1) llaar (i only cheated for twelve hours)
2) Ice (i cheated for years) Man
3) Dark (the game needs cheaters) Morbid
4) jag ( iwill keep cheating for years) ernacht
5) thun (all noise and no substance) der
6) Mr (no vocabulary) Ford
7) NOW ( i accidentally admitted we cheated and i hope someday to graduate from college) 3P
8) Mars ( i wish people couldnt attack me) Up
9) Don ( my iq is almost 100) ny
10) and that guy who doesnt even know if he is LaE

remember i interviewed gregg and i saw his tracking board,
i recall the proof when u had 14 players deleted off this server, i recall the college dropout saying that ice man was forever banned from LaE, i recall he who can not graduate admitting that LaE cheated across multiple servers

so dont go back to that "who, us?" routine
nobody is buying it


i know u guys; i very well like pangea know
u cheat every set
on multiple servers

i liked u better when u were licking pang's boots

i see now why the questionaire is problematic maybe u could just ban anyone in lae from answering it?

yes all netters wish they could play at monopoly.com

those of us who wish this were a war game are stuck

too bad this site doesnt send people to jail since according to pangea

no one in LaE is above suspicion
they whine like five year olds
they cheat across multiple servers
and every set


there that ought to sound like gregg
he loved to quote pangea
u really wish he were still playing?

LaE accusing someone of cheating?

just furious they lost their monopoly i guess

i guess it is impossible for them to carry on a civilized dialogue

i understand the suspicion of bots
they have always been illegal
so only cheaters have had them
but
the people who are capable of creating bots are the type of people we want playing
the point has to be recruitment and retention
if bot makers have the legal option to make them they may be less likely to cheat than they were when bots were inherently illegal
the point that express takes up too much time may be valid but rings hollow coming from LaE


if there is no place to test new ideas we will just keep on at the same old game
is that really the future of earth?

an unnamed source writes to say that bot countries would just be fodder for veteran players

that is kind of the point lets see what the new spy powers do to countries who are not emotionally invested in the game

it is frustrating that the serious responses are always private and public responses are well lets just say they are from LaE and leave it at that

man u guys still can not get over gregg?

what has it been eight weeks since he quit playing?
i know u lost your clan position because of him but get over it

1) 3-5
2) yes
3) just one multi no big deal
4) no according to some there are already about six of me
5) from reading posts during the LaE scandal
6) i would make spies five times more effective than they are currently are in the last reset i had an SPAL which was 1% of NOW3P's but still managed to spy on him on the tenth try
7) way too weak
8) way too biased toward netters, techers
9) H is way too strong I is a joke
10) change the rules every reset and post the changes on every server forum

pls take a second to answer the following questions

1) How many times have you played express?
2) do u intend to play again?
3) did u detect any multis or clan activity?
4) do u recruit players to come play express?
5) how did u decide to play express?
6) what rules would u change?
7) are spies just right too weak or too strong?
8) is the server just right, biased toward netters, biased toward predators?
9) r any gov types too strong too weak?
10) how would u increase the number of players?

if anyone really does have working bots

i think it is time for a mostly bot server to use for research purposes into the gam3 and to attract the kind of mind that likes these toys

after every set each player should fill out a brief form about what they liked what they didnt like what rules they would change and their ideas for developing the game and attracting new players

this is a must for any site like this that is still in development

gregg and the guy who ran earthstats both talked about this eight weeks ago for warring purposes

but then they got caught up in the multiple LaE scandals and then they both left so it kind of died out

ExPN the official news channel of the Express server is back on the Web!!!

following our tremendous successes of the gregg interview and last set's "what is proper ?" thread we have moved ahead of LaExNN as the major news network!!

this week's thread was supposed to be an interview of LLaar but his handlers wanted too much cash, we are not going to pay him as much as we paid gregg,we just aren't.

We tried to get Primeval since he is back in the news because of the NBK bot virus but as yet have not heard from him. If u know him pls have him contact us for an interview.

So this week's thread concerns the future of Express and the new buzz generated by rumors that the admins are going to use express as a beta tester.

the ExPN editorial board advocates the following
1) use the express server as a beta tester
change at least three rules a set
2) players spread the word about the testing
we can not all recruit like gregg but if we each get four new players we can rock this server
3) keep the clan nonsense out
LaE is to be commended for stopping its old practices
4) allow bots to keep the markets up
allow bot designers to enter as many bots as they want here
5) allow spies
get rid of the current formulae that only netters like
6) grant new spy powers and cyber ops
at least to dictators if to no one else

there definitely should be a beta test server

there are a host of great new ideas which have no place to go on this site

the genuine concerns about market size and the soft tender hearts of netters can be addressed with a single heretical idea

allow bots, unlimited bots on the beta server

u have programmers who want to test their bot abilities
encourage these players rather than banning them
let them run their bots on a special server and allow the enhanced war and spy capabilities that are being discussed to be loosed on bot countries so the netters dont cry

it is not like a hobo mugging a rich man

it is more like germany attacking france in the forties

or a crocodile waiting a year for the zebra to jump into his river

or a grizzlie waiting on the salmon to jump into his mouth


the vast majority of the time the salmon has nothing to fear from the grizzlie, for most of their lives the salmon are swift oceanic creatures who are apparently uncatchable by the lumbering ne'er-do-well who sleeps for months on end but if the bear positions himself well when the salmon voluntarily makes himself vulnerable, the bruin feasts. we do not require the bear to hold onto the skeletal remains of his prey.
It would be in the general interest if bears did not eat salmon, but that matters not in real life.

in our game when in the fullness of time the frenetic netter finally allows himself to become vulnerable by storing billions in cash or millions of bushels to the patient predator we should not require the predator to hoard the useless empty acreage remnants of the fallen. Nor should we moralize that it is in the best interest of most if the predator did not dine.


i understand the prey does not like it but the prey is not morally superior to the predator nor is the netter superior to the suicider

would anyone seriously contend that the zebra is morally superior to the croc, or the fish to the mammal or 1940s france to 1940s germany?

it seems i owe NOW3P an apology

he really did believe I was gregg

so i apologize

it is primeval who did this
my puter is now also cleared of all malware

if any of you had any direct forum contact on the private message board with gregg after the NBK recruitment letter which was sent to all SYN players after what has come to be called the first infiltration
you need to clear your puters of the icq bot launchbox

i understand why u cant see it
until i eperienced it myself i could not have imagined it either

the argument that it is in the general interest of the game is based upon two assumptions

1) netters will always be the largest percentage of players and the backbone of the game

2) netters will quit if the rules are not heavily skewed in their favor


i believe the future of the game depends on attracting puter gamers who like spying and attacking

i simply do not believe the unmet demand among puter gamers for acquistion games is that high
the unmet demand for text spy and war games is insatiable

someone else want to enlighten this guy?

he apparently can not learn from me

how about me? ok

i have twice called for an end to the insults to no avail

but i will offer this pledge

if they stop lying all the time about me being gregg i will stop telling the truth in every post about their educational deficiencies

poor now3p

he doesnt even know there is a no drop land rule in express

he seems to think he is an expert on this server but he does not even know the rules his lack of education is hampering him yet again

i hope u all r starting to realize that his blathering about me being gregg is just bilbous blubbering bull bubblage

his opinion is not worth a pixel

dragongregg should feel free to retal however he wants

ok great glad i could help

right now in express this rule is having an unintended consequence which proves why it is a bad rule for this server

a country with a sustainable strat just got ABed to the tune of 5000 acres

if he could drop that land his spal would be very high and his military tech would be 50%
but he can not drop the land

the AB and this rule are incapatible on this server

why should the community have any input into how any individual reacts to an individual attack??

for myself i followed dibs advice and sent the guy a thank yu note

dragongregg goes for 5000 acres of ABs against the guy who hit him and me

great

i suspect that both of them are having more fun playing this game then the so-called winners in the top ten


it does point out the unintended consequences of the rule that one can not drop land

he gets ABed and is not allowed to drop the land

the admins say that they want to discourage disproportionate retals and then pull a rule out of thin air that makes those retals even more effective

gotta love it

a country which is not sustainable can survive by taking cash and food and tech to sell from others

$23M per ss can keep an unsustainable country going for a few turns until it get another $23M

i assume u know that with a few well timed hits u can get well over $100M in combined cash tech and food

that strategy should not be banned

i call it wargaining not suiciding

dragon said

'the point of punishing behavior is..."

that kind of moralizing sounds like gregg

watch out u will be accused of being him
will someone please explain to fordy what ostensibly means

just one suggestion

remember we are grateful for the opportunity to play

i know u didnt finish college


but read it again slowly with care

"how can u possibly claim its one hit on me only?"

kill wargainers has been your refrain for months and u encouraged jiff on his missile spree that dragon echoed in this thread

(sic)

slagpit has called this attitude
-destructive of the server amen
-childish amen

this is not meant as a smart aleck question
it really is a serious question

why is sustainability a criteria?

and what is meant by sustainable

sure my ideal predator country can not sustain itself if it suddenly goes netter

but if there is another lurker three people ahead of me the country can be sustained right up until i find the last weak defense target

there are a ton of restrictions on spying a few on warring

why are there no restrictions on netting??
wouldnt it make just as much sense to say u can not research more than twenty times a day?
it is immediately obvious that any such restriction is arbitrary and capricious. it is just as arbitrary to have these other restrictions

u want to take the advice of a guy who is ranked 75th?

u must be an LaE member



who is lincoln?

i am pleased to hear that u r considering improving dictatorships

all the following comments relate to individual servers only

dictatorships were my favorite gov on earth2025 because they are the most active government in terms of making a decision on nearly every day and changing plans in response to new opportunities

the inability to build is so debilitating early however that on the primary server the first three weeks are spent as some other gov type

and because u have to build up your tech for the coming rush u have an extremely low rank

the payoff is that in weeks five six and seven you are the dominant spy force in your ranking sector and can be the most efficient army in the game

this means that in a massive set like we used to have u could spy constantly and find the targets of opportunity who lurk near the bottom with tons of cash or tech or food and no defense

u then hit the cash cows acquiring tons of cash or food per turn, shed the land and hit the lurker again

it was not uncommon to pick up $200 million and move up 200 spots on a single day and in the final week to be moving into the top 100

the problem with the strat is of course the lurkers were inevitably the lead country of some multi which then proceeded to try everything in the book to retal

the administrators have said they have no sympathy for players who were in a weak position and want to advance by hitting other players
honestly i have no comprehension of what this means
there are plenty of strats that start out weak including the Rs and Ds who inevitably won on Earth2025
the beauty of that game was the natural progression of the set which like clockwork starting out with the Indycoms in the lead followed by the H and then the week five jump in food and oil prices that allowed the Fs to think they might do something followed by the arrival of the Rs and Ds who won

they may have won but they never made a name for themselves or earned the respect of their peers))))))

it seems the following questions should be answered when considering any improvement

do u want a site where all governments have as closely as possible an equal opportunity to win?

if that is the goal then the improvements have to be dramatic

the goal of any enhancements to I powers should be to attract and retain players to the site

of course any enhancements will shift the balance of power, upset netters and may cause a few netters to quit. Therefor any enhancements have to draw in more players than it drives out.

to draw in some different types of players, the game simply has to be more active

ACTION ACTION WE WANT ACTION



i would suggest that when u consider what the spy enhancements are u think not in terms of % enhancements but in terms of power diversity

give dictatorships the unique spy powers that llaar W and others have suggested
give ditatorship spies a higher success rate than others

this may have the added benefit of inducing clans to adopt active spy cadres whose sole function is to disrupt the military offensive actions of the enemy clan
which may attract more players to clan games

thank you for your time and consideration
thanks for your efforts on behalf of the game

newsflash

the game can not thrive as a netters only fauxtopia

no that'll get you killed

no wonder dragons are extinct

i know i know not varanus komodoenis



dont just lazily push the research button 800 times a set
spy, attack live a little

and maybe if you're lucky the guy u hit will take dibs advice and send u a thank u note

u have very little sympathy for a netter getting attacked or spied on

thats why spies are emasculated and dictators are banned

ok this is important

maybe this will be the breakthrough
if the admins can learn the point of dropping land
maybe we can get some war rules into place on the express server

SOMETIMES U HIT A TARGET FOR $$$$ OR FOOD

sometimes the land is secondary

for example if u hit someone with $1B you get $23 M even without tech
if you hit someone with 12M bushels you get a ton of food

all the land does is reduce your tech which if u r going to hit the target multiple times can reduce your yield signifigantly

if u r running a fully researched T, I or C the loss of research can be several percentge points

the land may so improve ur NW that your yield is reduced

the land makes u a target for LGers

land can adversely impact ur SPAL which reduces your yield on offensive spy opps

if u use your military tech for something besides window dressing large amounts of increased land is detrimental

this is a great idea

it should be incorporated with llaar's great idea, lincoln's redirect missiles idea, and W's great idea of redirecting kill runs with spies

the way to handle this would be take down one spy op and replace it with a special ops selection which could drill down to seven or so ops which are these specialized disruptions of enemy operations

in order to use one of these specialized ops u would have to have a signifigant SPAL over your target for example keep the current ee formula for spies and use the more poerful fromula that we all hope is coming for the traditional ops

we need to let admins know that there are players who love spies and will support stronger spies

ok target fascist has 1 million turrets
no troops no tanks no allies no tech

demoralize his country down to 32% readiness

hit him with 400k jets


attack fails


why??? some clan member once told me that only half his troops are actually demoralized so send 680000 and get through but i have had success with fewer forces that that

if this is true why is it true?
how does the presence of allies effect this op?
is the result different if he is down to 32% effectiveness because he of his own actions in taking his readiness down there on a kill run?

thanks for any accurate information on this

no

i ssume mazooka's point is that since spies are weak for a reason it seems foolish to waste time dreaming up new powers for them when the admins clearly wish spies did not exist at all

good point mazooka
brevity is the soul of wit
nice post