Xin-

OK, hopefully this isn't becoming annoying- I'm just a curious player.

Is there a formula as to how many chemical missiles it takes to kill a country if you have their population. I noticed some clan sites have a # listed as to how many missiles it takes. Perhaps they've managed to compute a # from hundreds of battles. No idea.

If you know the formula please post! Thanks.

2nd question.

Do GS give better returns on civilian kills than BR?

3rd question.

I'm sure this has been asked 10000000x times, but does military strategy tech contribute to the # of civilians that are killed?

4th question.

Does a Tyranny's 20% military attack gains multiply with military strategy tech in the same way a dictator's military bonus and weapons tech multiply?

For an example: Instead of 1000 civilian killed, would it be, 1000*1.2*1.4 (if MS Tech were maxed) = 1680 civilians. Is that right?

I know demoralize drops a person's readiness by 5% of REMAINING readiness (which appears to seriously slow down at about 70%) which is about 7 demos. My question is, how much do EM missiles effect readiness? Does it affect REMAINING readiness or readiness in general.

Thanks in advance.

1. i'm sure some1 has calced how many chems it takes to kill for example 25k pop and that amount is high (several hundred+).

2. gs and br kill ~same pop with gs killing bit more but also has 5c min (besides early set when its 3c) and br has 10c min (early 6c).

3. yes

4. yep

5. getting rediness below 70% is waste of turns and ems (cruises) affect on general readiness i think.

So once you get a population to 9 civilians a turn it's best to switch from GS to BR? If your purpose is to kill that country?

that depends what is br break, if its several millions then it'd be waste of resources to switch except on last few attacks (~10), if target comes online then its better to do both attacks since it makes walling more difficult (is it useful to continue attacking depends money target has in hand and also turns it has (with 50 turns and few 100m cash can wall quite a while)) or just leave it alone (to be killed later) since under nowaday's rules that country is crippled (not much production if non-casher and no positive income if casher) quite a long time.

1. Each Missile kills a % remaining population. It's estimated to be a certain %, but it can be mitigated by SDI on the target, so the estimate is just that, an estimate. The returns is also affected by the things like strategy% and the defender's medical tech, so it's really not that accurate, but usually within +-10 missiles.

2. GSes kill more remaining % per hit than BRs, but GSes have a lower 5 civ limit, while BR has a higher 10 civ limit. In practice, you use the attack type that costs less military wise (in terms of how many units you will lose to kill him), or whatever unit your "breaker" has more of. BRs are also used if it is suspected the target might come online to interfere with the kill, since BRs also kill buildings.

3. Yes.

4. Yes.

5. Remaining readiness. Everything in this game is multiplied. Not sure on %, don't usually waste turns (on ops to "Military Spy") to find out the % drop, since you have to do it after multiple EMs to be sure.

Usually, by the time you get to 9 civ per attack, the break is something small, like 1k-2k troops per attack. It's cheap to continue sending 2k troops per hit and only lose 160 attacking troops per hit, than try to send 2m jets (his turrets are all still healthy and alive) just to get less hits to do the remaining kill. And don't forget the oil cost.

Cash is just as important a resource, it doesn't make sense to lose 160k jets per hit vs 160 troops per hit, to kill 1-5 extra civ per hit. The production from the turns you save doesn't cover the costs.

Awesome. I really appreciate the explanation.

Here are a few more Qs. Why would you ever buy food booms or any of them for that matter?

On express server you get either 2 food booms or 4 turns.

A food boom appears to be the same as two turns.

Thus they appear to be equal; however, if on a free turn you hit a food boom, then the turns would seem come out better.

Question 1:
BUT! My question is, can you get a food boom on a food boom?

Question 2:
It doesn't have it listed, but does luck affect food booms?

Question 3:
Is it better to batch explore over build as you go? With batch, you don't gain the benefit of increased production along the way. But, with build along the way, you don't maximize the land obtained from batch xploring.

Question 4:
I'm sure someone may have asked this before, please forgive if it has, but in every scenario I've calculated, it seems better to reach your target land 1st, then buy tech, rather than buy tech along the way. When I say better I mean in the sense of greater income. I understand the risks of growing larger and becoming a target of a LG. Is that right?

Answer to your first question: Booms are 3x of your current production, be it military, food, oil, or cash. In a single turn of a boom, you only use 1 turn worth of food consumption or expenses, but you get 3x your production. If you use 3 turns, you get 3x your production but you use 3 turns worth of food consumption or expenses.

1)No a food boom is already a bonus on that turn, you cant get bonus on a bonus

2)luck is a something that is very well explained on how it works, I never did and will use that bonus.

3)With a recent change on current pop versus max pop affecting production, it is better to build as you go. Besides, when you batch explore, building cost increases too.

4)It depends on what server you're playing. For solo server, it is better to keep up or improve your tech as you grow. Because the lesser tech you have, the lesser your production. The lesser your production, the lesser money you have for tech, and it goes to a downward spiral for good. It is the art of maintaining tech levels and growing at the same time makes the part of a good player in a solo server. For alliance/team servers, if you think your alliance/team can provide you with tag protection, you can just achieve your target land first. Because all you need is to have money to build your buildings, you dont need much cash for military since you have tag protection.

1) the last time i heard, about 60-70 chems kills a fully populated country..

2)What Xinhuan said above.. but I have to add that with some recent changes that i'm not really aware off, GS and BR hits can go below than the minimum of 5 and 10 respectively. Unless this have changed, then I'm not too sure

3)Yes.

4)Yes. Multiplicative.

5)Each Demoralize drops 5% of current readiness, each EM drops 3% of current readiness.

Question 6:
Do you lose food to decay on the food you place on the market.

So for an example. If I use a turn to place 1 billion bushels on the market, would that billion bushels be vulnerable to food decay that 1 turn?

1. You can't get any other boom while you have a "paid boom" form bonus points.

2. Luck increases your explore returns and reduces the time your goods take to reach the market, by the stated %. Generally not useful, unless you play All-Explore. There is a threshold once you exceed where "if you are only going to explore X more turns in the remainder of the reset", you are better off getting the Turns bonus after that (to explore with the turns). After another threshold later in the reset, switch to booms, because exploring is no longer optimal.

3. Usually better to explore as you build, 1 turn's worth of BPT at a time, since the population penalty change.

4. It is usually better to grow both at the same time, because your production is your land multiplied by your tech. Imagine you have a limited amount of money you can spend to get tech or get land, or both. At say 2k land and 120% tech, you could either increase land by 10% (to 2.2k), or increase tech by 10% (to 122%), or you could increase both to 2.1k land and 121% tech. You'll find the latter of increasing both will maximize production.

That is, a Square gives you a larger area than a Rectangle for a given fixed perimeter.

5. You didn't ask a question 5.

6. Food on the market does not decay. If you used a turn to place 1b bushels on the market as per your question, none of that 1b is subject to decay that 1 turn you use to place it on the market. When you recall that 1b food, the 1b food does not return to your country until the end of the 3 turns, so the 1b food is also not subjected to decay there. Of course, you do need to ensure you have food to actually run 3 turns or a portion of your army will leave your country per food shortage turn.

#4 I calculated your scenario, however, I got a different result.

2000×5.3×1.22 (Tech +10%) = 12932

2200×5.3×1.2 (Land + 10%) = 13992

2100×5.3×1.21 (Both) = 13467.3

The land increases stands more doesn't it?

Thanks for responding to all my other questions.

Since I forgot to ask #5.

Question 5:
Is there a 6% commission on purchases AND sales? So if I sell something on market, should I multiply it by 0.94? Also- if I were to purchase items off the market as a Tyranny govt and resell (which I understand it's not economical in most cases), but to determine if there were a profit to be made, I would I first multiply by 1.06 to see the 'real' price and then multiply by 0.94 of target price and whatever the difference is between would that be a profit?

Ex.
$100 troops Quantity 100000
100x100,000 = $10,000,000 x 1.06 = Real price ($10,600,000)

Target resell $130
130x100,000 = $13,000,000 x .094 = Market commission ($12,220,000)

(12,220,000-10,600,000) = Profit if all 100000 troops sold ----> $1,620,000

1,620,000 / 100,000 per troop profit = $16.2

And since only 1/4 can go on market 16.2 x 25000 = 405,000 total profit

Is all my math correct?

Seems like you'd have to be able to sell like 1mil of units and make a $30 swing to barely make just 16 mil profit as a Tyranny govt. What a crappy deal. And of course unrealistic.

Question 7(skipping 6 from earlier):
I read that you gain the most gains from a country that is 0.95 of your own net. So does that mean I just multiply my net by 0.95?
So would $100,000 net gain most from someone who was $95,000 net? That doesn't seem right, because I seem to gain more when I'm smaller.

5. yes there's taxes on both sales and purchases as non-demo.

6/7. gains (ghosties) are best when both attacker and defender are ~same nw but after recent change gains (ghosties) also units sent matter aka more units you send more ghosties you get (aka farming some1 with 10 jet ss gives fluffty ghosties).

Question 8a/b/c:
@Marshall, that's awesome. So is it better to oversend now? Does ghost acres have a cap when attacking? What's the maximum number of extra units I can send to maximize gains?

Also

Question 9:
I'm so confused with this GDI statement on Express....
"Unless you have attacked a country twice or more, that country will only be able to commit the following attacks or harmful spy ops against you: standard strikes, planned strikes, steal tech, bomb banks, burn oil, and burn bushels. "
I know if I attack someone x2 & I'm a member of GDI, I 'lose GDI protection from that one country; but, with this statement, does that mean I can commit espionage as many times as I want without losing my GDI protection? Also, does a regular spy break my GDI? What about a regular spy and one attack? Does that count as two hits? Would retaling 1 nuke break GDI protection from that one specific country?

I realize these are a lot of questions, and I hope more new members will be able to refer to these answers too. I really appreciate the time spent answering these.

4. My example wasn't the best example though. Because to achieve +10% more production on 120% tech is actually 132% tech (that is, 120% + 12%), not 122% as stated. My mistake.

The idea is
Now: Land x Tech = Production.
You can either increase Land by 10% or Tech by 10%, then you get
(Land*1.1) * Tech = Production*1.1
Land * (Tech*1.1) = Production*1.1
But if you could increase each by 5% instead, then
(Land*1.05) * (Tech*1.05) = Production*1.1025, which is better.

It assumed that the same amount of money could get you either 1% more land or 1% more tech, this isn't usually the case. In any case, you almost always want to strike a balancing between growing your land size and your tech %, because tech has diminishing returns, but grabbing becomes exponentially more expensive as well as you grow larger (targets have more turrets, oil gets more expensive, military upkeep costs are also non-linear, etc).

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5. Yes, you correctly multiply by 0.94 for selling, and multiply by 1.06 for buying.

The thing about only reselling max 1/4 is what we call an "investment". If you wished to resell 1m units a day, that means you have to invest in a having permanent base of 3m units first (which will invariably also eat upkeep and reduce any actual profit). Generally, only food is worth reselling, and usually only for a techer after you have started stocking in week 5 onwards of a 60 day reset. Other strategies are still grabbing/growing and the cash is better spent on grabbing more land and buying more tech.

On clan servers, finishing NWs are high enough that at some point in the last few days of the reset, you invariably reach a point you don't want to spend any more turns because the upkeep is higher than any production you can make fro your country that same turn. Only then, is reselling units worth it, because unit prices will only go up from that point onwards (and the profits must be larger than the 1 turn of upkeep).

There is an entire technique called "End of Reset resell" which utilizes on reselling the private market into the public market by logging out a large number of days to accumulate units in it. If you're confused, pretend you didn't hear it, it is advanced, and won't matter unless you're vying for a top 10 spot.

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7. It's generally regarded that you should be 95%-100% of your target's Networth to maximize returns on any attack type (it's a Gaussian bell curve). However, it is also almost guaranteed that someone your size will also be able to retal you easily, so for solo servers, it is better to just bottomfeed and keep the land. Gains (and stuff destroyed) are always a percentage of the target's stuff, so obviously attacking a larger country in acres over a smaller country in acres, but both having the same NW would give you more land.

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8. Oversending doesn't get you any more or less returns. Since the start of this reset, the most recent announcement has removed the NW difference penalty from the game (except Primary server, still running on previous reset rules), so we're back to always losing exactly 8% of the army sent on any attack. Oversend more than 110% if you want, you just lose more jets and oil, but don't undersend.

Maximizing Ghost acres is another whole complication, since Ghost DR is compounded on all attacks taken by the target over the last 7 days (or 3 days on Express) and is not reduced attacks that country make, AND is affected by the % of acres that are built on the target. And then there is Country-to-Country reset-long DR added on top of that.


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9. Regarding GDI

GDI works differently on solo servers.

Clan servers and Tournament server use GDI version A.
Primary and Express use GDI variant B.


Version A: Joining GDI, cannot have attacked last 18 hours. Countries in GDI cannot be attacked or attack countries that are more than twice, or less than half your NW. (Special attacks and harmful ops are allowed if in the 0.5-2x NW range.) That is, GDI is just a NW restriction. Declare War (an attack type on the War Page) can be used to ignore GDI on a target. You can leave GDI after a minimum duration.

For Tournament server, GDI is forced on all players; new countries start in GDI.


Version B: GDI does not restrict or change NW attack ranges in any way, unlike that of version A. Instead, GDI prevents other countries from using harmful spyops, and/or non-SS non-PS attacks on you, unless you have attacked them at least twice in the reset. That is, GDI is suicide protection. Once you perform a second attack (of any type) on the same country, that country (and only that country) can use any attack type on you, other than the default SS/PS. This is assymetric, you can't use any attack you want on him until he has also done at least 2 attacks on you in total, so the player that is on the receiving end of 2 attacks is said to have "first strike" initiative.

You must join GDI before attacking anyone in any way, or be disallowed permanently from joining GDI. After joining GDI, you may not leave it.

The Declare War attack type does not exist on Primary/Express.

And if you're wondering what constitutes "2 attacks", its basically 2 of any kind of attack that you can consider harmful. The only "attacks" that are NOT harmful are Spy, Military Spy, and Market Spy (basically these 3 only give info).

Espionage (stealing tech) counts as harmful. Do it twice on a country, and he can go to town on you.



No. No. No.



The game doesn't know what a retal is. The only thing it knows and counts is how many times you have attacked a specific country. How many times that specific country has attacked you isn't relevant. If someone Nuked you, and you are in GDI, it means you already broke GDI protection on that country prior to the nuke, otherwise he wouldn't be able to nuke you to begin with.

Xin, you really should put together a manual. You're extremely helpful and your answers are thoroughly explained.

Copy & Pasted
"Unless you have attacked a country twice or more, that country will ONLY be able to commit the following attacks OR harmful spy ops against you: standard strikes, planned strikes, steal tech, bomb banks, burn oil, and burn bushels."

I wonder why they listed steal tech in the list. I understand what you're saying though. And I'll go by what you tell me.

For some reason they have steal tech (espionage) listed. The sentence they have makes it appear as though steal tech, bomb banks, burn oil and burn bushels are exceptions to the rule.

As for my question on retaling with a missile, I understand what you mean by the game unable to determine the differences. I perhaps explained myself incorrectly. What I meant was, say if I were in GDI, someone attacks me once (then I'm unable to do special attacks yet) but if they attack me a 2nd time, (my question is) if I retal with a nuke (since I'm now able to do so), do I lose my GDI protection to that country? I know if I retal with just one attack the game just sees one attack, but if I just send one missile, (which is one attack) will that break my GDI with that country (on Express)?

harmful ops like stealing techs were added somewhat recently since some abused it and stole alot techs w/o breaking gdi.

The reason steal tech was added to the list was because stealing food and cash could be mitigated. The player can opt to convert all his cash into food, and store his food on the market at say $100 dollars. Goods on the market cannot be stolen. The player just needs to make sure that he recalls before it returns to re-store it on the market.

Tech stealing on the other hand, cannot be mitigated, you can only put 1/4 on the market. Doing some hard number crunching, most top players have agreed that it is not worth going to war with a tech stealer.

Specifically, even if someone steals tech from you every day as his "method of retal", you might finish 3m-5m NW lower (on Primary). If you ignore him, your finishing rank will probably go down by 1 rank, maybe 2. That's about it, a rank 3 finish might drop to 4 or 5. It's still a top 10, and if you make your country news public in your profile after the reset is over, other people can see who stole from you and knew you could finish higher.

If you decide to retaliate and attack back a second time in some manner instead, he would now be able to bomb buildings, and you won't even finish in the top 20. It's just not worth it. You might (and probably will) win the resulting war, but it will cost you more than merely a 3-5m NW lowered finish.

So the problem was essentially that because tech stealing wasn't protected in the past, if the goal was to finish high in NW, then the best action was actually to ignore tech stealers. From a game mechanics point of view, it didn't make sense that the best action is no action.

Some people will argue and point out that the game is a war game. I like to argue and point out that warring and attacking and spying are all merely TOOLS, the ultimate goal of each and every reset is to finish as high in Networth as possible, this is further reinenforced by the top 10 and top 100 charts and records of every reset, and the various ladders (leaderboards) that show your TNW, Best 3 averaged finishes, number of top 10s, etc.

The war related ladders are only shown for clan servers, and even that is subjective, just because you did more attacks and/or killed more pop doesn't mean you won a war, there is no "warring formula" to determine who is better at warring, unlike the concrete data for netting.

PS: See Bugs and Suggestions forum, there is a stickied lengthly thread that is asking for feedback for such a warring formula. Note that thread is a few years old.

unlikely we will see that warring formula ever.