He edited in the joke part after I posted!

haha nothing escapes Xin

I thought that if Catchy's ABs happened a few days later it would have been to my advantage since I was planning to convert to MBR and those 20K+ acres of labs need to be destroyed anyway, proceeded to switch to MBR until I tried to build and saw that cute little number there called BPT. Spent a lot of turns to bring BPT up while hemorrhaging cash per turn. Also I didnt have enough cash yet for MBR switch so was forced to sell tech.

So you are switching to MBR still? With these current public military prices?

I've been meaning to ask you that Xin, I'm new to primary so I dont know, are thee prices this set an anomaly? Or is it always this cheap this phase of the set and will probably rise by the 4th quarter of the set?

these prices are about par for the course.

I've played primary for 4 sets. In three of them prices for jets/turrets started out around 120-140 or so. then 4-6 weeks into the set the prices collapse and it sits around 85-95 for a few weeks before recovering to 110-120 or so. the last week it spikes up to the 140+range.

dunno how you could make a go of it as an mbr on this server at all.

I just wanted to try it, even though I never heard of anybody finishing really high as MBR in Primary.

@Akira

Tech prices are higher than normal this reset.

Food prices are also abnormally high. The last food high reset was about 6 months ago.

Military prices are average. Last reset was abnormally high. Jets and Turrets will continue to fall to $90 over the next 2-3 weeks, and only recover about 10 days from end of set. This has happened about 5 out of the last 6 resets (the previous set being the exception, it didn't drop below $120 - allowing me to finish rank 3 as top commie).

Oil is pretty average this reset, like it always is, peaking usually at about the same time military prices go down to $90.

Nobody finishes high as MBR because MBR destocking doesn't work on countries larger than 20k land or so, it is more efficient to just cash out the turns, due to the high building costs.


If you want to see the finishing records for each strategy type, here, browse my thread:
http://forums.earthempires.com/...id=23372&p=1372955256

Note the All-reset MBR record of $45m NW (Your country doesn't qualify as a all-reset MBR, since it is a techer over half the reset already)

Wow thanks Xin! I realize i've been doing everything wrong then. I guess this set's screwed haha. Should have rebuilt my parking lot back to labs, I was at 7K tpt before the ABs and the high tech prices this set may give me a slim chance of coming back.

Thanks for the link! I'm surprised theo casher got tops in round 15, but then again it was oldman playing it.

I dont' think oil is average this reset

Should've built it as farms even, or bus/res...

Oil running out and going crazy isn't that unusual but yeah it's probably not average.

yo... just saw this post... have not been in the forums in a while.

thai seafood salad is me.

so the 72 hour retal window is not applicable?

karim, if only you had less spies... forced to let this one go. i will however seize the chance to farm you if i get it. .

next set, i hope you hit me early on. :D

and really, no 72 hour window ppl?

LOL you're the guy topfeeding people all round? I'm at a loss as to what strat you are, I'm guessing techer but why would a techer still be grabbing today?

I hope I get grabbed again this set @ 6K Acres for 300A so that I can retal 1 month later for 4K + :)

Makes no sense to me but if the top dogs go by it, "OK" :)

I will even post the # of turrets I have :P

The top dogs don't go by it. The top dogs don't get grabbed to begin with. And many think it's lame, and some have fought wars over it and some haven't because of the first strike thing but still don't like it, and some just don't care.

sorry mate... i wasnt topfeeding. they were around the same nett when i attack. they were land fat without enough def. i aint an alljetter.

Hey st0ny, the point isn't that you are topfeeding. It is really that with the same amount of jets, you can bottomfeed and get an equivalent amount of land and actually keep it, removing the reconstruction costs associated with the retal. Especially since you are a techer, you lose turns that could be teching by having to build and rebuild all that land.

Bottomfeeding has proven to be strictly better than attacking equal sized countries in NW and relying on the retal to get you more land than you lose. This is partly why attacking countries of equal net is seen as a "noob strategy" because it isn't efficient and will not get you in the top 10 - and not only does it hurt yourself, it also hurts the person you are attacking - a move that is commonly seen as griefing, because it is a lose-lose scenario to landtrade.

Look at the top 20 countries in land. Almost none of them obtained their land by attacking similar sized countries.

As i said, if you grow big enough to retal me, i won't prolly ror, since it would be my fault.

If you check my news you'll see someone retaled me for a ton and i didn't ror him, even if i obviously didn't like the retal.

Next set i'll try not to fall of top 20 the whole set as usual :)

most people consider it topfeeding when you have no intention to avoid the retal. It is a valid strategy, anything is really, but I'm unaware of a topfeeder finishing t10 at any time in the 4 sets I've played primary. It's just inefficient to lose 350m+ worth of buildings-a days production- when you can just bottomfeed and lose nothing.

xinhuan,
i'm a demo which needs 3 turns per attack. bottomfeeding 3 times will cost me 9 turns. i am attacking ppl of the same nett because i get way more land compared to bottom feeding and with less turns. also if ppl fail the retal(which they should but arent damnit. i have 150% weapons tech! lol), its 2 days worth of bottomfeeding in 1 attack.

also, this is my second set in primary after a very, very, very long time. i've been playing mostly express. and in express, bottomfeeding just aint the way to go. we get ppl there who just sits there waiting for big countries to bottomfeed on them then do retals. i was thinking the same thing applies here. IN A WAY, karim proved this to be true.

another thing is that by bottomfeeding we hit more ppl meaning higher chances of hitting someone who will decide to go all jetter just to retal you.

we expect retals coming no matter how we play and who we hit, so why not hit fatter countries of the same nett, use less turns and gain the same if not more land?

just my point of view here... i could definitely be wrong. i will adapt as i go along.


Karim,
we just play differently and have different opinions. its gonna be tough for both of us to agree. so lets just continue playing the way we play. if we end up bumping into each other and going to war, then so be it. ok?


The Cloaked,
i have every intention to avoid losing land to retals. the ppl i hit usually have 1-3m less jets compared to my turrets. also, they dont have 150% weapons tech.

i will try to end up in the top 10. :D

Scenario 1

Top Feeding/hitting people your size.
Based on
2013-07-29 00:59:08 PS fearvendor (#289) Thai seafood salad (#95) 1849A (2575A)
2013-07-29 00:34:25 PS Thai seafood salad (#95) fearvendor (#289) 2473A (3535A)

Assuming 80 Bpt, you spend almost 44 turns building those land up. And you net gain 1.7k acres. So Actually you're spending 44 turns to get 1.7k acres worth of labs.

013-07-23 22:34:21 PS A D D Industry (#49) Thai seafood salad (#95) 1013A (1435A)
2013-07-23 10:34:17 PS Thai seafood salad (#95) A D D Industry (#49) 1396A (1985A)

Assuming 80 Bpt, you spend almost 25 turns building those land up. And you net gain 1k acres. So Actually you're spending 25 turns to get 1k acres worth of labs.

Lets not forget the fact that you lose turrets and CSes during the retal. Lets take a look at Scenario 2.


Scenario 2
Bottom feeding assuming 400 acres/grab for 3 times = 9 turns for 1200 acres. Assuming you have 80 bpt(very low). 15 turns to build. Total = 24 turns. Do this for 2 days and you'll have 2400 acres fully built with 48 turns with no turrets loss, no cs loss, no tech lost.

Who doesnt win express by bottom feeding?

A friendly advice to you to both primary and express.

'Target selection'

Bottom feed people who probably cant retal you the entire set. Of course, there may be 1 or 2 talented players that might eventually get into range and retal you for 10x, 20x the acres they took from you when u grabbed them weeks ago. Well, too bad then.

st0ny, I'm going to point out that there are 4 Demos with more land than you, all of which have bottomfed for their land:

Coupon Book (#119) - Demo farmer
Elegantly Tasteful (#111) - Demo farmer - you attacked him before too, and he got back less land than you gained from him
Golden Age (#224) - Demo techer
Savvy (#173) - Demo techer

The people you are attacking are NOT going to fail their retal on you because anyone in the top 30 networth right now are capable players that do not fail retals. If you have 150% weapons, they just buy more jets.

If players fail their retals on you, then yes, it would definitely be better for you to grab countries of equal Networth, but this just simply isn't true, very few people in the top 30 is going to fail retals (that's why they are in the top 30). Look at all the retals on you so far, only 1 has failed (the one PaceBooM did on you). Consider that if PaceBooM actually did succeed on the retal, you would only be on 22k acres, far behind a lot more Democracies in land.

Note also that when My Rank Is (#4) (qwertyh - he revealed his country in the other talk thread) retals you, you're again going to drop back to 22k land, you're really not ahead in land at all compared to bottomfeeders, and you will really be only at 19-20k land if PaceBooM didn't fail his retal too once all pending retals on you are concluded. It only feels like you have a lot of land because there are pending retals on you.

Also, see blid's explanation on why you actually use more resources and turns landtrading, than if you were just to bottomfeed.

The funniest part is him thinking because he has 150% weapons tech, he cannot be broken. How funny is that!

He thinks people can't calculate the 150% weap science into their retal or what? Weird

xin, h20, i'll think about your advise. perhaps i'll try it out next round.

No hard feelings here, gl with your set and enjoy :)

yeah lots of pacifists this set! we should all have a beer. Catchy's treat!

I actually meant h2orich's post, not blid's heh. Not sure why I had blid on my mind then!

I think you still make more cash than I do akira. Why don't you treat everyone to a nice cold one :)

You must be used to referring to my posts.

But I'm not sure if you guys will like the beer here. But if it's ice cold it'll probably taste the same haha