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RaTS FYA Game profile

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May 14th 2010, 20:27:44

3.5 million acre countires and multiple 1 mil plus land countries....


FFA server is such crap its not even funny
<~qzjul> it gives you a good introduction to orbital mechanics and a good appreciation for how central delta-V is and thrust to weight ratio
<RaTSFYA>The only thrust to weight ratio I'm worried about involves the women I pick up at bars

qzjul Game profile

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May 14th 2010, 22:18:56

what's wrong with lots of land?
Finally did the signature thing.

snawdog Game profile

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May 14th 2010, 22:29:19

I don't think it is as much a problem with 'lots of land' as it goes back to the self farming.
Some of us see that as weak,and some accept it.
The reality is,if you self farm to get all that without fear of a retal,then you are gunna beat the rest of us hands down set after set.
There is NO WAY you could grab and HOLD that much land legitimately.
[edit]
And never mind asking me what i mean by legit.
If you were to poll the FFA community i would venture a guess as about 80% against it.
So that is legit..right there.

Edited By: snawdog on May 14th 2010, 22:32:47
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RaTS FYA Game profile

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May 14th 2010, 23:09:09

It comes down that their is no strat anymore to win, it use to be you still had to manage to stock, and dump it all, or do buyouts, and youd get 1 good country anda bunch of crap ones, now with ghost acres, you can get multiple countries over a million land, do no stocking, no tech, no really strategy becuase the majority of the land is empty acres, and still take the top spots becuase its producing gazillions of dollars and food per turn.


It needs to be removed, or make it so empty acres over 1k don't produce anything, becuase its ridiculoust hat just lging your own countires back and fortht to generate millions of fake acres is now the only way to get in the top 10.
<~qzjul> it gives you a good introduction to orbital mechanics and a good appreciation for how central delta-V is and thrust to weight ratio
<RaTSFYA>The only thrust to weight ratio I'm worried about involves the women I pick up at bars

snawdog Game profile

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May 14th 2010, 23:29:51

Oh, I agree RaTS, something needs to be done about these 'artificially' produced acres(herein known as 'Facres').
I would like to see any of these "Elite" netters/Land Grabbers w/e, try to run a legit lg'ing country and see if they could get and hold all that land.
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snawdog Game profile

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May 15th 2010, 0:15:24

eh...I'm a whiner,that would not satisfy me until the self farming was shot down...
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Slagpit Game profile

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May 15th 2010, 0:26:37

My mind isn't made up, but if 80% of the player base is against it why don't you guys do something about it?

snawdog Game profile

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May 15th 2010, 0:34:38

Originally posted by Slagpit:
My mind isn't made up, but if 80% of the player base is against it why don't you guys do something about it?


Because the remaing 20% are mostly in 1 tag, that more or less trumps all the smaller tags..that right there is the truth.
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snawdog Game profile

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May 15th 2010, 0:39:18

Heck, do a REAL yes/no poll..not those ones where you can put in the ifs/buts/or and whatnot
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RaTS FYA Game profile

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May 15th 2010, 1:08:00

Slagpit becuase it hasnt become rampant in other servers yet, but eventually it will, and in FFA, they make up almost half the countries, and them and thier allies make up like 4/5ths the countries/networth
<~qzjul> it gives you a good introduction to orbital mechanics and a good appreciation for how central delta-V is and thrust to weight ratio
<RaTSFYA>The only thrust to weight ratio I'm worried about involves the women I pick up at bars

Kill4Free Game profile

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3196

May 15th 2010, 1:42:59

Yep I for the first time perhaps agree with RaTS, lol. This is getting ridiculous. If you don't self farm, you have no chance at netting. And with Spy DR (Which does not exist according to admins) You will not lose any real amount of land if someone grabs you (Trust me, I tried, a lot).

I say that the easiest way to fix this, is put in the game, you CANNOT attack your own countries. Sure people will switch back and forth to get land. But that is a lot harder, as you have to be online at same time, you have to do PS to reduce defenses, you have to trust the person you are hitting to keep his countries full with buildings.

If you cannot attack your own string of countries this will cripple self farming. It will still be done, but at maybe 1/4 the rate.

And this makes sense, as lots of people are quick to point out, this is a war game. In a game like this how is it that the best strategy is to attack yourself?
So many ways to die, only one way to live...
NBK

qzjul Game profile

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May 15th 2010, 3:32:17

hm

i have a few ideas cooked up
Finally did the signature thing.

RaTS FYA Game profile

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May 15th 2010, 3:53:11

Is one of them after 10 lgs from the same country, the attacker loses half its land, that'd help the untagged noobs get some proteciton also :)
<~qzjul> it gives you a good introduction to orbital mechanics and a good appreciation for how central delta-V is and thrust to weight ratio
<RaTSFYA>The only thrust to weight ratio I'm worried about involves the women I pick up at bars

qzjul Game profile

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May 15th 2010, 4:03:29

that sure would make land kills interesting...
Finally did the signature thing.

Just A Thought TAM Game profile

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May 15th 2010, 4:10:05

Haha!

Thunder Game profile

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May 15th 2010, 5:20:51

Your problem is you two fluff too much about self farming. There is not one thing wrong with self farming or even ghost acres. You want to add competition, take off the 2B cap. Then see what countries survive. The wars would be epic, but you don't realize that it takes a lot of effort to grab that land filter up. llaar posted how he did it just for one day. Way too much work for me. I'm glad I run all x :) but seeing how ghost acres are insane, instead of crying how you can't or won't put in the work it takes to self-farm and you want to be able to stay lazy and hit for 100 acres here or there, then just remove the 2b cap. Give guys something to shoot for and develop new strats using self farm. Imagine the wars that would happen with alliances that self farmed against each other. EPIC numbers. FFA doesn't have to STAY THE SAME, it too can evolve into something more. I would think people would want it to evolve instead of being the same stale server it became.

Ghost Acres is probably the best thing to happen to FFA. Self Farming is actually super profitable now and if done correctly, as you can see can achieve super results. We aren't doing anything that anyone else can't do. Either join in on the fun and build bigger and better countries or get left behind.

Thunder
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Kill4Free Game profile

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May 15th 2010, 5:27:24

No one ever disagreed that it was profitable. Imo either no more diminishing returns on yourself so if you did self farm people could grab you for full amount or no self farming on same account.

And thunder only reason I didn't attack any LAE was cause you are allies. Self farming with no diminishing returns from spy ops I will not disagree with.
Even though diminishing returns do not exist allegedly, when I attack a country with 71k acres, and get 4k land with 130% strategy, that sorta defeats the purpose of not self farming.

All I ask for is diminishing returns to be removed from everything but GS AB PS SS BR so it is player trackable.
So many ways to die, only one way to live...
NBK

Thunder Game profile

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May 15th 2010, 5:36:03

Well the thing is, there is a certain range within NWs that is more profitable of hitting where the gains are wicked.

I understand that and thank you K4F. We haven't been very lucky with even our closest allies of hitting us. heh

Edited By: Thunder on May 15th 2010, 5:38:22
Thunder
ICQ 56183127
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2010 Armchair GMs League Champion
DEFEATER OF MRFORD!
FoCuS'D

NA FA/Senate
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Ninja since born....Awesome Forever!

RaTS FYA Game profile

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1031

May 15th 2010, 7:48:14

Thunder I could have gotten a million acres in all my countries if i wanted, its not hard to do, and i also could break llaars 3.5 mil acre country if i wanted too.

Its just stupid that ghost acres allow you to have 15 countires and could get them all over a million acres, with almost no downside, you could probably do it with just 2 if you played it right.

Its not really that hard to open multiple tabs and go abck and forth lging them. 2 20k acre countries shouldnt be able to lg each other back and forth and end up at 40k, ghost acres have no purpose in FFA, in 1a they are there to generate land, becuase there are almost no untagged people, and almost every alliance can do at least marginal retals.

<~qzjul> it gives you a good introduction to orbital mechanics and a good appreciation for how central delta-V is and thrust to weight ratio
<RaTSFYA>The only thrust to weight ratio I'm worried about involves the women I pick up at bars

qzjul Game profile

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May 15th 2010, 14:24:23

Attacker NW / Defender NW determines the % of their land you get
Finally did the signature thing.

qzjul Game profile

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May 15th 2010, 14:25:39

also i've run the numbers on self-farming before, even when it's perfect you spend a TON to rebuild (because you lose equal buildings to ghost acres gained), and it takes a ton of turns; it's much less profitable than farming somebody else and not getting retalled =/
Finally did the signature thing.

Kill4Free Game profile

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May 15th 2010, 15:15:29

I know it is really expensive qz to rebuild, but you have almost no other expenses. When you get that high the tax from your population almost pays for your military expenses. Then you get a boatload of food thats sole purpose is building buildings. You have to have a crazy high bpt in order to pull it off.

With self farming, 2-3 weeks into set I could no problem get 30k acres in all my countries, when exploring will not get your more then 12k. This is insanely more profitable.

And these days it is pretty easy to get retalled, I think I had the longest non retalled streak before my clan went to work with aodt. And it wasn't easy pulling it off, I had all top 10 countries dictatorship, with weapons tech, allied to themselves, and even then it was still possible to break it.
So many ways to die, only one way to live...
NBK

qzjul Game profile

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May 15th 2010, 15:43:41

it only pays for your military upkeep if you have crazy low nw
Finally did the signature thing.

Kill4Free Game profile

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May 15th 2010, 16:40:21

If it isnt profitable why are all the competitive countries doing it, and doing extremely well in networth?
So many ways to die, only one way to live...
NBK

RaTS FYA Game profile

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May 15th 2010, 23:12:06

Thats the thing is you dont have to rebuild qz, once you get over a certain amount of land, your generating more incoming off empty acres then you would in fully built fully teched achievable countries can pull off, along with have more military then normal people can hope to achieve while still being in the green and continuing your tirade.

Just look at the FFA countries they are creating millions of food a turn while making positive income on super impressive standing militaries.
<~qzjul> it gives you a good introduction to orbital mechanics and a good appreciation for how central delta-V is and thrust to weight ratio
<RaTSFYA>The only thrust to weight ratio I'm worried about involves the women I pick up at bars

llaar Game profile

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May 17th 2010, 16:27:36

i think the highest % of land built that i have is around 8% land built

self farming really completely destroys the countries

i wasn't aiming for netting, just for having fun with land though

starstalker4

Member
292

May 17th 2010, 16:46:32

ghost acres were a bad idea to begin with and their failure is apparent

to solve the problem of bottom feeding raise the % of nw below which one can not attack insead of 10% make it 25%
if you can win a game without ever fighting a battle; it is not a war game

Route81 Game profile

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114

May 17th 2010, 16:58:09

Non-build acres shouldn't generate food or population as it does now. It actually shouldn't generate anything unless build. In RL you aren't getting anything for land you do nothing with either.

Forcing people to build the empty land in order to benefit from it would make it more competitive for all and make self-farming less interesting without removing it from the game.
ex-
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llaar Game profile

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May 17th 2010, 18:31:05

you do realize you'd have like no production of food or people at turn 0 then, when you have 0 buildings

no income, no food, you'd make 2 turns of buildings then be stuck

when you do batch explores from 2k to 4k land though, that extra production of bushels and cash is what helps you build it

when a country gets bigger, people move and settle there, and start working on the land. it makes sense for population and food to increase. when you take their land away and put other buildings, your food production drops and those people get to work doing other things, but the people are still busy, so your population stays the same. logical to me the way it currently works

Kill4Free Game profile

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May 17th 2010, 18:37:10

I think route is onto something, although maybe not that harsh.
I think everyone would agree that the bulk of the extra income is from food with a ton of land. If empty acres made no food, this would cripple the ability for self farmed countries to get to these levels.

Population still needs to come at same rate, so it would be a bad idea to change that. Even with a ton of acres the amount of tax you get from pop doesn't matter compared to the income from food.

I think it is 2 food a empty acre, when you have a hundred thousand empty acres you are already making more then a max tech 20k land country full built up, before tech even comes into play for the big land country.
So many ways to die, only one way to live...
NBK

llaar Game profile

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May 17th 2010, 18:52:27

hundred thousand acres?

13 of 2,846 countries have over 100k acres

thats less than one half of one percent of the server

thats the same % of players in alliance server that finished over 130 million NW last reset. should we try to find a way so that people cant finish over 130 million NW in alliance server as well?

you guys act like half the server is over 100k land and self farming like crazy, which i don't see to be the case

Edited By: llaar on May 17th 2010, 18:57:00

Kill4Free Game profile

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May 17th 2010, 19:07:21

Well you are incorrect llaar. A very large fraction of the server does self farm. And you have to count the farms of countries that self farm in the process too. Once you count every country that is involved in the entire process, probably like 1/4 or 1/5 of everyone does it to some extent.

And don't fool around llaar, you know that anyone if they wanted to could get 100k acres well before the first month of the set is up if they planned it well.

The way it affects the server is that no one grabs other people anymore really. 90% of landgrabs of everyone are on themselves. SS and PS is almost no point to it anymore, you can make your own acres that you don't have to risk losing in a retal. That is what I have a problem with. If everyone lg'ed pretty much everyone then ghost acres would be made on their own and the best man stands on top. Now people who attack just themselves win, and as a consequence very few people attack anyone other then themselves, which compounds the self farming issue.

So many ways to die, only one way to live...
NBK

llaar Game profile

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May 17th 2010, 19:33:35

so basically anyone could get 130 million NW in alliance server if they planned it well

right?

a few people knowing how to reach the extremes of NW or land doesn't mean the formulas need to change

i personally just wanted to beat my land record first without ghost acres (last set) and then again with ghost acres (this set)

i'm probably not even playing next set FFA

llaar Game profile

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May 17th 2010, 19:34:21

and i'm not counting the # of self farmers, just the # of extreme cases.. which is a small %. thats all :)

Kill4Free Game profile

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May 17th 2010, 20:45:19

I know llaar, I know how to get super high land too, I know the game well, I just refuse to do it.
But eventually even normal players can figure out how to do it. I am not complaining about this set, as if you weren't allied to NBK I woulda been grabbing a lot of my land myself.

I just want a active ffa, where lots of people attack other people. People get retals people can do grabs, a lot of extra acres are made for the community in general. Self farming doesn't do that, and hurts everyone but you in the long run. And a ton less fun :P
So many ways to die, only one way to live...
NBK

RaTS FYA Game profile

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May 17th 2010, 21:15:53

The main problem is its a more viable strat then anything else. and theirs no downside, if everyone plays techers, techers fail, if everyone plays farmers they semi fail, if everyone plays cashers they fail, same with if everyone tried to stock oil they would all fail, or if everyone tried to buyout food theyd fail.


With the self farming, their is no downside, so its a gauranteed top 10 finish, and you didnt do anything but lg a bunch, no tech, no buildings, no market manipulation.

Show me a person in 1a, that relied on themselves completely, and didnt play the market well that gets that high in 1a. Its a flawed annalogy.

Another thing wrong with your percent talk, how many of those 2846 countries where involved in war, or had sufficient tag protection to actually allow them to get over 100k acres without being owned for it. Ding ding ding, LAE members only pretty much.
<~qzjul> it gives you a good introduction to orbital mechanics and a good appreciation for how central delta-V is and thrust to weight ratio
<RaTSFYA>The only thrust to weight ratio I'm worried about involves the women I pick up at bars

Kill4Free Game profile

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May 17th 2010, 21:20:07

Which on a side note were protected by multies, who for the most part ran their own self farms and let the clan farm them.
So many ways to die, only one way to live...
NBK

RaTS FYA Game profile

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May 17th 2010, 21:24:32

And anything that allows you to make 24 billion in a single day, with no tech and no built acres just from food, is a broken thing, and qzjul, do the calcs for me, but explain to me how 10 mil bushels a turn, plus taxes off that land which probably generate another 10 mil at least a turn, means you have to have a low military for that not to be insanely profitable.

PS with my miltary which is pretty obsene to ever think about sustaining on a turn by turn basis, Hes still making 260 mil a turn.
<~qzjul> it gives you a good introduction to orbital mechanics and a good appreciation for how central delta-V is and thrust to weight ratio
<RaTSFYA>The only thrust to weight ratio I'm worried about involves the women I pick up at bars

trainboy Game profile

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May 17th 2010, 22:17:54

:P
my 2 cents is llaars own words

he made 1m acres with no ghost acres, so they arent the issue

if its a issue, above 50k or a cap to be agreed vacant acres dont produce or ghost acres only generate outside of hitting your clan.

I agree self farming is agaisnt the sprit of the game and probably does take a bit away from any achievements but at the same time, why should anyone have somebody telling them to play the game the way you want

and K4F i think its safe to say anyone who wanted lots of land could self farm it its not a particulary hard concept

:P

Billyjoe of UCF Game profile

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May 17th 2010, 22:44:43

trainboy then people will just have their farms outside of clan... also whats to stop two people from just farming 14 of the other guys rinse and repeat... there will always be a way around everything. I'm not pro self farming i'm not against it.. just playing devils advocate and you will need those to get things just right.

i like unbuilt land = nothing or perhaps even hurts you... for example if you have more then 10% land unbuilt then it starts to negatively effect you.

Kill4Free Game profile

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May 17th 2010, 23:18:51

"he made 1m acres with no ghost acres, so they arent the issue"

Wrong, lots and lots of ghost acres involved. Ghost acres compound. If you have a high enough bpt itll pay for itself in the long run.

Unbuilt land = just population gain, I have no problem with that. But gaining 40% of the amount of food you would gain while built, is what did this. Simply removing the food aspect of empty land makes sense in fixing this and will not significantly affect anyone other then self farmers.
So many ways to die, only one way to live...
NBK

llaar Game profile

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May 17th 2010, 23:50:37

i made 1 mill acres last set. no ghost acres were around last set

currently with 5 million acres, im making around 70 mill cash/turn (bushels minus my expenses)

which a 100k fully built casher would make (i think?)... or less?

so... i have to have 50 times that land with unbuilt land for the same production? i dont think that really makes unbuilt land make too much

Edited By: llaar on May 17th 2010, 23:50:57

Kill4Free Game profile

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May 18th 2010, 10:45:00

With no ghost acres it is extremely hard to do well and would admittedly cripple your other countries.
With ghost acres it is dead easy.
So many ways to die, only one way to live...
NBK

iZarcon Game profile

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May 18th 2010, 11:14:58

was just going to mention that i got grabbed in express(a few times, but only noticed it once) and when i went to rebuild the ones that were destroyed.. i had all my acres built up.

so, not sure if the script for destroying enemy buildings is working correctly.
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RaTS FYA Game profile

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May 18th 2010, 14:10:11

and llaar, how much military are you running on that monstrosity?

Because i know its alot more then the 100k rep casher can ever think of holding, and still running turns.
<~qzjul> it gives you a good introduction to orbital mechanics and a good appreciation for how central delta-V is and thrust to weight ratio
<RaTSFYA>The only thrust to weight ratio I'm worried about involves the women I pick up at bars

llaar Game profile

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May 18th 2010, 15:17:58

true

<3

will post a status end of set

Crippler ICD Game profile

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May 18th 2010, 17:28:19

this is so simple that it's stupid

make grabbing follow exploring rules aka most you can get in a grab can not exceed the built to unbuilt ratio.
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[14:26] <enshula> i cant believe im going to say this
[14:26] <enshula> crippler is giving us correct netting advice