first off, hello world. this is my first time and so far this all seems awesome. the only thing I cant figure out is how to destroy buildings. i started off without thinking and now i would like to backtrack a little. is the way to do it really obvious and was I just not thinking?
thanks.

Hit "Build" on the menu on the left, then right under the "Construct Buildings" button you'd normally hit to build, there's a "Destroy Buildings" link that goes to a new page.

wow thanks. i dont know how i missed that.

Glad to see new player. :)

Welcome.

You have chosen a good server to play on, I should say. You will need allies, particularly two defence allies. You can look for allies in game, either by sending an in game message or by sending an offer ("Relations"), but another way which tends to work well is to put up a thread here saying you are looking for allies (of whatever kind) and giving some idea as to what level your country is at - just started, middle ranking, highly placed whatever. Then invite forum messages with a country name/number and say you will send an offer.

Good luck. :)

Have you chosen a strategy? Specialization is key.

You are more than welcome to whisper for me any time for any help that your looking for.

My recent experience with solo servers is that while people may be helpful on the forums, they're ruthless ingame. You might try joining an alliance on the alliance server (but don't bother playing if you can't find one, it isn't that fun if you are trying to play untagged) as alliances are a great way to get help learning the game while not getting crushed by other players.

I don't know, they are really like two different animals. In alliance you have to know what your doing and know how that fits into what the alliance is doing, at least in solo you can focus on improving your singular game instead of getting dictated to or having to fluff your guild because your trying to learn.

some are ruthless but many aren't.

Playing Alliance and joining one of the major clans is an excellent way to learn (and you would be welcomed by any of them). The clan will either have an established way to help you learn the game (regularly looking at your country and providing comments on how it is configured and how it needs to be developed) or will have a wealth of veteran players willing to help you learn the game quickly.

The drawback is that the Alliance server is somewhat its own place, especially when playing in one of the major clans. There are things like land trading and a netwoek of pacts between the major clans which make it a very different place than the solo servers.

If you have the time to invest in the game, playng both in Aliance and in one or more of the alliance servers is good. You will learn very fast indeed.

But if your time is not entirely your own, I'd recommend just playing Primary and tourney to start with.

Honestly, express is the best way to learn. You can practice lots of things, make lots of mistakes without committing 60 days to running a country that might not turn out well. Plus the fast pace in express gives you a really good sense of how to allocate turns, especially on your start up IMHO.

That is true, but express is also very unforgiving. If you mess up you can come back next week, but if you mess up you may end up dead or crushed.

If you play alliance, in an alliance, you'll be more sheltered and tended to than on other servers. Each to their own, but if you're new there's lots of different paths to take to improvement. It just depends on why you're here, and what you want out of the game.

I think Express is the King of the servers. The fast pace suits me very well and the standard of play is excellent.

But, like Alliance, it is its own place. The difference here is not the sophisticated way that clans have found to play but rather the additional control which fast accrual of turns affords.

Thus, in Express an important skill is to know whether to play all your turns as soon as they accrue, to get to the front and to expend time in staing there, or to hang back, playing a long run of turns coming from a long way back and then dropping back again afterwards. It takes quite an advanced understanding of the various strategies to get the hang of this. If you can be online half a dozen tims a day (and more at week ends) Express is the place to play. If you are not experienced and you can't put that much time into your game I say play elsewhere first. (But move up to Express just as soon as you can. It is the best. :) )

I think for learning purposes and the limited number of days it requires you can really get a feel for game mechanics in general with express.

This pain is an illusion

Express is the worst server of the lot. Avoid Express.

It has special rules because of the overly-fast pace of turns (Commies can sell 65%), unnatural wars which won't happen on any other server due to the extreme amount of turns you can store and use at one go, and an insufficient number of mods to cover all time zones (by the time they respond, you are 600 turns behind, or the equivalent of 8-10 days of turns on every other server).

The Express experience is obviously different and unique (and a lot of people like it for that exact reason), but if you play it, don't expect the experience of playing strategies to carry over to any other server. It is that significantly different, and Express is not representative of any other solo server. Many feel it is a joke server because of the "throwaway" nature of the resets. Screw it up? Just wait 1 week and try again. Some also use it as a testbed for the first 100-200 turns and then abandon the country to test a startup for the other servers. Express server is only for the people with lots of time to micromanage their country every 1-2 hours, and that puts such players at an advantage over the ones that have no time to play that heavily.

As such, I consider Express to be one of the worst servers to play on, or even learn the game. The overall play experience just doesn't carry over, and many people that do start on Express first, find every other server "too slow and boring".

i would also suggest express as the best place to learn, because you can learn as much in 5 days as usually you learn in 30-60.

Exactly and while I agree with Xin on some points, it's that exact feel of being able to throw it away after a week that makes it appealing for teaching purposes. I was able to sharpen up all my skills while primary was going on for my first set back in over a decade. I think it helped me a lot on relearning some of what I should be doing. Analyzing targets ect. I would hate to be a noob on a 60 days server knowing that all your going to be doing is getting pounded for 60 days. That's not a lot of fun and not a good way to learn how to run a real country.

That's the point though. Enough people treat Express as a throwaway server for testing stuff, learning grabbing skills, testing DR, etc that very few people treat it seriously; I find the experience "non-authentic" for the lack of a better word.

I've always enjoyed express. If you make adjustments for the difference in game play there is enormous opportunity each week to try new stuff. Basic stuff like learning the nuances of different governments from actual gameplay vs. reading just reading about it on the wiki. I guess one could make this argument for FFA, but I do not have any experience there.

It also helps to read the rules, then read the rules of the express server and come to a conclusion on what adjustments need to be made for adapting to express style. That alone forces one to think about the game and get better.

methinks express is the ultimate proving grounds. Primary is pretty easy to top ten within a set or two of playing and feels like an old folks home versus express being more like a Max security prison yard lol. Express is hard and only the strong & smart shall survive considering how many things you have to be wary of you have to be a good multi-tasker.

Express is hard only because you have to login every 2 hours to PS, more often as a commie or techer to sell goods, and not really because you "have to be a good multi-tasker". At some point, it becomes about how much time you can sink into the game, rather than skill.

I won't deny you need skill to do well there (or anywhere), but since that isn't sufficient by itself, it already sets an uneven playing field.

Express has more random threats and chaos generally, along with all sorts of cheating, crazy market buyouts and gambling. Its more exciting than the slower paced servers. I find that with more experience I spend less time on it and do well. Better SO's etc, better reads on where the markets are at. The practice makes you fast and you get to where you can make decisions very quickly on a reasonable hunch. Cetainly the prison yard of EE.

The prison yard of EE, haha love it