debate.

let me show you a primary scenerio. my exact scenerio for last reset.

lets say you average +100M/pci boom;. each day you get 1.3333 pci booms. so thats 133M/cash. since a PCI boom costs 6 pts and you get 8 bonus pts/day.

lets say you also get to your land goal (50K) in the first month, which would be outstanding...

that leaves 30 days to stock. with the pci boom 133M/day x 30 days = around 4B cash = approx 16M nw. since 2B cash is worth roughly 8m nw.

so the pci booms will get you 16m more nw.

however, by doing so, you will be buying food for 70 and selling it for 35 (assuming u wait till near the end).

you get approx 50 turns a day.

a casher at 50k cashes about 20M after food expenses at the start, and probably 10M after food expenses near the end after he was jumping. i know before i did my final jump, i was sitting at around 85M nw and cashing approx 15M/turn - 140k food @35/bushel, so around 10m/turn. lets split the difference and say you will avg 15m/turn (after food expenses) per turn. (excluding those PCI boom turns).

so at 50 turns a day, you will make 750M/day (15m x 50turns). x 30 days = 22.5B. which would be a helluva stockpile. + the 4B from the PCI turns. thats approx 26B in stockpile. which would be roughly 104M nw.

that would be only if you could load food for what you bought it for. which we all know is untrue. lets say you stocked ALL food with those 22.5B (approx 90M nw). sold all of it for half what you bought it. you just lost 45M nw in stock.

so essentially, im trading say the 4B from PCI booms for 30 pct expenses decrease.

a reduction in expenses would allow you to cash about 30 pct more per turn...

so at 15M/turn after expenses, that would bump you to 20M/turn. so an extra 5M/turn x around 50 turns a day x 30 days= approx 1500 turns.

so. according to these calcs, you trade 4B to get 7.5B (the biproduct of an extra 5m/turn for 1500 turns). that is a gain of 3.5B in stockpile. subtracting of course, military expenses gained from spending $ on military instead of food.

so for this to NOT be worthwile, you would have to lose 3.5B or more in expenses over those 1500 turns, or approx 2.3333M/turn to make this not worthwhile. i still feel like its making it worthwhile.

this is based on a few assumptions.

1 you reach 50k land in 30 days (very hard, and i was on a pretty close pace if i had subtracted those 2 topfeeds).
2. food prices follow what this reset did. which i doubt. 70 during stockpiling high, even for this server.
3. military prices stay around the 130-140 range like they did this server.

these are just very rough calcs. but interesting enough to make me attempt this if i run casher this upcoming reset.

but open for discussion!

Also, did anyone who finished in the top ten invest in reducing decay?
Instead of having to lose so much value in bushels when destocking, you could just hold cash on hand. I know its risky but it might be worth it if you have enough def

I tried decay bonus in alliance last set

With reducing decay you will only get to 100% by day 45 at the earliest, by picking up each bonus as early as possible (24/22 hours). So, including free gdi, day 47. Every 24 hours will take more like 48 days, but I usually miss a few days so i think i can only get to 100% by day 52/53 at the earliest so add in free gdi and i might get there by day 55. Last set i would have got there by day 55 iirc, on alliance without gdi.

Since food peaks (usually) closer to day 40/45 you can't dump your bushels at peak and just carry cash.

If you dumped 106m bushels on day 45 at 55/bushel, cashing $20m/turn with 80% decay bonus i think you'd lose a bit more than $500m through corruption until you got to 100% decay bonus... but that's a rough estimate while i've been driving and i've probably made a mistake somewhere. I might have a go on a spreadsheet tomorrow.

this is very interesting. ive never even thought about doing the decay. someone should run a spreadsheet for all the bonus based on a computed figure of what say a 40 or 50k acre casher/farmer/indy is doing to find optimal bonus use. with what happened to veni/oldman, obv we learned that the bonus play a HUGE difference.

Another thing, for a fascist farmer, getting to 100% decay bonus, would be quicker.... 42 days when getting the bonuses every 24 hours, so, including gdi should be possible by about day 50.

I wouldn't imagine decay being of any use to an indy.

Building costs, maybe if going 50k+ acres or expenses... i think expenses are more likely better of the two for cashers and indies as you can keep running at a decent production level.

now expenses or pci boom. both are greatly beneficial to a casher. care to run a spreadsheet?

Maybe, if i've got time.

It's a really difficult question of balance though, since if you're taking bonus turns then pci boom, the extra turns will be beneficial when you're grabbing as you'd be able to squeeze a few more SS grabs in, or PS if you find an easy farm target. I think i remember you saying you took turns then pci jj... do you think you would have had the same land as quick if you hadn't taken the turns and taken another bonus instead? When you're growing, the expense bonus would not be close to being as good as the turns.

you can do it in 40-41 days in FFA

caffine, i took turns until my stockpile phase. then PCI booms.

heres my bonus order for last set.

first 16 turns. free gdi
next months worth. 4 turns/day.
after done lging.
PCI boom.
because i found that PCI boom equalled or came out slightly ahead of 4 turns of cashing.. and i save on expenses for the 3 turns i didnt take, which is sweet. mostly, the ridiculous amt of food my population was eating.

I did the same as you JJ. Turns -> PCI boom. With GDI somewhere in there.

oldman did decay with his country M Theory http://primary.www.earthempires.com/oldstatus?countryid=90899

I don't think he liked it.

He did turns and PCI booms when he won with Propylene Oxide.

As far as expense bonus goes, I believe it is worth more money by the end, but you will sacrifice your position by having less turns/PCI booms in the meantime. I think casher can probably go either way, while indy obviously must do expenses.

Last round I had -40% expenses bonus. On a 48.8K land, cashing @605 an acre Dict I saved $432mil on the last day alone. On average I saved about $300 mil a day in the last 3 weeks. I did however switch to PCI booms for the last 8 or 9 days.

Personally with my experience expenses bonus is just a way to stock military instead of food. We all know stocking food will lose you money. Why not stock military you'll lose money on it, but at lest you'll gain NW.

interesting. worth a shot like i said.