It's not really fine at all. Gradually they're making Primary worse and worse for the sake of Alliance. They already permanently broke wars in Primary and Tourney because of Alliance's dumb problems. Now they're destroying the netting power of Dicts to help fix landtrading on Alliance, and they're lowering all our scores to help fix landtrading on Alliance. Why does Primary have to suffer for Alliance's sins?

Building cost bonus just became the bonus to get I would figure for every strat even c/i.

Narcissistic is having one hell of a set.

Dicts were never a netting government, just as much as Democracies were never a warring government. You going to complain about how Demos can't war too?

I have warred with a Demo before (and won, not once either). I have only ever netted with a Dict. The #3 all time NW record here is a dict, what's your point again?

Whatever the point you are trying to make is, the fact of the matter still remains, that people who only play Alliance and have no clue what goes on outside of alliance are making changes that severely impacts this server FOR THE SAKE OF THE ALLIANCE SERVER! Which BTW way is still a cesspool of a server because whatever changes to the character of Alliance that anyone thinks they can fix by code is never going to work, unless they are planning on coding politics.

Also a ghost acre reduction to everyone if I read correctly? Wonder if Military Strategy tech will be in higher demand to compensate for the 5% reduction.

[quote poster=BobbyATA; 23423; 444657]

Not for Techers! =D

The point I was making isn't that you can't war and win as a Demo. But if you were another government, it would probably have been a quicker and faster win (I'm also not suggesting you to switch governments).

Demos are not designed for warring, but that doesn't mean you can't war with one. Likewise, Dicts weren't designed for netting, but that doesn't mean you can't net with one. Oldman would have finished much better last reset if he was Fasc instead of Dict.

By the way, I agree that qzjul needs to play Primary, or at least one solo server.

And the new PCI buff is an attempt to get more players to play cashers (because almost all the landtraders on Alliance were farmers), and doesn't actually have any basis on game balancing.


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There are many players here that don't play on Alliance, to give a little back story for these people, the primary reason for the upcoming changes is because the top 33 countries in Alliance last reset were all landtraders (80% of which were farmers), and the landtraders shattered all NW records. The top 10 non-trading countries averaged less than half the NW of the rank 1 landtrading country.

Note that Alliance server has the most amount of players out of all servers (count the number of ALIVE countries that left 100 turn protection at the end of a reset if you want to check this on eestats), so it makes sense to balance the game around the Alliance server. (Though, a bit heavy handed.)

Landtrading is a far less efficient strategy than grabbing. The strategy they're trying to weaken isn't even a strong strategy. But it's a necessary strategy in Alliance only; they landtrade because there's no one to grab. There's still no one to grab. The changes are hurting other servers without even fixing the real problem in Alliance.

Like crest, I've won lots of wars with Demos. The tech bonuses are powerful. Like crest, I've played dict before with the intention of netting. oldman did that last set and won (whether or not he would have finished better with a fascist). And the change to dict isn't the only change happening here.

A PCI bump to try to convince more people to play casher, and we get that bump on Primary too where casher wins almost every set. Heh... Reduction in ghost acres. Sharp increase in building costs. Every single change they unveiled besides the explore increase is probably bad for this server.

I play both alliance and solo servers so I know these changes are catered towards alliance. I also agree with those of you who said these changes are not necessary for the solo servers which are fine just as they are right now.

I'm not harboring high hopes that qzjul will revise the changes for the solo servers (please prove me wrong qzjul ;)) since he doesn't play on it. The only thing left to do is to adapt to the changes and see where that leads to.

This is perhaps a tangential point, but

Xinhuan: Dict was a very serious netting gov't on this server. You can't just say oldman would have done better as a fascist farmer. For one thing, it is far more likely he would have been grabbed more early set if he went fascist. Having an I next to your country really helps scare away landgrabs. But even putting that benefit aside comparing the two govt's I think dict is the better gov't fairly clearly for farmer. For casher I think rep is clearly better.

Will he address O and tech alliances anytime soon is the question.

Yeah I agree Bobby, I think Dict competes with Fascist farmer if not surpasses it on Primary server. Fascist has -10% income and -15% population, and only a +15% food bonus. Dictatorship has (had) +40% ghost acres which I think can match the food bonus, plus a 25% strength bonus, and no income penalties. It has the very slow start from construction speed though.

As for offensive and tech alliances, qzjul said he does not want to remove them, but reform them. I know you can "fix" tech allies but I'm not sure how you can possibly fix offensive allies - how can you stop jet leeching? I don't see a way. But anyway, since "reforming" is a bigger task than "removing," I am not sure when this might happen.

It seems that the anti-landtrading sentiment is due largely to the fact that there is only 1 landtrading strategy played. Monarchy to Dictator Farmer to Theo destock. It is a fact that a Theo Techer landtrader can compete with this strategy. I beleive that a Dictator to Republic casher can compete with that too (although I haven't done it myself).

Moreover landtrading shouldn't be replacing bottomfeeding - it should just take it's place after a set amount of acres. To shorthand yourself into thinking that someone who only bottomfeeds should be able to compete because they have to work harder, is like saying that a cash start that changes it's tax rate every turn for the first 200 turns should be superior to a tech start because it takes a lot longer to run. In some cases it is superior, in some cases it's not.

Here are some of the references of the fact I was talking about.
http://www.eestats.com/ffa/oldcountry/286/1103

As a 2nd point I also think that landtrading is better for the game then constantly beating up on new players that are playing as an untagged. As landtrading is still relatively new (after all it's only been used heavily the past 2 sets in alliance) I don't think the server had properly adjusted to it (which is why farmers were so one sided this past set).

I see a conceivable way to reform O alliance. Your benefit from an ally is min (.25*O ally strength, some function of amount of support you have given your O ally), instead of simply .25*O ally strength. Any thoughts on this?

It would have to track all the support you've given to the o-ally? It might work but it doesn't seem that likely.

Yeah, honestly, landtrading is probably more fun for everyone and more inclusive (less time demanding) and less alienating than DR camping all day and farming untaggeds. But I don't think these changes are going to eliminate landtrading as an option on Alliance, just weaken it a bit relative to other stuff.

FFA players are used to farming themselves and trading and so on and for them these changes are going to really mess with the way they play the game I bet, more than it's going to screw with Primary.

As an FFA player - this is mostly correct. Landtrading will still be the only viable form of landgain, but will be much much weaker. You can't bottomfeed with all 16 countries each day, it's just not feasible. Landtrading works as an exponential gain so for the first 30k acres it takes a long time to get there, the next 30k acres are faster and then it is rather linear due to the BPT constraint. What this means is that for techers who will now likely stop between 30 and 40 acres - there life just got considerably more difficult as they will be forced to landtrade but will not reap any of the exponential benfits of landtrading.

On Primary techers will be benefited because all other strats will be gimped as they get fat by the building cost, techers can stop attacking before it gets as painful as all that.

I wonder when cashers/farmers/indies will stop growing though. Certainly they will not grow past 80k acres anymore. If the land is reduced by 15% then tech demand is reduced by 15%. Moreover with tech starts being so cheap in the future, I presume Indy's will prefer tech starts thus further diminishing early tech demand/value. Also techers will have to tech more turns to afford the buildings between 20 and 30k acres, so I doubt they will grow as fast as they do today.

Farmers should see a benefit as everyone starts to stock earlier. So many possibles, I can't wait to see how it all plays out over the next few sets.

While we are all here talking about this, oldman has already figured out exactly what he will do to win next set.

He has to win next set. Its tradition.

I'm sure im screwed next set since i'm not as scientific as some here - BOTE calculations and gut feel is only going to get me so far :)

I think techers will suffer next set - less demand for tech earlier causing a steep crash, faster stocking by other strats causing food to be expensive pretty fast so techers lose more stock value, which will also make farmers stronger in relative terms.

But that's really ok right? When was the last time you saw a techer win a Primary reset?

I disagree with this assessment.

"Less demand for tech earlier" - Disagree. Many countries do not do tech starts, and these countries will have significant amounts of left over cash (due to the cheap construction costs under 4.2k acres) to buy a lot more tech early. The benefits aren't just to tech starts, but for everyone.

"faster stocking by other strats causing food to be expensive" - Disagree. Everyone's land growth is going to be slowed down (since the targets you grab will also be slower to grow past 4k land). Relatively speaking, no one is going to stock any earlier or later than before. As a whole, everyone will still start stocking at the same relative time frame, the only difference is everyone is smaller in land size.

Moreever, larger swings in food price actually allows Demo Techers to potentially make a larger sell-down profit. Little variations in prices means very little reselling profit.

"which will also make farmers stronger in relative terms" - Perfectly fine with that, since farmers have been a weak strat on Primary for the most part. Other than the fact that farmers aren't actually getting stronger.

I disagree that techers will benefit. I think the reverse is true for the reasons i stated above. To add to that:

The penalty is less before 30k thus techers can still grow to 30k maybe a few days later though. After that tech supply increases as all turns are spent teching.
However, demand will drop off faster as cashers, farmers and commies grow slower than now from that point onwards significantly and stock earlier

You're assuming a lot of things incorrectly. Yes, tech demand falls maybe 15% by your estimate. But techers will also as a whole have 15% less land before they start stocking, so they produce 15% less tech. In fact, the whole server, everyone's going to have 15% less land.

Past 4k, everyone will struggle, including techers, because bottomfeeding is going to be much slower now, as even the countries you attack will be growing slower and will have less land.

Nobody is going to be starting to stock earlier or later than before, because everyone will reach their (smaller) land goal at about the same relative time still.

" Relatively speaking, no one is going to stock any earlier or later than before."

This may be the way it is played, but I don't think it is mathematically correct. If construction costs were increased but still linear this would be, but they were made exponential. The breakeven on the cost benefit of growth will be shifted earlier in the set.

I agree with Rob there will be lower demand for tech altogher throughout the set.

Okay, my head is starting to explode now (maybe happy hour didnt help), but Xin wouldnt the cheap start-up make early growth faster, and the compounding effect of growth on that fast start add up too? Im not sure how much effect this will have but im sure it would have an effect to negate some of the negative effects after 4k acres

It's not that much less. Have you actually calculated?

A building at 20k costs 61500 (old) and 92209 (new). That's 50% more.

A building at 30k costs 91500 (old) and 144293 (new). That's 57% more.

A building at 50k costs 151500 (old) and 251045 (new). That's 65% more.

So a techer might be paying 50-55% more for his buildings in his last few grabs, while a non-techer might be paying 65% more. The 15% difference isn't that significant.


But market forces will balance everything out. It always does. If techers are too strong, more people will play techers and weaken it. If cashers are too strong, then the next reset will likely have a flood of cashers making it a weak strat.

Honestly, I think it is just a lot of argument over nothing, in that everyone assumes "status quo" and the ratio of people playing various strats never changes. The strength of a strategy has always been dominated by the ratio of players playing it.

Ya, but everyone benefits from the cheaper early growth. Everyone gets their starts faster, everything is still equal. Everyone's early growth is just as much faster, everyone's late growth is just as equally slowed. I don't think there will be any unbalancing effects.

I see it as a new game, new formulas, adapt to it and win. ;)

By the way, I don't think qzjul actually reads anything outside the Alliance forum, and the B&S. So asking him to play Primary here is a bit pointless. In the Announcement thread, he already said he has no time to play on more servers than just Alliance. If he plays any more, he won't have time to code the game.

Then you basically just proved to be that the Dict government is too strong and is rightly nerfed. It is too powerful in BOTH netting and warring, and no government should excel at both.

Also, yes I can say that oldman would have finished higher as Fascist because he went decay, and a Fascist maxes decay almost a week earlier. Even he agreed. While Dict's gain land faster, you forgot to mention that the -30% BPT meant he had to build over 100 more CSes compared to other people, turns that could have been used for grabbing or otherwise. During that CS building phase, you don't actually gain land any faster since your BPT is so much lower than everyone else and you spent more turns to build stuff. Plus Fasc's +15% food would have helped income tremendously in the first 30 days of the reset when food is at $35-36, allowing you to buy more tech and produce even more food. Not to mention the oil spikes and high prices later on, a Fasc can just build 2k rigs and forget about the high oil price.

Oh and the main reason why he chose Dict was because he wanted the Dict NW record, and not because Dict was actually better.

Oh sure, that part of it is okay, I was just pondering some of the repercussions and that's something I thought of, though Andrew brought up a relevant point as well about the demand lessening

I think this is wrong. The calculation of turns remaining vs. cost of adding new acres is going to move. People will start stocking at an earlier turn point.

There is just too many variables at play here and the only way we will find out is over the next few sets. Lets just see how it goes

PS: I still think techers will be worse off, but i rather not argue about it till the cows come home :)

Ya. Too many variables.

And honestly, if people think techers are worse off, then less people will play it, and it will become better off!

Actually a certain number of people are going to play each strat no matter what, and that's why techer and farmer suck 9 times out of 10.

I just play a different strat every set. Casher is up next so that pci bonus better be good lol.

Yeah and everyone else that does that (that includes me) is a contributor to there being too many of the strats that can't support as many players ;)

Casher is sounding good after that PCI boost which really wasn't needed on Primary.. heh

Xin: I really take issue with oldman if he is going around claiming he could have done even better as a fascist. It is possible he could have I don't deny that but it is also possible he would have fared worse. We can debate in general a fascist is better than a dict, and I think almost everyone thinks it is close one way or the other. But it really grinds my gears if he is saying "Hey look I tied one hand behind my back and won"

Edited to add: the tone of the above is wrong. I haven't heard oldman say anything. It grinds my gears to hear you say "Hey look oldman tied one hand behind his back and won" I guess would be more correct...

Well, oldman won but it was the best farmer set of all time, one that will never be matched, and the next best farmer went Tyrant, so even if he did win with a "hand tied behind his back" it was largely thanks to market circumstances, which is kind of common. Not saying he *isn't* one of the best/the best but market always plays a role.Is that confirmed? I PM'd qzjul about that and he said he wasn't sure. I haven't seen it to be true in Express - ie, I convert to fascist from monarchy and the #s on the bonus page don't change.

I can confirm that Blid. permanent bonuses as a fascist are 15% increased.

-Fascism gets +15% bonus category effectiveness.
-Government switches now detract from bonuses.
-The cost and benefit of the decay bonus has changed from 6 points for -2.5% to 5 points for -1.3%.
http://forums.earthempires.com/...mp;z=bonus-system-changes

I'm not sure on the specifics of when Oldman reached max decay, but I doubt the amount of corruption he occurred during the 5 or 6 extra days made a big difference. He could have stored turns for half of those until he did reach max decay.

It's an interesting discussion about Dict farmer vs Fascist Farmer. Obviously a Fascist would have to carry 25% more military and lose some cash/turn and have to grab more. I do think a fascist would have been better but not so much better to the point that a dictator farmer is pointless.

It is indeed an interesting discussion. I always thought demo might be the best option actually for farmer.

Demo is indeed better, but only after you start stocking, and requires some amount of reselling to match Fasc (you roughly need to resell and gain +5% or so stockpile to match Fasc, even after accounting for tech bonuses, less commissions and more taxes).

But it isn't feasible to switch after you gained like 60k land.

Dictatorship is competitive at farming and close to competitive at cashing. Was, I mean.

pardon my ignorance Xinhuan, but wouldn't demo perform better while grabbing and fascist while stocking?

I was convinced fascism was better for stocking until I actually did some calcs on it last set for alliance, they're a close match.

I guess it depends on server for this one.

On Alliance you would be trying to farm untags 1/12 your size at 40a per hit, doing 30 hits a day, and 3 turns per attack is a killer.

On Primary, you do so little hits everyday (3 to 5) that Demos probably edge out very sightly in land gain, and only if you actually got significantly more strat tech. I mean, if you're telling me your 110% strat is now going to be 111% because you're demo, sure you gain 1% more land, but if you grabbed 2000a that day, that's just 20 more acres. On the grand scheme of things, it really isn't any better at all.

And honestly, if I saved 3 turns grabbing that day in 3 attacks compared to a Demo by being a Fasc, I would think I can just explore that 3 extra turns for 18a.

Also, I'll point out that a Fasc can build a few rigs for oil if oil goes past $300 or $500. :P