what is the gameplay rationale behind prohibiting countries from dropping grabbed acres for 72 hours? there have been occasions where i've grabbed solely for buildings and dropped the unused acres (when i've had my CS destroyed by BR/AB). is this change just to protect those who view this game exclusively as a netgaining competition from 'suiciders?'

Yes, exactly

Also, imo, the proper way to make things appropriate for "both sides" is to be able to abandon the land

http://forums.earthempires.com/...33&z=no-dropping-land

This is to prevent removal of land from the game. Half of this game revolves around creating land. Removing it is counterproductive.

Its the best way to get back at those that farm you though. I'm kinda neutral to this. There has always been suiciders in this game. I understand trying to protect netters, but allowing them to constantly farm untaggeds the way it has been done, some players are left without any choice but to suicide. If a land farmer knows that they can have every opportunity to get the land back...then you end up chasing players away who are responding to the abuse they've received by the farmer. You can't have it both ways, you want new players for the game, but on the other hand you're trying to curb suiciders. there are ghost acres again, the constant farming should be decreasing, but instead its increasing now because you've put in that suiciders can't get rid of the land they were trying to punish the farmer with.

If you are just doing retals, I don't think dropping land is THAT big of a difference.

This prevention is for the extreme suiciders that takes off thousands and thousands of acres off people.

what is the gameplay rationale behind prohibiting countries from dropping grabbed acres for 72 hours?
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This rule is apparently not in play?

One of my crew had over 4k acres taken, then the grabber dropped it, insuring our member wouldn't even come close to what the feller took, upon retalling @ a 1:1.
Which in turn, makes us think that this person is spitting in our face, making it really hard not to kill the country that dropped the land, rather than having to hit it 7+ times to recoup the land..

It's a bad thing to do..
As QZjul puts it: Removing it is counterproductive.

Perhaps you game builder guys should look at your code and make damn sure this option has a check in that 72 hour "you can't drop the land" box, eh?

Thanks,
QM

you can't drop below grabbed land.

forgive QM, he is pretty old ;)

QM, you can still drop land, just not the land that you grabbed. So if you have 10k acres and grab 4k, you could still drop 10k acres. At least, that's how I understand it but I have never tried it.

there is a difference between suiciders, and rebels,