Are you ever going to make TMBR and DMBR reasonable strategies, or is your intent for them only to be used for destocking or for the novelty of playing a strategy that the game administrators have intentionally refused to balance out with the others?

TMBR and DMBR are by far the weakest strategies and they very badly need a boost to be able to compete with other strategies.

they should reconsider what i proposed before:

http://forums.earthempires.com/...crease-returns-to-attacks

That's BS. I can think of far weaker strategies.

Are you ever going to make rainbow a viable strategy? It badly needs a boost. Maybe a bonus for building diversity that recognizes increased efficiency due to civ specialization?

or tyr casher or cmbr or mono oiler or dict oiler or ........

For every other "weaker" strategy, there's an easy fix of just switching to the proper government (i.e. go commie for indy, fascist for oiler, republic/democracy/dictator/theocracy for casher, fascist/tyranny/democracy/dictator for farmer, theocracy/tyranny/democracy for techer). But you cannot fix MBR and make it competitive with other strategies merely by switching to the proper government. Theocracy and Democracy are the only two proper governments for MBR. Obviously, Commie MBR isn't as good as Theocracy MBR. But Commie MBR doesn't need a boost - a MBR just shouldn't go Commie. But MBR needs a boost - we shouldn't have an unwritten rule that military bases should not be built during the first 75% of the set. It's fine having an unwritten rule that indies should be communist - that can be fairly easily figured out from the way the governments are setup. But the MBR strategy, regardless of government type, not being competitive with other strategies is a problem.

If you think that theocracy farmer or republic indy being weak means that the MBR strategy doesn't need a boost, then you're quite illogical.

Lastly, rainbow is not a strategy. It is a generalized term to describe any country that is not using a strategy and is mixing buildings without any thought or purpose behind it. It is by definition the lack of a strategy, so rainbow "strategy" is a contradiction.

your face is a contradiction. MBR would be viable during a server war set, and is VERY lucrative come destock time.

Incorrect, and incorrect.

Correct.

Hasn't metygl won express with an MBR? and tboy once got second I think.

You will be taken more seriously if you define "reasonable strategy" and state which servers you're talking about. I can certainly think of servers where a pure oiler will finish much worse than a pure MBR.

Have top players played a pure MBR to the best of their abilities in a set with decent market conditions? If so, what were the results?

You will also be taken more seriously if you post some kind of evidence for your claim. Two years ago, everyone thought that CI couldn't net on the alliance server and they were clearly wrong.

To be fair, 2 years ago the -Expenses bonus didn't exist, and CI definitely couldn't net on alliance.

This was done before the expenses bonus existed:

http://alliance.www.earthempires.com/topplayers?round=6

I stand corrected then.

really? you stand when you earth? I usually sit down =P

Switching to MBR at what point? I'm not talking about stocking as a techer and then destocking as a MBR, I'm talking about growing and stocking as a MBR, too.



I'm talking about all servers. By reasonable strategy, I mean that it can compete with casher, farmer, indy, and techer.

Where oiler finishes worse than MBR, it's not because of the way the game is setup, its because too many people produce oil. I would not say that its too easy to be self-sufficient in oil.

Where MBR differs from all the other strategies is that the private market and the indy strategy can make it so that MBRs are not needed. Food on the private market is far too expensive for farmers to 'not be needed', and tech cannot even be bought on the private market. Casher is not needed, but it is clearly superior to farmers selling food on their private market, so there's no risk of cashers being an unnecessary strategy.

However, MBR is normally an unnecessary strategy, and I would say that they are outnumbered at least 50 to 1 by Indies up until the last 25% of the set.


As far as I know, I'm one of two players in alliance to have played a nearly fullset MBR (I switched about 120 hours into the set), and I got low end top 100. The other guy wasn't even close to top 100. That was with favortable market conditions that will not be repeated now that commie indy is more popular. I disagree that everyone thought that CI couldn't net on the alliance server. That certainly was not the way it was when I started playing in December 2010. There's a huge difference between how commie indy was thought of two years ago and how growing + stocking as a MBR is seen right now. Many many people played commie indies a couple of years ago. How many people do you see playing TMBRs or DMBRs these days during their growth and stocking phases?

There's a guy in primary who has played TMBR a couple sets in a row now, and gotten a total of just over 40m networth combined. With commie indy being much more popular now, I'm not sure if a MBR could match the 45m networth I achieved with the strategy - not because of my skill, but just because the market conditions are so incredibly hostile to a TMBR in primary (not just the super low jet/turret prices, but also the super low tank/troop demand).

With my reputation, I would say that people are taking me seriously regardless of whether or not I provide evidence. If you need evidence that MBR is a weak strategy and needs a boost, then you're a fluffing idiot.


I don't know what you're referencing with the top scores in round 6, but you've not even specified which country you're talking about, much less provided proof of when it switched to MBR.

MBR is not viable during a server war set. During those types of sets, alliances tend to run a lot of indies because of the possibility of an early war. Too many indies means very low military prices, and whenever you have a lot of alliances warring, you'll have too many indies for MBR to be viable at competing with other strategies. Not only is MBR tougher than casher or farmer, but it doesn't even have the top end networth ability of a casher or farmer.

LaF has very very rarely had people destock as a MBR. It just doesn't happen too often anymore. I would estimate that under 5% of LaF countries destock as MBRs, and that even less than 5% of the time is it the best option for a country to have destocked as a MBR rather than doing a public market destock or a zero military base private market destock. LaF knows what its doing in regards to strategy, and TMBR and DMBR are extremely rarely chosen.

You don't seem to take me seriously, but you do seem to take your attempts to fluff up the game seriously. You administrators were dumb enough to think that your ghost acre changes would actually hurt landtraders, rather than help them by affecting bottomfeeders far more. And you are apparently dumb enough to think that being a MBR during the growth & stockpiling phases is a viable strategy which doesn't need strengthening.

I don't know whether you are intentionally trying to screw the game up, or if you're just complete idiots. But this is the response I get, when I ask a civil question about a game balancing issue, is you being an asshole to me.

When other people make suggestions, do you ask them for evidence that there is a need for the change they want? Did you ask for evidence that your changes to the attack gains on special attacks was needed, and that stonewalling needed to be made even more frustrating to the attackers than it already was? Did you ask for evidence that landtrading needed a boost on the alliance server? No, you just assumed those things, and with your astounding intellectual abilities, you came to the wrong conclusion both times.

What you need to realize is that my judgment is better than yours. Now take your "we don't take you seriously" crap and shove it up your ass. You know that the MBR strategy is too weak, but fixing it doesn't fit into your plans to fluff the game up.

If you want a civil debate on whether or not MBR needs a boost, then let me know. If you want to just be an asshole, two can play at this game. And you know I'm good at it.


Now, please provide evidence of countries that switched to MBR early in their growth phase, prior to stockpiling, and still finished well. Can you name a single country that has done that and finished better than my two attempts in primary and alliance?

I've tried it on both servers, and I believe that I have the record on both servers for the best finish with a nearly full set MBR (I switched to TMBR on 1.9k acres on both servers). If you can't find anyone who has done better than me, that makes me the expert on MBRs.

purely out of curiosity, rockman, what were your finishes with those two attempts at mbr?

it's wonder why you keep coming back Rockman

21st with 45m networth in primary
80th with 111m networth in alliance

You finished 21st with an all-X TMBR in primary. I believe that you had the second best all-X country that set. I don't see the issue here. You played a handicapped version of an obscure strategy and still did fine. How well should you have finished?

You're keeping around tons of military for very little benefit. The least aggressive grabbing possible (PSing away 25% of your units once a day) would have given you a lot more land. I also don't see the downside of doing that.

By the way, I played a pure TMBR into the top ten in Primary around 7-8 years ago. Does that make me credible?

You would have to ask the people who did it but I do not think it was juts a destock. It was one of these sets:
http://express.www.earthempires.com/topplayers?round=128
http://express.www.earthempires.com/topplayers?round=124
and then
http://express.www.earthempires.com/topplayers?round=112
that 7th place country, it's public.