HAven't played in a while, Express was always all commie all the time for me, what do you guys run your BPT up to in express these days?

ETA - by "in a while," I mean the last time I played there were no bots.

As a commie indy in Express, you'd probably wanna grab to between 50-70k acres by turn 1500, with 100-120 bpt.

OK cool, I just hit 100 bpt this morning.

I don't see any large human commies - you might have built all your BPT too early!

I didn't start right at the beginning. Pretty sure I'm OK on when I got there, I'm OK with being wrong though.

Express was always a server for me to talk fluff, wargain until someone took exception, and then war to the end anyway. I had a specific alt for it and everything. 😁

Haha well in Express, with 360(360), any country can hit or kill any other country. It's not particularly competitive on the war front, it's more like whoever has the turns saved up and hits first will just KR the other bloke.

You can however get very ridiculous netgaining finishes because the bots are well-tuned here to be smarter than your average player, and so they utilize the market as such (creating a more active market). LOL You can see just barely 10 humans finish above bots every set on Express...

Got any tips on timing my grabbing to avoid all the bots in range being in crazy DR?

Not at all - the bots being in crazy DR is because a bunch of the human players keep grabbing the bots into deep DR when it's actually better to explore. There's nothing one can do about it unfortunately, and this has been the reason why it's been very difficult to push the high nw finishes of before because it is impossible to grab land when every bot has been hit 10+ times in the past 8 hours. xD

That said, there usually are some bots that have low DR. Use https://eestats.lafamiglia-ee.eu/express to find them. The DR counter isn't accurate to this server, where half life is shorter at 8 hours, though directionally helpful.

Is there a compelling reason to not just grab the people?

If you want to finish well, then grabbing humans and breaking GDI is likely not the way to go.

If you just want to wreck sets, may I recommend the Alliance/Team server? xD

I haven't played in a while but I suspect that grabbing other players is a much better value proposition than most players realize. The main concern would be allowing someone to force you into a war. If you grab someone once and they grab you back twice you generally either need to let it go or you need to commit to war.

While I agree, it's also easy for someone to just get 5-10m jets and keep SSing you non-stop baiting you into a pointless "war".

(And yes, you can retaliate against an all-jetter by farming the country to nothing, but then it'll quickly devolve into a... pointless war. lol)

Maybe I am just too much of an old school "wargain all the time" type, but the reason that I left alliance to begin with was the only way to grab was to find the least bad DR on all the farms all the time. As long as I single tap, if someone wants to war over 1 grab I won't be mad about it, but if I can't keep what I take I don't deserve it anyway.

Most people don't know how to make grabbing another human worthwhile. So they end up getting retalled for more than they grabbed and so they get the face on then RoR and then its war.

If you do know how to make grabbing another human worthwhile then the other guy usually gets the face on and double taps back and then its war.

War is generally fruitless. Possible to get a kill, but if you don't then you just end up in useless back and forth and each player claiming they smashed the other player hardest on the forums.

blah blah

Eh, better to aim for the stars and go out in a blaze of glory than do something lame like just farm bots all set.

VicRattlehead: I think the primary server might be the best fit for what you're looking for right now? There are no NPC countries there and players do grab each other. Express will eventually have NPC countries attacking players but there's no timeline on that.

I rarely see the benefit of LGing players. Even for 1:1. A smart player isn't going to retal you right away,. and after the attacker has fully built that land then the retal basically eats all those turns.

As for BPT the known formula is

Math.sqrt(TargetLand/4)

So for like 10k land:
Math.sqrt(10000/4) = 50.

Perhaps to Primary, but Express is the only place I could "knock the rust off" this quick before I jump back into alliance

If it's any consolation to anyone here, I am definitely going to get my freaking clock cleaned. My timing is off after so long away.

All puns intended, because I am not a coward.

The quad tap:

2024-04-19 04:44:21 SS Elfame (#92) Free Bird (#35) 456A (641A)
2024-04-19 04:44:10 SS Elfame (#92) Free Bird (#35) 610A (844A)
2024-04-19 04:44:04 SS Elfame (#92) Free Bird (#35) 710A (955A)
2024-04-19 04:43:55 SS Elfame (#92) Free Bird (#35) 829A (1083A)

Grabbed: 2605A (3523A)

The quad-tal:

2024-04-19 22:26:45 SS Free Bird (#35) Elfame (#92) 467A (602A)
2024-04-19 22:25:52 SS Free Bird (#35) Elfame (#92) 623A (836A)
2024-04-19 22:23:20 SS Free Bird (#35) Elfame (#92) 880A (1208A)
2024-04-19 22:22:26 SS Free Bird (#35) Elfame (#92) 1011A (1412A)

Recovered:2981A (4058A)

Net Totals
======

Elfame: +542A
Free Bird: +1453A

Oof

Yeah not worth it.

Money costs turns.
Money needed to buy jets.
Money needed to buy oil.
Money needed to buy buildings on unbuilt.
Turns needed to build that land.

It’s all turns. Not worth it. Way more efficient to grab a bot.

Nobody plays games for the efficiency, they play for the fun. Player interaction is the fun. I can play essentially this same game against bots in every tactics/civ/RTS game ever.

When I left here last, the bots were a hot topic of conversation. Have they helped keep players, or have they contributed to players leaving? I seem to remember there being more than 100 actual human countries in Express last time I hung around these parts.

I think the bots definitely help keep players. At least in Express, liquidity in the public market is provided by the bots, without which the market would be empty all the time just because of the sheer number of turns people consume.

...juxtaposed with tourney, where it's 30 countries using only 50 turns a day - even then, we get empty public markets on many days...

And actually before the latest Express bots (been around a few years now), the only playable strat is techer. After the bot change, all strats became viable, though it is still easiest to win as a fasc farmer or commie indy.

/disagree

Did bots help? Absolutely. Primarily in the market sphere as NiteL as mentioned.

The issue is their limitations. Imagine you're playing chess against the computer & the only level offered was easy.

If bots had different degrees of play (suck -> expert) and you weren't able to distinguish them from the other players you'd effectively be add more players.

Obviously I did not witness what happened in the markets but that makes sense; the game has always been more about playing the market correctly than your turns anyway.


Hard disagree on tourney, I can't sell fluff there. I am trying to convert from indy to tech and my units and tech both keep getting stuck.

You're likely teching the wrong tech lol for a week now, I'm logging into empty bus/res/mil. Been storing turns cos I can't play them...

This is precisely the problem of no bots. In tourney given the low turn number and the slow pace, at least there's still workable liquidity to specialize. If the market is always empty, then you'd gotta be a rainbow. That'll be an entirely different game (for most of us except Ratski). xD

Thinking this to be the case, I diversified a bit, did some ag and some weap since it was selling high. My casher techs and indy tech keep getting stuck.

Not just about the price but more about the volume.. you'll see that the casher techs are still empty on tourney market now.

O hey, my tech sold! :)

seconded

to clarify. efficiency = fun for some people

That isn't to say I won't throw all that out the window to retal/war when necessary :)

Everyone says things like farming bots is no fun, no skill needed, etc

Thats true to some extent (80/20 rule). Getting t10 is easy enough with zero effort bot grabbing and no fancy stuff, and that's mild fun for old timers short on time e.g me.

When I used to play a few years back some people seemed to have beef and would grab you every set, regardless of defence, so that wasn't the solution. There was no point putting time in. So I just started playing under my name and spending no effort on a country so people could grab me if they wanted, and I would just retal. That way I can't be trolled with grabs. If I manage to get through a set without being hit then I might get a lucky finish, if not then another reset will be along shortly :)