I agree looking at snap shots of tech prices at different times of the set is interesting and informative, but I don't see how it's more accurate than looking at the average. Which part of the set is being over-represented in the set long average? I would say not the grabbing phase, because lower quantities of tech are being sold at that point, and because high tech prices really affect the rate of growth in a positive way then as well.

If he really hadn't bought food last set then why would you mention him in reference to high food prices being good for techers, and catching the "food peak"?

Yes, I know, but if you thought Andrew and myself sold too early, then it means that, had you been teching, you probably would have taken huge losses on food stock, because all it takes is one person to dump 400m bushels on the market and the food peak is over for good, and crashes too fast from then on for anyone else to get out of the market at a good price, because stockers have more food to dump than the server can consume for days, and the only way their food sells is if they can temporarily be the lowest seller out there (until the next person goes lower than them). You don't have any experience as a full techer on Primary. Alliance techer experience is irrelevant. There are often billions of bushels selling a day there, and rarely crashes like are seen in Primary.

Yes, this is partly true, although if you're doing it too slowly you're going to be going well over $2b while turns pile up and to take those turns you're going to have to eat a lot of corruption. But what oldman said is that techers are greedy *during the crash,* and only have to price lower, which I'm willing to say is just flat wrong. That doesn't work for reasons already described. And also, once you do that, you are losing lots of money on food, and not "catching the food peak."

I'm curious what Rob, crest, Andrew, and other techers think about high food prices

High food prices don't bother me in general. In fact they can be rather nice if they are rising during the stocking phase. But they create a dilemma that forces techers to destock too soon. The dilemma is that only 1 techer can catch the peak (and even then you only can sell max 50% of your stock at peak.

These are the options as I see it if you are the first one to sell stock.

Sell the first bite size quantity (say 20M at $1 below market price)
- outcome all of your food sells and the new market price is $1 below what the original market price was because producers are not undercutting you by $1.
Then you will rinse and repeat as you step the market down $1 each time until the next techer destocks.

Sell your entire stock (say 250M at $1 below market price)
- outcome you will get about 5 hours worth of sales which will likely be 40M to 50M
- you will cause a panic where people undercut by too much and you need others to be able to buy and resell this panic sales.
- you recall all of your food after 6 hours and rinse and repeat.

I don't think there is all that much difference between the two and I think the "greedy" way may be more effective (but I have only done this once). The greedy way will be less effective if nobody is willing to resell the cheap panic sales. When I did this a couple sets back Crest was reselling some of them and I myself resold some.

High food prices are only beneficial if you went corruption. Unless you are the 1st out of the gates and sold in batches big enough to be worth it but small enough not to attract attention of the other techers, I don't see how high food price is anything to smile about.

I think the best thing you can do to hedge your losses is to be a Dem, and then gradually lose any profit you made as prices went up during your stocking phase as you destock. I have been the highest finishing techer many times and in none of those times did I bother to be the 1st to destock.

Also, market trends are mostly different for different servers. I definitely wouldn't compare food on the Primary market with that on the express market.

No matter what, food crashes faster than it rises so my goal is more to limit my losses than to try to make a potential windfall. The times I try making something out of it I have paid dearly.

If you think the primary market is hard. 2 sets ago in FFA I had a food stock that was equal to 3 days worth of the entire servers demand. There are no good choices in that situation.

In thinking about it in terms of stock vs demand, high food prices help some. Demand is composed of stocking bushels vs consuming bushels. Consuming is static/increasing independent of price, while stocking demand decreases as price increases. So if you have less food but it sells at a higher price, then your % of stock vs demand is lower, thus allowing more to sell at peak.

Of course it then creates more incentive to sell first and make crash the entire market sooner. It's all game theory.

I just ran out of food. I lost 1.3M in NW :(...

just did it again on tournament and lost 0.4M NW. I need to be more careful.

I told oldman earlier today that high food prices only benefit 2 types of people:

A) Those that went corruption. (Those that didn't will suffer stocking losses).

B) Democracies. Demos are able to sell down (dependent on market demand) wait for 2-3 days and buy back at a cheaper price).

It's clear that many of you above have been arguing about whether high food prices help a Demo. The answer to me is simple, the bigger the food price fluctuations, the more opportunities for reselling, and thus beneficial for the good market player, and can be bad for the average player.

You already earn money when you resell your food up (as food is rising). You cut your losses by reselling down as best as possible. Sometimes, I WANT to cause a fast crash because even if I don't make a profit out of it, The idea is to intentionally cause a crash to screw over every other Demo out there by forcing the others to make a loss. It's all in the perspective of things.

As a demo, I made $100s of millions buying and reselling food last set, not even counting trying to "catch the peak," but just counting buying the cheap food and reselling it higher.

But then the crash came. The majority of my losses were user error because I got some food out high but foolishly bought back in early. However, you can't get all your food out high, and the extent of possible profits from the food bubble (moderate) vs. the risks of loss (large risk, enormous cost), for me, especially in the market environment of Primary, where the collapse will happen overnight, makes high food prices more harmful than helpful, without doubt.

I also find what crest and Andrew wrote to be interesting and I mostly agree

I can't really comment as ive only played a Theo techer in primary. For a non-demo i think the answer is obvious.

A point to add - if food is cheap, people might decide to stock earlier which means the demand for tech will be lower as people have lower land sizes. When food is expensive, its better to keep growing, which means they need more tech. So i would assume this will affect how tech prices are in the first place.

And i just want to point out, never play a non-demo techer in primary. In fact i think the best advice would be to not play techer at all in primary :p

I feel like it is very late in the set for nobody to be over 100M NW yet. 110M for me, and a slew of other c/i, is about right. Based simply on feel, without running any calcs, I'd have expected the cashers to do better than 150M, more like 160M. But we'll all find out in 48 hours=)

What do you think about next set and buildings getting too expensive at large sizes? What strat will you play?

I have a feeling we will see a lot of techers next set

I am tempted just to go CI so that if anyone steals from me I can pump mad spies, turn them into a parking lot with minimal jets, and continue on my way..

CI is definitely safest. Even in a bad market you can finish well.

Well, if people need to stock early next set because growing becomes costly earlier, I think commie becomes worse and demo casher gets stronger vs. rep casher.

Then again, eating corruption has been a growing trend lately instead of stocking anyway

Good luck as a Techer, losing billions to thieves, or even worse a market price crash is fun and all, but I think I might try something else if these new changes go live.

If people are stocking earlier it means there will be more food demand and prices should increase earlier in the set no? Farmers might not have to wait so long for their grown spurt if that is the case.

Only problem with that is people don't stock much food anymore, they've determined they like to just hold cash even if they don't go corruption bonus.

If you're a techer and losing lots of tech to thieves you're playing it wrong.

Show me the light!

I don't quite believe Chewi when he says things like that. A few sets ago he was saying if commies didn't challenge bakku's record they were doing it wrong. Imo he usually has unrealistic expectations of netters.

You sell tech as a techer. You should have less tech than other strats.

He was actually getting bank bombed daily but techers can only sell x% of their tech at a time and they tech so much that they do have high tech levels themselves. Esp if they're scooping the cheap tech off the market to keep prices strong.

Yeah, I think I reached a peak of just over 8 million total tech points on hand at one point this set. Probably similar numbers last set if not more since I had a little more land and prices were better allowing me to resell more. Last set they stole tech and this set they bombed banks (on me anyway, others got both). I mostly had just over $2 billion on hand during stocking this set and the average taken per op was $8-9million.

Sell 3 times a day and dump the tech.

Missing your 12 or 18 hour bonuses? Not to mention, this would require you to price low so that most of your goods sell off within a few hours of hitting the market. Or waste another 3 turns every time you wanted to sell more tech by recalling the unsold. Because you can only put up 1/4th of your total tech on the market, including what is on the market. If you put up tech and non of it sells, you would have to recall, buy, or tech more in order to place more. Then pricing low would drive the average price down further hurting techers. Additionally, every turn spent putting goods on the market is not gaining income by teching.

If it wasn't for the thieves, then logging in once a day to Tech all your turns for that day and then putting all that tech on the market in one turn for above the average price seemed more profitable.

LMAO! You've never played techer?

Serp just wants lower tech prices.

Is chewi pinafore?! haha jk..

Several of us are going commie tech start next set. PM me if you are doing the same, we could tech ally.

I guess I suck then.

Haha... Yes I would love lower tech prices all set long.

Indy will suck next round, we will need all the help we can get. Otherwise I may have to go back to techer myself.

20 turns to go...scores look low and it looks like Primary Cause will finish above all of the commies - so I guess he was the smart one to switch.

I estimated Primary Cause to finish about 115m about 2 weeks ago. I wonder how close I am to that estimate.

If I recall correctly, I think I was even to a half day behind Primary Cause when the switch occured. I should finish right a mil or two below 110M I think (I don't really calculate things out heh). Of course only one data point, but it seems like the switch wasn't a huge boost or a huge setback, possibly a minor boost. I think all of us c/i can thank Primary cause that there was at least one less C/I in a market flooded with them this set.

Primary Cause's switch caused food prices to really suck this reset. (I'm the Fascist farmer that got topfed.)

:(

He played a really good set, a country well played, proving that a mid-size strat switch is doable.

oh really? I assumed you were the mono this set heh. Not sure why, it just seemed like you. The mono is oldman then?

heh, I'm the sucky techer who got his banks bombed and his tech stolen and went with the wrong bonus in a set destined to be won by a casher.

well, at least your W/L streak continues oldman!

No wonder you were talking so much about this being a bad tech set. :P

Reminder that Narcissistic was 12k land ahead of the next biggest commie when he got topfed. :(

Would've been a nice boost if food was better though. Very interesting strategy. Xin, don't blame primary cause for the food being bad, he could just as easily blame you! But really, food can easily support two big farmers as we saw last set. There was more to it than the two of you.

I have to think Narcissistic could have finished $125M - even after the topfeed

yes, I still maintain my stance that this is a fluffy tech set. I sold most of my tech under $1000 haha. But that's just a result of me being too greedy.

It absolutely was a fluffy tech set, but that's par for the course for tech :D haha. I never thought it was good, just that it compared okay with most other tech sets (which are usually not good).

Except there are 3 big farmers this reset. The 3rd one being the Dict farmer, so the planned switch hurt all of us because it was very clear by the time he switched there was already 2 big farmers. If you look above, I still congratulated him on a reset well played... because it really is well played.

I am still allowed to blame him for the poor food prices though, food would have easily surpassed $50 otherwise. If Bobby can thank him for switching away from Indy, I can just as equally blame him for switching into Farmer.

(Not real blame, just a "looking back in hindsight" thing.)

I still don't even know which dict you're talking about, so I don't know if it was clear to everyone or not. Maybe primary cause had inside info about it. But even still: 57k land for you, 62k for primary cause, 60k for Violator (??) makes 179k land. AustAgder 95k Awesome 2013 73k makes 168k land. That's almost a match in land between these top countries, and last set prices were like $65!!! There's just a lot more small farmers down the line that impacted it. Plus maybe techers stocking less.

Almost definitely techers stocking less if both TAG Heuer Carrera and PromiseLand went corruption, heh.

Oh easily 125. He had one of those sets where everything was working perfectly together in balance. His land growth, tech growth, log in schedule were all working perfectly for him. Until....

That's the funny thing about an Indy, or any strat for that matter, you change one small thing in the strat and it can unbalance your country that little bit that snowballs into a big difference. I changed one thing this set as a test, and it hindered my tech growth too much allowing me to be hit a few times where normally I wouldn't.