In another game that I played inexperienced players and late starts were farmed for resources excessively to the point they would always quit. To help solve the problem that game had resource villages that didn't belong to any real players that could be farmed for resources, they gained defense at an accelerated rate to prevent abuse.

What about the idea that EE do the same? This goes more for alliance than the other servers but could be applied there as well. Basically at the beginning of a reset EE would create automated countries. They would be all-x, pure defense, very slow growing. Here are a few points that I think would be important though:

1) They have to be defense heavy to make sure that the land comes at a price for the attacker. Could be D allied with other land bots, have high weapons tech, or just a lot of turrets.

2) They either have to be capped to a certain NW or their NW grow at an extremely slow rate. GDI would also be a must. This prevents huge countries from just farming them constantly since once they get so large they will be out of GDI/humanitarian range. These are meant to benefit newer players that aren't great at grabbing, not the top guys.

3) These could either be automated to just "grow" at a certain rate in terms of land, defense, and NW or they could literally be bots that have a loose "strategy" defined that explores, builds, buys food as need, buys defense at the end of their turns. They should be set at slightly different rates/strats so that they aren't all identical.

4) They should be untagged and still killable. If an alliance doesn't like them being around they can kill them off but they would have to find them first. If they are fairly random growth rates/strats this may be a bit harder than one would think. They could also restart as well to keep their # constant.

5) This could put an infusion of land back into Earth. Having more LG targets for the smaller guys would ease the burden on them. This would also make All-x countries slightly less popular and bring the idea of bottomfeeding back without farming the crap out of new players. I would suggest 50-100 of these countries and it could be started small and increased with need to avoid unforeseen consequences. They would mostly all be kept in DRs for the first half of the reset and wouldn't give up too much land per hit based on supply and demand. Overall I think this could put an extra 10% land in the game which if managed right would be distributed at the bottom, not the top of the food chain and could be worked up by normal grabbing means.

I'm sure something similar has been suggested several times, I didn't search past the first 2 pages. I just think it would provide more LG targets and not force people to live off of pure ghost acres and all-x strats.

admins have discussed about adding bots but its still in level of discussion.

EE doesn't need more land. There's already more than enough out there.

You are also one of the top players and have no issues getting land. The more players this game has, the better it will be. You remember the hayday of 10k+ players in alliance. New players can't survive in this environment unless they immediately join a good alliance and learn that way. By making it easy for new players to not get farmed the first day out of protection it will encourage them to stay and maybe build the member base.

How many players in the game started in the past year? Versus how many have been playing for 5+? You have to keep adding or eventually it will die off more.

If you're talking about alliance server, then I either play all-explore, or I grab while at war. I do not grab at all during peacetime. On individual servers, yes, I do excel at getting land.

It's true that I have no issues getting land on the alliance server. My country will pass 12k acres tomorrow, despite not attacking at all this set. I guess I'm 'skilled' at exploring.

1) After you explore tomorrow I bet you are one of the top all-x countries for land. Thats because you know how to maximize # of CS, when to batch, and I'm sure before you batch you get your bonuses to use on turns and also wait until you get the 18 hour bonus, a lot of all-x players don't and you can't expect new people to know that. But you have the ability to grab in alliance.

2) You run all x because you know how to play it well and you enjoy it. People that join up just to play for fun (and yes they are almost all in the 13-18 age range) just want to kill stuff at first. Giving them viable targets will help to keep them interested and around longer. Thats what this is all about.

My issue isn't with the amount of land in the server. It is how accessible it is to new players that want to come in and attack something. This would give them that option. You can't tell me this environment is hospitable to new untrained players to join up and play right now? At least not in relation to the environment say 7-8 years ago.

The problem is that in most alliances they join, they'll be taught how to play the game by people who have played the game for 8+ years and still have no clue what they're doing. Adding bots to the game won't solve the problem that so many people have played this game for a long time and still don't know what they're doing.

It's not like figuring out how to explore is hard. The game is accessible to those who are trained properly. It is extremely hospitable to the new untrained players LaF is getting.

your all-x has no chance at top 25 though. so yes, you do have issues getting land. you just choose not to let it bother you.

Last time I did this strategy, I got rank 29, but I fluffed up my destock. So I would say that I do have a chance at top 25.

Depends on the reset of course, but the truth remains that if you don't camp DR or landtrade (both of which imo are unhealthy for the game), you max out at about 140-160M NW, which is not competitive for t10 and barely competitive for t25 under the right conditions. I don't think that really counts as "plenty of land".

Correct me if I'm wrong but I believe Rockman made top 100 with his 99 acre netter back when there were 5k+ countries still in the game. I am pretty sure I could make top 25 without attacking at all this reset if I wanted to but I am aiming for top 10 so attacking is a must.

And you are right Rockman, when a veteran player that is LGing all reset ends with less land and lower nw than someone playing all-x it does look bad. But you also have to understand that most players (especially now) play for fun. They log in for a few minutes everyday to relive the nastalgia of the past and play their turns. The same goes for people that just sign up as new members. They are looking for something that is fun and can pass the time. Some will decide that they like the competition and are gifted at it and will go further. Those players will always succeed. However for the game to benefit overall we have to keep bringing in more players and that means making it "fun" to play casually. Giving them targets to hit without the fear of getting farmed in return allows that.

And what would be so bad about it adding them in? You're only arguement is that we don't need them to be successful. What would they actually hurt?

Oafijev did that in LaF and got top 100. I did it in tourney a few times and got top 10s in those games.

Its really simple to do a lazy strategy that takes very little time and still get 120m+ networth. It takes more effort to screw up a country than it does to play it properly.

And adding land bots to the game fundamentally changes it, and it feeds people's desires to continually get higher and higher networths despite the lack of any improvement in ability. When in Earth 2025 did it ever take 100m+ networth to make top 100? Are players getting better? No. Players are getting worse, but we're dumbing down the game continuously, and I don't like it.

I don't see it as dumbing down the game as much as it is just evening up the odds between the people with no lives/"cheaters" and the casual players. If it were true that the ones who get the most land are the most talented players, then everything is fine. However, that is no longer the case and hasn't been for a few resets in alliance.

P.S. I've played this game long enough to know that in alliance, an all-x getting top 25 nowadays in a normal reset is quite the stretch. I'm not sure BigBen that anybody can easily make top 25 without attacking.

We've discussed this, but it'd be tricky to do; I would never want stupid bots, they'd have to be intelligent.

It's an idea though.

RD had intelligent bots and some FFA alliances had too (and some had dumb like demoing country with ~20% rediness).

How about making a Server with only bots.
So the admin could pick the intelligent bots and put it on other server.

I wouldn't say that there's anyone who could get top 25 easily with all-explore , but there are plenty who could do it without too much difficulty. It's not a stretch at all, its just that the best players tend to not play all-explore.