With all the talk about balancing techers, much of it having to do with the bots, etc, or government changes, perhaps its time to start talking about bonus point changes?

Changing what tech bots buy really just shifts what techers have to tech, it doesn't really solve the issue. Lowering how much tech bots buy seems like the best solution in that realm IMO, along the lines of DP's suggestions... but as I'm a huge fan of bringing other strategies up, why don't we talk about bonuses? Since techers don't really benefit from most bonuses, is there room for improving other strategies in this realm?

You can lower the time it takes to max out resource decay, improve the expense bonus, and make booms slightly more appealing all without making techers better, yet making cashers/farmers/oilers/C/I's each stronger in their own right. The good part about changing bonuses is there aren't any unknowns involved here unlike changing the bot code, it benefits good players that can pick the right bonuses for their strategies, and can easily be played with if it makes any strategy too strong.

I would think using bonus points on turns, as a teacher being a fairly decent advantage.

I would like to see bonuses beefed up a bit or have a new system.

I am not educated enough to elaborate on the rest of the bonuses. None of them seem to be overly beneficial to me. Not in comparison to extra turns.

I know I have tried to utilize building costs in FFA and it still seems building fat land takes incredible income.

I have tried to utilize military upkeep as a CI and continue to see extreme red income.

I also used Luck my fair share of times. In a missile race I lost to another teacher who didn't use a single turn in luck. Still get undesirable Explores returns early-mid game and Spies still could fail on a cake target.

So possible my personal opinions are bias.

Let's hope some more educated people show up and give their input.

Are we talking FFA here? because a techer has not won 1a in 3-4 years afaik.
Only this set are techers really powerful. And thats all due to the bot numbers. So lets see if;
a. A techer wins.
b. QZ keeps the bot numbers at 250.

If not on either of those you still dont need to drop techers power in any other game than express. (And possibly FFA but every strat except indy or MBR is frequently overpowered there, meaning techer might be balanced at $5-6k tech prices)

in FFA either farmer or techer wins.

Yeah, FFA. I don't net on alliance, so don't really know what the prices are like in that server. A 250k acre farmer gets what? 3 mill bushels a turn fully built with high tech? And by the time you're fully built on that you've tanked your NW potential, so let's say 1.5 mill bushels a turn. I think there were some excellent farmers in ICD that got 700 mill avg a couple sets ago. That's likely near the best you'll get? Cashers probably cap out at what? 900 mill average? What can techers cap out at? I would think techers correctly run could cap out at 1-1.5 bill across 16 (with the trade-off being the time it takes to play the market correctly which most ppl in FFA don't bother with).

But yeah, I suppose no one ever runs techers that big so maybe my argument is the same as the argument for net neutrality. Protecting against something that never happens. I do think it's for lack of people really trying to run techers that big rather than lack of techer potential. But you're much more on top of balance issues than me so I'll take your word for it that they might be balanced at 5-6k. :P

Pretty sure a farmer/oiler hybrid worth his name will beat Ivans 780m NW record from alliance with a sizeable margin every reset on FFA because of the easier grabbing.

I have never seen 1.5b across 16. I constantly see cashers getting 700-900 I suppose run by SV?

Yep, run by SV. I think you'll need to come back to FFA to prove the farmer/oiler hybrid to me :P

1.5b across 16 hasn't been done, but it's definitely possible. Hell, if these bots had come in at the start of the set rather than after I was fully built and converted, I might have tried for it :P As it stands, I think I could have averaged 1.3b+ based on the stocks I had / prices I'm selling at / price of oil with my techers this set, at least before I decided to challenge for first place. That's even accounting for our normal amount of suiciders.

One of the things that makes techers stronger on FFA than on, say, alliance is tech allies on FFA are 100% reliable actors. That in itself feels like enough to give non-techer bonus points a boost as no non-techer strategy can compare to that advantage. Or am I reading too much into that advantage?

We did 8 billion one set with a farmer oiler hybrid.

A techer that transfers his stock to one can win hands down every set in ffa, but most dont play it that way.

"We did"?

what do you mean? you had more than one string to boost him there?

Yes we had more than one string to boost a farmer oiler hybrid. Making one huge farmer oiler by its self might be possible, but with how people love blocking the market it might be impossible to do solo.

Now a techer could break 8b with its 15 other countries.

But I would love to see you run a hybrid farmer oiler and give some tips on how you run it.

I've tried a giant farmer and 15 oilers, but the cash seems to fall short.

When I did $6.1B or something I did it alone pretty much. I got a lot of help with kill runs on my suiciders but those suiciders were mostly attracted to us by some other members grabbing non-bots. Mob also bought my normal priced oil at one point early/mid game because I complained that it didn't sell yet and I was overflowing, I didn't ask him to buy it but he did. :)

Since its harder to transfer oil I would run a mix of farmers and oilers if I did that. But the set I netted with a full string I mixed up the strats and I still think that is the way to go even though I would probably have used another mix if I did it again.

I ran 2 cashers, ~5 techers, then I had ~8 farmers that I mostly switched into farmer-oilers when the oil prices rose(oil crashed again after that sadly). My main was like a demo construction worker/turn overflower for most of the set. :P
I think now it does not matter but back then I used to run out of really good targets when I grabbed with 5 techers or 8 farmers at a time. So running 16 at the same time of day grabbing only same-strat bots will cause grabbing to be hampered. I guess if you ran them at different times of day or didnt run 120-128 turns at a time that problem would be smaller, but I dont think I will ever have that dedication.

Edit: One thing I noticed was that while the techers were really strong in stocking early on, once the food prices jumped and my cashers, farmers and farmer/oilers were 200k+ acres, all those outstocked my techers. Maybe the prices are far higher now. I have been told I stocked too early on my techers but Im not sure I agree, I was getting 5500-6500/point for a few days while buying bushels at sub 40. A few days later I sold at 4500 and bought bushels at like 50-55. So if I stocked at 100k instead of 65-70k I would have missed these great days.

When I did my 5.6b I ran 15 tyr techers and a demo techer using the market to transfer tech back and forth. While growing slowly on the the techers.

Probably could have gotten close to llars net worth record that set but I stopped transferring tech with 15 days left.

I think a hybrid farmer oiler will need a support cast though.

But 700m avg I think is doable.

.

I actually would like to take a peek at the bonuses again, given how much we've changed since then

pretty sure 16 full techers would avg < cashers and farmers because they'd flood the market with way 2 much tech, i never run more than 4 techers in any giving set because the profitability drops fast

I've never found this to be true :P I guess it is possible in a given set but I don't think so. I can tell you exactly how to do it if you know want to try it next set. I prefer big countries myself and the way to 1 bill+ techers is a bit counter intuitive but not difficult

Just here for my weekly bonus

We could look at re-jiggering bonus points. So many things though!

Idk man its good for activity.