Thanks! A close finish!

Good ask!

I'm always happy to share tips - what strat do you want to play?

Post here, or just message me in-game. You know where to find me! (:

Thanks Ugo! You were really the impetus for me tryharding into 90+m nw!

I really ran outta food too many times during the destock, and I ended the set with cash on hand. (Was loading the dishwasher, came back a couple seconds short!) Hopefully I make that 100m nw eventually!

Congrats to the top 5 - 2 countries over 60m! And Ugo finishing with 1b cash on hand, as he was embarassed to win too many times!

No profit unfortunately. In fact, massive setback.

I was ~41k acres at turn ~1200. (Before I got hit)
I was then ~46k acres at turn ~1400. (After I made the retals)
Therefore, I gained 4.3k in ~180 turns (the retals I made)
vs my grab rate before the 2 hits, which was 5.7k in ~90 turns. (More than double)

There were 92 countries in the Express server.

Rank Country Land Networth Special
1 the life of a showgirl (#65) Game profile 44,655 $86,033,568 HG
2 p h i l t r e (#66) Game profile 55,793 $55,609,978 HG
3 (#36) Game profile 39,593 $52,456,128 HG
4 howdoyoudo (#64) Game profile 61,776 $51,303,808 CG
5 The Forgotten (#78) Game profile 39,821 $49,673,112 HG
6 The Fractured but Whole (#69) Game profile 41,468 $42,251,306 HG
7 leaky chocolate starfish (#83) Game profile 34,205 $36,842,263 TG
8 Link (#74) Game profile 51,707 $32,774,892 CG
9 Spy Kid (#77) Game profile 46,223 $29,029,065 HG
10 Dee Kahn (#62) Game profile 15,783 $21,376,519 HG

Congrats Ugo! What a monster finish! Personal record!

You don't have a chance?

I'm probably guessing your country wrong then!

This is true that CI have the easiest time rebuilding their spies, though if too many countries end up playing CI then maybe prices will be bad.

That said, the military market has been very empty most of this set. -_-

I've been receiving said spy ops too, and perhaps the tradeoff here is good enough (to give the people who end up being classic landfarms some way to fight back).

Didn't intend to farm anyone originally with the new rules, but after hitting just about everyone on the server (that could be hit), it was time to farm, and then target selection has been really crucial here, on who to farm and how to farm them. (Yes, having CS blown up not as fun lol but I think necessary. I mean we already have 3 self-deletes this set from becoming land farms... Maybe they didn't know about the new rules. As they lose land their SPAL goes up and can become more of a nuisance.)

The ability to leave GDI doesn't change your ability to war anyone.

Whether you leave GDI or not, the rules that apply to you hitting other countries are identical, because the other countries are in GDI.

The only difference is 1) you can hit other non-GDI countries, of which there usually are not many, and 2) other countries (in GDI or not) can FS you.

Thanks folks! Close fight Ugo!

Good recovery from all after the shenanigans.

Farmer/Oiler with heavy rigs. lol

Rank Country Land Networth Special
1 strobe lights and blown speakers (#80) Game profile 42,926 $78,239,167 HG
2 b l a c k m a g i c (#66) Game profile 55,285 $73,505,273 CG
3 Nimrod Workman (#65) Game profile 48,140 $71,152,918 HG
4 greyhound (#62) Game profile 46,344 $70,356,955 HG
5 Cash Me Ousside Howbowda (#64) Game profile 50,746 $67,841,315 HG
6 testtubebaby (#63) Game profile 45,756 $52,514,144 CG
7 The Forgotten (#61) Game profile 42,933 $52,128,462 HG
8 K O S O V A (#75) Game profile 32,060 $47,255,858 HG
9 se7in (#70) Game profile 31,273 $36,508,811 HG
10 Vicnic (#77) Game profile 28,911 $35,687,860 HG

Congrats Z! Big win!

Well, he's purpled, so he didn't self delete. =P

There were 87 countries in the Express server.

Rank Country Land Networth Special
1 call on me (#54) Game profile 51,326 $70,900,016 HG
2 Techstyle Mill (#63) Game profile 31,052 $70,124,362 HG
3 Bubba Slush (#73) Game profile 67,468 $65,263,711 HG
4 d a r k a r t s (#78) Game profile 49,148 $63,173,334 CG
5 The Forgotten (#62) Game profile 48,257 $60,026,731 HG
6 crude baby olive (#79) Game profile 33,538 $56,719,334 HG
7 L3n4 B3n4 (#82) Game profile 58,088 $56,422,523 HG
8 Bloodhound little Jeff (#66) Game profile 26,992 $53,060,530 HG
9 colorofmoney (#67) Game profile 49,628 $46,962,586 CG
10 C R O A T I A (#65) Game profile 16,441 $35,647,236 HG

Congrats Ugo on the win! Close one with Vic. Personal record for Ugo?

Congrats Vic on a good fight - 2 finishes over 70m nw now!

Congrats Kingme on extending his own all-time all-x casher record at 35.6m nw!

Basically the details are also wrong.

Attack Range Limit
GDI authority prevents offensive actions against another country which is 8 times bigger or smaller than it.
GDI
All countries are forced to join GDI. The cost of GDI membership is $3 per non-cs building.

Pretty sure it's half? So half of it accurate in-game, half of it accurate in server details?

This is a good question!

I do still spend money on the permanent GDI every set. lol

Congrats Koh! Good news!

There were 87 countries in the Express server.

Rank Country Land Networth Special
1 Verdict is Vengeance (#79) Game profile 48,072 $72,321,909 HG
2 oi you got a loicence for that (#74) Game profile 45,955 $59,446,466 CG
3 The Forgotten (#65) Game profile 43,724 $56,818,019 HG
4 baron wasteland (#83) Game profile 36,145 $53,985,993 HG
5 Hope can set you free (#64) Game profile 23,705 $51,425,074 H
6 grow your own (#66) Game profile 37,788 $48,510,630 HG
7 flat beat (#62) Game profile 29,898 $47,849,011 HG
8 j u m p (#75) Game profile 52,672 $46,579,931 HG
9 tempertantrum (#77) Game profile 54,235 $42,454,235 CG
10 Bitcoin Only (#80) Game profile 31,593 $37,228,858 HG

Congrats Kingme on the win! And a personal record!

Top 5 50m cut off - top 10 37m cut-off - we're doing great!

Congrats LB!

Thanks! And congrats to you as well Vic on a PB!

Hopefully more big finishes together - there's enough NW to go around!

Way to go Snake! xD

Good change! Thanks Slag!

My recommendation to DaddyFresh here is if you are doing commie indy, you probably want to destroy any building that isn't Industrial Complexes, and buy as much Industrial tech as you can.

Otherwise, you'd still become farmland even if you start on time.

It would be really funny if you kept your same country name too, and see if you still end up becoming someone's farm.

I think this is where your understanding of the game is falling short. The eventual winners of this set is already in the top 10 and massively turn delayed.

You're generally looking at 40k acres at turn 1100 with 400+ cs. You can be anywhere from 50-75k acres by turn 1500, with 400+ cs. That's what a good finish looks like. I agree not many people can do this, but we do see quite a number of countries around 50k acres, and these are the ones that consume a lot of oil.

I'm not sure what "5mil net by turn 550 w/ 200+ CS" really entails, since nw is not important until the final minutes of the game. In fact, you'd want have as low nw as possible in order to nw match the bots you are grabbing. And 200+ cs is really not a winning bpt unless you are a techer.

This is at turn 1550. Roughly 450 turns left in set.

You're assuming people aren't playing turn delayed.. I'm guessing most of the bigger players have 1k turns left.
(I have 1k turns left. 500 grabbing turns, 500 stocking turns.)

I have 1k rigs of production, and net of that I've already bought 2m barrels of oil, and have 500 turns of grabbing/building ahead of me where the breaks are 2-3m+.

Lotsa oil needed!

Well now with no wait time between sets, you can try it out again right away. (:

Don't think any of these things have changed in the past decade (public selling price limited to 3x private, time to market is up to 40min, being able to select length of time it stays on market, ability to recall etc.). The price of bushels on the PM has changed but that's it.

You can actually get details on time to market, market clearing prices for stuff like tech in https://www.earthempires.com/express/serverdetails. (Details are different for each server.)

Change #2 is likely going to be universally appreciated - no one loves the dead start!

#3 change would be bad for reasons that Hessman mentioned - I'd just end up farming the small fries (I'm probably already the most prolific bottom feeder on this server) to no recourse. They may be able to retal with nukes, but paired with the #4 SDI change where you'll want to maximize SDI, you can 5-tap the small fry 'til they self-delete. Slagpit's suggestion on removal of humanitarian for Spy Ops only is a good middle ground.

For #4, I welcome any game play changes that would change up strategy. Right now, techer doesn't seem particularly competitive on this server, so making some techs more valuable may help increase demand.

I'm not totally sure how to fix the new player experience - the skill gap on the server is huge (2 sets ago, only 14/74 countries broke 20m nw - winner at 98m nw; last set 19/69 broke 20m nw - winner at 85m nw). The one thing to prevent snowballing is probably to neuter the ability for any country to farm another one indiscriminately (I'm guessing this is your impetus for change #4), yet if we reduce everything to the point where people stop taking risks and just not break GDI, it wouldn't take long to 1-tap the entire server, making for a fairly boring player experience. lol

There were 94 countries in the Express server.

Rank Country Land Networth Special
1 fafolol (#30) Game profile 49,932 $56,204,157 HG
2 My Eyes Open VVide (#84) Game profile 33,447 $49,363,153 HG
3 Blow Stock to Retal (#52) Game profile 39,799 $44,152,593 CG
4 y (#51) Game profile 17,604 $40,948,819 DG
5 Superfly (#47) Game profile 41,841 $40,375,620 CG
6 Family Health Team (#10) Game profile 26,547 $39,384,462 HG
7 BroilKing (#71) Game profile 36,154 $36,115,233 HG
8 The Forgotten (#14) Game profile 21,299 $36,067,227 HG
9 ediVV nepO seyE yM (#87) Game profile 28,192 $34,940,889 HG
10 Vlad the Impaler (#8) Game profile 38,140 $33,484,675 TG

Congrats Zolag!

You've been winning a lot!

This is a gross understatement again. Just looking at eestats, every set you see so many countries make 200 attacks.

And also the breaks are 2.5-4m on sat/sun, so easily 150m jets per grabbing session. 2 grab sessions on the weekend is 300m jets worth of oil.

Right now, as a small techer, I've already bought 4m oil so far. lol (And no, not everyone is playing techer)

And also, there is DR in the in-game search that's accurate.

Lastly, none of the nw records you see in the sticky is a result of any coordination, or market manipulation, or bot abuse.

All the major strats are viable (farmer, indy, casher, techer). You don't need to cheat to win.

(Except me, of course, I use cheat codes all the time.)

Well my last oiler (the first and only I played), played poorly, got top 10, and would have been top 10 last set too!

If you're looking for oiler to finish over 80m nw, then no, that's not happening. If you're thinking top 10 (>20m nw), then yes, an oiler can be top 10 every set. If you wanted to run FFO, then yes, that's a winning strat on Express, and the most straight forward in fact. Not all "strats" need to be viable. You can't win with an straight up MBR on any server now.

The real problem with the oil market in express, is most players don't know how to price their oil, or keep it on market. Every set you'll see a lot of oil on market for $400, which is more expensive than everyone's PM. Or it's just empty. And then out of nowhere, you see super cheap oil going on market. lol

All oil sold on public this set so far.
Time start Time end Min sold price Max sold price Avg price Total volume
Jun 11, 14:00 Jun 12, 14:00 $249 $249 $249.00 94,400
Jun 12, 14:00 Jun 13, 14:00 $249 $375 $285.59 3,048,471

My buys
Time start Time end Avg market price Your avg price Your spending
Jun 11, 14:00 Jun 12, 14:00 $249.00 N/A $0
Jun 12, 14:00 Jun 13, 14:00 $285.59 $299.00 $394,927,572

I've bought 33% of this market myself. lol (And that's only the oil I bought on public)

So I had to buy oil from private all set so far, except this latest grabbing session that I completed.

Jun 13, 12:00 Jun 13, 13:00 $299.00 $299.00 $329,147,572

And then the market ran outta oil, and I had to stop. lol

I had to buy oil on private later in the set because somehow when I logged in the public market was empty. lol

I mean even right now, the oil market is empty, and I bought on private to grab!

This is a good change. xD

Easier to destock on Tuesday night, than from the bougie rooftop bar on Sunday.

Thank you thank you! 4 countries above 50m nw!

maj1 and amj2...

Who are clearly not the same person. Clearly. xD

Even when I build 3k rigs as a fascist really early on, I still need to buy at least 4m barrels off the market on sat/sun. lol

Yes, this would easily be the case. when grabbing sat/sun.

The breaks are around ~2m, sometimes 3m+ per attack. Could do 50 or more easily.

I also tend to get more land than most in Express, so I get that people don't send as many jets as I do each set. xD

Well, a win is a win, and a loss is a loss! I didn't win, Cat did!

I'd say I can usually consume 3-4m easily in a grab session by sat/sun.

I forgot to login after my last 30 hour logout. LOL
Could've give you a run for your money!

Congrats!

We are only 60% through the express set, and the server has already consumed 19m barrels of oil...

Did 7 actually get everyone but Samson? Haha

Yea, had 2 out of the 11 countries in A take potshots at me this set. Popular!

I wonder who's so out to get me.. xD

Thanks all!

I play CI and FF similarly in terms of CS goals and land benchmarks; CI just requires a lot more effort cos you gotta sell military in order to run turns, and sell as often as you can, at pretty ridiculous prices for most of the express set.

Just in case you misunderstand the idea - you'd still need to bait Ratski and his "neighbor" (if he didn't hit you first), but this time, instead of Ratski being able to retal, he can FS you.

This just prevents the baiting behavior, so the next time Ratski single taps you, you can kill him immediately without needing to "bait" him. (And maybe this is what you mean.)

Congrats Hessman! And the rest of the top 10!