Feb 6th 2013, 16:55:07
I'll explain why it isn't worth it to landtrade Andrew. Consider these 2 scenarios:
Scenario A: Bottomfeed for 2k land with your 54 turns.
You perform about 3 PSes on 3 targets using about 1/3 of your turns, build the 2k land with your next 1/3, and you can explore or cash the last 1/3 and use the cash generated here to buy tech and defenses for your newly gained land. Your tech% is maintained, your CS count is maintained.
Scenario B: You lose 4k land, but gain 7k land due to a landtrade (if the exchange is 4000(7000) for both sides), for a net gain of 3k acres. You need to build about 6k acres despite gaining only 3k. [Your estimate of building only 5500A gaining 4000A is way off, you will be building a lot closer to 8000A.]
You spend all your jets doing a single huge PS, and build almost 6k acres with all your remainder turns. In fact, you would need 120 BPT (as a Dictator, you would need to even build about 670 CS to get that high) 6k acres in a single day's 50 turns after deducting 2 turns for the PS, and a few more for spy ops. It's more likely you need 1.5 days of turns to build all the land (and that you have also lost about 5 BPT in the exchange).
In both scenarios, when you are building a full BPT of buildings, the cost needed is pretty close to your per-turn income. So while building land, the income earned that turn goes towards building acres.
So for scenario A, the player spends 1/3 of his daily income and turns building the 2k acres, and the remaining 2/3 is money that can buy turrets and tech for the new land.
In scenario B, the player spends ALL his daily income building every single turn, and has no money for tech or turrets, not only that, the building spills over to the next day, taking maybe 1.5 days in total for 3k acres of gain, taking into account replacing some of the CSes lost in the exchange (or your next trade takes even more turns to build), so about the same rate of gaining land as Scenario A (2k per day).
But this gets worse the more you trade, and you won't have money to maintain your tech base and you will fall behind your non-trading competitors.
Also in scenario A, you don't lose turrets since you don't get retalled. In scenario B, you lose turrets since you get retalled. That is another cost to factor in. (I assume in both cases, jets used is roughly about the same: 1 big PS vs 3 smaller PSes.)
Scenario A: Bottomfeed for 2k land with your 54 turns.
You perform about 3 PSes on 3 targets using about 1/3 of your turns, build the 2k land with your next 1/3, and you can explore or cash the last 1/3 and use the cash generated here to buy tech and defenses for your newly gained land. Your tech% is maintained, your CS count is maintained.
Scenario B: You lose 4k land, but gain 7k land due to a landtrade (if the exchange is 4000(7000) for both sides), for a net gain of 3k acres. You need to build about 6k acres despite gaining only 3k. [Your estimate of building only 5500A gaining 4000A is way off, you will be building a lot closer to 8000A.]
You spend all your jets doing a single huge PS, and build almost 6k acres with all your remainder turns. In fact, you would need 120 BPT (as a Dictator, you would need to even build about 670 CS to get that high) 6k acres in a single day's 50 turns after deducting 2 turns for the PS, and a few more for spy ops. It's more likely you need 1.5 days of turns to build all the land (and that you have also lost about 5 BPT in the exchange).
In both scenarios, when you are building a full BPT of buildings, the cost needed is pretty close to your per-turn income. So while building land, the income earned that turn goes towards building acres.
So for scenario A, the player spends 1/3 of his daily income and turns building the 2k acres, and the remaining 2/3 is money that can buy turrets and tech for the new land.
In scenario B, the player spends ALL his daily income building every single turn, and has no money for tech or turrets, not only that, the building spills over to the next day, taking maybe 1.5 days in total for 3k acres of gain, taking into account replacing some of the CSes lost in the exchange (or your next trade takes even more turns to build), so about the same rate of gaining land as Scenario A (2k per day).
But this gets worse the more you trade, and you won't have money to maintain your tech base and you will fall behind your non-trading competitors.
Also in scenario A, you don't lose turrets since you don't get retalled. In scenario B, you lose turrets since you get retalled. That is another cost to factor in. (I assume in both cases, jets used is roughly about the same: 1 big PS vs 3 smaller PSes.)