I so hope you get enough numbers to even up CC, so when they ground your countries up into a fine powder, you don't have numbers as an excuse.

I think I'm the same way. I played Primary first when it was solaria, then gave up on the game for awhile because I sucked. Then I got a job at my dorm's front desk where most of my shifts were like 1-3AM, but I had a computer that I could play on, so I got into it. I think I picked FFA simply because it was the server that had most recently started up. I think it was swirve by then.

was eesite the one before solaria?

I first played on solaria, but then I got bored with the fact that I was a rainbow-running n00b who sucked, so I quit for awhile, and then came back to it in college.

I heard about the article but didn't actually read it until now.

I especially like the part where she then compared it to the metric system and talked about how the metric system doesn't make any sense.

Both sides try to legislate morality. Don't act all high and mighty like conservatives are innocent on that.

I'm certain Dragon remembers that. I'm certain he also remembers how it was so poorly policed that it was a complete joke and even the most honest of players were forced to run mass multis to avoid being an easy target, leading to the downward spiral towards the server being closed.

Surely that's not a path you're suggesting is a good one, right?

Besides, most of us that played back then and ran huge amounts of countries were in our teens or early 20s then, whereas we're now mostly in our 30s and have actual responsibilities.

I'm not the best example considering the last 3 sets I've made countries I haven't followed through actually playing them (this set included), but if they took the limit off and made it unlimited, I wouldn't even be tempted to even make countries because I know I wouldn't be able to keep up.

I love how you're never in "any kind of warring" mode when people come after you, despite the fact that you claim you're such a great wargainer.

That works to a certain degree, but ultimately the only way to ensure multis are truly dissuaded is for the mods to be vigilant. It's easy for someone who knows what they're doing to create countries in a way where they don't LOOK like multis to someone without mod access.

I find it so amusing when new players or n00bish veteran players complain about the rules that have been created in the game, like not being able to two-step.

Most of the unwritten, political rules of the game like 1:1 retals, no two-stepping, etc. protect the little guy more than they protect the big guys. If I'm in a big clan, I could just say to any individual player that I don't accept retals and I'll do what I want, because ultimately I might have 200 countries backing me up to wipe out any one person tag that doesn't like it.

Of course, there are ways to get back at the big clans, but ultimately these policies benefit the little guy far more than the big guy.

Here's the few quick tips I'd suggest to anyone, some of them have already been said here:

1) Find some good mentors who can work with you one on one. The easiest way to do this is to join an alliance.
2) Specialize with your country. That means you'll want to focus on either making food, making tech, making military, or just cashing in on tax dollars, then sell whatever you make to get the other things.
3) Don't use any attacks other than Standard or Planned Strikes, and don't use any spy ops other than Spy and Military Spy. People tend to see the other spy ops and attacks as acts of war and they'll retaliate harshly.
4) Watch the forums and read the wiki. If you decide to go solo, you need to learn the politics of the game at least on a basic level. The game itself is just a bunch of game mechanics, but the players have established policies over the last 15+ years that flesh out the game quite a bit. If you don't learn these policies and understand how to interact with others, you'll become a punching bag.

That's a good start, but ultimately as Dragon said, join an alliance. It's the easiest way to learn to get veteran players helping you along with all of the above.

I'm not saying that big clans should bully solos, but the fact is, that's why clans exist. Safety in numbers. If there were no benefits to playing in a clan, then why don't we just play in 16 country solo tags all around?

There are checks and balances on every part of this game. PAN shouldn't retal 16:1 because Cerberus could suicide us and mess up our set. Cerberus shouldn't suicide us because PAN has the numbers to wipe him off the server this and every following set. That's why it's best for us to work together on these things. Cerberus presumably has an outcome he can live with, and no one had their set ruined.

I don't know if this is the case in Canada, but on most U.S. interstates, there is a minimum speed limit. Would this apply on the highway this happened? It seems like there has to be a specific traffic statute that this woman must've broken. If not, I find it crazy that she's been found guilty of an actual crime, even though I fully agree that stopping in the middle of a highway, especially without putting on hazards, is pretty dumb.

I don't have a thread for it, but it has been reverted. There's still a bonus to being a dict, as ford said, with ghost acre bonuses, but nothing like that one set witht he 80%

If you're going to invoke the silly class warfare argument, I'm going to point out that the highest tax brackets were insanely high compared to now from 1917-1981 (with just a couple years as exceptions).

And as far as "force people to violate their own personal religious beliefs," well, there's a notable federal judge who described freedom of religion as being intended to be a shield, not a sword. If your expression of religious freedom infringes on someone else's rights, that's your problem, and you're not protected by freedom of religion.

What Desperado said.

Thanks for the clarification on that. I knew it was something that seemed fairly convoluted, but I couldn't remember how exactly it went down.

Now that I look at them again, apparently I was going to say more on TKO's description.

Note: Considerations to understand where I'm coming from:
1) I'm first and foremost a netgainer. I appreciate the effort and the time it takes to being a good war clan, but generally, I'm just more impressed by winning TNW than winning a war.
2) These are my views on both where the clan is now, but also where the clan is going. Clans that have been around for a long time, like TKO and NBK, get a bit more credit than clans that haven't been around.
3) I've only been semi-present for about 3 sets now, watching the boards because I like to keep up with what's going on, but I haven't played a country since probably the last set of 2013 due to time constraints. Due to this, my attention towards the smaller clans hasn't been terribly great, so if you're in one of the 3rd tier clans and think my rankings suck, you might just have a point.


Top Tier

ICD – Their clan listing reminds me of the clan listings PANLV has had in recent memory. Not as much emphasis on t10s, but dominant in the t100. Given their numbers vs. TKO’s, it’s definitely a sign of ICD’s higher level of activity this set. Normally I don’t give newer clans on the server as much credit, but these guys were the main core of FoCuS, which was a solid clan every set, and of course, there’s the ICD history going back to the E2025 servers.

CC – Got FS’ed by NBK and won anyway. That deserves some respect. I do wish we could’ve seen what would’ve happened without those tagjumpers, though. Even with them being dropped shortly thereafter, that was clearly a turning point. Was it a turning point because CC finally got a chance to catch up after being FSed or did those countries turn the tide?

TKO – TKO and ICD could (and would, by me) be swapped based on the TNW rankings. They’ve been a battle with PANLV for most TNW wins, and if I remember correctly, a win this set would put them back in the lead (I know I figured this out awhile back, I could be slightly off though). They tend to dominate the t10 when they get a chance to netgain, and this set is no different, as when I write this, they have 8 of the t10 spots. Also, in the ICD/TKO matchup for best

NBK – They’re the only war clan to exist from set 1 until now, which is impressive, but it just seems like they’re undergoing a bit of a dip in activity, despite the fact that they still put up a respectable war effort. As stated in the CC comments, I’d have loved to see what would’ve happened without the tagjumper. That one guy being in CC for a couple days might just be the difference between NBK and CC being swapped.

2nd tier
HS – I don’t know much about these guys, but it seems like they had a pretty solid war effort against SOTA (I’m forgetting, were they the first clan in or was it Dominion first, then HS jumped in?). I know they’ve been around for awhile, and 170 countries is a nice clan size, but they haven’t been a force long enough to merit consideration with the top 4. Given my lack of memory (that’s what I get for not actively playing, I only pay attention to the threads that amuse me on FFAT), I’d probably rank them lower since HS + Dom vs. SOTA isn’t a terribly difficult war, but I’m not sure who I’d move ahead of them, given their size advantage on Ares and the poor showing of…..

PANLV – Historically in the argument for best netgaining clan, depending on what metrics you prefer, but this set was terrible. It’s not a good sign for a clan to be dismantled by one guy and not be able to fight back, but because of apathy and very effective hitting by YOLO, that’s what’s happened this set. This ranking is because of the history of PANLV, and the fact that, if the core players of Angryjesus, Bigwiggle, and Juusto all have strong sets and high activity, I wouldn’t want to take on PANLV in either warring or netting. So the question is: can they/will they come back next set with higher activity?

Ares - Good guys who like to war, but have never displayed the skill of NBK or CC.

3rd tier
TITS – No idea who these guys are, but they deserve mention, being 3rd in TNW (wow, what a drop off from 2nd to 3rd). One guy in their clan seems to be a pretty solid netter, with around 100M anw, but the other two guys either must’ve started late or aren’t terribly good netters. It’ll be interesting to see if this group is a one-set tag or if they’re sticking around. Either way, they were quiet and stayed out of the politics, which is probably a wise choice on their part.

SOTA – Obviously a clan with some problems right now. Stryke seemingly had them on the right path before this set, but had a disastrous set where she was with them, quit, joined the other side, then seemed to come back? Maybe I have it wrong, but something like that. The clan was completely wiped out in war, and has shown in back to back sets that warring is not something they’re equipped for.

YOLO – I wouldn’t really consider them a clan, since I doubt llaar will be tagged that way next set. This is his vendetta tag for coming after PAN this set.

DoMStyle – looks like a 3-man tag with countries all under 4M networth, but they fought in a war and ended up on the winning side, so I guess that’s something for them. I’d still say that their overall performance this set doesn’t look terribly impressive given that they basically got blasted for one day by SOTA before SOTA had to turn their attention to HS.

Chaos – mob keeps bringing them up like they existed, so even though I’m pretty sure they didn’t this last set, I’m gonna give them the benefit of the doubt. Mob causes chaos, so if that’s his goal, he’s doing it well. However, he did make the point that he thought he was better than some other players because he’s led a clan, but ultimately, every time Chaos or some other iteration of that comes into the game, they cause a bit of chaos, get wiped out, and aren’t heard from for a few sets, so for the most part, other than potentially ruining someone’s netting set, or giving a war clan a target, I’m not sure they’ve really accomplished much.

Sure. Having fun should be the main goal, and if you're doing that, wonderful for you. There is a difference between just having fun and having fun while actually being good at the game though. Whether you pick the misfits or whether they're the only ones willing to play for you, if you never have any success playing the game, it's hard to claim you're better than anyone who has had actual success playing the game.

And on another note, I'd just like to point out your claims are so ridiculous that they're actually causing me to want to defend mrford, and that's kind of pissing me off.

like, for clans or countries?
They're not terribly hard to find in the clan rankings though.
They don't have any top 25 countries though, but that makes sense since they've been at war.

Well, I don't know what his position in CC is, but he was one of the main leaders in LaE after the cheating debacle knocked the big four there out of leadership, and LaE still had 3 strong sets after that (sets 3-5), which pretty much already puts him ahead of you.

Normally I don't do this on message boards, but this is my biggest grammar pet peeve, and as an English teacher, I can just hardly help myself:

"on sure they will loose a war if you are just"

LOSE, LOSE, LOSE!!!
Lose = opposite of win.
Loose = opposite of tight.

As opposed to:

step 1: Make up facts about people so they fit better as villains in your little made-up narrative.
step 2: Troll those people based on those made-up facts.
step 3: Ignore it when people call you out on making stuff up, and just troll more anyway.


And Desperado: Every clan that's been around this place for any extended period has been kicked around in at least a set or two where activity wasn't great and they had a poor showing. Yes, that's happening with PAN right now, but you've fought both with us and against us, and you know it's not our typical M.O., just like it's not CC's, or NBK's, or any of the other clans that have been around for a long time to have a poor showing in a war.

It is what it is. We do have the burden of having to show that we can come back from it, but it's not like you should extrapolate the entire strength or weakness of a clan from its worst set, otherwise we'd be talking about how ICD gets gangbanged every set, how TKO gets suicided by IMP and does nothing about it, or how NBK picks off more than they can chew and gets themselves destroyed down to a 45k average net.

But clearly, ICD is a strong clan. TKO is arguably the best netgaining clan the server has had, and NBK is the only war clan that has been able to survive all 26 sets of FFA.

It's a variety of ways, but probably the two most accurate to look at in conjunction is the before and after NW differences, and total kills.

For instance, if clan A and clan B war, and they're about the same size in networth before the way, if clan A holds steady, but clan B loses 60% of their networth, then clearly clan B is losing.

Total Kills also help, but they're not perfect, because if clan A is focusing on killing large, high NW originals, and clan B focuses on killing small <1M NW restarts, the kill numbers may be nearly equal, but again, clearly clan A is winning.

I'm not gonna argue with the rest of what you said, but as I've said multiple times now: there wasn't anyone in PAN talking smack. Yes, PAN declared war on ICD. Yes, our guys were aware people might seek revenge. No, we didn't talk a bunch on the boards.

I was the main person talking on the boards, and I was merely explaining PAN's actions, and furthermore, I haven't run countries for about 3 sets now.

Heck, we barely have 5 guys who even post on FFAT, and most of them only when they feel they really have to.

llaar.

To give the full picture, it's a combination of several things: Many of our players are having lackluster sets and weren't putting full effort in anyway, llaar chose targets exceptionally well and maximized his damage to those he hit (and those were the few people who WERE most active), and then the downward spiral of Things aren't going well-->apathy-->things are going worse-->more apathy, and his countries are pretty stout. I'm sure if he had a bunch of 4M NW countries, our guys would be more interested in rebuilding and attacking, but the general feeling is that they'd rather just take a few weeks off playing this game.

Besides, fluffing about things is what we do on FFAT. Sure, it can be annoying at times, but ford hasn't gone overboard here, and he didn't even originate the thread.

People at war fluff about the tactics of the side beating them.
People netgaining fluff about people grabbing their fatties and people blocking transfers/buyouts.

Unless you're actually trying to screw people over or make threats because of these things, what harm does a little fluffing do?

That's how I scored my first t10. I was pretty proud of myself because I thought of doing that immediately when I saw when standing orders were introduced. I forget for sure, but I think it was actually Spy tech I used that set too.

As I said though, I didn't have nearly the level of success you had, and top scores weren't as hard to get then. I just looked back, and the set I did a bunch of tech transfers and buyouts I finished 10th with only 371M.

interesting.

I generally only do an early tech phase when I'm worried I'll have to war. I hate being behind all the big stockers in land. Of course, on the other side of things, it's kind of nice to be thinner than all the big fatties, so there's an added bonus for the tech phase, I guess.

I don't have any doubts you understand transfers better than I do. As I said, you've pulled them off for far bigger countries than I have.

Your first response just seemed like it was on the edge of becoming an angry rant about how blocking was a BS move. If I've misinterpreted, then my comments clearly are a bit out of context. It was meant to be a "it sucks, but it happens" kind of response.

To some degree, if you're doing it simply for the purpose of fluffing other people over, it is a fluff move. But at the same time, I usually put up small blocks of tech at high prices just on the chance that I might profit a bit from other people's transfers. But that's so I can use that to netgain, so it's not just a pure attempt to block other people.

Regardless, go for ANW. It's fun to try to accumulate as many t100s as possible in the same set, and clearly with the way PAN packed it in with the llaar incident, there's gonna be a little extra room in the t100 this set.

That's just good netting. I've done tech transfers to get a few of my higher ranking countries as well (not nearly the size of what you've pulled off, but still a few big'uns), and I remember wasting a lot of money buying other peoples' expensive tech because people were blocking me, but that's just what you have to take a risk with when relying on market manipulation for your networth.

I remember I always tried to start big and then drop my price. I started off pricing around 9k and was only around 6500 or so by my last transfers, just because I knew people were going to try to block me.

Dunno how you've gone about doing it, but it's just another check within the game. Just like people grabbing fatty land-traders for 10k acres.

I'm going with the penis thing.

Perhaps I didn't pay much attention to people on "my" side talking, but very little of the talk from last set's war came from PAN, and most of it that was out there was me, and I didn't play last set, and neither am I playing this set.

This is an exception to the rule, but I point you to Ultimate Frisbee! The spirit of the game rule! Players call their own fouls. Even at the major leagues (yes, there actually is major league Ultimate), the refs are only there to settle disputes.

It's a digression from the point of the thread/argument, but still: Ultimate rocks.

Ugh. I'm not sure which is more ridiculous: bragging about your real life accomplishments like they matter here or trying to draw broad, relatively disconnected conclusions about people's actual lives from their in-game or on-board behavior.

Really? I wasn't (and still am not) playing, and I'm pretty sure I was the most active PAN voice.

I can't say I'm surprised by llaar's actions, or by his effectiveness, considering how inactive PAN seemed to be both before and after the hits, but I'm just not sure I buy the whole "fluffy a set ago" idea.

I'm pretty sure the Unlinked Account in the t10 on almost everything netgaining related is Juusto.

It's simple supply and demand. Unless you're a techer who dumps tech on the market at $2,800 in the 2nd week of the set, or food on the market during the stocking phase at $38, it's the same thing.

Run the numbers. If you think it'll actually save you money, buy a few hundred rigs to defray costs. Or ask the number crunchers around here to figure it out. I'd imagine there are a few people around here that probably know whether it's better to pay $1,000 for a barrel of oil or try to destroy a few labs/farms/res's to produce your own. There obviously must be a tipping point for the math somewhere.

As evidenced by that AoDT/NBK war way back that I brought up in the other thread, NBK doesn't like to ask for a CF often.

Even in the epic NBK v. PAN/FoCuS war, it was fairly near the end of the set before a CF was signed. I don't think the NBK guys get war-weary when in a losing position like most of us do. They seem to take it as a badge of honor.

Cerberus, the big difference for you is that I'm guessing when you look at your scores list, almost EVERYONE has double your land.

That's not because the other countries are poorly defended; it's because your countries suck. If you disagree, then for next set, mark down the numbers of all those fatties you grab land from. Then at the end of the set, see how you do vs. how they do.

And ultimately, you may claim this whole "war machine" idea, that you're not a netgainer, but a warrior, but ultimately, your numbers indicate you suck at both warring and netting.

Besides, the whole damn construct of 1:1 retals is something that is a social construct within the game, so don't go quoting the basic rules that are given, because they're irrelevant, unless any of you are honestly advocating that the basic rules are the only ones that matter, in which case, when someone doesn't respect your 1:1 retal, or when you end up at war and someone grabs you, don't fluff about it, because those are just as much social constructs created by the players of the game as the idea of topfeeding.

That's a fairly ridiculous interpretation of what I said.

Mufasa's statements of "THIS IS A WAR GAME" and "I net. I do not like the time consuming part of war, here. I am an ol' man and cannot dedicate that much time AND because this was to be a "No-net Set" for me, I had nothing to lose with this action." don't really coincide with someone who was warring because they felt they needed to stand up for themselves.

If they're fighting for a cause, then that should be Mufasa's statement. Basically: "We didn't choose these odds. DOM did something to instigate a fight, so we gave them a fight."

In addition to that, his argument of not looking for a fair fight, but rather seeking out a war they knew they could win is the exact logic that led to Chaos going after SOTA last set, a war that SOTA ran from and whined about and eventually got a cease after most of FFAT was sympathetic towards them.

There are times and places when netting clans must war, but to think "I have nothing to lose" is short-sighted considering the nature of warring clans and netting clans gives the advantage to warring clans, since they can force netting clans to play their style, while netting clans cannot do the same thing to warring clans.

That's a very short-sighted view.

The very fact that you're a netter and don't like the time consuming part of war should mean you don't want to piss off other people who might want to take it out on you in future sets.

If you really feel your war was something you had to do to make a point, then by all means, but if you were just trying to have fun at other people's expense, then you have to realize they're going to do the same exact thing to you in a future set when you ARE planning on netgaining.

And Strutt: Losing, not loosing. Lose = Opposite of win. Loose = opposite of tight

It is what it is. Most all of us get busy and take sets off. I'll probably be back next set, but I've had like 3 sets off working on school/work stuff.

Take some time off, come back when you can.

Well, in fairness, I didn't ever have a pocket protector, so I guess I wasn't that bad.
But I was in drum line.

Man, in your world, I must be super cool, because I was both a band nerd AND an academic nerd (I'm sure you're all surprised).

Maybe Ketchup and Cerberus should have a 1 on 1. It could provide for just as much entertainment on the boards as the Rockman/Cerberus battle. :)

aron: I know I've seen your name a few times, but I don't know how knowledgeable you are, so I'm assuming you need some basics. Each set has a pretty typical path based on the fact that almost everyone plays the same strategy.

The netters first start by trying to build up construction sites, technology levels, and land, often, but not always, in that order.
Once they get big and fat and have high tech levels, they start to stockpile a resource--typically food, but some people try to play with tech or oil markets. But again, most people stockpile food.

Because of this, that means farmers are holding on to more of their bushels, stockpiling instead of selling, and cashers and techers are spending more money on bushels and less on military/tech/oil, so bushels are going to go up in price and stay up for a good portion of the set.

A few people will use the "decay/corruption" bonus and will sell off stockpiles early, so there will probably be a little drop in bushel prices at some point, but overall, it'll stay much higher until the last days of the set when everyone is trying to dump their bushels to buy military and gain the most net.

The concept behind this is that military costs a lot of upkeep, so it's better to cash in as much as possible on your turns when you have little upkeep.

LAstly, no, don't build farms. If you're a casher or techer, keep doing your thing and buy the bushels. It sucks to pay so much, but it's more efficient for your country to buy $50 bushels than to build enough farms and buy enough tech to produce your own food.

If any of this doesn't make sense, either ask questions or join a clan with strong netgainers who can mentor you (most any clan near the top of the TNW charts will have people knowledgeable enough to give you the guidance you need).

But it's not ACTUALLY a topfeeding policy. It's an all-jetter policy that some interpret at a topfeeding policy. A topfeeding policy would simply take into account the networth and land of the two countries. But when one of our players gets hit by someone with a typical build and typical military distribution, it's his or her own fault they didn't have at least a reasonable amount of defense.

And sure, you can have def. allies, but the fact that you can have 3 off. and only 2 def. allies stacks the deck in the favor of attacking.

PAN has never had a topfeeding policy. We've simply had an all-jetter policy.

People should defend their land if they want to keep it. That said, with 3 off. allies and the 50% bonus for planned strikes, a motivated hitter with all jets can hit almost anyone, even if they ARE well-defended.

We only get mad when someone is clearly trying to take advantage of the retal system. In those situations, yes. We enforce what Primeval probably considers a top-feeding policy.

Congrats to CC on their win--although I'd suggest you don't let up until there's a ceasefire if you want to maintain the win. I remember one AoDT/NBK war where NBK just kept going even though AoDT had clearly whipped them, and NBK actually pretty much wore away at AoDT for the rest of the set to where most of the NBK people make a case (and a somewhat compelling one) that they actually won the war in the end.

Despy: Don't make us gang bang you again!