I'm playing #82 this set and my tech looks like:

Military 218,810 85.8%
Medical 145 99.9%
Business 203,083 162.5%
Residential 202,712 162.4%
Agricultural 4717 104.5%
Warfare 29,273 1.144%
Military Strategy 67,785 115.9%
Weapons 107,374 127.6%
Industrial 3928 101.7%
Spy 391 100.1%
SDI 79 1.05%
Total 838,297

It looks like I'm only going to get to ~2.4b to spend by the time I run all my turns... so I might *just* get 20m.
How on earth do people get 30m+? lol, I thought I was quite efficient this time with turns, did I buy too much tech? Grab too much?

Why did you tech Warfare?
Why didn't you get 176% in Res/Bus?
Why do you have 115% MS?
Why did you go R as a techer? (I think to achieve 30m+ you'd have to go Theo or Demo as a techer)

He just said he BOUGHT the tech. I think he's cashing.

Yeah, so you want ~174%+ bus/res. Mil tech is good. Strat is useless - you're better buying more bus/res. Warfare and weps is useless too.

Actually I prefer weapons tech over buying military. It's cheaper!!!

Yeah, it is, but it does not help your destock.

Military tech is necessity for any strat

Unless you played with stored turns in the last 24 hours, you kept grabbing way too late.

Sure it helps with destock. It's 2 net per tech point. And if u autosell it on market for 1k each you gain about 2 more net per.

Not what I meant. Buy a pile of mil tech and see what it does to the prices on your private market.

Pretty sure drill sergeant Celphi was talking about weapons tech

@currydubs
Yes

@ CX LAE
I was saying buying weapons tech was cheaper than buying turrets and jets (military).

Drill sergeant Celphi has never stocked in his life.

You did great getting to 20 million. Much better than I do, for sure.

Breaking through to 30 million takes some experience. Find someone who does that consistently and maybe they can guide you. Random comments by guys like me, who enjoy chatting on boards like this probably won't do it for you, though.

Send a message to one or two of the countries who outjump you. Or join a netting clan in Alliance - Evo maybe. There should be people there who could give you some help.

I think its good to buy some military strategy if you are going to be grabbing. I usually try to pick up 10 or 15% near the beginning of my grabbing spree but not later unless I see it at $1500 or something. That way the military start tech is used multiple times. The same is true of jets; go jetter near the beginning of your grabbing and the jets are used multiple times, then you sell the jets and the military strategy off. You usually get your money back or more on miltary strat and jets when you sell them at around turn 1200

@Furious

Not true. I buy food @ and below 40 and resell it at end of set.

Seven of Nine
http://www.eestats.com/express/oldranks/661

Getafix, the OP isn't asking about a fast start, if he can get to 2.4 billion after stocking that is not his problem. He wants to get to several more billion.

OK an even faster start would help (and I have been a bit surprised to see, when I have Spied better players than me that they do go in for some mil tech early on) but that is not what makes the difference.

Maybe the OP's idea as to exactly what tech to acquire is an important point in stocking (although I have my doubts). Maybe this idea of maxing Bus/Res is important (I play Theo so have no real experience of that). But whatever the significant points are I don't think they are fast start related.

sorry I seemed off topic Furious, I was sort of debating CX'x comment here where he say says Strat is useless. That's true if you are all explore but I think its pretty extreme if you are grabbing. But maybe he is right, bus res and military are more valuable than anything.

Yes. Well I think your point may be sound for some (in relation to getting started). If you plan some seriously big grabs an investment in a bit of mil tech seems good (and, as I said, strong players do seem to do that).

Whether later you miss that tech in Bus/Res and Military I don't know. You suggested quickly switching out of it and re-investing. Which sounds feasible to me.

But the point remains. The top players don't just grab the land, they know what to do with it once they've got it.

I've been thinking quite a bit about this myself lately. Withoit reaching any very clear conclusions.

Maybe it's yet another aspect of the game which is more an art than a science?

i think you also have to know WHEN to buy and not just WHAT to buy.

Weapons tech is just as much a profit making tech as any other. If you know what you're doing. However it's kinda pointless to explain deeply cause no one listens to me. lol

Honestly, the warfare tech was because I thought #125 might keep DHing me all set and I wanted to get some missiles just so I could waste him lol. I got it early.

I didn't get up to 174% bus/res because I figured it'd get pretty expensive to get that last 10% and wasn't sure it was actually worth it? (I didn't calculate it obviously!)

The weapons tech is because it got to a point where it was cheaper to buy tech than buy more jets to retal the people that hit me, plus it makes it less expensive in expenses for the rest of the set (need 30% less military).
The military strat was because it was cheap, like 1500 and I got it just before I started retaling.

Interesting. So the 3,320 land I gained from the attacks starting on the 24th meant I spent more money building it up and on jets / military upkeep etc than I gained from the extra land? That could quite possibly be the case.

Should I have stopped at my retal on #95 at 2014-08-23 22:06:04?

It really depends on how many turns you had at the time you grabbed. Usually unless you have 400 or more turns attacking doesn't help that much. It can but it would have to be nearly free land. As a casher you lose 20% of your income by not cashing. So at 15k acres its gonna cost you an additional 1.7~ or so mil $$$$$ per turn you spy, attack, build, or anything not cashing.

kizami: another issue with late set grabbing is that you spend turns attacking and building and not stockpiling. as a casher i understand this to be of less impact than for a techer, per se. but on your sundays you want to be at your land goal and spend all of your turns towards your stockpile.

this said, i haven't played express in quite some time so the server may be different now than it was.

i, um, clearly was guilty of the not listening to edjr :P i literally repeated him, but in different words ;)

A= production gained by land grab * number of turns left.
B= jets loss + oil cost + building cost + tech needed for your new Land.

if A is larger than B, make ur grab/retal

^this.

he at least kind of knows what he's doing ;p

Look at the winner this set just gone. Three late hits which he just brushed aside. Didn't get near preventing the win.

Now he had other reasons for not retalling than just applying h2o's arithmetic. But it certainly shows that ignoring late grabs against you is not automatically a bad idea.

A fortiori grabs of your own.