i dont see a problem with it. it only creates more land in the game. as long as people arent cheating to do so it shouldnt matter.

i don't remember specifically donny. i know there were the bot-filters that suspended you if you attacked too fast etc. maybe related?

donny is right, there was deff a penalty for this

I say all countries with more then 300k acres get deleted by the mods for over self farming. anyone with more then 1m acres get banned.

that only happened if you didn't delete cookies b/t logins and only for part of the game

no one was ever deleted for self farming

Yup - Donny's right. I think it kicked in on over-farming extremely small (relationally) countries w/ a 1k or less break on them as well.

It was a 24 hr acct suspension if I remember correctly.

That one got me a couple of times

For once i actually agree with donny. I think this rule should come back as well.

I knew as soon as i saw a certain clan self farming that it would only encourage them to go that further step and actually start cheating. Because it would never be enough to just farm your own countries.

I agree as well. If you are limited to 15, why ruin a lot of your countries and make them solely farms. What seems to be the case is that the worst of the self farmers, cheated to make their own multie countries.

eh..delete cookies...a 'work around'?
[edit]

I agree as well

no one was ever deleted for self farming

Ya, even in the old days, your account just got suspended every once in a blue moon.

llaar speaks truth, but it was a 24 hour suspension offense, and for the most part was solely software enforced.

the cookie thing wouldn't affect the current setup either. the way ffa's set up now, one login and 15 countries, you'd have to at the least set up cross-farming between you and somebody else for automatic scripts to not say "hay despie*, quit taking your own land"

*not to imply despie selffarms. i just enjoy harrassing him.

i was mostly pointing out that it's unavoidable :p

i don't farm myself, I farm aodt

Doesn't take any talent to drop defenses and farm yourself. Personally, I could care less if people do it, but they're not in the same league as guys going out there who are grabbing and defending or getting acres through retals.

Myself, I never did it. No way for me to measure how good or bad a player I am unless I'm doing the same things the same way the top notch guys are doing it.

It's like kissing your sister. No thrill. Unless you live here in West Virginia.

Can I kiss your sister?

When I'm done with her.

I am wish you Dragon!! I remember talking to you waaay back in the days.
I never self farmed and had 3 of the top 5 fattest countries until AoDT decided to nuke me to oblivion, lol.

Self farming is a joke in general. But it works cause of artificial diminishing returns. If I could get normal land % gain from one of those fatties before they are too high NW for their Spy DR to DR them, then self farming would not be an issue for anyone not allied to NBK ;)

I've never done it and don't think it really shows any skill at the game. I can completely see why people do it here where targets are so few - hopefully if the game attracts more players (and clans) then we'll start to see it die out.

My countries are so land-thin if they turned sideways you wouldn't see them :-P

there's no game policy against farming your own countries (ie just doing that won't get you deleted).

targets aren't to few. clans just need to stop pacting out the server

TSE only had 3 pacts this set (one of those was only a DNH), and for most of the grabbing phase potential targets were at war, so we were restricted to a small number of 1-player clans and untaggeds, many of which were not particularly fat.

The alternatives were pretty much to self-farm or to farm smaller tags into the ground, and neither of those are good for the growth of this game.

well i dont see how self farming is bad for the growth of the game...

Kinda reminds me of masturbation, TBH...

lol, that's funny, my thoughts exactly... made the same comparison in another thread :D

Make one ;)

Something like if you hit one of your own countries = deletion :)

Agreed!

Self-Farm = Die....Farm small tags = Die...seems fair to me.

lol. From what I gather I think the game could actually be coded so you simply can't hit your own countries (kind of like humanitarians stops you from hitting things beyond a certain nw range). Don't hold me to this since I'm not a game admin but certainly if there is enough player interest in something like that I could draw attention to the suggestion. I don't know what that would do to game play in FFA . Maybe it's a discussion that we should have on this board?

FFA was great before farming started ;)

When I think back to the past on E2025 FFA, the following were the "unwritten" rules (although many will tell you they did get bent):

1) Self-farming was frowned upon, and I certainly never recall seeing the news dominated by Clan A constantly hitting Clan A.

2) Land was much easier to come by because there were roughly 10 times the # of countries that there are in EE FFA.

So we have something of a conundrum, in that - we want to attract more players to the game, that gives more ad impressions and that income helps the Admin team to pay for more capacity, it's a self-fulfilling circle.

BUT

all the self-farming and the absolute dominance of one clan makes it hard for new players to achieve, unless they join that particular clan

(although I accept that's no longer the case in terms of countries after so many deletions - but LaE still have about 40% of the TNW for the entire server)

Some people have suggested limiting the # of players allowed under one tag, but that would be pointless - large clans would simply run multiple tags. so - what can we do?

I think that stopping self-farming would certainly help to curtail dominance by any one clan - to an extent (and that might be any clan, not just LaE). Those larger clans would then be forced to find alternative targets, leading to more FA, diplomacy and war, which is almost certainly good for the game.

One possibility by banning self-farming is that big clans set up sub-tags and start farming those as well, and no doubt they would have FDPs with their sub-clans, so it may not work, but that's my reasoning for banning it anyway.

I'm sure I am regurgitating what others have already said anyway, but it's right that we have a discussion about it I think.

Anyhoo - for me it's a moot point because I won't be playing next set, so what do others think?

I was suggesting more to disallow farming of your own countries in FFA, not necessarily your tag-mates.
But sure..

That would be perfect :), who would allow someone to farm their countries unless (multi)? I dont think anyone would take the time to run farms for someone else.

yes they would, 2 peeps trading ghost acres with each other,,think about it

If you allow inter -clan farming,who is to say someone will not stagger their country creation as to appear to be farming out of string?
[edit]
i do it as a preservation thing for when war comes

Ok Ok...Can not hit your own countries or tag. If War clans see countries that appear to have no military from two different clans trading land :)....RAPE them.

War clans allow this.

What about FA chains? Wouldn't FA chains being used to pump the NW of one country be equivalent to self farming?

I know there's a NW range for 2 countries to be able to FA one another, but one can set up an FA "Pyramid". Is that quality net gaining, or something else?

I guess my question is.....who the hell cares?

It's not like folks who are self farming are doing anyone any harm. Most of the self farmers are very accomplished netters (except me, of course), and would likely be just as fat having run a different strat. By self farming, they're not grabbing land that you grabbers are after, and aren't causing any FA issues between clans.

As for the "no-skill" comments....well, let's see one of you guys rack up 4mil acres in a set. Seeing as how Cobalt and llaar have no problem finding land in regular grabbing and are regularly some of the fattest countries on the server, I would say that comment is a hair off base.

Basically, if it's not hurting you at all, why get your panties in such a bunch over it? Write them off however you want, but they get to play the game however they see fit as long as they're not breaking the rules

It doesn't take skill to self-farm. Period. And it doesn't hurt anybody. I don't even care if people do it. I don't and nobody who wants to be in ESD would be allowed to do it except for maybe what I post at the bottom of this.

But you can't sit there and tell me that a self-farmer is as good of a net gainer as a guy who spends an hour a day or better planning and searching grab targets and then defending the acres he/she takes.


But what about farming down retalers? I guess technically, it's self-farming, but one can make the argument that the retaler took back "clan land' and has the right to see it distributed as it see fit within the tag.

i wasn't going to comment on this post since self farming has been beat to death so much since ffa came back i think the poor horse is all looking like a mc donalds hamburger.

i really don't get why all the warring clans are getting all pissed at the people that self farm. just like it was stated by other people, it really does keep the fa issues to a minimum, and the people that actually do land grab have more targets. for the no skill part, this is ffa and not alliance. we have 15 countries in this server, and that is what makes this server so damn fun. you should be able to do what ever the hell you want with your countries, and if you feel you could do better then some of the people with ridiculous acres, prove it...

i am not one of those people with 200k + acres, but i have self farmed a bit this set. i managed a damn good finish without going to the super SUPER fatty mode, and am totally fine with that. i am only losing to 1 of the SUPER fatties right now, and i am ok with that too. i have learned a lot this second round, and really don't fear those huge countries next set. it is all about overcoming and adapting in my opinion.

edit: i could totally understand the people against self farming if ffa was the way it used to be with 10K plus countries, but that isn't the case anymore. if self farming gets messed with by the admins, this server is going to turn into another alliance type setting of farming small tags, and camping untags for dr to return.

not everyone has that time on their hands, and EVERYONE knows that all xp will never compete with a good grabber. self farming gives people that don't have all day to camp targets a chance to compete with people that can sit in front of their PC and do nothing but camp.

It's not "competing". Self farmers don't have to defend acres against retals.

You must not be considering the NW LOSS incurred in just grabbing targets let alone defending against retals, successful or unsuccessful.

Where's the competition in a 1 jet PS vs. a guy losing 150,000 jets on a PS against a live opponent?

Where's the competition in no retal versus the same guy LOSING 150,000 turrets defending the land he just took?

In my example, that one grab (not including food and oil) cost the grabber $180K of NW to do. WHat did it cost the self-farmer? 1 jets and 2 barrels of oil?

That's not a level playing field, malykii.

i agree with you in that aspect man, but the people that are land grabbing don't always get retaled. that usually only happens when the person is in a legitimately sized clan that has retallers. im sure if you farm the crap out of untags and small clans the most you get is some missiles, ab attacks, and maybe a couple retal attempts.

the main reason you see such countries this set is because of pacts, not because people couldn't hit those countries. i really think the political scene is going to be a bit different after the way this set turned out. the only reason those countries got away with such extreme farming was because they were in lae, and lae had the numbers to do what ever they wanted. i have a gut feeling there is going to be much more balance next set with members in other clans.

i get what your trying to say that people that lg other countries do pay more, and sometimes lose some of the land they took, but i really think it is going to be much easier to hit those super fatties next set if they are around because i don't think there really is going to be ONE clan that runs the server.

that is the only reason the super fatties exist, tag protection. it has been said by others i know, but when you do have a clan big enough to pretty much cripple and then tag kill in a day or two if you piss them off, you are going to get a pretty nice golden ride for a bit. i think that golden ticket may have expired this set.

on a side note, what is to stop you from hitting the self farmers for all that juicy land? i know you aren't playing this set, but imagine you were and lae wasn't a powerhouse that would just tag kill your clan because you got a little feisty and took some decent land off one of their fatties.

Actually, I AM playing this set. started 4 countries about a week ago.

I've hit fatties in the past. I'd probably do so in the future too. Just not often, and only under the right circumstances.

And I don't particularly disagree with anything you are saying either. My only point was that I'd never consider self-farmers to be "elite netters".

i grabbed an lae country for over 10k acres in one hit*




I couldn't resist, crippy wasn't happy with me










*couple hours later the owner detagged his countries and let everybody have the land

LOL. I don't guess he was.

i agree with you there dragon, but that is what the alliance server is for. i really see this server as lets see what i can do with 15 countries, which is a totally different mind set then the way i run my country in alliance.

to each there own though, and im glad you see where im coming from. to be honest, i don't think many people consider ffa a place where ' elite netters ' prove their skills. we are like the little red headed step child that everyone loves to hate ;]

I'm old school, man. FFA was always my favorite server way back to 1999 when I first played E2025.

Despite the inclination for FFA to be a "war server", or whatnot, it's still NW that wins the resets, so us tree huggers see things a little differently.

But you're right. Despite the fact there's FFAers playing Alliance and vice versa, the teo servers never have cared for one another or their playing styles.

The Alliance guys somehow think that running 15 countries and self-farming is substandard play while farming everyone that can't war you is L33t.