Hi all,

I apologize for doing a poor job last round implementing the planned changes. I hope to do better this time. Here's what I'm currently thinking:

0) Remove tech allies. The purpose of this change is to lower the amount of tech on the market and to allow tags more flexibility in strat choice (a tag of 10 might feel obligated to run 4 techers every time under the old system).
1) Reduce max turns from 240 (480) to 180 (360).
2) Remove the Communist bonus effectiveness penalty.
3) Add a bonus called something like "Supercharge construction sites". THIS CAN ONLY BE USED ONE TIME PER ROUND PER COUNTRY. This would cost 24 bonus points and would do the following:
a) All permanent bonuses accumulated so far are removed except for earthquake damage reduction.
b) BPT is infinite for the next turn only. Normal building costs still apply.

Option 3 could be used for demo techer conversion, MBR conversion at low land, tech start switches, and general switching of strategy in the early part of the round.

Please comment as soon as possible if you have any feedback on these or other changes.

Well that certainly is a spicy new dynamic! I like it! That changes things significantly.

Hmmm that all sounds pretty damn cool. I like giving techer an endgame option like that. Having more MBRs would be good for everyone if you want to do any kind of public jump IMO.

At risk of being wrong– I endorse this as a Premium Patron member.

- What is the point of the max turn reduction? I like that its one of the big differentiators of the server. I'm going to assume it was created to get casual players back and not have to login as often but what ended up happening is it leads to huge jumps at the end of the round?

- Cool.

- Love it. I think there was some thread where it was suggested that each round had one "wacky" change so the meta changed from round to round. Regardless of what happens, point 3c is going to lead to some legendary forum posts.

It was meant to be a differentiator of this server since we can't do it anywhere else. The benefits were to make it easier for casual players and to give advanced players more strategic options on how to play their turns. I think that the current numbers at 240 (480) led to too much market distortion and benefits casher and farmer too much. 180 (360) is still more saved turns than any other server allows.

Re: the turns thing. I think it's fine to trim it down some but please don't go too far. I like to be able to go on a vacation IRL and not worry about losing turns as much if I want to take a break and not be a nerd around all of my family on holiday.

Big nerf of cashers/farmers and boost to techers, with no compensation.

Wouldn't the increased prevalence of MBRs at the end of the round benefit cashers and farmers by making it more cost effective to destock on public?

Can you elaborate?

While it might be a nerf to them it might not be depending on what techers switch to it could still help. Let's say some go MBR and provide more units on the pub and cashers and farmers can public jump some. But keep in mind my casual nature and not needing to play for several days; don't compromise that further!

But maybe you are thinking of something I am not.

A) Why is turn storage an issue? From a casual player’s perspective, I actually prefer it. I disagree with your point that it impacts market stability. If that’s truly the case, adjustments could be made to the bots or additional bots could be added. What really destabilizes the market is 100% decay and players not needing to defend their land, which lets them cash out without expenses, keeping resources untouched.

B) I’m unsure of the full impact this change would make.

C) This devalues building costs, as players could convert all their land in one turn after going decay and having the cash ready. I dislike this from a strategic standpoint.

They would lose the decay bonus though, that would be a waste I think - unless I'm thinking of it wrong. Seems like turns is better if you're going to lose the bonus.

Or is it still better for a techer to take decay, and take the losses on the one big build before jumping you think?

When you convert govt you do not lose bonus. Just like when you die your restart has it.

Thanks for pointing out something I missed. I still believe it would have a larger impact than intended. I believe that being able to grow to a crazy size and build shift everything will have a larger impact and boosts other strats. Love the idea but hate this in practice.

Building 400k empty acres all at once without any building cost bonus costs around $480 billion.

I don’t see people going that high just to about 120-150k doing that. I see the point you are trying to make but I do not like a few of these changes for the reasons stated above.

Honestly, I think what this game needs is stability more than further huge changes. That said;

I don't have a huge problem, nor am I very much for any of these changes, Except the turns thing which imo is needed and wont bother casual players ability to play casually. 540 turns is still 8 days worth of turns(with bonuses).

I do not like the motivation: "techer is bad this round so lets make techer better".

You should be thinking along the lines "well the swings between the favored unfavored strats are too large lets find some way to make a dampener mechanism"

The game experience for people who happen to pick the wrong strategy is horrible for 2 months, which is something you can't afford. 2 months is long enough that people will quit over it in the worst case, and you will force people onto the "safe" strategies, and even worse you will make winning into a coin toss competition.

The switching mechanism is interesting, but huge and it's consequences unforseen. I do think it will provide a means to escape your strat if techer becomes really bad or provide perhaps a way to switch a tech start faster. Which is somewhat interesting. Not sure its needed.

I think a dampener for tech and military prices going too far off course is needed. And it shouldn't be about bot composition, unless you make them switch strats halfway based on price points. It needs to be a reactive mechanism.

Ehm...express is 360 (360)

True. I suppose it's better to talk about in terms of daily turn storage. Express can store 2 days of turns. Coop could store around 8 under the new rules.

Will next round have any change to bot strategy and/or proportion of playstyles?

Changed point 3