You're welcome oldman. It was in our own interest and I stand by that even if I fluffed it up. :)

Nice set everybody :)

Now i have to break 100mils :p

congrats oldman - closer than probably everyone thought in the end there with grim...

this set, aside from teh absolutely loony bushel prices for a while there, sounds like it will be remembered as the set of tech steals (I just jumped out of gogy's range as a commie after a few days of getting tech stolen, it was not so straightforward for the cashers to do)

too many commies again though for anything spectacular (although herbs did very well).. the mil price crash is getting earlier and earlier!

military prices were above average actually, highest in the past year - but just barely, pretty average overall

Just to add on to what oldman said, it was quite a unique set - which made it enjoyable despite it being quite a miserable set for cashers.

First there was the super expensive tech prices followed by a steep crash to ~1700 which then rebounded to 2200 or so for quite a while.

Military was quite pricey too in the beginning and then became really cheap for long periods before rebounding.

Never seen such a spike in food prices and again a steep and quick fall.

Very volatile conditions making it quite interesting and unpredictable - expect for the fact oldman was always going to win :)

I'll try again next set as a Rep - its been quite a learning experience for me

Congrats everyone.

Especially Oldman for the win, and herbs for top Indy.

well I predicted oldman would win in the second post in this thread heh...=)

Bobby the clairvoyant!

did reroll play this set?

yes but he said he wasn't giving it his full attention because of chinese new year or something. #30 and he never finished

Congrats to oldmann and rest of top dawgs!

Now....., who was I WIN (#145)?

Im pissed i wasn't able to unload all my scuds on him, i was at the claim with my brother doing some panning and no cell service out there :-(

Gogy

Asshole...

FYI, another reason Bobby's 3 day retal window thing will not be respected? Rockman topfed me last set (so much for his "topfeeding is for noobs speeches"). I had a good mind to end my reset on him since my set was already basically shot but figured sooner or later he would go after Viva so why ruin the fun for Viva.

After he hit me, he started banking turns and refused to build expecting me to retal immediately, not going to happen. He spent so much time fearing my retal that he screwed his country up. He basically stopped playing for a week cos I made sure he was fully built or throwing away turns before I took my retal.

Is that confirmed as Rockman? I don't know wtf that country was doing...

Yes, that was Rockman.

Is it still called a claim these days?

The reason you didn't retal was that oil was at $400+ and you didn't even have half as many jets as you needed to break me. By the time you had enough jets to break me, your retal only took 2k acres. I didn't screw my country up at all, and if I saved turns, it was because my standing orders for food were priced too low. I didn't basically stop playing for a week, and I built up right away. I did grab you at the end of my turns for the day, so I didn't build up directly after the grab, and with my dictator bpt of 80ish, Building up the land did take a few days.

After my grab on you, I had 5693 MORE acres than you. And yet you say that I was topfeeding you. I grabbed on February 13th, which gives plenty of time for a 1:1 exchange of grabs to benefit me. If you had done a better job matching networths and having strat tech, you'd have gained a lot more.

I was 25.7m networth after the grab, and 29.6m networth when you retalled a week later. You were 27.2m networth when i grabbed you, 26.1m after I grabbed you, and then you were 42.1m networth a week later when you retalled.

You didn't have the jets to retal me, and you didn't have the stockpile to immediately gets the jets and oil to retal me. Plus, I had 5693 more acres than you after I grabbed you.

So how is grabbing someone who is going to take a while to get enough jets to retal you, and has 5693 acres less than you, considered a topfeed?

It took you a week to retal, not because you were waiting for me to build the land, but because you had to take the time to get the jets & oil to not bounce.

If you were worried about your gains, and wanted me to build up the land, and had the jets to retal me when you were down at 26m networth, why would you jump to 42m networth before retalling me?

Your story just doesn't add up.

Oh. I thought your definition of a top feed was hitting a country that is capable of retaling? My mistake.

One can also say it took you 4 days to get the jets and oil to break me from looking at the history.

Matter of fact is there was 15 days where your country was just floundering "waiting for food SOs to go through".

My retal on you became just another bottom feed IMO. Not the 1st time I've done that anyway.

Back on topic to Bobby's point. A country can back turns for over 3 days waiting for a retal too screw returns.

Maybe you didn't notice all the discussion we had on these forums about landtrading. I intentionally hit another casher, that wasn't merely a "lucky accident".

To refresh your memory, here's the thread:
http://forums.earthempires.com/...p;p=1360641308&page=2


Not only that, but it took you a week to get enough jets to retal. So it could also be argued that I was midfeeding because I had enough defense that it took you a week to retal. I'm sure that you've tried to bottomfeed guys who retalled you in less time.

In fact, you did last set.

2013-02-13 20:25:07 PS BigD1ck1nAzz15Bad4UrHealth (#163) Pogo the Clown (#88) 1914A (3358A)
2013-02-13 04:12:26 PS Maxwells Demon (#75) BigD1ck1nAzz15Bad4UrHealth (#163) 6445A (11548A)

2013-02-20 16:17:16 PS BigD1ck1nAzz15Bad4UrHealth (#163) Maxwells Demon (#75) 2215A (3987A)
2013-02-19 21:34:35 PS Pogo the Clown (#88) BigD1ck1nAzz15Bad4UrHealth (#163) 3457A (6197A)

You hit him after I hit you, and he retalled you before you retalled me. So I guess you topfed him, because you hit someone who could retal, someone who could retal you faster than you retalled me.


What screwed your gains on me wasn't whether or not I built up the land, it was that you jumped to 42m networth before retalling me. If you were worried about gains, you would have retalled me while still being around 30m networth.

I don't know, I PM'd crest asking when he was going to retal and he told me at the time that it was because you hadn't built up and were saving turns. That doesn't mean it's true but he was saying that even in private even at the time. Meanwhile, I saw you didn't make an attack again for like a week after that waiting for the retal. Why would you stop attacking on Feb. 13?

I didn't really have the economy to grow 11k acres every day.

11k a week? With only 6.5k being needed to build?

It was absolutely a top feed, because you knew he could retal, and you know it was a top feed.

And not attacking for an entire week afterwards, you'd be hard-pressed to convince me that wasn't you contorting yourself trying to minimize the retal.

And if you were just going to war Viva anyway I don't know why you'd inflict that on someone either.

Also, sidenote, if you hit a guy for 6500 (11,500) and his retal only gets 2200 (4000), IMO the retaler is absolutely justified in hitting a second time.

Only if you can enforce it. :P

Yeah exactly.

Justified or not for a second hit, the guy will take you down. That's why people shouldn't think of them as retals with time limits. With GDI you're each allowed to LG each other once without opening the gates for your enemy.

I knew that if he did choose to retal, it'd take him a few days to get enough jets to do it, and that he'd have to jump way above me in networth just to be able to break me. So where I hit someone for max gains that I knew could retal if he decided to ignore a 72 hour retal window, other top players have knowingly bottomfed players who wouldn't be able to retal them in a 72 hour retal time window.

Maybe you didn't see how low Crest23's offense was and how high my defense was. Maybe he chose not to tell you that he had under 10m jets as a Republic, and I had 20m turrets as a dictator.

Crest23 is lucky that I accept retals a week after a grab. A lot of people would have started a war with him over his decision to use a whole week to retal. Much of which he needed if he wanted to not bounce the retal.

I won't take a retal just for the sake of taking retals. I think I have voiced my opinion enough on what I think about the whole "retal" argument. Yours wasn't the first crappily run country to hit me on the Primary server that I have chosen to retal on my own time. If you look at my past countries, it's the same rodeo, it ends up being just another bottom feed. Heck, I reckon that I have forgiven more "retals" than any of the other top players (one or two). My decision to retal a country is almost always based on when it will benefit me the most. I wasn't going to just cash turns just to retal a crappy country and I would have hit you sooner had I chosen to, but I chose to continue growing my country cos sooner or later I knew I would be bottom feeding you, lol.

Blid would know, he was my da, and you did not have 20 million turrets.

I look at it as you are lucky I didn't start a war for the top feed, I really didn't want to waste my time on a crappy country to tell you the truth, I actually thought it might be run by you or Cerberus. Yes, Cerberus.

So blid would know what my defense was because he was your defense ally?

And you chose to not retal me immediately because I hadn't built up the 6k barren acres yet, so to get better gains you decided to grow to 42m networth before retalling me? Your story just isn't adding up...

My country wasn't that crappy either. It was not a rainbow (I had no farms, research labs, military bases, and maybe 100ish oil rigs when oil prices were $400ish), and while my income techs weren't as good as yours but were still decent, my weapons & strategy techs were better than yours. I had more construction sites than you, and I had more military strength (and spy strength) than you. I was also fully built prior to my attack on you.

You're just making fluff up now.

I spied you 5 times (4 regular spies and on the day of the retal I also did an alliance spy)over that week to see when you built up before my retal, how many did I fail?

Your bpt was 75 or 80, mine was 140.

For someone that is a dictator specialist, you ran the crappiest of all the big dict cashers or the best of all the other dicts I don't know which. I ran a crappy Rep myself and my goal for the set was to learn how to run a Rep on Primary with it being my first time playing it on that server. I learned a lot to say the least.

My decision to retal when I did was also to make you pay to build up all that land cause you were deliberately trying not to. And no, you had less than 10 million cash on hand the first few days you so you weren't waiting for SOs to go through for food. Who's making up stuff now?

You had great DAs and good defense, to break you I had to jet up some, I was not going to jump out of range from other potential targets I could make just to retal you. Your hit set me back on the other reps causing me to make even riskier hits in an attempt to keep up.

One of my def allies went inactive because he was getting farmed. I had one good def ally, the other was probably out of your humanitarian range.

You've still not specified what was crappy about my dictator. I had at least 80 bpt, I'm fairly sure I had 88 bpt by that point. If you had 140 bpt, then I was wrong, you did have more CS than me. Why you'd build that many as a republic casher doesn't make any sense, though.

If you wanted to make me pay, you'd have grabbed me back for 5k+ acres, regardless of whether or not I built up, rather than doing a 2.2k acre grab on me.

And since you think I wasn't building CS with my turns or building my land with my turns, what are you saying I was doing? Are you saying that you think I was cashing my turns with 6k barren acres ... and doing what with the money?

You failed just 1 spy op on me. It was Street Fighter who failed 4x on me the day after I hit you, not you. I had you two confused.

As for your retal on me, are you still sure I didn't have 20m turrets?

Feb 20, 16:17
A brigade from BigD1ck1nAzz15Bad4UrHealth (#163) has invaded your lands!
Their forces broke through your defences!
They took:
2215 Acres (3987 Gained)
3479 Buildings (1285 Stolen)
20,810 Bushels
$35,689,403
23,348 Technology Points
Your military lost:
21,188 Troops
1,397,803 Turrets
24,840 Tanks
Your defence allies lost:
6352 Troops
527,607 Turrets
6437 Tanks
Their military lost:
2,474,208 Jets


From your military losses, that was a 30,927,600 jet PS. With the way oil prices were, I really doubt that you oversent by much more than you needed to.

Wow, 140 BPT.

Yeah, 140 bpt is crazy. It's ideal for building 75k acres. If you get it at 25k acres, then you need to grow to 100k acres for it to be worth it (assuming you don't do any landtrading).

I didn't remember what crest23's bpt was at, but I had assumed that my CS count was higher than his because I was a dictator and also because I was planning to #1 landtrade and #2 go to war. Both of which made a higher bpt useful, whereas a netter should start cashing surplus turns instead of building CS once they reach their optimal bpt. Crest23 built at least 100 more CS than was optimal for him. I had not remembered his bpt, but I knew that my CS count was more than what was optimal for any Republic, so I made the statement that I had more CS than him. That was why I made that statement, which has apparently turned out to be false.

I was planning on going to 85k/90k acres which I probably would have but for all the retals I ate, haha., so I don't think 140 is crazy. And I got there way early.

I'm saying you were banking turns for a few days after you hit. Hence the reason i said Bobby's 3 day rule doesn't make sense. Why would you be cashing turns with 6000 acres unbuilt when you can go 3+days without needing to run turns?

You didn't have 20 million turrets when you hit me I think you had like 15 million, you did when I retaled.

The name made me think it was your country, looking inside though my 1st thought was when did Cerberus learn to run an ok country? So I will take that one back. It wasn't so much a crappy country as that I was disappointed it was yours and would have been impressed if it was indeed Cerberus.

We will get to that vaunted 1000 posts, keep it coming guys.

Yeah, 15 million + half a million each troops and tanks, with 20 million by the time you hit me sounds about right.

Not retalling because I didn't build up the land sounds odd, though. As a non-dictator, ghost acres make up about 1/3rd of your gain if you hit someone the same networth as you. If you bottomfeed, the percentage does go up, but on your retal on me it was still under 1/2 of the gains.

So you were waiting to retal because I didn't immediately build up the land, which meant that you wanted to avoid about a 10% penalty (since I was still about 90% built) to under 50% of the grab. So because retalling immediately would have carried about a 5% gains penalty since I hadn't built up yet, you decided to wait a week to retal (and still not get your strategy tech up to the level mine was at) and hit me after jumping to 12m networth more than me. Just to hurt me.

If you want to hurt me, you don't worry about the 5% penalty to gains you get for hitting a 90% built country. You come as close as you can to matching networths before hitting.

I didn't say "oh man, I built up all that land only to get hit for 2.2k acres afterwards." I said "Oh man, he jumped to 42m networth before hitting me, I only lost 2.2k acres."

I also said "It's a good thing for him that I accept retals over a long retal window. Many people wouldn't accept a 30m jet PS a week later as a valid retal."

This argument has about run its course. Can we find something new to argue about? Maybe whether or not Chavez was a good leader?

He was a good leader.

I knew you would say that blid, lol.

lol
I don't see how he was a good leader. I'm left-wing myself but for good examples of left-wing politics I think of places like Sweden, not Venezuela/Chavez heh.

Only 53 posts to go to 1000 wooot

A lot of the criticism of Chavez in the US is basically "look how much poorer Venezuela is than us. Therefore, Chavez is a bad leader."

But really, you should compare Venezuela to other countries like Colombia, Brazil, Bolivia, Peru, etc. Economically, its pretty similar. Despite US efforts to harm them economically, too.

In terms of freedom to dissent, they're probably a little bit worse than other countries around them, though.

That's because Venezuela is oil rich, and Chavez's resource nationalism was able to spread some of that wealth among the people.

But Venezuela was and is in an ongoing struggle between Chavez (and now Maduro) and the plutocrats of that country. Chavez was instituting socialist policies harmful to the business interests of the rich, without killing them or throwing them in gulags, and the rich have been fighting back. They actually staged a freaking coup at one point. The TV stations Chavez shuttered were owned by people that literally attempted to overthrow the government!

Anyway, the opposition still does largely control the media in Venezuela, and they have been opposing Chavez and attempting to build support for Capriles. However, the majority of the population obviously still supports Chavez's policies.

It's really funny how Venezuela is reported on here, like how they actually pretended Capriles had a good shot at unseating Chavez, or how they moan about Chavez shutting down those stations (without providing the details about the coup).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Venezuelan_coup,_2002

Does anyone take the we elections there seriously? I think his 1st he won free and square, but they've been rigged ever since. It's the same story, they come in on a high and then the inevitable happens, corruption corruption corruption.

Why would they not be legitimate? All the polling showed Chavez would win

Because the USA doesn't like the result, therefore the elections are not legitimate. Don't you know what Democracy means? It means that the puppet the US government selects wins the election. If the US doesn't like the person who won the election, the process was not democratic. That's how the US defines democracy. And don't even get me started on how the US defines socialism...