Can we revisit this? Is it necessary on this server, and what benefit is it to have? I really dislike having to build off-strat buildings to grab more. At this point is it just an unnecessary tax?

nobody is forcing you to grab off strat if you don't want to?

That's a non sequitur response there :D

Is it necessary on this server, and what benefit is it to have?

Req, my perspective on this is that while off strat buildings lower overall efficiency it's not at all straight forward as to how many off strat buildings to build, if it should be a complete rainbow or targeted at one other strat and when/if you should destroy them and rebuild on strat. These decisions won't make a tremendous difference but they can be points of differentiation within the top 10.

Like was said you don't have to pay the "tax" if you don't want to, and it's also not a simple thing to optimize so it adds to game complexity in a way that doesn't make it harder for new players to start. So it's good game design.

I like the fact that you don't gain buildings you don't want, save money on would be demos

Ok then sounds like these arguments would apply to every server not just alliances-based servers. Why the differentiation?

I agree, should apply in all servers

It's not a reasonable choice to only hit on strat in primary or tournament. And for express there are too few targets for it plus it's so short and thus quite different.

Do you have any other ways to complicate grabbing in perhaps a more intuitive way that provides players with choices that are not obvious and that could help differentiate between players even at the top?

We may not have ideal grabbing formulas, it's a patchwork, but I think every suggestion being made are about making grabbing more simple. More simple but with a tax, because if it's too rewarding it's somehow bad for the game?
Personally, I want complex grabbing that is very rewarding and where better grabbing is immediately and on the longer term more rewarding than worse grabbing.

I'll have to think about that because holding 10% of a building as an off-strategy grabbing move isn't very complex.

It could be seen as a differentiator, but it doesn't add much in that way unless you completely avoid building off-strategy bldgs while grabbing. I'm all for engaging and thrilling gameplay mechanics, but these kinds of features feel too simple and mundane in the end, especially if that is the key point for even having it.

It also goes against the ethos of this game for a long time, which is to specialize, not be a quasi-rainbow so you can grab.

You can choose when to have off-strat and when to hit off-strat of each type.

That is not at all mundane. The top players struggle with that every round.

Theres room for a ton of variations, that are not going to make for identical optimal choices from round to round. And you rarely find two top players who play it identically, based on different interpretation of whatever they look at, stats or strategy-wise. How is that mundane?

Maybe you are the only player that have figured this out perfectly?

Your opinion is noted.

Normalizing running rainbows is not what I consider good gameplay. If we want that we can add special bonuses for having certain ratios of other buildings to effectively add a _ton_ of variations.

Maybe you are the only player who has spent enough time to figure it out perfectly?

I do think that it's a bit of a silly mechanic but I don't want to get rid of it without replacing it with a mechanic that allows for the same complexity.

That is reasonable, I'll think of better ways to achieve that and post for review from the players.

this post has made me realize I don't understand how ghost acres work, I suspect if your buildings match the targets buildings you get higher ghost acres?

That is correct. So if you're running a dict on this server you need to match your grabs to your strat.