Yes Vic, but not in the same way as Commie. A standard government 170% Business tech would be 177% as a Demo with the same amount of tech points.

This is a straight up (170-100)*1.1 + 100 = 177%

If that 170% Business tech country were to be a Commie instead, that amount of tech points would only translate to 173.4%. Because "20% more tech points equivalent" doesn't come close to "10% more maximum tech", as the more tech points you have, the less each point of tech is worth %-wise (diminishing returns).

Yep. With the formula change to Building costs that is now exponential, the old and new building costs formula equal each other at 3.7k land or so, so it is actually cheaper to convert buildings below that acreage, making tech starts even stronger. The building cost is also constant up to 750a, so there is no reason not to explore up to 750a, before doing build/explore alternating turns.

Well Vic, my experiences is that a tech start is generally superior, if that is what you're looking for.

If Tech is "average expensive", then tech start is of course the right choice.

If tech is "average cheap", then the tech start simply allowed you to use the extra income from your tech start to buy even more cheap tech, resulting in an upward spiral where the tech pays for itself as you grow; you don't have to go out of your way to get that initial tech base to get into that upward spiral. This reset, I played a Demo farmer on Primary, and was able to keep my entire Agri tech above 210% the entire reset, hovering closer to 220%. 5 weeks in, that tech is 230%, and 6 weeks in, its 238%.

The same applies to a casher, 2 previous sets, I was able to keep res/bus consistently over 165% at all times, rather than having to claw your way from 100% to 165% in the first place.

If you have 10000 tech points, the Commie bonus means it is calculated *as though* you have 12000 tech points. That is, you will buy 20% less tech points for the same tech% as other countries of the same acreage.

However, if you think about it, this is a somewhat weak bonus. When you sell your military units, you lose 10% to market commission, and when you buy tech with that money, you lose another 10% to commission. Needing to buy 20% less tech points simply negates that disadvantage, for the portion of units and money you spend on tech points.

It is still a positive bonus compared to standard governments with 6% commission, it is just not a bonus which people think it is for. Playing a Commie Techer is one of the worst ways you can play as a techer, because you lose 20% of everything you produce when you sell tech to buy other things (food, military, oil, etc).

Commies must play the Indy strat because it gives a 35% production bonus to military units, which is the only bonus on that government that can overcome the commission disadvantage.

Qz did. Then the changes were removed in favor of restart bonuses.

Of course they work. Whether it is more efficient depends on the tech price on the market. If tech is $8000 per point, tech start is better. If tech is $500 per point, obviously cash start is better. Tech price also changes everyday. If those "proof" doesn't take this into account, then it is not really a proof of anything.

You need both bus/res to be 172%-175% by the time your farmer starts stocking. After Agri is 223-226% of course.

It's not really fairish. Techers get hurt by earthquakes the most, because they get no income while rebuilding.

The other problem of introducing oil tech is one of philosophy. The developers have said they don't want to turn oil "into another food-like" commodity, since there would be very little to differentiate them other than the means the 2 commodities are consumed.

It is influenced by:
- NW ratio between the attacker and defender. The closer the ratio is to 1, the more damage. <-- This is the biggest factor
- Strategy tech
- Government of attacker (Tyr gets 10% more)
- Number of buildings on the target

The way to make oilers work is not to introduce tech to produce even MORE of it (i.e increase supply --> makes prices drop).

It is to increase demand, for example, make 1 oil only supply 5 units, instead of 25.

A combination of both (introducing tech and requiring more oil to be used) can be introduced, as long as the latter outweighs the former significantly. The Fascist oil bonus also needs to be reduced if this happens.

Just so you know DarkReturns, my country died in 19 seconds yesterday in the dead of the night.

It took me about 10 seconds to wake up from beeping computer noises, 3-5 seconds to get to the computer, by the time I tabbed to my country in the browser, I was dead. I promptly went back to sleep, wondering why I bothered.

Not really.

You have 15% more land, so you run 15% more defenses. But because of Dict Bonus, you run 25% less units, so you still have 10% less units proportionately.

This was implemented for about a year. The defender lost drastically less civs for every attack beyond an average of 3 per second over the last 60 seconds or so. It was removed in favour of restart bonuses. Read the announcements on what Fast DR is for the last 2 years of changes.

You can have 25% less military though, which kinda makes up for the "more food consumption at that land".

Of course the higher you are, the better it is. But you don't want to be TOO high, as that would reduce the number of targets you can grab (the ones just above your humanitarians limit). Also being higher NW means a higher upkeep, so too high is also not a good thing.

The best indicator of performance is land size. The best countries are usually the ones with more land, and they have more land because they started off with a more efficient country (i.e produce more goods per acre of land) at the get go from the first week of a reset. Producing more goods means you can buy more units, get more land, and spiral up. As you get more land, it is important to maintain the tech % for goods production, and keep that spiraling up or constant, rather than spiraling down.

The way qzjul described the way 12hr and 18hr bonuses work is confusing. The best way I can describe it is that,

A) 12hr bonus gives 3 turns. (4 hours on Express)
B) 18hr bonus gives 3 turns. (6 hours on Express)

You can only get BonusA every 12 hours. You can only get BonusB every 18 hours. These 2 bonuses are NOT LINKED TOGETHER, they are recorded separately when you last got BonusA or BonusB.

It works exactly like the bonus points you get from doing captchas on the bonus sites. If you get BonusA on the 13th hour instead of the 12th, you "slip forward 1 hour", and can't get the next BonusA until the 27th hour or later.

Get it now?

Dead allies don't contribute anything.

I ran the logs through a spreadsheet. 1,544,290 tech points were bought in total, with approximately $3,586,002,623 cash. That is an average tech price of $2322.10 per tech point.

What the dell (#49) gained 3.8m NW from 14.5m NW to 18.2m NW. Since the purchased tech is only about 3.1m NW, he gained the remainder 700k NW from teching ~50 turns at 7k TPT = 350k more tech points.

What the dell (#49) bought all the tech, exactly 1,544,290 tech points worth approximately $3,586,002,623 cash. That is an average tech price of $2322.10 per tech point.

Edit: All techs are now $0. ALL TECHS. All SOs are now $65536. ALL.
Screenshot for proof: http://imgur.com/cwWl6Mv


Market Log as follows:
Aug/18/2014 13:52:34 -- Agricultural -- $2,250 -- 8,373 -- SO: No -- Remaining: 178 Agricultural
Aug/18/2014 13:52:34 -- Agricultural -- $2,250 -- 178 -- SO: No -- Remaining: 0 Agricultural
Aug/18/2014 13:52:34 -- Weapons -- $2,298 -- 98,757 -- SO: No -- Remaining: 0 Weapons
Aug/18/2014 13:52:38 -- Agricultural -- $2,300 -- 248 -- Asking: $1,850 -- Trend: UP (was $2,250)
Aug/18/2014 13:52:38 -- Weapons -- $2,300 -- 412 -- Asking: $2,000 -- Trend: UP (was $2,298)
Aug/18/2014 13:52:38 -- Industrial -- $2,250 -- 67,245 -- SO: No -- Remaining: 0 Industrial
Aug/18/2014 13:52:43 -- Agricultural -- $2,350 -- 20,405 -- Asking: $1,850 -- Trend: UP (was $2,300)
Aug/18/2014 13:52:43 -- Industrial -- $2,535 -- 5,200 -- Asking: $0 -- Trend: UP (was $2,250)
Aug/18/2014 13:52:43 -- Agricultural -- $2,300 -- 248 -- SO: No -- Remaining: 0 Agricultural
Aug/18/2014 13:52:43 -- Industrial -- $2,320 -- 33,495 -- SO: No -- Remaining: 0 Industrial
Aug/18/2014 13:52:47 -- Agricultural -- $2,350 -- 20,405 -- SO: No -- Remaining: 0 Agricultural
Aug/18/2014 13:52:47 -- Industrial -- $2,535 -- 5,200 -- SO: No -- Remaining: 0 Industrial
Aug/18/2014 13:52:48 -- Agricultural -- $2,500 -- 360 -- Asking: $1,850 -- Trend: UP (was $2,350)
Aug/18/2014 13:52:48 -- Industrial -- $2,548 -- 16,464 -- Asking: $0 -- Trend: UP (was $2,535)
Aug/18/2014 13:52:52 -- Agricultural -- $2,500 -- 360 -- SO: No -- Remaining: 0 Agricultural
Aug/18/2014 13:52:52 -- Weapons -- $2,300 -- 412 -- SO: No -- Remaining: 0 Weapons
Aug/18/2014 13:52:53 -- Agricultural -- $2,540 -- 2,928 -- Asking: $1,850 -- Trend: UP (was $2,500)
Aug/18/2014 13:52:53 -- Weapons -- $0 -- 0 -- Asking: $2,000 -- Trend: DOWN (was $2,300)
Aug/18/2014 13:52:55 -- Agricultural -- $2,540 -- 2,928 -- SO: No -- Remaining: 0 Agricultural
Aug/18/2014 13:52:59 -- Agricultural -- $3,500 -- 122 -- Asking: $1,850 -- Trend: UP (was $2,540)
Aug/18/2014 13:52:58 -- Agricultural -- $2,799 -- 70,000 -- SO: No -- Remaining: 0 Agricultural
Aug/18/2014 13:53:01 -- Agricultural -- $3,500 -- 122 -- SO: No -- Remaining: 0 Agricultural
Aug/18/2014 13:53:04 -- Agricultural -- $4,000 -- 45 -- Asking: $1,850 -- Trend: UP (was $3,500)
Aug/18/2014 13:53:05 -- Agricultural -- $4,000 -- 45 -- SO: No -- Remaining: 0 Agricultural
Aug/18/2014 13:53:09 -- Agricultural -- $0 -- 0 -- Asking: $1,850 -- Trend: DOWN (was $4,000)
Aug/18/2014 13:53:15 -- Industrial -- $0 -- 0 -- Asking: $0 -- Trend: DOWN (was $2,548)
Aug/18/2014 13:53:14 -- Industrial -- $2,548 -- 16,464 -- SO: No -- Remaining: 0 Industrial
Aug/18/2014 13:53:28 -- Military Strategy -- $2,480 -- 127,124 -- SO: No -- Remaining: 0 Military Strategy
Aug/18/2014 13:53:30 -- Military Strategy -- $2,888 -- 2,565 -- Asking: $1,200 -- Trend: UP (was $2,480)
Aug/18/2014 13:53:32 -- Military Strategy -- $2,888 -- 2,565 -- SO: No -- Remaining: 0 Military Strategy
Aug/18/2014 13:53:34 -- Military Strategy -- $3,500 -- 807 -- SO: No -- Remaining: 0 Military Strategy
Aug/18/2014 13:53:36 -- Military Strategy -- $0 -- 0 -- Asking: $1,200 -- Trend: DOWN (was $2,888)
Aug/18/2014 13:53:38 -- Warfare -- $1,890 -- 349 -- SO: No -- Remaining: 0 Warfare
Aug/18/2014 13:53:40 -- Warfare -- $1,930 -- 2,567 -- SO: No -- Remaining: 0 Warfare
Aug/18/2014 13:53:41 -- Warfare -- $0 -- 0 -- Asking: $850 -- Trend: DOWN (was $1,890)
Aug/18/2014 13:53:49 -- Spy -- $2,000 -- 7,669 -- SO: No -- Remaining: 0 Spy
Aug/18/2014 13:53:52 -- Spy -- $2,530 -- 4,400 -- Asking: $0 -- Trend: UP (was $2,000)
Aug/18/2014 13:53:51 -- Spy -- $2,100 -- 15,342 -- SO: No -- Remaining: 0 Spy
Aug/18/2014 13:53:54 -- Spy -- $2,530 -- 4,400 -- SO: No -- Remaining: 0 Spy
Aug/18/2014 13:53:57 -- Spy -- $0 -- 0 -- Asking: $0 -- Trend: DOWN (was $2,530)
Aug/18/2014 13:54:00 -- SDI -- $2,100 -- 25,993 -- SO: No -- Remaining: 0 SDI
Aug/18/2014 13:54:02 -- SDI -- $2,780 -- 89,400 -- Asking: $0 -- Trend: UP (was $2,100)
Aug/18/2014 13:54:04 -- SDI -- $2,780 -- 89,400 -- SO: No -- Remaining: 0 SDI
Aug/18/2014 13:54:08 -- SDI -- $0 -- 0 -- Asking: $0 -- Trend: DOWN (was $2,780)
Aug/18/2014 13:54:08 -- Medical -- $2,200 -- 45,545 -- SO: No -- Remaining: 30,000 Medical
Aug/18/2014 13:54:08 -- Medical -- $2,200 -- 30,000 -- SO: No -- Remaining: 0 Medical
Aug/18/2014 13:54:11 -- Medical -- $2,240 -- 2,291 -- SO: No -- Remaining: 0 Medical
Aug/18/2014 13:54:13 -- Medical -- $2,290 -- 15,500 -- Asking: $1,250 -- Trend: UP (was $2,200)
Aug/18/2014 13:54:13 -- Medical -- $2,290 -- 15,500 -- SO: No -- Remaining: 0 Medical
Aug/18/2014 13:54:15 -- Medical -- $2,300 -- 506 -- SO: No -- Remaining: 0 Medical
Aug/18/2014 13:54:15 -- Medical -- $2,300 -- 19 -- SO: No -- Remaining: 0 Medical
Aug/18/2014 13:54:15 -- Medical -- $2,300 -- 364 -- SO: No -- Remaining: 0 Medical
Aug/18/2014 13:54:15 -- Medical -- $2,300 -- 230 -- SO: No -- Remaining: 0 Medical
Aug/18/2014 13:54:17 -- Medical -- $2,500 -- 511 -- SO: No -- Remaining: 0 Medical
Aug/18/2014 13:54:18 -- Medical -- $0 -- 0 -- Asking: $1,250 -- Trend: DOWN (was $2,290)
Aug/18/2014 13:56:56 -- Business -- $2,100 -- 115,111 -- SO: No -- Remaining: 0 Business
Aug/18/2014 13:56:56 -- Residential -- $2,150 -- 56,912 -- SO: No -- Remaining: 0 Residential
Aug/18/2014 13:57:02 -- Business -- $2,200 -- 80,000 -- Asking: $1,620 -- Trend: UP (was $2,100)
Aug/18/2014 13:57:02 -- Residential -- $2,250 -- 72,103 -- Asking: $1,600 -- Trend: UP (was $2,150)
Aug/18/2014 13:57:01 -- Business -- $2,150 -- 17,945 -- SO: No -- Remaining: 0 Business
Aug/18/2014 13:57:05 -- Business -- $2,200 -- 80,000 -- SO: No -- Remaining: 0 Business
Aug/18/2014 13:57:07 -- Business -- $2,250 -- 68,702 -- Asking: $1,620 -- Trend: UP (was $2,200)
Aug/18/2014 13:57:10 -- Business -- $2,250 -- 10,000 -- SO: No -- Remaining: 58,702 Business
Aug/18/2014 13:57:10 -- Business -- $2,250 -- 58,702 -- SO: No -- Remaining: 0 Business
Aug/18/2014 13:57:10 -- Residential -- $2,250 -- 10,000 -- SO: No -- Remaining: 62,103 Residential
Aug/18/2014 13:57:10 -- Residential -- $2,250 -- 62,103 -- SO: No -- Remaining: 0 Residential
Aug/18/2014 13:57:13 -- Business -- $2,288 -- 132,487 -- Asking: $1,620 -- Trend: UP (was $2,250)
Aug/18/2014 13:57:13 -- Residential -- $2,288 -- 112,328 -- Asking: $1,600 -- Trend: UP (was $2,250)
Aug/18/2014 13:57:13 -- Business -- $2,288 -- 132,487 -- SO: No -- Remaining: 0 Business
Aug/18/2014 13:57:13 -- Residential -- $2,288 -- 112,328 -- SO: No -- Remaining: 0 Residential
Aug/18/2014 13:57:16 -- Business -- $2,300 -- 4,743 -- SO: No -- Remaining: 0 Business
Aug/18/2014 13:57:16 -- Residential -- $2,300 -- 645 -- SO: No -- Remaining: 0 Residential
Aug/18/2014 13:57:19 -- Business -- $4,000 -- 1,119 -- Asking: $1,620 -- Trend: UP (was $2,288)
Aug/18/2014 13:57:19 -- Residential -- $0 -- 0 -- Asking: $1,600 -- Trend: DOWN (was $2,288)
Aug/18/2014 13:57:18 -- Business -- $4,000 -- 1,119 -- SO: No -- Remaining: 0 Business
Aug/18/2014 13:57:24 -- Business -- $0 -- 0 -- Asking: $1,620 -- Trend: DOWN (was $4,000)
Aug/18/2014 13:57:35 -- Military -- $2,275 -- 99,301 -- Asking: $1,850 -- Trend: UP (was $2,200)
Aug/18/2014 13:57:34 -- Military -- $2,200 -- 38,677 -- SO: No -- Remaining: 0 Military
Aug/18/2014 13:57:37 -- Military -- $2,275 -- 99,301 -- SO: No -- Remaining: 0 Military
Aug/18/2014 13:57:39 -- Military -- $2,300 -- 47,627 -- SO: No -- Remaining: 0 Military
Aug/18/2014 13:57:41 -- Military -- $4,000 -- 1,176 -- Asking: $1,850 -- Trend: UP (was $2,275)
Aug/18/2014 13:58:41 -- Barrels -- $374 -- 34,972 -- SO: No -- Remaining: 958,292 Barrels
Aug/18/2014 13:58:41 -- Barrels -- $374 -- 145,028 -- SO: No -- Remaining: 813,264 Barrels
Aug/18/2014 13:58:50 -- Barrels -- $374 -- 59,000 -- SO: No -- Remaining: 934,264 Barrels
Aug/18/2014 13:58:56 -- Barrels -- $374 -- 10,000 -- SO: No -- Remaining: 924,264 Barrels
Aug/18/2014 13:59:00 -- Military -- $4,000 -- 1 -- SO: Yes -- Remaining: 1,175 Military
Aug/18/2014 13:59:38 -- Barrels -- $374 -- 5,000 -- SO: No -- Remaining: 919,264 Barrels
Aug/18/2014 14:00:34 -- Military -- $4,000 -- 1,175 -- SO: No -- Remaining: 0 Military

It's usually enough, but you obviously need to look at your own landsize relative to the ones around you. My second rule of thumb is if you're n-th rank in Land Size, you should be near n-th rank in NW (within 20% of n).

Have a strong country economy. Specialize in one of the 4 production types (produce only military units, only tech, only food, or only cash).

Stay above half the NW of the Rank 1 guy, whoever he is.

Yes, we know this. Setting a higher tax rate lowers your maxpop, which increases your pop / maxpop ratio, and this increases production.

Basic math.

I expected a X/10 rating!

Pop gain is actually the same whatever your tax rate is, until your current pop is near your max pop (about 1/2 to 2/3 of max pop). The pop gain formula does not contain "tax rate".

WoW grats!

LAF IS A DIVISION OF [DANGER!] AND THUS IT IS NOT STEALING.

MINISTER OF PROPAGANDA FOR EXPLOSIONS
XINHUAN

"Don't be less than 50% of the top player" is the rule to avoid getting bottomfed.
"Be near your land-ranking in NW-rank" is the rule to avoid getting topfed.

Ya, looks working fine to me.

My rule of thumb is pretty simple. If you are n-th in land size on the server, you shouldn't be too far from the n-th rank in NW. This makes you land average in size on the score page, rather than land fat, and be a less desirable PS target.

You need about 200 attacks to kill a country, more if its larger. That is at least 400 turns or so. Since you only get 54 turns a day on Primary, it is impossible to kill anyone on Primary other than completely inactive countries.

I bet its more work than that "10 to 20 minutes". Since the change must only take effect during new resets, you also have to code in a new code version number, and have it advance between resets for the various servers with varying length. Now you also need to refactor the code that displays the spyop's result into a function that can be reused by both actual spyops and the stored op. Now add in the code that does 72 hour pruning, unless the user manually saves the stored op.

And then you need another hour to test it on the various types of servers. Some servers don't allow allies, some allow only Def/Intel/Res allies, some allow all types of allies.

Now add in proper commented code, make nice small commits, push the changes, it'll probably be more than a couple of hours to double check everything.

In fact there are current bugs with the current stored spyop code, it displays the wrong expenses, upkeep and production. It erroneously uses your government for the calculation instead of the target's government, and it doesn't display Def-Bonus. The actual spy op ignores effects of bonuses like -expenses%, but the stored spy op does, another inconsistency.

Programming work. On both ends. Increased server load and traffic.

2014-08-11 12:35:40 PS killyourspies (#85) Blue Lou Boyle (#83) 4542A (6457A)
2014-08-11 12:04:37 PS DeLpHiNuS (#135) killyourspies (#85) 627A (1283A)
2014-08-11 09:52:15 PS r a z o r w i r e (#60) killyourspies (#85) 754A (1453A)
2014-08-11 03:26:03 PS Blue Lou Boyle (#83) killyourspies (#85) 639A (1204A)

That's one huge retal, with 2 more possible retals coming. Man, those jets and turret prices are going insane...

Only if they have attacked you at least twice.

They are both strong in their own way. Tyr is more efficient with turns, allowing you to do more war-stuff. Dict is more efficient with units, allowing you to kill more 25% units with the same number of units (or to have 25% less units for the same effectiveness).

Tyr is a must if you are a techer. Commie is a must if you are an Indy. For farmer and cashers, it makes no real difference, but if you are a restart, you probably want to be Tyr to build stuff with the extra turns. That is, there is more flexibility to being turn efficient, than being unit efficient.

The population disadvantage is actually significant. It makes Demo waaaaaaaay better than Fasc, especially if you resell a bit of stuff on the market. Demos also have the advantage to be able to sell down.

A second 6 thousand acre grab just happened...

Where the fluff is JJ23?