Earth: 2025, any advice for newbies?

[Ribannah]

About to start Castle Gobs in the ongoing regular game, I hope there is still some land left

Questions
[1] What's up with the tax rate?
[2] How many construction sites to up the number of buildings/turn?

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If you have no feet, don't walk on fire

[This message has been edited by Ribannah (edited February 27, 2001).]

[Colon™]

The best answers I can offer...
1.The higher the tax rate, the less people your country can support.
2.I don't think there's a simple linear arithmetic behind it, it’s certainly not 1 building/turn for each construction site. I don’t think the site owners know themselves.(weird as it may sound)

For both I’d ask at the 2025 forums for details, there should be people who know the mathematics behind the game.

If you haven’t found this info yet, here are the maximum research % you can have:

Military 87%
Medical 67%
Business 200%
Residential 200%
Agriculture 200%
Warfare 5%
Weapons 150%
Industrial 135%
SDI 90%

These figures are a couple of years old already and they may have changed. The age is also why I don’t have any rate for conditioning (it didn’t exist back then)

[Eternal]

It's true those maximums have been changed (or maybe they ave just for the tournament game). See the Quick Answers section from the main page and look under technologies or somesuch.

1) Many strategies I have read suggest 35% is acceptable. I don't like going over 20 because you start losing people fast if you don't explore more. For some strategies thats okay though.

2) The number of buildings you can construct is related to construction sites such that the more land and/or sites you get, the less effective each site is. Building a lot of them is very cool though. In my tourney game its very satisfying being able to build 22 buildings a turn.
-But for the sake of efficiency always try to build as many buildings as you are allowed when you build.

[This message has been edited by Eternal (edited February 27, 2001).]

[Ribannah]

What's best in this game, to diversify or to specialize?
So far I've played 25 turns (Republic) looking for some balance.
The value of my empire has gone up from $4717 to $8235, 98 of our initial 100 acres have buildings on them (8 construction sites) . I'm now planning to do research myself (20 labs) and to buy research points at the same time, before I start to explore.

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If you have no feet, don't walk on fire
[This message has been edited by Ribannah (edited February 28, 2001).]

[Eternal]

I play for fun so like to diversify. Look on the "strategy" boards or sites and you'll see that the most successful players usually do it through a certain strategy like just building industrial complexes and farms, or just building economic zones and residentials and junk like that. Doesn't sound fun to me though. I build lots of economic zones, residentials, industrial complexes, and LOTS AND LOTS of Research Labs. Research is great.

Still its probably best to have a long-term strategy to drive what you build. And never think that you have more than enough money. I made that mistake when I topped $1 million and after you buy a thousand tanks and jets, you're down to like $300,000.

[Colon™]

I started my game (randomized) several weeks ago and I’m around the 190-200 spot right now.
In this game my strategy is to produce as much food and oil as possible (over 2k buildings combined) and to sell it on the market. (oil production is why my govt is tyranny) My latest daily transfer to the market should earn me some $15mn which I use to purchase armaments and technology. I do have fairly many business centres (some 500) as well, that give about $30.000-$40.000/turn, when I'm cashing. Even though my strategy is to get money from sales, I don’t feel safe running a deficit. I have about 250 bases and industrial complexes as well to build spies and train the military...

BTW, is there any use of population beyond tax income? I’ve always wondered that, it seems having a large population put you on a disadvantage because of the food they eat.

[This message has been edited by Colon (edited March 01, 2001).]

[Ribannah]

Colon, how many turns have you played?
Does war happen often?

I just played turns 26-60, still under protection
Doubled my empire to 202 acres, the Net Worth is 17K. I am now ranked #13149 (started as #15525).

My military is pretty weak I guess (some 50 tanks etc), how much should I have when the protection is lifted (I expect to have 300 acres by then)?
At what point should I try to make alliances?

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If you have no feet, don't walk on fire
[This message has been edited by Ribannah (edited March 01, 2001).]
[This message has been edited by Ribannah (edited March 01, 2001).]

[Colon™]

Ribannah,
Be careful not to have too much land, people love attacking land fat countries. In the group of about ten around you (in the score screen) you should have at least several with more land.

Re turns: never forget using your freebies, it could give an edge.

Re military: I don’t know, you’ll just have to get an army as strong as possible without bankrupting your country. (that’s how I always have done it)
However, since military size plays a large influence in your networth, your military probably won’t be much smaller than your neighbours’.

Re war: landgrabbing (standard striking once or twice, for land only) occurs all the time, especially since the amount of acres you can explore diminishes with the amount of acres you posses. Prolonged wars, in which destruction of the foe is the goal occur less and it is fairly easy to avoid if you don’t do dirty stuff. (anything beyond landgrabbing, missile attacks, bombing runs etc)

Re alliance: you don’t want military allies who are too small because they’re useless but neither do you want allies who are much larger because their battles will haemorrhage your military.
And of course you don’t want allies who fight a lot (unless you like fighting with them) so you should check their activity in the news feature. Using the search feature is also handy because you’ll see the battle lost/won ratio.

I’ve never had a real timing for engaging in alliances but I do tend to wait when my country is growing rapidly and jumping up in the rankings. When your more or less settled down its easier to find allies who fit you and grow about as fast as you do.

Something to be careful for is just sending an alliance offer to someone without previous contact, because he’ll see your military details and might abuse it. Of course, he could do that just as well when you send an alliance offer after you’ve messaged him already. You could always try moving him into sending an offer first though. (use your charm )

I just had someone who attacked me after I send an offer. A pretty dirty thing to do so I’m now organising a retaliation with 3 allies. First we’ll send missiles and then, unless he pays $3 million in restitution (far less than the real damage he did to me) we’ll use conventional forces.
I’ve send a nuke and a chemical to him already and destroyed about 10% of his land. (300-400 acres)

I’m pretty sure he won’t pay restitution so he’s dead meat.

[This message has been edited by Colon (edited March 01, 2001).]

[Ribannah]

quote: Originally posted by Colon on 03-01-2001 05:16 PM Re war: landgrabbing (standard striking once or twice, for land only) occurs all the time, especially since the amount of acres you can explore diminishes with the amount of acres you posses.

Is that only about barren land, or also land with buildings on it? All my acres have buildings.



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If you have no feet, don't walk on fire

[Eternal]

Yes, land grabs take building as well.

As for military, it's a very good idea to produce almost nothing but turrets for your first 50 turns (before you're out of protection). If you're going to play a strategy where you get lots and lots of money, build nothing but turrets and spies and you can buy other stuff when you need to. Or just build spies and you can buy turrets.

-Remember you don't HAVE to build Jets since they aren't critical for defense.
-Remember that Troops are the only thing taht can counter guerilla attacks so if you really need your food supply and civilians, you'll need many of them.
-And, If you have small construction capability and really need your building, you'll need tanks to protect them from artillery barrage.
-And you can only build spies using Industial Complexes, so make plenty of them (though its hard to say what's best -I have 8000 for 800 acres). Spies can really tear sh*t up.
[This message has been edited by Eternal (edited March 01, 2001).]

[Ribannah]

Thanks guys, I guess I have to buy myself a decent army.
This brings up two more questions:
- what is a good ratio for military complexes : army size
- I bought a lot of Military research points (they were cheap), but the indicator remains at 100%. What's the deal here?

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If you have no feet, don't walk on fire

[Ribannah]

I have played turns 61-99, about to come out into the open!! Joined GDI. No foreign relations yet.
The empire has grown to 319 acres, and is now worth 29K. We are ranked #12634 .

This is our army: 444 spies, 1000 troops, 500 jets, 750 turrets, 200 tanks (no missiles). We have an abundance of Oil (almost 10K): there was a big sale .

Should we feel safe?

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If you have no feet, don't walk on fire

[OmniGod]

Well let's just say that a guy has decided to attack me and his army is 25,000 spies; 150,000 planes; 220,000 turrets; and 12,000 tanks.... I thought I was safe and then he strafed me.... My suggestion is to not buy oil as you will produce enough by the time you need to attack... but early I would focus on getting troops up to around 15,000 so there is less Guerilla Attacks... I've taken out two nations with that tactic.. Then aim to get about 100,000 turrets and 10,000 spies.... and do it before you start to expand too quick... there's a couple of nations near me that have 1900 Acres but have no army to back it up.... gobble gobble... And one final thought... get into an alliance or a clan... there's a few nice ones with some ample protection, but remember you have to trust them a little bit since they get free data on your nation in exchange.... there's a nice APOLYON clan that I started... email me to get the pass to join in if you care to...

Present Members include:

ApolytonAlpha
PCO
AmeriCanadians (That's me )
Wittlicher
Phalencia

Membership Rank: 370 Of 1445
Total Networth Rank: 581 Of 1445
Average Networth Rank: 577 Of 1445
Total Networth = $1,683,254
[This message has been edited by OmniGod (edited March 03, 2001).]

[Ribannah]

OmniGod, there's no way my army can be of that size anytime soon! I've just started! But I will keep building it up before starting to expand again. Is there a chance that players who started at the same time as I did - and have more acres - will have an even poorer army?

I bought the oil cheap (around $20 a barrel) with the idea to sell it with a huge profit , not for stockpiling.

Btw mine is a standard regular game, so there are no clans.

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If you have no feet, don't walk on fire

[Ribannah]

Played turns 100-150.
Consolidated, tripled the army, and did a lot of research.
So far no war , but no reactions to all my alliance proposals either

The empire:

406 acres, worth 43K, rank #12229 (of over 16K)
1915 spies, 3500 troops, 1250 jets, 2000 turrets, 500 tanks

What can happen while I'm logged out?



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If you have no feet, don't walk on fire

[OmniGod]

I could sweep in and destroy your army But I don't think that I will.. I am playing in the B league as well for practise...

I'm the Torontonians (#13689)
Rank 9315
Net Worth = $264,555
Turns - 437

General Stats:
1723 Acres, Population 26,240

Military:
Spies 11,272
Troops 36,462
Jets 40,308
Turrets 59,153
Tanks 10,100

Tech:
Military 500
Medical 500
Business 500
Residential 500
Agricultural 500
Warfare 550
Conditioning 500
Weapons 1000
Industrial 1000
Spy 400
SDI 600
[This message has been edited by OmniGod (edited March 03, 2001).]

[Ribannah]

quote: Originally posted by OmniGod on 03-03-2001 03:37 PM I could sweep in and destroy your army But I don't think that I will.. I am playing in the B league as well for practise...

You would have to declare war first, I'm "protected"
My best techs are Residential and Business, both at 108%.
Omnigod, how many construction sites have you built? I have 26 now.

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If you have no feet, don't walk on fire

[OmniGod]

Actually I just started building them... I think I'm only at 12.. or so... been building my army and tech

[Ribannah]

Hmm, I have one research partner now, but so far it's a one-way street (150 points for them, 3 for me). Bummer.

I have played turns 151-200. The empire grew 50% in size, and our military strength has doubled. Nobody has dared to attack us yet, but something strange happened: 3 buildings mysteriously disappeared, without any message whatsoever. At this moment in time we have:

617 acres , worth 69K, rank #11749
3825 spies , 6000 troops, 2500 jets, 5000 turrets, 1000 tanks, still no missiles
2723 research points (business and residential at 109%)

We have put 10,000 food and 15,000 oil on the market, so who knows, we may be rich, rich, rich tomorrow!

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If you have no feet, don't walk on fire

[Colon™]

I had several tough days, first that cowardly attack, then another landgrab the following day and above that I sold nothing on the market. Luckily I had safety valve under a daily budget surplus but I did fell back a little.

That bastard I mentioned before was hit by several missiles, he backed down and accepted my trade pact offer so that he could pay the restitution. Yet so far he neither send the restitution nor an apology but I don’t feel like pushing him on it.(he lost several hundreds of acres in the missiles attacks) Instead I made a request that he would become my research ally to make things up.

Strange? Not really, I don’t research but he does (he has 800 labs) so this would be a one way gain for me.

Since those knocks I made two landgrabs to compensate my losses and I also had more luck in selling my food&oil so that I could purchase more armaments and tech and finance new construction. I’m back up 10 spots to the 193rd place. I hope on bumper earnings from the market tomorrow since I still have a leftover from previous days of around 400.000 bushels. (on a price of $43/bushel it should earn me $7.2 million next to some $15 million from today’s production – that’s a lot of weapons)

IIRC networth is around 900k, nearing the 1 million and land over 3800 acres.

Ribannah, dump research allies who don't research ASAP. They're profiting from your labour and I should know: I'm parasiting from 2 research allies right now.
[This message has been edited by Colon (edited March 04, 2001).]

[Ribannah]

My troops valiantly helped to defend our new ally Camelot 2025 against the evil Nomatic. What a battle! Our losses were minimal: 33 troops, 45 turrets and 9 tanks :cool;. The counter-attack was thwarted by the message, that Nomatic was no longer in our range .... something must have happened to them

Meanwhile, we crossed the 100K mark of Net Worth on turn 250!!
The market was a big success, we sold oil (and excess food) for $40 and bought right back for $20. We are trying this again

The empire, after 250 turns:

819 acres, worth 100K, population 10K, rank 11347
6308 spies, 10000 troops, 7500 jets, 7500 turrets, 2000 tanks, still no missiles (5% chance each turn!)
4K research points (business and residential at 110%, most others at 105%/95%)

Hopefully we will have two offensive allies tomorrow, so that a first attempt at land grabbing can be made

A question: will the spoils, if any, be shared with our offensive allies?

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If you have no feet, don't walk on fire

[Eternal]

So far I haven't gotten any spoils from my offensive allies' attacks. That's okay because the offensive ally that does the most attacking hardly ever wins anyway.

I'm doing great in my tourney game . I just made a landgrab x 2 on some fellow who was just asking for it with all the land he had and his lack of defenses. I'm offering him some money in return, and so far he's being a sport.

[Ribannah]

OmniGod, are you still in the game?

Report of the day

Defended Camelot 2025 once more against Nomatic (tiny skirmish).
Nashef attacked our other ally Balduvia which cost us ... 2 troops and 1 turret
Unfortunately Balduvia decided to retaliate and failed, we lost 168 troops and 126 jets in the process. So I decided to take revenge and sent a spy to Nashef, who succeeded in chasing away 443 troops

Without an obvious land fatty in our range, we went on exploring again and added 50% more acres to the empire. The army was doubled once more, and research is going well (especially for our research allies).

After 331 turns these are our assets:

1206 acres, worth 164K, population 16K, rank 10610
11116 spies, 17500 troops, 15000 jets, 17000 turrets, 5000 tanks, and our first missile - this will scare them!!
7K research points (business and residential at 112%, most others at 106%/94%)

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If you have no feet, don't walk on fire

[Colon™]

The past 2 days have been horrendous for me, I received 6 attacks, 4 of them today, 3 of which by one country. Even after using today’s turns, I’ve fallen back to the 211 spot and that while I had nearly reached the 180’s.
If that wasn’t bad enough, two attempts for landgrab by me failed yesterday, giving additional blasts to my self-confidence. I had $30million in my treasury but I wasted a lot of that to repair my damage.
I even was too scared to make anymore attempts for landgrab today and I explored instead.(it's less risky but it also yields less)

Ending today’s game I had 2880 acres, a 1000 acres less than at my peak, and a networth of $912k also several 10 thousands less.

Riba,
IMHO there isn’t really need for landgrabbing until your exploration/turn is at 10-15 acres a day. Even less is sustainable.
[This message has been edited by Colon (edited March 06, 2001).]

[Ribannah]

quote: Originally posted by Colon on 03-06-2001 05:00 PM Riba, IMHO there isn’t really need for landgrabbing until your exploration/turn is at 10-15 acres a day. Even less is sustainable.

Yes, as figured as much. And my empire is a Republic, with a bonus on exploration, so for the time being that's what we'll do. On the other hand, today I passed the well-known lands of "gfdhfs", They had twice my acres and yet the same networth, very tempting ....
But the game seems to favour defence, and my offensive allies' troops were not ready .

I seem to be far ahead in espionage compared to my neighbours, so they pretty much have to guess my strength and are afraid to attack me (so far ...)

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If you have no feet, don't walk on fire

[OmniGod]

I'm cruising along still... cleared the 100,000 jets; 100,000 turrets; 50,000 troops and 30,000 tank mark. I've started to be sneaky but no one is coming back at me... which is fine by me They'd meet a little resistance anyways... I'm out looking for allies any one want to ally up with me.. I can offer defense and offense and spies, all I ask for is some tech help Can never have enough of that

Torontonian Leader,
OmniGod

Oh and by the way, I've got nuclear weapons and have no problem using them
[This message has been edited by OmniGod (edited March 06, 2001).]

[Eternal]

quote: Riba, IMHO there isn’t really need for landgrabbing until your exploration/turn is at 10-15 acres a day. Even less is sustainable.

Depends what strategy you're using I guess. Remember you also get buildings, cash, and tech in a grab so if you're short on money it can be useful as well.

Edit: Also it's fun.
[This message has been edited by Eternal (edited March 07, 2001).]

[Ribannah]

quote: Originally posted by Eternal on 03-07-2001 12:24 AMRemember you also get buildings, cash, and tech in a grab so if you're short on money it can be useful as well.

Well, I'm not short on money. The Oil running is going great, I buy for $20 and sell for $40
And my construction industry can erect 16 buildings a turn

OmniGod, I'm about to say goodbye to some of my present allies (they have fallen behind and don't specialize), so I'll make you an offer soon. I'm doing plenty of research (275 labs so far) which should compensate for your empire being larger. I also have lots of spies: they are the only thing coming out of my Industrial Complexes.

The name of my empire #16517 is Alamos (Castle Gobs was a trial run).



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If you have no feet, don't walk on fire

Here, here!!!

[OmniGod]

I won't say where the majority of the weapons are coming from but let's just say that nobody is pissing me off I love to flex my muscle occassionally and cast off the infidels who spy on my nation... hhahahahah... that wasn't an evil laugh just a half hearted snicker.