1 Republic Casher 95 85,626 acres $160,826,380 RG 1878 - oldman (Rep Casher)
2 Out of Office 30 81,997 acres $144,772,513 RG 1766 - reroll (Rep Casher)
3 Init 158 75,410 acres $138,079,473 RG 1831 - aqua (Rep Casher)
4 KineticciteniK 116 69,927 acres $137,101,969 CG 1961 - afaik (Commie Indy)
5 Sankara 226 71,581 acres $134,220,328 CG 1875 - blid (Commie Indy)

6 Creative Strategies 228 69,468 acres $127,684,641 CG 1838 - Xinhuan (Commie Indy)
7 My Bitter Respite 212 66,883 acres $126,429,427 HG 1890 - metgyl (Theo Casher)
8 EEVIL WAR MACHINE 75 61,392 acres $124,315,591 CG 2025 - Serpentor (Commie Indy)
9 h2o 23 67,237 acres $120,500,000 CG 1792 - h2orich (Commie Indy)
10 Contagious 130 78,925 acres $119,576,460 HG 1515 - herbs12 (Theo Casher)

11 orcs must die 287 70,161 acres $117,941,939 RG 1681 - ingle (Rep Casher)
12 Cendrillon 220 57,307 acres $107,513,723 DG 1876 - jedioda (Demo Farmer)
13 Bastards Of Anarchy 199 37,629 acres $105,437,490 DG 2802 - crest23 (Demo Techer)
14 iNeverSaidMostOfTheThingsISaid 153 32,569 acres $89,057,595 HG 2734 - rob (Theo Techer)
15 techingtothetopofprimary 122 34,362 acres $87,560,065 DG 2548 - vintageplayer (Demo Techer)

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<blid>: Congratulations on winning the 17th round of Primary, oldman. I wanted to hear a few of your thoughts after such a legendary score. You smashed that old Republic record, you entered an exclusive club by scoring over 150m, posted the second highest score of all time, and set the land record. Not bad for one set.
<blid>: You named your country Republic Casher. Did you set out to play the definitive "Republic casher"?

<oldman>: yes, I did. I played half the previous set as a rep casher before deleting my country as I was away for 2+ weeks in Europe for holiday (having fun outside EE always has higher priorities over EE lol). So I decided to go for it again in the next one.

<blid>: Is Republic casher your favorite type of country to run?

<oldman>: I play other strategies as well (CI, theo tech, theo cash, demo tech etc), but I have had the most success with rep cash. As for whether it's my fav type, I will say that I really do not have any preference.

<blid>: This is a legendary score. No one had scored over 140m for over a year. Do you think 160m can be matched anytime soon?

<oldman>: Hopefully I will match it soon again myself =) But on a serious note, there are quite a number of players who are capable of getting this score, so why not?

<blid>: Speaking of capable players, you pulled away from some expert cashers at the end. How do you think you were able to outpace them by over 15m, if you don't mind sharing?

<oldman>: I think I was ahead of the other 2 big cashers (reroll and aqua) by at least a day or 2, so the 15m NW isn't that much of a surprise. Aqua was hit a few times earlier in the set, which set him back slight. I think i grabbed slightly faster than reroll, so that was the difference

<blid>: You also won with a Republic casher exactly one year ago. That country scored 113m. Why do you think networths have gotten so much higher, and do you think it will continue?
<blid>: That country would not have made the top ten this round.

<oldman>: More good players are now playing primary. The top10 NW cut off increase over the year tells you that. I remembered the set that I won with a rep cash a year ago was my 2nd set in Primary (probably my 3rd month in EE). I spent my bonuses on PCI booms the whole set instead of expenses which typical cashers will do nowadays. That probably cost me quite a bit of
NW. So comparing now and then, I would say the difference is my skills (probably improved slightly).

<blid>: As you said, that win was just your second set in Primary. Had you been around EE before that, perhaps in Alliance, or were those sets your first return from previous Earth:2025 days? What's your history?

<oldman>: No, I started EE in primary and express. I did play earth2025 in the good old days. I was active from 1997-2001. Quit and came back once in a while throughout the last decade. Only officially came back to EE in July 2011 I believe. I re-joined alliance only end of 2011. I've always been in LaF though (since 1997).
<Xinhuan>: (additional notes: oldman actually didn't rejoin alliance server until 2 sets ago - he felt he didn't have time to bottomfeed/camp DR on alliance, until i convinced him we have all-explorers that made t25)
<Xinhuan>: or was it 3 sets ago
<oldman>: 3 i guess
<oldman>: early 2012

<blid>: Do you enjoy Alliance and Tournament as much as Primary?

<oldman>: Each server presents a different set of challenges. In tournament, you have to get fat at the expense of farming people and risk going to war. In alliance, you've to camp DR for land (which totally sucks and not to my liking) and in primary, you can't double tap or risk being a parking lot. That's not really answering the question lol. But if you really need an answer, it will be that I enjoy all 3 servers, each one for a different reason (tournament because it's really dependent on yourself i.e. no allies, primary because I've quite a bit of success there and alliance because of my alliance mates)

<blid>: I sometimes say I'd like to see offensive allies removed from solo games, and research allies revamped to prevent leeching. Is there any change you'd like to see brought to the game?

<oldman>: Well, if we could remove DR exploitation in express, I might go back to play it again. Removing offensive allies sounds like a good idea too especially we have had some countries leech jets in the past few sets of primary and quite a lot of people were put off by it (including myself).
<oldman>: The benefits of offensive allies are just too great
<oldman>: even if we don't remove it, maybe we could tone it down

<blid>: You used to win Express all the time. What are your thoughts on that server? Would you ever come back (perhaps if DR was changed) to attempt to match some of the recent scores that have been posted?

<oldman>: Express takes too much time. One of the reasons I quit express was because of insufficient time. If DR ever gets changed, I might consider coming back to play once in a while, but won't be doing it every week.
<Xinhuan>: (mention that the promised changes was well over 7 months ago)
<oldman>: lol yes, add that in
*ed note: Mods have been authorized to delete for abusing DR, which seems to have limited the DR problem.

<blid>: Back to Primary, Republics finished 1-2-3 this set. I know the high food prices lingered a bit late for your liking, but do you think this was the Republic's round?

<oldman>: The tech prices were lower than average this set, I guess that offsets the higher food prices. Also the food prices crashed within a short time, that worked to the favours of the cashers as well

<blid>: The food prices may have slowed down some of those Theo cashers this set. You previously scored 138m as a Theo casher. Could that score have been better if you'd gone Republic?
<blid>: Could it have hinted what was to come this round?

<oldman>: Yes, I would definitely have scored better as a rep casher the round I won as a theo cash. Rep cash >> theo cash! the amount of cash/turn difference is really significant at 70k acres
<oldman>: Reroll would have won with his rep cash that round even after going through so much trouble. It just goes to show that when a rep cash is played right, a theo cash can't beat it even if the skills of the players are equal

<blid>: You've won a record four times, matching afaik. Your previous three wins were all incredibly close (opponents overslept (Reroll), ran out of food, or finished in a near tie). Is this your most satisfying win?

<oldman>: haha, yeah, you could say that. This was a round where I knew I had it a while back (if nothing goes wrong). The others were finger biting lol
<oldman>: I prefer this much more than the others =P

<blid>: Did you really make an extra couple attacks you wouldn't otherwise have made, just to snag the land record while you were at it?

<oldman>: I figured with the food prices being so high, I'm better off continuing to grab. Stocking bushels at high price and then selling them for $35 isn't very smart IMO.
<oldman>: It wasn't until I hit 80k that I decided to go for the land record.

<blid>: Thanks for talking with me, oldman! Will you be back next set? Any ideas what you'll be playing, or advice for the rest of us? Shout-outs, final comments?

<oldman>: Yes, I will definitely be back next set. I haven't really made up my mind on what I will play though. It will likely not be casher though. I would like to see the following: afaik playing a demo farmer, rob playing a commie indy, crest playing rep casher, blid plays a theo techer, reroll plays a commie indy, aqua running a theo techer, serp running a rep cash
<oldman>: you get the idea.. =P

<blid>: I'll play a techer for you.
<blid>: Thanks for chatting with me.