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Kill4Free Game profile

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3144

May 12th 2010, 23:09:11

I know it is used by a ton of people, but I will consider this a bug. Spy attacks should not affect normal attacks except for the readiness reduction they do with demoralise. Anyone can just landgrab a bunch of other people, spy DR themselves for a few days until the retals expire, and see almost none of the land grabbed get taken back.
This is not fair in general and there is no visual way to track this.

If you want to DR your country, GS, AB and BR are all available. Free DR aka Spy DR on the other hand just hurts the game in general.
So many ways to die, only one way to live...
NBK

qzjul Game profile

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May 12th 2010, 23:44:05

spy DR does not affect regular attacks' DR
Finally did the signature thing.

Kill4Free Game profile

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3144

May 14th 2010, 15:40:11

Yes it does, and it is fairly widely known too. I have received below the bare minimum amount of land that any landgrab should get just because of spy DR.
This does happen, and that is how almost all high land countries in FFA avoid getting hit for big numbers the bulk of the set.
So many ways to die, only one way to live...
NBK

MrCobalt Game profile

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157

May 14th 2010, 17:47:30

I was top10 landfat all reset and never did so! ;)

Slagpit Game profile

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May 14th 2010, 19:09:19

The only way that spy ops can affect SS or PS returns is by changing the NW of the target.

Kill4Free Game profile

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3144

May 14th 2010, 20:56:09

Not hard, just keep raiding oil reserves, or food stores, or kill civilians. If you have even 10k food, everytime they kill some food your NW changes slightly. Every successful spy break puts you more and more into DR.
So many ways to die, only one way to live...
NBK

Slagpit Game profile

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May 14th 2010, 21:52:30

You are misinformed. Every attempted harmful spy op adds to spy DR. This is an invisible variable which makes it more difficult for additional harmful spy ops to succeed.

There is a separate form of DR that affects SS and PS returns. This DR is visible to players and is only affected by the 24 hour attacks and defends of the target.

Kill4Free Game profile

Member
3144

May 15th 2010, 0:59:47

I am not misinformed.
I attack a 34,000 acre country, 29mil NW.
My country is 17mil NW, has 130% military strategy.

Target has not been attacked with any PS or SS within the last week.

I do a PS. On a normal 20,000 acre country I can expect 2600 acres. On this country I get 2400 acres.

Granted that isnt complete proof that spy DR works.
But this country had a 20:1 spy to land ratio taking into account tech.
My country had a 100:! spy to land ratio.

I failed 6 spy ops in a row on him before my first one succeeded.

This very strongly implies that he was spied on a TON of times before the spy DR came into affect.
This clan in question had no enemies that would try to kill them, so it was self inflicted most likely.

So combine the fact with extremely low return ratios, with the fact that he was spied on does imply that spy DR does carry over.

I know this isn't positive proof, but I have multiple instances of this recorded, and quite visible on my attacks in boxcarhosting.

Please don't just say I am wrong and not listen. There is some non-visible form of damage reduction that isn't visible to players, going on, and from my experience it strongly implies it is spies.

You can also see this on some of the large FFA countries. No visible attacks in any large quantity in view. And some people are getting returns of 1k acres on a 60k acre target, others are 10k acres.
This is far beyond normal land variance from landgrabs.

if someone would like to contact me to point out where I am wrong I am more then willing to listen. And I would like to talk with an admin as well.

My contact is
So many ways to die, only one way to live...
NBK

Azz Kikr Game profile

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May 15th 2010, 3:23:09

for what it's worth, DR generally means diminishing returns. not damage reduction.

qzjul Game profile

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May 15th 2010, 3:31:05

the acreage you get is based on your relative networths; how big in NW was the 20kA country

Finally did the signature thing.

Slagpit Game profile

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4589

May 15th 2010, 3:38:34

If the word of two game developers is not enough, I suggest the following test:

-Find a country with 25% or less of your NW with no defends over the past 24 hours.
-Grab this country once. Write down the returns.
-Perform fifty(50) harmful spy ops on this country.
-Grab the country again. Write down the returns.

Kill4Free Game profile

Member
3144

May 15th 2010, 3:45:13

Qzjul, the 20k acre country I mentioned about 10% higher in NW then the country I hit it with.

And Slag, I am fully aware that attacking smaller targets will get you less land. Attacking larger targets should get you more land. I think it works out to about 130% land if your country is less then 70% the NW of the target country.

Next reset I will do tests, I will take screenshots of everyone, and I will show you the results. I can show you the varying results of landgrabs right now on high land targets.
I can't do tests this set as it isn't practical for me to do so at the moment.
So many ways to die, only one way to live...
NBK

Slagpit Game profile

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May 15th 2010, 3:51:41

No, the point is that the 50 intermittent spy ops will not affect the grabbing returns. Size doesn't matter as long as you keep it roughly constant.

Kill4Free Game profile

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3144

May 15th 2010, 4:25:54

I am not talking about intermittent by 1 country. I am talking about 200 ish opps in a row every 2 days.
So many ways to die, only one way to live...
NBK

RaTS FYA Game profile

Member
1031

May 15th 2010, 7:50:33

SPAL is bonkered too, my 700k spies on 1k acres couldnt break countries with 50k acres and 300k spies.... Thats a bit ridiculous.
<~qzjul> it gives you a good introduction to orbital mechanics and a good appreciation for how central delta-V is and thrust to weight ratio
<RaTSFYA>The only thrust to weight ratio I'm worried about involves the women I pick up at bars

qzjul Game profile

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May 15th 2010, 14:22:14

why is it so rediculous?


K4F, the point is:

SPY OPS IN NO WAY AFFECT GRABBING RETURNS. PERIOD. NO EXCEPTIONS.

test it in FFA if you like... make 14 countries to do 700 spyops on the 15th country, grab once before, and once after... and see if the results are significantly different.

They won't be by the way.
Finally did the signature thing.

Kill4Free Game profile

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3144

May 15th 2010, 15:17:35

Alright, why are the returns I am getting so low for grabbing?

When I am the attacker, attacking someone, say the defender has 20mil NW, and I attack with 12mil NW. Should that cut the gains in half?

And this happens right after multiple spy ops were done on the country by themselves.
So many ways to die, only one way to live...
NBK

qzjul Game profile

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May 15th 2010, 15:28:35

if you are attacking somebody with 20M nw and you are 12M nw, the maximum you can get on a normal govt SS with no MS is 3.9% of their land; (compared to an absolute max of about 7% for norm govt SS with no MS)


the closer the attacker/defender nw's are, the better, generally speaking
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Kill4Free Game profile

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May 15th 2010, 15:36:26

Yep, now I had 130% strategy, on a PS. I end up with about 5%.
So many ways to die, only one way to live...
NBK

qzjul Game profile

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May 15th 2010, 15:41:48

they were probably at level 3 (5 or 6 attacks on them in the last 24 hours) DR then, tyhat should give almost exactly 5%
Finally did the signature thing.

Kill4Free Game profile

Member
3144

May 15th 2010, 19:32:27

I know that is what I figured as well qz. But the target was not hit for about 6 days.
So many ways to die, only one way to live...
NBK

Slagpit Game profile

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May 15th 2010, 20:24:48

You weren't cheated out of any acres because of spy ops. Again, spy ops have nothing to do with how much land you gain with a SS or PS.

Kill4Free Game profile

Member
3144

May 17th 2010, 20:58:39

Sorry about my complaints everyone, I made a mistake in calculating with the current game programming. From the information that I had, a country that breaks a larger one from under always gains more land, something like 30% more land. I didn't realise that hitting someone from under you actually get a penalty that is quite steep after a certain level of NW that you are below.
If this penalty was severe enough, then that would explain my lack of gains.
As for spy ops I doubt it was from poor luck too many failed in a row. It was probabably just a coincidence that lots of other people tried to get ops on him too.

Sorry about being so defensive about this fact, I programmed my own version of earth 2025 that was single player way back so people could practice netting, and it looks like I didn't have all the formulas down correct for attacking, and I blamed inconsistent results in EE on programming as opposed to my error.

As for Dibs, I calculate how much I need to send, and that part I never make a mistake, it is pretty straight forwards. Just sorta sucks that I have a country, maybe 30% of my military is jets, and I break someone who is twice my size (71k land) and 95% of their military is not jets, and i get such crappy returns (4k acres).
So many ways to die, only one way to live...
NBK