After some consideration we decided that the proposed rules changes weren't good enough. Here are the revisions:

-Maximum turns held will change from 450 (300) to 360 (360).

-Rounds will begin one day earlier and end one day earlier, so instead of starting Thursday morning and ending on Monday night, rounds would start on Wednesday morning and end on Sunday night.

-Late starts would get 100(0) turns maximum, so a country would need to be created earlier than the five hour mark of the reset to avoid losing turns.

-Public market changes: max market sale size raised from 25% to 45%, time to market raised to 0.25-0.75 hours, time on market specified by player for each good (2 hours to 30 hours). Goods on the market will show what time they will return home. Commies will be able to sell up to 60% of their goods at once.

-Decrease maximum daily spy ops to 100.

-Oil on private market, sell at $30, buy at $300.

-Public market tech floor raised to $1000 from $500.

-Minimum ally time will be 24 hours.

-FAing will not be permitted.

-Drop land time is 24 hours instead of 72 hours.

-Declaring war will no longer be possible.

-Bomb banks will steal a small amount of cash as well as destroying a larger amount of cash.

-Change GDI
GDI will now serve as suicider prevention. The proposed rule set is as follows:
--Minimum GDI time is the whole length of the set.
--Cost is $5 per acre.
--Countries in GDI will only be able to do standard strikes, planned strikes, steal tech, bomb banks, burn oil, or burn bushels to countries which have not done at least 2 attacks or offensive spy ops towards them.
--Countries not in GDI attacking countries in GDI will only be able to do standard strikes, planned strikes, steal tech, bomb banks, burn oil, or burn bushels, unless the country in GDI has attacked them more than once.
-Only countries in protection may join GDI.

We are basically requiring countries to do two or more attacks before all out war can start between them. Players of course need to opt into this protection, but countries will no longer be able to randomly AB GDI countries that haven't attacked them more than once.

--Countries in GDI will only be able to do standard strikes, planned strikes, steal tech, bomb banks, burn oil, or burn bushels to countries which have done at least 2 attacks or offensive spy ops towards them.

This is an error, right? Shouldn't the word "unless" appear in there somewhere like the rules for non-GDI countries attacking GDI countries?

I'm excited about all of the changes! The extra 2 days is really going to change things, too. It will be fun to see higher NWs.

most of these changes are terrific

however, you said the set would end one day later but then you said the set would end on sunday night; the two ideas conflict.
if set end is tuesday night i love this

i am not sure i like the concept of greater DR protection for allx countries than for LG countries. This treatment seems to punish LGing but any reduction in DR is a big step in the right direction. DR for non attacking countries should be 12 hours

ally time and Land Protection Act time reduction are excellent
this will reduce some of the devastating impact of ABs and BRs
it will also prevent much of the deceptive leeching that has been so effective in recent sets

reduction in spy ops is terrible and completely uncalled for
but you knew i would say that
it will further reduce one of the skill elements of the game
the only justification is that some morons abuse spies
that is not sufficient reason
bomb banks steals a small amount of cash
i think in an individual game, bomb banks, raid oil wells and steal food should all be tools of acquisition rather than destruction so i would be in favor of just raising the amount that is taken and dropping the amount destroyed to zero
please be careful that you do not essentially eliminate spies from express

excellent changes to GDI, requiring the decision to be made in protection is great

thanks for greatly improving the game

Late Starts

this area had to be addressed and i think this is the proper response but i would like to point out a minor potential problem

if set end really is tuesday night and set start is wednesday morning, a player may not have the opportunity to create a country in the lag time
many of us now use the down time to create our country in case we can not make set start, with the reduction of the lag window to mere hours some may not be able to start countries on time to avoid the penalty

Fixed a few errors, sorry about that. The set length will still be five days, we're just going to move the start day up one and the end day up one.

-If countries make a SS or PS their DR immediately falls to 0.

The more I think about this, the more I think it could be horribly abused. Two countries could start with zero/little defense and land trade indefinitely. Someone could also have a land farm that they hit multiple times then have the farm do a single attack to reset the DR whenever they want. They could claim the farm with 5+ attacks without resetting DR then reset the DR the next day when they're ready to play turns. If the admins are going to watch for and address that type of abuse, I guess the change is fine but it seems like it would be easier to just reduce the DR period to 4-6 hours.

excellent point dantzig

land farms galore for the usual suspects if this rule goes into effect

It's already possible to abuse DR that way.

you get almost 54 hours every week to make a country and lose no turns

thats fine and way more than any other set

although the only reason i see to do 72 instead of 99 is the risk of some market manipulation i guess

on the DR im assuming the ghost acres undiminished DR will stay in place for 24 hours so its not a huge issue

the market time being up to 30 hours and in particular over 24 could make the market much more stable in express

and also allows full stock to be hidden from stock stealers which makes stockpiling food more appealing compared to stockpiling cash which could be a desirable change

oil price is interesting but its effectively $600/acre so may only really apply to casher and techer

although if mil tech theo and mbr all reduce cost of oil that changes things somewhat

and fascism is still viable for rigs at $1050

im a little concerned about tech at 1000, although if factors reduce it its not so much an issue

that in theory puts demo tech income at $433/acre minimum assuming 3 tech allies which is probably ok and allows guaranteed income end of set for techers

only need a few turns to dump a lot of tech with 45% instant sale at a decent price

no FAing is good

0 dr after an attack could make more grabbing possible without people being farmed while offline to a huge degree

no declare war makes the server a lot more bracketed in networth terms which good be interesting

So when are these changes going to be implemented? Will the implementation be gradual or all at once?

as usual enshula is right and i disagree with him


he says that if the market time goes to 24 hours that stock can be hidden essentially removed from the game
that is where he is right
he counts that as a good thing
that is where i disagree

the purpose should not be to let someone remove themselves from the frenzy of express and then come in at the last second and claim a "victory"

the market should not be a safe haven for underdefended countries

There is no such thing as underdefended. Let alone on express you moron. If someone goes to bed and someone with all the turns that they didnt get while sleeping uses 23ish extra hours worth of turns getting jets they WILL break you and steal stock/land. All the changes are good.

And wtf do you need to be able to do over 100 spyops for? Everyone knows you abuse spies as it was anyways.

you say there are no countries on express that lack proper defense

you are right of course

lincoln i was saying that being able to hide stock by buying food could be good for the food market

since then people would be more likely to want to buy food for safety rather than doing what i did which was get to about 1b cash on the last logout

then cash the last batch of 450 turns for another 3b+ cash and not buy any food

now with less turns able to be stored and an advantage to stocking and paying commissions there could be a lot more buying and selling of food

which can encourage more farmers and help to stabilise the market

i do like having the option to prevent stockpile stealing but that wasnt my point

When are these proposed rule changes going to be tested?

I would like to suggest one change that could help get rid of suiciders that ruin the game in Express: Max number of failed hits/X amount of hours. This would stop those idiots that spoil the game without having any skill whatsoever. Anyone can buy some tanks and just start AB-ing or jets for BR without even breaking. I lost about 8 mil networth this set because someone mistook me for someone else and decided to ruin my set.

the admins move very slowly when making game changes

as well they should

it is not uncommon for "friends" to launch ABs and BRs as happened to 33 this last set
so that their guy can win

i would agree with a rule that says you can not launch more than three failed ABs or BRs
against a top ten team in the last six hours of a set

Yeah, i know very well about that considering i was #33 :(
I had good clean set in which I put quite a bit of effort which got ruined right at the death by someone I didn't even attack once.

I like lincoln's suggestion, i hope the admins would give it or a variant of it a try, as it would certainly increase the chance of a deserved winner each set, while also allowing us to see higher networths for winners.

I "won" the set before this, when I shouldn't have as someone who should have won got suicided, and this set I was the one who suffered.

Nearly all of these changes will be in effect for the current round. For a full list, see the announcements thread.

Late starts now get 100(0) turns maximum. This is an increase over the previous value, 72(0).

Not to be nitpicky, but why not make it 99 turns?

This would be nice for new players who might not figure out right away that they come out of protection when they run that 100th turn.

With turns every 4 minutes, they'll have 100+ turns by the time they play 99 so that wouldn't help.

what is a late start for express?

edit: how long do i have to create before i start losing turns?

You'll lose turns if you create later than 6 -7 hours after the set begins.

Have a few minor changes coming soon.

fantastic

daily spy ops going to 300?
no drop land rule resigned to the ashbin of history?
bomb banks, raid oil, and raid food acquire more but do not destroy?

great job

Nothing too exciting.

-Better way of solving the restarting problem.
-Mitigation the end of set SS DH suicide problem.
-Improving oiler.
-Slight change to a few spy ops.

Haven't posted them yet because I need to do more testing.

as you may recall,
not too long ago you were leaning strongly toward eliminating oil in express

is that idea still alive?

I played Earth 2025 in 2001 and on/off from 2005-2008(never finished a set during this time) and found EE a week or so ago. I wanted to run a all-x country for my first full set in express and figured i'd go all jets with a few tanks/troops to make random special attacks harder. later, after getting LG'd 5 times by someone, I figured i would AB them a few times and send them a warning message(since tanks have def value and jets don't), but it said something or other(I think it might have been GDI-related) and wouldn't let me hit 'em. same thing with a chem missile. wtf?

P.S. i didn't stay all-x due the presence of a 9ka country with 0 everything which I couldn't resist, but returned to only exploring afterward.

If someone landgrabbed you five times, you are able to AB them. Are you sure you entered the right number?

all jet all explore?

I don't understand the tech floor. If I put tech on at $100 does that mean the game just buys the tech instead another player? Nothing stops you from selling below 1k, because I've done it on accident with a typo.

The floor represents the cheapest price that tech can appear on the market to be bought from other players ($1001).

ok, i get it now, thanks

jaabaa

There needs to be a new tech that increases oil production. Otherwise oiler won't stand a chance.

That would make oiler even worse.

The amount of oil per acre an oiler produces at the moment can't compete in dollar value to a farmer or a casher. Perhaps tech that maxes oiler out at 400% production?

The problem in Express is that there isn't enough demand for oil. In addition, it's easy for countries to just wait for cheaper oil to hit the market. Increasing oil production through a tech would not help.

How about reducing oil production? Anybody think of that? That'll make it interesting real quick. You can reduce it by a percentage point every reset until you get the sweet spot.

it would make more sense to increase oil required for attacking, as this is a demand problem. Like make one barrel cover only 20 units instead of 25, so there's more demand for the existing supply.

increase the price of spies when we sell.. can u?

lol spies already sell for a grip starting off

new rules rock, can't wait!

hell, play the game as it is, guys... then ask for the changes... i know i am always spouting off wise-ass stuff about new servers... just having fun with that, but...

there has been talk about bonuses being increased to take away from the obvious gov/strat country building... crank a server up, with bonuses, the way you build from the start, all countries blind on a simple search, make a server totally controlled by the bonuses, of course they would be increased to compensate for the lost of gov bonuses, as in fascist, commie, tyranny, dict, ect... all given bonus for a gov are gone, because a government is not declared... all , and i mean , ALL, info about a country from creation till death learned thru spy-ops... a radical thought..... but , i think it would be fun...

THOUGHTS FROM YOU LADIES AND GENTLEMAN, please... and i am sincere here... its you ,him, her, and i that make this game game fun... ergo, the community... troll here, poll here , talk here.... thats what makes it fun for us all!!!!

great

hmm

!!!!

move!

Sounds good. Hopefully you guys keep making great changes. Glad to be back playing Earth again

no more Ally's in express?