Did you check my post on the AI forum, I have suggestions for how to change the techer bots so they put more weight on the high volume techs.

7-tap is OK to go ruin his reset over. 2-tap I think is not. The line is blurry though.

Food acted up last reset as well, it was like $70 for almost a day. Now food is at $146-150. What is the reason for this? I know it used to be common that players used multies to buy up the price of one good, usually oil, but sometimes food, in order to transfer great amounts of cash to their main account. Is this what is going on? This is far from natural. Farmers make far more than techers at these prices.

In alliance spy ops serve a purpose in wars, in Tournament you can only suicide with them. If a netgainer is using 25 spy ops in any day of the reset he is clearly in need of a guide, not more spy ops.

I would suggest lowering the number to 10 in order to help newer players learn to landgrab by NW/land.

Ohh and in case someone says they want more spy ops to make war, then you clearly need to learn to netgain better so you can hit him with your military like a man. :P

Did he randomly attack you once gently or was it a random 31-tap?

1. Theocracy; -20% Military costs
This ONLY reduces private market prices and does nothing for your military upkeep costs.

2. Military technology; Military Costs: 90.0% of Normal
This one, which also affects "Military Costs" reduces both military upkeep costs AND private market prices.

3. Tyranny; 10% military upkeep costs
This I assume reduces military upkeep costs. Nothing strange here

4. Military Bases, as I understand the formula works in separate ways to reduce the military upkeep(up to about 30% land coverage) and to reduce the private market prices(no cap) with different formulas. The way it works may be difficult to understand but the help info both on the wiki and on the building screen says clearly that MBs reduce upkeep costs AND purchase costs.

The one that stands out here is the Theocracy govt bonus, which I think everyone assumes has the same effect as Military technology, as they have the same nomenclature.

Suggestion:
1. Change the theocracy bonus wording.
OR
2. Change the theocracy bonus function to -15% but make it work on military upkeep costs as well as private market prices. This change would make theos worse at destocking but improve their midgame. Perhaps it would make the turn taking TMBR viable on some servers.

Hmm, didn't think of that. Well how about if the switch from monarchy has the revolution costs unless it's the first switch? Then they would have to do Demo MBR after. Or they would have to live with selling their food on the public market @ like 35 and getting taxed. Either way it is a couple % less NW as a result. So it gets curbed sligthly as was suggested, but still very much viable(depending on the server, the prices and the total amount stockpiled).

It was better with 7-8 levels then the scum wouldn't reach game A usually.

So I can make mortal enemies by grabbing once nowadays?

A gentle double tap means the seek me up IRL and throw a molotov flufftail in my face I guess?

If you'd want to curb it then make dropping acres cost the same as destroying buildings. This would also serve to make it harder to suicide and it will reduce land destruction in general.

So how come so many want to stay in the lower levels then? Winning 2A used to be a prestigious thing. I guess there were like 7-8 levels then and 230 countries or so in Game A. I got 2nd and 3rd but never won. :/

When I was playing before there were more guides and stuff around, maybe not in the forums or connected to swirve or stuff like that but you could always go to KoD's earth library and get a commie indy startup or a very basic tech start. Other sites were also around. Where are they now?

Now that we have a wiki, couldn't we put up some basic non-optimized start-ups, and guides for how to play early game, mid game and late game? It was hugely helpful for me when I was new to see that KoD had a start-up that could let me get like 40k turrets/jets by turn 100 and I could follow that and I could improve upon it which was quite easy.

I know there are old guides and start-up lying around that are not particularily optimal but still works. This I think would be great for newer players who come in here. I have written such guides for alliances back 12+ years ago but they are not on my computer anymore.

Things that would be helpful:

1. A full indy guide, with maybe 2 start-up options. The startups are easy to find or make. The guide for indy would need like 3-4 paragraphs, tbh. All-xp.
2. A turn for turn tech-start guide for cashers and farmers.
3. A basic guide for stockpiling and destocking.
4. An all-xp theo techer guide with a brief description of TMBR switching.
5. A basic guide for landgrabbing, with and without bots. Like calculating possible turrets from NW+acres, returns and explaining why hitting a target too many times may be a bad idea and the other risks involved in grabbing and also that these attacks(SS and PS) are the only ones that normaly benefit you. Again like 3-5 paragraphs would be extremely helpful for anyone who is new here.

Either someone can write them up fast or you can copy(referencing ofc) one posted on this public forum or take an old outdated one from your computer or your clan page. Of course you shouldn't share any of the strategies that give you an edge right now and are the result of hard labor. All can be all-xp, suboptimal(but not crap) and they should be written for an individual game like tourney, primary or perhaps express. I think this could improve the game for newer players as well as for everyone else if more new players feel they can improve themselves and learn the game before growing tired of it.

So this is not normal?

Speaking for myself here but this can make me quit the game if it lasts.

The bots are now buying out the food market and are keeping the tech prices up in the last hour. I don't really understand the point of changing the endgame mechanics. Is this the purpose?

Why wouldn't the price for food be set by the demo techer/casher/farmer who maxed out military tech and gets to sell bushels in private market at $36? That allows everyone to get their bushels sold as long as there is a demo with a brain. If there is no such demo they could still sell their bushels at 31-32.

Yes but are the bots just in a mid-game phase gobbling up tech while the rest of us are destocking or planning to? I mean the bots did start late.

It seems like the bots are amassing a huge amount of tech. According to some of the last hits I made some of them have over 800k tech. Are the bots keeping the tech prices up?

Sweet. Thanks!

So that means if I finish in the top 20 in game B or C, assuming 80 countries in each, I will get the choice to be promoted?

So from what I can read 25% of game B and C will be promoted to game A and the bottom 50% of game A will get demoted. There is obviously somethign fishy here as last set there were 190 countries in B+C and 36 in game A and there are now still 36 countries in game A.

190*.25= 47.5

36*.5=18

18+47=65

Is math wrong or is there something discounting dead+protection+inactive+vacation countries(which would have to have been 2/3 of B+C)?

What is the actual cut-off?

At what acreage is normal to do tech starts for casher? Are we still talking 800-1200 labs or have the higher explores made that acreage higher?

I like the bots a bunch and I feel they are a neccesary addition in order not to spoil the game for newer players by farming them to oblivion.

With that said I do agree on the consistency issue. People choose strategies based on what they know. Not knowing we would be having having bots screwed the tech prices I think as no one dared go techer. Anyway, it's express so who cares? :P

Thanks Marshal!

Ohh 2 more:

5. What are the normal comparative stats used when evaluating cashers early game/ mid game?

Back in the day a common number to shoot for was $1 millon revenue by turn 300. Is this number still used or another similar stat like X thousand acres build by turn Y?

6. Is the start really as significant nowadays? I mean nowadays with the all-explore strength of the republic casher there is no longer a need to grab early, hence you end up with high tech quite rapidly anyway as thats where nearly all your money is spent.

So what if I just go like 40cs, 450 indies, 160cs, while selling a couple of times, and then switch to casher? It is probably more turn efficient and way faster to do in practice but you will end up with less tech. It just seems like the start is less significant.

I just tried a cash start and got $104k/turn on turn 100, without switching tax rates. I didn't spend any money on tech since tech is usually super expensive in the early game(I did this in a server that has mature markets but didn't use them) but I ended up with over $1.5m on hand.

1. How does this compare to a proper cash start?

2. Is cash start still better than the alternatives?

3. Tech start casher is still used or is it dead?

4. Do conditions exist in which a Theo Casher can thrive compared to Republic Casher?

My primary concern is Tournament and maybe Primary. Though I think it doesn't matter that much.

If I have time I will do a reset of tournament in game A next set and see if I can win it as I only got second and third before. :( I started an account this weekend. Who are the strong players still playing? Rockman, raheel, h2, Eug, RCT?

I see no apparent reason for it but I got the impression Techer is no longer the best strategy. When I last played it was either tyranny to democracy techer or theo techer that were competetive and casher was a distant second. Indy was useless but farmer could work depending on the prices.

I see the govt changes and I guess the explore changes matter a lot but I don´t see why a techer couldnt just start grabbing a bit later, it still makes the most per turn/acre until the tech prices dip under about 1500-1600 if the formulas have not changed significantly.

Well I used to compare after market tax without expenses. I think that is reasonable so for techer ~1/3 tpt/acre and tech sells at 3000 means $1k/acre/turn except I would add tax income to that. Techer naturally stands out but it used to be quite informative to see at what market prices different strategies/govts were competetive.

Thing is I don´t remember the formulas and some of them seem to have changed since last I played (swirve days).

Edit: I have noticed the changes to the private market which have helped to raise the public market price for food. If all else is equal this should make farmer more competetive in general. However, all else is not equal. :)

What is the $ per acre per turn on fully teched farmers nowadays?