yeah, i can bet both jack and jj cost you lots

3 spy ops/day? wow. i can see how multitapping will save a considerwble number of spy ops but that, to me, sounds ridiculous. there were days i was making 15-20 spy ops in order to get 4-5 ps attacks made with reasonable success rates. i've records of more than 270 spy ops (normal and allies) and i know i did more. perhaps i do too many.

yeah, the balance is difficult.

and yeah, tdoung was expanding impressively. he certainly played. requiem quitting gave him a nice little boost just at the right time, and from there his expansion was unstoppable. i'm sure he would have found other targets, just not so easily. i think his major saving was actually game-playing time

someone said something last set, which was something like

expense bonus means that you can effectively "stock" military when it is cheap instead if stocking food at expensive prices to and destocking at a loss.

my aim this set was to grow until 2 weeks before then end to whatever size i could until food prices started to drop from their peak and buy military when it was cheap, "stocking" military which would also make grabbing me difficult*. i just picked the wrong commie, free lenny, to grab.

*difficult enough that only a limited few could do it.

i would destroy your labs and build farms before exploring. cheaper costs of destruction of labs, cheaper cost of constructing farms, higher bushel production with high tech on low land.

also, you'll be less of a land fat target and will have been able to build up more spies

congrats blid and congrats to all the top 9. magnificent for you to all get $100m+

i'm gutted for xinhuan. you'd have been well into the top 10 were it not for vivanick and power of darkness

i shoulda had $100m. :-(

i think i may have a break from my usual country name in tourney.

my new name will be DeerhunterIsMyGoddess

You top 10 guys should jusy br lemming tdoung. You've got the turns to kill him before the set is through. :-)

Oh, and chems reduce buildings based on the number of buildings youand your target have. Nukes take out a fixed % of land. If you both have similar buildings then you will be better off sending chems 1st, then nukes.

Well, i'd say nukes first only if your target has low sdi and spy tech levels. If spy and sdi are reasonably high the nukes first will only increase your target's chancw of dh a missile and his spal will be increased.

Tdoung, i broadly agree, but i'd put in one caveat... only farm from the stsrt if they have poor spies.

If they have good spies then farming from the start will make things difficult if you want/need to do demoralise/sabotage missiles/bio/etc

Yeah, but jack launched them in the wrong order.

EM, then CM, then nukes. And he should have done some ab inbetween the missiles for maximum impact.

Please pm me... i'll also be on irc #earthempires for an hour or so from now

You're probably getting these cute responses because:
you are pretty new to the game, having only registered in feb-12
Have suggested things that have been suggested previously
Have suggested things that make little sense.

It would probably be better if you gained more experience before trying to change a game that you don't know very well.

Would vivanick be putting himself in a bad position if he tries both of those retals?

I'm guessing he'd be losing more than 1.5m jets on each one, and to rebuild will be costing him another $2-2.5b. I think he'd be using too many resources to make both retals...

Doing #215 may be worth it (size and commie), but i can't see #250 being worth it at all.

Plus it's time that he can't spend exploring or hitting the cash button.

He should be logging in sometime soon to get his 18h bonus.

Done

Question is, does tdoung now want a piece of that action for an easy 4k acres + ghosts?

Yup. Def allies are based on troops + turrets + tanks and their relative strengths.

I'd always rather havw a non-dict ally because they seem to think that they can have lower def units and that that's a good thing.

I sometimes spy alliances of dicts to see who their allies are because i know that it is unlikely that the ally will receive lots of def from the dict.

He will if the developers remove off allies. :-/

C'mon, no off allies. No off allies. No off allies

Oh! My god! Some people are unable to insert punctuatuion. Shocking!

You're twice the size in land and more in nw. You have to put on 30m nw, he would be putting on nearly 50m nw. Significant difference between the countries.

How quickly could you get to more that 4 times your nw?

I'm just whining about what i see as bumfluff.

Tdoung, i'm talking about stalingrad. He's got an incredibly good stockpile for a casher who, before a certain point, was not doing that great. He could possibly make $100m if he plays it well. He's enough to get about $75m nw right now.

Don't know what happenes with the link. Works when i type it out in my browser.

Ok, that's what you think, and i mostly agree with you... but i think there's more to it than the techers...i'll point you to the graph,
http://www.eestats.com/primary/market/bushels

There's 2 surges around day 30 and day 32. Wonder which casher may have come into some very easy cash, as well as land and tech (which i think was sold off on day 34), around that period. He may not have caused the 1st surge, but the second surge...

Because the bigger techers aren't in a hurry to sell as food prices are high they don't feel the need to stock more food so they've been stocking tech and putting what they want to sell at prices they want to sell at. If it sells... great, if it doesn't, no biggie.

Better to sell tech in a week's time at 1200, or even 1000, rather than 1400-1500 now in order to buy food at 50+ and sell food much later at 40.

Also, those techers that have been stocking food will soon want to start unloading their stock which will drive food prices down. It would work against them to sell tech now, buy food to stock then sell food in a week's time. The more food they stock during the next few days the more food they have to sell when they want to destock.

This is my reasoning. There's possibly other factors too but i'd say the above is pretty close to what is happening.

Sabotage missiles can get rid of at least 3 missiles each op, from what i remember

So, herbs and rob don't think techers will win, bobby doesn't think cashers will win, perhaps it's the fascist or it will be the bloody commies again.

Well, after doing a quick and dirty calc, #142 is currently making the same (ish) net revenue/turn as #58, ie about $27m... give or take a million here or there.

A non fascist country would not have 100% decay yet, so whilst #142 is doing pretty well now, if a big casher has been getting the decay bonus then in a few days time when food starts to drop, i think the casher will be better off.

I'd say #142 only has a chance if he's been pumping his bonuses into decay. By now he could be at 100% decay even if he's missed 2-3 days.

My guess is that in day or three he'll stop grabbing and growing in nw and he'll be selling as much food as possible to build up a corruption free cash pile.

I'm still making just over $20m even after food expenses. The reps should be making a little bit more than me... my guess is the #58 could be making nearer $27m after food.

Not yet.

Well, i think i can break $100m and i think i'll struggle for top 10, so that's my guess

I'm guessing that fat burger is teching and could be doing around 11k tpt for the past 10 days so he could have a decent amount of stock. But i think the following for top 5

Crown of the valley (really good grabbing)
welcome back (if he can play the markets well)
March 17 2012
Chipotle
happy new year 2012

I don't know how to finish as a casher so i'm hoping what i'm doing will work but i think the following will also beat me

Planetary
Incha
Shevchenko
Black magic women
so many choices
fat burger

If free lenny hadn't hit me i'd have had a chance at top 5. If i get top 10 i'll be happy

Well, i could have pointed at brink who generally plays all-x and has had many top 10 finishes in game a but i know that there have been times he has made retals so i cannot say for certain what nw he has reached without making any attacks.

My initial post was in order to draw attention to the possibility that exploring would a) increase money quicker, b) increase the possibility of being grabbed and c) hint that a current low spal would benefit from turns spent buikding cs.

Not knowing tin man or his experience, nor the current make-up of his country means that a good answer to his question is difficult, unles you want to type lots to cover all eventulities.

My initial post made no assumptions about tin man's strategy other than his wish to either build cs or explore and i was trying to find out whether he would risk being grabbed or not.

My statement about being all-x was to counter your false statement that all-x is worthless in tourney. It did nothing to directly address tin man's query and was not intended to.

I reserve the right to stroke my ego if i win game a but i doubt that will ever happen. I concede that there are many other players that are better than i am - maybe even jj (but don't let him know that i said that)

I wasn't stroking my ego. I was saying that you were wrong and providing evidence

All explore clearly isn't worthless though i will concede that grabbing is more likely to deliver better results if you can avoid retals.

For tourney you just have to guess. :-(

Oh bugger... i have a feeling that i'll be on pain's hit list. More turrets for me then

12-17.99 hours away will get you 3 bonus turns.
18 or more hours away will get you 6 bonus turns.

These are the only bonus turns awarded for time spent away.

All explore isn't that worthless in tourney. I had $26m lastset as theo casher and i'm pretty sure i could do better

Depends. Do you want a little bit more money or a little bit more interest?

Are you producing enough spies that will reduce the possibility that somone will be able to get a successful op through. If you're not producing many spies, then i'd go cs then explore.

If you explore first you will probably have unwanted attention and be subject to one or more landgrabs

I think for the whole of the reset would be bad, but if ghost acres had 48 hour dr limit, that may make it better

Excellent

Noooo

Unfortunately grimjoww is in a poor position. There isn't enough tjme to build up a decent arsenal of missiles.

A techer (should) have plenty of stock to keep selling to fund his warring (at least for a few days), especially if he has given up on netgaining. I'd say the best grimjoww can do is br lots to reduce #245's defence to very low levels then farm.

Reducing #245's acres is not going to help until he can be farmed as it will just improve his tech and spal levels.

If grimjoww can last 3 days with minimal damage then he could finish #245 easily...

These servers are supposed to be devoid of clan activity.

It should not be allowed for clanmates to farm each other as has happened in primary with Oden's country.

Had Stalingrad taken just a couple of grabs i would not be annoyed at this however he has grabbed 36 times and increased his land from 18,534 acres to 32,487 with only 2 grabs on other countries for 1,476 acres. So from one country alone he has increased his size by almost 12,500 acres.

This makes a mockery of this server being for individuals and is tantamount to having a 'special friend' run your own personal landfarm. I could have grabbed, if Oden wasn't in constant DR, but with the possibility of being retalled and thereby providing more land for the farming countries it was a risk i would not be willing to take, nor would many others.

This should not continue.

Who you calling fat?? :-p

And yeah, you should have flattened him. His grabbing has clearly been provocative.

The market gets a commission, not you. Think of the market like your stockbroker. You place your stock on te market through your stockbroker and he steals^Wis paid a commission from the sales

I'll be joining blid as a whiner. The oden thing is just not right.

Herbs is being opportunistic... though i have a feeling he is in neofed too.

I sincerely hope that primary doesn't turn into the mess that is teamm server

Pointless having missiles if your victim knows you're planning to attack and with sdi as cheap as it is roksilver should be able to buy enough to stop a good few of whatever jj throws at him.

Jj should have
* created more ic - convert some soon to be worthless labs or grab a commie and build ic on the new land
* dump stock 4 times over the next 48 hours
* stocked bonus points
* stocked turns (only spend turns selling tech)
* not said anything

After 48 hours he ahould have had $700-1.3b cash, depending on his tech levels, 83(25) turns with 16/24 bonua points to buy turns with.

Then he should have sent his message. Demoralised roksilver 7 times then br'd or ab'd him... br being better but much more expensive in terms on oil. That's what i'd have done anyway and it's been successful for me in the past.