TiVo?

Tanks have no effect on the ability of others to spy on you.

There are only a few reasons to have tanks:

1) Protection against (or commission of) artillery barrages. If you're playing on one of the servers that doesn't allow players to use special attacks unless they've been hit more than once by the same player, and you don't attack anybody more than once, then this reason goes out the window. On other servers where this restriction is not in place, you want to keep just enough tanks to protect against random artillery barrages.

2) Some people aren't good at math (or are just lazy) and fail to properly compute the tank's defensive strength of 4, resulting in them bouncing attacks against you. This is probably too rare an occurrence though to be worth the extra upkeep cost of a huge tank collection.

3) Since a lot of people don't carry many tanks, if they spy on you and see that you have a lot, they may decide to look elsewhere for land, rather than risk you going ape on them. Again though, this probably only deters just a few people.

Depending on the server you're on, prices on turrets and jets will usually be around the $150 range, while tanks are normally around $550. You'd need to buy 2 jets and 2 turrets to equal 1 tank, so the turret/jet combo costs about $50 dollars more. BUT, the higher upkeep costs, and the fact that you can't use PS if you're heavy on tanks, far outweigh the slight increase in cost from buying jets/turrets. I think.

All of the above goes for troops as well, except that on solo servers, troops serve even less purpose than tanks. Defending agaist guerilla strikes on a server where you can't be teamed up on is pointless. Any damage a lone attacker could do to you with GS would be quickly repaired as you use your turns and your population comes back (assuming you're not holding onto a huge pile of food). When I used to play the tourney server, I always left myself wide open on troops, hoping that anybody who got angry with me would choose that route for vengeance.

Whooptee doo. That's under 4% of the world's population. Facebook is over.

235 million is the new dozen.

d

Wow, cool video. What I'm wondering though, when he's just finished soaking the rag, there are small bits of water floating off in different directions, and there are wiring and electronics all around him..... anybody else see any potential problems?

x

Just wondering here... why would a theo reseller have no military bases? Wouldn't he have a much greater profit margin with military bases?

I don't claim to know everything.. not by a long shot. But it seems to me that if someone is going Theo and reselling military units, it'd be a no-brainer that he should have military bases. Or was the country at issue so big that the expense of rebuilding would outweigh the extra profits from lower private market prices?

Wait, what?? The average person eats a little under half a pound of meat per day?

For me, that's breakfast!

I always knew Canada was a threat. We should have nuked them years ago.

I'm a big fan of weapons tech too, something which a lot of industrialist players ignore. Weapons tech allows you to have the same defensive strength with less units. less units = less military expense. I also like the increased number of bounces against me by players who fail to take my tech into account :)

But he's only 16 away from the 10k posts milestone.

It's kind of like running the ball for no gain 50 times in a row because your running back is only one yard away from the all time record for yards in a season. Everybody is rooting for him!

GO MARSHAL GO!

Was that sarcasm, braden? I'm assuming the bit about Thurmond having stronger moral ground was, but it's kind of hard to tell sometimes.

Just realized my "a little under 3%" figure is only correct for the Alliance server. The extra two turns per day have a bigger impact on servers with slower turn generation.

Alliance: 2.7% increase
Tournament: 3.5% increase
Primary: 4.2% increase

Considering the difference between 1st and 2nd last reset in tournament game A was only 0.9%, those bonus turns could make the difference between first place and first loser.

I sometimes do that, if I'm out of town (and therefore wouldn't wake my wife). I don't even have to fully wake up. Silence alarm, log in from my phone, log back out. No need to actually play turns unless I'm 18 hrs away from being full on them.

I think for someone stocking, or playing an all-x, it's worth it. Someone who logs in every 18 hours gets an extra 6 turns every 3 days when compared to a 24-hr login. A little under 3% more turns. Not huge, but every little bit counts.

When I'm home and therefore can't set my alarm for 3:00 AM without risking marital strife, I'll often do a couple 18 hour logins, followed by a 12 hour to avoid the late-night login.

Alternatively, you could do 5:00 AM, 11:00 PM, 5:00 PM, 11:00 AM, repeat. Of course, that cycle is going to slowly degrade, as you have to spend at least a little time actually playing your turns, so your logins aren't ever exactly 18 hours apart.

Resistance is futile!

Hard refresh didn't work. Also, in case it's helpful, I noticed today that the page which describes the individual spy ops has the same issue.

Hey qzjul,

If it helps, I just checked on my phone (android) and it looks as if the changes you made had the desired effect there. The bonuses/detriments are inside boxes bounded by black lines.

On my laptop however, the lines are not there, and everything is just one continuous list, with some items appearing about two lines above or below the govt type to which they correspond (for govts with 4+ bonuses/detriments), resulting in some of them actually appearing closer to the wrong govt type.

Running IE 9.

Thanks for the tip! Every little bit counts, especially at start up.

This seems oddly familiar.

Rule #1 in Forein Relations: When asking an alliance to stop farming you, it might be a good idea to avoid calling them goons. That pretty much never works.

Looks like maybe I'm the only one who isn't particularly keen on Xin's idea. I usually play a tech country, and I like being able to help my alliance mates out.

For a solo server it may make sense, but on a server where it's all about teamwork.... I think if you want to let an alliance mate leech tech, you ought to be able to do so.

The in-game "Help information on Government Types" page could stand a bit more structure. At least the way it appears on my screen here, it would be very difficult for a new player to know, for instance, whether the +15% Food Production bonus applies to Monarchy or Fascism. That's just one example of course. For somebody who didn't already know, a lot of the bonuses/penalties could be read as applying to the wrong govt type.

I'm pretty skeptical, but to be fair.. most of the country numbers are in the 600 series, meaning they were not created right at the end of last reset. Maybe not even until after this reset started. There wouldn't exactly be a flurry of people creating countries at that time.

A few years ago, definitely that many country numbers that close to each other in such a small alliance would be extremely unlikely. But we're not talking about a 10k player game any more. It used to be really difficult to intentionally get even two adjacent country numbers. Now, you can text your buddy after you create yours, wait for him to have a sandwich before creating his, and still possibly get adjacent numbers.

And fazer, I hope you're not really surprised by the reaction here. Anybody who knows your history would be immediately skeptical that you brought 11 new players to the game. If you did though, great! I wish you much success.

And the first two turns of the reset (if things are still the same as they were years ago.. if not, I've been screwing up the first two turns of every reset since I came back) :)

Sorry Marshal. First time I've noticed it. I don't spend a lot of time reading this board.

Apologies to the admins too for wasting your time reading this.

See Title

And that.. right there.. is EXACTLY why I have such a major problem with Obamacare. (Well, it's one of the reasons)

The government is not OFFERING me health care. The government is FORCING me to participate in its scheme. Not only am I forced to give my money to a private company whether I want to or not, I'm forced to purchase a product that the Federal Government approves, whether or not I need it. I don't need coverage for contraception, or pregnancy, or drug addiction, or whatever other excuse they find to suck more money out of us next week.

It is really hard for me to believe that more people were not absolutely incensed by this onerous intrusion into our personal lives and decisions. I can't believe that the majority of Americans couldn't see the next logical step: If the government is subsidizing (or outright providing) your health care, then they have the foundation to rule you completely. EVERY choice you make has impacts on your health. From your diet, to your hobbies, to your "bad" habits, to your sex life, even your chosen occupation.

I like to hunt. I love to just go hiking even when I'm not hunting. These activities put me at greater risk of personal injury than people who do not participate in them. Since my activities carry a greater risk of costing the collective money, should I be banned from doing them?

I like steak. MMMM STEAK! Surely eating too much steak can't be good for someone, and carries a higher risk of heart disease, high cholesterol, mad cow disease, you name it. Will Nanny Sam now give me a limit on how many times per month I can fire up my BBQ?

I'm not particularly fond of spinach. Not only am I costing the borg money by not eating enough spinach, I'm also hurting the spinach farmer by not buying his product! Commerce clause to the rescue! But dont worry. The Bureau of Diet And Food Tasting (DAFT) won't need to kick down my door and force me to eat spinach at gunpoint. They can just have the IRS "tax" me for failing to consume my mandated portion.

Cyclists have a higher risk of being seriously injured than motorists. Is it time to ban bicycles? Or perhaps we should mandate that everybody buy one, because they'll get more excercise. Oh hey, I know! Forced gym membership! And every gym must have a designated cycling track, so that we can all ride our mandated bicycles around in nice, safe circles. Don't forget your government approved helmet!

Oh wait.. I just realized I may have completely misinterpreted your post. Were you suggesting that smokers should get an exemption from government tyranny? If so, I may just have to start smoking again.

/end rant

Agree completely with Magellaan. The US has been "at war" with drugs for decades.. the only result is more people in prison. We tried prohibition of alcohol too. Would anyone call that a roaring success? Why would we expect tobacco to be any different?

Besides that, the government has no business telling people what risks they can take with their own lives/health. We also shouldn't be forcing people to wear seat belts, carry insurance, save for retirement (heh.. yeah, like that's really where social security is going) or a myriad of other things we currently force them to do.

Hi Baz!

Probably about the same number as Romney voters who knew what the "fiscal cliff" was, seeing as it's a total sham being used by both parties to scare people.

Well, my take on it is....

It is unfair because you are denying both parties, the worker and the employer, the ability to bargain for what either believes is fair pay for the work done.

Nobody in America is forced to work for any employer. If a worker is not worth what he or she is being paid, then another worker will offer to do the job for less. If an employer refuses to pay the fair value of someone's work, then the employee is free to work for a different employer, or start his/her own business.

The idea of the government forcing wealth redistribution through taxation is a fallacy anyway. Let's say that once politicians are done targetting the current income bracket that they're demonizing, they decide to come after my bracket. Am I going to just decide to take less after tax pay/benefits than my employees? Certainly not! I risked my future on this business, I'm the one who has to answer the phone when it rings at 3:00 AM on a Saturday, whether I'm on vacation or not.. I trade 2 weeks a month with my family for running out of state operations, so that I can provide for my family's future.

So what will I do? My employees will see lower wages, less hours, or my customers will pay more for the service we provide. When my customers pay more for my services, guess who pays for that.. the every day consumer, AKA my employees.

So we've pretended to help with income equality, accomplished absolutely nothing except for driving inflation, and sent countless dollars through the fiscal black hole that is DC.

Oh yeah, definitely a small business. Less than 20 employees, some of those part timers.

Yes, some mega corporations do pay nothing in Federal taxes, and I agree with you 101% that this should not be. Perhaps I misunderstood your initial point in this thread. I thought you were arguing for higher rates on wealthier people, which I think will do absolutely nothing (due to the already existing loopholes which you've already mentioned)

Unfortunately, our "representatives" are more interested in putting on a dog and pony show than actually solving any fiscal problems. They know that if they win the battle of the theater, they'll win enough votes to stay in power. They'll raise rates on "the rich" back to nearly 40%, keep spending the futures of our children and grandchildren on wars and incompetent bureaucracies, and continue to blame the other side. It isn't going to end until we boot both of these corrupt - bordering on evil - parties out of power, and return to the limits on Federal power that the Constitution set.

My apologies if I completely misunderstood you. Again, I blame beer. Drink more beer.

Well then I'm in agreement with you too, snawdog. Although I think you'd be hard pressed to find very many of "the rich" who don't already pay 15%.

Even Romney, the man that Obama and his drones held up as the example of "the rich" not paying "their fair share" paid 14% of his income in Federal income tax. I believe Warren Buffet pays about that as well (could be wrong on that.. don't remember precisely)

As a business owner myself, I'd absolutely LOVE a 15% tax rate. Last year, not including my "fair share" of my employees' taxes (SSI and medicare) that I paid, I ended up yielding 25% of my profit to the feds. And my business doesn't even make half of what Obama says is "rich".

And there, we agree 100% Magellaan. Some corporations are able to buy politicians to use their power (power they should never have had in the first place) to create tax exemptions for them.

Giving our "representatives" this kind of power was where we started to go wrong in the first place. 15% flat tax across the board would be great, IMO.. and would be a major tax savings for the vast majority of businesses in the US.

http://en.wikipedia.org/..._tax_in_the_United_States

Note the end of that article: "The United States has the highest marginal corporate tax in any of the world's developed economies". If higher tax rates on those greedy corporations are the answer, then we should be in great shape!

What's the percentage that equals "fair share"?

I live on the second floor.

Well, I'd disagree that the government is better at healthcare or education. Adjusted for inflation, spending on education is up 300% since the creation of the Federal Department of Education, and the results we have for that massive increase in spending are... nothing.

Health costs have risen dramatically ever since the Federal Government decided to start meddling via Medicare and Medicaid. And from what I've seen, countries where the govt takes over the health care industry (UK, for example) have care that is inferior to the US.

I'll agree with you on infrastucture. If we could limit the Federal Government to only doing what the founders intended (of which infrastructure was a part) we'd be in a lot better shape today.

And I still don't see any significant difference between what you call "state-led capitalism" and communism. Both take from some in order to give to others (specifically, take from one small group, give to a much larger group, gain power over all) Corruption is rampant in both systems. Neither produces results that are superior to the free market.

Magellaan, you stated that the government should have the right to take more from some in order to give to others, to eliminate "inequality" if I'm not mistaken (and if I am, then I sincerely apologize)

"From each according to his ability, to each according to his need" - Karl Marx. Can you tell me how that differs significantly from "Tax the rich more, so that the government can give it to the poor"? I honestly don't see any difference.

snawdog, of course I'm not saying that "the rich" should pay nothing. I'm saying that they shouldn't be paying a drastically higher proportion of their earnings than anyone else. And I agree with you that a flat tax is the most fair system we could adopt.. and a wonderful side effect is that it would make your tax filings much simpler. No accountant needed! What I vehemently disagree with is my government stealing -and subsequently wasting - almost half of what ANYONE earns.

Rockman nailed it though (not surprisingly)

The Federal Government, via the Federal Reserve (a scheme devised by collaboration between big banking and government, BTW) makes the money you save for your retirement worth less every year. Politicians on both sides of the aisle are laughing at us, at how easy it is to pit us against each other, and use that division to increase their own power.

How many of you here actually believe that the 100 billion in cuts from the TERRIBLE FISCAL CLIFF would spell disaster for us? 100 billion is less than 3% of the annual Federal budget. Or how many of you really believe that that returning to Clinton-era tax rates (for EVERYBODY.. just to be fair) would spell immediate doom?

They're just putting on a show for us all, as they steal more of our freedom every day. "Hey, yeah we passed a bill eliminating [insert Constitutional protection here], but we protected you from [insert manufactured crisis here]"

Magellaan: In my opinion, the desire to avoid one form of tyranny (communism) does not justify instituting a different form of tyranny (class warfare).. Hell, the two are practically the same anyway, and neither can ever work, because those in power always use their power to their advantage.

DISCLAIMER: I started my New Years Eve celebration early, and am somewhat drunk, so if anything in this post doesn't make sense to you, just drink more.

I think a better question is why does it matter whether someone is middle class, lower class or upper class?

How is it morally right to take almost 40% of everything ANYONE earns. And when the deal they're likely to strike now AGAIN fails to fix the deficit problem - because nothing will be done about spending, the real problem - how much more should those evil greedy rich people have to pay?

If you had a rich neighbor and a poor neighbor, would you break into the rich neighbor's house and take his/her possessions by force in order to give them to the poor neighbor? If not, what makes it right for the government to do that?

Definitely. Owning a tool for self defense is dumb. Owning a tool for hunting is dumb. Total reliance on govermnent entities for every single one of your needs is the only thing that makes sense. Failure to recognize that the government can live your life for you better than you can, is dumb.

Dumb dumb dumb.

I've had that issue frequently, and haven't been able to figure out what causes it. As crest mentioned though, I think you can just click "send" again and the attack will go through.

Ah, ok. Thanks for clarifying. I see now why your accusation of a straw man argument was so confusing for me....

I just went back and read this entire thread over again. Nowhere in it did any pro-gun poster "equate (your idea of) reasonable restrictions on firearms ownership with the total abolition of all guns". Helmet and Mr Copper both talked about how banning guns in general won't help, but both did so in response to people like locket, Detmer and others, who WERE making blanket statements about guns in general, and how guns, not the wielders, are to blame for gun violence.

No, locket. Where did you see me say that?

For a person or group who wishes to impose tyranny on the public, it only makes logical sense to disarm the public first. That does not mean that everyone who seeks tighter gun laws WANTS tyranny. They may - in fact most probably do - have good intentions.

Good intentions however - especially when gigantic bureaucracies are involved - often have unintended consequences.

One more example: I don't think you want tyranny.. I think you just haven't put enough thought into these issues to truly understand the concepts we're discussing here. I believe that's why you come in to these threads with one-line slams about the sanity of those you disagree with, and then refuse to defend your statements.

Actually, as much as it pains me to say this, I think Trife did have a point. Made me rethink my initial reaction, even. Yes, 99% of us can probably agree that the WBC are just barely above subhuman.. but posting links to personal info, including, if the reader follows a second link, social security numbers... two wrongs don't make a right. No matter how ridiculously wrong WBC's actions are.

Do unto others, and all that...

Xinhuan, I'm sure I could if I wanted to put enough time into it. This one was easy to find.. All one reliable source (US census).

I've started trying to look up country by country comparisons before, but decided it wasn't really worth my time for a couple reasons:

1 - Almost all the sites I could find seemed to be trying to prove either an anti-gun or pro-gun point, and seemed - to me at least - to be manipulating the numbers to suit their desires, and...

2 - As others have mentioned already, there are so many other factors that influence crime rates, that I just don't know if you could ever prove anything, one way or the other. Japan has strict gun laws and low crime rates, Rwanda had strict gun laws and absolute horror. One study will show Australia's crime rates increased after the government gun buyback, another will seem to show exactly the opposite.

For me, as I've mentioned in the other threads about this recently, it comes down to privately held guns being the last defense against tyranny. I know that sounds crazy to a lot of people, but I don't care. History has shown a repeating cycle of governments becoming tyrannical, and a significant number of those have disarmed the general public first (even before guns existed)

[Afterthought Edit]: I see you used the term "supporting numbers". However, I don't believe the census numbers I linked to support any conclusion at all. If anything, they seem to suggest that there is no correlation - either positive or negative - between firearm availability and crime rates.

And then there's this:



Where do you get the idea that all gun owners have some kind of bad-ass-complex? Most of the gun owners I know don't brag about what they own, I've never heard any of them threaten to use their guns for any kind of violence. There are a myriad of reasons for gun ownership, and in my experience, people who own them just because they want to feel like a "bad ass" are in the extreme minority.

Me personally, I own:
A 12 gauge because I like to hunt birds to put food on the table
A muzzle loading rifle for deer and elk hunting - again, food.
A small caliber rifle for target practice (cheap ammo)

I also own a fishing pole, again for putting food on the table. Although, from my success rates, if you asked my wife why I have any of the above items, she'd probably suggest that I own them to get out of yard work.

I've never jumped through the minor hoops my state requires to get a concealed carry permit so that I can have a pistol, mainly because I've really never felt the need for one. I've also never owned an "assault rifle". However, I can tell you that hearing the rhetoric coming out of DC and elsewhere over the last week, I'm thinking very seriously of getting my concealed carry permit before they make it more difficult/impossible. I was thinking of getting a pistol for my hiking/hunting/camping trips anyway, but all the anti-gun hysteria may finally be the catalyst I need to stop procrastinating.

This statement is only true if you remove all guns from society, not just some. When you pass laws against private gun ownership, law abiding citizens will not have them. Those who couldn't care less about the law, will have them.


I invite you to take a look at this chart. It is not from some pro-gun propaganda group, it is from the US census bureau: http://www.census.gov/...b/2012/tables/12s0308.pdf


DC has - if I'm not mistaken - the strictest gun laws in the nation. DC also has, by a HUGE margin, the highest violent crime rate in the US (as of the 2010 census). And by a huge margin, I mean the violent crime rate there was more than triple the national average in 2009. Oh, and a murder rate nearly 5 times the national average.

Of course, I could be wrong there. The winner of highest violent crime rate could possibly be Illinois, another state with very restrictive gun laws, which apparently doesn't report the figures to the census bureau that the rest of the states do.

Arizona: Least restrictive gun laws in the US, violent and property crime rates below the national average.

Texas: Famous for a high number of guns per citizen: Slightly above the national average for violent crime rates. 22% above the national average for property crime rates.

Now, do any of those numbers prove a correlation - either way - between gun availability and crime rates? I don't think so. Especially when you look at another anti-gun state, New York, which has violent crime rates even lower than Arizona. What they do show, IMO, is that your assertion that "less guns = less gun crime" is simply not true.

"No guns = less gun crime" would be true, but our government has an abolutely pathetic record on banning things (alcohol prohibition, illegal drugs... we're just not good at keeping banned stuff out if people want the stuff)