Fair points. I probably should have qualified what I put by stating on primary server where, as has been noted, commies have won the past few resets.

[In primary] it seems that commies (or is it just that the players that play them) are the most voracious of the countries when it comes to grabbing so I was thinking the increase in attack losses would reduce their grabbing thereby reducing their size.

Didn't know military tech had no effect on attack losses... The wiki should be updated to show that more clearly.

Do you think that a decrease in industrial production of 10% would cause much of a difference in military prices?

It's been noted in several places that theos and commies are too strong... so, how about the following

Increase attack losses for commie by 15%

Increase defence losses for theo by 15% as well and remove the stupid GDI "penalty" for theo since it's worthless.

These changes would make med tech more popular.

Increase attack losses for commie by 15%

Increase defence losses for theo by 15% as well and remove stupid GDI "penalty" for theo since it's worthless.

These changes would make med tech more popular.

I'm sorry Brink... Rob's a previous winner so I think he's got the best advice. Whilst admirable, your 5th place best finish isn't quite good enough to match up to Rob's previous performance.

Casher it is then.

Sorry Brink. I trust Rob more than I trust you. Casher it is.

so, should i play casher next set?

I don't know whether you're grabbing anymore but would it be worthwhile selling the techs that you don't really need at this point such as the spy, mil strat, agri and indi?

Just put it on the Main Menu page directly below "Current Time". Would make things much easier.

log in before 06:00 on the first day then 00:01 on the second day to get your 18hr bonus at the earliest time possible

Ok, so you want to be a techer... you've chosen a good government for it... teching is awkward unlike other strats, like indy, casher or farmer, because you have to specifically spend turns to produce your saleable tech.

So, with that in mind a good techer will spend most of the turns teching which means that you want to reduce the number of turns exploring and building to as little as possible. To that end you need to increase your BPT by building construction sites. With just a week to go you probably only need to build up to around about 25-30 bpt...

What you do not want to do is build enterprise zones, residences, military bases, farms or oil rigs. The number of industrial complexes many players will keep are around 5-10% of total land, producing spies only.

Just ignore troops, jets and tanks for the moment. You don't really need them at this point in the set (though I'll being this up later) and this stage in your country's development.

It's really only worthwhile making landgrabs is you can grab more than what you can explore in 2 turns. This is usually when your target has around 1000 acres though there are other factors which come into play such as cost to buy military, military upkeep, military food costs and military losses and also antagonising your target. So as far as buying jets are concerned, I wouldn't bother.

So, for this set, build bpt up to around 25-30. Then destroy the buildings you've got (except the labs and indi complexes) and build just labs. Then explore, then build more labs.

You need to think about your finances and food when building and exploring. Depending on your finances and the number of turns you have left you'll get to a point when you should do a little researching. Not too much, just enough to give you enough money after you've sold your tech to expand more the next time you play.

At the end of the set, military prices rise by a lot. You'll probably be able to resell troops and tanks from your private market on the public market. This will only be for a few days before the end of the set though.

If you research military tech, you'll probably find that this has the best return when selling on the public market, plus it will lower your private market which means you'd be able to start reselling military slightly sooner.

Perhaps there could be a delay on deletion... Player hit's the delete button and they get a message stating that

"Your country will be deleted in x hours"

where x is the time difference between 48 (or 24) hours after the last attack and the time of requesting deletion.

and if your an mbr the buggers will wipe out your tanks

why, after grabbing land is it not possible to drop that land and yet it is possible to delete your country at any time?

there should be a time limit after any attack stopping a country from being deleted.

You guys should spend 5 minutes in the help forums imparting your knowledge on the guys that post there instead of posting here.

Another correction, 34 BBOGD bonuses = 34 turns

Martian,

I'm curious to know how many sigmas your correlation has. Currently I can only see one. Statistically, that can't be good.

What's your country number Junky? I'll give you some attention if you sing like that again.

Just a couple of things...

You've set your country strategy to casher, however there's a couple of problems with how you're playing it.

As strategies go, there's 2 major items to think about...
- government. Each government has certain bonuses which complement specific strategies. You've chosen Communism which has a disadvantageous bonus of 10% public market commission. As a casher the theory goes that you generate income through revenue generated by your population and that you use the cash generated to buy things from the public market. Your government choice has put you at a disadvantage for the strategy of casher.
- buildings. The types of buildings you choose should reflect the strategy you are implementing. As a casher you should mainly be building enterprise zones and residences with a small % reserved for indi complexes (producing spies only) and construction sites.

Very few people are successful at playing communist countries with strats other than industrialist.

It would be difficult for you to change to full commie indi now as your bpt is quite low so rebuilding would take quite a while. You could possibly change government to theo, take advantage of the building bonus then destroy your ent, res and farms to rebuild as labs (as that is what you have the most of) and then you just do research and sell the tech until the end of the set.

Or you could continue as you are and make the best of it then start anew in the next set and specialise. Take a look at the wiki as it gives enough info for you to get on with planning your next country. And ask questions. People (some at least) will help.

pants.

Thanks for the correction.

29 days = 696 hours = 41760 minutes
1 turn/25 minutes so 1670 turns

With the right timing you could get
38 18hour bonuses = 228 turns
5 posting bonuses = 20 turns
34 BBOGD bonuses = 78 turns
28 other bonuses = 168 turns

So, 2164 turns total are possible.

I think that's right but I'll wait to be corrected.

I'm guessing, but perhaps the baby boomers didn't sit on their fat asses as much as what today's kids do and actually got out there and exercised.

Today's kids do so little exercise and stay glued to their ps3/xbox/wii/tv that they're continually breathing the same stale, stinky smoke-ridden air all the time. This continued exposure coupled with lack of outdoor exercise probably, and this is just me guessing, means that they may be affected more than the baby boomers were.

What's with all the agri tech? You must have about 100k agri tech... Wouldn't you be better selling that while you can? Or are you going to switch to farmer?

If you're not switching to farmer then you would be able to generate about between $100-130m in sales of agri tech over the next 5 days if you sold twice a day. I'm pretty sure that cashing wouldn't get you anywhere near that from 10 turns.

And why bother with the oil rigs? You generate a paltry amount of oil and you have no use for it.

Don't bother with troops or tanks. You only need those when you're either warring with someone or to deter someone that you've previously attacked.

Tax rate is best at around 35% for bushel prices up to around 48 IIRC... certainly 20% is not being close to optimal.

Pick one strategy and tailor your country to fit that strategy.

As you're a demo the strats you should probably go for are farmer or casher. You could do techer, but tech prices are too low at this point in the game for you to bother.

As a farmer you'll build about 90-95% of your land as farms. The other 10% will be a mix of industrial complexes and construction sites.

As a casher you'll build about 43% of your land as enterprise zones, 37% as residences and the rest, as with farmer, will be a mix of industrial complexes and construction sites.

Go to the Manage link and change production levels to 100% spies.

It is cheaper to specialise your building types and buy the things that you don't produce - ie military, oil and technology (and food if you're a casher).

What will serve you well is to take a glance at other threads in this forum to see more advice on each of the strats. Also, go to the wiki and use http://www.eestats.com to see the status of all countries playing and market statistics from this, and previous, sets.

+1

If you put all your bonus into building costs then, as long as you take your bonus on time every day, the maximum you could have by day:
15 is 20%
22 is 30%
30 is 40%
45 is 60%
52 is 70%

So, building cost bonus could help a bit, but not by as much as I think you think.

If you started at 40k, for 5 LG @ 5k/LG and you fully built before making another grab then your building costs, with 0% bonus, would be $4.16b. (ignores destruction costs)

If, like Fenrir (#2488) - the largest country in the last set - you were at 40k acres by day 23 then your building costs could be as "little" as $4.16b * 70% = $2.91b.

A remarkable estimation by Rockman.

cheap tech did it i think

Check out http://www.eestats.com to look at previous market prices

oh, and I see you've got $97 cash... be very careful about having so little cash when you're net income is negative.

You never know when someone might suicide on you and with so little cash you wouldn't be able to retaliate until after your food has sold. Always keep a few turns of cash available.

You're a farmer so you can sell your food on the private market and (at the moment) only lose a little compared to selling on the public market.

If you increased your military tech a bit then you'd find the difference between public and private markets would be quite small and you'd have slightly lower military costs too. This may not be cost effective though. You need to think carefully before you buy mil tech for this purpose.

increase your agri... don't get anymore tanks or troops... you don't need them unless you're warring against someone.

When you've increased your agri to close to max you should increase your bus/res techs.

You'll probably find it better to remove a few of the indi buildings and build more farms. You should only be producting spies from the indi and you're SPAL isn't too bad. I'd recommend 500 indi would be better producing spies, unless you're planning to increase your size by a large amount very soon.

Last primary set at various points between day 30 and day 50
Troops averaged around 102, often at 99, as low as 96.
Jets averaged around 122, often at 118, as low as 115.
Turrets averaged around 118, often at 115, as low as 112.
Tanks averaged around 480, often at 460, as low as 445.

(except for blips were people amazingly sold at stupidly low prices)

I switched to MBR around day 24... Rockman said that I should have stuck to teching in the help threads and, annoyingly, he was right.

I had figured at the time that if prices were at least similar to the set earlier I'd have been ok but they were worse.

If pm regen was at 50% then the cut in pm military costs would have to be quite high to make the strat worthwhile (in primary - alliance is a different ballgame).

See the linked thread for Rockman's suggestion regarding MBR

http://forums.earthempires.com/...ry-bases-pm-replenishment

You have a lot of spies. You've already got a spy bonus with being a dictatorship. You should find that you can drop the number of indi complexes you have to about 300-400 and build ent/res instead and get a better income. You'll find that it's worth it.

Increase your bus/res techs.

Troops and tanks are expensive to use as defence, or as attack. You'd be better investing money in turrets or jets.

You don't have enough jets to be grabbing anyone really so it's a waste of resources to buy mil strategy tech. It's only useful when you grab.

You probably don't need SDI unless you're antagonising people by making lots of attacks. Better to invest in bus/res techs

Stop producing troops. They are, for this point of the set, a low volume commodity. Few people are interested in having many troops because they are not as effective and efficient as turrets are at defending or jets at attacking.

For the moment, you'll probably benefit most from producing 95% turrets and 5% spies.

You should increase your bpt by building construction sites - 4 at a time.

You should buy industrial tech to improve your production of turrets.

Don't worry about food... just buy enough to play the turns that you have.

Most of your turns will be spent exploring, building industrial complexes and construction sites and then selling what you've produced.

Use http://www.eestats.com to check out various statistics for the game such as the volumes of sales made for troops, turrets, jets and tanks.

Buying bus/res techs are more likely to provide a better return than military tech (unless food prices are really low and you can make more money selling your food on your private market).

Are you being grabbed? Do you think your spies per acre of land (SPAL) is too low? Would you like to produce a little more food?

Rather than have 10% of your land as indi complexes producing spies, you may find that you benefit by increasing your spy tech to 110% and reducing your indi complexes to 450.

This will reduce the number of spies you produce, thereby:
reducing your increase in food consumption,
reducing your expenses on spies,
increase the effectiveness of the 84k spies that you already have,
and increase your food produced/turn.

Or keep the 500 indi complexes and buy spy tech... this will improve your SPAL without increasing expenses and food consumption for the spies you already have.

The same can be said with weapons tech. A modest increase in weapons tech will increase your defence without increasing the food consumed/turn and expenses/turn on military.

done it again!

would you be thinking of increasing the nw of buildings too?

Troops are expensive to buy and maintain as defence. You'd be better spending that cash on turrets or weapons tech.

Failed 2 PS against 2 countries that had a high proportion of defence as troops...

Used a spreadsheet to calculate how many jets to send.

The cell for troop numbers was formatted as text so troops weren't added into my calculation.

Fear my numerical abilities.

"However, if a country's standing order is interrupted, such as by a lack of cash on hand, that country's order will then be placed last".

This statement is wrong.

A standing order that is interrupted, such as by a lack of cash on hand, is cancelled.

I don't think afaik is correct on this one.

I set up 2 standing orders for food. One at 33 and then one at 32.

Someone sold bushels at 32, I purchased them and the standing order at 33 was reduced. The standing order at 32 remained the same.

you want it to be $150/bushel?

I was thinking that it could just be an addition to primary as a kind of side game.

Maybe there could be a bonus to having the prize which would kick in only after at least 1 successful defends, eg enhanced luck or increased explore rate. It could have an increasing effect per successful defence. For example, at
0 successful defences, bonus = 0%,
1 successful defence, bonus = 1%
etc

The reason I thought of it was in order to encourage grabbing. If people were informed that the prize had passed hands within the past 2 hours they could search for attacks in the news/eestats to discover a list of potential prize holders and then go after the prize themselves.

no. I think the earliest you can get a time bonus is 24 hours after the start of the set, but you must have logged in before you can get a bonus.

Basically, the best start for bonus turns is to log in before 6am on the first day of the set then log in at 00:01 at the start of the second day.

shutupshutupshutupshutup

I thought it was kinda like Go Fish... except now I've looked it up on Wikipedia it's buggerall like it.

One country is given the prize. Don't know when... maybe 2 days after the start of the set.

2 alternatives...

1) The aim is to keep the prize to the end of the set.
You lose the prize either:
by not playing turns for more than 24 hours - it would be randomly given to a player that played within the past 6 hours.
75% chance of losing by being landgrabbed by an SS
by a new spy op to "Search and Steal the Prize"

No spy op can just "search for the prize". It has to be search and steal.

Mil strategy tech will improve chance of SS taking the prize.
Medical tech will reduce the chance of SS taking the prize.

If someone takes the prize, you cannot attack or spy them for the prize for 36 hours. (normal spy ops possible)

If the prize changes hands, a notification is set to all countries to say that "The prize recently changed hands". This notification would be sent up to 2 hours after the prize changes hands.

2) The aim is to not have the prize at the end of the set and would have roughly opposite rules to 1).

Grrr!!!

Had to do another recall. FFS, dumb asses. I think I'm gonna find these techers and get me some land from them to make up for the daft prices.

it'll save my branepowa for other things.

Stop it brink! Stop encouraging them.

Numb techers selling at silly prices. I'm going to have to learn another strat. I've had to recall my tech 5 times so far because it's just not selling. :-/