Thinking mainly for primary server. What are good stats before you start grabbing?

Is 360 turns
180 CS
3.8k land
3.6k ICs
750k turrets
no cash and no tech reasonable?

Don't need that much turrets. You want to have some SPAL, and jets before you start grabbing.

heh good point. Let's assume by 750k turrets I really mean some equivalent combo of jets/turrets/spies.

Some say it's better to start grabbing at 1.9k acres so you can build more CS. But it can have a downside which is that you may run out of good targets later in the set.

yea, I think I'm firmly in the you'd run out of targets camp. But it is something I consider every set. Honestly I was considering whether a second mass explore at 3.8 acres might make sense. But I don't think it does.

I had a miserable time with this last set.

I'm in the grab at 1.9k camp, because building CSes faster means you can cash/explore more turns later on.

But your explore returns will be worse.

so? grabbing returns cover that unless defender goes lunatic and farms/missiles attacker.

I don't really have any lack of turns to cash/explore by about the 15th-20th day in the reset, so I'm not sure how useful getting CS up early is (I mean to say exploring for 5 turns at end of the day on the 16th is basically equivalent to building 5 CS, that extra 50 acres is fairly marginal). I could see the argument that grabbing at 1.9k->more production up faster (since if you mass X you don't build a new IC until AFTER all the exploring) ->more $$ for tech early->more production->more $$ for tech->more production->... in an endless loop:P

but back to the original question, I'm assuming these are reasonable stats? I've been going to CS heavy in my startup in the past I realized, since I was playing in more of an alliance mindset where first 300 turns are basically all CS. I just did a trial on another server and got these results and wanted to be sure they were fairly in line with normal...

I usually build 60 CS in the first 100 turns and then keep my CS around half of turns played. So yea, I'll have 180 CS too when Im at 360 turns. If you build more CS you'll have less cash on hand. So I think this is a good balance if you explore to 3.8k acres.
This almost always puts me in top 10 in the first week of the set on any server. Even with a rep indy startup instead of commie for example.

So I think it's fine. I usually do have a little cash for tech, although not much at that point.

http://forums.earthempires.com/...z=round-168-andrewmose-s-

This was from express. I was all explore so i sold heavier than i would in primary. But around 360 turns I would have had similar numbers, trading tech for jets and turrets.

tyr/techer to farmer - win

They are reasonable stats bobby.

I've always found that as an Indy if you go too hard too fast on the CS in primary that you end up being a day or two behind in NW, and land(or built land), making you susceptible to grabs/retaliatory grabs. Less NW means less to sell to get your tech up. Sure you explore a few extra turns instead of building CS along the way, but you are behind already. In the end a calculator will say you catch up, but only if you don't get hit, and that's the biggest factor. There are so many more variables on primary than say playing on alliance server where you pretty much could let an excel spreadsheet tell you how to run your turns.

Oh and yeah running out of targets is a big factor too.

That's one reason why I got caught up in the bad grabbing last set, which made me running from retals for half the set, which led to me falling behind in tech. Being high land and low tech snowballs, especially when running from retals. In the end my tech levels were so far behind, by end set I still had about 1k unconverted land, no military tech and a 2-3% lower Indy/bus/res than I normally do. All from doing a few extra SS grabs and some bad timed midfeeds.

That was a gong show set for me, I don't know how I stayed in t10 to be honest.

Indy!! way to go!! Ill just out purchase you!!

Tyranny techer bro. That's the way to go

Yeah I'm converting from a "mixed strategy" into a full commie indy. Don't know why I ignored the advice getting startstarted.

Thanks!

i agree with bellca tyranny techer!!!

-agreed