So ya the bot code would need a revision, ideally. Though it wont happen. How about a quick fix instead?

Lower the auto-sale price for tech on express to like 750 or even 500.

Techers will be forced to undercut eachothers hard on Sunday, to avoid getting tech stuck, which means the other strats will be there to pick up those techs and profit from running turns at higher tech levels.

Its quick, its dirty, it won't solve every problem but it should balance the techers slightly. A techer might still have godly income on Saturday but if Sunday is a bit worse than now it will lower their ending NWs slightly. Add to that the fact that cashers, farmers and indies will be able to pick up all those cheap techs on Sunday evening, after the bots shut down, before cashing out.

How about bots randomly shoot between 1-3 nukes an hour at techers?

They can't because of GDI, and its much harder to implement.

I'm on board with trying this. I know there have been many times as a techer I've sold a majority of my tech for the set at 1k and still got top 10, hell even top 5... easily.

Should probably go with 750 first and see if it makes any dent whatsoever.

Risk is that you get fewer techers and tech prices go even higher on Saturday.

Techer has been dominant for so long now that something should be tried. risk is ofc that it backfires and then the admins leave it unchanged for a couple of years. :)

Add a debuff for teching like all other strategies have.

The pope has placed your greatest scientists under house arrest. Your citizens now believe the Earth is the center of the universe. This greatly affects their productivity.

no no no you got it all wrong

Your citizens now believe the Earth is the center of the universe. They start burning books you lose xxxx amount of tech points.

even though techer is my best strat, I'd be good with making it 900 for auto buy at end of set. i think 500 is extreme, and even 750 is a lot of reduction.

900 wouldn't change the dynamic in the way gerdler's proposing, it's just fiddling round the edges

Techer is about where it needs to be for alliance I think. Farmer/oilers win almost every reset there, if you make game wide changes they better not affect teching on alliance.

I have limited experience with FFA but the way I see it tech prices stay super high til the techers start teching and require it to be high. Also since its so easy for the others to grab to 200-300k acres with 4-3 weeks left they will likely outpace the techers unless those tech prices are like they are nowadays. Indeed my cashers and my farmer/oilers ended up outstocking all my techers by the end of the set even though the techers had a solid lead that lasted into the last week.

In primary techer is so useless its hard to describe. As soon as you get even one serious techer there he will crash the market by himself.

In team techers can get t10 only if the tech prices are exceptional that set.

In tournament techers can only compete with the best possible market conditions and even then a well played casher usually wins in the end.


So I really wanna keep the change to this server if the change is not to the bot code. Techers are not overpowered anywhere else.

I am for it.

I think it is putting a band aid on a gun shot wound but I could be wrong.

As you know, Dictators, the kings of spies, are only allowed to spy 125 times a day. In that vein I would add that no one should be allowed to research more than 225 times in any 24 hour period.

It's a good analogy. I think the important thing as with any change is to follow it up with a revision in case it does not work as intended.

Well, imo techers crush everything on FFA and it's really not even close to close. An 80k land techer will outproduce basically the biggest country of any other strat thanks to quick moving markets that sell till the last day of the set and they're a vital part of stocking. Only reason to go anything else is if you're destocking with oil.

Don't markets suck for basically every strategy on primary, team, tournament? I guess that's just cause not many play them and not because techer would not outproduce them under normal conditions.

I guess you could throw in a "Your scientists have build an ipod nano, your level of technology has increased for a turn" but some sort of randomness for techers would put them on par with other strategies. Obviously I'm kidding as I don't think it would fix the balance, and I've never really understood why market cap is 1000 for tech on Express. 500 seems more intuitive.

If you wake up late on Sunday (perhaps you are american) and tech 150-200 turns you will have trouble selling it off and the $1000 min price saves you from that issue. I basically wanna reintroduce that issue as techers have enough benefits already. :)

Anywhere east of Europe has to stop running turns early or get up in the middle of the night to finish. That only ethicists more people to tech.

I don't see why there's an auto buy at all. Why should techers get a safety net?

Anywhere east of Europe has to stop running turns early or get up in the middle of the night to finish. That only ethicists more people to tech.

I don't see why there's an auto buy at all. Why should techers get a safety net?

Especially since the bots give them a risk free way of hitting their land targets early as well and those early turns saved where they otherwise can't produce means more turns to tech and sell to bots at 4k +.

Hmm... how about making a difference between last turn issued and end of the set? Or you could move to a civilised country :P

I'm for literally anything that balances Techer at all.

Gerdy had a top 3 on team (I wanna say 2nd but I'm sure he will verify) as I remember with a strat I hadn't really seen someone use before. That to me was far more impressive than a Techer winning this server for the 300th time.

It doesn't need to be a perfect balance but I've run a variety of strats here and if my math is anywhere close, production for the next closest strat is around 65-75% of a Techer. If the only way to win is to run the only strat you can win with, to me the spirit of building something new and exciting is worthless and in that way, the appeal of the game itself is ruined. It will always be the same stale countries winning if left as is.

I back Gerdler 100% on this. In related news, hell just froze over and monkeys flew out my butt.

That's where I left those.

i say tech auto buy at 600. also a max selling price of 4k. so all tech most be sold between 600 - 4k. would limit stock a techer gets. no more 9999 tech selling when bots come back online.

that is really the way to go limit the top tech price.

non-techers would just love 4k bucks or under techs since that is cheap when compared to 5-8k bucks techs when trying to get techs maxed.

so marshal, I assume you agree that tech is OP right now. I assume u agree that a huge part of the problem is bot buying protocols. What would you do? I can see a max price of 6k but 9999 is imbalancing the whole server.

It is very rare to sell any tech at above 6k or even 5k. Last set that happened but only because the bots were off and came back on with 360(360) turns at once.

I think I have sold less than 100k tech at 6k or above this year in total. That is not the problem, the problem is the equilibrium price for res and bus becomes too high with farmer, indy and casher bots all buying res/bus to a much greater extent than the techer bots produce it. I'd agree with making the bots prioritize the cheapest techs that they are supposed to have, but not with lower max selling price. It is simply not the right way to go about it.

This game is about the market. Without the market the game is nothing. My suggestion of dropping the minimum selling price reintroduces a degree of freedom in pricing. That is inherently good because more players will have to unload their tech to other countries (players or npc's).

Clint If you get a 20k acre techer on this server and tech half of Fridays and all of Saturdays turns you will see that that volume of tech simply does not sell at those prices you are talking about. Or just go to EEstats and look at the market stats. Yeah a few k points will sell at 7k or so every other or every 3rd set, but its not something you can count on and its not something that will sell in volume. If 2 techers are selling tech at the same time you still have to undercut, which likely means tech prices around 2.5-4k for the early to mid-late stocking phase. look at the market data. EEstats stores market data back hundreds of sets(but you need only to look at the sets this since like early March this year since that was around when the latest change was introduced)

op? maybe

bots buying protocol? if its similar to selling then yes

still limiting max price won't be solution but lower min price might work.

bots buying?

People need to leave the market alone. Tweaking this stuff is pointless and stupid.