You certainly won our tussle. Well done.

I am a bit doubtful about the need for anonimity. And harbour some doubts also as to whether it matters that they do not make hits.

While you are seeking anonimity the list of names to choose from could be from any game or game hosting service. I don't know if access could be gained to any such list of usernames but I take it that would not give the link the this site which you seek to avoid.

You are learning a little. Well done.

I'll have to work harder now. :)

I have always built up a stockpile of Military when playing techer but I have been cutting back on that of late. The saving in expenses is miserly compared to the gains in income from Bus and Res.

That said towards the end of the set it becomes a very good seller when other techs (including Bus/Res have gone way down and you get the substantial plus of the cheap units.

On the whole though I have been starting to think that the answer to your question is that it is not worth it.

The bonus is quite significant in Primary and tourney, useful in Alliance but of very little significance in Express. You can use it for GDI - particularly if you are a Theo. But otherwise it isn't worth worrying much about.

I agree they have been an interesting addition. You certainly have to up your land goal in Express and they change timing when to play turns. Not sure how they are working out in Alliance.

The change of tack was good, those grabs really are inept. But you need to break with the hits.

Keep trying.

Buy the oil, hit Xninja, grab some wells, start selling oil.

Hmmm - seems all good.

BUY THAT OIL PEOPLE.

Good work with the walling. Keep trying.

Well, you are clearly content with your tactics and I am pretty content with mine so a chance to see how they will each pan out.

We are commited to dueling it out for the rest of the set, Vic. There will be no walking away.

I don't think you have done this very much Vic.

A learning opportunity for you. :)

Vic, I try to win every set I play. Whether I will achieve wins or not I do not know but I like trying.

You are mistaken to think that there is only one style of play that can win. When I played in the long ago no one would have dreamed that maintaining tiny expenses and gaining land by land trading was a winning idea. But it has proved to be so on Alliance.

I do piss opponents off, as you got pissed off, but that is not my purpose. I expect to be hit by others - whether suiciders, netgainers, people who just like to lob missiles, whoever - and when they land good solid blows I congratulate them. I commend that approach to you. But if you, or others, would rather get cross and throw insults well and good.

For this set you and I war it out. When the set is over I will hold no grudge. I hope that will be true of you.

You have a poor memory, Vic.

I don't understand "You killed 0 enemy spies." Weird.

Although perhaps you had better not explain as it will probably disclose something about his country (and your own).

I take no notice, SupremeU, and can think of no reason to do so.

No, I am not.

I don't lie, SupremeU.

What is that, "ukuchititsa manyazi" ?

I googled it w/o getting anything much.

Happy to stop the set recaps.

I am widely disliked. I play a very old fashioned game based on aggressive grabbing. It is out of fashion on Alliance.

I post a lot because I like the sound of my own voice.

I never mind a retal (on Express) when it is based on going all jetter. As you did.

I always hope to finish well. I also enjoy a duel.

I don't cheat.

If you can't cope with having your country attacked, son, this is not the game for you.

So it's RIP landfarm two sets in a row.

Would you Adam and Eve it!


landfarm (#28)
(Republic)

Land: 8615

Dead

The guy is having you on, KoH. That broken english looks faked to me.

That formula gives the number of units to send to maximise returns. It is used by the land traders on Alliance and I have accepted it on authority, I have not myself gone to the source materials. However I have used it and it does seem to work. The relevance comes very early in a set when you are hitting a country with little or no defence. By the time countries are decently developed the number of units required to break will always exceed the number generated by the formula. It is of continuing use if you are taking a hit on landfarm.

If you want to look into it the expanded formula looks like this,

0.068*(0.43)*(1.5)*1.13*targetland*myland/20

so that might give a clue as to how each of the components has been derived.

(Matching networths is much more significant than units sent.)

The maximum land that can be taken is aproximately 15%, which is a demo, with 95% of the target's networth, maxed Mil Strat and (I think) PS.

Congrats on that, breeze.

Hope you have a good and warrior-like set. :)

Apostrophic games.

What you might think of doing is to have a word with your kindly neighbourhood FA next time round, before embarking upon armageddon. Think of it this way, the guy/gal is lonely and wants some company. Be kind, make a visit. Of course s/he might have less work as a result, but s/he'll thank you nonetheless.




(And now a word from our sponsors, the overworked and underappreciated Company of Earth FAs.)

Now look, guys. Let's get down to some really BASIC economics, right? The groundrules for civilisation as we know it - that kind of thing.

Buy off the private market and the money disappears. No use to anyone. :(

Buy from me - ah, I mean, buy from whichever kind soul is selling on the public market - and the cash goes into his pocket. :) Where it burns a hole until he spends it on YOUR BUSHELS OR UNITS OR TECH OR WHATEVER.

And when you get the dosh, well of course you spend it and the whole happy cycle repeats.

EVERYBODY PROSPERS, right?




(Especially that very sensible guy selling for such a piffling sum as $380.)

The one that has stuck in my memory the longest (since about 2001) was when I was switching, knocking down a batch of buildingd, putting up a batch, knocking down a batch, putting up a batch - hold on this seems to be taking a long time? Arrrgggggghhhh - I had spent about 20 mins solemnly knocking down and then rebuilding the same damn buildings over and over.

Blade's

Rasputin's

You need those turrets, Nerrus. You really need them. Buy, buy, buy. While stocks last.

http://www.jstor.org/...=4&sid=21105395992781

Diced cucumber and yoghurt with a bit of mint goes great with a curry.

Hmmmmm.

Revenge is certainly as significant a feature of the game as netgaining to achieve a high finish. Which seems to me to be one of its strengths and pleasures. :)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZbrnXl2gO_k

Thanks, tellarion.

I suggest the sticky thread be reduced to the pact itself and the announcement of the renewal.

The Pact has run its course and not been renewed so we could have one less sticky thread.

The spy missions exist, what is the problem with them being used?

Well, not so very soon.

Suiciders winning hands down, just now.

Perhaps things will change.

1 DeathFromAbove (#1) Game profile 17,703 $34,510,413 HG
2 Hydroponic Avocado (#2) Game profile 27,960 $33,851,037 C
3 (#19) Game profile 19,460 $31,939,758 H
4 Crimson (#7) 25,656 $29,471,766 CG
5 77 (#77) 18,450 $27,109,642 RG
6 Kingme (#94) Game profile 22,563 $24,245,077 CG
7 XiangYang (#44) 19,408 $21,011,182 CG
8 The Pen is Mightier (#111) 10,828 $20,547,524 HG
9 I will grab you back (#72) 21,272 $20,399,050 CG
10 I R WoG SuperFly (#17) 17,651 $20,038,571 CG


Congrats indeed, a masterclass in staying out of trouble. Just for a time it looked as though #1 had become a target but ebert remained serene, taking his retals as and when it suited him, but mainly just doing his thing to secure the win.

And I agree about bepulse - so close to a second victory, denied only by the savage set of wild hits at the end.

#1 and #2 indeed!!

Express gets ever tougher with solo kills flavour of the month among some. When landfarm is killed off it is clear that no-one is safe. The contrast with the sedate play on Alliance or tourney is marked - and very welcome. :)

No that one was mine.

Too tall a poppy.

Great country to play with tech prices as they have been.

Straight from the horse's mouth.

(Mostly) you'll recognise the bots. Their names of course; they never attack anyone; they are hit by all the world and multi tapped freely; they play turns (and always change networth) very often; and after spying the configuration will be either no spies and lots of troops or an equal division between all the units (including spies).

A thing to be at least slightly aware of on Express is that timing your turns is an art. This was true before the bots but is even more true now.

Good luck.

Your expectation that it will be rough is likely to be well justified. Use your elbows.



(Plus knees, fists, feet, head - well, whatever you've got really.)

A vessel has been detected.
Unimatrix ***
Grid ***
Alter course to intercept

Starship [ Celphii Collapse #9 ]
Democratic Class
Has been decimateded.


RESISTANCE IS USELESS



PS Feb 13, 21:56 BiBiGoN (#102) CELPHI REVENGE (#9) 1159 A
PS Feb 13, 21:57 BiBiGoN (#102) CELPHI REVENGE (#9) 706 A
PS Feb 13, 21:58 BiBiGoN (#102) CELPHI REVENGE (#9) 431 A
PS Feb 13, 21:59 BiBiGoN (#102) CELPHI REVENGE (#9) 302 A

landfarm (#27)
(Democracy)
Rank: 98
Networth: 443,202
Land: 5128
Successful Defense Percentage: 0%
Dead

Sarcasm and sneers are par for the course on the EE forums, wrecking Ball. Not sure why - perhaps it says something about those of us who play. :(

But you get used to it and even sort of get to like it - in a twisted sort of way. :)

The Express server does not have deeply entrenched mores and the reaction to the case you cite will depend, primarily, on the particular make up of those playing at the time. But in Alliance issues somewhat similar are adressed often and make their way into the policies which the various clans adopt and seek to enforce.

The policies are silent about the particular case you cite. However it does happen that someone bottom feeds a "spam tag" (a recently formed clan with no reputation) and suffers a really damaging retal as a result. I have experience of this over the last three or four sets and what has twice happened in this case is for the bottom feeder to detag so as to seek their vengeance on the "spam tag". Which tends, incidentally, to be a bad idea. But what you can readily see from this, is that the experience is one people don't like and which leads them to adopt extreme measures.

The only very slightly different case of someone hitting a country with a whole lot more land but not a lot of defence is very well considered in Alliance. It nowadays goes by the name of "topfeeding" and clans have developed a way to cope with it by retalliating enough times to recover all the land lost (or at least 80% of it).

There is a very long history to this. Land for land retaliation was very controversial for a loing time and led to many wars. But now, a decade or two on, it has become pretty standard.

So you raise an interesting question. :)

Stay inside the playpen, children.

I played hope. More land on a retal is what you expect and if your country is strong enough to hold the land you are unlikely to hear more from me. But if you have to go very jet heavy to pull off the retal I usually grab again.

1 DeathFromAbove (#93) Game profile 16,566 $38,198,118 HG
2 Rock Lobster (#91) 19,531 $31,032,814 RG
3 Hydroponic Avocado (#6) Game profile 30,589 $29,448,103 CG
4 MakeMyDay (#92) 18,270 $24,792,977 RG
5 Wolfsburg (#60) 24,092 $24,445,174 CG
6 Charity Springs (#12) 16,567 $20,355,228 HG
7 Crimson (#2) 19,276 $19,249,631 CG
8 killyourspies (#47) 14,517 $19,012,660 RG
9 dOgMiLk (#110) Game profile 16,141 $18,883,461 DG
10 I R WoG SuperFly (#53) 22,661 $18,411,291 CG

Some familiar names in the top ten this set. Ebert played his usual efficient game and ground out yet another win. Very impressive networth - the bots have helped his grabbing and his stocking/destocking as efficient and tidy as always. He makes it look easy. :)

Creditable third for last set's winner. Not the smooth passage through the field we saw last set but the spurt to the line is starting to look like a trademark feature.

Perhaps Rock Lobster needed some of those huge retals to help his game. But even without them he finishes as the runner up - and not so distant a runner up at that. His networth also very impressive.

A bit of a weird set - not sure what the bots were doing, late on I found one with 8 million troops! Threatened a top ten finish very briefly.

Well played all. Looking forward to the next one. :)