Verified:

Rocky79 Game profile

Member
619

Jan 5th 2022, 20:40:59

more bots?

Can whoever is in charge add 50 or 500 more bots please and see how it goes?

KoHeartsGPA Game profile

Member
EE Patron
29,485

Jan 5th 2022, 20:43:12

No
Mess with me you better kill me, or I'll just take your pride & joy and jack it up
(•_•)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W6VRMGTwU4I
-=TSO~DKnights~ICD~XI~LaF=-

S.F. Giants 2010, 2012, 2014 World Series Champions, fluff YEAH!

Gerdler Game profile

Forum Moderator
5077

Jan 5th 2022, 21:58:03

More bots need to have a purpose. Right now the balance is, while certainly not concievably perfect, it's better than its ever been.
The last 5 years of express can be summed up in 3 eras:
1. 35-bot era: Back in 2017 the only viable strat was tyranny techer to demo tech, because techer was best but the DR was so huge that the 1 turn attack was impossible to compete with. How good is a game if only one strat is viable?
2. The 50 bot era, with bots that buy some defence: This lowered DRs a lot which meant that theo techers, mon -> demo techer, and straight demo techers as well as commie indies could compete. Sure there was 1-2 cashers and 2-3 farmers that won in those 150 resets, but it was 70-80% techer wins and the rest CI wins. Not very balanced, tho better.
3. We got 60 bots since like April 2021 and some changes to bots tech buying and the way bots destock: Now CI, FFO, Demo farmer, dict Farmer, theo casher, as well as all the techers all viable.

Given more bots would reduce DR so much that it's likely that fewer strats would be viable. Further, grabbing would be too easy.
The state of balance on this server is better than it has been at the very least for the past 5 years. So many strats can win almost every reset. This is what made so many vets come back to the server this spring. We had Molotov, Tmac, Nitell, myself, Kingme, cordy etc etc all come in to try the new bots, and compete to try and find the new ways to play in this environment.

I would invite you all to grab to 50k acres fully built in 1500 turns on this server, without grabbing a player. This is something all decent players can do. If you stop there and get good techs + play a proper endgame, get you 65m+ NW. If you can't do this, it's not because there are too few bots, it's because you have a lot to learn and should focus on that.

Edited By: Gerdler on Jan 5th 2022, 22:07:00

SuperFly Game profile

Member
5061

Jan 6th 2022, 2:08:07

I’d request 500 bots ASAP. Hard to find a bot that isn’t deep in DR already

Kahuna Game profile

Member
1312

Jan 7th 2022, 12:31:46

Originally posted by Gerdler:
More bots need to have a purpose. Right now the balance is, while certainly not concievably perfect, it's better than its ever been.
The last 5 years of express can be summed up in 3 eras:
1. 35-bot era: Back in 2017 the only viable strat was tyranny techer to demo tech, because techer was best but the DR was so huge that the 1 turn attack was impossible to compete with. How good is a game if only one strat is viable?
2. The 50 bot era, with bots that buy some defence: This lowered DRs a lot which meant that theo techers, mon -> demo techer, and straight demo techers as well as commie indies could compete. Sure there was 1-2 cashers and 2-3 farmers that won in those 150 resets, but it was 70-80% techer wins and the rest CI wins. Not very balanced, tho better.
3. We got 60 bots since like April 2021 and some changes to bots tech buying and the way bots destock: Now CI, FFO, Demo farmer, dict Farmer, theo casher, as well as all the techers all viable.

Given more bots would reduce DR so much that it's likely that fewer strats would be viable. Further, grabbing would be too easy.
The state of balance on this server is better than it has been at the very least for the past 5 years. So many strats can win almost every reset. This is what made so many vets come back to the server this spring. We had Molotov, Tmac, Nitell, myself, Kingme, cordy etc etc all come in to try the new bots, and compete to try and find the new ways to play in this environment.

I would invite you all to grab to 50k acres fully built in 1500 turns on this server, without grabbing a player. This is something all decent players can do. If you stop there and get good techs + play a proper endgame, get you 65m+ NW. If you can't do this, it's not because there are too few bots, it's because you have a lot to learn and should focus on that.


Meh, its still the worst its ever been theres less than 100 players left and a good portion of them are non players, when there used to be more players before. Now it has less people is what am saying.. n yes add more bots please.

Rocky79 Game profile

Member
619

Jan 7th 2022, 13:29:15

I just thought,

if you're going to go as far as to add bots at all, which means you admit that there are not enough human players for the server, why not go all out and add an extra 500 or 5,000 bots and make it look like it is actually still a popular game?

Gerdler Game profile

Forum Moderator
5077

Jan 7th 2022, 13:44:55

You are complaining about DR. DR is a mechanism in the game, I dare say its one of the central mechanisms to the game. If you add 5000 bots, DR will be <2 on all bots and therefore the mechanism will no longer be in use. So all there is to grabbing is govt, mil strat, target acreage and NW matching. Grabbing will be so simple and uninteresting if you basically just hit the bot closest to your NW or highest acreage.

So you essentially got a mechanism you dont understand and you want to remove it all together, rather than doing the work to actually understand it.

Here:
Originally posted by qzjul:

3) Implement Half-Life DR using 72 hour news
    a) Half life of 18 hours * Relative Hit Strength, minimum of 12 hours, maximum of 24 hours (see d for EXPRESS)
        i) ex1. If you hit with an attacking force of 110% of a targets defence, the half-life is 19.8 hours
        ii) ex2. If you fail with 90% the halflife is 16.2
    b) Continuous DR formula: DR_MULTIPLIER = DR_HITS<13 ? MIN( 1, 0.1+((DR_HITS-13)^2)/135) : 0.1
        i) This is a simple smoothed approximation of the existing DR schedule
    c) Hits older than 72 hours are IGNORED
        i) With the exception of ALL-SET COUNTRY:COUNTRY DR, which is calculated with a 168 hour halflife (1 week)
    d) EXPRESS HALF LIFE IS DIFFERENT:
        i) 8 hour half-life (base) for Express (min 6, max 12); 72 hour ALL-SET COUNTRY:COUNTRY DR halflife
    e) Reintroducing the 1/10th chance hits for specials
        i) These was only removed for performance reasons in the past

EXAMPLE OF NUMBER 3
Hit Time (hours ago) DR, assuming 110% oversend
0.1 0.9965053771
0.1 0.9965053771
0.1 0.9965053771
9 0.7297400528
9 0.7297400528
12 0.6569882136
12 0.6569882136
12 0.6569882136
12 0.6569882136
24 0.4316335128
24 0.4316335128
24 0.4316335128
24 0.4316335128
36 0.2835781305
36 0.2835781305
36 0.2835781305
48 0.1863074894
48 0.1863074894
48 0.1863074894
48 0.1863074894
54 0.1510111806
54 0.1510111806
54 0.1510111806
54 0.1510111806
54 0.1510111806
72 0.0804165561
72 0.0804165561
72 0.0804165561
72 0.0804165561
TOTAL: 11.48

So, currently this would be 9 DR, but now it is 11.48.

Alternately, if you are in war, and survived a KR with 100 hits 72 hours ago where attackers were sending more than 133% of the break, with no hits since, you would be at 12.5 DR still, assuming you'd made no hits. Your attacking would reduce those, again based on time.

--------------------------------



Reasoning:

The advanced restart is being adjusted downwards in response to this reset's version.
The AB & BR changes are balancing adjustments based on average usage over the past several resets.
The DR changes are something we have discussed off and on for quite some time; it will remove DR camping, will allow targets in war to be less brutalized by farming after an unsuccessful killrun, and will, we hope, make things slightly more interesting.



As always, please post your thoughts or concerns below.


Regards,

qzjul & the EE Development Team

Celphi Game profile

Member
EE Patron
6232

Jan 7th 2022, 14:11:52

Originally posted by Gerdler:
If you add 5000 bots, DR will be <2 on all bots and therefore the mechanism will no longer be in use.


False. DR would still be in use protecting your land as a defender.
Resistance is futile. You will be assimilated.

Gerdler Game profile

Forum Moderator
5077

Jan 7th 2022, 14:16:17

DR has been the same since february 2014. There are things I dont like about it but because I can understand it I can make a coherrent arguement as to why and what should be done about it. I have talked to developers about some of these issues and I've more or less realized they won't do anything about them.

Such as the reason for having an unknowable unknown in the variability of the DR halflife dictate my grabbing returns. What if the formula is bugged in some situation? We as players, even if we know 100% of the formulas concerning this, can never actually test them and evaluate them, because we don't actually know what the DR halflife is. I consider this a minor issue.

But by far the worst thing about the way DR works presently is that for most of the active interval, the curve is far too steep, the result being that the more hits a country takes, the less land it loses in total. Yes, not less land per hit only, less land in total. Look at which bots get fattest each set in express! Its always a rainbow bot that gets most land, because its least defended. THIS is a huge flaw in the current DR mechanism.

Fattest bot last set:
https://www.eestats.com/express/oldcountry/2905/57
Total defends 75
Land 13,951 acres
Total land lost 6,975 acres

Total land explored+recieved= 20,926 acres

its a monarchy rainbow with no defence. Why not a republic casher with lots of defence? No, because while the rep casher will explore much more, it will lose all that land and then some more because it gets hit half as much:

Some random rep casher bot last set:
https://www.eestats.com/express/oldcountry/2905/27
Total defends 39
Land 12,243 acres
Total land lost 11,322 acres

Total land explored+recieved= 23,565 acres
PS this is partly exacerbated by NW proximity but if you actually do the math, which I have you will see that I'm right; all other things being equal, more hits mean less land loss.

^^Now if you said this, 'hey look the DR mechanic is bugged/suboptimal, lets change/remove it' then it would have merit. Now all you are saying is you want a key component of the game removed because you dont understand it and you think that players who have taken time to actually understand it and read up about it gain an unfair advantage against you.

And if you just want the TL;DR of this and the last post:
1. The DR number on eestats is WRONG. The real number is lower. DR decays smoothly with time from the time of the hit.
2. Continuous DR formula: DR_MULTIPLIER = DR_HITS<13 ? MIN( 1, 0.1+((DR_HITS-13)^2)/135) : 0.1
(DR under 2 means the hit is unaffected by DR and a DR over 13 means you get 10% of the land you would have if the target had no DR. In between 2 and 13 you get between 10-100% of a 0 DR target, dropping with more DR)

Edited By: Gerdler on Jan 7th 2022, 14:21:30

Celphi Game profile

Member
EE Patron
6232

Jan 7th 2022, 14:52:29

Honestly you don't have to do any math or know any formulas. Just build & train a NN model that will predict the value for you.
Resistance is futile. You will be assimilated.

Rocky79 Game profile

Member
619

Jan 7th 2022, 15:37:46

I appreciate your explanation of DR and how it works Mr. Gerdler. I had no idea how it worked and I still don't!

My suggestion of adding more bots was just based on the fact that this game was a lot more fun 25 years ago when there were a lot more players. If you look at express this round, the server has approximately one hundred players and Earth 2025 used to have several thousand players on each server.

It's kind of sad to log in and see that there are only 103 countries in the entire express server this round

I personally think it would be more fun and interesting if there were 500 or even 5,000 countries in the express server each weekend,

Obviously, we would all prefer to add 500 or 5,000 more human players instead of bots but it doesn't seem like there is anyone with a financial interest who is concerned with promoting and marketing the game in order to make it grow.

It doesn't seem like anyone in development or management of the game is doing any marketing at all for that matter.

Gerdler Game profile

Forum Moderator
5077

Jan 7th 2022, 15:56:12

Essentially, as long as the bots don't hit back or are otherwise redesigned you got a goldilocks zone for how many bots we should have on a server with bots.

Too few bots, and only tyrannies will be able to hit the bots. This is bad

Too many bots will circumvent DR altogether and create very easy grabbing as a result. But it will also shift the dynamics of the server in a problematic direction because all acreages will be larger, stocking will be later and there will be fewer strats because only a few strats can take advantage of this. This is bad.

The right amount of bots is an interval ofc and it will vary over time and with the bot code. I'm only comparing now to the last 5 years when I say this is the best balance have ever been. Doesn't mean its perfect, at all. Improvement can be made and should always be sought after.

galleri Game profile

Game Moderator
Primary, Express, Tourney, & FFA
13,960

Jan 7th 2022, 17:59:28

Originally posted by Rocky79:
I appreciate your explanation of DR and how it works Mr. Gerdler. I had no idea how it worked and I still don't!

My suggestion of adding more bots was just based on the fact that this game was a lot more fun 25 years ago when there were a lot more players. If you look at express this round, the server has approximately one hundred players and Earth 2025 used to have several thousand players on each server.

It's kind of sad to log in and see that there are only 103 countries in the entire express server this round

I personally think it would be more fun and interesting if there were 500 or even 5,000 countries in the express server each weekend,




The internet was different then. You are trying to play like it is 2004 in 2022. Everyone here is old AF. Everyone not here is YAF and playing PS5.






https://gyazo.com/...b3bb28dddf908cdbcfd162513

Kahuna: Ya you just wrote the fkn equation, not helping me at all. Lol n I hated algebra.

Kahuna Game profile

Member
1312

Jan 7th 2022, 22:40:42

Originally posted by Gerdler:
Essentially, as long as the bots don't hit back or are otherwise redesigned you got a goldilocks zone for how many bots we should have on a server with bots.

Too few bots, and only tyrannies will be able to hit the bots. This is bad

Too many bots will circumvent DR altogether and create very easy grabbing as a result. But it will also shift the dynamics of the server in a problematic direction because all acreages will be larger, stocking will be later and there will be fewer strats because only a few strats can take advantage of this. This is bad.

The right amount of bots is an interval ofc and it will vary over time and with the bot code. I'm only comparing now to the last 5 years when I say this is the best balance have ever been. Doesn't mean its perfect, at all. Improvement can be made and should always be sought after.
Originally posted by galleri:
Originally posted by Rocky79:
I appreciate your explanation of DR and how it works Mr. Gerdler. I had no idea how it worked and I still don't!

My suggestion of adding more bots was just based on the fact that this game was a lot more fun 25 years ago when there were a lot more players. If you look at express this round, the server has approximately one hundred players and Earth 2025 used to have several thousand players on each server.

It's kind of sad to log in and see that there are only 103 countries in the entire express server this round

I personally think it would be more fun and interesting if there were 500 or even 5,000 countries in the express server each weekend,




The internet was different then. You are trying to play like it is 2004 in 2022. Everyone here is old AF. Everyone not here is YAF and playing PS5.




Originally posted by Gerdler:
Essentially, as long as the bots don't hit back or are otherwise redesigned you got a goldilocks zone for how many bots we should have on a server with bots.

Too few bots, and only tyrannies will be able to hit the bots. This is bad

Too many bots will circumvent DR altogether and create very easy grabbing as a result. But it will also shift the dynamics of the server in a problematic direction because all acreages will be larger, stocking will be later and there will be fewer strats because only a few strats can take advantage of this. This is bad.

The right amount of bots is an interval ofc and it will vary over time and with the bot code. I'm only comparing now to the last 5 years when I say this is the best balance have ever been. Doesn't mean its perfect, at all. Improvement can be made and should always be sought after.
Originally posted by Rocky79:
I appreciate your explanation of DR and how it works Mr. Gerdler. I had no idea how it worked and I still don't!

My suggestion of adding more bots was just based on the fact that this game was a lot more fun 25 years ago when there were a lot more players. If you look at express this round, the server has approximately one hundred players and Earth 2025 used to have several thousand players on each server.

It's kind of sad to log in and see that there are only 103 countries in the entire express server this round

I personally think it would be more fun and interesting if there were 500 or even 5,000 countries in the express server each weekend,

Obviously, we would all prefer to add 500 or 5,000 more human players instead of bots but it doesn't seem like there is anyone with a financial interest who is concerned with promoting and marketing the game in order to make it grow.

It doesn't seem like anyone in development or management of the game is doing any marketing at all for that matter.

Originally posted by Gerdler:
DR has been the same since february 2014. There are things I dont like about it but because I can understand it I can make a coherrent arguement as to why and what should be done about it. I have talked to developers about some of these issues and I've more or less realized they won't do anything about them.

Such as the reason for having an unknowable unknown in the variability of the DR halflife dictate my grabbing returns. What if the formula is bugged in some situation? We as players, even if we know 100% of the formulas concerning this, can never actually test them and evaluate them, because we don't actually know what the DR halflife is. I consider this a minor issue.

But by far the worst thing about the way DR works presently is that for most of the active interval, the curve is far too steep, the result being that the more hits a country takes, the less land it loses in total. Yes, not less land per hit only, less land in total. Look at which bots get fattest each set in express! Its always a rainbow bot that gets most land, because its least defended. THIS is a huge flaw in the current DR mechanism.

Fattest bot last set:
https://www.eestats.com/express/oldcountry/2905/57
Total defends 75
Land 13,951 acres
Total land lost 6,975 acres

Total land explored+recieved= 20,926 acres

its a monarchy rainbow with no defence. Why not a republic casher with lots of defence? No, because while the rep casher will explore much more, it will lose all that land and then some more because it gets hit half as much:

Some random rep casher bot last set:
https://www.eestats.com/express/oldcountry/2905/27
Total defends 39
Land 12,243 acres
Total land lost 11,322 acres

Total land explored+recieved= 23,565 acres
PS this is partly exacerbated by NW proximity but if you actually do the math, which I have you will see that I'm right; all other things being equal, more hits mean less land loss.

^^Now if you said this, 'hey look the DR mechanic is bugged/suboptimal, lets change/remove it' then it would have merit. Now all you are saying is you want a key component of the game removed because you dont understand it and you think that players who have taken time to actually understand it and read up about it gain an unfair advantage against you.

And if you just want the TL;DR of this and the last post:
1. The DR number on eestats is WRONG. The real number is lower. DR decays smoothly with time from the time of the hit.
2. Continuous DR formula: DR_MULTIPLIER = DR_HITS<13 ? MIN( 1, 0.1+((DR_HITS-13)^2)/135) : 0.1
(DR under 2 means the hit is unaffected by DR and a DR over 13 means you get 10% of the land you would have if the target had no DR. In between 2 and 13 you get between 10-100% of a 0 DR target, dropping with more DR)
Originally posted by Celphi:
Originally posted by Gerdler:
If you add 5000 bots, DR will be <2 on all bots and therefore the mechanism will no longer be in use.


False. DR would still be in use protecting your land as a defender.

More bots please

galleri Game profile

Game Moderator
Primary, Express, Tourney, & FFA
13,960

Jan 7th 2022, 22:47:16

Originally posted by Kahuna:
Originally posted by Gerdler:
Essentially, as long as the bots don't hit back or are otherwise redesigned you got a goldilocks zone for how many bots we should have on a server with bots.

Too few bots, and only tyrannies will be able to hit the bots. This is bad

Too many bots will circumvent DR altogether and create very easy grabbing as a result. But it will also shift the dynamics of the server in a problematic direction because all acreages will be larger, stocking will be later and there will be fewer strats because only a few strats can take advantage of this. This is bad.

The right amount of bots is an interval ofc and it will vary over time and with the bot code. I'm only comparing now to the last 5 years when I say this is the best balance have ever been. Doesn't mean its perfect, at all. Improvement can be made and should always be sought after.
Originally posted by galleri:
Originally posted by Rocky79:
I appreciate your explanation of DR and how it works Mr. Gerdler. I had no idea how it worked and I still don't!

My suggestion of adding more bots was just based on the fact that this game was a lot more fun 25 years ago when there were a lot more players. If you look at express this round, the server has approximately one hundred players and Earth 2025 used to have several thousand players on each server.

It's kind of sad to log in and see that there are only 103 countries in the entire express server this round

I personally think it would be more fun and interesting if there were 500 or even 5,000 countries in the express server each weekend,




The internet was different then. You are trying to play like it is 2004 in 2022. Everyone here is old AF. Everyone not here is YAF and playing PS5.




Originally posted by Gerdler:
Essentially, as long as the bots don't hit back or are otherwise redesigned you got a goldilocks zone for how many bots we should have on a server with bots.

Too few bots, and only tyrannies will be able to hit the bots. This is bad

Too many bots will circumvent DR altogether and create very easy grabbing as a result. But it will also shift the dynamics of the server in a problematic direction because all acreages will be larger, stocking will be later and there will be fewer strats because only a few strats can take advantage of this. This is bad.

The right amount of bots is an interval ofc and it will vary over time and with the bot code. I'm only comparing now to the last 5 years when I say this is the best balance have ever been. Doesn't mean its perfect, at all. Improvement can be made and should always be sought after.
Originally posted by Rocky79:
I appreciate your explanation of DR and how it works Mr. Gerdler. I had no idea how it worked and I still don't!

My suggestion of adding more bots was just based on the fact that this game was a lot more fun 25 years ago when there were a lot more players. If you look at express this round, the server has approximately one hundred players and Earth 2025 used to have several thousand players on each server.

It's kind of sad to log in and see that there are only 103 countries in the entire express server this round

I personally think it would be more fun and interesting if there were 500 or even 5,000 countries in the express server each weekend,

Obviously, we would all prefer to add 500 or 5,000 more human players instead of bots but it doesn't seem like there is anyone with a financial interest who is concerned with promoting and marketing the game in order to make it grow.

It doesn't seem like anyone in development or management of the game is doing any marketing at all for that matter.

Originally posted by Gerdler:
DR has been the same since february 2014. There are things I dont like about it but because I can understand it I can make a coherrent arguement as to why and what should be done about it. I have talked to developers about some of these issues and I've more or less realized they won't do anything about them.

Such as the reason for having an unknowable unknown in the variability of the DR halflife dictate my grabbing returns. What if the formula is bugged in some situation? We as players, even if we know 100% of the formulas concerning this, can never actually test them and evaluate them, because we don't actually know what the DR halflife is. I consider this a minor issue.

But by far the worst thing about the way DR works presently is that for most of the active interval, the curve is far too steep, the result being that the more hits a country takes, the less land it loses in total. Yes, not less land per hit only, less land in total. Look at which bots get fattest each set in express! Its always a rainbow bot that gets most land, because its least defended. THIS is a huge flaw in the current DR mechanism.

Fattest bot last set:
https://www.eestats.com/express/oldcountry/2905/57
Total defends 75
Land 13,951 acres
Total land lost 6,975 acres

Total land explored+recieved= 20,926 acres

its a monarchy rainbow with no defence. Why not a republic casher with lots of defence? No, because while the rep casher will explore much more, it will lose all that land and then some more because it gets hit half as much:

Some random rep casher bot last set:
https://www.eestats.com/express/oldcountry/2905/27
Total defends 39
Land 12,243 acres
Total land lost 11,322 acres

Total land explored+recieved= 23,565 acres
PS this is partly exacerbated by NW proximity but if you actually do the math, which I have you will see that I'm right; all other things being equal, more hits mean less land loss.

^^Now if you said this, 'hey look the DR mechanic is bugged/suboptimal, lets change/remove it' then it would have merit. Now all you are saying is you want a key component of the game removed because you dont understand it and you think that players who have taken time to actually understand it and read up about it gain an unfair advantage against you.

And if you just want the TL;DR of this and the last post:
1. The DR number on eestats is WRONG. The real number is lower. DR decays smoothly with time from the time of the hit.
2. Continuous DR formula: DR_MULTIPLIER = DR_HITS<13 ? MIN( 1, 0.1+((DR_HITS-13)^2)/135) : 0.1
(DR under 2 means the hit is unaffected by DR and a DR over 13 means you get 10% of the land you would have if the target had no DR. In between 2 and 13 you get between 10-100% of a 0 DR target, dropping with more DR)
Originally posted by Celphi:
Originally posted by Gerdler:
If you add 5000 bots, DR will be <2 on all bots and therefore the mechanism will no longer be in use.


False. DR would still be in use protecting your land as a defender.

More bots please


This works great for you ..... see my signature


https://gyazo.com/...b3bb28dddf908cdbcfd162513

Kahuna: Ya you just wrote the fkn equation, not helping me at all. Lol n I hated algebra.

KoHeartsGPA Game profile

Member
EE Patron
29,485

Jan 7th 2022, 23:02:51

Originally posted by galleri:
Originally posted by Kahuna:
Originally posted by Gerdler:
Essentially, as long as the bots don't hit back or are otherwise redesigned you got a goldilocks zone for how many bots we should have on a server with bots.

Too few bots, and only tyrannies will be able to hit the bots. This is bad

Too many bots will circumvent DR altogether and create very easy grabbing as a result. But it will also shift the dynamics of the server in a problematic direction because all acreages will be larger, stocking will be later and there will be fewer strats because only a few strats can take advantage of this. This is bad.

The right amount of bots is an interval ofc and it will vary over time and with the bot code. I'm only comparing now to the last 5 years when I say this is the best balance have ever been. Doesn't mean its perfect, at all. Improvement can be made and should always be sought after.
Originally posted by galleri:
Originally posted by Rocky79:
I appreciate your explanation of DR and how it works Mr. Gerdler. I had no idea how it worked and I still don't!

My suggestion of adding more bots was just based on the fact that this game was a lot more fun 25 years ago when there were a lot more players. If you look at express this round, the server has approximately one hundred players and Earth 2025 used to have several thousand players on each server.

It's kind of sad to log in and see that there are only 103 countries in the entire express server this round

I personally think it would be more fun and interesting if there were 500 or even 5,000 countries in the express server each weekend,




The internet was different then. You are trying to play like it is 2004 in 2022. Everyone here is old AF. Everyone not here is YAF and playing PS5.




Originally posted by Gerdler:
Essentially, as long as the bots don't hit back or are otherwise redesigned you got a goldilocks zone for how many bots we should have on a server with bots.

Too few bots, and only tyrannies will be able to hit the bots. This is bad

Too many bots will circumvent DR altogether and create very easy grabbing as a result. But it will also shift the dynamics of the server in a problematic direction because all acreages will be larger, stocking will be later and there will be fewer strats because only a few strats can take advantage of this. This is bad.

The right amount of bots is an interval ofc and it will vary over time and with the bot code. I'm only comparing now to the last 5 years when I say this is the best balance have ever been. Doesn't mean its perfect, at all. Improvement can be made and should always be sought after.
Originally posted by Rocky79:
I appreciate your explanation of DR and how it works Mr. Gerdler. I had no idea how it worked and I still don't!

My suggestion of adding more bots was just based on the fact that this game was a lot more fun 25 years ago when there were a lot more players. If you look at express this round, the server has approximately one hundred players and Earth 2025 used to have several thousand players on each server.

It's kind of sad to log in and see that there are only 103 countries in the entire express server this round

I personally think it would be more fun and interesting if there were 500 or even 5,000 countries in the express server each weekend,

Obviously, we would all prefer to add 500 or 5,000 more human players instead of bots but it doesn't seem like there is anyone with a financial interest who is concerned with promoting and marketing the game in order to make it grow.

It doesn't seem like anyone in development or management of the game is doing any marketing at all for that matter.

Originally posted by Gerdler:
DR has been the same since february 2014. There are things I dont like about it but because I can understand it I can make a coherrent arguement as to why and what should be done about it. I have talked to developers about some of these issues and I've more or less realized they won't do anything about them.

Such as the reason for having an unknowable unknown in the variability of the DR halflife dictate my grabbing returns. What if the formula is bugged in some situation? We as players, even if we know 100% of the formulas concerning this, can never actually test them and evaluate them, because we don't actually know what the DR halflife is. I consider this a minor issue.

But by far the worst thing about the way DR works presently is that for most of the active interval, the curve is far too steep, the result being that the more hits a country takes, the less land it loses in total. Yes, not less land per hit only, less land in total. Look at which bots get fattest each set in express! Its always a rainbow bot that gets most land, because its least defended. THIS is a huge flaw in the current DR mechanism.

Fattest bot last set:
https://www.eestats.com/express/oldcountry/2905/57
Total defends 75
Land 13,951 acres
Total land lost 6,975 acres

Total land explored+recieved= 20,926 acres

its a monarchy rainbow with no defence. Why not a republic casher with lots of defence? No, because while the rep casher will explore much more, it will lose all that land and then some more because it gets hit half as much:

Some random rep casher bot last set:
https://www.eestats.com/express/oldcountry/2905/27
Total defends 39
Land 12,243 acres
Total land lost 11,322 acres

Total land explored+recieved= 23,565 acres
PS this is partly exacerbated by NW proximity but if you actually do the math, which I have you will see that I'm right; all other things being equal, more hits mean less land loss.

^^Now if you said this, 'hey look the DR mechanic is bugged/suboptimal, lets change/remove it' then it would have merit. Now all you are saying is you want a key component of the game removed because you dont understand it and you think that players who have taken time to actually understand it and read up about it gain an unfair advantage against you.

And if you just want the TL;DR of this and the last post:
1. The DR number on eestats is WRONG. The real number is lower. DR decays smoothly with time from the time of the hit.
2. Continuous DR formula: DR_MULTIPLIER = DR_HITS<13 ? MIN( 1, 0.1+((DR_HITS-13)^2)/135) : 0.1
(DR under 2 means the hit is unaffected by DR and a DR over 13 means you get 10% of the land you would have if the target had no DR. In between 2 and 13 you get between 10-100% of a 0 DR target, dropping with more DR)
Originally posted by Celphi:
Originally posted by Gerdler:
If you add 5000 bots, DR will be <2 on all bots and therefore the mechanism will no longer be in use.


False. DR would still be in use protecting your land as a defender.

More bots please


This works great for you ..... see my signature



TL:DR
Mess with me you better kill me, or I'll just take your pride & joy and jack it up
(•_•)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W6VRMGTwU4I
-=TSO~DKnights~ICD~XI~LaF=-

S.F. Giants 2010, 2012, 2014 World Series Champions, fluff YEAH!

SuperFly Game profile

Member
5061

Jan 7th 2022, 23:15:33

Originally posted by KoHeartsGPA:
Originally posted by galleri:
Originally posted by Kahuna:
Originally posted by Gerdler:
Essentially, as long as the bots don't hit back or are otherwise redesigned you got a goldilocks zone for how many bots we should have on a server with bots.

Too few bots, and only tyrannies will be able to hit the bots. This is bad

Too many bots will circumvent DR altogether and create very easy grabbing as a result. But it will also shift the dynamics of the server in a problematic direction because all acreages will be larger, stocking will be later and there will be fewer strats because only a few strats can take advantage of this. This is bad.

The right amount of bots is an interval ofc and it will vary over time and with the bot code. I'm only comparing now to the last 5 years when I say this is the best balance have ever been. Doesn't mean its perfect, at all. Improvement can be made and should always be sought after.
Originally posted by galleri:
Originally posted by Rocky79:
I appreciate your explanation of DR and how it works Mr. Gerdler. I had no idea how it worked and I still don't!

My suggestion of adding more bots was just based on the fact that this game was a lot more fun 25 years ago when there were a lot more players. If you look at express this round, the server has approximately one hundred players and Earth 2025 used to have several thousand players on each server.

It's kind of sad to log in and see that there are only 103 countries in the entire express server this round

I personally think it would be more fun and interesting if there were 500 or even 5,000 countries in the express server each weekend,




The internet was different then. You are trying to play like it is 2004 in 2022. Everyone here is old AF. Everyone not here is YAF and playing PS5.




Originally posted by Gerdler:
Essentially, as long as the bots don't hit back or are otherwise redesigned you got a goldilocks zone for how many bots we should have on a server with bots.

Too few bots, and only tyrannies will be able to hit the bots. This is bad

Too many bots will circumvent DR altogether and create very easy grabbing as a result. But it will also shift the dynamics of the server in a problematic direction because all acreages will be larger, stocking will be later and there will be fewer strats because only a few strats can take advantage of this. This is bad.

The right amount of bots is an interval ofc and it will vary over time and with the bot code. I'm only comparing now to the last 5 years when I say this is the best balance have ever been. Doesn't mean its perfect, at all. Improvement can be made and should always be sought after.
Originally posted by Rocky79:
I appreciate your explanation of DR and how it works Mr. Gerdler. I had no idea how it worked and I still don't!

My suggestion of adding more bots was just based on the fact that this game was a lot more fun 25 years ago when there were a lot more players. If you look at express this round, the server has approximately one hundred players and Earth 2025 used to have several thousand players on each server.

It's kind of sad to log in and see that there are only 103 countries in the entire express server this round

I personally think it would be more fun and interesting if there were 500 or even 5,000 countries in the express server each weekend,

Obviously, we would all prefer to add 500 or 5,000 more human players instead of bots but it doesn't seem like there is anyone with a financial interest who is concerned with promoting and marketing the game in order to make it grow.

It doesn't seem like anyone in development or management of the game is doing any marketing at all for that matter.

Originally posted by Gerdler:
DR has been the same since february 2014. There are things I dont like about it but because I can understand it I can make a coherrent arguement as to why and what should be done about it. I have talked to developers about some of these issues and I've more or less realized they won't do anything about them.

Such as the reason for having an unknowable unknown in the variability of the DR halflife dictate my grabbing returns. What if the formula is bugged in some situation? We as players, even if we know 100% of the formulas concerning this, can never actually test them and evaluate them, because we don't actually know what the DR halflife is. I consider this a minor issue.

But by far the worst thing about the way DR works presently is that for most of the active interval, the curve is far too steep, the result being that the more hits a country takes, the less land it loses in total. Yes, not less land per hit only, less land in total. Look at which bots get fattest each set in express! Its always a rainbow bot that gets most land, because its least defended. THIS is a huge flaw in the current DR mechanism.

Fattest bot last set:
https://www.eestats.com/express/oldcountry/2905/57
Total defends 75
Land 13,951 acres
Total land lost 6,975 acres

Total land explored+recieved= 20,926 acres

its a monarchy rainbow with no defence. Why not a republic casher with lots of defence? No, because while the rep casher will explore much more, it will lose all that land and then some more because it gets hit half as much:

Some random rep casher bot last set:
https://www.eestats.com/express/oldcountry/2905/27
Total defends 39
Land 12,243 acres
Total land lost 11,322 acres

Total land explored+recieved= 23,565 acres
PS this is partly exacerbated by NW proximity but if you actually do the math, which I have you will see that I'm right; all other things being equal, more hits mean less land loss.

^^Now if you said this, 'hey look the DR mechanic is bugged/suboptimal, lets change/remove it' then it would have merit. Now all you are saying is you want a key component of the game removed because you dont understand it and you think that players who have taken time to actually understand it and read up about it gain an unfair advantage against you.

And if you just want the TL;DR of this and the last post:
1. The DR number on eestats is WRONG. The real number is lower. DR decays smoothly with time from the time of the hit.
2. Continuous DR formula: DR_MULTIPLIER = DR_HITS<13 ? MIN( 1, 0.1+((DR_HITS-13)^2)/135) : 0.1
(DR under 2 means the hit is unaffected by DR and a DR over 13 means you get 10% of the land you would have if the target had no DR. In between 2 and 13 you get between 10-100% of a 0 DR target, dropping with more DR)
Originally posted by Celphi:
Originally posted by Gerdler:
If you add 5000 bots, DR will be <2 on all bots and therefore the mechanism will no longer be in use.


False. DR would still be in use protecting your land as a defender.

More bots please


This works great for you ..... see my signature



TL:DR


Qouted for clarity and cuz it’s trendy!

Kahuna Game profile

Member
1312

Jan 8th 2022, 4:38:08

Originally posted by galleri:
Originally posted by Kahuna:
Originally posted by Gerdler:
Essentially, as long as the bots don't hit back or are otherwise redesigned you got a goldilocks zone for how many bots we should have on a server with bots.

Too few bots, and only tyrannies will be able to hit the bots. This is bad

Too many bots will circumvent DR altogether and create very easy grabbing as a result. But it will also shift the dynamics of the server in a problematic direction because all acreages will be larger, stocking will be later and there will be fewer strats because only a few strats can take advantage of this. This is bad.

The right amount of bots is an interval ofc and it will vary over time and with the bot code. I'm only comparing now to the last 5 years when I say this is the best balance have ever been. Doesn't mean its perfect, at all. Improvement can be made and should always be sought after.
Originally posted by galleri:
Originally posted by Rocky79:
I appreciate your explanation of DR and how it works Mr. Gerdler. I had no idea how it worked and I still don't!

My suggestion of adding more bots was just based on the fact that this game was a lot more fun 25 years ago when there were a lot more players. If you look at express this round, the server has approximately one hundred players and Earth 2025 used to have several thousand players on each server.

It's kind of sad to log in and see that there are only 103 countries in the entire express server this round

I personally think it would be more fun and interesting if there were 500 or even 5,000 countries in the express server each weekend,




The internet was different then. You are trying to play like it is 2004 in 2022. Everyone here is old AF. Everyone not here is YAF and playing PS5.




Originally posted by Gerdler:
Essentially, as long as the bots don't hit back or are otherwise redesigned you got a goldilocks zone for how many bots we should have on a server with bots.

Too few bots, and only tyrannies will be able to hit the bots. This is bad

Too many bots will circumvent DR altogether and create very easy grabbing as a result. But it will also shift the dynamics of the server in a problematic direction because all acreages will be larger, stocking will be later and there will be fewer strats because only a few strats can take advantage of this. This is bad.

The right amount of bots is an interval ofc and it will vary over time and with the bot code. I'm only comparing now to the last 5 years when I say this is the best balance have ever been. Doesn't mean its perfect, at all. Improvement can be made and should always be sought after.
Originally posted by Rocky79:
I appreciate your explanation of DR and how it works Mr. Gerdler. I had no idea how it worked and I still don't!

My suggestion of adding more bots was just based on the fact that this game was a lot more fun 25 years ago when there were a lot more players. If you look at express this round, the server has approximately one hundred players and Earth 2025 used to have several thousand players on each server.

It's kind of sad to log in and see that there are only 103 countries in the entire express server this round

I personally think it would be more fun and interesting if there were 500 or even 5,000 countries in the express server each weekend,

Obviously, we would all prefer to add 500 or 5,000 more human players instead of bots but it doesn't seem like there is anyone with a financial interest who is concerned with promoting and marketing the game in order to make it grow.

It doesn't seem like anyone in development or management of the game is doing any marketing at all for that matter.

Originally posted by Gerdler:
DR has been the same since february 2014. There are things I dont like about it but because I can understand it I can make a coherrent arguement as to why and what should be done about it. I have talked to developers about some of these issues and I've more or less realized they won't do anything about them.

Such as the reason for having an unknowable unknown in the variability of the DR halflife dictate my grabbing returns. What if the formula is bugged in some situation? We as players, even if we know 100% of the formulas concerning this, can never actually test them and evaluate them, because we don't actually know what the DR halflife is. I consider this a minor issue.

But by far the worst thing about the way DR works presently is that for most of the active interval, the curve is far too steep, the result being that the more hits a country takes, the less land it loses in total. Yes, not less land per hit only, less land in total. Look at which bots get fattest each set in express! Its always a rainbow bot that gets most land, because its least defended. THIS is a huge flaw in the current DR mechanism.

Fattest bot last set:
https://www.eestats.com/express/oldcountry/2905/57
Total defends 75
Land 13,951 acres
Total land lost 6,975 acres

Total land explored+recieved= 20,926 acres

its a monarchy rainbow with no defence. Why not a republic casher with lots of defence? No, because while the rep casher will explore much more, it will lose all that land and then some more because it gets hit half as much:

Some random rep casher bot last set:
https://www.eestats.com/express/oldcountry/2905/27
Total defends 39
Land 12,243 acres
Total land lost 11,322 acres

Total land explored+recieved= 23,565 acres
PS this is partly exacerbated by NW proximity but if you actually do the math, which I have you will see that I'm right; all other things being equal, more hits mean less land loss.

^^Now if you said this, 'hey look the DR mechanic is bugged/suboptimal, lets change/remove it' then it would have merit. Now all you are saying is you want a key component of the game removed because you dont understand it and you think that players who have taken time to actually understand it and read up about it gain an unfair advantage against you.

And if you just want the TL;DR of this and the last post:
1. The DR number on eestats is WRONG. The real number is lower. DR decays smoothly with time from the time of the hit.
2. Continuous DR formula: DR_MULTIPLIER = DR_HITS<13 ? MIN( 1, 0.1+((DR_HITS-13)^2)/135) : 0.1
(DR under 2 means the hit is unaffected by DR and a DR over 13 means you get 10% of the land you would have if the target had no DR. In between 2 and 13 you get between 10-100% of a 0 DR target, dropping with more DR)
Originally posted by Celphi:
Originally posted by Gerdler:
If you add 5000 bots, DR will be <2 on all bots and therefore the mechanism will no longer be in use.


False. DR would still be in use protecting your land as a defender.

More bots please


This works great for you ..... see my signature


Yes I ll be able to get 100k acres no problem on express and bully everyone. N lol.

Rocky79 Game profile

Member
619

Jan 8th 2022, 15:05:18

Why don't the bots retal? or why don't the bots make land grabs or special attacks?

This is also something that should be fixed,

I vote the developers add 5,000 bots and make them all crazy attack bots who land grab like crazy and special attack retal everyone :)

cordycsw Game profile

Member
358

Jan 8th 2022, 16:05:55

Originally posted by Rocky79:
Why don't the bots retal? or why don't the bots make land grabs or special attacks?

This is also something that should be fixed,

I vote the developers add 5,000 bots and make them all crazy attack bots who land grab like crazy and special attack retal everyone :)


u gotta go call slagpit back!

he was almost going to make the bots retal us humans all!!!



Gerdler Game profile

Forum Moderator
5077

Jan 8th 2022, 21:33:26

Bots grabbing is dumb imo. Bots retalling could be done well and could make the game a lot better, but it would be so easy to implement it in a way that completely wrecks competition. For instance like what you described.

I think the main reason that it was not implemented by slagpit this spring/summer is because he got tired of dealing with all the griefers and cheaters with all his time here rather than develop nice stuff for us which was the reason he really came back.
So he redesigned the bots(implemented on express only) and made a few improvements in Express mechanics (such as GDI being automatic and you can opt out of it, humanitarians not stopping intel spy ops in the endgame, bugfix for ABs/BRs and landgrabs), fixed a few other minor/major bugs. This was all done in just a portion of the time, but the majority of his time was spent stopping a small number of people from abusing the staff, cheating/breaking rules and griefing a large portion of the player base.

We get admin activity in short bursts here. Looking at the announcements board its been that way since 2014.

Kahuna Game profile

Member
1312

Jan 9th 2022, 4:19:37

Originally posted by Gerdler:
Bots grabbing is dumb imo. Bots retalling could be done well and could make the game a lot better, but it would be so easy to implement it in a way that completely wrecks competition. For instance like what you described.

I think the main reason that it was not implemented by slagpit this spring/summer is because he got tired of dealing with all the griefers and cheaters with all his time here rather than develop nice stuff for us which was the reason he really came back.
So he redesigned the bots(implemented on express only) and made a few improvements in Express mechanics (such as GDI being automatic and you can opt out of it, humanitarians not stopping intel spy ops in the endgame, bugfix for ABs/BRs and landgrabs), fixed a few other minor/major bugs. This was all done in just a portion of the time, but the majority of his time was spent stopping a small number of people from abusing the staff, cheating/breaking rules and griefing a large portion of the player base.

We get admin activity in short bursts here. Looking at the announcements board its been that way since 2014.


...but people haedly ever grab each other, cause they're scared of ruining each others sets, so no point in not adding more bots.

KoHeartsGPA Game profile

Member
EE Patron
29,485

Jan 9th 2022, 4:22:42

I grabbed the fluff outta people last two sets, lots of rainbows..
Mess with me you better kill me, or I'll just take your pride & joy and jack it up
(•_•)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W6VRMGTwU4I
-=TSO~DKnights~ICD~XI~LaF=-

S.F. Giants 2010, 2012, 2014 World Series Champions, fluff YEAH!

Gerdler Game profile

Forum Moderator
5077

Jan 9th 2022, 4:40:08

Originally posted by Kahuna:
...but people haedly ever grab each other, cause they're scared of ruining each others sets, so no point in not adding more bots.

Originally posted by Gerdler:
Too few bots, and only tyrannies will be able to hit the bots. This is bad

Too many bots will circumvent DR altogether and create very easy grabbing as a result. But it will also shift the dynamics of the server in a problematic direction because all acreages will be larger, stocking will be later and there will be fewer strats because only a few strats can take advantage of this. This is bad.

SuperFly Game profile

Member
5061

Jan 9th 2022, 6:37:06

Originally posted by KoHeartsGPA:
I grabbed the fluff outta people last two sets, lots of rainbows..


Careful you don’t want to be accused of griefing here. Please be content with farming in DR bots it’s ok. Don’t hurt the snow flakes please

Kahuna Game profile

Member
1312

Jan 9th 2022, 7:44:44

Originally posted by Gerdler:
Originally posted by Kahuna:
...but people haedly ever grab each other, cause they're scared of ruining each others sets, so no point in not adding more bots.

Originally posted by Gerdler:
Too few bots, and only tyrannies will be able to hit the bots. This is bad

Too many bots will circumvent DR altogether and create very easy grabbing as a result. But it will also shift the dynamics of the server in a problematic direction because all acreages will be larger, stocking will be later and there will be fewer strats because only a few strats can take advantage of this. This is bad.


No, Kahuna is the greatest alive..Anywho Gerdler has no proof of his statement. No DR and what not, any strat can play with lots of bots I cant imagine any strat that can have a hard time with lots of land so ya. Maybe you would have to switch up how you execute your strategy? Idk what you really mean Gurdle.

Kahuna Game profile

Member
1312

Jan 9th 2022, 7:45:51

Originally posted by SuperFly:
Originally posted by KoHeartsGPA:
I grabbed the fluff outta people last two sets, lots of rainbows..


Careful you don’t want to be accused of griefing here. Please be content with farming in DR bots it’s ok. Don’t hurt the snow flakes please


Git em Koh!