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Apr 22nd 2021, 0:13:27

Yes, it would work both ways with this new idea.

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Apr 21st 2021, 23:58:02

I mostly agree but I do like that def allies can offset the power of the PS a bit, and make grabbing not so straightforward that it takes a single spy op to calculate the exact break.

Edited By: Molotov on Apr 22nd 2021, 0:00:46
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Apr 21st 2021, 23:45:57

I’m just trying to find fixes for a mechanic I know I abuse to beat up on people not as good as me...

How about this fix instead? Humanitarians don’t kick in until 48 hours/96 turns after the opposing country last hit you. Might be a much cleaner fix.

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Apr 21st 2021, 23:10:45

Originally posted by Tmac:
Could I declare war then?

Not the way I described it.

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Apr 21st 2021, 23:01:51

Well they could declare peace to avoid being his farm forever.

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Apr 21st 2021, 22:46:54

Originally posted by Slagpit:
Who is a serial abuser of humanitarians range jumping this round? That always felt tough to pull off to me. Defenders really can't jump up to 25% of the NW needed? It's 4X cheaper for them than the attacker?

I do it every round multiple times... guess I can feel less guilty about it knowing I lobbied to get it addressed. I’ll keep doing it though because it’s a good way to get some blood from the stone that is the land pool on this server.

Edited By: Molotov on Apr 21st 2021, 22:57:28
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Apr 21st 2021, 22:31:02

obviously if i farm someone who possesses 25 missiles and jump out of range, i deserve to eat those missiles. however i can see how this would suck if a dude i double tapped in week 2 comes back with a war dec and 25 missiles a month later. that's i think the best argument against this change, that its impact could go well beyond just preventing the humanitarian abuse move. but idk... makes a real tradeoff between playing the single-tap delphinus game and going ham on folks. pumps up sdi tech. idk

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Apr 21st 2021, 22:23:33

It's not a crutch though... it's not helping their success rates or increasing their damage levels, it's just removing a restriction that's being abused, to allow them to use what they have against those who have escalated against them first.

Anyway I see you don't support this and that's fine, but I wonder about the rest of the community. Is there anyone else who thinks the "farm and jump out of humanitarian range" technique should be left unaddressed?

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Apr 21st 2021, 22:17:39

Don't see a single commie in your country history. How about a big fat indy

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Apr 21st 2021, 22:08:28

I'm a weaker player but I have 2m tanks so I can AB those who multitap me, and I have 25 missiles. GDI doesn't let me just waste anyone who grabs me, but this still serves as a deterrent from any multitaps until one day the game allows someone to hit me 5 times for 2500 acres and when I go to retal, I'm not allowed. The game lets him farm me but blocks me from responding with my well-prepped war country. The country that hit me can even run 0 SDI and 15k tanks, and it's no problem for them.

The humanitarians (in addition to preventing griefers) are meant to protect small countries from those much bigger than them but here it's doing the opposite. It's protecting the big from the small that they run over. This is an exploit of a game mechanic and it's a flaw that should be fixed.

(as long as i'm sticking up for small countries let me put in a plug on behalf of the big ones: i know spal is what matters for ops but raw numbers of spies should count for SOMETHING in terms of success rates)

Edited By: Molotov on Apr 21st 2021, 22:26:18
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Apr 21st 2021, 22:02:04

I can think of already existing ways for a "helper" to funnel someone land that are more effective than that.

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Apr 21st 2021, 21:43:03

To exploit it, people would need a second account or a friend serving as one, and if they have that, there are plenty of other ways they can already cheat.

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Apr 21st 2021, 19:41:08

Agree that special attacks should probably not count on country:country DR, so that if you vanquish someone in war it's not then impossible for you, and only for you, to get any land off them afterwards.

Topfeeds suck but as I posted elsewhere, I think when GDI is broken between two countries, the smaller country should have the option to turn off the humanitarians by declaring war. This would circumvent the "farm and jump out of range" abuse of humanitarian protections that I frequently do, and give the minnows the chance to fight back against those who farm them. This also allows the big country to then attack them some more, but at least it lets the smaller guy throw a few punches. There should obviously also be some restrictions as to when they can declare peace afterwards.

Edited By: Molotov on Apr 21st 2021, 19:46:33
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Apr 21st 2021, 17:20:28

I'm imagining winning a round, or a newer player placing near the top for the first time, and then a bot posts a thread with the scores and nobody comments. That would still feel barren, although I do think the existence of the threads might spur some commenting, so that probably helps.

Real flesh and blood enthusiasts posting and engaging with those who comment back would be much more fun, and maybe if the admins officially bestow some player with that role it would make them feel good and motivated about starting conversations-- ie under their name an italicized "Express Ambassador" or something. btw thanks for making the thread KoH!

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Apr 21st 2021, 16:15:00

Well here they will be farming bots moreso than other human players.

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Apr 21st 2021, 15:21:45

When I stopped playing Express previously a big reason was because there was no community. It felt like I was playing a single-player game; nobody would comment on the reset or even post the scores at the end of the round.

Maybe bringing back def/int allies will help. It will also advantage the regular top players who can establish standing alliances for round after round, though.

This might be a completely stupid idea, but maybe some volunteer community ambassadors just post a "Round X" thread each reset and then say like "boy tech prices are low this round!" and then post the scores and congratulations at the end... idk :)

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Apr 21st 2021, 1:04:34

I remember in BRE you could type "k" and three 0's would pop up, or type "m" and get 6.

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Apr 19th 2021, 16:19:00

The worst is when you have some bots identified to attack when your forces get back, and then like 20 minutes before your armies return someone runs through all of them and hits them 10x each, LOL.

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Apr 19th 2021, 15:17:11

That's interesting but i think a whole number is easier to wrap one's head around.

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Apr 19th 2021, 13:44:56

also I haven't played a 2-hour PS round any time in recent memory so maybe it's more overwhelming than i remember D:

either way ty Slagpit for your efforts!

Edited By: Molotov on Apr 19th 2021, 13:54:20

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Apr 19th 2021, 13:42:03

After playing a round, I had a little bit the opposite take of KoH... my feeling is that Express (or Blitz?!) is still a very fast-paced turns server, so it's kind of "in for a penny, in for a pound." If you're going for the win, you have to play quite actively regardless of whether you're on a 2-hour to 4-hour PS schedule, so the change doesn't make it that much more accessible. You're also really playing this server *because* you want to click around and play throughout the day. I'd speed the PS time back up at least a bit :)

Change always keeps things interesting though, and it's very cool to see something different and to see the server being worked on. I'm all for it regardless of whether i enjoy every change or not, and I actually did like the concept of mixing in some SS into my attacks. SS, by the way, is an attack I *never* use on Primary, and would almost never use on Tournament, so it's interesting to see it brought somewhat into relevance here even though I still used it sparingly.

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Apr 19th 2021, 3:28:43

Thanks KoH! Yeah, I have not been on this server in a very long time, although, I’ve been back on Primary for a while. It just turned out I completed an express set first in the post-anonymous world. ;)

Maybe I’ll play a few more Express sets! Farmer should be able to snag some wins these days I’d say with the new increased price floor.

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Apr 18th 2021, 0:41:14

Seeing bots go to war is gonna be a hoot. This reset a bot walled and bounced my attacks. I assume that was random bad luck though, rather than an overly vigilant bot.

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Apr 15th 2021, 19:50:14

Bots all in 15 DR already! 😒

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Apr 15th 2021, 19:08:55

I have a country :)

Have completed one set here since 2016 but the changes got me intrigued!

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Apr 15th 2021, 18:58:27

I haven't played a 4-hour PS set so I don't really know. It's been awhile since my days on this server! I used to like almost always having something to do back when I did play here, though... Of course that's the same reason I stopped playing it, because I no longer wanted to put the time effort in.

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Apr 15th 2021, 17:21:53

Yeah, but you have 100s of turns that built up from when you dared to go to sleep for the night! That's why it doesn't matter if you're spending them faster than they're coming in; you have a stockpile.

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Apr 15th 2021, 16:50:31

4 hours is 60 turns, which is slow compared to 40 in Primary and 48 in Tournament. 3 hours (45 turns) would actually be the closest match to other solo servers.

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Apr 15th 2021, 14:58:29

PS brigades being available again every 30 turns seems like a fast turnaround... until you consider that after a good night's sleep, you wake up with 120 new turns on hand. Those high frequency planned strikes are a good way to eat into that overnight turn build-up while still spending turns efficiently. Not saying this change isn't going to be good (attacking every two hours *is* a high demand on activity) but just offering up the counterpoint that came to my mind. How has this been working out for everyone?

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Apr 14th 2021, 21:00:32

I don't want this.

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Apr 13th 2021, 20:12:02

even recognizing, of course, that despite the politics posts above all of this is merely "flavor" or scene-setting ornamentation. In spite of that or maybe even because of it, it'd be more fun to throw in anarchy or socialism over a third synonym for the same thing!

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Apr 13th 2021, 18:41:07

You could have a communist democracy as well. Most of the gov types are ways of managing a society as opposed to an economic system though, I've noticed... so I'm not suggesting some finer distinctions like "democratic socialism," "social democracy," "market socialism," and "state capitalism" etc.

That said, dictatorship, tyranny, and autocracy are all still more synonymous than any of the other options and I do think it would be more fun to offer something in a different vein.

I'm not really a big anarchist guy, but theoretically you could certainly have an anarchist society and that would connote certain things like say collectives or syndicalist functioning. It could be capitalist or socialist; it is a root concept so I think it would be great to add here.

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Apr 13th 2021, 15:43:55

Originally posted by Slagpit:

Autocracy

We already have Dictatorship *and* Tyranny, and now Autocracy too? Why not Anarchy or Socialism?

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Apr 12th 2021, 21:52:10

Originally posted by Slagpit:
Yeah that was me. Any issues with the color choice?

It looks super weird to me but that's just because I'm used to the yellow. As KoH says, it's just a color.

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Apr 12th 2021, 16:13:47

holy fluff my allies just went from yellow to blue!

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Apr 10th 2021, 16:56:58

I was thinking the best way to work it would be by giving only the smaller player the "Declare War" button, which would lift humanitarians until peace is established. That way the bigger player can't farm them all reset just because they sent a missile at one point, but could strike back as much as they want until peace is declared.

Yes, this would still fail in the face of intentional collusion & cheating, but so do most things...

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Apr 10th 2021, 16:20:52

So with that said, I can fully understand this change.

Maybe only slightly related, but I also think that if someone breaks GDI against you, you should be exempt from humanitarian rules (ie, you should always be allowed to get your revenge even if they jump up out of range). Even as netters should be protected from griefers, I don't think they should be able to exploit game mechanics to protect themselves from countries they farm.

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Apr 10th 2021, 16:07:45

Originally posted by Hessman123:
KoH..

When I hear people say, "someone wrecked my netting set"

What I really hear is.. "I didn't have adequate defenses for my country and I got caught and I got attacked"

If you're big in land and someone manages to lay one on you, where they come out on top even after you retal, well... that can suck, but what you're saying above could apply, sure.

But what if the original aggressor RORs, or is hitting multiple times? A good enough player can break anyone in the game, and can therefore deliberately derail anyone they want to off the netting track. That's not simply "opportunistic play" by that country anymore, though, since it's not going to benefit the attacker's finish once war breaks out. In reality it's just picking someone's round to ruin. That sucks when you're on the receiving end and it's a two-month game, especially if it happens in more than one round.