Hi folks,
I am currently playing as a Dict Casher in primary (monarchy ->then Dict later). I decided to not to go for a tech start, since I wanted to build up my CSes early as turning Dict would severely handicap my bpt. I did a weird cash start opting to build 80cs right from the beginning, and then gradually build up ent/res (figuring I am banking CSes now so I can Cash later).

Now, I am having some second thoughts. My foremost concern is reaching ~3800ish acres w/o tech and in less than 350 turns safely. My second concern whether it was worth having bpt parity at the huge expense of not doing a tech start.

Any help would be appreciated. Thanks.

Ummm u could have built res/ent then later use turns to build cs's. Since u would have been making more PT..it seems it would benefit u more that way.

Should have done a tech start... don't convert until after conversion to cash... do it basically like Rockman describes in the thread about teching specialties.

Well, it's too late now to do a tech start. Planning on buying my tech in another day or 2 when most of the good techers should be fully teching res/ents. So in a weird way, bstrong86, I am building up res/ents early and building up the bulk of my cs during my initial tech buying phases.

Praying that tech will be 2500ish for res/ent.

I would have done a tech start, switched to dict (to knock down some of those labs for you) built a gang of cs and THEN converted to casher in order to not get too fat early with little to no defense

Switching to Dict from Mon does nothing in helping you tear down "some of those labs".

cash start in itself generally doesn't work too well in servers where you're not allowed to horde huge amount of land with low NW.

It works in alliance because the clan tag offers protection so you can have ridiculous amount of land and very low NW.

Yeah, the only reason I went casher start on Dict Casher was to have the ability to build up my CSes and the fact that tech prices are much cheaper than the prices in Alliance. My major bad calculation is my dilemma of how to keep my land. If I cash early, I'll have enough money to buy tech and buy enough units, but I won't be increasing my bpt. And if I build CSes, I won't have enough defense. It's a bit tricky balance, but then if I had 2 top Commie def allies, I reckon this strat would've been quite good.