Since everyone is getting bored, why not decrease oil consumption and increase the private market sell price to 145 (with maxed tech)? That would give us another viable strategy to play.

They increased the production of oil recently which increased supply. And when supply goes up...

I know, but the floor on it is the real problem. If they fix the private market sell price, they fix the floor and make it a viable strategy.

There is a server where you can sell oil on the private market?

Yes, express, but the base unit is only 60. I forget the max of military tech at the moment and I can't access the wiki at work, but to compete with the other strategies I think selling oil on the pm should be added to all servers with a full military tech sell price of about 145. This would bring facism oiler to almost exactly the same income per acre as a facism farmer when prices have hit the floor. If this change was made we'd have a new strategy that could compete.

Disagree Helmet, facism farmer takes a lot of tech to make work, oiler requires 0 tech so has max income from start.

The best balance would probably be to make PM sell price 90 or so at most, that way a facism will make more money farming after he gets tech, but more money oiling if he doesnt.

Although this would lead to an insane advantage for the first few hundred turns.

There really needs to be oil tech to balance it out.

Or have Agri Tech play a role in Oil production.

Hmm picking a tech to go with it is a good idea, but not agri tech. Perhaps Mil Strat tech, helps increase oil production, or warfare tech. Would boost the netting prices of those techs up to balance things out, and make people think twice about attacking an oiler.

Or they could just cut oil production in half. That'd be the simplest way to balance it.

Giving an oil production tech would weaken the oiler strategy, not strengthen it.

Actually, I hadn't thought about the startup advantage. Facism oiler would have one hell of a strong startup. I actually like the idea of making agro and oiler tech one in the same. Then you can run a mix or go full one or the other. I don't see any reason why they should be separate.

Why not make industrial tech & agricultural tech & oil production tech the same then?

Or double consumption.

As for which tech should help it, it has to NOT be an income tech.

IMO make it mil strat tech, so cap is 140% oil generation, and it gives countries other then grabbers a reason to get that tech.
Making it agri tech, would basically make teching anything else useless, as agri is the best selling as it is, let alone increasing it.

Grabbers aren't the only ones that get Mil Strat. All the warring countries do as well. And those who don't grab, but retal. I'm glad Military Strategy is being combined with Oil production.

Perhaps while we're at it we can suggest that Obama merge the U.S. Secret Service with the Department of Forestry.

Maybe we'll make medical tech increase oil production so people will actually buy it...

jk of course ;)

qz,
i know you were joking when you made the suggestion
but it is a great idea for express
and one i would have proposed weeks ago if there were still any people who thoughtfully responded to ideas on the express forum

speaking of express only, the only people who buy medical are people who plan on launching numerous attacks
but those people first have to max weapons and mil strat so the demand is miniscule
plus by late saturday night people are usually dumping jets for $128 so there is little incentive to protect them

if this tech also doubled oil production people might buy it and you would see an increase in the number of those fast-closing LG countries which you despise so vehemently

i understand you will not aid those countries but one can dream

So if we made the base pm sell price of oil 121 (145 maxed military) and made it Agro/oil discovery one tech or even make it it's own tech. Doesn't matter to me.

That would be cool. I guess consumption could be increased, but you wouldn't want to do anything major.

maybe you make oil production 1.5 for Facism (.85 for other), with 230% tech max.

Boom, we have a new strategy to play.

Lincoln you realize medical tech only helps on defended military losses and not offensive losses, right?

Funny, people have wanted for years to make oiler a viable strategy, but the same interest has not been given towards making Theo MBR a viable strategy. Oiler is far more common and far easier than a theo MBR.

And this is something that would increase the important of Med Tech, if that's what we're trying to do. If Med Tech helped combat the losses during offensive attacks we would see a greater demand for it.

Oiler is usually fine and can be really powerful mid set. The trick is to not stay an oiler.

I don't see that as an option personally. If you're a facism already, you're better off just staying farmer.

If you're not facism you're going to switch govs to play oiler for 2 weeks and then back to something else? 2+ switches in the same set?

oil prices tend to go WAY up at times you have your chance to make your money then

If a decently sized war breaks out around turn 1,000 you will love being an oiler.

Oiler is the riskiest strat in the game. It takes a lot of luck, unless you organize oil buyouts. You get a big payday on your Oil stock, but after a few days of huge oil prices, the profits begin to dwindle as everybody else dumps their oil stock. So it's not a long term viable strategy, just waiting for the reset's 24 hour window where the payday makes it all worth it. Miss out, and your strategy choice sucks :P

2 things can be done to help improve oiler.

1)A base price on the PM - 90-100 sounds about right.

2) Increase oil consumption

a) More countries grabbing

b) Oil as a per turn expense (say one barrel per 200 acres over 7k land), combined with a reduction in oil consumption on attacks (down to 1 barrel per 60 or so units).

This could make oiler a more stable strategy, but still provide a jump in price when alliances go to war.

MBR is even riskier. For quite a while, if you price your military too high, your production drops off completely. Without the cash to buy military off your private market, you have no income. Its not until you build up a decent stockpile of cash on hand that your military getting stuck isn't a problem. You can always recall your goods, but that can set you back 6-8 hours, and you'll be selling at a much lower price because you can't afford to have it get stuck again.

:|

To my knowledge the admins have been considering improving the oil strat for some time but it has been a sensitive topic. I think you will see some changes eventually. Perhaps one of them will comment on a plausible timeline.

I think the biggest issue is that the admins don't want to dilute the market. If we had 4x as many players, then more stratgies would be viable. At the moment, too many strategies is going to mean the market becomes like it is in Express. Horrible.

I will dilute your wheaties with my pee.

Just don't follow the model of the British Petroleum co ;P

EE needs more players ><