Obviously sitting around fluffing about self farming is not going to get anything done. Threatening those that self farm their countries will only end in ruin. Making policies against it will eventually not work.

Self Farming happens in this game, always has. Whether you want to accept that in your sheltered minds or not is not really my concern. However, the best course to take care of this 'epidemic', is simply to offer up ideas, and solutions to make it eventually become unnecessary.

Here's a few ideas from a somehwat intelligent person.

Self Farming is mainly done to balloon in networth. Obviously you are not going to be able to build on all that land you have. Therefore, a great course of action is to simply make empty land worthless. Now, I'm not saying take out the networth to land ratio altogether, that'd be stupid. My idea would be to change the NW:Land ratio from having it be all land, to just built land. I would assume that built acres are already worth more than empty acres, so what I would propose would be instead of taking the networth of the empty land, instead divide what you would normally get for that land and just adding a little bit to each building. Say, if you get $1 in NW for every acre, and .2 in NW for every building, it would instead be set to $0 for every acre, and like $.4 for each building.

Eventually the countries that are self farming will be out of reach of their farms, or simply just have a mass amount of undefended unused acres, but either way the person who is self farming would have to weigh the options and the costs of losing building in their farms, lowering the NW and damaging the farm's economy needlessly.


Diminishing Returns;
Now if I understand it, doesn't diminishing returns not come into play with speciaal attacks, but only land grabs? if it doesn't, would it be possible to make it that way? If self farmers are determined to farm their own countries, then this idea would make it very dangerous for them, as they would either have to retal themselves, or simply let their farmer take the chance of not being hit.



Discuss;

BTW, Trolls will be deleted, banned, and sodomized.


This means you dedly

i've said it before and say it again : Make grabbing follow exploring guidelines, meaning if you have 50% unbuilt your grabs wont yeild you a damn thing.

or : Make Ghost Acers on PS only

Can I ask for the sodomized option?

make hitting your own clan or countries generate random ghost acres... positive or negative ones!

The admins don't feel that self-farming goes against the spirit of the game. So they are not going to do something to stop it or make it less worthwhile.

you are 100% right. the admins have NEVER done anything to lessen self farming!

oh right, they completely rewrote the returns when llaar abused the system.

how exactly do you propose stopping self farming Rico? i see you fluffing more than my pregnant wife, but see no proposed solutions?

he didnt say he intended to stop self farming ford...


take the penis out of your ear and listen :P

lol, gambit's idea is certainly amusing, however I actually like Crippler's options. Being limited to 5 hits that will generate ghost acres a day and/or having to build your acres to grow will at least limit some of the ridiculous levels of self-farming we see. I don't think self-farming is 100% evil or unbalances the game is all situations, but then at the same time, if you're willing to self-farm up to 500k acres, that's beyond what most people are doing, and then there is a balance issue.

Crippler's ideas would (I assume) be much easier to implement than the ones I've suggested (server-wide acre cap), much more fair than Dragon's idea (country acre cap) and would actually be impossible to dodge with extra planning like ideas of removing ghost-acres on self-farming hits or hits within one's own tag.

im sorry, im referring to rico, not Despi. probably should of made that more clear

just like the explore option... make it so you cant landgrab if more than 50% of your land is unbuilt... i like crip's idea too :P

look at that a self farmer (me) offering solutions to end your(imp's) fluffing

well, that can hinder ppl during war

you have to look at the consequences as well. like the suicider no drop land rule. If you are trying to wall, and drop acres for SDI you cant if you have went on a grabbing spree recently.

I don't think the admins need to do anything to stop self farming. It is up to the community to do something about it... or not.

also caps grabs, sorry example:

you have 1k land, 800 built, max grab would be 1200A, so if you hit someone where you'd usually get 1500A, you'd only be able to get 1200.

so you are proposing something that would stop topfeeds as well

interesting

I don't see exactly what makes it an "epidemic". There are only 2 countries above 100k acres and it's possible to finish in the top ten without self farming.

With that said, there are many different styles of self farming. Some of the ideas presented in this thread are interesting, but none of them would handle all cases. So there would simply be more complaining once players figured out the next best self farming strategy.

Until someone can clearly explain why it's against the spirit of the rules, we aren't inclined to take extremely aggressive action against it. Warrers work together with their 16 countries. Netters do as well.

I don't see how it is either, thats why I had it in quotes slag. and as far as the ideals gven in this thread theres a simple phrase that comes to mind

"You can please all of the people some of the time, some of the people all of the time, but you can't please all of the people all of the time"


But at least with the ideas I gave, I think it would make it a little bit more challenging for the netters of FFA, and they might in turn draw more players.

once again...no-one has EVER threatened anyone if they self farm. a lot of these threads are assuming people will war others purely over self farming. THIS IS BS. NBKs stance is purely that we dont condone it and dont practise it, and we wont pact anyone who does it. we have NEVER once said we will war people cos they self farm.
we dont give a flying fluff if you want to self farm.

nbk maybe but imp has killed cause of it!

looks like a threat to me, and like crippy said, imp's killed over it.

also, I never said nbk threatened anybody, but thanks for trying to put words in my mouth :P


anyways, all I did was make a thread where people can give plausible ideas about self farming, I didn't make this thread to point fingers at people.

i dont think anyone has every actually specifically accused NBK of killing people over it? not sure why you get so defensive over the topic all the time.

RIU, dedly has threatened to kill/war netters multiple times over it.

fortunatley his threats are hollow.

Just close this thread...


The Game Admins obviously have a 1 sided view on Self Farming. And they wont entertain anyones suggestions. So why even bother? Slagpits already posted in this thread, saying he doesn't think its an issue. Why? Because he's the guy putting countrys over 500k Acres. So if it doesn't benifit him, hes not going to listen.



As for Swords, we will do whatever we want to do next set. If that means killing Self Farmers, then so be it. Even Slagpit can't control that aspect of the game. Players govern players on the servers. If we don't like you Self Farming, we can kill you. That is simple politics.


If you want people like me to not kill Self Farmers, start listening to some suggestions. Because we are not going to let it fly how it currently is.



PS. I like Cripplers Idea as well. But Slagpit doesn't want to loose his advantage. He probably spent alot of time getting Self Farming to where its at, because he knows how to manipulate the Current Self Farming system better than most others. Changing it, would put him on level playing ground with everyone else.

apologies. as long as everyone knows NBK wont kill u because you wanna self farm. ive made my point lol

I imagine slagpit is a far better player than u with or without self farming what should we do to counteract that? Has it gives u an unfair disadvantage which results in you trolling so if we as a community can help u please let us know how

"PS. I like Cripplers Idea as well. But Slagpit doesn't want to loose his advantage. He probably spent alot of time getting Self Farming to where its at, because he knows how to manipulate the Current Self Farming system better than most others. Changing it, would put him on level playing ground with everyone else."

LOL im sorry to give these news to you FFAers but slagpit doesnt need any advantage to outnet all of you, im not very fond of him myself most of the time but he could probably beat 99% of you even if he started 2 weeks late

I guess I'll have to try it again in a different way.

"Until someone can clearly explain why it's against the spirit of the rules, we aren't inclined to take extremely aggressive action against it."

That's what needs to be done. I'll even write half the sentence for you guys:

"Self farming is against the spirit of the rules because ______________________________________________"


See the big blank part? That's what you insert your reasoning. I could link you to some "how to make an argument" and "basic communication skills" pages, would that help?

This thread has turned into a drama coaster, not really worth commenting on anymore :P

no K4F its turning into another thread where people post legitimate reasons that support self farming and the people who are against it are still spouting off "it gives people an unfair advantage"

Ghost acres only on planned strikes actually does seem like a good option.

On a completely separate note (and this is because of Ivan's comment, but he's far from the only person who does this):

lose = the opposite of win.

loose = the opposite of tight.

Edit: Didn't notice this the first time, but Ivan seems to be quoting someone. I'm too lazy to look back to see who, but if he is quoting someone, the incorrect usage was not Ivan's. I'm sure no one cares either way, but I felt the need to correct this, anyway.

if people bring forward good reasons why self-attacking should be turned off, I have no problem listening to them...

like someone else on this thread said, though, this dramacoaster is stupid

I'd like to ask that a certain group of folks stop attacking the admins on every thread, while being completely unwilling to actually talk to me or qz first, because I've had about enough of it.

you're attacking "admins" now without even knowing where most of them stand on any issues. any conversation that starts with "the admins [insert accusation here]" is not a positive discussion, it's the kind of trolling that is only meant to bash the admins, not actually promote positive discussion.

now everyone play nice and stop making me waste my time on this idiocy. it's deconstructive, and I know that those who are making this issue worse know that, as I've directly told several of their clanmates.

holding discussion after discussion about self-farming is useless.

It's not against FFA rules, it's a choice thing. The admins clearly stated that. I'd say 9 out of 10 people like it because they don't havta subject their country to retals and such. They can grow as big as they want to. With normal LG's yu havta take into account the retal. If I grab myself, I'M NOT GONNA RETAL MYSELF. The people that don't like it, prollie dont because of the easy land advantage that the self-farmer has. And since no one can make a good case against the self-farmer............


I tried it one set, it's ok, i neither hate it or approve of it. U can still get land the conventional way, and finish in the top ten that way. I myself will not self farm.....anymore.


There's only one real solution (whether we want to accept it or not)


Just like any other thing we don't agree with, we deal with it. Well,........it doesnt' look like self farming is going anywhere anytime soon.


Threats to kill countries that do self farm is not the answer either, at this time, I don't think we can come up with a valid reason for doing away with it entirely. However, some of the ideas mentioned are good starts to limiting the self farmers advantage......


The only question is whether or not the admins will agree with any of them, and implement them in some form.
Say, a test, to see how it would turn out...
ADMINS, put into effect the explore rules (cant explore with unbuilt acres) LG's with a % of empty land not built up, nets NO LAND RETURNS, just wasted military from the lg attempt.



Put that into effect for ONE (1) set, just to see how it evens things out. Then after that set, we will have something to review to either keep allowing the changes (explore rules) or go another route.



one set cannot hurt, it's only three (3) months. It'll be here and gone before we know it. Then, the people that don't like it will have a better argument. Some facts to backup sum theories and such.

I've never seen the issue with self farming.


And while most alliances don't "threaten" pacts have been refused or threatened to be refused if netter alliances self-farmed. Still indirect threats.

Honestly self farming used to be a big part of even NBK strategy in old FFA. I remember TCO running 150 landfarms in NBKs tag so they could grab up fast so their early missiler strats could gain easy land instead of spending 90 turns block exploring on every strat they would gain the advantage of doing 3 PSes each on the land farms.

Honestly if properly used it adds a whole new dynamic to warring and netting as well. Why waste that, it opts for creativity on many different sides.


As for attacking admins that needs to stop. The constant mud throwing is unnecessary. After all aren't they the people who gave us this game? FFA was the condemned hole has and always will be. Mehul closed it twice, when Mehul sold Swirve he STRONGLY ADVISED Jolt not to listen to re-opening the FFA server due to massive bots and cheaters going beyond control.


With all this yapping at Admins it's going to give them a better opinion of the FFA community. If you want to be constructive and actually ban out self farming (if you believe that's constructive) then give them a well thought opinion on why it should not be allowed instead of the silly silly mudslinging.

I don't see an issue with it either, and I also know that people have been self farming in FFA since 2000, they just didn't do it within their own tag, which is what is making it more noticeable.
It was also not so bad because you had 40 less turns to do it with on a full turn country... and it'd take 3 days to get those full turns again, nowadays you have 40 more turns to use, and they fill faster.

thats why I think some of the ideas posted here might be a good idea, kind of as a limit control



and riu.. i still lub ya :)

So is the issue with self farming, or land trading or both? Desperado- My countries land trade. I end up 50k acres in all my countries. All my countries run 100% built land. your rule change wouldnt affect me. Same with 90% of TKOers.

"The Game Admins obviously have a 1 sided view on Self Farming. And they wont entertain anyones suggestions. So why even bother? Slagpits already posted in this thread, saying he doesn't think its an issue. Why? Because he's the guy putting countrys over 500k Acres. So if it doesn't benifit him, hes not going to listen."

My question: Why is it an issue smurf? Why is it so easy, if he was the only one that could do it? That noone else was up to 20% of his land? Its a strategy. Theres formulas and complex gameplay strategies to make it most effecient.

I do it because it makes my life easier, and i can play in 10-20 minutes a day. Unlike most war clans im not willing to sacrifice hours of my day, 365 days a year to a text based game. I have a life. I play this game for the friends ive made. Im not in midle/highschool fluffing around in my spare time. Im playing a game i enjoy slightly, with people i enjoy emmensly. Whats wrong with that? How is it detremental to you?

This game is dictated by the players. And the players have never said "We are going to kill you for playing a different way that isnt affecting us, touching us, etc." If TKO attacks you, etc. then sure kill the offending country if it breached a rule. If we dont touch you, you have no authority/reason to touch us.

Slag, as well as some of the other good earthers, need no advantage to run better countries then 90% of FFA. Most FFAers ran fluff countries so they could run hundreds a day, and it made sense. Unfortunatly it seems when limited to 16 it seems alot of FFA clans have not addapted from the "run fluff countries" to "run decent countries/good countries". Id recomend that FFAers need more strategy advisors, and less fluffing and whining.

isnt this supposed to be an "interactive" game? .. if i wanted to play with myself id go watch some porn. thats all im gonna say :-P

ketchup, you are right, the ideas i posted here wouldn't affect you. so whats your point? lol

RIU arent we "interacting" right now?

The interaction thing is not a valid argument though riu :P in self farming and land trading, the ones doing it still get hit, and you usually gain more for hitting them, that's about as much interaction as when you are grabbing. Lol

you just said yourself that the only interaction that comes with self farming are the ones that grab the self farmers for land...the ones who play this game as a true interactive game should be played. what im saying is that if everyone just grabbed their own countries then there would be no interaction in game. talking here on the forums is not what i call interaction. i dont have to post here at all to play this game. if all i did was self farm in my own tag and everyone did the same, whats the point? id be playing in my own little world.
and watching porn is so much more fun than that.

My official stance on self farming is that I don't like it. It creates an unlevel playing field between those that choose to self-farm and those that choose to not self-farm.

However I'd like to highlight my use of the word "choose" here. I've been preaching the idea of the player base self-governing for a while now. I admit it is a very libertarian stance to take, but I feel it fits in perfectly in a server named Free For All. Stop for a second and think what that name stands for.

For myself, Free For All means we are free to play this game in just about anyway we want. On this server you can choose to play 16 countries or 5 countries. You can choose to self-farm, you can choose to kill countries that self-farm, you can choose to band together and create coalitions, or you can band together and declare war on coalitions.

Libertarians have a motto, "The government that governs least governs best." I think that is fitting for this server. I don't see the need for the admins to come in here and put in restrictions on self-farming. However, if you don't like self-farming you are fully within your rights to do something about it.

thats a a fair point rico,

personally i dont care either way with self farming, i dont mind seeing 70k - 110K countries that have self farmed ,


i dont like 500k or 1 mil or 15 countries feeding land to 1 country or the GS into DR stuff

yes slag did both things in my tag this reset, but there was a reason why he did it and i dont care to explain it

if anyone stopped and thought for a minute they might figure it out.

anyway TKO has always accepted grabs without too many problems

Pang/Slagpit/Warster and all other Game Mods/Admins,



I bash Slagpit because every suggestion I have seen ANYONE make that would change the current Self Farming mechanics has been met with hostility about changes by him.



There were REALLY good suggestions in this thread. By players that have/do Self Farm. But even those suggestions get shot down by slagpit with the same line he always uses.



"How is Self farming against the spirit of the rules?"



Does Cripplers suggestion "Eliminate" Self Farming? No, it does not. But its shot down with the same line as every other suggestion. Why can you not take suggestions into consideration? Without first jumping to the "How is Self farming against the spirit of the rules?" card.



I personally am just tired of it. If NOBODY can make a suggestion to a Game Admin about changes that may affect Self Farming, without receiving the same bullfluff line, why shouldn't I get upset?



I didn't create this thread. Someone else did. I just saw the same response ANYONE see's when making a suggestion that could change the current mechanics of Self Farming.



Would it be different if Slagpit didn't Self Farm a country over 500k Acres this set. I dunno, maybe. But him doing that, and then shooting down ANY suggestion that may change those mechanics, looks completely and utterly biased.



You can like my view or not, I really don't care.

You have all done a great job rebuilding the game, and giving me something to do. And for that I give you props.


But regardless, I am not going to be quiet when I feel like a Game Admin is not willing to listen to the community of players.

(And I don't mean the Anti-Self Farming community, I mean anyone that has made a suggestion that has been shot down because it may possibly change the dynamics of Self Farming as it stands now)

to me self farmin makes as much sense as crapping the bed wide awake then rolling in it..

Define good.
Several have been made (at least IMO), all of which have shot down.
all depends on which way the listener is bias i guess.

If self-farming is not detrimental to the game,by giving unfair advantage,or this IS not a war game...Why is self-farming not mentioned here? Or why the "attack and defend against ENEMIES"?

From BBOGD:

Description:
Earth Empires is a free browser based strategy game where you take control of your nation's military and economy. Command your country's military to attack and defend against your enemies. Execute attack strategies to relieve opponents of their resources and land. Strategically invest in technology to outpace the economies of other countries. Ally with your friends or make new friendships by joining a clan. Conduct military operations, govern your country and build your empire.

Continuing the legacy of Earth:2025 - one of the first massive multiplayer browser games - Earth Empires brings a fresh new spin to a classic style of gaming.

Why is market buyouts not mentioned? Why is farming untags not mentioned? etc.

Its a generic general guidline to attract new players. It isnt for vets. Honestly a new person who has never played would not even know what self farming meant.

you know what ruins this game!

boxcar not having a fast way to filter dead countries from a clan list! ;)

or at least me not knowing how to use it.

Isn't watching porn more fun than anything though? :P

I really have nothing against self farming, personally. What I dislike is the DR tactic. If you self farm, you should have the defenses to back it up. Using DR to protect your land instead of buying military to keep it safe is a pretty shoddy tactic IMO. If someone self farms and doesn't put themselves into DR, I'm fine by it.