(see announcements)
Would like to gather thoughts on that for FFA. If you don't like the change please state why and if you would prefer the prior status quo or just a change to the formula (or something completely different). We are discussing it right now..

instead of ghost acres...maybe alien acres...or martian ones

Shoot. Using PS's this makes it very difficult to maximize your land trades

I don't think many people complain about self farming on this server anymore

You are trying to fix an alliance server conflict where there isn't one here!

It is going to cost a ton of stock to farm up to 50k acres now lol. The people that have the time to calc it all out have a larger advantage now, and troops and oil just multiplied in value by a lot.

Also, war gaining sucks now, because clearly you can't P'S tour troops away while in war.

It seems like a stop gap half assed fix to me, but I'm not as smart as you all so I'll trust you know what you are doing.

I do agree with sentiment that the cap on ghost acres was done mainly for complaints by people in alliance so why change here...but do we really want to have the intenal mechanics of the game be substansially different between servers. A difference here, a difference there will result in the servers drifting further and further apart, and result in two games that just happen to share a name and involve things called acres, troops, jets, and NW.



maybe a modificaton to account for SS/PS.

maybe a modificaton to account for SS/PS.

Sure like the same bonus to ghost acres as to regular acres for PS?

And you are right, this was done in response to some issues in alliance server but was modified here as well since it becomes unwieldy to have dramatically different rules for each server from a coding/architechture standpoint. However, it is my understanding that the coding is set up such that the factors in each formula can be different for each server (in many but not all cases). So I *think* (would have to ask qz) it would be possible to change the ghost acre cap/unit sent to something more generous so that it wouldn't really be that noticeable until you hit 100K acres or something.
An extreme example: on FFA the cap could be 1 acre/unit set subject to the existing cap which I think wouldn't basically make the change completely ineffective on this server except in extreme situations.

The FFA server has experienced unnecessary changes since its inception in the 90s as a result of other servers, namely alliance. I imagine having more of an attachment to your one country on that server is more likely than similar attachments to 16 on this one - However, I also think it leads to excessive whining by the Alliance players and a knee-jerk response from the admins for appeasement.

I certainly understand that game changes are easier to implement and maintain across different servers if done the same way. It doesn't, however, make the players here any less happy about being affected by another area's complaints.

Some things never change.

idk qz and I briefly talked about it last night, where ps/ss there is no differnce atm I said if your ps it should have same value as normal ie 150%, so sending 3mil jet ps should count as 4.5 mil units etc at the very least, or the simplier mod would to change 'you will be limited to a maximum 1 Ghost Acre (type I) per (your_land/20) units sent.' to you will be limited to a maximum 1 Ghost Acre (type I) per (your_land/40) units sent or higher if needed.

You know, if Admin wants to eliminate everything but Alliance, then just do it. I'm pretty much over FFA having to eat the turds that Alliance drops to make that server "better".

These most recent changes that for some reason MUST be applied to FFA are maybe the straw. I challenge TPTB to just strap on their balls and kill everything but Alliance. It's obvious that current Management only bouht the game because of Alliance, and that's fine. This will probably be my last set.

lol hey dragon come on irc!

If it is easily coded just do have a different multiplier/divisor in the forumlas (in this case the 20) for different servers, I can get behind that. FFA can have a divsor of 12-15 or so.. I just would like that different servers still operate under the same general game mechanics. You will get more cross server participation that way.



Yep. a 150% increase on the max ghost acres gained keeps things nice and tidy.

ffa would want a divsor higher not lower :P lol

Yea, I can change the factors in formulae fairly easily between multi-servers and non-multi-servers (ie ffa and alphaffa and ai); Could make it land/40; and yea, could modify the cap by 50% for PS, that was something we never quite got around to thinking about.

Or you can make it use the old formula if you are landtrading internally (hitting your own countries), and make it use the new formula if landtrading externally (hitting someone else's country).

Either way, everyone still plays under the same ruleset, so it isn't like anyone has a bigger or lesser advantage as a result.

/me facepalms over silly math error. How did that happen...



i would prefer that their not be different forumlae for grabs on your own country vs other countries. Adds another uneeded complicaton to the game. K.I.S.S.

so what's the verdict, are you going to remove it completely for this set since it was implemeted after ppl started there strats or modifiy it?

Honestly, FFA is fine. Like I keep saying, the change after llaar's exploit was good enough for this server. You can kill, and you can netgain. Nobody complains about either here. The only time I hear people complaining is when an unnecessary change is made to this server because of some whiny fluffes in alliance.

If i cant have your ghost acres, i'll just go somewhere else and get them...keep that in mind

Yeah these changes are stupid imo

I don't understand what is changing?
I'm trying what Swedie told me to try from the last set. It involves the ghost acres. Are we not going to play the ghost acres or we are?

they changed it so the number of ghost acres you get depends on how much military you send, basically jen theres no more landgrabs for a couple hundred acres, plus a couple hundred more free acres on top of it, just for sending 10 troops. If you want to get the ghost acres, you'll need to send a bunch of military to get it from now on

I dont see why changes keep rolling in anyways. Im all for changes but when they add something. Not when they are constantly changing code and the game itself. Its ridiculously hard enough already to keep up with all formulas and calculations.

Then they have the test server an test whatever there..then we just get it dropped on us. Unless youhave the time and are a huge numbers cruncher it gets old wasting a 60day set because a few complain

I ran some countries today based on these changes. It's ridiculous and not worth trying to land trade even at low land amounts. You basically have to be an all jetter in terms of proportion.

That leads to being spotted with a million jets and possibly identified as a suicider when all you're trying to do is land trade. What the hell were you guys thinking?

Just put FFA back like it was last set and let us enjoy the damn game. Some of us actually enjoy the strategy and process involved in land trading and that's now effectively been taken away. Now, I'll just all-explore 15 countries and farm them down. Thanks, guys.

woo hoo

As discussed above, I am pretty sure a reduced factor of the rule will work in FFA. For the examples presented, the only truely jaw-dropping one for me was example V.

- Example V: You are 80k Acres; Land/20 = 4000; thus, for every 4000 units sent, you can get 1 Ghost acre.
You attack somebody who is 80k with 100k units, get 8000A + 25A ghosts (because 100000/4000 = 25)

It still makes land trading more expensive, but I still feel that in FFA, the ghost acre amounts from self farming were becoming a bit on the exessive side. A reducred rule for multiple country servers will work just well.

the problem is in ffa it's an accepted practice, wars etc were fought over it and that issue has long since been settled.. This is becoming a more and more common practice in alliance and that's where the complainets are being heard. I personally dont mind it being left the way it was, I also dont mind if the cap starts applying higher like 100k+ to stop 'abuse' as it was put to make ridiculasly fat countries, for the most part those who land trade do it to the point where that land can and will be built.

reguardless - we need an explination/ answer with in the next few days before people's strats are ruinied.

Bring it back to 1999 with the exception of 120/120 turnage

I think it is a bit late to change the rules of the set this far along, 10 days plus. Though still a very valid discussion for next set.

This is what I may think is another example of good intentions with a rule change, but maybe incorporated at a too high level intially (too much change). I think me and most people would rather see things change at a more incremental level from set to set. If the new change(s) doesn't have the desired effect, then implement a stronger version of the change the next set after that (or give it 2 sets to really shake out.) It really does rub some peeps the wrong way to make a major change, and then halfway backtrack on it. For example, allaince has gone from 70%, then 40%, and now 20% base restart rates in the past year.

I love the fact that this is living, breathing game, unlike the Mehul days where there was little interaction (from my PoV) on how to make the game better. Just maybe a lighter touch perhaps.

im getting some delicious ghost acres from HS...oh yes, i drink your milkshake

Thank you Despie. :)

yea yea

Still reckon we should go back to the post llaar change period and make it so if your over 200k land and have less then 60% built then you suffer a production penalty

well, everything is already based off of what your pop is now, so whats it matter lol

So in sum we should never be running around with defense anymore so that people hitting us do not get ghost acres? Because even if they send the amount that is required for the best ghost acres, then at least you don't lose defense military since you have 0.

So country A is all jetter 0 defense, 40,000 acres and PS's 5 mill jets on Country B who has 50,000 acres

Say country A gets 7,500 acres + 2,500 ghost and is now 50,000 acres

Country B then retals country A with 1 jet and gets 7,500 acres + 1 acre

Therefore the retaller gets absolutely screwed

Why would you reward an all jetter like this? This means that you should run 0 defense so that anyone attacking you would get no ghost acres? They would have to arbitrarily send more units, and do the math and send a mathematically formulated correct # of jets in order to maximize their retal on an all jetter. That just seems retarded that running no defense makes an attacker take less land. In real life, undefended land would just be taken. The more defense you had the less land you should be able to take. You should reward people for having defense, not penalize them!

So basically now, you will calculate two values for attacking and take the max:
Send attack units = max(best ghost acre return for the land, their defense)

+1m to llaar

True all jetter wins more land, but what's an all jetter do vs 100 jet BRs and 100 tank ABs?

You can have 100000000000000000000 acres. If you can't build any buildings it doesn't do you any good.

It's not so much abbout the land gained by the jetter but the land lost and unrecoverable by the target.

But it appeased a group of players on Alliance server so, therefore, it is now law.

Obviously. They could have reverted this change already but they haven't.

They only post here to ask our opinion because they are obliged to. It's not like our opinion matters any ways, otherwise we wouldn't have had any changes since the post llaar change. I don't mean minor cosmetic changes either. We of course need the minor cosmetic changes, but game changes no.

do you really think these 200K acre countries over the last few years have been all built?

you make a lot of assumptions for someone who has very little knowledge of the way the game actually works.

who would build up 200k acres? cost would be astronomical.

It's recoverable off a different target.

If every attack were evenly compensated for every attack, there would be almost 0 incentive to initiate an attack. An attacker goes into a battle having to pay for oil and using a larger military. (And unless you have the med tech, most likely you're going to lose more units too). At least some sort of benefit should go for the attacker.

.... SO ? ....

celphi: land gainings (to attacker and to defender when he/she retals) come from ghost acres not from initial acres so all-jetter would get ahead in this case.

also this can lead that some1 puts his/her countries into few different tags and each of those has all-jetter which grabs other tags (like tko, icd, etc) and then that player farms his/her grabbers from his/her other tags (tag a grabs tko so tag b grabs tag a etc). of course that player would get his/her countries killed eventually but damage had been done already.

So the point of this debate with any admin/mod input and or commentary in quite a while is getting us where? seeming like a big waste of time. espeecially in a thread started by a mod.

all they have really done is completely screwed up grabbing in general

Them saying that we can discuss it here then have them not say a word in nearly 2 weeks is almost as annoying as the change in the first place.

I put a bunch of thought into my earlier comments, and seemingly being ignored by the mods/admins allows the thought of "I don't care, they don't listen" to creep into my head and makes me less inclined to offer construtive debate in the future.

If you want feedback, please respond to the feedback you get.

they dont listen to ffa people, we are evil

yea we use more bandwith and server's resources. :P