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Ivan you're not a bright guy huh? Well I can't say I expected you to be but now I know you are far below the average... Monkey.

Take your base.

Ivan: we all know you're simply looking for an excuse here, you've been trying it on a regular basis. We had to argue with your leaders for weeks over reps you owed us and refused to pay last set, despite having about 10 people in range who could ahve paid.

we sign specific grabbing pacts with alliances who are willing. each alliance provides a list of countries that have "opted in".
these countries are free to be grabbed by the other alliance, and will retal.
countries on each side which DON'T opt in are left alone. However, they also suffer bigger penalties if they grab the other alliance that the grabbing pact is made with.
the countries that CHOOSE to specifically "trade" with another country are using the aforementioned grabbing pact in a manner that best benefits them. If another country who is on the opted in list wanted, they are still free to grab that "trading" country.
In the meantime, PDM has gained 3 alliances as friends out of our grabbing pacts, alliances who respect the pacts, play decently with us, and whom we have formed strong relations with. What does sof have? "sign a pact with us, and expect us to casually ignore it as we see fit, or we will war you".
Yep, sounds like a great deal to me.
we've never signed a grabbing pact with you because you've never thought to ask us about it, and we can't trust you to actually play in a reciprocal manner in one.

archaic, here's the summary:

The angrier Ivan gets, the more grammar and spelling mistakes he makes thus rendering his posts virtually incomprehensible.

Dammit, I didn't realize there was another page I hadn't read yet. This thread is getting better and better.

Landtrading versus landgrabing isnt a clear cut political issue to be fought over. It is not the same as warring over 'over grabbing' or 'land:land policies'. It is not the same warring over being called names.

Its a game mechanics issue that is impossible to get away from. If you land grab fairly and peacefully its considered fine, but if you grab too much it becomes wrong?
I agree and disagree with this idea. I see no issue with it as its just players playing the game normally. I disagree with it in terms of how the game mechanics work. Will we get to a point
where only playeres who can land trade the best get the best possible networth? That isnt playing the game, its a bunch of players confining themselves from the community to themselves.
I think Ivan is expressing his frustration at the wrong target. He should be mad at how the game works, not the players simply playing it. I give him credit for at least trying to speak out against the concept of land tradding, or a more
familar concept, just plain grabbing and retaling alot to the point where players are gaining way too much land and becoming way too fat for there own good :O


Is it ok to say "you guys are land grabbing each other way too much, and that isnt fair!" or "Your members are talking to one another about land grabbing one another, you need to stop!"
These are not clear cut issues as it relates directly to the way the game is, and not how the player is acting.

How many land grabs is too much? Are alliances going to start warring one another because they are gaining too much land through peaceful means? Most likely when the land grabbing gets to a point where one alliance playing with the concept of "land grabbing with restraints" losses againt the allaince that has "land grabbing with no restraints".


How can you decide what is too many grabs? Unless there is a clear cut universal agreement, its a game mechanic issue imo.

(end short rant)

Except for the fact that there is an obvious difference between grabbing and what many of these guys are doing :P

I offered them grabbing pacts in the past. They declined. SoF can't handle change. It's not just that they are incapable of evolving, it is that they are not willing to even consider things outside of what they have done for a decade. That is why SoF is a fading star.

agree with locket. what these guys are doing gives them a serious advantage over other forms of game play, they've just been too bad at netting for it to make a difference, until this set - with countries this fat, they won't fail to take ANW and top 10 spots from a "legit" clan like Evo

you do know that Evo is also part of the "trading/grabbing" pact...



Anyways, for the lulz

DAMN YOU PEOPLE WHO PLAY SUPERIOR STRATEGIES! YOU SHOULD BE ALL-EXPLORE!!! ATTACKING IS NOT FAIR!!!!

As much as I hate SoF's politics, for PDM to call them a "fading star" is pretty rich. PDM is about as mediocre as it gets in every aspect of the game.

Why can't you camp DR like the rest of us pro players? GEEZE, n00bs?!

Why would he know that? This is people thinking that past actions and current results are somehow coupled. PDM has simply been grabbing more people everywhere and have accordingly gotten a ton of land. If people want to get more land they can become better targets for us to grab. They will do well when they retal. By trying to isolate themselves and hide from us has caused them to fall behind.

guess I just missed the large scale landtrading by Evo.

oh wait..

I feel sorry for all your friends who you duped into suiciding on us over some long-standing hatred of PDM, derived from some unknown reason.

Also, you have the same stupid thoughts as Ivan. Saying someone else is on the decline says nothing about me. Although PDM is by far the most fun alliance, the only metric I care about, which is why we are thriving quite nicely.

I am sorry that you do not understand that "landtrading" is just making a lot of attacks and making incremental gains on the retals. PDM knows the best strategy and Evo is slow at picking it up. Some of their members are indeed participating in grabbing with PDM.

depends on what you consider failing :)

or maybe they're just holding back because realize that once everyone starts landtrading, it is going to be modded down because it makes every other strategy unviable? all explorers had a chance of competing with grabbers when grabbing was the way it was... now, no way. bottomfeeders won't do well eithers. midfeeders outrunning PDM's fluff retallers? well I guess there's some potential there.

That being said, you are correct, Evo are doing it more than I initially thought.

You act like there is some clear cut line between what is too much grabbing and what is not. There is no such line. All that is clear is that you want us to find suboptimal grabbing targets because you don't like our success. I think it is very likely that the game mechanics will be altered at some point and I have no problem with that. We're not going to start bottom feeding newbies relentlessly (a tactic you seem to endorse) just because it is how things have always been done, or that all-explorers can compete with it though. We wanted to grab. That was why we changed our retal policies the way we have, that is why we have started arranging pacts with our allies that allow grabbing. Just because grabbing is good is not a reason to stop.

And I am sorry that you don't like our approach to retals. We could have people run high mil-strat tyrannies and various NW tyrs to screw people over as much as possible but our goal in this game is to have fun for ourselves, not to screw other people over.

I think you should spend some time thinking about your philosophical approach to this game and what your values are and what you hope to get out of playing.

we no likey change!

In your opinion would lets say... Hanlong get a higher networth doing a low D landtrader too high high acres or bottom feeding like crazy. In your opinion would the two countries be even close to eachother?

I know what I think the result would be. And having one strategy which would be so much better than the other makes netting other ways just dumb.

Anyone that thought landtrading would be brought in without anyone getting annoyed at it is naive. The first reset rd started doing it they got ab'd to fluff, and that continued for quite awhile.

The fact is, landtrading has only come this far without wars being fought over it, because the people that were doing it (no disrespect intended to rd/pdm), wernt affecting much in terms of t10/t100/anw/tnw.

Now that they are actually seeing what alot of us knew already, that it is way way overpowered and would easily blow what most people would consider to be legitimate forms of netgaining out of the water, more politically powerful people will begin to challenge the use of it.

People arguing about it over AT is pretty pointless, anyone that really cares about it, just drop pacts with people that landtrade and either farm them to prevent landtrading, or war them (although farming most likely results in warring too). The eventual loser adopts to policy of the winner. That is how retal policies were always decided, and im sure that is how landtrading will eventually be resolved.

Yes, hanlong would be wise to quit bottom feeding and start grabbing countries that have high ghost-acre returns.

The key is to just do it yourself, and if someone is pulling ahead, to grab them to pull yourself up. This isn't rocket science. There could be a lot of grabbing going on if people would just do it...

One of the reasons suiciders were so prominently hitting us is that we still had a presence in the Team server enforcing a 1:kill policy and it was out first set back on the alliance server, not just landtrading

LOL@detmer

Yer a funny guy, you were sent a pact offer earlier in this set but you didnt like it because it said that we wouldnt allow L:L retals on countries whos hit other countries back and forth

Maybe you do indeed have grabbing pacts with a number of tags, the one we offered you were one as well the only thing most people have a problem with is the constant back and forth

fluff

I think we've done enough airing of our grievances on the forums. Let's leave the discussions to the diplomats.

actually evo's pact wouldn't allow for back and forth trading, as a country may only be grabbed once every 48hrs. personally, i prefer it that way, as it don't "abuse" the system.

personally, i think it'll become a sad state of affairs if everyone adopts landtrading (i.e. the blindly back and forth grabbing over extremely short periods of time), because there will be no competitive element and the whole server will be running on 100k turrets lol :P

ah well, we all have our opinions! even if some are closer than others.

So if someone wants to win the game they should be forced into your play style is what you are saying. Ok :P

Oh my god. Ivan has just hit full retard.

Do you seriously think we're going to sign a pact that tries to modify our behavior with OTHER alliances?

You are, by far, the dumbest leader SoF has ever had, bar none.

That pact was a joke, and you're a joke.

lol

SoF runs with the same pacts anoniem, who would have thought that we share opinion on ANYTHING in the universe personally i find that a bit scary ;)

Yes Tan your right im the dumbest leader in SoF ever, SoF is trying to force policies onto everyone who pretty much every alliance in the game is against except for 15? countries (I think thats roughly the amount of countries who hits back and forth) and then we threaten tags that if you dont accept our way of grabbing you will be run over!

Anyway im done with this conversation and I look forward to see if Balin/detmer can predict the future because according them everyone will be hitting back and forth soon!

Have a fluffy set and keep trolling :D

Ivan
Survival of the Fittest

*blushes*

let's all war over game mechanics.

i think selling down the bushel peak is overpowered, i'm going to farm anyone who does it.

I see aranged landtrading as a bastardisation of an unagreed code of contact that exists in the server. This code isn't a set of rules, but a concept of what is within the bounds of fair competition. In the past, FAing individuals, market buyouts and so on have led to frustration, whilst others retorted that it is an alliance server. To this I say that even though its called 'Alliance Server', it really is an 'Alliance and Individual' server in practise and has been from when I first started playing.

Aranged landtrading like FA/Market buyouts, skews the indiviual competition for anyone that is netgaining. If everyone did it, it wouldn't be much of the problem if it wasn't for the fact that it is so bleeding easy and lazy. The LaFs and Evo's of this server do not have good countries by accident, but they spend a hell of a lot of time making tools, setting irc highlights, being available at all times of the day, working out blind breaks etc... On the other hand PDM and RD can create several thousand free acres a day without any defence; its quite preposterous.

Don't get me wrong about opening up grabbing. SoF has been pioneering in this area and have been campaiging to get uNaps to grab each other in a responsible way. We have an esculating policy for midfeeds, while land:land for topfeeds, with a topfeed being when the defender has over 125% of the land than the attacker before the grab. What this leads to is an oppotunity to grab, but skill being a factor, e.g.

Fail Grab:

01:52 03/05/12 PS brh (#644) (xNAx) Return Of lose Son (#674) (xSOFx) 2534 A (+ 1199 A)
11:20 03/03/12 PS Return Of lose Son (#674) (xSOFx) brh (#644) (xNAx) 1270 A (+ 825 A)

Good Grab:

18:36 03/03/12 PS En Vinter Saga (#478) (TIE) Make time for warchat u fluffs (#229) (xSOFx) 2679 A (+ 1291 A)
12:25 03/02/12 PS Make time for warchat u fluffs (#229) (xSOFx) En Vinter Saga (#478) (TIE) 2785 A (+ 1389 A)

These grabs where unaranged and each player was out to indiviudally better themselves. They only did one hit between each other each, mainly because they both targets had adequete defence, a second big problem I have with landtrading.

These landtraders have little defence to make their grabbing more efficient, which may change due to a coding change if I hear right. Yet, they say that others can grab them, but they get upset when they have to buyup to retal. Again it is a competition, if you risk getting super landfat with a method and hope to stay low military its a downside to that strategy of getting super fat. I know iMaG strongly support this (a little too far imo ;) ). Also this is why I would never sign and open/close list. Although even if hits between players were limited to 1 every 72 hours it wouldn't have too much of a detrimental effect on the server, I'm just ideologically opposed to the concept of it anyway, because this isn't Sim City.

actually Ivan, what your pact says is that NO ONE in PDM would be entitled to retal any sof countries regardless of hits because we have a few countries engaging in what you call "land trading". you are attemptng to force us into working with other alliances differently. Instead of trying to fight us constantly, how about follow our lead for once? everyone fought agains 1:1 xc l:l c:c retals and yet suddenly, it's generally accepted. everyone fought against us when we started the concept of grabbing pacts, and yet suddenly, once again, people are coming around...

For the sake of clarification Drow, could you elaborate on this...



This is not to say that I am weighing in on the argument because my own views differ from others, but I just wish for you to clarify that one because it seems incorrect to me.

I'll admit being wrong on this count, I didn't read the pact aright, however: "- Our retal policy is 1:1 on all non-topfeeds and land:land for topfeeds. A topfeed is defined as the defender having more than 125% the land of the attacker. There is a 72 hour retal window for land:land and a 48 hour retal window for esulating retals.

- For countries that have participated in land trading within a 72 hour period, land:land will not be accepted in any circumstances. Escalating retals will apply. Land trading is defined by two countries exchanging hits between each other more than once within a 72 hour period. "

SO I grab a guy because I see he is low d. he retals, and I profit on the exchange, and I have reasonable defence. I do it again a day or so later, then a sof country topfeeds me (using your definition of a top feed) You're saying I am NOT entitled to take my land back from SoF, because I have allegedly engaged in land trading, rather than the truth of it being that I grabbed a guy who had fluff defence...

it is still trying to force us to play differently with other alliances in short.

As I said I am not weighing into the debate at all, in my opinion this discussion is for private debate at the negotiating table. It seems no one else agrees with me though ;)

I just wanted clarification on the above and you corrected it so that answered my question. Thanks.

Drow: That is our clause in 90% of pacts, soon to be all. However, we compromised and watered it down to 1:1 on landtraders in a 24 hour period, which would have any effected only the really blatant offenders.

Yes, it does effect you and other alliances, but so does the no FA-ing at war clause. If you don't want to accept it then fine, but what I posted earlier is how we view the practise.

This game is full of grown men acting like little sniffling babies. I didn't include the women that play this game because they arn't usually as big of tear bags as you guys are.

You're suggestion is that because the new game mechanics have overpowered landtrading so much, that people take the approach of "if you cant beat them, join them". Not everyone see's landtrading as fun. Personally I see it as a secondary explore button.



The example you give of grabbing a guy with fluff for defense, says nothing about your defense. If you're not trying to bounce the retals, then you expect to lose the land you grabbed, and as such are only making the grab for ghost acre generation, hence landtrading.

so true - you want to land trade, play ffa and use 16 any way you like. I do see less pacts for landtraders in the near future

I am sorry that the same game play does not exist as when you started playing. I am sorry that your view of alliance server is that it is about the individuals. This is the alliance server. Solo play is intrinsically secondary. The purpose here is to function as an alliance. You are just suck on dogma and that is like saying 1:1, 2:1 retals, etc are a code on this server and not part of the rules. The problem is that you are can't see past these ancient philosophies.



People who acted as alliances and succeeded annoyed all the people who didn't act as alliances. I am sorry that they are better at cooperation than you are. I am sorry that you feel this game should require obscene amounts of time. Maybe playing smart is better than playing longer. I am not sure why you want to reward that. Again, SoF just doesn't see the clear way to do this - have everyone do it. Lots of grabbing makes the world go round. Make the smartest grabs and pull ahead. It's not like infinite land will be gain - building costs limit things drastically. Sure, 40k countries might become as common as they used to be in 2001 and all-explore won't be as powerful as it used to be. I don't see this as a bad thing.



SoF's policies are stupid. They are based in 2003 concepts and the numbers are completely arbitrary. There is no more skill in your system than in any other system. Your system is convoluted and meaningless like the one Angel1 posted up yesterday. It is just silly.



PDM makes tons of grabs like that... there is nothing special there... you are not special enough to defy the game mechanics. Cool story bro.



These players have very little defense? They are very easy to grab? Rapid grabbing and defending has a weakness? Gasp!

You guys need to get over how this game has been played for a decade and stop thinking that boring style of gameplay that has hemorrhaged players over the years and expand your minds a little bit.

Yes, I know people in LaF are loathe to be retalled. "Land trading" is just grabbing and getting retalled. You for some reason want people to grab second and third tier targets though, rather than hitting the best ones, whoever they may be.

Flamey, I disagree that so-called "landtrading" violates some code of conduct on the server. Although this vocabulary we've developed over years of playing and political posturing is more or less empirically arbitrary (concepts like a topfeed, for example), I do agree that there are certain entrenched styles of play that "landtrading" challenges.

That is, as a server we've developed methods of play for which we've sought to maximize potential, and "landtrading" adds several variables which challenge the standards for achieving a top networth. For example, you have the "landtraders" themselves, who acquire large amounts of land. (This is not so different from getting fat from farming untaggeds... it takes a similar number of turns, and is more risky than bottomfeeding.) You also have the high-defense countries that will inevitably steal that land mid-set. This challenges the idea that land should either be acquired by farming untaggeds/camping DRs (an old tradition that I'm philosophically opposed to), or through marginal gains in uncoordinated, aggressive grab exchanges.

If you consider the latter, which you gave examples of, what are the exact differences between this type of grabbing and the type of grabbing that takes place between "landtraders"? It seems the main difference is intention - "landtraders" intend for both parties to profit, bottomfeeders intend to take the land from countries that cannot possibly retaliate. There are other potential differences, such as the time between grabs, etc., but fundamentally it's a difference in intention. I guess my point here is to ask, how can you ever regulate intention? And why would you want to, if the net result is generative?

I have recently "landtraded" with RD, Evo, Sanct, LCN, NA, and Monsters. Each to a various degree of coordination and congeniality, but always with the intention of both parties benefiting from incremental gains in ghost acres. I think the only exchanges you'd have a problem with are the ones with RD, as they were the most optimized and, thus, profitable.

Essentially, from my perspective, you disagree with congeniality and coordination in land grabbing. Not an unfair point to make if you argue that this game is purely a war game. However, we also have a long-established tradition of this not being just a war game. Hence policies like land:land, which assert that countries have a right to retrieve all of their land when hit. Hence pacts loaded with clauses about reps for lost production, etc.

I do not think people who have not tried to play in a style of optimized, mutually-beneficial grabbing can appreciate the challenges of so-called "landtrading". It is not free land on top of traditional play styles. If you're going to 40k+ acres, you're chronically under defended, tech-thin, with no stock until week 5. All of your income is spent building acres, trying to keep enough offense to make retals, and trying to keep tech up. I will concede that the potential payoff is huge, which obviously is why someone would want to play this way. But just because it's a high-risk, high-reward strategy does not mean it is bad for the server. It just means it challenges the superiority of other strategies that have less risk involved.

The main way that I see this being exploitative in the way you insinuate is if an alliance were to completely pact out so that they could do mutually-beneficial grabbing in a bubble, thereby eliminating the 'high risk' aspect of the grabbing strategy. That's why PDM has gone to great lengths to make sure that our countries who are getting super fat through grabbing are subject to normal retal policies rather than being cloistered away in some netting bubble. The result of that has been gains shared with many different tags with whom we have good relations. Like any other situation that involves grabbing, when the grabs get hostile, it becomes a different scenario.

Maybe ghost acres are over-powered (though again, we've never seen a "landtrader" stack up successfully against LaF/Evo's top netters), but don't throw the baby out with the bath water just because some players are trying something different. Anyway, my unedited three cents.

Balin, that was a good read. I can't say, without rereading the entire post again, that I can pick out one argument that I don't agree with.