BOTSSSSSSSSSS

:)

Look who's back!

about time.

Hey there

this damn guy walks around like he owns this place

In a perfect or 2000ish earth we would not need bots.. but the world is not perfect nor ever existing in the year 2000. Gotta have players, or at least countries playing :)

there were lots of bots in the old days

and multies

thats why the game style back then worked

woah ensh what you doing on these boards?

in old days bots were used either as landfarms or to kill other countries.

or to buy/produce goods

sure and aiding main country by faing.

ok, so the bots are still impacting the game negatively. obviously i am able to adjust and exploit them like everyone else, but until they learn to fight back or disguise themselves in some way, they'll continue to make the game worse instead of better. more land in the server is fine. more targets than the typical newbies, that's fine. a dozen bots you *know* you can safely attack 5+ times, though, really isn't cool.

i see two responses that the admins should make when they get the chance. the first is, obviously, better disguised bots, bots with spies, bots that, at the very least, will send off any nukes and chems they have at a player who hits them too many times. the second adjustment that could be made is one that was already promised, which is that if you hit a player 4 times or whatever, you get kicked out of gdi. that way you couldn't play the offensively safe ungame like ebert's taken up without exposing yourself.

when bots were introduced into the game, qzjul correct me if im wrong, but i think they definitely werent introduced to be literal landfarms for you to move among, 8x tapping one after the other. more land on the server? yes. but that? no. and it's made express quite a bit silly.

I don't know how hard it is for him to code them all to tech warfare and return fire, just as a starter till he works out the rest.

The basic land grab pattern for high acre top ten countries on express is about 25-40 land grabs per day, or approximately 270 turns, @ an 80 BPT. It breaks down as follows:

40 turns spy ops
80 turns attacks
yield per attack = 200(100) or 300 acres give or take
daily average land thru landgrabs = 12,000 acres
150 turns to rebuild land @80BPT

Start of set get the 300 CS + 60 turns for a basic offensive infrastructure
End of set 630-720 turns stocking - reselling/jumping
turns used @ start and end = 1080

this leaves 270*3= 810 turns mid set land grabbing to yield roughly 36K acres.
--- this would equal about 120 countries if they were only hit once.

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Caveat:
Now granted not all countries are going to go on such a land grabbing spree, and doing the above can very well get your country killed.

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The land grab problem is two fold, many players know for a successful T3 finish they more or less need to follow the above. However with so few countries, they choose to go all-x and try to relieve the pressure off the server and possibly allow newer players to enjoy the game a bit more. Adding the bots is a good thing in the sense that it does allow for more land, which in essence should lower the amount of times a player country gets hit in a reset.

So first problem is providing more land to give some breathing room to those who would go all-x or just starting to learn the game.

The second problem is not as easy, it has to do with the amount of times a country gets hit in x amount of time. There are DRs, and potential retals, but these do not stop the multiple land grabs or land farming persay. I will say it is not as bad as it was pre-bot though. What follows is probably not going to go over well with many players, please keep in mind they are just ideas. Hash it out, take what works throw out what does not.

Land grabbing should be limited to some extent, or made to be more challenging. For example, after a double tap or second hit in a 24 hour period, a country only yields ghost acres to the country hitting it. A country can get hit a total of 4 times by the same player in a reset and then it only yields ghost acres. For other players looking to hit this same country the total hits per 24 hour period before it only yields ghost acres = 4 totals hits per resets = 12. This allows for 2 players to hit a country and get max acres in a 24 hour period, and adds a 3rd player for whole reset assuming double taps. If players enforce a single hit rule then 4 players can share a country in 24 hours, and 12 players across a reset.

the upside to the above is player could not lose land after were hit 12 times in a reset, but would still yield a lower amount of land to those who want to land grab. Unless someone is specifically looking to upset other players, this should be ok. Then again if they wish to start a war then they have other ops still available to them, whether thru spies, or thru military, or even missiles.

the downside, it changes the dynamic in that offensive countries that usually do not get hit in a reset, become targets, because they still yield more than just ghost acres. especially toward end of reset a t-10 country that has only been hit 8 times across the reset will be a very tempting target. Players would have to decide when they want to be landfat, and be a target.

overall though it would mean more land in the beginning, most countries would want you to hit them to get the 12 hits out of the way, which would allow them to land grab at will afterwards. It would generate a lot of land, fewer players would need to worry about hiding behind land thin countries, which rarely works anyway. There could be added bonus items created, for example: allow players to use bonus points to take a retal against a country, which would yield more than just ghost acres. Top feeds become fun again, although you still run a risk of upsetting someone over the amounts of military lost. This on the other hand would make military and medical tech very important, to maximize ghost acres and minimize military losses. Medical tech has been useless for most player for years and military tech was used by only the most hardened land grabbers. I can see many more Tyranies on the express server, with potential 60-80 mil net worths.

the idea above has its ups and downs... but it definitely has the potential to change the dynamics of the gameplay, and bring back the warring aspect of game. oilers for one would have a field day, if attack levels go up.

mFrost

Depending on strategy, you should be at 15-18k fully built acres by turn ~900.

If I am not going to meet that goal, I know my chance at top 3 is now entirely dependent on the countries that DID reach that goal getting suicided.

BPT depends on strategy, and ideally you want to make 5PS every 2 hours.

I didn't read the rest of your post mfrost. Just wanted to point this out, because the only reason you should be getting 30k+ acres on this server is as a commie (maybe farmer)

I don't see or understand where you see the potential for 60-80m networths on this server. How long have you been back?

@buttman your number pretty much line up with what I have, just coming at it from a different angle

360+540 = 900 turns = a potential 24K acres with an avg 200(100) land grab, of course this is optimal with the avg probably closer to your 15-18k.

-- based on the above on a 120 country server there is enough land on the server for about 24 countries following this strategy.

I usually play farmer so would be a bit biased toward something like this...understood a rep casher gets optimal at just about 13-15k acres. <-- unless formulas have changed in the last 3 years or so.

the rest of the post is more about protecting newer player and all-x countries, making land acquisition a bit more competitive, and using a ghost acres only when a certain DR threshold is reached. yet at the same time a netter would not care if they were hit 30x in a reset, other than some military losses, which could also be minimized.

the 60-70 mil net would probably go to a tyranny farmer, on an active land exchange server. their advantage being larger returns and much more land being acquired at a lower risk threshold. I'm probably overestimating, but something in me is saying it is possible. then again you are right I have only been back a month or so :p

The bots will slowly become more intelligent and defend themselves better.

GONNA TAKE TIME

WE PAY FOR RESULTS IN AN EXPEDIENT MANNER!

I like how mFrost and Buttman are posting up equations here when hitting 20 mill NW is probably a lucky stretch for them on their best days.

lol, it is a nice challenge, but no, just not worth the headache or aggravation ;)

I rarely if ever play seriously, and even then it is usually some hair brained idea that most old timers have already tried half a dozen times and can tell me it is not going to work... :) I'm happy with my average 13-15 mil net it allows me to play farmer all-x, selling on the PM, and playing when and as I have time. I retal at random, if I'm in the mood for it, and do not worry all that much about a top 10 or top 25 position, if it happens it's cool, if it does not then it does not. I've lost too many countries in past, with hours of babysitting, and care put into a country to really care anymore. Play for the fun of it, and let the country land where ever it is going to land at.

mFrost

sorry for taking an active part in the forum community crest23 you elitist fluff!

PS

Express server best 3:

29 crest23 $29,464,314
30 BUTTMAN $29,292,539

lol