I'm confused as to why people don't invest more in spy tech over more spies. You're missing out on millions of networth by choosing to go with solely the latter.

I believe the raw SPAL, sans tech, has more weight in the success formula. Can anyone confirm?

the formula was changed a bit ago to where number of spies play a larger role than they used to. it used to be spal only, but people overpowered that by dropping land. you would have to find the announcements thread to get exact changes.

but people do purchase spy tech, on other servers. i have it just about every war set. on a solo server where the number of ops one does is relatively low and it is rarely used in a war situation, obviously spy tech demand is low. not to mention the market is constantly thin as fugg.


your source of common misconceptions arises from this being your primary server. this is not the pace and type of game play any other server has. this is the stepchild server, not the other way around.

Misconception? I'm posting in the EXPRESS forums. My question is directed strictly to the EXPRESS environment.

and i gave you the reasons. thin market, low number of harmful ops needed.

spy tech is an offensive tech. this is primarily a netting server in which using ops negates your protection. having a high spal for normal ops is silly. not to mention the formula change that was touched on.



dont get all butthurt over one word. you have been known for your misconceptions. deal with it.

I think on this server you can get away with a pretty low SPAL if you're not warring, especially as a non-techer, I never go for spy tech on express mostly because you don't need a ton of spies anyway, except that one week where I had like 600k spies on 15k acres, but that was just stupid as you were quick to point out lol

Ok Mrford, give me a reasonable number of spies a t5 player has on EXPRESS. I'm going to show you the math. Would you say 300k spies?

i dont know why you are talking about math. where are you going with this?

Im going to show you even for the exclusive mission of defensively, the increase in food and expenses outweigh having more spies over spy tech. So give me a reasonable #. And I've seen h2o finish with like 500-600k spies. So give me something reasonable.

all i know is people tend not to do it because it is not economically efficient on this server if one aims to score well

It adds up to be a huge savings. Sorta like the free GDI bonus. Conventional thinking is that why spend millions on spy tech,. But its actually in most reasonable cases worth it.

Someone who ranked t5 give me how many spies you finished with.

i never have more than 100K spies. i usually build 100-200 indys and have them on 100% spies.

not to mention that this set, all set, there has been less than 7000 points sold. there isnt a market for it.


spy tech is generally most effective when you carry a high number of spies, like in a war on alliance where people generally want 100+ SPALs.


the same can be said for med tech. they are support techs for breakers and spy countries. most useful in clan situations, otherwise it is too wasteful if your goal is netting. that money could go into another tech and probably see better returns.

bottom line is, if you are just using it defensively, someone will get your op if they want it. if you are defending against harmful ops, you probably should have joined GDI or not kept all your stock onhand. high spals when netting really arnt warranted. making spy tech in low demand.

Nobody on EXPRESS finishes t5 with 100k spies.

that isnt what i said. i understand that you can read, but your ability to comprehend is abysmal.

go for it. start a spy tech market. let me know how that works out for you. you have clearly already made your mind up.

Is it really that hard to give me a number. The reason there's no market is because of the misconception of it. If people saw how much they'd save there would be a market.

i dont understand why you keep asking me to tell you how many spies a top 5 country has. im not a tryhard like you are, i dont op other netting countries and watch what they are doing.

500k

I just want too see you do all the math

i do this! heh

http://www.earthempires.com/express/266/ranks/11 127K spies rank #2
http://www.earthempires.com/express/266/ranks/6 50K spies rank #4
http://www.earthempires.com/express/265/ranks/21 0 spies rank #1

misconceptions

They obviously sold their spies. You get annoyed when I pinpoint the grammatical correctness of your sentences but now you're pinpointing the exactness of my sentences.

The point I'm making is that those who finish t5/t10 do not have just 50k spies. If they did, it was an extreme risk, and lucky. You probably could find someone who finished without any turrets too. You're avoiding my entire point.

I want to see the math too 😁

well im sure he didn't go through the set with 0 spies right? how much networth does 1 spy have? probably sold them and bought more net-efficient military

im not a top 5 finisher.. but how about 300k spies on 15k acres with reaching land goal at turn 1100?

Ok 1 sec., working math.

lol you have excuses or explanations for everything dont you? why are you even debating this? like i said, you already made your mind up, do the math. then spend $5000 per point for a month and maybe people will come around. probably not though.

a spy is worth $1 NW wise, and can be sold for ~$170 on your PM. there is no more efficient NW/$ ratio. it could have been done for expenses purposes after a land goal was reached, but then the spy tech that was bought would be worthless, negating his entire point to start with. you want to buy 200K tech points for 2 days work? i wouldnt.

he will figure this out eventually though. it is fun to watch him work through it.

I'd love to see the math. It doesn't work.

Right now I've got 63,740 spies on 6306 acres with spy tech at %134.0

Spy tech is good and a cost saver imo but hard to manage in Express, better in longer sets like Primary.

such a short time to gain land and get to the top you aren't really wanting to waste resources on unnecessary tech

So I finished the math. I even made a small program if any of you want to fool around with the #s. It's written in PHP, and you can run it by copy / paste on Counding Grounds (just google it and select php).

<?php

$a = 272;
$b = 0;
$turn = 0;

while ($turn < 1100)
{
$total = $a+$b;
$b = $total;


$total2 = $total2 + $total;
$total4 = ($total2-$total2*.80);
$fcost = ($total4 *.005 *34);

$turn++;

print "Spies made: " . $total . "\n";
print "Spies total cost: " . $total2 . "\n";
print "Food cost: " . $fcost . "\n";


print "80% of total spy cost: " . $total4 . "\n\n";
}

?>

This code in summary does a few things.
It calculates the cost of spies from turns 0 - 1100 in increments totaling 300k spies.
It displays food costs for the extra spies (that the spy tech would cover).
It displays the # of spies and their cost per turn if you were to add them up each turn.

Results:
Spies made: 299200 (after 1100 turns)
Spies total cost: 164709600
Food cost: 5600126.4
80% of total spy cost: 32941920

If anyone has any questions as to what a specific line does in the code i typed- please ask.

My findings:
Major factors which determine if buying tech is worth it:
1. Land size
2. SPAL objective
3. tech price
4. Turn # in which you reach your SPAL objective

EXPRESS lasts 1900 turns. These results are based on reaching SPAL goal at turn 1100. The differences in #s are not significantly different if that # were to change by +/- 200.

15k land and 300k spies are about EVEN if you were to buy spy tech @2500 to 120%.
10k land and 300k spies favors buying spy tech to 120% by 34 mil.

As your SPAL approaches 30 the benefit to buying tech to 120% becomes more favorable on EXPRESS. (With tech prices at 2500)

I stopped at 120% because the gains vs the cost of the tech are best at this point.

A very general description of how I came to this conclusion... as all my calculations are on paper.
300k / 1100 (total spies / turns) = how many spies per turn = 272


=======================================================================
Based on 10k land 300k spies (30 SPAL)
appx. 33 million saved for turns 0-1100 on spies.
appx. 87 million spent for 35k tech @ 2500 to get 120% tech
appx. 35 million made for reselling spy tech to autobuy (@1000)
appx. 40 million saved for turns 1100-1900
appx. 14 million saved on food for spies not bought

total saved appx 34 million.

Based on 15k land 300k spies (20 SPAL)
Only thing that changes is amount of tech needed.
appx 127 million spent for 51k needed @ 2500

total lost appx 6 million.

So in summary, making millions of networth is generally not going to happen unless you're going above 30 SPAL.

weird huh?

This misses point. My suggestion was not to make the spies at all and sub them for spy tech. The players you posted probably saved close to 360 turns just before the end of the set. Sold about 400k spies (effectively saving about 400k per turn on expenses.) 360*400k = 144mil. // 360*600k = 216mil // all depends on how many spies they were carrying around., but certainly worth it considering the last 2 hrs the humantarian effect is based on turns left in set (narrowing someone targeting you unless you recently grabbed them).

Wow, funny thread. Is Mr Misconception for real?

im going to need you to read my post again. you just explained in a really stupid way what i had said in my post. discounting the fact that i was responding to buttman, and not you.


this is why i have a hard time taking you seriously. bit i am glad that you did all that math and work just to find out what i was saying all along.

You didn't say anything Ford. Remember? You wouldn't even give me a #.

Nor did you come to the conclusion that 30 SPAL is where it breaks even.

No instead your posts are more of the same. Critical and no substance. No learning value from your posts.

As for the math, that wasn't work. That was pleasure. Hasn't my posts revealed that by now?

i told you spy tech wasnt worth it, as did a half dozen other people.

you didnt believe anyone, that is fine. dont belittle everyone else's experience because we dont feel like playing into your math game that most did a decade ago.

Most of these posts I make are for future players who might one day wonder an idea. I could easily keep all my ideas to myself but I share my findings. I hope one day they'll be able to read my posts with useful mathematical equations and see why one idea works and another one doesn't.

But when they see your posts, what will they remember? A bitter old man who rants, who uses name calling and slanderous behavior?!

mrford got a point. These calculations have been made long time ago by most players.

Good to see you know php as well, you'r pretty amazing Celphi!!

if that is what you choose to believe then so be it. i know i have helped many, many players in this game, and none of them were with the blatant misunderstandings that you always seem to cause when asking questions.

Nothin wrong in being old and bitter. You will become an old man too. A few years from now you'r actually a grown up yourself

It is worth it if you go above 30 SPAL. Right now- players aren't using farming strats with bomb banks. But if they did they'd be making 1.5x their income on those who bank a lot on person. I bet SPAL will become important later on as people change their strategies. GDI doesn't protect against bomb banks.

the funny part is im 28. im not old and bitter, im young and tired of stupidity rampant on these boards. maybe jaded is a better term. not to mention that i have been extremely cordial in this thread considering.

@ford. Just click your name dude. Read your old posts. 90% of your posts are rants & calling people stupid. The names I clicked as a new player whose posts I learned a lot from were Xin & h20.

"well what i found is that it isnt worth it if you run a netting spal, but if everyone changed the way they play my math could have been worth it!"

you are confusing my troll posts with my informative posts. that is fine, i am aware of your simplistic view of the world. maybe if you think really hard you will be able to understand. anyone who asks me a serious question about game mechanics gets a serious answer. you did, until you decided my answer wasnt good enough. oh well

Here, ill help you. : http://www.earthempires.com/...mp;exact=1&orderdir=1