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Apr 24th 2024, 4:59:03

Originally posted by VicRattlehead:
Originally posted by DeepThinker:
Well I started maybe 4 months or so ago. I quickly learned primary which I thought was a learning server is definitely not that. I posted a couple of questions and got some answers but I got a lot of criticism also. So I decided it was best to just STFU. To a newcomer it seems like you are coming into a frat house with some welcoming people and some others that would just as soon you not be here. You all know each other so well it is intimidating to new people. Maybe some type of a forum that is for new people to kinda “check in” get a feel for the game without getting farmed to oblivion. Still don’t really feel comfortable and would never try one of the harder servers like alliance, or team.


Did we manage to keep this guy in the community?


Yes. You can click the game profile link by his handle to see countries from last reset.

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Apr 24th 2024, 4:54:52

GDI currently prevents tech stealing. Countries can get hit and not be able to retal due to the humanitarians range restriction. That's part of the reason why I'm considering a mechanic like this.

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Apr 24th 2024, 3:50:48

I recommend against holding off on any mass recruiting for the next two months.

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Apr 24th 2024, 2:18:42

Much of this will be listed in server details or inside the game itself but I thought it would be helpful to have everything in one place.

On this server, it is not possible to attack or to perform harmful spy ops on player countries. Countries will start with 180 turns, will gain 1 turn every 24 minutes, and can hold a maximum of 240 (480) turns. Each reset will last about 2 months.

This game server will have a number of special rules:

* Players cannot spend turns if they are untagged.
* Players cannot leave a tag after joining.

* A tech point is worth 4 NW instead of 2 NW.
* Base military expenses for jets are $0.20.
* The networth component formula for military expenses = 1. Military expenses per unit do not change with NW.
* Standing orders will be changed to make them more fair and to make market transfers more difficult.
* The warfare and SDI technologies will not be present.
* Government switches will not remove bonuses.
* Users will be able to specify how long goods remain on the public market.

* Countries cannot drop acres.
* Only SS and PS attacks are permitted.
* A country can only PS up to twice every calendar day. A country can still do SS attacks if it has done its daily PSes. It works in the same way as the spy op refresh system.
* Base attacking military losses for SS are 98%.
* The Dictatorship government loses 50% less units when attacking.
* The maximum standard benefit of medical tech is 50%.
* Medical tech reduces military losses from attacking.
* The minimum acres per grab is 1 instead of 5-20.
* There are no humanitarians range restrictions.
* GDI is not available.

* Players can only form ingame alliances with other clan members.
* Research allies provide HALF the typical benefit to allied countries that have less than 20% of the TPT of the techer.
* Offensive ally military losses are impacted by their government attacking military loss modifier and medical tech.
* Offensive ally military losses are not impacted by the SS penalty for attacking military losses.
* FA packages cannot be sent.
* NPC countries would use the latest code ("express style") and would not be able to get allies.

* The daily spy op limit per country is 50 for dictatorships and 10 for all other governments.
* All information ops are allowed against other players.
* Espionage, Bomb Banks, Raid Food Stores, and Raid Oil Reserves are allowed against NPC countries and use the "express style" formulas

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Apr 24th 2024, 2:07:59

A few of you quickly noticed that the Alpha Cooperation server is available. Feel free to test things out and let me know if anything seems off. Currently everything is implemented except for dictatorships getting extra daily ops, the PS changes, and the standing order changes.

It would be helpful if some of your countries joined the nopass tag.

Edited By: Slagpit on Apr 24th 2024, 2:17:28
See Original Post

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Apr 24th 2024, 1:37:58

Yeah that'll be available in a few days

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Apr 24th 2024, 0:17:07

I haven't had a chance to investigate this yet. Does this happen on all servers with standard GDI?

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Apr 24th 2024, 0:05:36

It was previously possible to create a clan with a blank password that no one else could join. This should now be fixed.

On the team server, restarts would sometimes see an incorrect clan page. The clan page would say that they were not in a clan but their country was still tagged. The clan page should now show the correct information.

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Apr 24th 2024, 0:04:15

Alpha servers (premium access only) have a magic market functionality to allow purchasing and selling of goods. It is now possible to purchase bonus points, spies, and missiles on the magic market. This should make certain types of testing easier to do.

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Apr 23rd 2024, 19:15:08

How do you feel about this adjustment to harmful spy op returns? https://www.earthempires.com/...rimary-52625?t=1713899072

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Apr 23rd 2024, 19:04:32

The mechanic I'm considering is a full set country-to-country and spy op specific DR that reduces returns. So you could steal tech from the same country but as you do it more and more you'd get less gains. The goal is to still allow for quick types of retaliation or to allow for countries with lots of spies to steal a little bit from a lot of countries, but to prevent situations where a small country continually targets a large country with harmful spy ops. The new DR would apply to these ops:

Cause Dissensions
Bomb Airbases
Espionage
Bomb Buildings
Sabotage Intelligence
Bomb Banks
Raid Food Stores
Raid Oil Reserves

And not apply to these ops:

Stir Rebellions
Demoralize
Sabotage Missiles
BioTerrorism

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Apr 23rd 2024, 18:16:27

That's helpful to know. I'm looking to add stealing tech back as a beneficial op that isn't blocked by GDI. It was a long time ago, but based on what people said the main issue was that a small country could target a large country for many days during the round and the larger country couldn't stop the tech stealing?

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Apr 23rd 2024, 17:16:53

Can you explain why the bigger countries can't get enough SDI and tanks in order to grab the same target more than once? That was always the intended calculation for doing more than one grab. You can of course do it, but you need to accept some risk which you can offset by having a well-rounded defense. Spy ops are of course very difficult to defend against which is part of the reason for the 72 hour time limit.

It's a really bad new player experience to not even be able to spy op countries that have attacked you. If we want to keep Primary as a server without any NPC countries then it's more important to consider the experience of the new players and weaker countries.

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Apr 23rd 2024, 16:35:37

Originally posted by BlackHole:
Am I yellow pisshole? LOL.


Also - is me pointing out that someone attacked my wife breaking the rules, but said person attacking my wife... isn't? LOL


Ya'll and your mental gymnastics!


If someone breaks the rules on discord then you should message a discord moderator if you feel so inclined. It sounds like the messages were already deleted? I understand that you didn't appreciate what was said to you, but how is spreading it around helping? If it was a horribly offensive thing in your eyes then the best thing to do is not to repeat it any further. In any case, I think that you've made your displeasure well known at this point. When a message is deleted then that should generally be the end of it. Otherwise players will bicker endlessly about personal issues.

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Apr 23rd 2024, 15:22:44

Suppose that country A landgrabs country B and jumps in NW. Country B attempts to fight back but receives the "Your generals will not attack such a large opponent!" message. I understand that everything is mathematically fair but this mechanic has been a source of frustration for some players.

Thoughts on removing this restriction if there are recent attacks or failed harmful spy ops between the countries? In other words, country B can always attack or spy op country A if country A did at least one attack or one failed harmful spy op against country B in the previous 72 hours.

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Apr 23rd 2024, 15:17:38

Just asking.

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Apr 23rd 2024, 15:08:08

Yes, please make a post on B&S.

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Apr 23rd 2024, 2:38:52

Should mod deleted posts remove bonus points from players? Vote in this thread!

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Apr 23rd 2024, 2:14:43

Leave it to TAN to say something so horribly uncivil in the thread about civility =(

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Apr 23rd 2024, 2:07:15

Originally posted by KoHeartsGPA:
It's basic forums rules, doesn't need to be repeated, enforce it.


I did delete and edit a few posts already, but yes, I agree that we've been historically too lax on this.

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Apr 23rd 2024, 1:39:05

Alliance Talk is for discussing the game. There is no legitimate purpose in bringing another player's personal information, family, race, religion, or other characteristics into any discussion. Criticizing an alliance or country is perfectly fine and expected. For example, it is permissible to say that an alliance isn't good at warring or netting, that they pact in a cowardly way, or any other type of game-related criticism. But you should avoid personal insults against other players.

Thank you for your cooperation.

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Apr 23rd 2024, 1:28:51

This is roughly fourth on my list and would probably be included as part of change set 25 but I can't give any specific dates.

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Apr 23rd 2024, 1:01:59

This will be fixed in a few days by updating the GDI help text.

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Apr 22nd 2024, 20:53:39

Paradigm? More like Paradim, am I right?

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Apr 22nd 2024, 20:17:30

Do you mind sharing an example of another game that's using the github wiki functionality? We'd also need volunteers to manage the PRs.

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Apr 22nd 2024, 20:16:13

Celphi, do you mean something similar to https://www.php.net/...ual/en/function.iconv.php ? Although I see a lot of comments complaining about that specific function.

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Apr 22nd 2024, 15:07:16

We'll have a two week period between when players can create countries and when the first round starts. That might be a good time to do recruiting and the creation of tags since boxcar will support the new server by then. Right now it's tough because none of the third party tools support the Cooperation server.

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Apr 22nd 2024, 4:25:56

Some of the reasons for the change:

1) Make offensive allies more important which encourages players to find a tag and allows elite tags to differentiate themselves by managing offensive allies well.
2) Make spy ops more useful along those same lines.
3) Make landgrabbing a meaningful choice in the early game and punish players who grab carelessly.
4) Increase public market demand for jets, medical tech, and weapons tech.
5) Shorten the overall grabbing phase which some players find to be tedious.

If the mechanic doesn't work out well then it will be replaced with something else.

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Apr 22nd 2024, 2:51:27

Hope you enjoyed your return set!

Edited By: Slagpit on Apr 22nd 2024, 3:40:54

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Apr 22nd 2024, 2:45:47

Development for the custom game rules has finished and we're in the testing phase now (item 2).

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Apr 22nd 2024, 0:32:09

Originally posted by Turtle Crawler:
If this is the extent of the changeset it might be worth playing. Maybe of the other changes I saw earlier were... Not worth putting effort into. Especially those limiting gameplay like no PS and increased unit loses based on playing the game more.


The planned rule set is here but I'm still making minor changes as I develop it: https://www.earthempires.com/...server-52515?t=1713465255

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Apr 21st 2024, 21:11:33

Yes, you will lose 98% of your sent units in that scenario for SS. PS will have the typical military losses that you are used to.

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Apr 21st 2024, 17:31:53

I'm sympathetic but I'm not sure that we can do this. There are many third party websites that use our news feeds, ranks feeds, and spy op uploads that may not be able to handle non-latin characters in country names. If we make this change we could break those tools and websites. Some of them no longer have active maintainers.

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Apr 21st 2024, 17:28:16

I plan to look into this after I finish some other work that's currently in progress.

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Apr 21st 2024, 16:20:58

Originally posted by SuperFly:
I want to FA my dear leader to #1 finish.

Will LaF be returning? I will join. Game mechanics absolutely make sure that I am a well behaved little boy so PM if you want another nerd to stock just to FA transfer!


FA packages cannot be sent on the Cooperation server.

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Apr 21st 2024, 15:57:29

Originally posted by guochel:
does this mean it's pointless to sell turrets, troops, and tanks and buy turrets, troops, and tanks, because you'll never get attacked?


I expect countries to have all jets for most of the round. CIs have some incentive to produce turrets or even troops late in the set. Countries destocking off their PM will buy troops and tanks.

I'm not really happy with that situation, but it's more or less the status quo on Express and Alliance already. Many players there already buy mostly jets with few other units.

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Apr 21st 2024, 2:49:42

Originally posted by VicRattlehead:
Some things never change, I guess.

The hate on slag is weird. He is working at this, seems to basically always tell the truth, and just doesn't give a fluff about anyone's feelings. What else are you looking for in an admin here? That he take personal stakes in your ingame feuds?


My understanding is that some players found the base game to be boring and found it to be more fun to try to "war" the game staff. You are witnessing a seemingly never-ending smear campaign.

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Apr 21st 2024, 2:47:48

Originally posted by Vamps:
Originally posted by Slagpit:
I know the facts don't matter but just in case anyone was wondering: Vamps has no countries deleted for rules violations, he's apparently been forum banned a single time over the past 13 years, and he routinely makes false accusations towards the game staff: https://www.earthempires.com/...ce-server-52511/3#1031260


Uh, thanks for confirming I've been a clean player over 13 years here. I appreciate it?

I do not trust you with any logs from anyone. My apologies if I was unclear on that. You have been asked on these forums directly why Chevs was banned, and you have edited and/or deleted your own responses. You would have been better off if you were honest and said it's because you just don't like him.

But I do appreciate your post about trust. It was an eye-opening glimpse into your overall mindset, and it helped me (and a handful of others) make a hard choice much easier to make.

I hope you take some of my post to heart. The community deserves it.


Cool, thanks for confirming that you were never treated unfairly over the past 13 years. You played a free game for all of that time and never paid a dime. Why are you making yourself out to be some kind of martyr or victim? Do you think that you're owed something else? Is 13 years of fair treatment and free entertainment not enough for you?

As for the logs, what are you even talking about? You said that you have logs of conversations that involve me, but you won't post them because you don't trust me? But I'm part of the conversations? That doesn't make any sense. Yet you want to talk about trust and "owning up"?

If you want to quit, fine. But will you stop defaming me?

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Apr 21st 2024, 1:07:22

I know the facts don't matter but just in case anyone was wondering: Vamps has no countries deleted for rules violations, he's apparently been forum banned a single time over the past 13 years, and he routinely makes false accusations towards the game staff: https://www.earthempires.com/...ce-server-52511/3#1031260

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Apr 21st 2024, 0:01:08

Originally posted by VicRattlehead:
Do NPC countries play untagged? Apologies if this seems obvious to others.


Yes, only NPCs can play untagged. Players are required to tag up before they can play a turn.

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Apr 20th 2024, 22:25:59

Originally posted by g0nz0:
Is it activated? I don't see anything.


It's not activated yet: https://www.earthempires.com/...opment-52605?t=1713627203

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Apr 20th 2024, 22:25:24

Originally posted by Anarchist:
What is it again?


https://www.earthempires.com/...server-52515?t=1713465255

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Apr 20th 2024, 22:24:53

Originally posted by KoHeartsGPA:
Is there a minimum and max amount of players per tag?


There is no minimum and there's no maximum.

Edited By: Slagpit on Apr 21st 2024, 15:54:14
See Original Post

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Apr 20th 2024, 19:46:29

Me!