Having tried to be an oiler a few times. I have a feeling someone is slashing the prices on purpose to cheat.

Example on hand. If prices manage to get to 200 a barrel, another oiler will be certain to slash the price/cut it drastically.

Now one must assume tht no oiler would be so stupid. Why not maintain the price as high as possible? I believe someone is manipulating the prices to keep it low. Someone who has another country which would profit from low oil prices, a grabber. Maybe a dictator or tyranny or whatever you are.

You know who you are, you should be ashamed of yourself. This is certain, because the number of oil producing countries are around 5, not more thn 10. There are so few of us, any individual action will impact the market.

Cheating to win. I hope the win was worth it. Thanks for ruining the game for someone else.

Tourny ? or primary

tourney

Not me, but oil is easy to manipulate if the true oilers aren't really paying attention to the market.

Have you considered the possibility that someone bought oil and then sold it later? You seem oblivious to the possibility that someone selling a good may not be the person who produced it.

You are still very new to the game and have much to learn. You need to not throw around the cheating accusation so freely. You made some grabs last set in primary that were really stupid, yet I attributed them to you not knowing how DR works, rather than saying that you were a cheater.

Playing foolishly doesn't make someone a cheater, and what you've observed isn't even evidence of a person playing foolishly.

I think I remember mdemon in Express as a casher selling cheap tech to crash the market. People can do things like that.

Largely the market is driven by supply and demand. As much as someone can attempt to manipulate the market, one person isn't enough to do so, unless they produce a large portion of the goods in question.

One person was enough 8 or 9 years ago when all of lower tourney shared a market, I'm sure its enough to do so now. All you need is a democracy with a lot of cash who understands how the market works.

@Gzi, Look at what happened in Express food market last set for an example.

the express market can easily be manipulated because of the frequency that items come to market and how many turns of production are sold at a time.

Its harder to manipulate the market on servers where goods take longer to come to market and where there are more players. Either way too many players sell at the current price not at the 6 hour or 12 hour average price.

I am very new to the game, I have never alluded otherwise.

It's depressing to see the price slashed so much after it is so high.

So how does it work for someone who does not produce oil?

I thought it would be buy low sell high as well? If he slashed prices, wouldn't he make a loss?

As to buying early and selling late, I would assume that the country in question would be an oil-producing fascist. If not would he have enough to make an impact?

And even if i knew know about DR, how does that make me a cheater?

I tire of your moralistic attitude Rockman. I am sure it brings many new players to the server.

all 3 tourney games share the same market. for you to claim the price drop is due to cheating is just stupid. you have no idea whats going on in the other 2 servers to be able to claim someone is intentionally dropping oil.

Well if someone is running 2 countries they should be deleted.
If someone is selling oil at a price they determine to be reasonable that's not cheating. It may not be smart but it's not cheating.

It being Tourney,I really doubt an oiler will ever be a contender,there aren't enough wars to drive up the demand for it!,simple as that,NO CONSPIRACY!

Gzisimon - I'm very friendly to most new players. I was firm in my correcting of you, but aside from calling you a new player and saying you have much to learn (which you've agreed to yourself), the only other comment that was at all personal towards you was calling you oblivious to a possibility which I do think you will admit had not considered, and thus confirm that you were indeed oblivious to that possibility.

Some players like to buy cheap oil early on and then sell it later on when the prices are higher. I think techers are the ones who do this most often, especially democracy techers. The reason for undercutting is that they want to ensure that their goods sell, rather than causing a crash while their goods remain unsold. If you've played in FFA (last set) or alliance (basically every set), you'll see how fast the food market crashes despite the huge demand for food. In tourney, with the tiny demand for oil, its very easy to crash the market. Its very easy for a techer to have enough cash to get a lot of oil, especially if they are selling tech early on for $3k+ and buying oil for $100ish.

You didn't know about DR, and you were being foolish out of ignorance when you were grabbing countries in heavy DR last set. You proved my point that foolish behavior isn't necessarily cheating - I wasn't accusing you of cheating, but was in fact showing you as an example of someone who wasn't cheating.

The proper response to what you observed should have been to ask why the oil prices were fluctuating the way they did. Instead, you said that someone was cheating to win, and that they should be ashamed of themselves. You even said that they were ruining the game.

You did not specifically accuse a country of cheating, yet I know how harmful and ruining accusations of cheating can be. For EE players, once they get a reputation for being a cheater, anything they accomplish will be tainted. You can look at JJ23 as an example right now. He has a reputation for cheating & dirty play, so people will assume he's cheating and not give him respect even if he plays legit. If he wins Express, and does so without tech leeches or spy countries, most people will assume that he did use those things to give him the advantage.

Throwing around the accusation of cheating so flippantly is dangerous and can ruin people's reputations needlessly.

I stand by the comments I made about you, that you were oblivious to the possibility that the seller was not the producer, that you are new and have much to learn, that you need to not throw around cheating accusations so freely, that you made some stupid grabs last set in primary, and that you don't know how DR works and are not a cheater.

I did not go overboard in my explanation of how selling oil cheap isn't necessarily foolish, or in explaining how foolish play isn't necessarily cheating.

last set i bought a lot of cheap oil in toruney.... and i started off as demo techer... musta had near 1m barrels by day 10. i also bought and used an aweful lot after i switched to demo farmer. i did also sell a chunk too at around 200, only to buy it back a few days later when it appeared at 120.

detah to oil traders ! I demand cheap oil all set long or fas gonna dieeee !

The fact is do you scold a nub for being a nub? Or will you help him to become better?

All your points are fair points. Yes, it was premature to accuse anyone of cheating. However, I have accused no one. If, I had accused A of cheating, and it was unfounded, then it is a despicable act.

What I posted was my opinion. You can correct it, but telling me I'm stupid and ignorant is rude. You can win an argument, but if you lost a friend to do it well that's just petty.

To be fair, the DR was not explained adequately in the Wikipedia page (I'm not sure if it is now being changed and all).

Your attitude is not conducive to the growth of the game, and I stand by my point as you have.

Rockman and Gzi should hug each other out. Or you could sell us sub 100 oil we'll hug it for ya

<----Agrees with TNT:)

Good question about oil. Haven't been around long enough to know the trends for the pricing on it. Does the oil tend to be cheap early in the set and more expensive as the set moves along?

like everything it is cheap , goes high, and then crashes.

I think this will be the first and last time I play oiler. Only once did I manage to sell some oil over 200/barrel. Even stocked some up for a while hoping it would go back up. Some fool or two keeps heavily slashing the prices. Guess there is too many oilers this round for so few coutries.

Wars drive prices

Then go out there and start some wars please. I tried oiler for the first time thinking it would be cool to sell over 200/barrel for most of the age and the rest at lest over a 100. Sigh, guess I wasn't the only on with that same though process. Watch there not be enough oilers next reset so that oil prices will just skyrocket, lol