I am not speaking for MD or from an MD perspective. I just remember many time people fluffing because LaF FA's themselves into all the top 10 spots, etc.

Is my memory faulty in regards to this practice?

Ruth, you should know as well as anyone that this has always been part of the game.

It's just more open nowadays.

That was not really my question.

It was the fact that LaF threatens countries and tags that do it, but I swore they did the same thing.

that is mistaken because LaF has very strong internal competition. stronger than the competition we hold with the game as a whole actually since the competition outside of laf, to be frank, is crap. in fact, we do whatever we can to preserve internal rankings such that no LaF member is ever FA'd over another LaF member.

in addition, we dont FA ppl into t10 just for fun. it is always in response to some crap some other alliance/country owner pulled first. Doesnt mean we can control everything though. i think the best example that goes against this was 3(?) sets ago when an laf member FA'd another into the rank 1 spot. that was actually not planned in any way and was the action of a member working on his own. a point against the guy who was in the top rank prior to the FA is that he had a tech leech for an undetermined amount of time which he benefited greatly from.


laf puts a lot of work into monitoring the stockpiles of countries that are performing 'well'. we do this specifically to ensure we know the correct order of rankings at the end of set. the problem with tech leeches is that it is difficult to calculate their impact. this is because we dont ally op people as often as we market/regular op people. Ally ops are usually precipitated by a discrepancy in someone's stock - in other words, when someone is stocking more than they should we suspect FA and ally op.

in the end, people can claim whatever they want regarding what their stock was, but we do our best to keep perfect information so that we can cut through the crap when it really comes down to it.

"a point against the guy who was in the top rank prior to the FA is that he had a tech leech for an undetermined amount of time which he benefited greatly from"

really, a tech leach now would be considered the same as getting FA? and would be a reason to FA someone past him in the ranking?

Just for clarification, it was my country that was fa'd out of first the set euglaf speaks of, and I did have a tech leech, but I didn't benefit greatly from it. I only received 110k tech from it, as compared to the several million tech I purchased. I didn't know at the time that tech leeches were frowned upon or considered illegitimate either. Accepting that leech was the worst decision I made that set, lol. No hard feelings from my perspective though, I am totally cool with en4 and ingle, just wanted to clarify.

depends on when you received said tech leach

110k tech received in first 2 weeks is substantial

well as i said, tech leeches are the hardest to quantitate in terms of impact. tech leeches have the potential to be inasne, equal to potentially billions in some cases.


also, as i already pointed out, whatever our member did that set was his own decision. laf as a whole had no say in it.

Neal: it was in the last two weeks from a late start techer who couldn't find allies.

Euglaf: I agree. There was no way to easily tell at the time how much benefit I had derived from the leech, and it could easily have been far more substantial than it was in reality.

I actually have a fair bit of respect for your policy of enforcing competitive play.

..... bonus

tag protection, training (or strats), overall alliance plans, other metrics >>> last minute FA

to focus on FA as the be all/end all of what constitutes "legit" play is really dumb. the conditions that allow any player to put up a top finish are facilitated by the sum of their tag.

I've always had that attitude and have no qualms at all about aiding or players working together, even when llaar was doing it. nothing stopping others from killing countries for doing that too. it's a team server. if pure individual achievement is the main goal then you're playing the wrong server to begin with.

I disagree, such an attitude neglects the context in which clans/alliances formed to begin with.

Alliances formed because individuals started banding together in for the sake of group protection.

It was very much done to better the individual finishes of the participants.

The fact that most alliances eventually lost sight of this doesn't change that it is why alliances formed in the first place. LaF still tries to operate off this principle, for the most part, via our strong focus on individual player rights vs alliance rights.

but your arguments prove my point -- in order to have good individual finishes the individuals must be part of a strong collective. there is much more the collective provides to aid "individual finishes" to the point of no longer being a purely individual accomplishment than merely just explicit FA.

Well all those within an established alliance operate on a level playing field (ok some have different grabbing policies etc, but in general its level), thus making it an individual accomplishment to finish higher than someone else on that same playing field. And with 99% of players that actually compete for top ranks playing on that same playing field the only way it becomes skewed is with fa, free land, tech leaches, off ally leeches, etc etc.

How about something I don't give a fluff about.

Netgaining....it sucks.

if you feel it's a level playing field just because you are in an established alliance you obviously haven't been paying attention :p

but even with that, you're still proving my point that FA isn't the only evil and every alliance participates in many policies that can only work by being part a collective. saying that "everyone does X, Y, and Z by default, so what's left is individual!" is a flawed argument.

Individual countries are played in a co-operative environment on this server. oh, except C R O A T I A.

Well if someone in an established alliance that lacks the capability to retal that someone is not a player capable of competing for top ranks (or else they would be able to retal) so what does it matter?

In what way is it a flawed argument, when everyone plays by the same rules it makes it a level playing field and so variances within that are based on individual skill. It has been the way alliance server has operated for the majority of its existence in ee and e2025, if people want to change it fight, but most either wont fight or are incapable of fighting over it and so just complain on AT which is stupid.

If you look at the individual servers how many people complain about viva and his off ally leeches/people working together for one country. Quite a lot. On alliance server you can actually do something about people working together to manipulate finishes. Kill them/knock them down/aid over them.

Not everyone plays by the same rules though. Sol/Imag etc They even affect some netting clans and not others.

The argument is flawed because what constitutes "individual" finishes is sort of arbitrary compared to the plethora of assistance being in an alliance affords a player. And what alliance that is definitely makes a big difference in terms of support that is given to learn to be a top player and to create the environment to place there consistently.

As an example of the arbitrary nature of this discussion on what constitutes purely individual achievement, I can't even count the number of spy ops I personally got for your previous top finishes over our time in LaF and these were explicitly done to save you turns so you use them to push toward a top finish. We delete for that on solo servers and I'd put that in the same category as FA. It's essentially turn-FA.

Who teaches you doesn't impact the legitimacy of your finish. It's up to the individual to get good at netgaining, where/how they do that is their decision. Obviously some alliances have more top tier netgainers than others, but that isn't to say that makes you any better/worse for playing there.

Of course it is subjective what is individual and what isn't, personally I see landtrading as being illegitimate, not everyone agrees with me but that's the game, not everyone will agree with each other. I'm not sure if you ever got me spy ops while you were in laf, but sure I suppose it likely happened at some point (although certainly not to the extent that you are trying to suggest, but we both know you're doing that just because its me). And yes though the impact is negligible I suppose that is aid. But if you're going to say that you may as well be going on about the strength of your def/intel allies as well.

What most alliances perceive as individual achievement has been pretty well established over the last decade plus of the game. Whether you like/dislike it is up to you, but from an enforcement of the policy perspective it's pretty clear cut.

Fact is having played in laf you will also know how these policies are enforced, and how some players take the legitimacy of their finishes more seriously than others i.e. how I've never once accepted fa (even when people got aided over me, to the point where I aided the guy in 13th into 10th when I was rank 11 to knock an aided country out), and would donate all reps owed to me when it was cross reset to other countries that wernt competing for t10 so as to not remove from the legitimacy of my finishes.

Well that point is the crux of my argument: individuality on a cooperative server is based on your own personal beliefs, influenced by those you cooperate with.

The rest of your post is just fluff about what your beliefs are.

this thread is about netting? :(

Here is one thing we don't have to argue about: I'm twice the netter SS is.

'MERICA

Req and SS should have a net-off next round!

Pang would that be sort of like a dance off? Because I just bought some new moves!

SS hasnt beaten me in a netting set in ages! ;)

sadly yes :)

What you were saying on how to play the game are your own personal opinions that you try to force onto other people. If a certain group believe in FA-finish, tech leech, legit finish or using brute force to ensure legit finish, then so be it. You can fight against each other to make/change the believe of another group.

However this change when you get a group saying that they are anti FA-to-the-top, but yet they are dong it themselves (and claimed an individual fault). Why dont you Nuke, Spy-ops, EM that particular country down to stay true to what you believe in?

So did you missile and harmful op your player back down again? By your own comments here, you say your guy FA'ing your other guy up was wrong. So using your actions against PDM specifically as precedent, if you did NOT damage that country back down, then you sir are a hypocrite, as is the rest of the alliance that would support this.

Further, who are LaF to dictate what can be considered "legitimate" and what can't be? I will bet money on LaF having had tech leechers in their top player finishes before. and I have no doubt that I would win it. LaF have a track history with Earth in general for shady fluff to get high finishes.

Also, waiting to see if you pull this sort of crap against any other alliances, or whether it's just PDM. I'll bet on it being just PDM.
It's a shame really, when you invited pang tocome back to LaF, I thought it might mean a positive change in PDM-LaF relations, but it seems that that hasn't been the case.
Instead, in your colossal arrogance, you have decided that you are now the be all and end all on what is to be considered legitimate.
I have to say it's a little rich coming from an alliance who got pack raped for cheating in the highest echelons only a few sets back.

Oh and Req: I'm still retired dude.

Your whole argument ignores the fact what is considered individual has been established through generally accepted practices over the last 10+ years, in the same way as generally accepted retal practices has been established over the last 10+ years. Yes one or two people have slightly different opinions to another, but in general its pretty similar. Anyone that wants to make a drastic change to that can try, in the same way that anyone that makes drastic changes to retal policy would expect to war over it.

No, you're just ignoring the fact that others have always played in different ways with different goals and shouting the loudest on AT about what you consider to be "generally accepted over 10+ years" doesn't mean that it's true. heh

It's only more similar now as LaF are the only ones left who actually care enough to try and get top finishes en mass and fight about it on AT :p
A few Evo'ers too (who you disagree with on everything, right? :p)

IMO, most of the good netters who helped push more positive policies are long gone or have polarized themselves into believing their opinion is the only one that matters (see: yourself).

So go get beaten by Requiem :p

netting is overRated!!!!!

Name a point in history of the game where people accepted fa/aid chains/free land/market buyouts etc as legitimate pang, you cant... no one can. While you say my argument is just shouting loudest at least what im saying actually has some foundation to it, all you're doing is saying that the policy is wrong because you dont like it as if that carries more weight. If people want to change things, they'll have to war those that don't want things changed, its that simple.

RD/elitez were politically strong enough to get away with it for a time and would generally make the gap too large to counter aid, but no one saw it as legitimate, regularly the "legitimate" t10 was posted on AT when a reset was completed. SMz was regularly chastised for the illegitimacy of his finishes due to intra farming (including by you).

Fact is no matter what the server conditions are, they always favour the more skilled netgainers, (see landtrading last set, and how two people doing it for the first time finish quite significantly higher than those doing it for the past few years). You say laf are the only ones that care, I would suggest that a few top tier netgainers returning to laf over the last few years has meant that the internal competition is so strong that its raised the bar for what it takes to have a good finish.

Despite never yourself having been competitive at netgaining you deem yourself to have more knowledge on the subject than anyone else. As always you deem anyone that shares your views as a positive influence and anyone that doesn't a negative influence.

mmm I'm pretty sure LaF accepted RD doing most of those things and putting up top countries with them within the last year.

the fact that you immediately give examples of alliances "getting away with it" right after proves my point further :p

I'm not a competitive netgainer (other than a few rounds back in high school); I was just the guy who makes the tools and created the conditions to let those who were more interested in a top finish get there (when there was actual competition). You don't need to know anything about netgaining to do that. heh
Your goals are always so narrow and selfish... but continue talking yourself in a circle if you want, I'm rather enjoying it :p

My viewpoint always has been that FA on a team based server (like alliance) is perfectly legitimate. ANW and TNW always meant more than individual finishes anyway imo. Note that sending at the last minute won't impact either statistic. There are strategic reasons (other than boosting peoples ego) for sending FA upwards in multiple cases which I won't get into.
Obviously if a tag objects and wishes to use that as a pretense to attack said countries that is perfectly within the rules.

And yes, I know that when I lead sof I was one of people responsible for kiling llaar's high ranked country (sorry llaar:P) but my reasons had nothing to do with objections to FA. In fact I'll openly admit that I was all for knocking high nw countries out of the top ten (from non-pacted tags) to help people in my tag or allied tags although the opportunity to do so and get away with it was somewhat rare:P

If you want to focus on individual effort over a team effort that is what primary (should) be for.

You'd be wrong. LaF or any other alliance can dictate whatever policy they see fit as long as they're ready to defend their policies. I don't know how people who have played this game for years still don't understand that. If you have an issue, war over it. That's how this game goes.

/bonus

Here is my suggestion to PDM:

1. go get support from your allies (if you have any real allies)
2. war over your beliefs

Either you win and can enforce what you want or you lose and at least you tried.

Or, and most likely, PDM and co wins, and LaF and co just keeps hitting them in subsequent resets despite their loss.

You'll never know will you Nuk?

You sound like the type of guy who slits his wrists.

What's with all the negativity?

Both LaF and SoF have a recent history of hitting alliances after they suffered a loss from those same alliances. LaF even broke a uNAP to do so. SoF waited a few resets before trying to get revenge for that "friendly" war against Evo, Monsters, and Collaboration. Come to think of it, I believe these 2 events happened in the same reset.

SoF also hit PDM the following round after PDM gave SoF the war they desired. Sour grapes from a war where SoF won and looked excellent :p
This was when RD lied to SoF and said PDM planned to hit SoF because RD's leaders are just straight up liars.

That being said, it's not like the Evo side ever really had moral high ground to stand on either... everyone has generally been playing this game the same way since EE started as far as I'm concerned and that's why I play Ingress now :p

99% of players using policies that have been accepted for 10+ years doesn't make the playing field level.



It doesn't matter how long or by how many people a policy is accepted by. Might makes right is the supreme rule of this game. Taking advantage of this privilege is part of the game and motivation for building a stronger alliance. Taking advantage of this privilege while denying its exists is hilarious and sad.

Individual efforts play a large role in player achievements but to say that being part of a stronger alliance doesn't give you an significant advantage is false.

:P ^

I've avoided posting on this thread so far, mostly because I think this discussion is going nowhere.


PERSONALLY, I think that:

1. The alliance you are in means a great deal to whether you will finish high. The policies of the alliance, and how effective the FRs are able to negotiate deals, and threaten other alliances, is a large leverage.

The playing field is not level across clans. The available toolset is different. The bots are different. The websites are different. The available shared spy ops and amounts of them from allied clans is a large turns savings for some clans.

Anyone will tell you that you can PROBABLY finish with a higher net, if you net in LaF or Evo compared to say SoL or Rival.



2. That said, I personally still STRIVE for an even field WITHIN the clan I am in - I don't care if I edge out other clans - I will accept FA if it means it knocks someone else in some other clan out of the top 10 - but I will not take FA if it means my rank will go above someone else in LaF. That is, I will take FA, but only if the relative rankings within LaF remains unchanged. And that is how LaF operates, we don't compromise (most of us try not to) fairness internally. Partly because 9 years ago, I finished rank 11 once, and only because some rank 15 dude in LaF was FAed above me, pushing me out of top 10 - and rank 8-9-10 was all LaF too.

I believe in fairness within the alliance I am in, but I don't give a fluff about people in other alliances (give or take a bit depending on relations with said clan). And that's really how every clan member should be, promoting only the interests of their clan.

You'll find that most of the FAing LaF did, is within 1m NW of not passing the next higher ranked LaF guy. (Feel free to look at the top 10 of the last 3 resets, you'll find "pairs" or "triplets" of LaF countries within 1m NW of each other.)


All of you should just shut up about blah blah blah being hypocritical, but really, we're just playing the game the way it is meant to be played - as an alliance.

congrats Xin. You just contradicted both Eugene AND Son Goku.
They claimed LaF doesn't FA. you've just provided proof that they do.
So once again, their acts of sabotage on Wari last set were nothing more than sour grapes and genuine hypocrisy and douchebaggery by LaF. Stay classy guys!

Req: So far as I can tell, PDM HAVE warred over their beliefs. repeatedly. even when it means going solo against an alliance 2x your size.

The remaining fact is, that if someone hits LaF with even numbers, LaF will call in SoF, because they have no stomach for a tough war on their own. (well apart from being pack raped over the cheating scandal, because they wanted to proclaim their contriteness, whilst actively downplaying the whole situation from then onwards.)

Drow speaking as a guy who is currently in LaF FA doesn't happen on a big scale/planned. If it happens it happens without the knowledge of eugene/sg/etc... I know from experience.

It is actually no different than in PDM where some people do stuff like that.

The only time I ever see FA coordinated is in the instance someone is FA'd above a LaF member in the top 10, in that case yes you're right.

I'm more qualified to make that judgement than you because I've played in both PDM and LaF. LaF members are just better netters all around have have a plethora of great teachers. The effort that goes into classes is next to none: that is why LaF is successful not FA.

No spin, no bullfluff, just the honest observation.

p.s. I've solicited and tried very hard to FA LaF members because I'm not really netting this set, and not one top LaFer has even entertained the idea. Most say "I don't want FA I want my finish to be legit". I think your hatred for LaF makes you blind to that.

You realize he used the word "I" right? Xin policy and Laf policy can very easily be different. Most or everything of what he said can easily fit with what was said previously anyways.

Req made the key statement there. The classes are far better developed than other clans. I cant speak for Evo but I suspect theirs are the same way compared to the rest.

FA me Req? I wont say no!

:)