lol- give me two sets in primary ill make t10 easy. regarding turn saving, of course everyone in the t10 or t20 can turn save now coz the grabbing phase is over.

but early to midgame, if you dont play everyday to keep up in nw you end up falling into a downward cycle. I will admit, I probably could've kept up in nw in the early midgame and that probably couldve deterred landgrabs, but I was really phishing for retals later on. when the ror hit, I was like fluff this I'm going to war.

as for the grabbing, where is the challenge? I dont really see it. Pick someone >1/4 nw than you, grab him, and outgrow him so he doesn't hit you back. The only skill you need for that is to calculate his break including his allies and more indirectly balance out your spal so you don't burn too many turns spying. These skills are all basic 1a skills. On top of that, in 1a there's a richer destock phase and DR camping does become a skill when you've got other people trying to outcamp you.

Except Viva, my second place finish last set was a complete solo effort. In light of everything you mention above, with many others doing what you say (the first place sodawater benefitted from landtrading), I think finishing well in 1a does mean something. In 1a, you need to

1.) pick the right strat depending on the meta environment/ net or war set.
2.) landgrab well (I did it through DR camping for the most part)
3.) if there's a war, you have to survive and then come back from the turns deficit, which is what we did with SOL last reset. There is a bit of easy land once the war is won, but last set we really didnt take advantage of it since we CF'ed almost immediately after it was clear SOL was done. In both of oldman's wins, he capitalized on this land faster than others whether it be farming earlier or spending more turns grabbing. Last reset he was able to do this too and had a respectable t10 finish. The reset before that, LAF didnt war and he ended up with a t100 theo techer or something off of like 15k acres while the rest of us were at 30k plus and I personally farmed up to 70k as a farmer, mainly through DR camping. I dont doubt that if oldman had the time to camp, he would do well but it also wouldnt be a lock because DR camping is heavily reaction time based. You have 3-4 campers all fighting for the one good DR hit, and 0.1 seconds can be the difference between a 300 acre grab or a 35 acre grab.
4.) Good market play- catching bushel peaks and there are cases where there are multiple peaks.
5.) Destock properly- catching the right timing, pub vs private jumping, EOS sale.


Anyone who can do 1-2 of these elements well can finish t100 or t50 consistently, but to finish t10 consistently and compete for a win, you'd have to do all 5 of these elements well. This is for a pure solo, non-aided, non-landtrading finish, which is what we aim for at LAF. In current 1a environment, I'd argue that landtrading is overpowered because you have players still winning easily from benefitting from easy land.

I think you're underestimating primary Candy. There are many people capable of top10 finishes in 1a if they ever do try.

Now for the rebuttals...

First of all, some people do save turns during mid set, especially the tier 1s =P I, for one, always have close to max turns on hand even during mid set, yes, that's during grabbing phase.

And yes, grabbing in primary is indeed more straightforward than 1a. Not going to deny that.

I will argue against the richer 1a destock phase though. I've played primary 14 sets now. I haven't seen 2 sets with similar market conditions. Destocking is different under different market conditions. Sometimes you stop earlier to stock, sometimes you grab till 3 days in the set before you start to stock anything and sometimes you do not even stop to stock. I think primary market is much less predictable than 1a's. 1a's markets always have a similar trend, for most sets (not going to say for all cuz I know that's not true). There's also the same consideration of pub vs private jumping and EOS sale as you mentioned in primary. So which market is tougher? I really think they are different and we can't compare apple to apple.

I will break it down for you here. The game is divided into a couple of phases:
a) start up - there's no difference between 1a and primary in this phase. Most start ups are similar.
b) growth - land comes easier in primary vs 1a where you have to camp DR/war gain/landtrade etc
c) stock/continual growth - in 1a, it is always get to some huge land size and start stocking. you always almost never see top10 countries not stocking; in primary, there's the option of stocking or continued growth depending on the market conditions. So I'm more inclined towards primary being more challenging.
d) destock/final market plays - like I explained above, both the markets are very different and each has their own unique characteristics so I'm neutral here.

So the distinguishing factors in primary are phase c) and d) since most capable players can do a) and b) equally well. What about 1a? I personally think phase b) is the determining phase, which is the reason why I don't like it because c) and d) are IMO, the higher tier skill sets and I don't like how someone can win just because they camp better or landtrade (it is of course a different story when tier 1 players go at it in 1a but that is rarely the case nowadays, most are not even trying hard and are just cruising for the most part).

I think grabbing/growing is more difficult in primary than 1A. There are choices about jet/turret ratio, how much to focus on techs versus land and just general target selection that are virtual non issues in 1A. In 1A, almost all money goes to tech, target selection is just DR camping and how many turrets to keep to not be a good target for topfeeds is much less of an issue.

BTW, it is not just in theory that primary players can do well in 1A. SKA was made up of a good number of primary/tournament only players when it was formed and we did very well back when 1A was much more competitive even.

lol, this is the flufftiest 'skill' ive ever heard of. who wants to do this? what kind of life do you have to have to do it?

lmao, read this back and think about it. is this what youre looking for in a numbers-based text game? a camping and clicking contest? gawd

Heh, I don't like Alliance much now. Not even playing on it this set. I've had 5 top 10s on it anyway. Still hold the techer record!

DR camping is a pretty lame "skill". I mean, yeah, it still takes a bit of skill to figure out when DR tiers exit, sync up clocks, computer clock, in game clock, or whatever clock, maybe even setup alarms or notifications, and having the willpower to actually adhere to it. And then there's the part about actually hitting it on the second, and practicing it enough times to account for ping differences. The ping from my office is different from the one at home. And it's different from being on the move on a mobile device.

But what I dislike is that sometimes, you really just get a lucky break, and catch a 1a suicider in progress, boom you get 3-5k free land, that you don't even have to worry about it warring you back after farming it. That's not skill. That's just being lucky. Catching someone selling 300m bushels at $35 isn't skill either. Most people know how to catch $35 food, its just whether you are lucky enough to catch the big batches.

There are plenty of things about Primary that are far more challenging than in 1a. In 1a, the hardest thing is really camping for land and little else. And the market in Primary, omg. It is literally a different market every reset.

Another thing about 1a is the spy-op sharing. You save so many turns not having to spy-op people if other people have done it for you, or you can base it off a day-old op. You don't need too much spies, especially if you ask people in your clan to spy for you. Have no spies in Primary? Say bye to your tech (though tech stealing is removed now). You can't even grab properly if you can't spy your targets. Managing your indy-count (and thus spy count) is a very crucial aspect of Primary that many people that jump over from 1a don't initially first realize.

It's amazing - Alliance players have developed Stockholm syndrome. They actually think having to do DR camping is a good thing!

blid don't lump us all in the same category :p

Seconded.

Primary > kick in the face > Alliance