I was wondering, the Boom bonus(es). Why have 3 ? This favors all-X strats, and booming everything at the ame time would be imo, just as beneficial. So I'd like to suggest that the boom bonuses be replaced with one generic boom bonus that does "all of the above".

If we need to replace them with someting, then how about something like a tech boom ? Double tech points next turn teching ? (ok, I admit that should probably be in the same boom category)
Then how about a building speed bonus ? Or a max tech effect bonus ? This could be used to offset the downsides to the dict or theo government types....

tell me how it favours all-X in any way?

also, are you suggesting techers are under-powered?

Dictator and Theocracy do not need strengthening. And the boom bonuses do not favor all-explore countries over countries who grab. Are we even playing the same game?

Weed and Drugs claim yet another brain

^_^

weed is goodly and things i think

I actually like the "boom all" idea. Not like it makes any sense, but realistically you only get the bonus for one anyways and I am all about anything that makes mixing more viable.

this bonus situation is just one of 49 rule changes which were made to help all-x countries and to discourage LGs.

twist was simply stating the obvious when he said the current bonus system favors all-x countries. note how he did not even bother to flush out the self-evident truth.

because i have been posting for thirteen months now i realize that complex arguments, logical proofs and dispository algorithms do not carry the day on tis site. so i will just state it as simply as i can.

e.g. in primary, countries a,b,c and d begin play on day 1.
a,b and c are all-x noobs who take their bonuses as farmers, oilers and cashers. d is an LGer who takes the time and turns required to build up a fully teched offense. by day thirty the noobs have used thirty helpful daily bonuses while the thoughtful LGer has received none. the LGer has opted for one of the permanent bonuses which are of marginal utility in the early days of a set.
by the time the thoughtful techer has enough offense to hit the all-x monopoly players they are more than twice or three times his size and hitting them is forbidden by the penalty against hitting up.
this oversimplification will no doubt be attacked but i gave up complex statements when dantzig and enshula quit posting.

i would like to see the return of the bonus which increased offense for x number of turns.

Its not obvious, in fact its false.



You've never given any of these. You just spew nonsense and attack the moderators.



If the techer is so thoughtful, why did he not grow at the same size as the all-explore countries? Its very easy for techers to grow at the same rate as all-explore countries, and thus not be limited by the topfeeding curve. Its also very possible for countries to get the proper techs needed for grabbing while NOT being a techer. While these are possible to good players, you have not managed to do them yet, and thus are foolishly assuming that everyone else is as inept as you. You need to realize that this assumption is false.

Don't techers just take bonus turns anyways?

bonus turns and priv mkt units bonus

My One and only point is/was that there are no less than FOUR (4 b100 h04, qadre, etc) bonuses that does EXACTLY the same thing, and each and every one of them favors the farmer, oiler etc. strat.

By having just ONE bonus, call it a general boom for all I care, that boosts ALL of the stuff at the same time, the noobs with the rainbow strats wont be so dissapointed when they pick it. And done right it may even encourage some cross strat choices, like a farmer/oiler, or whatever....

ah for buying you mean? that would favour non-cashers wouldn't it?

Are you saying that non-cashers couldn't use the help?

is casher overpowered? i personally don't think so (i like playing casher... but always seems techers do better... but that is a more time-consuming strat haha)

*favor

you mean favour

Yeah, I really think the different strategies are about as well balanced as they've ever been. They've just got situational advantages that really can't be accounted for in the ruleset.

On Topic Edit: And I really don't see what you're trying to say here Twist. Encouraging Rainbows would just reinforce bad playing, the whole game is built around the idea of specializing your economy to maximize output, and Oil/Farmer is already a viable strategy under the right conditions. Why do they provide more than once choice for booms? So that you have to make that choice; that's how strategy games work.

The strategies are balanced, with the exception of TMBR. That one never gets any respect. That one is without question the most difficult, and it doesn't have the upside to justify its difficulty.

Do you feel as if you should have finished with more than 111 M NW? How much NW should you have finished with?

I made a few mistakes, and I'd say that 125m to 130m is fairly doable for an all-explore TMBR. But that networth can be attained very easily and with low risk by an all-explore casher or all-explore farmer. I'm honestly not sure if an all-explore TMBR can make much more than just 130m networth.

It clearly is a strategy that is riskier and requires more skill than all-explore casher and all-explore farmer, yet its upside is no greater. Its ability to grab is severely limited by the high networth it must carry, and its ability to resell tanks and troops is limited by demand. Its upside among grabbing countries is clearly lower than casher, farmer, and techer.

I've suggested in the past that we need to cut PM regeneration down a bit, and to increase the effect of military bases to compensate for it. I'm not asking for a change in their production per acre numbers, just a decrease in the military size they would be forced to keep, and a decrease in the demand needed to support a TMBR. I'm looking for a little bit of the risk to be taken away. Its too easy right now to have your military get stuck, and your networth per acre to become way too high. Its too easy right now for troops and tanks to hit the market and not get sold out, despite being placed at a price where many of them will sell. Another possible change which would benefit TMBR is to change grabbing gains the way i suggest a few months back, to make including tanks or troops in a grab more worthwhile. Right now, tank and troop demand makes TMBR riskier, as does them being forced to keep 500+ networth per acre and easily slipping into 1000+ networth per acre should they run into difficulty selling their goods.

130m+ all-x don't seem to be extremely common.

I put up ~123m as an all-x last set. Might've been a couple mill higher had I been made aware of the bonuses available to me prior to the set starting.

I finally found out w/ 3 weeks left.

rock decreasing private replenishment and purchase cost would help tmbr early set

but if you keep it linear in income you have to assume a $/nw selling point

there is no way to adjust purchase price and volume to fit more than one market condition

youd need a dynamic ajustment to replenishment based on average market prices which would complicate anyone dumping stock rather than just reselling

the simplest change would be to raise the cap on expenses reduction

another possible change is having mbases raise the sales cap

and another more complicated general change is to allow price dropping over time on sales

Enshula - I'm aware of that

http://forums.earthempires.com/...ry-bases-pm-replenishment

That was my suggestion on how to help out TMBR

Expenses is part of the problem, but a minor part. The major part is the lack of demand.

Why would we expect or even want an all-X TMBR to do well? You're paying lots of military maintenance but refusing to take proper advantage of your military power out of stubbornness.

well if you did the logic would be similar to an allx commie indy

Best all-X CI finish ever is under 102 M? Yet Rockman finished with 111 M NW despite making a few mistakes.

i actually FA'd him about 8m end of set so those numbers are probably very similar

but he does think he could get 130 as he says, ive never looked at how much a commie indy could make because i dont like it as a strat for the whole set

Military power? With more of my networth in troops and tanks than in jets and turrets, and 25% of my military on the market?

They have networth, but they don't have the ability to bounce retals, and the networth keeps them from being able to properly bottomfeed.

I'm surprised that the best all-explore commie indy finish is just 102m. My commie indy a couple of sets ago got 94m networth, after getting land from PDM, but it also spent a week and a half as untagged, and kept over 1 million spies for over half the set. I guess only like 2 people have ever tried all-explore commie indy if 102 is the best they could do.

And Enshula - if more of my military had sold at $400/nw like Chewi had recommended as my end of set sale price, I would have made 111m networth. Less than 1/4th of the 4 billion worth of goods I put up at the end of the set actually sold. I also did a lot of screwy stuff, like stopping exploring at under 18k acres, and at one point dropping over 20m networth in 2 days, and I was cautious in military pricing early when I should have been aggressive, then a few weeks in I started being aggressive when military prices started falling, and many other mistakes that cost me billions.

The upside to TMBR is no greater than the upside to an all-explore farmer or casher. If someone can run an all-explore TMBR to 150+ million networth, they'll prove me wrong. It is a more difficult strategy, but there is no incentive to try a more difficult strategy that has no greater upside than a ridiculously simple all-explore casher or all-explore farmer strategy.



But back to the topic of the thread, combining all the booms into one makes sense.

I remember you posting on AT about how no one in the game could break you. Was that not you posting? It is possible that I'm not remembering correctly.

I am willing to discuss your issue, but I take offense at the exaggerations that you're making. Lots of netting tags, including the best three, netted last set in alliance. How many all-X countries finished with more than 125 M NW? How many finished with over 150 M NW?

4 (including 2 that had 125 M NW)


0 (Highest had 137 M NW)

Using a definition of all-X as "Did not do any landgrabs" and that we are talking about the Alliance server.

I have never considered playing an all-X TMBR in the same way I haven't considered e.g. an all-X dictator casher...

I think the balance between all-X and those that grab is pretty OK with the highest NW all-X in rank 29 and 8 all-X in the top 50. I normally play all-X and I accept I won't get close to a top 10 playing lazy like that. If changes are done to make all-X unfeasible I would probably just stop playing as it would require to much effort to play.

I would myself like to see a bit more quality and less quantity in the number of grabs. Hammering in 15-20 SS a day on small countries is in my mind not beneficial to the game. To me it creates a too hostile environment to introduce relatively new player into. I would trade a little bit less harshness against an increased user base.

And I see a small point in combining the bonuses. As it is today, the non-cashing boom bonuses are usually less beneficial than extra turns. But if the boom bonuses were merged, most people would use them all the time and nothing else and the entire bonus system would be no enhancement to the game. My suggestion would instead be to boost the non-cashing booms 5-10%.

Thinking about my previous post a bit more, wouldn't using your bonus points for extra turns (practically) always be considerably better that any boom if you consider its marginal value (I think that is the correct English term)?

Any extra turn you gain during a reset can be considered an extra turn at the (future?) time of the reset when you are at the maximum production, but the benefit of all booms are calculated at the time/turn they are taken, so taking turns for your bonus points should almost always be better (assuming turns are in shortage).

Perhaps someone with more in-depth math/logic education could verify or refute.

Sorry for going off-topic in the thread.

moronic1 - that is true early in the set, but once a country reaches stockpiling size, then the booms will be used at the time of maximum production. The stockpiling portion of the set is a significant amount of time.