I have gotten to play a number of rounds in express and have a few thoughts about why it sucks (at least in terms of getting randomly suicided on).

It seems many people use it as a playground to gangbang people with informal alliances (or illegal accounts; hard to tell). Everyone in the top 10 for this round was hit by suiciders except the theos who were in GDI.

So, it's easy enough to play a techer and tech warfare, weapons, etc. and pummel the crap out of anyone either at day 4 or 5 into the round.


Rather than just complaining, I have a few thoughts to try and save the server. I think that this game has so many different servers, but AT THE END OF THE DAY THE RULES ARE ALL THE SAME except for how quick turns are generated!!

Why not try and totally revamp express? Since a new round starts so quickly it would be easy enough to change back if rule changes are total failures. This could be used as a beta server or at the very least be different from other servers.

So, rather than just complaining, here are a few thoughts:

1. Put in some bot countries (I don't know how easy this would be to actually do, but it has been an idea thrown around before in alliance). It would be nice to see more countries again. It seems like the more people quit, the worse everything gets, therefore more people quit. Why not try something significantly different to reverse the downward spiral?

2. Automatic GDI (this would cut down on suiciding). However, make the ability to declare war on another country more relevant to the server (i.e. 12 hours).

3. Decrease effectiveness of SS and PS to some degree. Everyone complains about being farmed in express and it is really easy to farm someone since you can have up to 450 turns at one time.

4. Decrease max warfare tech from 5% to 2-2.5%. This way people wouldn't be able to shoot off 50-60 missiles at the end of the round "for fun"

5. Think about changing other tech levels around. Such as increased military strat max to 200% to make it more viable, reform spy ops/spy effectiveness tech (take some out/change the formulas). Who cares if it is even unbalanced or not. I think any change of pace would be good.

6. Try out an oil floor price. This has been talked about for years. Why not try it out on a server that has such a quick turnaround?

7. Add a new tech. Something to decrease the effectiveness of special attack/missiles against you. I have no idea what it would be called!

8. Make changes to declare war or GDI altogether. GDI is lame! Maybe make it an actual organization, where being a member would add additional benefits.

GDI: Mythical organization to prevent suiciders and/or prevent being farmed by > 1 country at a time. Ghey!

Declare War: Make it so that you have to declare war to attack anyone; instead of just getting around GDI and to have +10% attack ability. Make it so you HAVE to declare war to AB/GS/missile someone?

Or declare war to hit anyone period (allow 2-3 countries to be declared upon rather than just 1 if this is the case).

Change humanitarians to not allowing > 4 hits (for example) within a 24 hour period (for example) instead of just based on nw for SS and PS.

9. Make it where you are automatically placed in a tag of 5. (You have no choice).

Lots of random thoughts!

some great ideas

particularly using it as a beta server
many have suggested that

bot countries
this is the future of the game
this is how you attract bright programmers
just make sure the admins know which countries are bots
the anti bot rule is hampering site growth

some connected players say that admins do not consider express a real server and we will never get anywhere with posts all we can do is keep trying to improve the game

getting randomly suicided on
why cant (netters) understand how stupid this makes them sound?
he suicided me is the statement of a fool
until we can get this word dropped and replaced with OGed
or something that isnt repulsively stupid it will be hard for some to take posts seriously

the problem isnt too many attacks
it is far too few
the 24 hour DR makes the server a netters paradise

decrease ss and ps?
u must mean increase ss and ps effectiveness dont u?
particularly given the insane amount of protection given by the 24 hour dr rule
thats like two weeks in primary

4) decrease war tech?
ok uticant is obviously a netter at heart
if we have a stupid demeaning insulting word like suicider for LGers we should have an equally insulting word for netters say dirt mouse or bleating sheep

5) new spy ops
there are six players who routinely beg for this
with specified ideas

6) Fs need help given all the help recently give to H
but this is really just another netter plan to reduce LGs
excuse me suicide attacks on another person

declare war on everyone sounds like another netter plot to remove any semblance of a war game

change humanitarians
dirt mice are already protected by the ludicrous dr rule
but i have always thought that to reduce bottom feeding
humanitarians ought to kick in at 6x rather than 10x

9( dont like clans

but one set a month of this wouldnt hurt too much

some great ideas
some horrifyingly bad ideas
but beta testing them is the way to go

I think he meant more like some automated countries run by ee, not players being allowed to play botted countries.

Some of the ideas seen contradictory to other ideas in the same post.

And, this server has always been ee's beta server because of its fast reset rate. Some recent changes have made more sense to roll out across the board to all servers at once.

Some are contradictory. Just a lot of different thoughts. I am not saying try them all at once.

The tech levels have been the same since EE was swirve in 2001. Wouldn't it make since to change them some for different servers?

5% warfare was when turns were every 40 minutes and you could store a max of 75 (37). Why keep this the same for an express server?

The declare war option is annoying. Aren't you declaring war to some extent every time you are hitting anyone? And actually you say that is netter biased, but it would be to protect people from being farmed as badly.

#1
(bot countries)
I'd like to do this but it is a HUGE project to do that, so don't count on it in the near future


#2
(automatic GDI)
This is the case in tournament isn't it? Does it belong in express?

#3
(decreasing SS/PS effectiveness)
Interesting idea; but I'm not sure if that's what needs to happen...

#4
(decrease maximum war tech)
Hmm then nobody would actually get missiles... I would prefer to do the opposite, say increase the base SDI; do people get randomly missiled alot?

#5
(change tech percentages)
There were a few ideas I had for tech; maybe I'll try them in express...

#6
(oil floor)
I don't particularly like the idea of an oil PM floor, there *is* an oil public floor atm, though it is low

#7
(new tech)
AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH you mean you want me to change 1k lines of code??? (well i dunno if it would be that many but it would be complicated).

#8
(GDI additional benefits)
I've thought about this.... Still need to bang out something that wouldn't completely unbalance the game...

I think the problem is really that you're trying to play express seriously. There's no real investment of time (relative to the other servers) so most people there aren't really concerned with how their country comes out - they're either just killing time, testing something out that they don't really expect to work or messing with people for the fun.

I'll be honest the first thing I thought of when I saw the Dict change being rolled out was that I should go farm the fluff out of some people on express to get an idea for how much more viable a Dict/Farmer is ;)

I have played it seriously a few times, but usually I will go inactive halfway through.

Increasing base SDI would be good for express. There were 4 countries this round that ABed/missiled/GSed everyone they could that was top 10 at the time. It makes it frustrating for the people who are doing well in the round. Increasing base SDI would help somewhat against 60 missiles.

It just makes it easy to lemming/destroy building for 2-3 players to take out 10-15; which I don't think is what you want in general.

how can someone who has no sdi and knows about express clans be said to be doing well?

if u have no sdi in this server
u r doing poorly


its just one of the special rules
like lifetime dr and the land protection act of 2010
why cant you get sdi like the guys who actually r doing well?

Qzjul, thanks for giving some thought to my suggestions. Just trying to think outside of the box over here.

Starstalker:

:-p

So you want me to max out SDI on the 25% chance I get suicided? That way I'll have 6 missiles get through instead of 60.

Yeah, 200k tech points of SDI wouldn't impede growth at all. If I was to get missiled, I would just fight back rather than hope my high SDI will stop missiles.

I mean thinking logically, the same rules shouldn't apply for a server with 100 people where you get 1800 turns in 5 days compared to 1a when it was created with 75 (37) turns and 15k countries.

200k sdi points? Where on earth are you going to get that from? Last reset there was only a total of 229k points sold.

Uticant dude, you should start using the ignore button, I just did :p

why do ppl keep saying express favors netters. this simply isn't true. with the amount of turns you can stock up, you can destroy anyone or maim multiple countries at once.

there needs to be some changes to PROMOTE ballance, not totaly tip it in favor of netters. this was the first set in the last 4 i didn't get randomly attacked at the end of the game. i've had ppl use hundreds of turns on spy opps when i was spy heavy, i've been leming'd down, i've been missiled, and i've been turned into a parking lot. and often one person will do this to most of the t10. one country shouldn't have the means to take out the whole t10.

slag only 229k sdi was sold because you can't max sdi and your bus/res or whatever strat you're playing at the same time. it's simply too costly on this server. if i'd have maxed out my sdi last set i wouldn't have made t10.

i do play express seriously, it's my favorite of all the servers. and if ppl want to waste their time or the way they find the game enjoyable is to go out and fight fight fight, thats fine, but when one person can take out 5 or more without even trying, it's unbalanced in the favor of those who like to destroy

also, i'd like to see less time in-between resets. it's a short set, followed by a long wait to play again g=) and i want to play!