how to calculate amount of acres u will get from landgrab. is the bigger the size the country means more acres

It depends primarily on the acres you have and the acres your target has. There will be a formula somewhere but I am afraid I don't know it. But looking for what are called "fat" targets is the thing to do. What fat means is that they have more acres than the people around them on the scores list. A person with 12k acres sitting amidst a whole lot of people with similar networth but who all have 8k acres is fat. More of his networth comes from his land and less from his units. So he is likely to be easier to grab (because he has less turrets) and the return will be greater (because he has more acres).

You can improve your returns a bit by buying or researching Military Strategy tech. There are also extra acres which the game gives you on each grab over and above the ones you get from your target (ghost acres). You will get more ghost acres from grabs which involve a whole lot of units and you also get more by selecting a target around your own networth rather than much higher networth or much lower.

are returns now based on acres [as well?], or still only nw?

I am curious, I have 14000acre enemy have 13000 but my lg is only 75acre

You are a "victim" of a game mechanic called Diminishing Returns (DR). Basically, the more attacks a country suffers in the last 72 hours, the less damaging subsequent attacks will be. DR only applies to PS and SS attack types (as in, only the returns of SS and PS will be reduced by DR), but all non-missile attack types will add to DR.

DR decays over time using the standard half-life formula for decay, on Primary this is 18 hours multiplied by the amount of attacking power sent divided by the defenses of that attack (if you sent 110% of his defenses, the halflife is 19.8 hours). Attacks older than 72 hours are ignored.

Attacks made by a country reduce that country's DR in the same manner (same halflife formula). For SS/PS, all attacks reduce DR, for other attack types (BR/AB/GS), only successful attacks reduce DR. Missiles do not affect DR in any way.


Edit: If you are interested in how much less you get, based on the current DR value of a country, browse the Announcements forums for it, the formula was changed maybe 2 months ago so it is a recent Announcement.

Probably your target had recently been attacked multiple times - likely by artillery barrages (ABs) or guerrila strikes (gs). As a country suffers hits the return to an attacker diminishes (dr). Dr fades over time although activity by the country (expending turns and, particularly, making hits of its own) speeds up the rate at which dr re-sets. After three days any hits have ceased to have effect (that period is different server to server).

What you do is this. When you identify a likely target you do a search against its name or number in the news. If you see that no one has attacked it recently you know you won't have the experience you had with this guy. But if you see a whole string of hits on him/her you go elsewhere.

The first three hits over a short time yield well, the fourth hit and you see dr starting to cut in. Look in the news. You'll maybe see someone doing a series of SS hits (part of a landkill). Look at the first dozen hits and you'll see dr in action.

PS There is a server wide war going on in Alliance right now so practically every country you see will be in dr.

This will give you the idea

PS Aug 28, 11:33 All Explore (#79) potato (#4) 575 A
PS Aug 28, 13:10 chitts (#98) potato (#4) 491 A
SS Aug 28, 14:03 Iron Mike Tyson (#114) potato (#4) 163 A
PS Aug 28, 20:46 peanut butter jelly time (#84) potato (#4) 624 A
PS Aug 28, 21:49 Last Exit (#118) potato (#4) 166 A
PS Aug 29, 00:46 Forsaken (#33) potato (#4) 166 A
PS Aug 29, 02:54 DeathFromAbove (#19) potato (#4) 149 A
SS Aug 29, 09:58 Seven of Nine (#20) potato (#4) 98 A
SS Aug 29, 10:02 Seven of Nine (#20) potato (#4) 86 A
SS Aug 29, 10:03 Seven of Nine (#20) potato (#4) 75 A
SS Aug 29, 10:04 Seven of Nine (#20) potato (#4) DH
SS Aug 29, 10:05 Seven of Nine (#20) potato (#4) 53 A
SS Aug 29, 11:05 Jook (#80) potato (#4) 73 A
SS Aug 29, 15:36 Seven of Nine (#20) potato (#4) 64 A
SS Aug 29, 15:36 Seven of Nine (#20) potato (#4) 52 A

The third grab is low because it is an SS whereas all the other grabs early in the sequence are PS.

I have heard the closest you can get to the land&nw of target the better the return. Top Feeding is broken in my opinion. I have noticed even with max military tech and being a tyranny when attacking a much larger net and land country your return is not going to be much great than if you hit someone right under you in net with more land.....

I also have heard the closest you can get to the true break the better the retun too. That could be squat though.

sending more military gives more land although it costs also more mil wise and oil wise. xin has prolly calced what's max mil to send before sending more doesn't benefit.

So oversending gives you more land? But you can oversend an oversend?

/me head spins

Oversending is said to give more ghost acres. My own experience does not really support that although I have attempted no test.

I rather agree with you about topfeeding.

The uncertainty factor now built in to the true break presumably has some effect. But what I don't know.

lol@xninja

something like that. if you send 10m jets on 1m break then you are big fluffing idiot.

Thank you for that Marshal. You are plainly very knowledgeable. Certainly about who has something grown up to say on these matters.

thx for all the info