I've never run casher before so help would be appreciated. I'm going to be giving her a test drive on express this time to see how I like it. 50/50 Bus/Res with some indust for spies. PCI Booms bonus while cashing or should I be looking for more turns? Buy low sell high? Republic? Thanks for the help.

For express? Booms while cashing.

Don't resell anything, i.e buy what you need, don't sell anything.

Get Res/Bus techs up to 176% by the time you reach stocking mode.

Sounds good. I think I can manage that. Could you play it as a Theo or would it be better to do it as a Republic for a noob to the strat type.

of course you can play theo casher but you won't get techs as high as rep gets and per capita income ain't same and exploring gives less land.

So it is viable. Obviously, there will be some differences in the intricacies but it is viable.

I have played casher with rep, dict, dem. not theo. That said -

I have been given to understand that is a fast starter and an excellent grabber, so definitely viable for express.

Depends whether you are going to grab for your land or explore.

If explore then Rep is a no-brainer. No idea what the right answer is if you intend to grab. But probably not Rep.

Couple of tips (from a one time only and for ever all-X casher) stay back in the scores list, regard a saved turn as your friend. This is because you are a BUYER of goods not a seller and hence you can take advantage of falling markets; also the main aggressors are HIGH in the scores list. So staying out of their sight is good.

Secondly look for received wisdom (I didn't find much) on de-stocking. It is not at all as clear as it might be how exactly to do it. The 2 billion limit, for example, is really not as simple as it used to be.

rep grabbing casher is doable strat but then needs more weap tech than other strats, dict casher could be option but due bpt-penalty more turns would be used on building up than other govts (theo and commy not included), tyr casher would be viable too but -20% income needs to be negated with more land, demo casher is 2nd best casher and only downsize is 3 turns per attack.

I never thought a tyr casher could be viable with that income penalty. Seems counter intuitive, you'd have to play it pretty aggressive and get grabby. So in order of results you'd put it 1) republic 2)demo 3)???
So your saying theo casher might not be the best way for a nub casher to learn it.

Demo can be better than rep with the right market conditions - 0% commisions allows for playing the market and investing your money instead of just stocking it. It can also hold more land, and with the bonus and mil strat tech can be a more efficient grabber. Rep is definitely "easier" to play well as a casher.

for nub rep is best, theo casher requires more land than rep to get same income and more luck with market to get techs and bushels cheaply (standing orders help but those would help rep too), tyr casher ain't that viable unless there's land to grab available quite a much (and even then rep would be better, less need to grab to get better income).

theo's max techs for busi and resi are 152% so if gets techs to 176% as rep then theo is already quite a much behind and then rep having 20% income bonus so theo would need alot more land to get on same level.

Is there enough time in express to properly convert to MBR close to the end? Even so, would it beat out straight cashing?

time (turns) yes but otherwise worth or not depends your land (if you have ~20k acres you need ~1.7b cash on rebuilding and bushels consumed) and other things, if you cash and take booms few times you get quite a much money.

Thanks for the help. I'll probably give the republic casher the nod this time around.

Skip the MBR phase, but do switch to destock. Get all of your stuff on the market, switch to monarchy, then call your stuff back, then sell all your bushels on the PM, then switch to Theo. You lose 14% of whatever you have onhand when you switch to Mon, but not *from* mon (this is key), and you gain 17% in purchasing power after the switch. If you do it right it's a good 10%-ish boost to final NW. I was not a believer, but my guy Zorp showed me the math, then I did it, then I finished higher than I calcd even though I had $800M still onhand when the set ended.

Should I hold off buying milt tech until after I make the swapout? To clarify Rep --> Mon --> Theo

Mil tech is helpful all set, it keeps your per turn expenses lower.

Well, conceivably that switch idea will work. (I am doubtful). But for a first time casher seems distinctly complex to me.

Just timing things on the de-stock is hard enough.

What to buy and when seems to me quite a critical (although good sense rather than deep expertise may be enough of a guide) aspect of the strat and I found buying in tech (throughout the set) quite a good way to stock. You can certainly work hard at Bus/Res from the get go (not at the expense of cashing before you reach your land goal obviously but otherwise with whatever spare cash accumulates).

Furious, I was doubtful too. I was wrong.

By the way, the Rep -> Mon -> Theo switch only works if you have so much stock that after jumping, your upkeep is so high it is no longer worth spending any turns. Generally though, this is not the case if you are not a techer (only techers have small land sizes), and your income is still more than your upkeep all the way to the last turn of the reset. If so, switching is generally worse off, because if you didn't switch, you would be producing max income every turn until end of set.

To determine if switching is better, you have to spreadsheet it out, and make some estimations about your income after switching and after jumping, as well as the rise in upkeep during the jump.

Also, remember you lose more % of your infrastructure the higher NW you are. The minimum of 14% loss scales to the maximum of 39% loss starting from 10.5m NW (I think). Every 1.5 NW increases it by 1% (or every 1m NW increases it by 1.5%), i can't remember which one it is. Generally speaking, if your NW is more than 20m NW at the time of the switch, it isn't worth it unless you are certain you will not be spending anymore turns from the time of the switch.

Oh, that is info I wasn't aware of. I guess on team we were all switching at relatively low nets.