT increases by one (it's usually 2-3 CS with H so I actually build 2 CS and then 1 more if needed)
If more land needed to build, explore 1-2 turns
After reaching 2-3k acres in this fashion, activate exploration bonus and batch explore max acres (using explore bonus at this point might not be ideal if you're playing all-x)
(You can build to your desired BPT either before or after the batch explore. I'm not sure which is better.)
Use level 3 reduced construction cost bonus (-40%) to batch build on all the acres you just explored

If you're quick enough, you can do all of this in Express with zero or near zero military since the scores only update once per 15 minutes.

I agree with Kingme. The F gov't type has bonuses for food and oil production and penalties for population and per capita income. Also, specialization (concentrating on one type of building) is always more effective than diversification in this game. Thus, an F gov't is most effective when it builds only farms and/or oil rigs. Which is better is highly dependent on market conditions but generally farms provide a more reliable and higher income from selling bushels on the public market. Farm production can also be increased by acquiring Agriculture tech points (I recommend buying them from the public market) while oil production is static. Because the amount of tech points required to increase tech %s increases with the total amount of land a country has, it would be most effective to have a great majority of farms when/if you start to acquire Agriculture tech.

Because of the penalties to population and PCI, building enterprise zones and residences or acquiring business or residential tech points are not usually effective moves for an F.

Your BPT is currently at 26 which seems a bit low to be at 186 turns played. I would continue to increase that by building 20-40 construction sites each day near the end of my turns until hitting 80-100 BPT.

The BPT is lower than I usually go with for a techer but otherwise I don't see anything abnormal. According to the optimal BPT formula I keep seeing thrown around, 56 BPT is good for 12.5k acres so maybe that is optimal for a tourney/express techer. Not many ICs but this country already has almost 10 SPAL which is a decent minimum amount for tourney A, IMO. My only concern is the defense appears to be pretty low for the number of acres and assets on hand. I like to run higher than normal defense in tourney since there are no alliances.

Oh, I never converted to MBR. Just played a straight techer :P

So top 10 this round was
2 indies
3 techers
2 cashers
3 farmers?

Yeah I expected #6 to break 30mil. He must have fluffed something up. Great set for tech. I would have scored higher if I had any success selling tech today . . . I ended up dumping most of it for $999. Still the highest NW for a TTR on record so I can't complain too much. Maybe I would have done better converting to MBR this morning?

Damn you, afaik!!! !!! !! !

How do you figure? He got his name changed and is about to finish top 5: http://www.eestats.com/express/country/46

My first round was #32 and I've had 4 countries under 5 mil.

Oh wow, I didn't even realize that!

@ ~23mil, I'm seeing:
To change governments at this point, you must start a revolution that will consume 32% of your military, technology, buildings, and resources.

As afaik recommends, calculate the loss due to corruption and then compare that to the upkeep you would pay if you bought military. See this thread: http://forums.earthempires.com/...00987&z=jets-or-tanks

My land is closer to 15000 than 10000. Would I have been better off with an MBR or partial MBR conversion prior to destocking?

I think Spear's about right. 16+ mil for a top 10 finish this set.

I didn't have any reservations about clearing $39 food as a demo but that was because I was a demo farmer so while clearing <$39 food was easy and free money, getting the market price up to I would sell bushels at >$39 was much more beneficial.

You lose 14% of everything you have on hand when you switch the second and subsequent times. Cash, units, buildings, tech, everything but land. Unless something has changed, things on the market and units on PS are exempted so you can protect some of your resources that way. Worst case is a nearly 14% hit to your NW though.

I don't know of any successful rainbow start strat. This country really needs to specialize. Since the govt type is R, I'm guessing this country is wanting to be a casher. For R cash, I would do a cash start but others might do food or indy. In any case, the goal is to get bus and Res tech and build net and Res zones to make income. Instead of building labs, I recommend buying tech from the market (especially this late in the set). Another thing wrong with this country is the tax rate. Depending on food prices, 35-37% is best but I usually just set it at 36% and forget it.

I'd like a confirmation for accepting a rejecting allies. I've screwed up and hit the wrong link on my phone a few times which left me stuck with a crappy ally or down a good ally at an inopportune moment

It's there if you're willing to pay for it lol

Buying overpriced tech isn't a good idea but when it's been around $3000 all set, you have no choice

Just had a research spot open up for someone who is still teching. I also have a def spot for someone with over 4 mil turrets.

PM me with your country number if you're teching and need a research ally. I still have a spot open. I also have 1 O spot open...

I think a tech phase with an H casher is a big mistake. H cash is pretty good without tech and a moderate amount of tech makes it competitive with R/D cashers. However, H cash needs to acquire and hold more land than other cashers. You're best off getting big early. Get on top and stay on top. A last day converstion to MBR may or may not be a good idea...

2 R spots filled. Other spots still open.

I need 1 D, 3 O, 1 I, and 3 R allies. Research allies must commit to teching all set.

Absolutely tasteless.

When you use a bonus now, you cannot go back and use a previous level bonus. In longer games, you get into the situation where you either have to use points or relatively worthless bonuses or let points go to waste. E.g. You use 4 points on one bonus and 3 on another and have 1 pt left. If you don't have any 1 pt bonuses left, the point might expire. Not being able to choose the number of points to spend really locks players into only choosing certain bonuses. Sure, you can say that players need to be smart about deciding how to use points to prevent that from happening but the options are limited with the current system.

On the other hand, the first and second tier bonuses are more effective thanthe 3rd tier so why would anyone choose to spend points on tier 3 if they could just use a lower tier multiple times? Making all of the bonuses more effective as more points are spent resolves this. It doesn't have to be a huge change. Instead of 1 pt = +10%, 2 pts = +15%, 3pts =+20% it could be 1 pt = +7%, 2 pts=+16%, 3pts=+25%, etc.

I've detailed the progression of all the available bonuses in this thread: http://forums.earthempires.com/...discussion-of-new-bonuses

With 2 exceptions (reduced expenses and construction costs), the bonuses become less effective as they progress. I suggest a few possible changes to the progressions:

1. Make all of the bonuses more effective as more points are spent.
2. Allow players to choose how many points they want to spend each time they use the bonus. This would allow a player with 1 pt remaining to choose any of the 1 pt bonuses instead of potentially losing the point as is possible with the current system if the player has already progressed all of the bonuses past the 1 pt tier.
3. Continue to require players to "unlock" the higher tier bonuses by spending points in each category.
4. Perhaps limit the number of times per day bonuses from each category can be used to encourage using a variety of bonus types each day.
5. Add more tiers of bonuses so that all bonuses scale from 1-8 points (or 2-8 points) as appropriate and applicable.

Posting someone's country number during an active set should not be allowed. I've had my country number posted twice by people claiming that I was gregg or lincoln. The purpose of those posts is clear: to coordinate a kill run via the forums which is prohibited. It's also way too easy to go to the forums and post "I've given up on the game and would like everyone to farm me. My country number is XX." when that country number really belongs to one of your enemies.

How is everyone strategically using these bonuses? I'm particularly interested in how people are using them in the longer-term games (Primary, Alliance, Tourney) since they play a much bigger part than in Express.

In Express, I've been using the exploration bonus 1-2 times for batch explores, the attack bonus once when I really want to hit someone special or what to do a number of quick grabs to gain a lot of land, the reduced construction cost bonus for batch building, and the increased production and reduced expenses bonuses at the endgame when production and expenses are highest.

The reduced construction expenses bonus has changed how I play my Primary and Tourney turns. I now spend the first third acquiring land, the second third building using the reduced construction expenses bonus, and the last third building CS with a production bonus. I used the exploration bonus for my first batch explore and might use it 2 more times for batch explores mid-game. I'm saving the attack power bonus for late mid-game when I might need it for a juicy grab.

Can someone answer this? Surely someone has a definitive answer...any devs?

There isn't any rule against posting news, only against posting info that is only available in-game via spending turns (spy ops, attack results, etc.). I wouldn't think posting detailed info from the previous set would break any rules since the info is no longer useful...

Looking for a very strong D ally and maybe a couple of O allies. PM me for details.

I'll believe in Fatty when he gets his fat ass off the couch and runs a decent country.

Wow, I almost agree with a Fatty post.

New GDI prevents suiciders so it's much easier to have a clean set. Also, the increase in the tech production rate helps everyone but techers since they can hit max tech levels cheaper.

Also, maybe the people playing Express have been getting better at the game (me!) or maybe more skilled players have been playing Express competitively.

It's 10 attacks or 30 turns.

I was just guessing since you've run a very similar strat before.

Wow, I fluffed up bad this reset. I would have at least finished top 10 but I resold some goods, dropped a few mil NW and then missed logging back in to buy from the private market. I was only looking at 16mil tops anyway. Worst I've ever done with a farmer during a good reset to be a farmer.

Grats on winning, Slag. All-x batch-x F->H.

That was my best attempt :P

They didn't last long. I would have cashed them out myself but my PM sell price wasn't 39 at the end of the set. fluffed up big time...