I have a stupid recommendation. Yes, I know already in advance. But, I am so stupid, that I will share it anyways. My recommendation would be to have Primary Server be replicated, so we could play 2 games in parallel, that are let's say, 2 weeks apart. This would allow to better understand the game and practice more. BTW, no playing the weekly games does not do the same. But, I am welcoming any comment to tell me how stupid the idea is...

It's not a stupid idea but it would have some unfortunate consequences I think:

It will dilute the one game we have so fewer players will play each of them which is a negative. Better to have one good game than 2 bad ones.

Secondly, it will make more players play as if their country is expendable.
Part of what makes primary great is that because of GDI and because of the 2 month length there is a feasible path to netgain and most people see the value in not playing like a total schmuck.

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I would say that while there is a unique flow to every server, what sets players apart is mostly the same things. So if you get better at the fundamentals by playing express you will do better in primary as well.
Or at the very least, if you master the fundamentals, it is much easier to adapt to the unique features of every server than it was to learn those fundamentals in the first place.

I know it's not a stupid question, but I know the audience of this forum and the level of respect that is tolerated here... Your answer is fact based and respectful. Does not happen that often here in this forum... Thanks

Hmm

You can practice on the Alpha game servers if thats what you're mostly interested in.

Isn’t the existence of express made for this very reason?

Express is not the same as Primary at all. Not played the same way, not the same level of difficulty.

Does everyone still have access to alpha? I feel like that was made was a premium/patron user only server. If that's still the case, I feel like it should be accessible by all. It doesn't matter if you're new or a first set patron, it's helpful to be able to test stuff to become interested enough to pay.

I think what's hard to recreate (outside of tourney game A) is the cutthroat nature of primary. The top ten have generally won some land battles and botted servers don't provide much insight to the earth2025 style play of primary. The first time I played it, I kinda wasn't expecting to get my ass romped for taking a while to get good defense on a casher, and it was a little tough to play the whole 2 months as a landfarm haha.

It's a very slow server that can be lost very quickly. I agree with the statement that making 2 games would just dilute it, but it definitely is tough to prepare for. I would recommend tourney and getting to game A to a secondary primary, but I understand the sentiment.

If you’re trying to learn the game then EXPRESS is the place to go. If you’re trying to learn to play primary then there’s no other place you’re going to learn except on primary. Every server’s market is radically different (including ai and alpha servers).

But I’m sure you knew it that.

Which btw., alpha servers restricts you to one country now which is dumb.

Derrick is correct about alpha server access. It is only patron/premium.

I'm not gonna lie, being able to practice playing the game is a bizarre paywall. Feels like one of the first things you should show someone with interest in the game/a good training grounds haha.

Did anyone pay for patron specifically to get access to alpha? That feels like that would be a very rare circumstance and would be the only reason to keep it paywalled. Most of us got it because we like the game and were down to throw some bucks on it.

Theres more than one alpha server. AlphaFFA allows like 25 countries or something, plus you can delete and start again with no issue.

When you get down to the nitty-gritty there may be variations in some things that also vary between the servers, but for 99% of the formulas its identical.

The other thing is since the game irc is gone and scourge doesn't track alphaffa/alpha news you can't test warbots there anymore which was useful.