Is it collusion to negotiate and/or coerce other nations using only in-game messaging?

I can provide examples after the set if it helps.

yes

Report the message

Solo means solo

Remove messages from the in game menu. Problem solved. Like it's always stated, it's a solo server and should be respected as such. If you can zap relations and FA functions, why not one more?

It's a function that's historically proven to cause more trouble than it's intended function(In EXPRESS). One would assume an in game messaging systems intended use be for teamwork in a military/strategy war game.... However server rules dictate...

Seriously, if your using the in game message system to have a positive cyber interaction, meaningful conversations with friends or any non colludere activity, then you really need this game in your life(EXPRESS)!

Remove the function, remove the problem.

Oh and hi everyone! Miss my peeps and especially the haters! Much love!!

Change the world, make your yard a garden!

The report message function is there and easy enough to press the report button.

Honestly the messaging function is useful - if nothing else you can send a message when making a retal so that the country you retalled doesn't mistakenly think you grabbed them.

express has allies, tourny not

Messages is needed for diplomacy. We are running countries here after all. And Marshal if you have allies in express you better get purpled.

That's some fluff right there. I pretty sure I was just deleted for trying to negotiate in Messaging. Solo means solo.




This. I'm a returning player who didn't play much wayyyyyyy back. I was having an interesting experience trying out Messages on my best set yet. Now I've been zapped.

Explaining away a retal, or trying to communicate/discuss when more than one happens is a complete edge-case.

It appears that people here already know how to identify the folks they want to communicate with on a regular basis, and there's forums for everything they need

Diplomacy... Whats that? :p

That is one function the in game message system in Express should be used for. I'm in agreement.

However in my personal experience, I have seen it abused more than not.



Think of all the things the moderatets could do with their time if they did not need to worry about moderating in game messages :p

Valid point none the less.

it got reported and seen as collaboration, make a petition and hope best.


IF players want really solo aka no allies express then those players should send msg to devs and those who want to keep allies should do same.

express has allies?

sorry check primary details. no allies.

Yeah marsha... was gonna say. All my top tens here are theo techer and I think if i had allies i would have won lol

derp, i reported you.

im that demo you cashed all your rainbow commi turns to topfeed then expected me not to retal when clearly saw i had 250ish turn on hand... you even sent a msg stating you have enough turrets to cover my jets and you RESPECT the fact that i had many turns on hand. well... apparently you dont respect it enough to NOT topfeed me.

then you also ask me not to take the retal on you but do it on #103 instead and you will also knock him down later in the set. reported this right after i took the retal on you.

you costed me about 100 turns. i could've started stocking at about 950-1000 turns and 20k land instead of 1100 turns and 18k land...

Feeding on a soft target is legit. Knocking down a top 10 a few slots while I'm burning off turns to try gaining size seems smart. (After all, I correctly identified a max-nw min-defense target.) I would, and will, do that again.

Grats on the high finish. Your asterisk on it is even bigger, though.
Had I not broken the rules, I would have "made you waste your turns" by feeding on you again later because you didn't "invest enough money in defense."

Getting deleted (without explanation) was really distasteful, but I think you did the right thing there. The request to collaborate is bad, so good report. (I should've reported the middle one that, without my request, sent me spy details on other targets. That's the type of stuff that put me on to "the mods are asleep" behavior.)

From reading this thread, it sounds like I should silently wait for you to get into it with someone else then join in on the GS if we've both been struck by someone. (See the posts above.)

derp. i had 500k jets, 2m turrets with 140% weapons tech on 750ish turns. you call that not invested enough in defence?

also, i seriously wouldnt call knocking on someone who can soooo obviously retal you hard (i had 140% weapons and 135% mil strat) a smart move.

you waste both our turns by doing that.

you wasted turns cashing to topfeed a country which will obviously retal instead of grabbing smaller countries which has no chance of doing retals on you (this is how you grow. grab and KEEP the land). you also wasted turns and cash building the land you grabbed when i did the retal.

stop playing a rainbow country by the way. ask for pointers and im sure people here would help.

Actually, I'd be interested to discuss if starting as Commie Tech and finishing as Commie Indy is a reasonable idea.

I don't believe I "cashed" any turns, but I definitely sold off tech to finance a big purchase. Instead of just bulldozing all my land and rebuilding, I was thrust into getting a retal force ready. (The same one that hit me had also hit you.)

As for the "it never makes sense to punch upward," I'm not sure I agree. But hey, that's what the scoreboard is for next time :-)

i doubt its viable.

here's why i think its not.

the bigger you are when you convert the buildings, the more expensive it become in terms of money and turns spent.

if you're say 10k land as a techer trying to convert to an indy, you would need about 320m cash(not including cash for food and expenses) and 120-200 turns to convert depending on the spread of buildings you currently have and your BPT. while spending all these turns and cash, you're basically not generating for growth or not very efficiently at least.

we want to spend turns as efficiently as possible. we only want to really start using turns once we've hit our land goal and stocking stage.

for example: at 10k land im teching +/- 3k tech per turn. assuming i can sell all 3k tech at $2900 per tech, im making 8.7m per turn. at 18k land, i'm teching 6k tech per turn. assuming average tech prices have dropped to $2300, im still able to make 13.8m per turn.

so using my techer as an example, imagine if you spent that 200 turns converting to stock instead. you'll be making over 2b (which will give you about 8m nett) with that 200 turns.

what are your thoughts? do you think its viable?

Probably not, I'd need to know the breakpoints on a few things. Here is a poorly edited set of thoughts (our littlest kid keeps waking up and needing to be rocked, so hey free forum time!)

How much Tech does a Commie Indy want? Tech effectiveness per unit has DR at a fixed land size, and has pushback (moves us left on the curve) as land size scales.

We want to buy that much tech for as few turns as possible.

I assumed that Teching is the most efficient way to generate profit in the first few hundred turns. (No expeses/decay, highest price-per-unit, sufficient demand.). To me, that means starting Indy means I can secure less tech for myself. (And possibly less defense, if I had stupid amounts of Indy tech.)

So, how much profit over traditional Indy do we make per turn, and how much does it cost to switch?

In my case, I was at 4.5k labs ( not enough percent, I'm still new here ) with BPT of 55. I think my cost per building put the total cash required up to 100-125mil and 82 turns. (At the time I had 400mil or so cash on hand (over-selling the Tech, didn't know how little I needed.))

But, because I'm already up to my target BPT and cash, my buildup curve will be as good or better than the buildup at the start of the game.

At that point I would drop *all* the labs and bulk convert to a less self-sufficient build, assuming that I can secure the oil/food that was requires from the market.

For now, I'll simply assume the only long term cost is the 82 turns and the 120mil rebuild, and some amount of military that has little marginal value to me. (I make so much as Indy that I have to sell excess to keep expenses down.)

I've run some math on this, and my conclusion was that there was no acreage where a tech start for casher, beat just building ent/res and buying.

Despite the theory, I decided to go ahead and try it, various combinations of between 70-90BPT and 2k-4k labs.

Those labs hurt your straight up casher prospects a fair bit, so you really want to make it worthwhile, over teching to sell stuff whilst price is high buy back later once price drops. e.g a 3.5k Techer does aorund 1150 TPT. 300-500 turns teching, flip half of that for 50% gains (sell bus rus >3k buy back <2k). Gets you a good chunk of bus/res/weapons/milstrat/military.

BY now you are about 850 turns in (350 build, 500 teching) you are ~4k acres and you have around 150k of each tech, its a great platform to explode grabbing fri night you can pump to 10k (not too fat to attract the idiots). Sat you can easily hit 25k. From there its just luck with not being grabbed, and keeping your techs juiced.

Problem I continually run into is clowns that topfeed you (no amount of turrets is enough, believe me). Everyone knows (or should) by know that it isn't worth it - so the only possible reason to do it is to screw over someone who is doing better than you. Which is weak sauce.

IT ends up a liability, and is why you see so many late burners. Minimises the risk of being hit by rainbow idiots, most have them have already played their hand and been raped, flattened or deleted by the last day.

Now that's all for casher. Doing the start as mon would require a few more turns (no benefit is commie). Switch govt when you tear down labs, build indies grab like a madman.... could very well work.

CI is becoming very popular though in express. As is Techer. Both as a response to top feeding imho. The former because it can grow so quickly later, the latter because you can do more with less land.

/2cents

i dont really know how to start so im just gonna share with you how i play.

i decide on the strat i want to play on the second day by observing the market. i then set a land goal according to the strat i want to play.

lets say i chose to play a commi indy. traditionally, i would want to start playing ASAP and grow bigger than anyone else in landsize as fast as possible so i out produce everyone else for the rest of the set. its during the starting stage that most players dont have good defense. i could go defense heavy and still be able to grab good acres at this point.

but, that cannot be done in this server. too many players that does not yet really understand how to play this game. they'll spend 100 turns cashing to get just enough jets (while forgetting about their turrets mostly) to PS a player above them to BORROW the land until they get retalled. to these players, getting a big grab = winning (notice i use 'big' grab instead of 'good' grab). winning what exactly, im not sure but it definitely aint winning the set.

so, some of the players here have adapted to this and delay playing their commi for as long as possible. will store up to 360/350 then play. few perks to playing delayed.

1. tech prices would have dropped by the time you start playing.
2. by the time you reach about 15k land, most of the crazies would've shown up and be dealt with or you'd know who to avoid and get stupidly more than enough defenses.
3. with so many turns on hand, most of the players would understand not to hit you because you'll be able to retal later for even more land.

now because i'll play really delayed, the tech prices would've dropped and unit prices would've stabled down. this would allow me to go directly start as an indy without having to do a tech phase which will cost me turns.

i will go directly into indy and explore to 1900-2000 acres for an initial batch of units and cash then start grabbing.

the amount of BPT i have depends on my land goal. sqrt of landgoal/4 would give me the optimal BPT. so lets say i target 30k land... 30000/4 = 7500. sqrt of 7500 = 86.6

i would want to get very close to 86 BPT by the time i start grabbing. this saves me turns building over time.

do as many PS as your units, cash and targets allow then sell max units. use the cash from the sale to build the next set of PS and buy tech with the leftover cash. bis/res and indy. indy tech being the most important. i would try to maintain indy tech at 150-155% throughout the set. whatever you have on bis/res is a bonus.

indy tech directly affects your means of generating income while bis/res help increase it. when you have more bis/res tech, you generate more cash per turn which means you'll have more left over cash to buy tech after every set of PS.

mil strat and weapons tech are optional. i would usually go mil strat over weapons if i have access cash to help reduce number of attacks i need to do in a set. for 30k land, my target number of attacks throughout the set would be 35. this would mean i need to grab about 850 acres per grab and this can usually only be achieved with good mil strat tech. weapons tech i only buy when i see too many crazies out there.

military tech will be bought only after i reach my land goal during stocking phase if i do buy any.

keep grabbing and selling till you hit your land goal. try to do this with as little turns as possible. if you see that you are too fat as compared to others around your nett, cash a few turns or build additional CS to generate extra defenses.

btw, only produce spies, jets and turrets. never troops and tanks as a commi. you buy those if you really have to. only if you really have to otherwise, just dont get them. they take up way too much upkeep.

not sure if this actually answered your questions. if it has not then ask again. keep asking till you get what you need. i'll try to answer as best i can.

disclaimer: every player will tweak this slightly their play style. some will come out grabbing as soon as they have enough units to do so.

Ugo, i had some time so i tested out some rep casher startups.

TECH START
turn 462
CS 300
land 2100
spies 3000
units 130,000 (based on $143)
tech 44,000 (based one $2300)
nettworth $349,419

CASH START
turn 392
CS 300
land 2100
spies 9000
units 130,000 (based on $143)
tech 20,000 (based on $2300)
nettworth $297,864

if i wanted to bring tech levels for the cash start up to 44,000, by cashing 1 turn and buying tech every turn, it'll take up to turn 461.

its pretty much the same thing either way you start. >.<

am i doing it wrong?

cashing at turn 392 is probably doing it wrong ;)

Buying any serious volume of tech early on I feel like you average more like $3k. Which makes the tech start attractive (you are instead selling for 3k plus to buy back later!), but those turns you spend teching and converting, you could be growing as TC. I'm always wasting turns at beginning, because hey what's a turn here or there, not considering each one is worth like $15m later!!!

Tech start with about 25-30k land goal is definitely 30-40m
Cash start can do more, but your land goal is much higher which is a liability in the current climate!

Really though I think the specific Strat you play (as long is it is sound) has less bearing on your finish, then the conditions you encounter along the way.

if i do play casher, its usually played delayed like a commi. hence the average of $2300 which i used.

for the tech start, it is fully converted to casher by turn 462. i dont sell the tech i have. i start grabbing from turn 463.

for the cash start, at turn 392, ive spent every single cent i could muster on tech besides those i need for that 130k units and buildings. i also tried to buy tech at every turn to maximize it.

if the tech prices are any higher, it would be better to do a tech start because expensive tech = less tech for the cash start no?

ive played a cash start theo 2 sets back and ended with 30k land and 39.3m nett. should have done better because market conditions were good that set but i screwed up. :(

i do have to agree that the conditions you encounter along the way definitely impacts your finish alot more especially for a casher but ive tested commi as well and thats a very different story.

a tech start commi will be very much behind a commi that goes directly into indy.

but thats just for the way i play. im sure there are players with different variations of a tech start that owns mine. hahaha.

u ALL got way to much time on your hands

Agreed. Casher. Grab tech when cheap and do batch explores because I am lame. Its a winning formula. I get top 100 every set.

if you gwt oop you are in top100