Primary is certainly a different ball of fish!

So close Lawrence, I've also had a good few second places to Nitell. He's a tricky one to pin!

SOL breaking the netting record: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y_Pr6_MSkyo

What are allies for! 😂

nm. see your post now. no other netters in sol want to tag with you?

Now we have a netting server and a war server I'm much more inclined to play both and divide my attentions accordingly ;)

why aren't you playing?

based on your alliance finish just now it seems like you could compete for top spot!

We aren't precious about sharing (at least I'm not).

What Strat you playing?

Forum needs laughy face buttons 😂

No not THAT LaF!

Yeah well, the romanticising will keep us here another 10 years I'm sure.

We are definitely deep into the old-man arc now!

I would have said old-people, because I am very inclusive, but also I respectfully never comment on a woman's age.

Rumour has it the mods did it.

I don't believe a word of it of being in their pockets as I am, but I thought it was important to pass this on, to maintain the pretence I am impartial.

I agree, all of those things sounds great, and so far as I know none of those things invoke bans, but your position that banning is bad because of Mehul is ludicrous.

Unless you are SuperFly, in which case bans are frequently applied due to his inability to net, and his abuses of power appointing unofficial spokesPERSONs for monsters.

But what would someone with a 690 post count know about forum posting! I'll wager that your mother was a hamster and your father smells of elderberries.

If you say so!

Rank Country Land Networth Special
1 p h i l t r e (#75) Game profile 43,992 $92,233,782 HG
2 c i g s 2 5 c e n t s (#66) Game profile 65,023 $66,393,661 CG
3 The Forgotten (#65) Game profile 43,766 $63,604,717 HG
4 Cobra ChiCken (#67) Game profile 46,108 $56,978,677 HG
5 Tech Kids (#74) Game profile 40,276 $47,664,575 HG
6 groove is in the heart (#62) Game profile 54,731 $44,268,805 HG
7 The Fractured but Whole (#63) Game profile 38,383 $43,541,663 HG
8 Neighbors Sharing The WiFi (#73) Game profile 24,960 $31,431,865 CG
9 Dee Kahn (#61) Game profile 20,861 $28,780,709 HG
10 Link (#78) Game profile 62,573 $22,834,535 HG

Congrats to NiteLL for an absoutely huge $92

Particular thanks for making my $86 last round look decidedly mediocre. No really, I'm so happy for you! 😂

Ah, I understand what you meant now.

...but wait, if it was you guys that wanted to peacefully netgain, what went wrong?

MONSTERS wants to netgain, I think everyone knows that. It's on the clan homepage!

However, when they are attacked they will war, when they are threatened they will be ready.

You say MONSTERS wanted "peace" for their last round. What does that even mean?

Red was doing his thing again, so they got ready for war again. There was never going to be any "peace" this set, so I don't really follow your logic.

I think that what Red was doing to MONSTERS is a shining example of how dysfunctional Alliance had become.

A peaceful net gaining tag, that wanted to play the game their way, becoming the most viable target to war. Herp derp.

Seems the most logical next step is to go to war with the bots, they are not war prepped at all, can't hit back and certainly aren't going to wall.

Imagine the glory upon your heads. The war stats will be impeccable. Everyone will see that you are indeed the best at playing the game how it should be played!

Nobody will have clue what it is you are trying to prove though.

I'll let them know that you have decreed this to be MONSTERS last reset. As far as I was aware they had no plans to leave Alliance, despite my attempts to persuade them otherwise.

I'm still trying to figure out the whole "wipe you off the map" comment. It seems like you have some bigger goal than simply warring.

Are you intentionally trying to run people off servers? This seems like an odd thing to do, given that in the next breath you will be whining and moaning about how there are no players and its all the netters fault.

What is it you are expecting the netters to do, line up each reset and be cannon fodder?

I suppose it makes sense. I don't know if you played TEAMS but I remember trying it briefly. I posted looking for a netting tag, and was invited to join a new alliance. I don't know if there was some history I'm not aware of, but I remember that a bunch of existing players took an almost irrational dislike to our very existence, and for seemingly no good reason blindsided us. The following reset we prepped, but that was met with being gang banged by multiple tags co-ordinating.

It didn't really feel much like it was about war. These people seemed motivated by a genuine desire to run people off the server. There didn't really seem much point sticking around so I left. I can't say I was sad to see it shut down, it looks like those players got what they wanted.

It follows that if it is also the case that people are actively trying to drive people away from alliance (i'm guessing that the people doing that on TEAMS must have gone somewhere?) then the only logical conclusion is that they are trying to get this server shut down too.

Those people that actually enjoy playing the game, would do well to recognise the real enemy of it.

If it comes to pass that those players succeed and get alliance shut down. Then MONSTERs will have no choice to move to co-op, I think they would do well there, but I think they would be disappointed that it had come to this.

Who knows what goes on the minds of other people though!

You are 100% correct imo.

The introduction of Co-op makes Alliance the defecto war-server. The "how it's supposed to be played"-server, specifically for all the people that think this is how the game is supposed to be played.

Everyone should be happy now, but I suspect they won't be.

When SoL found out people were messing with their boosting effort, why didn't they do something about it? Find out who was doing it and demand it back under threat of war—not some phone arranged crap, a good old fashioned blindside!

If that's too rich for you why not look for countries that have stock home that are in the same tag as the country doing the blocking, and gently take it from them with some light farming!

Or make it about honour, kill the countries of people that go on AT and make fun of your alliance in a farewell thread (hello!).

I dunno find whatever reason you need, but do SOMETHING to make this the war game that people are so vocal about wanting!

Or don't, why should I care. I got "boring" net-gaining to do over on the "boring" server, with all my "boring" friends 😂

It's funny that the thing that brought me back to alliance this reset was that I was not netting, and it's ended up being a pretty fun reset!

Maybe I will stick around. Are there any alliances out there that intend to play this server properly next reset?



Because I can.

This post has merit

I will certainly be sad to see SOL with fewer players, as I have now found out that it could have a big effect on the game in future.

My country was left in absolute ruins after having to tag kill RedX's motley crew, I went from fully war prepped to not having as many missiles as when I started. CRIPPLED.

It seemed obvious, that the SAINTS' FS was merely a diversion due to the overall nature of it being that it was utterly and indefensibly terrible. So we awaited the inevitable real FS, somewhat surprisingly none came.

With a few weeks left to go in the reset, intelligence was suggesting there was no other war on the horizon, that SAINTS were in actual fact just terrible at the game, life, monopoly AND bingo. As such I would likely just be spinning my wheels for the rest of the set. Easy life, tech and sell!

What better to do with a largely purposeless country than have some fun in the market, and what fun there was to be had! Some wild buyouts meant I was able to cash in on some totally ridiculous prices 😂

Whilst it's unfortunate that there wasn't really any point to me generating all this cash, it was kind of fun. I've just recently found out that SoL were behind the buyouts, and so I guess this seemed like a good place to say thanks to you guys for being such good sports.

So I guess moving forwards SoL having fewer players *will* be a big loss. It's likely that any opportunity to cash in on their market buyouts in future will not be quite the same.

quite correct!

I'm often amused nowadays at the amount of agency people seem to just give away so freely!

hit them! hit them! ;p

(says the player who isn't even playing classic... maybe I am the nuisance!)

lol

*sfluffs*

Hard agree.

🙃

Ah, Bartle! I remember that fellow! :)

As an achiever I obviously already know that all the other types are players that are bad at the game and have just invented inferior 'reasons' to play to hide from the fact they are ASS ;)

But seriously though, as an achiever you want to "be the best" and so eventually beating the other achievers on a level playing field is not enough, so you are drawn into the metagame of beating all the other player types at their game.

Beating the "killers" is an interesting one. Fundamentally it's quite simple, but to understand why means also excelling in the exploring and socialising games, inferences can be drawn here, but I'm not making any arguments about that.

Bartle states that killers get their enjoyment from other players raging as a result of being killed? What I think this means is that they don't see the killing as "winning" so much as they see the other player raging as "losing", and that this is their win condition.

That is why you cannot beat the killers by killing them. They don't care, because they didn't get upset about being killed so they didn't lose. In the killers' game, you didn't win because you didn't make them rage.

One approach might be to try and deprive them of their win condition by not raging. You could play, be killed, and not care about it. However the killers' aren't the brightest bunch and are quite happy with pretending you are mad. Just like they are happy pretending that other people losing is somehow them winning.

So we need a different approach. We explore further!

The fact that their win condition relies on an external factor that is entirely under our control is a vulnerability that can be exploited.

If a killer can't kill you, then there is no "loss" (ie no rage, real or imagined), and that means there is no win condition for them.

Furthermore, if they are unable to kill, they themselves rage! They will deny it, but this is futile. By definition it is the killers entire reason to exist, and they have already outed themselves in every whiny post on AT ever. Let the record stand, these posts are clear evidence that taking away their ability to kill drives them insane.

In killers' minds, the rage is the "loss", the win condition is that the other player loses and so they are compelled to see the other player as having won. Thus a killer is easily defeated, simply by not playing their game. Of course the fact that a killer is raging isn't the achievers' win condition, because the achiever is playing a different game. The achiever wins because he beat the killer at their own game.

Even knowing this, there is nothing a killer can do. They are caught in a catch 22 situation. Whilst ever they remain in the killer mindset, their only win condition is predicated on rage. Whilst ever they remain in the killer mindset, being deprived of the ability to win makes them rage.

The only winning move is not to play.

How about a nice game of chess?

Thanks guys. The stars definitely aligned for me on this one!

Don't forget: October 3rd, pre-order now ;)

Do you know if the new rules have cause more or less people to self delete?



I think you are right. I think some people will always quit regardless of what you give them. Still, people have been given something.

I think there is a critical difference between giving people more options with ops than missiles, it is this:

You fire your missiles, they are gone. You get farmed more. You have no more missiles, maybe you get a few each day. What do you do now? Self delete?

You do your harmful spy ops, you get farmed more, your SPAL is stronger and tomorrow you can do more harmful ops, with even greater success. Sure, there is still a chance you self delete, especially if you aren't aware. you can do these ops.

I like the second option because it seems much closer to how civilised society works — at least, as much as one could expect, in the context of a war game — the more of a fluff you are to other people, the more payback you get. This is stage one of learning not to be a fluff. After a while the conditioning kicks in, stage two, people think twice about being a fluff for fear of payback.

Some people never quite reach some of these developmental milestones, but that is to be expected. The bellend curve dictates it.

Do you think they would have self deleted under the old rules?

Do you think these countries deleted because of the new rules?

"target selection has been really crucial here, on who to farm and how to farm them"

"As they lose land their SPAL goes up and can become more of a nuisance"

The game mechanics themselves driving incentives. Inequalities self correcting, rather than imposing artificial constraints. Players, resolving issues through the game itself, rather than lobbying on the forums or other such channels.

The laissez-faire approach, vs the regulated approach.

As you may gather, I believe the former is a superior philosophy that tends to lead to better outcomes in the long term, because it is explicitly geared towards preventing perverse incentives.

Regulation tends to veer towards cronyism, and often falls foul of creating unintended consequences.

Sounds like classic is healing!

Once you are converted all you can really do is use turns to sell.

Would it be insane to have some kind of option (like e.g. cashing, or teching) but based on MB's that effectively grows your private market in some way.

The cost of running turns would give it some nuance, like you cant just spam all your turns once you convert, but correctly balanced this mechanic could have you attempting to balance the cost of running turns against the potential benefit of reselling additional military.

If might create an interesting dynamic towards the end of the set, because this is historically a time where the public market empties due to supply and demand issues, buffing MBR generation might mitigate the supply shortage somewhat.

The main downside I can think of, is that it would potentially nerf some of CI's endgame potential.

(That also makes me wonder about some kind of "working overtime" use of turns for CI, and maybe even farmer? this could be a nightmare from a game balance perspective, but also make destocking for farmer a little less banal than just keep grabbing)

I think everyone posting in this thread should be sanctioned. It's all very concerning.

Sounds like a good idea.

The criteria should be: "making obvious-troll threads on AT"

Just like you have.

It might be hard for some people to see this, but the thing that is MOST likely to get a game shut down is people repeatedly being fluffs to the people that run the game FOR NO REASON*

(*Having a small pee pee and a big god complex isn't a reason)

For clarity, I am not directing this specifically at you KoH, it is a general statement about the state of affairs surrounding this game and many others. It isn't a new thing, it's a tired and played out set of behaviours that has plagued a subset of humanity for millennia.

Anyone can hit anyone else in express, I already covered why *I think* this is a bad idea. That doesn't mean I am right, I think it would be great to see someone doing that and then winning the server. The nuance and understanding of the game mechanics required to pull it off would demonstrate some real skill to me. Even a genuine attempt to do so would be something.

The mods stepping in should be a warning sign that fluff isn't right and hasn't been right for a long enough time to warrant drastic action.

Saying that mods were responsible for teams being a toxic cess pit of whiny ass fluffes is like saying that the fire brigade are the ones that wrecked a burning house by turning up and pouring water on it.

Saying the it was mod actions that resulted in teams being shut down, is like saying that the burned out building was subsequently demolished by building control because it had gotten wet.

Meanwhile the arsonists that set the fire stand back rubbing their hands together like a housefly thinking about the next pile of fluff it is going to eat.

The most tiresome thing is that the people who aren't being fluffs can see all this playing out, and are painfully aware of the what the players in question are doing with their fake indignation and their disingenuous bullfluff stories about being the victims. Some people are just pathetic, it's no longer surprising to me, so I'm not particularly disappointed. What I would like is for them to figure it out, to be more self aware and have the humility to acknowledge this and instead of constant self flagellation they could try self improvement. I think they would find this much more rewarding than continuing to delude themselves into making the next terrible choice, which as we've seen recently at the extreme can then start to bleed outside the game.

It is a game after all, right?

Yeah, I had you down as being able to netgain ;)

I call BS. No decent "netter" plays like this on express, because they know it is -EV. Whilst it can be possible to make a success of hitting and jumping out of range, this generally comes at the cost of your finish. You have to essentially throw the set. Netters know this.

There is an outside chance you can make a human hitting strat possible if you single tap enough people and utilise game mechanics well, but it's very risky and there isn't some potential outsize benefit to justify it. I have tried, as I am sure others have.

Therefore, if people are hitting you it is most likely because they are morons that can't net (usually along with some story about how they are solving world hunger, fixing the economy and ending all war).

Or, they are having a temper tantrum, which is really just a subset of the above.

Or, it is a simple mistake. e.g.

PS Aug 5, 12:24 sandstorm (#61) Lions Gate (#70) 234 A

In which I forgot to check the "Exclude Non-NPC" box on the search screen. It happens from time to time, it could default to checked at the start of the set, but I think the fact that it doesn't probably says something.



Every 5 days. You don't have to wait long, another one will be along shortly. If you are just running a spam country to target netters you don't even need to have full turns, it's a zero effort strategy that any braindead monkey can ape into.

Be careful that you don't fall into the trap of thinking your idea is special. It probably isn't — but I'm interested to see what you have planned... maybe you can prove me wrong!

I've heard the whole "people should have more turrets" philosophy before. There was a time I subscribed to it. There was a time that I took part in a co-ordinated takedown of alliance taking on the role of the villain unting the whole server against a common enemy, ostensibly because people "didn't have enough turrets" but I like to think we did a good job generating some entertainment value. Subterfuge & espionage, infiltration of clans, mysterious role playing on AT, finally culminating in a several hundred thousand acres worth of grabs (not to mention the co-ordinated stock stealing) and uniting every clan against us in a full on server war. Sure we were "just suiciders" in many people's eyes, but I think we did it with a little bit of style. When we did our FS, I was a 120,000A casher with $134m NW and 18 days of stock! I did get killed of course, as a Theo I was the missile dump, soaked 323 :) I also continued to pay for it by being repeatedly killed in subsequent resets!

When the dust settled after that ignomous reset, it made me think. What was the purpose of it all? It occurred to me that, if it was just about being offended at other people not having "enough" turrets then that wasn't a particularly useful contribution to the game. How many turrets would be enough. What if they all run with 1m turrets. You can still break em right? So they should have MORE turrets. What if they run with 10m turrets, well I guess I could still break 'em. So...

The whole thing seemed somewhat arbitrary, does it become about just making sure you don't have the least turrets, or is it more about being lucky to not get spotted with less than a neighbour. Neither of those seem like game mechanics that differentiate on skill, it seems more like RNG. Furthermore if everybody runs with the same number of turrets, then it technically makes netting easier because now military expenses reduce the size of any stockpile. Everyone is affected more or less equally, so the final standings aren't likely to change the only difference will be everyone's finishing NW will be X% less. To what end?

Moreover, what exactly was my problem with how many turrets other people had? Why did I care? I couldn't answer that question. I don't actually think I did on reflection - one of the guys in our group seemed very motivated by this aspect. I was more sold on the idea of putting on a decent "server bad guys" performance, that we would wage an unconventional war that didn't follow the same "rules" that everyone normally did. I certainly wasn't interested in running a mid-suicider country that makes a few grabs and gets promptly killed. We ended up creating a "hidden" tag full of good netters with big ass countries that farmed the entire server. It was something a bit different, and I liked that.

It seemed to me that the "buy more turrets" motive lacked real purpose. So I pretty much reconciled myself with the idea that it was a futile endeavour.

Now I'm not trying to tell you how to play your country, but I am curious as to whether you have managed to come up with a reason as to why you want people to buy turrets. Some sort of achievable end goal, some final objective that you can categorically say (or even quietly think to yourself) "I did it!"

Perhaps I lack imagination. There are plenty of games I have played where other people have come up with their own unique challenges, and I've enjoyed seeing the creativity in this process. Going along for the ride as they take up the challenge, rooting for them to overcome the odds and prevail in their quest to wrangle the foo, such that the bar condition is met in some way that nobody had ever thought to do before.

In this quest to make people buy turrets, what would be your success criteria, what is the end goal? Maybe I'm just too simple to see it. If I understood what it was though, I think I'd more enjoy watching how you go about it.

OH YOU'D LIKE THAT WOULDN'T YOU! 😂

Hulkomania will win summer slam, and that's the bottom line, because you smell what the rock is 2x4.

IM SHOCKED

Thank you mods! :D

Just managed to scrape over 35m NW lol.

meh cant edit topic...

should be "Round 820 Top 10"

There were 86 countries in the Express server.

Rank Country Land Networth Special
1 s n a p i t f l i c k i t (#80) Game profile 57,259 $68,682,092 CG
2 claustrophobic sting (#61) Game profile 39,920 $67,111,074 HG
3 joE dirT (#65) Game profile 49,612 $44,219,091 HG
4 Royale With Cheese (#83) Game profile 27,172 $36,848,714 HG
5 Unforced Error (#66) Game profile 13,216 $34,760,204 DG
6 smokeemifyougotem (#62) Game profile 50,411 $32,482,223 HG
7 America (#82) Game profile 42,874 $31,425,426 FG
8 Link (#75) Game profile 60,727 $30,556,369 HG
9 The Forgotten (#71) Game profile 34,753 $26,308,074 HG
10 Sprocket (#70) Game profile 29,551 $20,035,343 HG

Congrats nitell, just pipped me at the end there :)

commander1972 another solid finish

and special shout out to Mortcus! recovering well from some heavy mid set retals

Oh man. The destocking!

NO U!

srsly though, the best war countries are the ones that are best prepped. the ones that understand the game mechanics such that they can optimise for a specific scenario on the fly. That skill is used, when netting, to optimise for NW at end of set, for warring it is optimising for resources/production during a war.

People that don't understand the game mechanics can perform adequately at both. The mechanics of hitting during a KR (for the individual) are pretty basic. Back in the day there was a bit more nuance when you had big targets, big hitters, many members per side and there was a larger "war meta" at play.

That isn't as true now. This set in AT, for MONSTERS at least, it was basically show up blast turns get the kill. Too ez. Although, I am fully expecting some blindside from out of nowhere, ganking seems to be so du jour these days.

I ain't even mad, im just disappointed that this is the state of so called warmongers. I understand they are likely motivated by a desire to try and relive the olden days, sentimentality is a strong motivator. Realistically though, I don't see that happening with the current player base.

I can war and will war. I just think that the whole thing is played out, there is no longer any real dimension to warring. The people who are "warring" by ganking netters are blatantly just trolling. There is no "warring" going on no matter how you dress it up. It isn't a mystery to me why people say things like "oh they should jet get more turrets". I was once in that camp, in time I came to realise that it was just me, not them.

Netting is still subject to some 80/20(ish) rule. Using express as an example, it's easy to get 60m+, 70m+ is harder, I have yet to get to 80m but it's clearly possible. To me there is still challenge here that will keep me coming back. I don't see any challenge in "warring" unprepared netters, and being promptly killed. I don't see any enjoyment to be found. I don't see those actions as making any positive contribution to the game.

Each to their own though, like you say, I can't force people to play any particular way.

Good points! Especially the part where I get credit for something 😂

Actually tho, the "it's not just grab bots" is very salient and I'd been wanting to say this but I wasn't sure it would be particularly well received.

Felt to me like this was just the state of the game for a long time *shrugs*. The rise of Discord seems to have reduced friction a little, lots of chat at SKA, and even MONSTERS have embraced this new fangled tech and we have good chats.

I think an important thing to note is that "activity" isn't a wait for it to happen thing, people have to put in the effort.

...

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