Right now, it takes very very few MBRs to overwhelm the market with troops and tanks. The supply of tanks & troops from a few reselling MBRs is just too much for many servers.

To make MBR more competitive, the PM regeneration rate should be reduced, and the effectiveness of military bases should be increased to compensate for this decrease in PM regeneration.

This would also make dropping your stockpile buy buying military only from your private market more difficult for countries, and thus encourage more usage of the public market when dropping stockpile. Rather than the predictable supply of military from your private market, one would be reliant upon a less predictable supply of military on the public market. Lengthening the destocking process for countries stockpiling and then switching to TMBR would be a positive change as it would increase their return on their stockpile due to cheaper military prices, but it would cost them more stockpiling time due to the increased time period needed to drop their stockpile.


Early set TMBR is a viable but difficult strategy, and the most difficult aspect is the lack of demand for troops and tanks and the exceedingly high networth per acre an early set TMBR has. Decreasing the PM replenishment rate would alleviate both of these difficulties, but without an increase in military base effectiveness, their income per acre would drop to the point of them not being competitive.

edit: ran the numbers, altered the suggestion in the following paragraph accordingly
Cutting PM regeneration by 25%, and increasing the military base maximum cut in prices from 25% to 40% should keep them fairly balanced while making it more possible for a few people to play TMBR without overwhelming the server.

edit: how wrong I was on the math....
I'll have to do the math at some point to see if my off the top of my head estimate is correct, but the 50% cut in regen & 60% boost from 25 to 40 for building effectiveness seems about right to me.

ok, absolute min prices, (100% mb with max tech) are...
_________Theo________Demo
_________25%__40%____25%__40%
Troops____77____62______88____71
Jets_____103____82_____118____94
Turrets___112____90____129_____103
Tanks____315___252_____360___288

As well as improving profit on slow selling tanks and troops your change will actually make selling jets and turrets a very worthwhile prospect for an eartly set TMBR - also for a DMBR.

Looking at 10k Theo, 180 cs, 200 ind, 120k mil tech (90.55%) then...

@25%______Private___Public___Units_in_6_hrs__Profit
Troops_______79_______120_______360,000_______12.17m
Jets________106_______130_______300,000_______4.86m
Turrets______116_______130_______300,000_______1.86m
Tanks_______324_______520_______120,000_______19.78m

Total profit = $38.66m
(Demo MBR profit would be $29.58m - no profit on turrets at this price for DMBR)

@40%______Private___Public___Units_in_6_hrs__Profit
Troops_______64_______120_______180,000_______8.78m
Jets_________86_______130_______150,000_______5.43m
Turrets_______94_______130_______150,000_______4.23m
Tanks_______262_______520________60,000_______13.61m

Total profit = $32.05m
(Demo MBR profit would be $29.04m)

@25%______Private___Public___Units_in_6_hrs__Profit
Troops_______79_______105_______360,000_______7.09m
Jets________106_______110_______300,000_______-0.78m
Turrets______116_______110_______300,000_______-3.78m
Tanks_______324_______480_______120,000_______15.26m

Total profit = $22.36m (tanks + troops only)
(Demo MBR profit would be $17.28m)

@40%______Private___Public___Units_in_6_hrs__Profit
Troops_______64_______105_______180,000_______6.25m
Jets_________86_______110_______150,000_______2.61m
Turrets_______94_______110_______150,000_______1.41m
Tanks_______262_______480________60,000_______11.35m

Total profit = $21.62m
(Demo MBR profit would be $17.94m)

[At 60% regen and 40% reductions, profit for
low public prices above would give $25.94m
high public prices above would give $38.46m]

This would, I think, have a small effect on commie indies as mbr would make sales of jets and turrets if they had bought out their tanks and troops.

I have to think more on whether this would be a good or bad thing for full or half set mbr. I think I agree with what you say about late TMBR destocking.

As a TMBR you already sell jets and turrets in addition to selling troops and tanks. If the number of countries playing TMBR remained constant, decreasing the regeneration rate of jets and turrets would help commie indies rather than hurt them because it would decrease the rate at which TMBRs were putting their jets and turrets onto the market.





Now that I have the time to do the math...

To use the prices of 79/106/116/324 as the current base for TMBR, the change would move prices to 63/84/92/259

If prices early on are at 130/170/180/540, then with current regen rates, a TMBR makes $43.2 per troop, 53.8 per jet, 53.2 per turret, and $183.6 per tank, for a total of $129.6+134.5+133+183.6= $580.7 per acre.
With regen halved and military bases boosted in effectiveness by 60%, a TMBR makes $59.2 per troop, $75.8 per jet. $77.2 per turret, and $248.6 per tank for a total of $88.8+94.75+96.5+124.3 = $404.35 per acre.

If we instead cut replenishment by just 25% while boosting military bases by 60%, then TMBRs would make $606.52 per acre at high military prices. This is similar enough to the current income per acre to be viable. My initial guess was way off, unfortunately.


However, when military prices are lower, increasing the strength of military bases and reducing private market regeneration would strengthen TMBRs a lot more.

If prices were say 120/140/140/480, then currently a TMBR makes just $33.8 per troop, $25.6 per jet, $15.6 per jet, and $127.2 per tank. Thats an income of just $310.7 per acre.
But if we cut regen in half and boosted MBs by 60%, then a MBR makes $49.8 per troop, 47.6 per jet, 39.6 per turret, and $192.2 per tank for an income of $279.8 per acre, or an income of $419.7 per acre if PM regeneration is only cut by 25%. Allowing them $420 profit per acre at low military prices does not make them overpowered.



So after doing the math, I will alter my original suggestion and claim that boosting MBs from a 25% maximum decrease in military prices to a 40% maximum decrease in military prices, combined with a 25% cut in private market regeneration would help balance them out a little bit better, and would make the end of set destocking period off one's private market take a bit longer, which is a good thing.

Given the numbers I've shown, it does not make TMBRs Overpowered, and gives them only a slight boost in income per acre at high military prices, while making them not as painful at lower military prices, and decreasing the flooding of the market with military that happens if there are too many MBRs.

Since MBRs are extremely rare for the first 80% of the set, and still find themselves able to create more supply than demand while being under 1% of countries on the server, giving them a 25% cut in supply while allowing them to maintain their current profit per acre would help slightly in making the strategy a little bit easier.

"As a TMBR you already sell jets and turrets in addition to selling troops and tanks. "

Only if it's profitable. I've only just started playing again but in the last tourney set selling jets and turrets for profit was impossible until the last few days. With prices ranging from 99-110 for both jets and turrets there simply was no profit.

Whilst it was profitable to sell jets in primary in the last set it was only barely so for a while and in previous sets, according to eestats.com, there have been times when a tmbr would not have made a profit at all on jets and/or turrets for a large proportion of the set.

I agree with you and think the market regen@50% would be too low, but I think you're putting it too high with a reduction @25%. I think 35-40% would be closer to maintain the profitability without skewing it too much in favour of the tmbr.

I like it.

That's correct. There is a small portion of the set in both primary and alliance where it is not profitable to resell Jets and Turrets. I was surprised at how long it lasted in primary, but I am aware of the upcoming phase on the alliance server and I hope to have the stockpile to get through that phase.

If you look at the profit per acre numbers with a 25% reduction in PM regeneration, I don't think it makes TMBRs too strong. When you compare it to the profit per acre of a well-teched indy. casher, or farmer, or with a techer with decent tech prices, you will see that even with a 25% reduction, they are barely able to match other strategies in profit per acre.

Hm I like it, but TMBR is very much slagpit-territory; plus he has another mechanic in the work atm that might require some of this to be adjusted... but yes, i like the basic idea..

I realize this is a radical suggestion... But in order to regulate the market. Why not make the regeneration rate of the private market dependant on the number of MBs averaged for ALL players on a server. Thus a higher number of MBs in play would make the regen slower, thus compensating for the higher number of MBRs playing.

This way it's impossible to play the numbers. Because your gains will depend on how many other people will choose the same strat. A basic supply and demand implementation really.....

MBR is already difficult enough. Your suggestion would make it even more difficult, when in fact, we need to be doing the opposite.

Top.

This change would have a very minor effect as to TMBRs, because the strategy is so rare, but the effect it would have on destocking strategy would be good. Decreasing the rate at which people can destock on their private market is a good change.

Why should our goal be to increase the number of TMBRs? Only weird players like us play it all set.

If we really feel that TMBR needs to be improved further, I would point out that increasing the effectiveness of military bases with respect to military expenses would seem to strengthen all set TMBR without screwing up destocking.

The goal isn't to increase the number of TMBRs, but to make the strategy less risky without changing its upside too much.

Its also to change the current destocking patterns, which allow players to destock too quickly in my opinion.

Expenses is a minor issue with TMBR, compared to the more major issues of lack of demand for tanks and troops, and the difficulty of grabbing with such a high networth. My suggestion addresses all three problems, addressing the issue of expenses only affects one of those.

even if you did change things is it possible to do it wihout killing indy?

youd have to leave jets/turrets high so that indy still has ok income but drop troops/tanks

does that cause a problem with .6/210 being a lot higher than .5/145 already

otherwise using your 25 to 40 change youd go from an effect on turrets at about 150 to an effect on turrets at about 135 which could hurt indies a lot, and with jets about 10% lower than that

TMBRs resell jets and turrets already. Decreasing the PM replenishment rate of jets and turrets for TMBRs will decrease the supply of jets and turrets on the public market (by a very tiny amount, since TMBRs are nearly non-existant) rather than increase it, so if anything, increasing military base efficiency while decreasing PM replenishment helps indies rather than hurts them.

but it could increase the people playing tmbr

and total resold military, as well as decreasing the price at which the military can be resold

so that could set a new ceiling or semi ceiling on mil prices for indies as well

im saying that a tmbr shouldnt be reselling turrets now at all unless turrets go over 150, but if the mbases were changed to 40 that would change to only 135 and jets to about 123

changing the market conditions at which additional volume comes on tap

It would be terrible for a strategy to have weaknesses, wouldn't it?

Its terrible if those weaknesses are not offset by strengths to make up for it. Higher risk without higher reward, thats the problem.

TMBR has potential for pretty good reward

it depends on the market!

Well why don't you go ahead and tell us how you adapted the TMBR strategy to the environment of the alliance server? It is rather unreasonable to expect to be able to play a strategy in the same way across all servers.

id still much rather start tweaking mbases effects on expenses than anything else

maybe tie mbases expenses to turns taken and turns lost if you wanted to not benefit destockers

can always raise the cap and decrease the effectiveness if you want to be sure mbases arnt too good for anything rainbowy