The Paradox of many Game Suggestions

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i know i mean its not like we started right at the beginning but we are doing fine now

i mean there arent that many players who put that much effort into this game but the people that do will eventually get to the top

[The Dalek Empire]

i know i mean its not like we started right at the beginning but we are doing fine now

i mean there arent that many players who put that much effort into this game but the people that do will eventually get to the top

Indeed. I started around May and for a fair while progress was very slow. I've never had a commander, and never used my SS for anything other than trading a few turns for troops. I've never bough a PPT bonus (save for the one I got with my SS, which I ended in seconds actually). My life on here has gone through several stages:

1) Starting Out - Discovered the game with a couple of friends. Chose Replicators, and we all had some fun attacking/sabbing each other. At this point, it was a massive achievement to buy a Repli-Bomb.

2) After a few weeks income started to pick up and so did bank space (once I discovered how to use it all properly). At the same time I started to notice that I was being attacked regularly and having my Naquadah stolen over night - not losing troops en masse, but having to repair weapons and generally being annoyed. After thinking about it, I hit on the idea of intimidating would be farmers from attacking me by getting a high Covert Action so that they couldn't see my Naquadah. I fondly remember the daunting price of Spy Level 11. But it worked - I was farmed less and less, and began to feel pretty good about everything. This would be around Week 5.

3) It occured to me that the higher ranks had hundreds of thousands of Untrained Units, so I went through a month or so of building up my Unit Production to what seemed like a really impressive level. I also bought and sold a lot of super weapons to get up to Spy Level 16. This is probably about Week 10 or 11, and I was ranked 200 and something for a while. That felt like a big achievement.

4) My new masses of Untrained Units were generating a lot of Naquadah, and I was starting to be farmed a lot more. I decided to try the old Covert trick again, and sold all of my Defence weapons and bought Spy Level 17. It didn't really help. Week 14-ish, dropped back to about Rank 2500.

5) Still being farmed, but now only by a few regular people. Dropping back in rank really took me out of most people's sights. To deal with the regular farmers I finally decided to build up my Defence until nothing was getting through. To keep myself out of sight I sold all of my Attack Units and fell back another thousand or so ranks. Week 18.

6) The Defence Action was working, and so I sold a load of super weapons and got Spy Level 18, before continuing to build defences. Week 22.

7) Now, about 24 weeks into the game I am still ranked very poorly overall, but have a pretty decent Defence (140-ish overall) and bought Spy Level 19 and a Mothership without using a PPT, an alliance or getting anyone to hold Naquadah for me. I fend off all but the most dedicated of attacks, and am really feeling the benefits of the time put in.



Okay, but long and rambly, but my point is that it is quite possible for a player to increase their power and earn the higher rewards. You cannot expect to play this game for a month and automatically go riding around in a Mothership, sit in the top 100 or Ascend. These things take time, and so they should.

As lord of the chickens put it, "the strong get strong the weak get stronger and the smart weak become the strong" - which is very true, and should stay true.