I heard that this is a rough place where only the strong survive. Is that how everybody likes it? Keeping bots out is the right call, right?

I'm not necessarily looking to change anything here if the server is allowing for a classic type of playing experience and that's what people want, but a server name change might be justified.

Go away with those bots lol, no really, don't, it's the reason I quit express, FFA and rarely play 1a, if you want to make this server better.......more turns maybe?

Like the way it is honestly. Sucks when you are being grabbed left and right and honestly once in that position hard to get out of it. Not a huge fan of gdi myself but understand it's purpose for this server.

The key to this server is having a game plan before the set starts and executing it, if you fall behind you become food for the top dawgs, and the single most important aspect is to retal and retal and retal, if you establish yourself as a player that retals and fights back then It makes your gaming experience more enjoyable as less people will be willing to take your land.

Def learned that one the hard way. When I first started playing I played slow and tried all explorer. Didn't want to ruffle feathers. Shed that attitude pretty fluffing quick tho.

I think its worth exploring how to improve Primary, especially for those not at the top.

One of the key issues with Primary is the small player count leads to the top few players farming the rest of the server for land, and those at the bottom get farmed till they may not want to play the game anymore. This then leads to a smaller player pool, leading to more farming and multi tapping - and the viscous cycle goes on getting worse every set.

I think looking into how to increase land in the server may help this perhaps, but whats key is how to make the game friendlier to those not at the top.

This is my favorite server. I'm happy with no bots and gdi. I'm open to hearing any ideas though =)

Yeah, I agree with both Rob and Tmac. I like the settings and don't want the server tampered with, but the smaller players get fiercely farmed, way more than they did before when there were more players to attack. I know because I'm guilty of farming them, and I know they get frustrated because they send me messages crying. Not sure of a simple solution other than players coming back to the game :(

No bots is right call.

more turns is definatly the wrong call. You annihilate techer, you make the farming of new players even worse etc etc.


I think at least partly you'd help the situation by adding flat 1 acre to the explores per 750 turns given. That would enable all exp and make everyone, including top players explore more acres. This means fewer grabs will be done, as there will be more land per grab and more land from elsewhere, and that land that the grabbed country loses is easier to regain come midgame, albeit marginally.

This would be 1 acre extra per explore after about 16 days,
2 acres extra after about 31 days
3 acres after about 47 days

because the early explores are the same as now it wouldnt really change the pace of the server. You could go with 1 per 500 acres as well but it seems to me that would yeild too much land and it would begin too early perhaps?

Wow I didn't realize adding a turn per hour would derail the balance so badly, the exploring change looks interesting but I don't know how that's going to stop top guys from farming (let's get real) poorly built countries and the players (we already know who they are) that don't care about finishing up top and don't even retal, I don't think any changes will put a rocket up those players asses and get them to compete, you can't fix "I don't care how I finish" , those are the ones getting farmed the most, let's not lose track of that when looking to improve the server.

It'll have to be surgical so improvement for the few doesn't become destruction for the most, maybe changing the GDI range from 4x the size to 3x after certain NW is reached? Let's get real, a $10m NW country won't be able to retal a $40m NW country....

Does anyone have any good ideas on how to make it less brutal for the players with weaker countries?

Honestly, I think it's on them. I mostly farm rainbows. If they took the time to read through everything, they'd learn alot. I see alot of people play the same inefficient way every set. So the solution is there waiting to be read, lol. I doubt you'll hear much from those guys because if they were on the forums they'd know to strategize and buy tech already.

Yes ...



GDI range:
A $2.5m NW country won't be able to retal a $10m NW country unless he has stock to unload witch is unlikely, I think reducing the reach will help the situation but it has to be tied to networth and not be a fixed number.

Change DR:
Perhaps having a big tax on multitapping, country on country diminishing returns could help as well.


I'm surprised there's only few ideas being pitched, I know there's game savvy people here, come on guys, pitch in! 😆

When I have had an early war or been inactive and end up in the "farming range" the only way to get back in the safe zone is either to happen to be a farmer one of those sets when food shoots to $60 or to stock up enough cash to jump into the safe zone, which is usually around rank 1-20 or so, varying a little by the time of the reset.

The time that you get farmed is when you are like 15-30% of the NW of the top players because they will all hit you once(or more).

If there either were enough countries that the top countries couldnt hit them all once, which is enough to feel quite hopeless, or if the top countries somehow had less ability to hit out that many times.

I could see something like a combination of my explore solution with a lowering of the PS to 125% mil strength while keeping the 150% land gain. Goal should be that the top countries gain about the same amount of land (or slightly more so that they are limited by bpt, techs etc for longer) in fewer hits. Increase ghost acres even more as well?

Even without multitapping you get farmed something fierce here lol and that is even if you are running a perfect casher or farmer and end up in the wrong NW zone from a war/inactivity.

How about a big tax on tapping outside the Humanitarian range, but make it possible? That way we could farm inactives at a cost? Put in the military to quell those pesky humanitarians, but it costs 1% of your military. It will spread the hits between more targets than now, and many of these targets that get hit because of this will be inactives. This would also limit multi-tapping and jumping out of range - a practice that angers smaller players as we have seen on the forums from time to time.

Would an inverse DR work in addition to the existing DR? So the higher the DR on a country, the more units you lose. The numbers would have to be worked out but I'm guessing that would cause some countries to think twice about double tapping or tailcoat tapping if they were serious about finishing well.

What do I know though, I was top 10 and got bored lol. Derrick wouldn't help me find Gerdler so I had to mess with Daddy Koh instead

Hmmm, in theory it sounds good, but can you imagine being $1.3m NW and getting hit by 4+ countries that are $8m NW? Even with a big tax we will all be hunting down there, I can't imagine the fury in those people getting tagged by countries way the hell out of their range 🤕😤

You're getting to a point where your attacks are just tickling my ankles 😝
You threw away a really nice casher, bud 🤷

The way it's setup now already encourages me to spread out my hits. Because of humanitarian range I move up the scores list for new targets every day. By the time I'm done grabbing, I've hit nearly everyone outside of the top 15 at least once. If the goal is to spread the hits out, the setup is ideal.

Slagpit

Primary is by far the best server in this game and should be left alone as much as possible. Adding bots or increasing turn frequency would ruin it in my opinion.

If you want to address the issue of the server being brutal for weaker countries you could increase the acres per explore, and you could also increase the bonus acres per day.

Maybe if exploring was more advantageous, and if it was 50 or 100 bonus acres per day as opposed to 20 it would make a difference and would cause some of the better players to take less risk with multi-tapping and breaking gdi on the weaker players.

Realistically the weaker players just need to learn to play better, buy more tech, and find ways to fight back when they do get farmed. If it was easier for them to get more land via exploring and bonus acres per day it might make the server more enjoyable for them as well.

Another suggestion would be doing a better job with the in-game tips to help people learn how to specialize and pick a strategy and get to the proper tech levels.

Cheers

^^RickyDee has a point about the in-game tips. The game would benefit in a lot of ways if more players learned to pick a strategy, buy the right techs and generally create demand and supply on the market.

Maybe in-game tips should be more visible and more detailed, then an option to turn them off in the preferences would be needed for those of us who already know most of whats written there.

I agree with all this. Good changes that help without changing what works with Primary.
- More bonus acres / increase explore acres
- Tips for inefficient players (this can come in right at the start, assisting them through phases / aspects of the game)

Also probably better not allowing countries to attack and run out of humanitarian range

I think Hessman nailed it!

If you run a rainbow, the game already constantly tells you to specialize every time you go to the build screen. Adding more info is great, but doesn't matter if they don't read it. Maybe putting it in big red font will help =P I'm pretty sure you already can turn on/off tips in your preferences.

I won't argue against more acres for everyone, lol.

I think when you get attacked it should say

Forces from Molotov invaded your lands! But don't lose heart. This kind of thing happens in a war game!
You lost 500 acres
50000 turrets
5000 tanks

Same message will go to me when I get topfed so I too remember not to lose heart and that this is a war game.

The game tells you to specialize .. but it doesn’t tell you what specialization really is or what it looks like .. better in-game tips to me means more specific examples of builds and country set ups .... if you show someone what a casher actually looks like instead of just saying specialize it would be more helpful... make the tips more comprehensive like, hey this is how to play an industrialist strategy, make only industrial sites and buy business/residence and industrial techs to x percentage ..and here is an example country for you to attempt to model

I often send my own tips and info to people via ingame message after I farm them

@slagpit

I don’t like the mechanic of someone larger on the edge of humanitarians hitting and jumping out of range(multi tap). If someone hits you multiple times you should always be able to hit them back regardless of humanitarian limits.

I'm all for giving better tips and examples to help people learn, hess. My assumption was those guys running rainbows just didn't notice the tips because the font in smaller.

As for hitting and jumping out of humanitarian range, maybe make breaking gdi cause humanitarians to not protect you from that country anymore. If they decide to break gdi back on you, then humanitarians won't protect them either.

Yeah that's why I also suggested that the range should be more reasonable but so far no comments on that, I agree with you should be able to retal someone exploiting the range, especially the multitapping countries.

Yeah my concern is if there is any range it can be taken advantage of unless it’s so bit it might as well not exist. Either way this would de incentivize farming small guys more if they have missiles or something.

Maybe having the range disabled to the country in the receiving end? Like when breaking GDI...

Maybe make it so you can only attack up to 4x lower than your networth but if you are attacking up there is no range limit... or if you’ve been hit by a country that is now outside of your range limit you are still allowed to retal against that specific country

If nothing else it would make people buy sdi and build spies again

Cheers

I wouldn't want to make it where a 3m nw guy could send missiles and spy ops at a 50m nw country every day without the 50m nw guy being able to respond. It would have to go both ways to be fair.

It insures payback if someone broke GDI on you.

When I think of likely outcomes this could actually upset those smaller players more than now.

Now you farm someone and jump out of range. Both move on without exchanging more hits.

If we changed it to where the small country can retal regardless of humanitarian range, then they send whatever they can at the big country. Now the big country can make the small one their personal farm the rest of the set or until they quit because there's no humanitarian range to protect them.

I understand the argument for the proposed change though.

So are you for making it where hits can only go one way in some circumstances?

Have you been in the receiving end of farming in this server?

I've been grabbed 9 times this set and am currently 5th in land lost. My point was that hits shouldn't be allowed one way only.

I wouldn't want a one way OR a two way street that is conditional on breaking GDI, it's a can of worms I don't think we should open. How would you distinguish between a nub fireing 2 missiles or something on a top country who then gets a free farm all set that others can't touch by way of luck from actual collusion?

Assuming no collusion would happen, even if this would incentivise it greatly, those 'lucky retals' will certainly happen every single reset and could decide many a reset because its so potent to have an own landfarm.

I rather see something like paying to break humanitarians range. Paying in military and perhaps tech makes sense because we would like higher market demands on those.
Plus beating down your own people will make some of your military refuse orders so you have to execute them, some will be surrounded by 'humanitarians' and beaten to death etc etc and your scientists might be protesting your behavior by not working as hard or by stealing your tech and selling it elsewhere because they no longer care for your country as much when you lead it in such a way.

Whatever we put the fixed humanitarians range at, those that get close to get out of the big countries range will get farmed. If you make it possible but costly to break it, you reduce the concentration of hits, and you make it much harder to multi-tap.

[SUG] *hitting outside humanitarians range triggers a warning message and a prompt that allows you to hit anyway at a cost of 1% of your military(troops jets turrets tanks) and 0.5% of your tech points. COSTLY, but sometimes worth it, depending on market conditions.

This would NOT cause a bigger concentration of hits, it would spread out the hits, if you need me to explain this further I will.

Me either, I phrased it wrong by not adding that if the farmed county chooses to engage in war then he too breaks humanitarian protection like GDI :-)

Country to country DR could discourage farming greatly.

Look at Delphi, he doesn't break GDI and competes for top 5 almost every set, we need to discourage farming and not break the server.

Country to country DR already exists on primary and most other servers.

If the small country can retal no matter if you jump, those type of 0 tank 0 SDI multi-taps that many players get away with through jumping out of range will be gone, YES?
If my success as a top contender isn't contingent on me hitting every non-GDI country that cant break me at least once, because I have another way to get land that is conditionally worthwhile, it will make it so that I will sometimes be forced/have options to NOT hit a well defended country that I do hit in this changeset, YES?

On top of that my suggestion will allow for a balancing of the markets from set to set, since if tech and military prices are really low it will encourage such grabs, while if they are very high it will discourage them. This is also good right?
More people than I complain that they are annoyed that you sometimes pick the wrong strategy and your set is more or less over because of it. This would not end that but at least concerning techer and indy it would make it a little more stable from set to set. Unless we want a coin toss winner, this is good.

It is likely a lot simpler just to increase bonus acres per day and increase explore rates

The only thing the server really needs is more land

So if the devs were able to attract more players through advertising, social media, etc that would be great

Currently, bonus turns are given simply for voting for the game on two terrible websites, So why not give players bonus for signing up new players, or for posting about the game to various social media or whatever

I understand your suggestions and for it, but I don't think that country to country DR Is working properly if indeed exists...
https://www.eestats.com/primary/country/37

See what I mean?

Needless to say, this looks dirty.... Collusion maybe.

2021-02-17 20:37:49 PS Dadali (#4) Siffredi (#37) 455A (531A)
2021-02-17 20:37:07 PS Dadali (#4) Siffredi (#37) 568A (696A)
2021-02-17 20:36:38 PS Dadali (#4) Siffredi (#37) 701A (909A)
2021-02-17 20:36:30 PS Dadali (#4) Siffredi (#37) 854A (1183A)
2021-02-16 13:54:13 PS Dadali (#4) Siffredi (#37) 687A (1213A)
2021-02-16 13:51:00 PS Dadali (#4) Siffredi (#37) 807A (1584A)


You see that the first hits give about 50/50 ghost/stolen land and the last hit gives 15% ghost and 85% stolen land? That is Country to country DR.

Same here:
2021-02-17 01:50:06 PS The Story of Tonight (#26) Siffredi (#37) 311A (367A)
2021-02-17 01:37:33 PS The Story of Tonight (#26) Siffredi (#37) 388A (479A)
2021-02-17 01:37:15 PS The Story of Tonight (#26) Siffredi (#37) 480A (627A)
2021-02-17 01:36:52 PS The Story of Tonight (#26) Siffredi (#37) 586A (819A)
2021-02-17 01:36:18 PS The Story of Tonight (#26) Siffredi (#37) 705A (1062A)
2021-02-15 00:44:51 PS The Story of Tonight (#26) Siffredi (#37) 1039A (1889A)

The gains are great and that's why he keeps hitting like that, how are you going to discourage that kind of farming when the returns are so tasty????

If I was Siffredi I'd be out this fluff, I don't think he cares because CPUuser123 sounds like a land farm for someone and might not care he's getting raped.

Simplified: C:C DR doesnt act much on the acres you take from the enemy, they act on ghost acres. C:C DR was introduced, I think, to make landtrading more complicated when there were no bots. I don't think it was really ever intended to save nubs from being farmed.

IF Siffredi is someones multi or friend, wouldn't it be worse if that friend was the ONLY player that could hit it? Now at least there is competition for his acres.

Agreed on the C:C DR, you think adjustment to it in order to discourage farming would work? I know I won't hit again if my losses are greater than the reward....

Yeah I don't know what to make of him, this is his 5th set here and having a name like that seems not legit in 2020, people are usually creative with their online identity, I don't know, he did get my curiosity up.

It was a simple suggestion don’t over complicate it with walls of text.