I apparently don't haha, but in the past a rep for AB retals usually kept most "known" folk away from me on solo servers. Any particular tricks popular now?

Stay above half the NW of the Rank 1 guy, whoever he is.

You think that's enough? My experience this last express reset suggests it isn't, and I was teching so not real fat.

I can't do this trick either. But obviously avoid being landfat (until and unless you are secure in the top spot). Maybe avoid really huge grabs - on express certainly avoid several big grabs close to each other on the news.

I like to have better than average spal which must help a bit.

Anyway, interested to see what others say on this.

It's usually enough, but you obviously need to look at your own landsize relative to the ones around you. My second rule of thumb is if you're n-th rank in Land Size, you should be near n-th rank in NW (within 20% of n).

Sound like good rules of thumb, Xinhuan.

Does it matter how far above half leader's networth you are? Or, if you stick to rule 2, is the higher above half you are the better?

Play an indy and keep half your production in turrets

Of course the higher you are, the better it is. But you don't want to be TOO high, as that would reduce the number of targets you can grab (the ones just above your humanitarians limit). Also being higher NW means a higher upkeep, so too high is also not a good thing.

The best indicator of performance is land size. The best countries are usually the ones with more land, and they have more land because they started off with a more efficient country (i.e produce more goods per acre of land) at the get go from the first week of a reset. Producing more goods means you can buy more units, get more land, and spiral up. As you get more land, it is important to maintain the tech % for goods production, and keep that spiraling up or constant, rather than spiraling down.

be #1...

So what your really need is 1.5 times Turrets as anyone elses Jets right, or 2X if they PS?

If you have 1.5 times as many turrets as the highest number of jets held by anyone else and if your Weapons tech is at least as high and (on the Alliance and Primary servers) your defence allies contribute 1.5 times as much defence as the offence allies contribute to that person then you would be secure.

But maybe the guy has turns, fremen. Or money in hand. Or a ready source of money. The number of jets is not static.

In the very broadest of terms it doesn't really work like that. No one is able to build such a huge wall of turrets that they can hide securely behind it.

Jets, as a general thing, beat turrets. For the reason inherent in your question. You need three turrets to keep out two jets sent on a PS. It is part of the fundamental architecture of the game and if you think about it, needs to be so to keep the gameplay active.

So it turns out that you must strike balances. How much resource to use on turrets, how much to use building other deterents to being attacked (like a lot of jets - saying to the aggressor, OK bud hit me if you like but you WILL get hit straight back, or a lot of missiles, or a lot of tanks each of which contain other threats).

You try to deter or shut out as many as possible - most of those below you on the scores list. As regards the ones above you, accept that some of them can beat your turrets no matter how many turrets you build or buy. So you deter those guys. the ones above you, by being land thin. Let there be other, better targets for them to hit. Not you.

For what it is worth I tend to have two turrets for each 1 jet. But a lot of people configure their counties closer to parity - 1 jet for each turret.

Good defence is a bit more of an art than a science.

to keep ahead of other players jets by buying turrets you would need to spy countries in range daily/twice a day and that'd be alot wasted turns and would draw alot attention on your country.