We've listened to your feedback and have come up with a proposed list of changes for the express server. The main goals of these changes are to encourage grabbing, discourage random suiciding, tie up various loose ends, and to try out a few new ideas. These will be added to the game once we feel that we've received enough feedback about them. The express server will be closely monitored after the changes are implemented to see if anything needs to be adjusted or rolled back. The planned and proposed changes are below:

-Remove oil.
Oiler doesn't appear to be a viable strategy on this server and a lack of oil on the market can mean that players won't be able to grab for a day. Oil on express strikes me as being a nuisance.

-Countries start with 72 (0) turns maximum.
This means that players will have 2 full days and 5 or so hours to create a country without losing turns instead of 3 full days. We considered other solutions to eliminate undesirable early game antics, but as long as players are able to do whatever they want for a full day without consequences there will be problems.
Further clarification: Countries created before the set start with 0(0) turns, countries created during the first 4.8 hours have the usual amount of turns, and countries created after the first 4.8 hours only get 72(0) turns.

-Changing around public market constants.
Specifically: maximum market sale sale percentage raised from 25% to 45%, time to market raised from 0-0.5 hours to 0.5-1 hours, time on market raised from 8 hours to 16 hours, and turns to recall raised from 3 to 5. This will hopefully cut down on some of the undercutting and make non-casher strategies easier to play.

-The scores update will be every 15 minutes instead of every 5 minutes.
Hopefully this will cut down on end of server suiciding and allow players to play their turns without being in a state of frenzy.

-Increase starting resources.
Starting acres will now be 500A, cash will be $250k, food will be 5k, and base bpt will be 20. This is more of a test to see the effects of accelerating the beginning part of the game.

-Decrease maximum daily spy ops to 100.
It seems a little bit unnecessary to be able to get 2 spy ops on every single country in the game twice a day.

-Minimum ally time will be 24 hours and sending foreign aid will be impossible.
These rules should better fit the short length and the individual nature of the express server.

-Reduce the "unable to drop land window" from 72 hours to 24 hours.
This seems more appropriate for a server that only lasts five days.

-Declaring war will be removed.
This is related to the final change.

-Completely changing the GDI system.
GDI will now serve as suicider prevention. The proposed rule set is as follows:
--Minimum GDI time is the whole length of the set.
--Cost is $5 per acre.
--Countries in GDI will only be able to do standard strikes, planned strikes, steal tech, or burn bushels to countries which have done at least 2 attacks or offensive spy ops towards them.
--Countries not in GDI attacking countries in GDI will only be able to do standard strikes, planned strikes, steal tech, or burn bushels, unless the country in GDI has attacked them more than once.
-If a country has done a special attack in the past 24 hours it cannot join GDI.

We are basically requiring countries to do two or more attacks before all out war can start between them. Players of course need to opt into this protection, but countries will no longer be able to randomly AB GDI countries that haven't attacked them more than twice.

Please post any concerns, comments, or questions that you have. Keep in mind that these changes are NOT going to be implied to the current set. It may take a few weeks to get them all coded in properly.

thanks for your imaginative improvements to the game
thanks for your diligence

GDI is huge so lets deal with the samll stuff first

oil-great idea
turns-had to be done
although i did love early game antics)))

market-some techers love to give away their stuff for nothing
not sure you can legislatively stop that
good attempt though
one of the things about the 0.0 market though was when you placed something for sale you could be close to certain that no underpriced goods were en route, reducing that certainty by half an hour seems antithetical to your goal
commies lose one of their enhancements or is their market percentage increased to 60?

scoring updates -the state of frenzy is what express is all about, maybe you could change the name of the server to the frenzied server))), i think the last two hours of express are the best part of the site and i even multitask watch it when LaEx has killed me because of a tip from an admin)))))
it seems like tons of people are on line for the end of express
lots of ingame messaging is done in those two hours
friendships are built and antagonisms solidified
it builds server loyalty to watch the changing fortunes of countries in the last few minutes
end of server clan protection and random missling are out of hand of course but i think this idea while well intentioned is absolutely horrible and harmful to the server, we do not want to lose that end of set chaos and the crowds it draws
is there a way to conduct an end of set online census?
two ideas that are not original with me that i love
1) allow players one post set log in to see the final frantic news
2) make sure the final score update is immediately available
frenzy, chaos, and every player on line for end of set must be preserved, not obliterated

ISR great idea one of the routine suggestions for express is to slightly increase the number of turns, this does that very slightly and is beneficial

Decrease spy ops- horrific idea certainly no one needs to spy on every other country twice a day, but lets look at why 200 spy ops a day are not enough
on express you can have 450(300) and you get 300 turns in a twenty hour period, that means that you can have a 24 hour period where you play 1100 turns
because of the vagaries of the server there are three prime LG times and one of them occurs when a judicious player has at least 600 turns stockpiled
it is also a time when the techers are sitting around with huge caches of tech and no spies
one can easily spend 200 turns on espionage alone on every sunday afternoon in a legitimate effort to improve your country
since your LG prey countries have developed by 400 turns since you last spied on them, you must repeat the op
because they are in spy dr you lose repeatedly even when your SPAL is twenty times theirs
if you want to limit the number of spy ops per set but they never expire i can almost see that but banning spies in an otherwise frantic server is wrong
you are trying to stop these crazied spiers who for no reason launch over a hundred failed spy ops, i have no idea why they do that but reducing the skill level in the game is not the answer

allies-good idea

GDI-
I think at its core this is an excellent concept but i am concerned about keeping the end of set chaos while losing the random attacks and clan activity
but as they say the devil is in the details

countries in gdi can only ss...
can gdi countries special attack anyone they want?
or they cant special anyone?
if they can then in theory i could join gdi and AB somebody to death, he cant drop his land and he cant special retal because i am in gdi if he wants to special retal he has to join gdi because then he is allowed to special retal
but if countries in gdi can not special attack then what is to stop me from joining gdi and never buying a troop or a tank?
i just allx and get turrets and run my nw to insanely high amounts

what is the wait time between an attack and joining gdi?

how late in the set can a country join gdi?

i think that a player should have to opt into this gdi by no later than turn 900, playing 1799 turns and then saying oh no one can hit me should not be allowed
is it possible that these random abing idiots serve a purpose because they require players to buy things that they ordinarily would not buy?
even the disgusting slug has a place in the ecosystem maybe we need these morons to stop from devolving into an allx all turret society

i wish you success in your efforts and frankly on a personal note i believe that most of these changes would help my strat

--Minimum GDI time is the whole length of the set.

The only change that I am not in favor of, would be:
-Increase starting resources.
Starting acres will now be 500A, cash will be $250k, food will be 5k, and base bpt will be 20. This is more of a test to see the effects of accelerating the beginning part of the game.

I just feel like that is a huge change to the mechanics of the game. Why do you need to speed up the beginning of the game when you are going to be given 72 turns? Even without the turn change, you get a new turn every 4 minutes, does it need to be sped up?

if kingme is correct and you must opt in or out at turn 1
then i like the idea more

Not everyone starts out with 72 turns right off the bat, only those who start late.

Added a few clarifications.

"if they can then in theory i could join gdi and AB somebody to death, he cant drop his land and he cant special retal because i am in gdi if he wants to special retal he has to join gdi because then he is allowed to special retal"

Because you attacked that country more than once, the country not in GDI attack you however he saw fit.

"but if countries in gdi can not special attack then what is to stop me from joining gdi and never buying a troop or a tank?"

You would save on the cost of troops and tanks but for the most part this is a nominal cost anyway. GDI was increased in cost from $3 to $5 to make up for it, and countries could still do steal tech and burn bushels spy ops on you even if you're in GDI.

ok thx for the clarifications

wont this decrease demand for troops and tanks thereby hurting those theos who want to buy cheaply on the private market and sell on the public market?

it should prove interesting

interesting how you get one free landgrab that can not be special retaled

No oil? Interesting. I was just fine tuning my skills of an oiler over in the tourny and primary sets. Was looking forward to trying it out in express in the next set or two.

500 acres to start would be interesting. I think I'd have to try a 0 exploring strat and just build 500 tech buildings and go from there to see what happens, just for fun.

Someone above mentioned it, and I've said it before (so maybe they got the idea from me), I would love to see a "one chance login" after the set to see what chaos was brought to my country in the last minutes.

I'm not sure if slowing the score update rate down would help to be honest. Might make people wait until the last 14 minutes before making their final push. What would be interesting is "Randomly updating". Sometimes 2 minutes, sometimes an hour...who knows. Wouldn't that drive the people on EEstats nuts! lol.

9 replies and 107 views, I'll take that to mean that almost no one has any objections?

u say that oil serves no purpose on express

this may get me a year long lp ban but i disagree)))))

it serves no market purpose
it does not help Fs who will need a different enhancement

but

it does deter special retals by netters
it serves as a small impediment to an emotional response to an LG

currently when an all x player gets hit in order to retal he has to spy. buy oil, and then AB
if the price of oil is high enough, no ab
the mere requiremant to buy oil may have stopped countless soecial retals

if u remove the oil you will get more special attacks

I am slow...So i suppose you mean that there will be no oil requirements for any kind of attack?(and no production/sales of course)

That's true, starstalker4. What if someone wants to grab but there isn't any oil on the market for the hour he has available to do it?

I'm willing to keep oil in enough players want it to be in.

I have a suggestion...and really just a suggestion, not much "thinking this one through" has been done yet, but, what if we could sell missiles?

-Remove oil.
I support this change. Oil has been $30-50 this set which makes it meaningless. Fs should get another gov't bonus though.

-Countries start with 72 (0) turns maximum.
I also support this change. It hurts cashers a little but cash starts should be very weak.

-Changing around public market constants.
I DO NOT support most of these changes. Raising max sale % is fine but changing time on market, time to market, and recall turns will hurt indies, farmers and techers and help cashers. The time on market change is the biggest nerf to producers but the combo of all three is really nasty. REDUCING time on market to 4 hours or at least leaving it at 8 hours should be considered.

-The scores update will be every 15 minutes instead of every 5 minutes.
As long as this doesn't apply to search, I don't care about it.

-Increase starting resources.
Why do you need to mess with starting mechanics in addition to all of these other changes? It appears that this change would help cash and food starts and hurt all other types of starts. I'm sure you've done the statistical analysis and can confirm. This doesn't seem necessary.

-Decrease maximum daily spy ops to 100.
EXCELLENT IDEA!!! This will make it much more difficult for idiots to kill netters via spy ops alone.

-Minimum ally time will be 24 hours and sending foreign aid will be impossible.
Both make perfect sense.

-Reduce the "unable to drop land window" from 72 hours to 24 hours.
Not being able to drop land has never been a factor for me. Maybe my gameplay isn't advanced enough. I don't see a problem with this change.

-Declaring war will be removed.
Fine with me.

-Completely changing the GDI system.
A lot to digest here. Making GDI a turn 1 choice and reducing the cost to FREE would be more interesting but I think that I'm still in favor of these changes.

However, you've neglected to consider the biggest change needed to Express: reduce DRs for SS and PS! A few early grabs basically results in some countries having immunity to attacks for the rest of the set--they can then go crazy grabbing with little concern of retaliation. However, a country that plays nice and manages to avoid getting retal'd for most of the set is punished later by attacks hurting a lot more. DRs in Express should last for 4 hours, not 24 hours. That along with the GDI changes will make things MUCH more interesting.

Another fun change would be awarding bonus turns differently: 3 for staying logged out for 2.5 hours and 6 for staying logged out for 4 hours.

Thank you for realizing that something needs to be done to fix Express. The current version is best suited for idiots and saboteurs, not those who simply want to play a fast paced version of EE.

Something else that might be worth considering is DRs based on size for attacking larger countries vs just smaller countries. It's currently much easier for a small NW country to harm a large NW country than the other way around. I understand that there needs to be a balance but things are currently way too much in favor of small countries.

The idea behind the market changes isn't necessarily to hurt cashers. What I'd like to do is even out the public market somewhat and make it easier for indies and techers to play their turns. As it stands, standing orders are vastly underused on this server and turret demand can go from 3500k per hour to 600k per hour to to 350k per hour. There are probably even more extreme examples than that. Having a 0-30 min time to market encourages gambling and undercutting and does not help in situations where there are is just no demand.

I'm also not sure if a drop in time on market to four hours is good. What if you want to put your goods on at a relatively high price while you sleep? What if literally no one buys the good you're trying to sell for four hours?

As for DR, if a country grabs then it will take itself out of DR. We could do something like having a country's DR reduced to 0 if it makes a single grab?

I also don't really understand what you mean by a smaller country harming a large one.

Increasing time on market and turns to recall will encourage undercutting even more than we currently have. You're absolutely screwed if your stuff doesn't sell and 192 turns will accrue while you're waiting for your goods to come back. Compare that with 96 turns for Primary and 115 for Tournament.

Maybe a better solution would be to encourage Express players to play more frequently? 4 hours of Express = 1 day of primary. 4.8 hours of Express = 1 day of Tournament. Players are encouraged to play Primary and Tournament at least once daily, perhaps encouraging play every 4-5 hours in Express would help? Decrease the number of max (stored) turns and/or give bonuses at 2, 4, and/or 6 hours instead of 12/18 hours. Players playing more frequently would help to stabilize market supply and demand and encourage more even growth among countries. Of course this would reward the people who can afford to play multiple times throughout the day (students, the unemployed, or those who can play at work) so I'm sure that many would object.

Any decrease to Express DRs would make me very happy. It's currently very difficult to find a good LG target not in DRs and if single grabbing is strongly encouraged with the new rules, it will be even more difficult.

On second thought, I think the new GDI will fix all of my concerns about small countries being able to rip apart much larger countries. As a new player to EE (I played E:2025 way back in the day), Express is frustrating because a 3mil NW country can cause disproportionate amounts of damage to a 15mil NW country. That has been my experience so far.

Smaller countries are set up to do less damage to larger countries, unless you mean situations where a smaller country will spend 250 turns getting tanks and the next 200 turns ABing someone, or buying warfare and running 450 turns launching missiles as he gets them. The NW and size advantage still works in favor of the large country, but it's very difficult to defend against.

I don't know if there's that much player demand for a server that demands so much of your time. I think I like changing the time to market from 15-45 and allowing players to specify the time on the market for each packages of goods.

I love this idea!

the idea that DR ends if you hit someone just encourages the vanilla all x strat

DR is a problem with the server