Ketchup,
The admins have already safeguarded against your scenario by imposing arbitrary restrictions on the number of ops a country can run in 24hours.

Poor rock man just posted that because he was so humiliated when I publicly taught him how gdi works. That was my fault, I should have instructed him in private.

I hate the fact that I can get a top ten finish with no spies, no offense and no defense.

I look forward to the upcoming changes

Fantastic

I am sure W and deter will rejoice as well
Too bad dantzig left before this day arrived)))

Spy DR has been a large impediment to the growth of this game

This thread is a welcome event


My suggestion is:
A spy op against an opponent with a higher SPAL never succeeds

In other cases,
Spy DR still kicks in and increases slowly but spy DR will not protect a tiny
SPAL country

Keep the same formula you have but multiply it once more by the spy country,sSPAL divided by the target,s SPAL with the proviso that spy DR never protects a zero spy country

)))

this bonus situation is just one of 49 rule changes which were made to help all-x countries and to discourage LGs.

twist was simply stating the obvious when he said the current bonus system favors all-x countries. note how he did not even bother to flush out the self-evident truth.

because i have been posting for thirteen months now i realize that complex arguments, logical proofs and dispository algorithms do not carry the day on tis site. so i will just state it as simply as i can.

e.g. in primary, countries a,b,c and d begin play on day 1.
a,b and c are all-x noobs who take their bonuses as farmers, oilers and cashers. d is an LGer who takes the time and turns required to build up a fully teched offense. by day thirty the noobs have used thirty helpful daily bonuses while the thoughtful LGer has received none. the LGer has opted for one of the permanent bonuses which are of marginal utility in the early days of a set.
by the time the thoughtful techer has enough offense to hit the all-x monopoly players they are more than twice or three times his size and hitting them is forbidden by the penalty against hitting up.
this oversimplification will no doubt be attacked but i gave up complex statements when dantzig and enshula quit posting.

i would like to see the return of the bonus which increased offense for x number of turns.

When one considers how long it took to kill LaE, the rule changes it took to kill LaEx, the personal abuse absorbed by players and admins alike to kill that evil, combined with pang's statements about how disruptive and discouraging the cheating has been, as well as pang's post aout how it causes the admins to spend way too much time on the current player base at the cost of site development, the most reasonable suggestion is to replace the server altogether and replace it with a server that is easier to police.

tctGk members would exploit this to the max

any time you suggest a change you have to consider what the cheaters will do

not since the turn count change you have not

last post on this. I am not going to argue with a self-confessed liar


*note either be nice or be deleted, using disablity as an insult will not be tolerated

first

i could teach you how to spell spies

then we could work on the harder stuff

like why intel alliances make no sense on express
why 120 ops is not enough
and why the weakness of the bomb banks ops is bad for the server

frankly i doubt you will ever come to understand those concepts
so let us just stick to teaching you to spell

HWCNG,

you have told us on numerous occasions of your disdain for this server.

you explained on another forum that your disdain combined with clan loyalty is the reason you cheated and lied for months on this server. If you could just learn to value honesty and integrity, it would help you not only on this serveer but in life.

If you hate this server so much, if you hate the ALCSA, if you can not stomach a server where cheating is verboten, just stop trolling here. Simple.

there are several non GDI countries in the top ten right now

why dont you tctGk members solo-kill one and prove me wrong?

fordy lecturing me on how spies work is actually a scream

what is next, the ESC lectures me on ethics?

no thanks, HWCNG.
i do not do business with self-avowed racists.

the amins have said that bots will arrive some day
but low on the priority list

you can not kill a top ten country with 11000 acres, 1.2M troops and 4M turrets in one sitting with only 360 turns, can not be done

even with a fully teched commie with mil strat maxed

As you may recall, the current (360)(360) was adopted to thwart the "dasher" practice of storing up tons of turns and then sprinting from 80th place to first in the closing hours.
The $1000 tech floor was adopted at the same time in part for the same reason.

the one thing we lost with this rule change was the ability to solo kill a top ten player as retal for early set transgressions

With the new GDI entrenched, the dasher strat is dead anyway. Because if you are in 80th place, you will be hit a dozen times for the ghost acreage. Unless you play the DR defense perfectly, you will not be able to dash to the top.

Consequently, it is time to go to (450)(270) in order to allow an aggrieved party to solo kill a top ten GDI player at a single sitting.The alternative is to stay with (360)(360) but for every
special attack, allow two turns to come out of storage. With that rule, the aggrieved party can exact their revenge without reintroducing the danger of a dasher victory. This is a better, more elegant solution, however the admins have shown an aversion to complex rule changes.

As slagpit has repeatedly acknowledged, solo kills are a big part of express. We should protect the possibility of solo killing a quad-tapping GDI player who ascended to the top ten using his target's land. The recent set between superfly and eisland nein highlights the value of this rule change.

Thanks in advance for your consideration and any thoughtful responses.

the number of times i have thanked the admins for their efforts on the express forum and elsewhere is countless

i do not like their strong preference for bottomfeeing over topfeeding, that is not an insult to the admins, simply a difference of personal choice

lol

rockman is just mad that he had to learn some of the rules from me
when previously he honestly thought he was better than me

i do not rant against the admins, i never insult them like some players do
i only compliment them and thank them for their efforts
i have thanked them far more often than rockman has
i just do not favor a few of the rule changes

it is not an insult to say some rules working in concert result in undesirable consequences
the law of unintended consequences is present here as in most complex systems

the 72 hour no drop land rule, the change in GDI, the draconian penalty against hitting up and ghost acres are the admins way of increasing bottomfeeding on express to an all time high

i feel a little guilty quintuple tapping guys one tenth my size but that is what the admins want, so i do it

i think these four rules in concert is part of why my consistent ally dantzig quit
what is the point in hitting guys one tenth your size over and over and over again?
how is that a military victory?
it is nothing but netting using jets instead of labs

true enough

however, it is fooloish to grab someone much larger than you because the yield is negligible
if you hit someone eight times your net worth you get nothing
much better to bottom feed against five guys who are one eighth your size because the ghost acres will exceed your yield against a high NW opponent

lol spawn

the admins will not do anything that allows a player to drop land

they have an unreasonable passion for keeping land in the game
when you read their thoughts on dropping land, it is shocking

then allow the spies to infiltrate the market, the bank, and the stock market.

it appears that he thinks that a suicider is someone who tries to kill himself

on this site with its peculiar affinity for bad ideas a suicider on a solo server is someone who attacks a country that grew faster than he did

with the demise of tctGk it is no longer suicide because clan kills are no longer an every set event

no reason to protect thoughtless players from their errors

i think a pay to play server is a great idea
with a forum restricted to players is even better
do not allow some favored players to play for free because that would only cause dissension
i think $1 a day for a high turn month long server would be profitable

however keeping known cheaters and multis off that server would be both imperative and difficult

most players play multiple servers so having one that is pay to play should not be too disruptive

the incentive to play in the server would be that mods and admins would actually pay attention to that server

somebody can AB my 2.9M tsnks, have at it

unfortunately i could not play the last three days so lost out on three billion dollars and top twenty

i love making #1B a day with spies

and no ABing me does not cause me to stop committing espionage

i stopped committing espionage when it stopped being the best finanacial decision

go to the main menu page

click preferences

click tutorial off

click submit

that way the only bad advice you get is on the forum


the guy with the bad hat does not consider your strat, how long you intend to tech, the price of tech on the market, your projections for tech prices for the set, your intentions in the post-tech phase or anything else, so just turn him off

some day in the distant future he will consider strat, server, gov type and server markets over the last three sets. until then, just leave him turned off.

if you are teching, in a low turn server with a recent history of low tech prices you need to determine the number of techers playing this set, the potential demand, the timing of the price collapse and a host of other factors before deciding how many labs to build and how long to keep them before starting your post-tech phase. once you have made those decisions, then decide h0w many CS to build

it is in the wiki but i can not expect you to find it because you have to know how to use website search tools

if you reread the thread you will see it mentioned in my original post that drove warter so bilefully apoplectic

Marshall,

i am glad that rockman learned from his discussion with me

as you can see from his post on the bugs and suggestions thread, he learned that GDI impacts LG returns

note that he did not come back on this thread and thank me for teaching him the rules
nor did he thank me privately


if only warster could learn

one can dream... one can dream

here is my perspective on this

on march 11, the guy asks a question

the mods ignore the question for a month

another guy repeats the question

i tell him where the results on LG are located

now people who have ignored the new player for a month suddenly come on and start insulting me

some customer service

look at your pathetic primary country

no good grabs no good anything
probably will not make top 100

please

warter you never help anyone, he asked where to find the info

i told him

when you say you know more about this game than i do that is an horrific insult

it is a shame warter can not even remember his own posts let alone the nuances of the game

lol

i tell people where to find the requested info and then he comes in with bilbous insults. Finally, having started the insults and having had to confess he is not actually very good at LGing, he says can we get back to the discussion

pomposity thy name is warter

I retract my statement about you seeming bright enough. You have thoroughly disabused me of that hopeful notion.

i suggest you go read enshula's comments on that topic

had you done that, you would not have embarassed yourself yet again

i regret you argue so strongly from such an ignorant position

a fair test would be a hit by a non dictator or tyrant on a country 9.5 times the size of the hitter

such hits are dangerous in servers other than express becuase you do not have enough turns to grow ten times bigger than you were at login.

which is why i suggested we wait until express restarts
but if you want to run that test just so you can familiarize yourself with the full power of the penalty, feel free

rockman,
i will just point out a few things you seem to have missed

the fact that the offensive country was an I factored into the result, i hope you know that
but if you do then you are being disingeuous with your post

the fact that the target was only twice the size of the hitter factors into the result
hitting a country only twice your networth can hardly be considered topfeeding

you neglected to mention whether GDI was involved in the result

and you reverted to insults when the errors were yours
all unfortunate for what i had hoped would be a thoughtful honest discussion

when express restarts i will show you the problem

rockman,

Thank you for your question which i considered overnight.
Your point that the admins have addressed bottom feeding but not topfeeding is well taken. Your point highlights the inconsistency inherent in awarding ghost acreage for one type but not for the balancing rule.

SIMPLE SOLUTION
Reward ghost acres for top feeds as well.

The admins recognize that the bottomfeed penalty presents a problem. They solve that problem with ghost acres.
The solution leaves us with a situation where both midfeeders and bottomfeeders are not penalized but topfeeders still are.

Ghost acres will defend the fast-growing netters from their decision not to invest in weapons tech while still allowing those who do to benefit from the investment.

rewarding ghost acres for topfeeds will keep the server's treatment consistent with the treatment for bottomfeeds.

thanks again, rockman

PROPOSAL:

A) If you do not join GDI, you are not protected by the top feed penalty.

the top-feed penalty is an anti-suicider rule as is the new GDI. It makes sense to tie these two rules together.

This gives a slight advantage to GDI countries which can be fixed by the more complex rule proposal:

B) GDI countries are protcted by the top feeding penalty during the last six hours of the set only. GDI countries already have special rules that apply only to them during the last six hours.

I prefer B to A but A would be a great addition to the game.

The reason for this rule change is to add complexity and strategy to the game without giving suiciders the chance to wreck someone's set. The change would encourage running powerful offensive countries during those occasions which uniquely arise in Express, e.g. when in deep DR, when attacking with 360 stored turns, etc.

thanks for your consideration

no

rockman
i appreciate your efforts as a mod
please do not take this discussion personally
what you say actually makes some sense with respect to five of the six servers


is it not obvious that the game's equations and rules are changeable and that the current rule set is primarily a function of the current admins' personalities?
seriously, you do not get that?
when i say we ask strats to specialize, i mean that the admins have selected equations which reward specialization.
it is not hard to imagine arbitrary and capricious rules which would punish farmers and techers from specializing, just as the topfeed penalty capriciously limits the growth of offensive specialists


perhaps i understand that better than you because i have seen how the express suggestions in rules changes have reflected enshula's, dantzig's, gregg's and my personalities and how the ultimate decision as to which rules are accepted and which rules are rejected is almost entirely a reflection of slagpit's.
changes suggested by enshula were different in character from those suggested by dantzig from those suggested by me.


you say that specializing in offense is not a strategy and then you get personal
i see no reason to get personal, you seem bright enough
i say you simply have not yet grasped the vagaries of express
since you do not play express, it is hardly surprising that many of the nuances are foreign
express is a different animal from any other server because DR lasts for 20% of the set, because most of the hitting in the set is confined to a small time window, because you can store 40% of your turns, because of the unusual spy rules, and because most big offenses are not allowed to function for the last five percent of the set. in express it is possible to be invulnerable without having much defense or to be an offensive specialist for 358 turns and then become fully defensed in three seconds
you clearly had not considered that possibility


slagpit has gone with no defense numerous times and you would not publicly call him an idiot
do not let your conceptions from other servers lead you into making such silly statements about express
there are plenty of times in express when offensive specialization is not stupid, it is in fact the best decision possible

e.g. if one can manage to get into DR on Friday afternoon with most of the turns in storage and without a large loss of land, it is entirely possible to get a high NW without any defense

without the capricious rule it would then be possible to get large and productive very quickly and then acquire all the necessary defense in a matter of under half an hour

so please let us refrain from insulting one another particularly about topics which we have not fully considered

let us simply remove the arbitrary topfeed penalty for the good game and watch as the complexity and enjoyment of the game increase.

warster
my record of never insulting anyone who did not insult me first is intact


Drinks
with the demise of the 2x protection offered by GDI, bottom feeding which is encouraged by ghost acreage is at an all time high
it was always prevalent but now it is pandemic
the NW protection is now offered by ghost acreage not GDI
that is true of express but not primary because primary has active humanitarians

midlevel feeding has gone way down because of the new GDI since people do not risk retal9iation but just claim the ghost acres

my point about top feeding only includes that small percentage of countries that have invested the effort in growing a large offense
we ask techers to specialize, we ask cashers to specialize, we tell indies to specialize, we tell farmers to specialize
all of those strats are rewarded for specializing

but when somebody specializes in offense we punish them by artificially, drastically and arbitrarily diminishing their return on their investment

my point is simply that this capricious treatment is not consistent with the treatment of any other strat and is bad for the game

that was the original rule

it was changed