Primary is rather pointless unless you hit 20k plus acres by day 2 it seems. Ive only played primary the past 2 sets after a lengthy hiatus, but being attacked and losing 700 acres plus on atleast 5 attacks a day makes primary kinda pointless. I was sitting on 6mil turrets at the begginng of the day, now im under 4.5mil due to this. So, unless bottom feeding goes away, and i can manage some what of a better defense. I cannot forsee anyone with less than 20k acres making the top 50. So with that said, I am soley going to top feed the rest of the set and be an all jet country. Watch out guys, cause no matter what ill obtain more acres than you will in retal.

I'm sure I'm good enough to hit 20k plus acres by day 2.

6 mils turrets and you got attacked? i think few in the top 20 have 6+ mils turrets atm.

Maybe you need allies? i see no reason to attack someone with 6 mils turrets: for sure it's not really bottomfeeding.

The ability to retal will scare people away.

Uh Crowgora, have you considered how the players up there "hit 20k plus acres by day 2" and mimic what they do, so that you can also "hit 20k plus acres by day 2"?

Yes?

If he's being hit so much and has 6m turrets, he might be trying to play all-x. If that's what you want to do then Primary might be really hard, I dunno.

I had a top-50 finish with less than 20k acres last set. :D

whoever is attacking a 6M turret country is missing out on some better targets...unless he doesn't have allies and weapons tech.

Max weapons and military tech along with some others. But losing 400k turrets every couple attacks is brutal. Oddly, all blind attacks also. But, whatever i guess. Ill figure out primary eventually lol sucks on it being such a long set and being screwed so early i guess

I have 6m turrets and haven't been hit in a LOOONG time. There is something else going on here...

I have told others this before, but if all you buy is turrets, you WILL be grabbed eventually. Some people do not care how many jets they have to send if they have already spent turns spying into you. 6mil is a lot of turrets to break, but if they have no reason to fear a retal some will do it no matter the cost. As a general rules I like to stay about 50/50 or 40/60 turrets/jets. If a country feels that they can be grabbed back, they are much less likely to hit you. Of course there is no sure way to avoid grabs. A lot of the top countries have been grabbed or retalled this set at least once.

Meh, pointless complaining in my side. Im restructuring everything since max defense isnt going to work. Plan B!

Plan B is going all-jetter :)

it seems like it would be a very viable solution, also does dr happen on primary? because it doesnt seem like my acre losses were going down, but rather going up. But im still kinda weirded out at the blind attacks.

you have no way of knowing they are blind. If they succeed on the first op.

They probably weren't blind attacks. Do like I'm doing, I am currently cranking back to bust some heads.

Unless you have a crazy SPAL, they probably weren't blind (as it's been mentioned).

All jetter is really not a viable solution, unless you think you can take retals and have nobody new hit you (not gonna happen).

Yes, there is DR in the primary server. The acre variation you see is probably based on the grabbing formula and varying NW's.

Interesting, i didn't think there was a full blown grabbing formula lol as for an all jetter, if someone attacks me, i can immediately retal and since id be in dr id almost guarantee myself more acres overall. Atleast thats what my understanding of dr tells me. Either way, im going to restructure everything over the next week and hope to make a run at some acres and take some overdue retals.

I'm frustrated too dude. hit 15 times in 4 days it's just so disheartening. I can sometimes only log on every second day due to work and personal life commitments so falling behind even temporarily can be crippling for the entire set.

Well if you are in DR and you're retalling immediately, then you won't be in DR any more lol.

A very key thing about solo servers (this one, Express and Tournament) is not to let your country fall behind the rat race.

As OMA said earlier up, a 50:50 or 40:60 jet:turret ratio is pretty good, because too many turrets means you can't retal, and too little turrets means you will get attacked by countries smaller than you.

If you're already behind this reset though, chances are it is unrecoverable unless market conditions swing wildly in your favour (for eg, $70 food most of the 2nd month like the previous reset).

The trick to primary I've found is to either keep up with the top countries or blend in with your surroundings.. so if you have more land than the ppl around you in NW take a day to cash/buy up tech and military to get your NW higher before going out to get more land.

Also like the other ppl said: retal, retal hard. Have a few news entries of you getting 2-3k acres while losing 400-500 should discourage some ppl form grabbing you.

Acres lost & gained are relative to your land vs the persons land you are grabbing, their DR level, government bonus, and military strategy. Generally, if you have a bit less land than the person you are attacking, you will gain more than they would gain had they hit you. But this is not always the case. A Dictator or Tyranny with 140% military strategy will likely gain a bit more land than other governments with no military strategy tech on a similar grab.

Primary is not only a race for land, but sustainability. As you can see now that we have passed day 30, a number of the countries that you saw dominate the top 20 during the first 30 days, are now falling off in ranks and will continue to slip away.

Often for Techers and Cashers, it is because they did not build enough Construction Sites during the early game. Meaning that when they start making grabs each day for a total of 1000+ acres, they have to spend a lot of turns building up on those acres instead of spending those turns earning extra income. This may be different for the other strategies who produce the same amounts no matter how the turns are spent (Indy/Farmer/Oiler).

Another reason some fall off the top scores list after the halfway point is because they didn't keep their tech levels up enough. Their production capacity is not being utilized to its optimal potential. Therefore they are unable to keep up with those with higher tech levels who are producing and selling more than they are daily. I think it was mentioned in another thread that tech levels for both Farmers and Cashers are the most crucial to keep up, while Indy can be a little more forgiving.

"Oddly, all blind attacks also."

This is trash, you don't know that.

With my spy tech and spy level, i do know that sir. The lower my acres got, the better my spies got. Another reason which makes me understand the blind attacks. But, im almost converted to a separate strat so moot point, and i have quite a few retals to dish out.