Easier said than done. I do think it would be in the best interest of alliances to get in grabbing wars... particularly with ghost acres as they are... land trading should be extremely lucrative...

AIM-MarsPDM... why not join PDM?.. your AIM is already ready for it!

MAX(10, Defender_Acres*MIN(1.5,MAX(.5,(Defender_NW/Attacker_NW)/2))*30/(250+ETPA)*Current_DR_system

ETPA stands for effective turrets per acre... so basically defense standardized to turrets.

I dislike piecewise formulas (and almost thought about suggesting a new formula but maybe that will be another post... I think they are pretty good though so I'll leave them be) so I have altered the way NW affects targets.. uphitting has a maximum benefit of 150% at 1/3 the targets size... bottom feeding has a maximum penalty of 50% at 4 times the target's size. These alterations are relative to 30/(250+ETPA) which is .06 at ETPA=250 (so 250 turrets/acre defense). That is something I consider to be empirically reasonable defense and would have the maximum and minimum gains (without DR modifications) be 9% and 3% respectively.

This allows for mostly the same mechanics as now but makes countries that are more heavily defended relatively speaking have fewer losses and those with sparser defenses lose more. This should largely help defense heavy small countries who get farmed despite quite large defensive numbers.

Basically, I think Earth died and this game might because it the environment was/is too hostile to new players. You get farmed to nothing if you aren't in a top alliance. There need to be more in-game protections that make it not worthwhile to farm countries into nothing because over 12 years the politics have proven to systematically farm people out of the game.

Thoughts?

The formulas would certainly require testing. One of the values I was wavering on the most was the coefficient of 1.5 in front of sqrt(-2*ln... That will clearly control how much spread there is to random success and failure. I have *no idea* what the current spy formula is for success/failure but this one will allow superior SPALs to be effective while still having chances of failure over some manner of lower SPAL ranges

I would like to say I think it is preferable to have spy offense based on total number of spies and spy defense based on a combination of spies/acre and spies/population. That might be needlessly complicated and would require various weighting that to balance properly would more or less reduce to SPAL anyways. (at least in the limited formulations I have bothered with so far). If anyone has any thoughts on this idea I am more than happy to hear ideas on how to incorporate them differently.

Here are some numbers I think could work very successfully. You are welcome to incorporate them or ignore them as you like.




Spy success if log(your_SPAL,1.5)+1.5*sqrt(-2*ln(rand(0,1)))*cos(2*pi*rand(0,1)) > log(opponent_SPAL*1.014^(spy_ops_against_opponent_over_24hrs),1.5)

Where log(X,y) is the log base y of X and rand(0,1) is a randomly generated number between 0 and 1 from a uniform distribution.



Spy losses = .0015*your_spies*MAX(0,log(opponent_SPAL,1.5))



Spy damages I would recommend dividing the current damages by maybe 5-7 and then multiplying by log(SPAL,1.5)



Spy upkeep = .0016 food/turn, $.8/turn

This should allow you to carry more spies, have a fair level of spies do real damage and have failure be less random and have failure result in fewer losses. I think the spy production rate from indies is fine. (and I suppose philosophically what all of these numbers are based on)

Yeah, thinking about the turn usage that would require there is definitely no pay off. I suppose I can see this as an issue in express if people aren't willing to wait a substantial amount of time for goods to sell, whereby people mess up the market even if it isn't in their best interest.

You get (got) a percentage of the defender's land which was dependent on your NW ratios. This percentage was augmented and diminished by military strat tech and DRs. The tiers were 3%, 5%, 7% and 9% of your opponent's land with minimum returns of 10 acres.

Is that determined randomly? Can someone put a batch on and if they don't hit the market in 0 they can recall and try again?

I used to be a top notch spammer. Some times I can't keep it repressed.

Does Primary need a "community". I feel like that is a place where people can just play a country in isolation. It is somewhat pure in how it is just you and the server.

Well iMag is wrong then because that is a declaration.

Comwood was going to make ES a hosting service for multiple games but quit that ambition. I think if Boxcar hosted Evony alliances it would be a great way to advertise/draw players into the game.

Not that the exact numbers matter to someone just getting a feel for the game, but defense allies contribute 25% of their military at home up to doubling your defense at a maximum.

That is lawful contact. Lawful contact is an ill defined term, as is reasonable suspicion. Until there are precedents set on what lawful contact it, it is 100% whatever one wants it to be.

There is one HUGE difference. In CA it is performing a background check on a suspected criminal. In AZ it is any lawful contact, which includes seeing someone reading a newspaper while waiting at a bus stop.

Agreed

From what I have heard they are considering that option. I think it is potentially a great idea. They could certainly program a range of strategies/skill levels and personalities (passive, retaliatory with land grabs, special attacks, etc)

HOWEVER, that brings up a very good point

Defense allies are ESSENTIAL. They can up to double (if they have enough defense) your defense at almost no cost.

Have you EVER grabbed a 10k acre country and gotten 30 acres in return? I don't remember how much maximum DRs reduce things, but even then I doubt it is that much.

Get land - the more land you have, the more production you can have --> the bigger you can get. Exploring is a lot easier than attacking. At low acreage levels, especially when the new round starts, exploring will be a much more effective way to gain land than attacking.

Have a lot of defense - people will want to attack you, especially if you have a lot of land. It will get frustrating to be constantly attacked. Make sure you can get more land every day than you lose.

Specialize - don't make a lot of different buildings - specialize in something, buy technology to make that stuff more efficient and then use the market to get everything else you don't make. (or if you make goods, use the market to sell them so you have cash to buy stuff). The more you produce on your land, the more defense you can have and the harder it will be to attack you

If you are in a server with teams, join a team - you will have more protection for your country and probably more fun with some human interaction

I don't have ICQ here, nor am I an official contact. We can still talk though.

Fact.

I am skeptical my numbers are off then. I first learned the land gains formula in 2003 from a LaF pal, have seen it several times since, including most recently a list of E2025 formulas from qz =P

Edit: In reviewing your SS percentages I see you listed .3% to 100%. I believe you meant 3% to 100%

What could be worse than having Tirol and LS back?

When you say "get" you mean consume or capture?

How does this fix the land issue?

I suppose I see the benefit to this in that you can land grab without offending anyone, however something just doesn't seem right about it. Maybe it just something like market prices (which are on some level controlled by PM prices) that until you know how things balance it can seem tenuous.

MAK SMASH!!!!

I am awesome as usual King Friday. Facebook tells me we're on the same dismal path to doctorhood, but hey, being a grad student has its perks (flexibility to get drunk during the 10 hours/day you aren't working)

Assuming he isn't allowed to cheat. He made things interesting.

In the movies section of realultimatepower I used to have a video up. It is still listed although the video hasn't been there for about six years. (Also, we were never called Dormitory Productions, that was Robert Hamburger's stupid name for us)

How is that listing of available tracts generated? I am unclear on where these unlimited acres come from. Server or player generated?

I was getting the 24 hour claim period prior to incorporation confused.

Heya makmak. I showed cypress your blog. It wasn't updated since January.

My opinion might be persuaded if you saved me the hassle of figuring out numerically how the formula has changed. ;)

What would people in Primary talk about?

Well, I did stipulate that is barring changes to the land grains formula, which I was afraid was a possibility. I am not disappointed (well I am in that it will require making some FFA accounts to redetermine the formula).

I would be too. I definitely think that coming up with something brilliant on your own that was already figured out is more impressive than coming up with something that is new, but minor and obscure. I was actually really proud of myself for coming up with him too.

I definitely think 3 and 4 are great improvements. I think 2 is a very solid but imperfect solution. 1 I think I disagree with. I certainly disagree with it in principle since the preparedness required for an invasion should likely be independent of (or really even inversely related to size). I do think that making several attacks on countries larger than you can be a valid strategy and that this is a measure to protect stockpiling countries from 'suiciders'. With the implementation of change 2 though I find this to be redundant.

Hah! I had Tar Heel in my first post!

I like this idea a lot although the numbers need to be greatly reduced. I think a base of 100% with a max of 115% would be appropriate.

ZEN, life is different in Canada. I suspect that in Toronto many atheists and Christians share similar cultural and political beliefs. Most atheists do celebrate Christmas after all.

Yes, yes we do.

My calculations do not include ghost acres, you are right about that. Strictly speaking that is dependent on building information which is not provided. The ghost acre formula is described in an announcement post that one can use to supplement what I calculated.

Its alright, I figured out the context thanks to Google.

And I have read the bill...

I suppose the difference is California's law is old and not seemingly enforced to any significant extent. Arizona's is new which implies it will be enforced.

And I am glad to see you hold the US to the same standards as Mexico... I really don't care how unjust, inhumane or whatever some country's laws are - they don't have any bearing on what the US' laws should be.

And I sure don't see how that would end the recession. Do you think that foreign nationals getting US contracts has destroyed the economy? I think US companies outsourcing has a much larger effect.

Unless there has been some change to the land gains formulas between E2025 and EE, mine are right. I just looked for announcements relating to changes in attack gains and I couldn't find any. Also, Marshal's numbers are 'prolly' where as mine are actually calculated.

Could be fun. I don't know how much general interest it would have but I might try it.

So are you envisioning sort of a market/listing of tracts of land available to be fought for? How are these generated? Does someone enter a number of acres into a 'stake my claim' box and then the server generates those acres with some defenses to initially be fought for? If you win those acres and they become part of your lands, what happens if someone tries to invade them in the 24 hour system but someone specifically attacks you and takes those acres normally?

DLance, yes, exactly

jedioda, I think that fixed exploration rate would make more sense in a larger land server - say fixed acreage = 1.2x10^11 (about real Earth size). That would be interesting in that countries a whole would get to experience acreages that were previously unimaginable, the downside would be BPT and building costs would be the limiting factors rather than ability to gain land. 2.4M players would be necessary to reach the land cap at real Earth size, with each country having 50k acres. At an explore rate of 48 acres/turn and 4680 turns in a reset, the maximum possible acreage to be built (with only building CS, exploring and building normal buildings) would be ~150,993 which would require 795k players to reach. Obviously that means real Earth size is too large for the game mechanics and possible player base. This 151k acre number could be useful in defining a limit though for the server size if explore rates didn't diminish. Maybe the acreage cap could be 50k/country in a constant explore-rate server.

For any fixed land system, I think the best way to handle explore rate would actually be to make your acres explored per turn dependent on your size and total acres available in the pool. Smaller players can explore for larger amounts relative to larger players, however the amount everyone explores at would be dictated by total land available.

More context for what you just posted?

I say no.

Should Arizona lose all federal funding for passing an unconstitutional law that encourages racial profiling?

I say YES!

I am personally boycotting Arizona from a travel stand point as well as business that I am aware of being based out of Arizona.
This includes Best Western, Cold Stone Creamery, GoDaddy, P.F. Chang's, PetSmart, Taco Time and U-Haul (and I am moving in a week). There are many other companies that are less likely to affect me that I don't remember off the top of my head.

Sure, I think if Arizona's law wasn't illegal it would be within their right to fight fire with fire, but since state's can't pass immigration laws (and it is 100% racist) I think they should get over it andbe happy LA will still buy power from them. (yeah, I realize LA needs the power as much as AZ needs the money)