Bring back the old turn bonus system, rewarding players for not logging in for 8-10 hrs or some such. It was originally intended too even out server load, but now could be used reward those players that have lives to live & can't babysit their countries 24 hrs a day.

i very strongly urge you not to slow down the game or remove the 360(360)

we might as well let xin play our turns for us, he's sure determining how we play them ourselves.

Bring back the old turn bonus system, rewarding players for not logging in for 8-10 hrs or some such. It was originally intended too even out server load, but now could be used reward those players that have lives to live & can't babysit their countries 24 hrs a day.

1. O-allies are already removed, so the only leeching that remains is tech leeching. Tech allies can be fixed such that the TECHING player gets a TPT boost (10% of tech allies' TPT). So basically, a 991]player needs to actively tech his turns to get any extra tech from his allies. ALTERNATIVELY, tech allies can also be fixed by multiplying the current gain from tech allies (when the allies tech their turns) by your (labs/land) ratio. This one is much much easier to implement, it is a 1-line code change.

2. Slow down the Express turn rate by half (and everything time-related by half). Have 2-week long resets instead. This means cheating players have a much larger window of time to be caught, and moderators have enough time to delete them before they can cause too much harm. The pace is simply TOO quick, innocent players suicided by multies or whatever can do TOO much harm. On Alliance or Primary or other servers, the pace is slow enough that if it takes 24 hours for a moderator to respond to a report, the damage is minimal. Not so on Express. Otherwise, you really need to have 4 or 5 moderators on Express covering all time zones.

3. Another reason why Express is broken is because of the qz/pang policy that a player should be able to be absent from the game for 2 days and still come back without having lost any turns. This leads to the 360(360) stored turn scenario, which is very unhealthy for the server. Change this to 240(240) or 240(160). Anybody playing Express should know that they are expected to log on to the server twice a day. Otherwise don't play it. Or implement suggestion (2) above.

4. Change the DR reset to something reasonable like 2 hours instead of 24 hours. DR-abuse is rampant. There is a lot of talk/discussion on how to combat DR-abuse. See http://www.earthempires.com/...omment-15332?t=1376854014 and guess what happened? Absolutely nothing, for 1.8 years. So Tellarion, I am very dubious when you say that you "CAN guarantee that they will be discussed in detail, with the end result being some worthy changes." I mean, yes, changes will be discussed in detail. But the end result is that nothing happens. Look, we've been discussing for years. Martian started the thread, Warster's posted in it, iZarcon even. Here is a related thread, around the same time: http://www.earthempires.com/...rs-should-be-...--16867/1 where again, Warster was seen posting in it, and defending qz/pang that they were busy.

5. There needs to be feedback from the mods if a cheating report is "in progress" or "resolved". I've heard Palemoon posted (see http://www.earthempires.com/forum/post/514628/perm) that reporting cheaters using the in-game tool doesn't work sometimes, where he had to contact a mod on IRC, and the mod said they never received the in-game report. What then? Is the reporting tool broken? Maybe the field that says to put in country numbers separated by commas doesn't work? Does it matter if I type in "1,2" in the box or "1, 2" with a space, or "#1, #2"? Or what?

6. Owners of deleted countries should be exposed at the end of a reset. Maybe not during a set because there is a possibility that the deleted country could be undeleted after an appeal. In fact, I think profiles of all countries should be public after a reset is over. There also needs to be more repercussions for cheating. Again, there has been a bunch of discussion on the B&S forums about it in the last 2 weeks, and again there hasn't been any result or actual action, or planned changes announced.

7.This is yet another problem, being unable to access pass reset data. Another reason that being such a fast paced server contributes to (see suggestion 2 and 3). Moderators need to be able to access past data of at least the previous 1 or 2 resets, if only to also be able to check for online behaviors, login patterns that could indicate multies across multiple resets, and the like. Moderators should also be able to access/view all ingame messages sent between COUNTRIES on that server (not forum PMs) in past resets as well as present ones (otherwise, how do you deal with reports of countries sending spam/advertisements?) if this isn't already the case.

Remove Alin from express, should solve 95% of the cheaters problems - what a fluff.

12 hours = 3 turns, 18 hours = 6 turns! This is already around unless you mean something different

7. If i would trust someone enough to give him/her the modding of a server than i will surely trust that person to be given all sort of access he requests on that server. Another thing I don`t really understand is why the mods of one server are not allowed to play on that server.
I mean really Pang/Qz/martian if you trust those persons and will stand behind their actions, you can also trust them to play the server clean without using the mod tools to gain some sort of advantage in-game. A chosen mod should be mature enough to not even think at fluff.

i very strongly urge you not to slow down the game or remove the 360(360)

we might as well let xin play our turns for us, he's sure determining how we play them ourselves.

Maybe a higher bonus in express? cause really, how much are 12-18 turns going to help you. Really I have no big complaints about the server(s) or recommendations for changes other than the leeching.

There are some ethical concerns, because no matter how mature a mod is, there will always be some inevitable data known to the mod that he couldn't otherwise have known, which would improve his play at a subconscious level.

18 turns could help SIGNIFICANTLY in express. that could be another million NW or more for a good commie with maxed tech

Not really. Instead of grabbing every 2 hours optimally, you want to be grabbing every 4 hours instead. This means that if you are like any normal human being and sleep an uninterrupted 6-8 hours a day, you would be missing only 1 grabbing session instead of 3 grabbing sessions during your sleeping hours. This results in a better country for everyone, instead of the current system that rewards the players that opted to go sleepless.

This is also the only server where the 12/18-hour logout bonus turns is literally worse than staying logged in the entire time.

And because of how fast the server is, the server even had to make a special rule for Commies to be able to sell 60% of their units instead of 35% like all the other servers. The other servers are balanced around the fact that you maybe have to make a full 1/4 sale once a day (single sell) or twice (double sell), which works out to roughly one commie sale every 30-50 turns. This doesn't translate so well to Express for players that don't login frequently (say 4 times a day only). You go to sleep for 8 hours, you login with 100 turns, oh fluff, now I have to sell every 30 min to get rid of all my excess NW! That's why the 60% Commie Indy rule came in. A Commie cannot run turns if their units don't sell once your expenses catches up to you, and the 35% just doesn't work when a sale that small only allows you to run your next 30 turns before you have to sell again.


Edit: As a side-effect, this makes the Commie cash-out destock much stronger than intended. The Commie can store 60% of his entire army on the market so as not to incur food upkeep on that much more military units. This is one of the partial reasons why Commies are very strong on this server, coupled with the ability to switch between almost all-turrets to all-jets within 2 hours (2 max sales are you are down to ~16% of your original units of the type you are switching from). It is borderline overpowered.

I think most of the expenses come from Spies. Instead of letting Commies run rediculous amounts of spies, there might need to be a smaller % to goods sold. Instead of letting Commies lazily set spies to 5-10% and just spam away the turns for 30+ SPAL, with the faster pace of turns isn't a good thing if players have to think and readjust their % of miltiary produced? Also the % increase is rediculous for end of set Tech selling at 1k too @_@.

alin dont include mods in the statement we have no say or control over what the admins choose to do.

k

1. O-allies are already removed, so the only leeching that remains is tech leeching. Tech allies can be fixed such that the TECHING player gets a TPT boost (10% of tech allies' TPT). So basically, a player needs to actively tech his turns to get any extra tech from his allies. ALTERNATIVELY, tech allies can also be fixed by multiplying the current gain from tech allies (when the allies tech their turns) by your (labs/land) ratio. This one is much much easier to implement, it is a 1-line code change.

2. Slow down the Express turn rate by half (and everything time-related by half). Have 2-week long resets instead. This means cheating players have a much larger window of time to be caught, and moderators have enough time to delete them before they can cause too much harm. The pace is simply TOO quick, innocent players suicided by multies or whatever can do TOO much harm. On Alliance or Primary or other servers, the pace is slow enough that if it takes 24 hours for a moderator to respond to a report, the damage is minimal. Not so on Express. Otherwise, you really need to have 4 or 5 moderators on Express covering all time zones.

3. Another reason why Express is broken is because of the qz/pang policy that a player should be able to be absent from the game for 2 days and still come back without having lost any turns. This leads to the 360(360) stored turn scenario, which is very unhealthy for the server. Change this to 240(240) or 240(160). Anybody playing Express should know that they are expected to log on to the server twice a day. Otherwise don't play it. Or implement suggestion (2) above.

4. Change the DR reset to something reasonable like 2 hours instead of 24 hours. DR-abuse is rampant. There is a lot of talk/discussion on how to combat DR-abuse. See http://www.earthempires.com/...omment-15332?t=1376854014 and guess what happened? Absolutely nothing, for 1.8 years. So Tellarion, I am very dubious when you say that you "CAN guarantee that they will be discussed in detail, with the end result being some worthy changes." I mean, yes, changes will be discussed in detail. But the end result is that nothing happens. Look, we've been discussing for years. Martian started the thread, Warster's posted in it, iZarcon even. Here is a related thread, around the same time: http://www.earthempires.com/...rs-should-be-...--16867/1 where again, Warster was seen posting in it, and defending qz/pang that they were busy.

5. There needs to be feedback from the mods if a cheating report is "in progress" or "resolved". I've heard Palemoon posted (see http://www.earthempires.com/forum/post/514628/perm) that reporting cheaters using the in-game tool doesn't work sometimes, where he had to contact a mod on IRC, and the mod said they never received the in-game report. What then? Is the reporting tool broken? Maybe the field that says to put in country numbers separated by commas doesn't work? Does it matter if I type in "1,2" in the box or "1, 2" with a space, or "#1, #2"? Or what?

6. Owners of deleted countries should be exposed at the end of a reset. Maybe not during a set because there is a possibility that the deleted country could be undeleted after an appeal. In fact, I think profiles of all countries should be public after a reset is over. There also needs to be more repercussions for cheating. Again, there has been a bunch of discussion on the B&S forums about it in the last 2 weeks, and again there hasn't been any result or actual action, or planned changes announced.


Edit:
7.


This is yet another problem, being unable to access pass reset data. Another reason that being such a fast paced server contributes to (see suggestion 2 and 3). Moderators need to be able to access past data of at least the previous 1 or 2 resets, if only to also be able to check for online behaviors, login patterns that could indicate multies across multiple resets, and the like. Moderators should also be able to access/view all ingame messages sent between COUNTRIES on that server (not forum PMs) in past resets as well as present ones (otherwise, how do you deal with reports of countries sending spam/advertisements?) if this isn't already the case.

Tech allies are the worst thing. Everything else is pretty good. Its good to have some grey areas so people have to make decisions about ethics. Its interesting that Express is so competitive and that people are always looking for an edge. I like the 360/360 because it opens up all sorts of possibilities for how to play the game, and its fun to run 360 turns in a row when you see that its advantageous. Thats what I do with a rep casher sometimes, jumping in the game when a pile of cheap tech is on the market.

Alin, I know certain players getting an extra1B at end set just for abusing the market with friends?. Express is very competitive that players try to outdo each other just to win, It is one of the loophole right now. Honestly, I don't play always but every time i do, I always notice the same thing at end set.

I'll be happy if tech allies are modified as suggested by Xin. Agree with most of his points as well except for the part about slowing it down. I like how the game is just 5 days long but the support staff needs to be well equipped to mod such a server, else there will still be many unhappy people even with all the proposed changes.

Agree that DR abuse doesn't seem so rampant nowadays from the posts on the forum, though I haven't played this server in forever heh. But it was real bad when I was still playing.

I might actually come back and play once in a while if these the changes were to be implemented.

why do techers get increased tech at all from their allies? why do techers deserve an unfair boost to its production where none of the other strategies do?

it's fine, you just need to offer me a cashing boost when i casher ally with three republics to form a cashing ring.

The increased tech generation from tech allies actually helps everyone EXCEPT techers. More tech generated means more supply. More supply means lower prices. So the techer sells more tech points, but at a lower price per tech, works out to be about the same if he had less tech points but sells each tech point at a higher price. But for non-techers, they end up buying cheaper techs.

Removing tech allies completely is actually a buff to techers.

The increased tech generation from tech allies actually helps everyone EXCEPT techers. More tech generated means more supply. More supply means lower prices. So the techer sells more tech points, but at a lower price per tech, works out to be about the same if he had less tech points but sells each tech point at a higher price. But for non-techers, they end up buying cheaper techs.

Removing tech allies completely is actually a buff to techers.

"The increased tech generation from tech allies actually helps everyone EXCEPT techers. "

research pacts are a detriment to techers? techers pact out so that they can do the community the selfless service of offering more and cheaper technology for us lay folk?

my, how considerate.

Naming or shaming the people who cheat ? Have you ever thought that the game is getting better maybe because of them

Naming or shaming the people who cheat ? Have you ever thought that the game is getting better maybe because of them. Also where is the privacy if you do so? Might as well post their passwords, gf's name (if the nerds have any), address and their pets name. People are given an option to change or have their country names unique for a reason(if there is any). The option to share if they want to share is made available now.

Silly people.

Supply and demand only works if everyone has perfect information and is acting rationally.

If certain people don't act rationally it doesn't matter.

IE if someone has tech allies or not but always sells their tech at 2k, techs always going to be 2k at X amount.

Remove Alin from express, should solve 95% of the problems - what a fluff.

Naming or shaming the people who cheat ? Have you ever thought that the game is getting better maybe because of them.

Also where is the privacy if you do so? Might as well post their passwords, gf's name (if the nerds have any), address and their pets name. People are given an option to change or have their country names unique for a reason(if there is any). The option to share if they want to share is made available now.

Silly people.