TacticalCommander wrote:
Why do you have all AC's? AC's do nothing to stop farmers. Covert is what allows you to see other stats and prevents others from seeing yours. All AC does is kill other covert agents when you attack.
A single farm hit shouldn't be reducing your account to ashes.
This is getting interesting. Some very nice point being raised.
To answer your statement above - it didn't. Sorry perhaps I wasn't clear.
To clarify:
Take a very high ranking player, building strike off a 45m army with ascended tech. Take an "opponent" stats (roughly) non-ascended, 30b strike, 80b def, 130b cov, 25b ms, 300m/turn so about 4 to 5bn would build up overnight.
First question. With such a massive imbalance (he was doing approx 10+ x as much damage in strike as I was doing in def so you can imagine his strike) is it even cost effective for such a player, to be taking 4 or 5bn a day (or if not daily, at least on a regular basis)? Wouldn't the losses outweigh the gains? Do these tactics/figures make any sense? In your opinion, would the stats above be an attractive target for 4 or 5b naq or *in theory* was I right in not worrying too much about going to sleep?
Every time he hit the naq, would take 2 days of rebuilding to repair such was the damage.
That's the annoying part. That's the part that's putting people off the game. Being struck for no apparent reason (assuming using such force to take 4 or 5bn isn't financially sound) by players against whom if they built 24/7 for a month they still couldn't touch.
You see, a scrap we enjoy. A war, we enjoy. Tactics, we enjoy. Skill, we enjoy. But a one sided fight is no fun for either side, and it puts a serious cramp on enjoyment of the game. 90% of the "elders" for want of a better word, seem to "get it". Probably more, I pulled 90% out of thin air. Self imposed limits of how "fair" they play, for the sake of gameplay. Unfortunately a handful seem unable to exercise this self control. It's THOSE that need to be addressed. A few spoiling things for many, which always seems to be the case. Believe me when I tell you it is a problem. Since I started posting I've had pm's from players in similar situation so I think perhaps the problem is more widespread and insidious.
"From what your describing, You were massed. That means reduction of all stats. That is how this war game is played, if he was at war with you then that is why he did it."
Indeed. I asked (nicely) several times why he was farming such (apparently) non cost effective targets AND doing it with "war" set (thereby increasing the damage done for no apparent reason?). I was more curious than anything else, wondering if perhaps there's a tactic I've overlooked/don't understand. I got the usual answer. "build def".
One day I woke up in a very bad mood and put my foot in my mouth (not very abusive at all, just a vague threat to start defending myself. I'd say "cheeky" would best describe it.) 15 minutes later I was practically a shell despite nox/critical.

Because I contributed to my own downfall however unintentionally, THAT one I can laugh about, no problem. I think it was overkill in the extreme but hey, it's a game.
"In this case, you having all AC's helped to you in the long run because it stopped him from killing those units if they would have been coverts."
I didn't have all ac's. 100m cov, 50m ac. 140b action each.
I try to keep *all* my stats, esp def and cov (and I rarely have any uu) in such a way that I'm not a viable target up to a factor of at least my rank / 2 or 3 and looking to increase this all the time (of course this ratio varies from time to time if I artificially manipulate my rank to go farming inactives). But there IS no defence against such a massive imbalance, but then if the game were being played properly why would somebody who's probably capable of making billions *a turn* be interested in a few bil from somebody if it's not just to be "evil"? I'd wager ALL of them are *very* careful about picking a fight with a worthy opponent.
"Oh and there is no way to stop someone massing you. No defense too big as long as someone is willing to pay the price. That is how this war game is played."
Most people are aware of that and accept it. That is not the problem we're trying to address here, which is a few *massive* players abusing small ones. I say po-tay-to you say po-tah-to, these discussions always go round in circles. Invariably it degrades into a discussion about n00bs "want it easy", which they don't. We want it to be harder for vets to abuse junior ranks, which frankly speaking if the measures are done right wouldn't even *affect* the vast majority of the vets. Any measures would simply dial down the overtly abusive capability of the strong vs the weak and *shouldn't* detract from gameplay in any way, for the vast majority of players.
"Possibly my last piece advice, It is possible to have too much Defense. Players like to use players who invest a significant amount of their army size into defense and/or covert as training targets."
Again, fair enough. But again who, of those capable of building a strike off a 50m army, needs any training whatsoever against a 100b def? Training alliances send their trainees out up against progressively stronger targets, isn't it? Hell I'd even accept a medium experienced player with a 4m army "testing" various configurations against my "2m army". Like you said, quite correctly, that's part of the game.
"Also pay attention to what Manetheren said."
I hadn't actually thought of going critical every night, it's a good idea. Not sure it's enough (or cheap enough) - "I'm going to sleep, double the perimeter guard" that doubles def and cov action shouldn't be *that* expensive nor detract from the gameplay for the vast majority of players.
As for nox, I'm all for removing it. It's both a complete waste of time and totally unrealistic.
PPT is the equivalent of nox protection, and if you follow in the true spirit of "Stargate" the nox
don't do half measures, so what's with "nox insurance"? It's definitely one of the sillier options. I hate ppt also, by the way. PPT should only be available to market traders, for a quick 15 minutes protection to finish their transactions. Period.