I think I've calculated a way to get t10 as a dictator, provided 18 million gets me in.

Good luck. You can explain it to us when you do in return for all your questions.

Go for it, best way to prove ford wrong is to do it :)

prove me wrong exactly how?

I think he's referring to your comment earlier "dict isnt a good netter on any server. sure, some super player can calc out some fluff and make a t-10".

According to your statement, I would be a super player if I made t-10 with a dictator.

try commie casher

hmm, it seems like I still hold the NW record for dictator in express after so many years? lol

23,917,565 NW (Round 113 - oldman ran out of ideas for name #99)

No one's playing it lol.

yeah this server is short for a dic, AND dic got nerfed because of some alliance server fluff

best way to get t10 as dict? kill all known t10 countries?

Hey Oldman- I sent you a PM.

i still dont see where you getting a top 10 with a dict would be proving me wrong. doesnt make it a good netting steategy, and you misunderstood what i ment by super player. i ment super attentive to their country. anyone who spends the time to calc and log in 30 times a day can get a t10 with any country. even cereberus probably could. super active, not super skilled.

so what statment that i made would you be proving me wrong by making a t10. pertty sure i never made any statments to be proved wrong here. but whatever motivation you need.

If I go Theo all the way then change to dict before destocking does that count LOL?

lol bullfluff

maybe cereberus was pushing it a bit, but my point still stands!

t10 is very easy if you're good, if you haven't figured out the game yet though it can be quite difficult. and that's not even bringing dictator into it. dictator will probably be hard

I'm referring to one switch. M --> I

Does everyone agree with Mrford's opinion, that anyone can make t10 with any country if they're super active? (Super active defined as 30x a day).

anyone? No.

Some people aren't very good at the netting aspect of this game, regardless of activity.

However, I think you keep construing his points. In his own way he's trying to help you by telling you to go with a different strategy if you want a top 10 so badly.

I can see dictator's bonuses contributing to netting in an indirect way.

Military bonus allows:
1. You get LG'd less (Which means you don't lose turrets (NW) or tech points (NW) when getting attacked.
2. Use lose fewer planes (NW) when attacking.
3. Use less oil (NW) when attacking.
4. Top feeding which give significantly larger gains. (NW)
5. Smaller military needed on hand (fewer expenses per turn) (NW)

Spy bonus allows:
1. Bomb banks, which enabled me to steal 9 million a turn (against a player who stockpiles). (NW)
2. Espionage, great returns, expandable to steal more than any TPT (NW)
3. Finding softer targets when attacking, which maximizes ghost acres and prevents oversending (NW)

Construction drawback remedy:
1. Target countries of similar build to capture buildings and ensure your military strategy is near 140%.

Extra note:
If weapons tech is 20% your military has the strength of a non-dictator's PS, which allows massive gains in attacking without the 2hr drawback. (For an example, it takes 141 turns to batch explore from 3800 to 7600. Using this bonus a dictator can achieve 3800 acres in 20 turns. (approx 400A per SS attack which isnt too difficult if you factor in the ghost acres).

Ive just began netting in last year, top 10 is not as easy as Ford makes it sound..

Celphi , be honest friend, if Dictator was a viable government for netting wouldn't every netter use it?

My goal isn't achieving t10. It's achieving t10 with dictator. In my opinion- that's the most challenging way to play this game. I understand the gov't dictator doesn't compare to the REAL netting gov't; but, I think using their indirect netting abilities, dictators can become a hybrid of the two. Besides, on Express, it's really whomever is crazy enough to attack x2 will basically lose on the spot if the retaller so do wishes it.

@flgatorboy89

Yes. I agree it's harder for sure. That's why I want to do it. Honestly, I don't see the enjoyment of making top 10 as a H, R, or D; but, that's just my opinion.

F gov't probably has it worse of them all. Warring ability sucks and their netting ability is so so; but, on Express it really doesn't matter if you're a warring country or not; because you really can't do ANYTHING unless someone attacks you x2.

Sure there are positives to every government type, but there are also negatives.
What's your best finish to date? Perhaps you should work on getting a top 10 with another strat, and then work your way up to Dictator.

I think one thing not discussed here is WHEN do you switch to dictator?

When exploring is no longer viable. @7600 acres on Xpress.

Where did you get that number?

it's a good # imo

I think that depends entirely on strat, I'm just curious where the number came from.

Hey, Ford, you're a tool and should shut the fluff up.

btw, ford, learn to spell.

I got the 7600A # using logic and the explore chart.
Consider my 5 points:

1. If you plan to switch to a dictator you want to stay monarch as long as possible to maximize building capabilities.

2. Batch exploring is the fastest way to expand your land in the fewest amount of turns pre 1920A; however, since there's a max population penalty in the beginning, it's actually better to spiral up in acres pre 1920A. (And to be more accurate the penalty is NOT based on acres reaching 1920A but rather 80% of population).

3. Before 1920A you receive 45A per turn up to apprx 40-45 turns which will get you to 3800A. From there you can either attack or batch explore again. It seems more logical to batch again, since the returns by attacking at 1900A-3800A would be rather small. (I don't understand the logic of attacking pre-3800A since most attacks take 2 turns and they typically give 90-100A which is about the same from exploring w/ no unit loss).

4. Remember- on express you can only hit once or you'll risk get flattened- so it seems like a better approach to save those 1 hits for when batch explore returns are too small to be efficient. (The Express server has a small population, so I believe it's better to save targets near the end of the set rather than for the beginning.)

5. Since Express has approx 1850-1900 turns, it seems illogical to use 506 turns to go from 7600A to 15200A. That only leaves one option to increase land after 7600A & that's through attacking.

Thus, @ 7600A, in my opinion, I believe is the appropriate time to switch from monarch to dictator on the EXPRESS server.

Note on #5: 506 turns at once isn't possible (obviously).

If this logic held true then by now mrford and Marshal would have written the Great American Novel. Its the same logic as saying that 1 million monkeys banging on typewriters for 1 million years would be able to duplicate Shakespeare's "King Lear"

:D

I made #11 in express with a Demo Techer once, but still havn't managed to make a top ten on any server. I am an active player, but not a very skilled player, although I have been playing this game on and off for almost 15 years. I do enjoy playing the game, so I don't really care about making a to ten if I cannot do it on my own. For those who get nurtured into a top ten, it's not very authentic, but I suppose it will do.

posting on the boards isnt running a country. you want to point out flaws in my logic, yet leave a glaring hole in yours, lol.

you would be suprised how little time i spend running countries.

You are absolutely right mrford :) I just enjoy trying to out troll you sometimes

impossible. you need far more practice

Hey, I'm trying!

Hi Celphi. exploring past 3k land, and at most 4k land is a bad idea. Can get that same land with attacks, and have turns left over to build it. All those turns, I'll be happily building CSes and saving even more turns to grab even more. Batch exploring is also weakened now because your production is proportional to your population size divided by max population size, and the sudden increase in your land will cut production. If you explore from say 4k to 6k, it is also inefficient to build those 2k acres all at the build-cost of 6k acres. instead of a gradual price increase of.

Dicts penalty is mainly the BPT one, and batch exploring is the worst way to go, because you want to build A LOT of CS with your turns, not spend them exploring. Dict even gets grabbing bonus of ghost acres to help with this.

While there are certainly people that have finished top 10 with all-explorers, they only did so with very favourable market conditions, and this is an express-server only thing, because Batch Exploring is "stronger" on this server due to being able to hold up to 360 turns.

wow xin, that's pretty wrong. like, most of it.

for example, lol finishing top 10 with an all-x does not take "very favorable market conditions." i (or you, probably) could do it every single reset, i guarantee. secondly, batch exploring is not "stronger" on express since it's probably not even worth batch exploring once the 1900->3800 explore run is over. even that one is debatable last i heard.

finally, there are benefits to exploring up past 5k acres, and for urnning an explorer early in general. mainly, the ability to run on very low def, and to funnel extreme amounts of your income into tech. why? because there is no one to retal you, and if anyone makes the mistake of grabbing your high tech country, that's a good retal opportunity in a lot of cases.

that's not to mention what celphi said, and which is true, about preserving targets until after you've got the best out of your explore pool

I'd agree with most everything Xin said, except for the all-x top 10.

I run an all-x casher into the top 10 whenever I get bored, and it's pretty easy to do to be honest.
Other then that, his line of thinking is in line with what mine was. Which is why I questioned the 7k number to begin with.

To each there own I guess, it just shows nobody has taken the time to perfect the Dict netting strat yet :P

I think that's because of the smaller player pool compared to when xin last played express..

Yeah. probably. I haven't played Express for about 2.5 years, so I can't fully comment on the viability of all-explore on Express.