with the demise of spies
no one plays dictatorships anymore

for months the admins have said yes we need to strengthen dictatorships we just dont know how

the drop land rule is what it is
________________________________________________
solve both problems with a real war solution

in real wars armies sometimes stage raids where the intent is not to grab land or to kill the opposing country's forces
the purpose of the attack is to grab materiel

the vikings are the classic example but the strat stretches back beyond the peloponesian wars to the mogol hordes and the american plains

let dictatorships lauch viking style raids where they collect cash, food and tech but no land
they have to contend against the entire defense of the target country but their military losses are an eighth of an LG's losses

this will be a great addition to individual servers because jumpers will be put at risk

the clan implications are not my concern

eh lots of people plays dicts these days and no idea where you get the demise of spies from so all in all pretty horrible post

fluff!

i'm all in favor of a raiding party attack, whether it be a spy op or a military op as suggested here.

Hmm.. sounds like it's purely made for suiciding on netters/stockers and the stockers have no chance of getting what they lost back..

Can't say I'm really in favor of having something implemented to ruin a month and a half of work.. Could be interesting I guess though and make netters have more defense to be less at risk..

there are a lot of threads going back months about:

1) the admins are looking for ways to enhance dictators

2) the admins did not get the original spy formulas and are tweaking them

so if u agree with ivan do ur due diligence and read those posts
not to be rehashed here
this post is about raids just like in real warfare

it is not suicidng it is wargaining

this site advertises itself as a wargame

all too often it is just a net worth game
we can help the game live up to its advertising

starstalker's idea is a good one, though the losses needed to be bigger than 1/8, obviously - perhaps 1/3 or 1/4. And it should be only dictactors that can perform this sort of attack.

To avoid suiciders, the percentage of food & money that they take should be relative to the amount of food & money that the attacker have in hand.

Yeah diez last point is key.

Which it already is with stealing food etc and the other spy ops, afaij the spyops doesnt very that much from the original spy ops on earth and dicts doesnt need to be enhanced they are being used and very well used as well

everything has its purpose in this game, sure the spyops might need a little upgrade but not all that much imo

If you want to learn how to use a dict, come join us in SoF!

sof.earth2025.net

rofl

if sof is running dictatorships in this environment no wonder they have so few members

does it?



That doesn't say strictly wargame to me? sounds like war is only one aspect of the game...


I like the idea though, that's something to consider

dict is always going to be niche if it has such a heavy bpt penalty

if its going to be good at something it has to be bad at something though

dicts are fine

that is all

dicts can be made competitive despite the bpt penalty if when they hit they dont grab land

if they grab land and then have to hold it they are now and always will be meat

how about letting dicts drop land?
see how that works

Gregg seems to have a thing for small dicts.

Whats the point of dicts dropping land that they grab?

Oh man.

Why not allow Dicts to either grab more food/cash/tech or allow them to lose 10% less military aswell.

Just something to increase their warring and netting. heh

grabbing more tech could have an effect not sure if it would be positive or negative

medical tech could always work offensively, that favours anyone who grows slower

just leave dicts and medical tech alone :P

Yeah, I agree with Ivan - the whole death of the dictatorship idea has been grossly exaggerated. It's still a great option if you use it properly.

the admins dont understand it either diez so lets look at what happened today on express

oh lets wait until tuesday so that ur country's stats r not discussed

If that was the way you test the game, then perhaps you should check out your country stats instead.

And this probably should be discussed in the EE board.

suppose that the little baby girl no drop land rule were not in effect

i could hit anyone in the game

but the netter protection rule kicks in again

without giving away too much

i loved capturing $100,000,000 in one hit

And I love it when people do 4-tap, diffuse your missiles and say "I will not be back".

)))) that is fun especially when u still had $1.3 billion left and can do anything you want to me)))

if i could drop the 5000 acres u just ABed my weapons would be at 150%, my mil strat would be maxed out and i would probably finish in the top ten
if i could have raided you i would have finished easily in the top 5
attackers can finish strong when they grab $100M an attack unfortunately because the admins do not understand the strat it is illegal((((((

that was only the 2nd time i picked up over a quarter of a billion dollars in two hours
and it is a real kick

Anyway lets quit posting here. This is not the appropriate board to do so. You can dream and whine in the express board instead.

yes one can dream of a game where dictators can stage raids, where dictators can actually compete to win against the all x theos, and where land is not an anchor around your neck

the reason this is the appropriate place is because this is where rule changes are born

not whining just having a blast playing a war game

i dont see why a dicts cant win a game?

stop being so silly and learn how to play instead

dict has always been a war strat
just like c/i and tyr

reps and theos and fascs have always been netting strats

i really see no reason to change these, if you want to win at netting, then play a netting strat. thats like bringing a apple to a strawberry eating contest and complaining that you didnt win, wtf?

ivan,

please refer me to a server and set where a dictatorship won
or a server and a set where dictatorships made up three of the top ten

the following statements refer only to individual games

this game can be tweaked so that war strats win

inherent in MrFord's post is the assumption that netting strats should always win
that assumption though widespread is a flaw in the game
war strats ought to have at least a 40% chance of winning

on earth2025 you could win a tournament with the best military
i advocate balancing the game

If the netgaining strats didn't have a higher growth potential than the war strats there would be no reason for anyone to play them. The game was designed as an example of efficiency through specialization.

In this specific case: Dictator has an large warfare advantage and in order to balance this a restricted ability to grow. It's intended to be a post-growth stage government and does that very, very well. Commies are basically the opposite: high early growth potential with no viable endgame.

If the game got back to 20k players with weaker alliances, dict would have a decent chance of winning again, simply due to its grabbing potential i think

until then what??

play dict, or play another govt and buy weapons tech

Tell me why a dict cant win starstalker? I cant think of any reasons

ok

no dictator will ever win express in its current rule set because the server interferes with gov's ability to efficiently use its specialities, while other gov's specialties are not restricted by the server

in order to win a gov has to be able to efficiently use its specialties on a regular basis. The R, F, H advantages come into use on every turn, a D should buy and sell repeatedly to maximize their advantage and express does not interfere with this specialty. if d's had to wait six hours for goods to get to market, their advantage on this server would be diminished.
the dictator's specialties are spy and military
anything that interferes with repeated efficient use of these specialties hurts the gov

TOP TEN WAYS EXPRESS RULES HURT DICTATORS

1) 72 hour no drop land rule
vacant land reduces SPAL and tech improvements reducing this gov's use of its specialties
72 hours means it is a set long hindrance
if the I spends time building up the vacant land it is maximizing its weakness not its strength


2) ghost acres
when the government is trying to max aggression tech this rule handcuffs him with added vacant land

3) spy formula is substantially weaker than e2025
one of the benefits the I has is % stronger spies but since the current formula does not adequately reward high SPAL, the specialty is compromised

4) no aggressive attack like e2025 had
this reduces benefit of military strength

5) no ability to raid jumpers before they jump
by raid i mean the first post on this thread
again reducing both military and SPAL

6) DR on the server is too high, should be adjusted to be equivalent to primary
this inadequtely rewards repeated hits on vulnerable targets
limiting I's use of its military specialty

7) spy op does not allow for stealing cash only blowing it up
where the cashers are benefitting every turn the I has no similar ability
cyber ops should be an alternative means of acquiring goods

8) commit espionage is not set high enough
it should result in more yield for Is since their spies are supposedly better than ordinary spies
while the techers are advancing every turn the I has no such ability
thx enshula for this idea

9) when dictators LG they should get less land and more goods than other countries
thx again enshula

10) the number of allowed spy ops is too low
in primary u get 50 x 30 spy ops but in express u only get 1000 this unfairly restricts the gov's specialty

a dictatorship should be doing tons of spy ops and lots of raids or LGs or it has no real advantage
because vacant land interferes with using that specialty
and building on that land maximizes the liability
no dictatorship can win express in this environment



8)

you're killing me with this! you can't possibly win if you keep dropping your land; you NEEEED LAND TO SURVIVE

you only drop vacant land

no government type has tons of vacant land

in express this set i had hits of $116M, $100M, $67M, $54M and a ton of smaller hits, grabbing cash and tech you do not need vacant land

why the inordinate emphasis on land??
frequently the winner does not have the most land
very often in E2025 the relatively small land size Ds managed to come on and win despite the fact that other countries had a lot more acreage

Anyway the only thing that kills dict in express is their BPT penalty. That's a huge, huge disadvantage.

And man, the low land Ds (definitely techers) can only sell tech until mid-late set at maximum unlike other strats who can stock for much longer, so small land Ds is just normal.

that's because they build it....

You keep saying ghost acres are bad, but fail to realize that the buildings you're grabbing *are* the ghost acres generally speaking.

the liability of dictators is their slow pace of building


why cant i get you to see that?

of course that's their weakness; they HAVE to have a significant weakness though, because they have a HUUUGE bonus +25% strength alone is big, let alone the spy stuff

HUUUGE advantage?

compared to theos?
compared to Fs?
compared to Cs?

then why cant anyone take one into the top ten?
in any set? on any server?

any I that builds is only hurting itself
the analogy would be an R that runs an oiler strat
or a D that engages in a large GS campaign

trying to run an I in express is like running a D with no public market

Cause it's not meant to be for achieving high networths? It's meant for fighting.

1 I dont really see why it needs to drop the land, or buildings even empty acers produces food and the extra buildings can be used as well for income as long as they arent RL's really

2 free buildings = free income

3 the spy formulas arent that different from e2025

4 the aggresive,normal etc attack in E2025 never worked, even if selected it always still was normal


5 raid? wtf you dont need to "raid" them just grab them like you posted yourself you can capture 100m cash in a hit thats plenty

6 afaik DR's on express isnt any different then the other servers?

7 eh again not needed a dict accumulates goods every turn as well as a casher/farmer/whatever

8 see 7

9 no reason for this either

10 1000 ops of 1500 turns isnt enough? cant say that i know how many turns is accumulated in primary but it sure its pretty much exactly the same as alliance

I still dont see why a dict cant win

and im sure people can take dicts into the t10 most people choose to not even try tho samethin with oilers

the advantage of dict in netgaining terms was always to do with grabbing land and keeping it

you only need 72% of the military rep has to be equivelant

so for bottomfeeding or 50% feeding you spent a lot less grabbing (jets and oil) and could have a combination of more mil more tech more land while still being able to hit the same targets

in express of course it doesnt make as much sense because you can just pump jets for 100 turns, grab someone around your networth, then get defence

then it boils down to whether a dict indy/farmer can grab enough land compared to a tyranny, which it usually probably cant

why don't you try building your land and growing, sure you can do a 100m hit, but how many jets do you lose to do it?

a 5m ps would lose 400k jets which could be 60-75m cash, plus use 200k oil which could cost 30m at 150 a barrel

so you always have to factor in how much a grab costs, then consider how much net worth you lose by not building the land

if you are grabbing before the halfway point of the set then each acre dropped could have been about 500k worth of income, it might cost 30k to build and 50k in tech but that's still a big benefit

you would only need 250 acres to be worth as much as 100m of someone's cash grabbed near the end of the set

obviously dropping land has a max in express, gdi and dec war are also similarly effected, and DR seems to be on 24 hours

do you really want to be able to farm someone 5 times every 2 hours, drop the land then wait 3 hours and join gdi all while they are asleep?

if people could join GDI after only 3 hours and you had to wait 8 hours to declare peace?

(times in line with tourney)

not every strat works in every server, that's one of the things which makes it interesting to try different things and play more than one server

what you want to do would be fine in tourney and because DR would be more lenient there people would be able to easily farm away land you couldn't drop

one of the weird things about express is because goods only stay on the market for 8 hours not everyone can constantly hide stock on the market like they can on all other servers, but conversely because the sets so short stocks arnt very big

its just not the right strat choice for the server

also attacking anyone with enough stock to make taking it worthwhile pretty much guarantees they have enough to do something about it

i think a good change for express which could help you lose land might be to make GS, AB and BR diminishing returns expire after 2 hours

this would keep land moving around the server rather than someone being gs'd 30 times being able to attack 20 times in 24 hours while losing very little in return

its a lot less effort for someone to get a friend/multi to GS them 15 times a day for 5 days than it is to do it every single day for 60 days in a long server

i and a few other people have mentioned that when someone gets AB'd or GS'd after suiciding/attacking it means that retaliating is not worthwhile

and if you had on the extreme case 450(450) turns just as you were about to retal on someone who just got put into mass DR then you need to wait 810 turns minimum until you can retal

thats about 2 weeks in primary