i am not participating in any buyout. I havnt talked to anyone in NA in a while.

less QQ plz!

What's worst? Buyouts or FA.

aid

From the best I can tell, you have already put your own spin on this. So uhm what, you dont want us to spin your spin ???

1 person doing a buyout (which you seem to want to call cycling instead of buyout for w/e reason) takes talent. Uhm yea sure. Any market manipulation guess would take talent as there are numerous ways it can fail and/or backfire. I have seen many attempts of someone trying to do this and resulted in a fail.

Selling tech for high done by multiple people takes no talent and has no risk. LOL. Anything that involves multiple people takes organization and talent. No risk lol. There is always risk that techer will sell tech at real values, which means you have to than buy out all that tech first to even reach the high priced tech. I will admit the risk is much lower, but its not NONE.

The end result is both are just various forms of market manipulation. Which has been done in almost every set, if not every set, that I have played. Often times by your own clan LaF. So maybe if you think so low of market buyouts, you should rant and rave in your clan forums first.

I personally dont give much legitamacy to LaF clans netting skills since internal land trading is much more pathetic than any market buyout. Lower risk and lower talent. Which to me is sad, cause I do know some top netters are in that clan, but ah well, clan stigma carries over for everyone in it.

FYI - I am in NA and as I started late plus was suicided on, offered anyone in my clan help since my netting for set was over, prolly before I even started. This offer was mostly for clan members that had been suicided upon but was for anyone that wanted it via FA, land farm or w/e. Guess how many took me up on that offer? No one. Of course this does not mean it hasnt been done, but it does mean its not highly used as you seem to think. If even at all. You are still stuck back in the ol days me thinks.

Hawkster so you know I have been in LaF and played every set there for the last 11.5 years and we have never - not once done a market buyout to aid any member of our alliance.

Also the reason I have opened up internal trading was so that I could continue to make a netting environment that could allow anyone that wanted to play in the LaF tag have the option of Land Trading and not be limited by the numbers that the other alliances come up with. As it is LaF was providing over half the servers Traders and providing all the options of partners to those outside our alliance and neglected our own.

I have no intention of freezing out anyone outside of LaF when it comes to trading, anyone that is netting outside of LaF is still and will continue to be welcomed and encouraged to communicate such a desire with my members and arrange trades.

If I was a douche I would close off external trading to my members to create a greater barrier between what my members are individually capable of and the rest of the server, but anyone that has had anything to do with me all over the server knows that simply is not my style.

*now a personal opinion*

I don't like FA Chains or buyouts - as it takes the individualism out of the competition for the top spot (I'm skeptical about trading too) but it is a mechanic in the game that does take talent to maximize its efficiency so I work with it too so I'm not left behind. You have to put a lot of time into your country to do well playing like that... Market buyouts we all know that you could run basically any strat and buy up or produce one tech all set then have the alliance boost it to the top - going against all the other individual efforts (obviously from within a tag and the protection it provides)

Again that last paragraph is just my own views on it.

Personally I think if there is going to be land trading on the alliance server, it just makes better sense for it to be internal. So while I think internal land trading is pathetic with very low risk and skill, at same time I dont fault your clan or any clan that does it. I have more issue with just land trading in general. So if clans are going to insist on doing it, by all means do it internally and help out your clan as opposed to other clans ... if you can get away with it that is. And yes for the record I have even done land trading set or two, found it to be just as lame as it sounded and gave up on it. (I did find it cool to do it with MD that just set or two prior had been to war with though).

But once again the market buyouts you are referencing is in regards to just tech. Yes that is easier focusing on one of lesser bought techs than some other market good. I dont really call that a market buyout though, that to me is more of a push or alternate form of FA. All I can say is that it is totally w/in game parameters and if you or any clan does not like it, they should use some clan political clout and try to stop it (ie go to war). Not whinge about it on AT. But doing a real market buyout imho does not rank near as low as FA nor land trades nor running with no military.

As to the douche remark, yes I have taken note of that, plus fact that even though your clan does do internal land trades, it is what I would say done minimally. That point is appreciated and has not escaped me.

I hated trading outside of LaF because a lot of people don't buy production tech while trading, basically leeching tech off me.

I love trading in LaF because I now get to have even level of tech and actually don't have to worry about the other side cheating me out.

There are so many risks with land trading, suicide happy people target big countries. Just this set, two for sure Top Ten contenders got ABed 33% to 50% of their buildings, at 86k acres.

Buyouts have less risks because suiciders wouldn't care about a low 30k acre country. Not sexy enough target.

Frankly, there are useless tech in the game that can and is being used for buyouts, putting 'blocks' on it would mean for techers to actually tech these useless techs and be less efficient in terms of netgaining.

Much like tech leech and aiding, buyouts is not countries working together, it's countries feeding one country, and that, I'm not okay with.

I wont say that you are wrong, as am sure is little more risk. Yet I think that risk you speak of has more to do against the clan. (also would not be surprised if those 2 were not too lean and easier targets, but could be wrong). Oddly enough, my 25k all-x country got suicided on, so did Mr Ford all-x country. Not all land traders get that fat either. So sorry but I am not totally buying your "so many risks" thing.

I can definitely understand this and even agree, but that is not what OP stated specifically.