Congrats everyone in the top 25, you all beat the crap out of me this set! :)

Extra congrats to Ebert, a real solid performance, wow!

Especially congrats to temple who really outdid himself and took steps to becomming a respected member of the express community! Nice going dude! Keep it up! :)

As for myself I had a bit of fun. Didn't pay to win but didn't play to fight either, ended up fighting. :P

This from the guy who gets very conveniently put in DR every other set and claims to have gotten a land record on a set he did that. Funny. That is a huge asterisk for you on my and many others score cards. :)

I did not say JJ23 is not a cheater as you must have read, what I said was that his form of cheating is far less cumbersome for the rest of the players than what others do. I also did not say it is acceptable, just that there are worse forms of unacceptable behaviour. Just like shoplifting and murder both are bad and unacceptable, but one is a far greater offence. Criminal is still criminal and cheater is still cheater.

If murderers run rampant when a shoplifer is publicly discraced and executed and I suggest that the penal code is flawed because of this, does it make me a shoplifter? This is what you suggest.
Maybe I would suggest we cut the arms and legs off the shoplifter and poke out an eye from the murderers instead of letting them walk. :)
Maybe too lenient on the shoplifter but I guess I am a live and let live kinda guy! :)

-------

My main motive for likeing express is the no alliances part lets induvidual skill dictate the outcome more so than anywhere else.

Please enlighten me on how I cheated in express.

My story is I grab bots and sell techs(or military cuz I won with C/I too). I did spend a lot of time doing that some of these past resets. What is your story on me?

My NW record is simply a tyr techer -> demo techer that was well played and a bit lucky perhaps on a reset in which the tech prices were historically high and the food prices never jumped. I have tried to beat it since then and not even come close on resets when my grabbing was better. I still have the top 3 NWs of all times and I know that bothers you a bit. Haha.

But you dont need to be bothered by it, we all know these NWs were not possible before the bots. So I am one of the best with the bots and have not tried without them. I would have still been one of the best for sure, but different game environment creates other winners sometimes.

It is interesting with the mixed standards... also reading up on JJ23 and the proof that was against him to delete him. His friend ran a techer whom JJ23 leeched from, that was all that was proven. I have no doubt in my mind that JJ23 was a cheater but since they had no proof that he ran "his friends" country this sets another standard for conduct that is not met today. I think this type of team play is far less damaging to the game than the ones who start wars with top players to pave way for their friends to win. This rarely happens on Express which is part of what makes it joyful, though on other servers it is rampant.

If it was wrongful you should explain why it was. Countries get reinstated sometimes.

turrets are a good landgrab deterrent until you can be broken. Downside is huge expenses.

I would say jets are a great LG deterrent against opponents with a brain. they are cheaper to maintain than turrets and have greater power. Not that it would have helped Jayr lol.

Så det är en TKS kille? Comeback dax? :P

Oden is TKS? Swedish name for Odin soo.... :)

Only way you can control the price in an oversupplied market is if you are both buying and selling.

Either way with food it is easy to understand that once anyone starts stocking the lower say 'stalker' puts his food the more of your food will sell. This is because stockers generally just spend all their leftover cash on food or food/oil. This means the demand for stocking is inversely proportional to the food price. With military units and tech it is not so simple, and of course there is other demand on the market for food than just for stocking.

But you must see that the market strives for an equilibrium price depending on supply and demand, right? If I delete my country and start a new one as a farmer I will affect the food price no matter what you other sellers do.

Also you are a demo. If you truly think these guys are undercutting, no one is in a better spot to take advantage of it than you. If you are wrong about the supply/demand situation it will screw you. So put your money where your mouth is. :P

Topfeeding has nothing to do with rank or NW. When scrubs hit top players it is called topfeeding.

I don't topfeed bots when I am lower NW than them, I grab them. Because I am better than the bots. If you grab the bots, however...

Hope this clarifies thing for you.

Why can´t you get t10 without getting up in the middle of the night? Ahh.. got it. You are really bad.

If you try you might get better. I encourage you to do this. I'll even help you if you want.

All these sets I have had the posting bonus come outside of the express sets... Gotta fix that so I don't have to try so hard. :)


Congrats Dogmilk on the great finish!

And Kingme ofc.

And all others in the top 16! Great job!

And beerdrinker on the war, I guess. :)

Make me!

That was you?

Clintonista depending on which aspect of my gameplay or game understanding is simple minded I might agree. If you think my gameplay is simpleminded you are simply wrong, you wouldn't know it but I am probably one of the most versatile players in the game. If you think I am simple minded in my aim then I totally agree with you and it does bother me somewhat, others maybe more. :P

My thoughts exactly. :)

You actually call it being creative to stock missiles and cash/food for 2/3 of a reset with the sole purpose of leveling as many buildings as possible for one person that never hit you? That IS the state of the game if you don't join GDI and you are deemed suicide-worthy. Or blowing the stock on jets to topfeed the one who is competing for the win if he is in GDI.

There is nothing creative about it moreover there is no skill involved in any of these actions. I won express with by far the largest margin ever a few resets back, and if Kingme had played 4 minutes a day with the intent to destroy my chances at winning, he would have been able to for sure. Even though I spent way more time and won by over $38m NW over second I would have had no chance whatsoever. Some have argued that this makes me a bad player, which is fluffing confusing at this point tbh.

It doesn't spoil the market, it spoils their income if they sell $20 too low. The jets at 120 are more likely to sell if the next batch that comes on is at 90 than if it is att 119.

What you are talking about is forming som kind of commie cartel that ultimatly ruins it for each of those commies since they would be stuck with insane expenses and their grabbing would suffer from their NWs. Go ahead. :P

The market will demand more military the cheaper it is though. If I hit a casher, farmer or techer I calculate what he can make and how many jets he can buy with that, and adjust my turrets accordingly. This is means the number of turrets I need to get is kinda inversely proportional to the market price for jets. That guy will most certainly have more turrets for me to break if he was buying at 90 than if he was buying at 150 as well. But I agree with what you say about the market buyout. But it could be just a matter of login hours matching. This is one problem the bots aimed to solve and they have done a faily good job at it as well even though they seem to fluff up the tech markets whereever more or less.

They still buy 10 times more tech than they produce, the bot collective that is. So that is an upward pressure, without them the tech prices would be lower. Same goes for food but the other way around. rainbow bots are self-sufficient and one farmer bot produce about 3 times more surplus bushels than one of each other bot(techer, indy, casher) consume.

They do affect every market, even though they might not drive it in FFA as they do in express and to a much smaller degree in alliance.

You mean on the supply side. I'm pretty sure bots create an upward pressure on tech and a downward one on food just like on all other servers they are in.

I encourage anyone who hasn't yet to create manually a country on the AI server and see for yourselves where the prices go if the market is 100% bots. Income techs hover between 6000-9999, other techs 500-600, military prices are at very close to private market selling prices and bushels are hard locked at $30.

The bot collective net buys massive amounts of techs while net selling food and military. I see nothing wrong with this in principle, but I do feel it could be balanced a bit without creating a clusterfluff.

Bots are controlling express market early and FFA all the time I guess.

Supply and demand, that is all there is to it. If the farmers or indies or techers you compete with to sell your goods/techs undercut too much, they lose and you win.

If I insist on selling bushels at $38 all though the stocking phase a smart Delphinus will welcome it, either buying it and reselling at $45 or get solace from the fact that the cashers and techers will be able to buy more food at $45 if they bought mine at $38 instead of $44 (if they are stocking they won't just buy a set amount of food).

Either way it is supply and demand that drives prices, and lower prices increase demand til we've reached an equilibrium.

They fought much harder though.

you got a high... I just derped.

<Gerdler>: I suck
<Gerdler>: I'm gonna kill myself now
<A>: Ok settle down
<A>: Drink a beer
<B>: if you're going to do it
<B>: make sure its awesome
<B>: like a high speed chase
<A>: Not a jump. Too messy

:)

At least cheered me up a bit!

16 PCI booms, should have been 16 indy booms. Tired and used to my casher in another server... Either way would have still been first loser. But ~2m NW higher.

fluff.

I suck :/

I feel for you ford and I agree with you. The thing is I have very low expectations. When I left the game 10 years ago my alliance had been multied for like 4 sets straight and netting in 1b(primary) was impossible due to greifers so you were left with random and tournament. Now the game is better in some places.

I only need 1 server to go well and with the GDI rules in primary and express those servers are really nice. But Team is fcking crazy. that is part of the charm I guess. If my turns didn't overflow and I didnt take like 40 missiles adn 15 ABs I might have been a contender. On the other hand I deserved all of that, unlike you. :/

It is hateful when jealous people drive good players from the game/server. Best thing you can do is outstay them I think. :)

Supply/demand. If they undercut hard it is good for you and bad for them. If you don't get your goods sold you are the one who mispriced them.

There are either too many C/Is or this is a price range where C/I is competetive.

Hopefully it is because they got their turrets stuck on market a few times too many because half of those commies are suffering from a severe state of anorexia nervosa. :p

I always do that. A body is just an empty shell without an express win. Can you imagine how I felt last reset? I was devastated. Luckily it doesn't happen all that often. :P

Inherently C/I is bad for alliance and good for Primary and other shorter(in turns) games. Expenses kill you while jumping to such high NWs because of the formula. You will do better in primary with lower prices.

I sold turrets at 61 at one point in express, still won by a margin. The prices at this point matter very little for C/I, very much for farmers and techers.

What did you buy your indy tech for in alliance? Are you selling more or fewer turrets/jets per tech point you buy in primary now?

Look at the previous sets top 10. Cashers and farmers seem to be favourites but indies have a good chance.

What prices do you expect? @$110 the CI makes about as much as a non-cashing rep casher tech:tech at this point.

I am also back since like 2 months and when i played turrets/jets were like 140-160 at this point but Commie bonus was only +25% and indy tech maxed out at 140%. If mil prices didn't drop massively it would be completely retarded to play anything other than C/I and maybe techer lol, but that doesn't work.

C/I have a really strong finish if you can do some math and know all the game mechanics and formulas that come into play. If you just cash your turns aimlessly your finish will be poor no matter the prices at this point.

I woke up feeling violated and I have been having nightmares ever since Friday.

But there are other things more important in life, like express, so who cares? :)

Yeah techers are really OP. Even with this set tech prices were lower than the last set it is still 3 techers on top.

With that said I just realized that bamforth has been the best non-techer 2 resets in a row now! He is killing it in his own bracket despite being targeted by temple every reset!

Just for the record also. The oil that I found did not make my finish. If I didn't find it I would have destocked normally and probably gotten about the same NW. Instead of having those 25m+ oil I would have had an extra 80-95m bushels and I would have just had to destock for a little longer.

hehe yeah. Good guy that one. :)

Temple is a really bad player who plays for no other reason than to destroy other people's things. He is like the guy who keys every car he sees parked on the way home from the club because he didn't get laid and was hurt by watching other guys bring home the babes.

that was over 2 days I bought those though.

Yeah it would seem odd if you dumped like 25m oil around the 97-129 range.

Demo techer with oil destock since I saw there was someone dumping lots of cheap oil there. I think part of that was bamforth who decided not to do oil destock because he wanted the F, LOL.

Oil is normally not this cheap and the oil market is very thin so the oil destock is usually not good or even doable unless a fascist.

Congrats lpardess on new personal best!
Congrats beerdrinker75 on great finish! Maybe PB?
Congrats bamforth on best Fascist.... in a while. :)
Congrats drkprinc on not forgetting to jump for once! :)

But thx... I'm sorry I just get a little sad about not breaking 60m.

I lost like 30-45 turns to sleep. I bet it was Kingme who broke into my place and turned of the alarm on my cellphone. :(

59.9 because of it. Also scrubs hit me. They all lost on it but they still did. The last guy who hit me didn't benefit because it was too late in the reset.

The game is far better now with market feeds, market history, standing orders and some balance changes to govts and strategies than ever before. C/I is now viable instead of a bad joke that lasts a week into the reset, oiler works and there is no need to farm players out of the game in some servers and no one is running private landfarms since qz runs public landfarms for all of us. :) The game is better but the majority of the players never understood the game, sadly.

It is a good post but you don't need to join Monsters to appreciate the game. :P

Interesting. Thanks for answers.

I assume this is quite a rare occurrence, but I just had a curiosity. :)

These posts are very bigly hilarious and constructive at the same time.

No successful grabs on me this set or last, so there. I am concerned for the game, not myself.

What happens with the restart?

They restart in bottom levels? Or they restart in game A?