I already responded to that whole line of attack by pointing out that ELy is set to neutral.

Pang hit the nail right on the head. It isn't my job to give you tag protection. Its your job to develop it within your tag. It is real easy to just say that it is LaF's fault you are getting grabbed. But really it is your fault for being too apathetic about the game to care to change it yourself. It isn't not our fault that you don't want to put the effort into your countries.

Alliances like EEVIL, SoF, SOL etc are avoiding getting hit by LaF by having 1 or 2 decent looking techers in there tag. Thats it, thats all.

When you look at LaF, there is really only 6 - 8 countries that grab established tags and try to outrun the retals. 6 - 8 people hitting your tag twice a day = 14 - 16 hits a day. Not too pleasant obviously, but if you had a couple techers that could retal then it wouldn't be happening.

Why wouldn't you get hit? Because hitting is infectious. People run similar startups so they hit growth phases at similar times. You get a techer looking at a tag like say.. Neo, and thinking "looking at their country NW's, land, and govs, I think I can outrun retals on these guys easy."

So he goes to kill team and he asks "hey can you guys upload spyops on these countries: a b c d ...", and the suspicions are confirmed. no countries with the military/income to retal.

Now the guy makes a few grabs, hits Neo a couple of times. Now there are 2 hits in the news from LaF on Neo. But there are still 4 - 6 other countries looking to grab today. The next techer logs in and see that his tech/D ally grew by a lot of acres today so he checks out the news and see the hits on Neo.

Now he thinks to himself "I have the same amount of D and income as him, if he can outrun the retals so can I". Now neo has 4 hits from LaF on them today.

On the other hand take someone like say... EEVIL. The first techer will skim over their tag and say "hmm, looks like there are a couple countries that could be a threat to break me, better get the ops". He goes to kill team for the ops. Sees that there are 2 techers with the techbase/income to easily buy enough jets to retal him within the first 24 hours.

He is not going to attack that alliance. The next techer is going to do a similar analysis in his head and make the same decision. And so on, and so on...

Is it really so hard to run 2 decent techers? Ideally you want 4 techers to make a full tech ring, but only 2 of them have to be decent in order to maintain retal capability in this day and age. Then have a commie or 2 as well for backup/early deterrance.

I don't understand why it is so hard to understand that not everyone in your alliance can play a lazy all explore cash or farmer and maintain retal capability in the early/midgame.
You can't do it as a 5 member tag, a 10 member tag, or a 25 member tag.

Oh PS: Just running a couple commies isn't enough. Commies act as early deterrence but techers outrun them around... well right around now. If you want to maintain retal ability/scare people away from hitting you, you need techers.... I'm sorry that they are more challenging to run than other strategies. But you need them.

So build them, and shut the hell up already.

Ridiculous imo.

game is going to become 2 options very very soon. 1. quit. or 2. keep merging till there is only a handfull of large tags. (safety in #s)

how about your members stop quad tapping an alliance?

how about your members stop RoR hits on them

how about you think about the game in general?

you are a real idiot :)

Indeed h4...ive argued the same point since RED was getting flamed for double tapping untagged countries and tags like camelot. the game has changed to the point that there is a total lack of respect to other players that is made more obvious due to the low player base. with declining player numbers its past time to get back to good gaming for all.

Everyone please don't attempt to think for yourselves and listen blindly to whatever mazooka says.

If you spent all of that energy trying to solve your own problems instead of blaming other people and cooking up conspiracy theories you might actually accomplish something.

I don't understand what you think a smaller tag can do exactly?

I keep hearing that well built countries can retal, and make it not worth it to farm them and blah blah blah blah. but all the evidence is contrary to this...

when a clan will farm you till you are at max DR, and then do another 20 hits for good measure, there is no defense against that unless you keep a country that they cant break all set., which isn't doable, and gl netting like that even if you could.

But when you are killed for trying to retal the 30 SS done to you... there is no defense against that (other then walling for a while till u die)

land is a very valuable commodity, so players are willing to find other players and bottom feed them into the ground. (followed by defusing missiles, almost like harmful spy ops are "allowed" or "standard" when doing LGs. thou this is common practice in 1a) but if you think that same player will just shrug it off when that country retals those 20 hits on him with even 20 at 1:1, you are just delusional.

that country will be killed. its happened time and time again. even thou not only would he be given retals if he were in an alliance of the same size/influence he would be given reps for the harmful ops.

imo, large clans have to grow some balls and not pact every other large clan, and bring back the days where people found LG targets, and calculated breaks, and set themselves up to get the most and lose the least with tech, and good country set ups.
not just the, pact everyone, find a small tag and farm it till they are done for the set, strat that is so prevalent now...

lol ...what the hell slagpit. what does that nonsense supposed to mean? i just offered my opinion. you dont have to agree with me at all. just look at the steady and fast decline in players. try asking them why they quit.

you obviously dont know what you are talking about popcom.

I just gave a very direct explanation about what tags need to do to defend from grabs. You go on to post "what is a small alliance suppose to do?" Duh.. they could try taking my suggestion. All the evidence points to the fact that my suggestion works (look at the tags I've pointed to multiple times in this thread).

On the second point: A lot of alliances, including LaF are signing next to no pacts anymore. We are doing exactly what you just suggested.

You "can't really stock steal" anymore? Really? Why can't you? Post a link to a rule change that says: "countries steal X less stock than before".

I think he is referring to the fact GS destroys bushels instead of stealing them?

He's out of his mind then, because that was changed over seven years ago.

H4's example is pretty much perfect.

Commies early for early deterrence, techers (can be all X) that get online to provide deterrent later on... then once the stocking stage comes, you can always dump stock to make retals

and yes, we did not nerf stock stealing at all....

Lol slag and pang. you rmoved the ability to drop land. you dont think this hinders stock stealing? a run gets from 40k to 100k acres tech levels plummet and spal drops way to much ..include the increase nw of all the land and you aint stealing fluff but you guys know this. this was oyour anti suicide petition brought to life pang. if you dont see how this effects your stock stealing ability its only because you dont want to.

you can still drop land....

you just can't grab on 1k acres and drop what you gain after every hit like you used to.

It's really not a major change at all.... and for someone suiciding from a mature country (like someone in ely would be), it's no issue at all

Dave I hate to flat out disagree with you, but that is absurd. A maxxed out commie might be able to get by with SS retals until his NW fell behind but after a day or three he would only be able to reach with PS. Maybe for 2 days, possibly three tops - but after that rebuild costs and replenishing depleted military would pull you under.

I have always considered myself an excellent retaller, but in the face of 6-7-8+ attacks per country per day? A four member clan absorbing 20-30 attacks per day would be upside down in no time.

I agree, Ely's countrys suck, they probably had no idea half their tag was going awol, but to blame their eminent demise soley on them and to completely exhonerate the pirannah feasting on them is myopic.

The choice to devour them while they are bleeding is a conscious one that LaF leadership could halt any minute if they wanted to.

How is getting max tech and spal for free balanced? It's not, but you don't actually care about balance. You like suiciding and causing trouble, so therefore anything that makes suiciding more difficult is a laf conspiracy and bad for the game. You can still do a lot of damage suiciding, you just have to use your brain and get more resources before you start.

Whatever, I'm not really interested in debating with a fanatic and someone who goes from "hinders" to "cant really do it" to "impossible (no risk)" in a few sentences.

is everyone deaf?

COMMIES DON'T WORK, WE ALL AGREE WITH THIS.

You need techers.

I don't completly agree with that statement. Commies work very well for early set protection. Techers are more mid to end set protection. Techers take a bit longer to be effective but commies are great protection from virtually day one. So you need a balance.

ya.... well was why I initially said you need 4.
2 commies for early on, 2 techers for afterward. Using two will deter the first people from hitting you in the first place... and those who do can be retalled.

h4 outlined the exact same thoughts in his post above with a much better explanation, so take a look at his post if you all didn't already.

people are saying LaF are being bullies... well, we've just told everyone one of the ways to establish tag protection with relatively minimal effort :p

It starts with a few countries, but over time building retal capabilities and tag protection just becomes an inherent part of the alliance and it isn't an issue anymore

Popcorn keeps spewing bullfluff about getting killed for doing 20 retals, as far as I know, LaF doesn't kill people for doing retals, they have said that they do kill you if you suicide the non offending countries as a retaliation method though, and they have all the right to do that.

If you can't retal, it's your fault and if you think that you have to retal every hit to have tag protection then I pity you

I'd just like to repeat some of what was said in the earlier post by h4, because people seem to think there is organized farming of small tags within LaF, as if we were saying "Omg look at Ely, everyone go farm now!" . There isn't.

It's like h4 said, it's a snowball effect. Say LaF has 20 members that are grabbing (we actually run mostly all-x now, we're lazy too), and they all look for land. The first "grabber" will check out lists of potential targets. If he finds that Ely has low retal capability, he might hit them. The next grabber will see these hits in the news, and check out Ely himself, and he might hit as well.

Now there are two possibilities:

1) Retal the hits hard and fast, these first hits shouldn't be a fluff to retal. This will deter further grabbing from LaF, or any other grabbing alliance, as they see that hits get retalled and it doesn't pay off (as we generally have much more to lose from a retal, than to gain from a couple grabs)

2) Ignore the hits. The ball starts rolling as more and more grabbers see that hitting your alliance is of no consequence.

The best option however:

Have retal capable countries early. The first grabber will ignore you, as it's not worth trying. So will the next grabber, and the next. You don't show up in the news, you're left alone, and you can keep building retal capability due to no economic losses.

LaF doesn't conspire to farm alliances into the ground. We don
t band together to put out enough hits to outrun retal capacity. It's a snowball effect of many individual players' choices if extensive farming happens. You say 30 hits a day is unsustainable. That's 2 hits per day for 15 members.

What you need to do is prevent the snowball from rolling at all, which you do by deterring the individual player's choice of grabbing your alliance, as every individual will consider his personal risk of loss to his personal gain from grabbing. If we made a team effort to break down the retal capabilities of an alliance, it would be way worse than what you're seeing.

There are friggin untagged dicts that don't get hit because they build their retal capabilities early.

And seriously, a 5 man tag in alliance moaning about the feeling that they get bent over and gotta take what's coming? Gimme a break and go play team.

Haha....yes im smiling but thats because im a happy person enjoying life. i just came from one angle here. an opinion ...nothing more. im not trying to convince anyone of anything. so remove the stick from your ass turdbuglar and lose your fluffty attitude. fine...i agree recent rule change has no effect on game play. how about just treating other players with a little respect? or is that a crazy idea too?

Well after farming Ely is no longer profitable, we'll see who is next on the list.

oh my god people just aren't reading our posts

there is no farm list, there is no evil anti-ely measures being enacted in LaF.

ely rejected our pact, they ran not so great countries, they talked crap to us... why is it LaF's fault that Ely is in a position where they are being hit a lot?

Like come on folks, let's call a spade a spade here.... I like ely, they were in LaF for a while a few years ago hiding from being tagkilled by IX & co, some old Ely members still play in LaF now, since they enjoyed it. But Ely has been on a downward slide for quite sometime... they got in a dumb war 2 sets ago, they were in Rage last set and basically caused the LaF vs Rage war to happen, and this set they come out with 4 countries, none of which are deterrents and refuse to pact LaF? LaF tried to leave Ely alone, but they didn't want any part of that... apparently.

Everyone on this server is going to be in for a rude awakening when new players come to this server and don't take part in FR negotiations, don't sign pacts... just hit everything that moves with no regard for the past, the status quo or anything else that this server clings to :p

As an admin, we're working on ways to alleviate the land situation (ghost acres was one way... but everyone still feels like they should never, ever be grabbed, so that change isn't really helping the way it should....)

also, regarding respect: if we were to NOT play to our utmost against people like Ely, that would show a lack of respect. Like we've all kept saying, we should be focusing on increasing the country quality of the little guys who feel they are being violated... not just complaining about it in public and hoping LaF's heart will grow 3 sizes on christmas eve or something...

Everyone on this server is going to be in for a rude awakening when new players come to this server and don't take part in FR negotiations, don't sign pacts... just hit everything that moves with no regard for the past, the status quo or anything else that this server clings to :p


I look forward to that day!

"oh my god people just aren't reading our posts

there is no farm list, there is no evil anti-ely measures being enacted in LaF"

Oh I have read the posts just fine.

Like I said, we'll see who is next on the list.

so instead of being ignorant to what we are saying you are ignorant to how we operate.

well Ruth, you played in LaF for a set or two during the IX wars... almost definitely attempting to spy for them, IMO

did you see a farm list other than perhaps war targets? :p

This is just getting ridiculous...

you guys are all like the republicans during the healthcare debate.... just making fluff up to push your agenda, which doesn't actually look at the best way for the people to benefit.

If you want respect then don't accuse the admins of being biased in favor of laf.

I really can't believe that someone who griefs other players is criticizing me for being disrespectful. How do you think those players feel after you suicide on them? That's not your problem though, right?

As I said before, the changes prevent players from getting max techs for free during most of the run and from creating countries that are very difficult to kill. It's for game balance. I've talked to bottomfeeders who think that bottomfeeding is too powerful and perhaps should be turned down in effectiveness. Why is it that suiciders can never see the issue from the other side? I guess it takes a truly selfish mind to stick it to everyone else for your own enjoyment.

dont be an asshat however hard that might be for you

I have never spied for another alliance and I was in LaF/TIE war chats killing IX so dont try to change the subject, it has nothing to do with the subject at hand other than a lame attempt to discredit me in any way possible even if you have to make fluff up


I never said there was an actually "list"

maybe get your head out of H4's ass long enough to try to look at it from a side other than your landfat one

heh its not that we dont' see that side, we just completely disagree with it.

lol that doesnt surprise me :P

Ruth was IX friendly prior to her joining? Hahaha.

yea right lol

but I was in IX before joining Laf and then Sol for at least 2 resets each, and then I came back and made IX my permanent home

I have always supported 100% any alliance I was tagged up with at the time

my head's in h4's ass? hmm?

ruth, I don't know why you're trying to join the anti-LaF bandwagon again... why are you jumping into this again now? :p

I was always of the opinion that based on your VERY pro-IX attitude before and after the IX-LaF wars, and your very anti-LaF attitude you displayed throughout the game's history that you were feeding info back to IX regardless. I don't care what you say, I believe you were feeding info back to them. And you will not change my mind on that no matter what you say :p

My post's not meant to try and discredit you as a person, just to blow a hole in your argument... when you were in LaF, did you see us saying "this will be a set where we farm alliance A!!"?
Of course you didn't, because we don't do that. We never plan to farm anyone other than in a war-based manner, where all the proper paperwork is filed before the war starts...

I'll say it again, even though people seem to keep continually ignoring it"

LAF OFFERED A PACT TO ELYSIUM. THE PACT WAS REJECTED BY ELYSIUM.

They actively decided to make LaF into an enemy over the last two sets... that was their decision, not ours and they are reaping what they sew, I guess. If you guys want to talk about the bigger problem of the lack of land on this server, I'm always up for a debate about that.

I really feel that all the LaF haters are simply trying to scapegoat the problems of the server onto LaF, when the real issues are within each and every one of the complaining alliances who don't bring the same level of dedication and skill that LaF brings to the table.

I'll rephrase a question that Slag posed a while ago and people don't seem to discuss at all: How is what LaF is doing worse than alliances randomly blindsiding people while they're netting? How is it worse than forcing people to fight who don't want to fight for a year or so?

You're all REALLY pissed off at LaF for "driving" 4 members from the game. What about the 35 from Evo? What about the 40 from NA? How about TIE needing to merge into LCN?

These are all things that LaF had ABSOLUTELY no hand in and hurt the game MUCH more.... but few people on this thread stood up and said it needs to stop. Those who were got told to quit whining and fight.

I find it highly hypocritical how most of the people who claim LaF is "killing the game" were fine with warring alliances "killing the game" for the last 2 or 3 years. At one point, they even SAID that was their strategy. Come on people.

Like I said before... this is like the US healthcare debate.

Na has a farm list, but it's empty now that tan quit

Still lolling at Ruth being an IX spy. I had my own LaF account as did many others (thanks Scrub!) we definitely didn't need her ;)

mazooka your posts in this thread are very disappointing...

You and me had a similar encounter a while ago on these forums over how "nerfed" suiciding is... I certainly did not own u as much as slagpit just did but man for a former SKAer and a good player stop posting such inane bullfluff

Calling me a spy, accusing me of spying for IX most certainly is trying to discredit me as a person. You are discrediting my morals as an honest game player. Frankly I dont give a fluff if you think I was feeding information, I wasnt ... end of that story.


Anti-LaF ? No. Anti-farming ? Yes

I havent been all that relevant in the game ? Screw you.

I helped bring ReGen back from the brink of death before Omac pulled the plug. I helped establish EEVIL in YOUR new game. Irrelevant ? Is that how you want to treat people who are trying to help keep this game going ? Nice attitude. I may have to rethink playing a game whose developer has such an piss-poor arrogant attitude.

As for being pro-IX, that didnt happen until AFTER my time in LaF and SoL, when I realized that IX was a pretty cool place to play and headed back there until it closed it doors. Frankly LaF war chats were so poorly attended that I was bored to death there.


But the fact is, LaF has always done fluff like this and frankly I would think they might change their game style a bit so that you are attracting players to the game, not having them say fluff this and quit. Unless of course, you dont need anyone else in this game besides those tagged LaF.

But I am done wasting my time with this because its obvious that you have tunnel vision where LaF is concerned.

http://utopia-game.com


enough said?

Go ahead and try to farm me, ford.

Look at #151. ;)

I tried to quit but somehow (I honestly can't even recall how) I ended up sticking around in an advisory capacity and helping run a country to retal.

lol ya... my response was kind of mean and overboard :-/

accept my apologies for that... things get heated :)

as for the content though... I think that the tunnel vision is on both sides... people have to start realizing that THEY have to up their game too and not expect LaF to "be nice" and not play to their full potential. LaF does recognize that they hit more than anyone else.... and are usually the easiest to vilify as farmers of some folks. But it's within the game rules... just like if SoL randomly felt like doing 20 grabs on us a day or something. Players need to get land from somewhere.... so eventually someone has to be hit, and no one ever feels it should be them :p

I mean at this point, we've actually TOLD the players how they can effectively create tag protection.... can they at least TRY that before it's instantly dismissed?

We're not actually bad folks... we realize land has to come from somewhere and we don't like taking it from active players or anyone who is going to quit over it. It's part of the game to land grab people.... I would agree that if we were in a situation where we have a "static" community that will never ever grow no matter what we did, then there would be a case for this, but it would be more of an appeal to the PLAYERS. It's not like the players would stop if they moved to a different alliance. They may even be WORSE, if it's an alliance who doesn't feel like controlling their members at all.

[Puts on admin hat]
In the grand scheme of where the game is moving, it's not going to be an issue much longer. We're spending all our time working on the FB move, which should substantially increase the size of the pool of players to recruit from for this server, and a lot will probably come over on their own as well. Once we're done all that, I think our next "major" project is some kind of AI element, so that will also help the land situation.

The combination of those two should ensure that there is a large enough pool of land/countries to draw from that EVERYONE can go back to a more normal style of grabbing....

The kind where flaming is not necessary every single day :)

To be fair detmer kind of responded to the random war issues, though it was kind of strange and factually incorrect. I'm not really going to type out a long response to a post that's 50 or so back though.

I disagree that it is factually incorrect if it is the post I am thinking of but I could understand your gripes with my premise.

I am intrigued by how it was strange though! pm?

well we may be dead shortly for "defending" our land so we will see...

this may be true, but perhaps the game rules need to be changed in the best interest OF the game?

that this game is only still going because of the people that have been playing for years and years are still enjoying it.

But slowly they are leaving to, and basically every server is shrinking. (which adds to the problem of land being so scarce, which adds to the farming problem)

You mention FB, and other things you are working on to get new player base, and that's awesome. I'll promote the hell outa it when it lands. But to get enough new players to make a difference will take time. And in that time, we need as few people to leave as possible. Old or new, for what ever reason.

I am not aware of warring tags acting according to a set of ethics. If I'm wrong and someone wants to post the ethics warring clans follow, that's fine. Thus, even if what you said about warring tags was true, it would be owed to random chance. However, as far as I know, it's not true:

There was a warring tag that hit NA five times in one year. Mrford or llaar could provide the details, I'm not sure I was playing at the time.

A new tag was randomly FSed in its second set of existence and now no longer exists.

EVO was FSed twice for no reason in four sets.


So I'm going to have to disagree on those points. If you were talking about LaF farming untaggeds, that's kind of an odd position to take. I remember someone in PDM bragging on the boards about how he was getting a million bushels per turn. Where did that land come from? The guy wasn't even trying for rank, he was grabbing simply to get a lot of land. Why is that ok but it isn't ok for laf to grab untaggeds for rank?

Getting "farmed excessively" is very different from getting randomly FSed. It's fairly simple to prevent your tag from getting farmed. You can run retallers. This has been explained in the thread. You can accept the pacts offered to you. You can join a coalition. You can go to war. If you're a new player or an untagged player, you can join a different tag.

How can a tag prevent random FSes on it? Some warring tags didn't offer pacts. Some of them break pacts. It doesn't really matter if you had good relations with them in the past. Beating them down in war doesn't help. As stated by several members in warring tags, "We're not actually losing because we're going to fight you until you quit the game". Now look at the numbers of the tags who tried to enforce that policy. Everyone ended up losing.

The last year or so has proven to me that random wars make both sides lose heavily. A landgrab doesn't make both countries lose. Landgrabs for the most part are an opportunity for the defender: it's quite easy to get more than what your tag lost because of ghost acres and you can pick any country in your tag to do the retal.

So both the goals and the results of random wars are a lot worse than anything that LaF does. If you want to fix the problems with the alliance server, why don't we look at everything at once instead of focusing on a convenient villian?

For what it's worth, LaF does do things that I don't like. Having a player detag and retal any non-laf country that hits him is an extremely dirty thing to do. Stuff like that causes pacts to be miles long. Allowing a country that farmed one of your own for 20k+ acres to net unharassed in your tag also strikes me as a dirty thing to do. I'm surprised that LaF didn't kill it. LaF might have had a contingency plan in place to make sure it stayed out of the top ten, but that doesn't really seem like a strong enough response.

We can change game rules, yes. So far most people want to see less attacking. Does that sound fun to you? What about the current system is fun? How would you sell the alliance server to new players?

Come to alliance, where you can't grab anyone or interact with other players.

That doesn't fun to me. If I was a new player I don't think I'd play on the alliance server.

nawh I don't think they will Zip...they need us as farms. Which is cool coz I can LG them too. I've never really LGed before since I was always an explorer. But having to do those two pure LGs (not retals) it was like ecstasy. Thanks for pushing me to do it LaF - I want to try it again. But if you guys do kill us well I guess that's that.

...by the way I'm not going to blame LaF for killing this game. Heck you guys are a strong alliance; why should you not flex your muscles right? But I can blame you guys for me quitting it. lol I retired from the game about 4 years ago, back then I used to be in a Wolf Pack leader in Ely's good old days and just two sets back I came to Ely to try this game - it seemed promising and has a lot of potential. But quite honestly it isn't what it is anymore (for an oldie like me i guess) - but maybe that's for the better (only time will tell). I like the little changes though. But for me personally all the farming is just too much since I'm an all explorer so I don't really like lging - and while you guys do 3-4 lgs day while I both work and study I don't get to retal you guys often too. But that's my fault right? And hey we're a small alliance we can't really do much about it but try the best we can to hit back. Why not join any other alliance? Because I am an Elysian and will always be one and I'd like to keep it that way before our alliance dies or merges.

So basically this is my last set playing this game - and I have to say despite the farming it was still fun. I wish this game success. It really brought me great memories when I was a young Earther and hope the new players will have that too.

Not allowing grabbing would destroy the game and it should be up to the alliances to police themselves and their members so it doesnt become excessive.

And if not, there is an active earth community here to call them out on it ;)