Illegal Strategy?!? The Explorer!

[CobyCopper]

Ok now, of course the strategy overall used to flood Regular with about 250,000 acres in about 3 minutes was illegal and used an exploit. The specifics of that exploit shouldn't be shared: it's still possible to do, just at a lower speed. Anyways: some people may have realized that you can scout for >250 land per turn as a Lizard at basically no land. Why should, in Regular or Turbo, scouting be illegal? My opinion is yes--it floods the game with land. It's uncontrollable: it's the strategy for EVERYONE ELSE. Neither Shade nor I could control who the land went to when we did it before, and again yes we flooded Reg with roughly 250k acres. So, I agree that the exploit itself should be 100% illegal. I disagree that scouting at 1 land should be illegal. It's your account, it's your time. If a player wants to scout for >100k land in a run, great. Let them--but don't let them use the exploit to speed it up a LOT. Scouting's in the game, again, because it's meant to make new land. My opinion is scouting at 1 land is as much an exploit as a suicide with 1 hut. The difference is scouting is an enabler, and brings new land into the game that may have been removed because people deleted, were disabled, or went on a long-term vacation. It's just another strategy.

By the way--the person scouting for all that land probably won't reap the benefits of that land: they get a tired hand and the hope that it helps an ally or two out.

[Shadow]

I think that the ability to create over 120k land in a run is overpowered - i dont think that it should be completely illegal, but i do think that we should cap sccouted land off around 110 per turn.

[Shade]

I am not opposed to to a cap like that, only the total illegalization of the strategy. When I first started expirimenting with it I didn't think I could get above 100 anyways.

I should note that making a full run with the explorer is a time consuming task, because in order to be efficient you have to drop after every turn, making the risk of being onlined much much higher, thus this is not an invincible way to do takedowns or to instantly emp a player.

It was only through the revive bug that such a ridiculous amount of land was made so fast.

[CobyCopper]

Exploit: Illegal, making a cruder strategy similar to this much faster, and basically more effective in the time allotted. It's definitely needed to be made illegal: it can cause a lot of damage. The revive bug speeds it up a LOT.

Strategy: It's 450-550 turns--they're all your own. Dropping land you just made is a decision you make. Some people consider 900-1100 refreshes a LOT--and so do I. It brings a lot of land into the game, of course. A lot of land!! It's perfectly legitimate--you made that land, you used your turns and time as you wanted. I don't think there should be an upper limit on what you can do. This game is based on mathematics and programming: knowing it is the biggest benefit to playing. We stumbled on the exploit and then used it, but Shade already had the idea to scout for a lot of land. That part is strategy.

Now then: revive bug = bad, scouting at 1 land & no NW = good.

[windhound]

How long has the current reg been going?
Months and months.  Over 900 players have signed up during this time...  and yet, the total amount of land ingame is somewhere around 700k

A strat that allows 100k to be pumped in in a single run by a single player should be illegal.  It is land pollution on a massive scale.

The difference between this and a leader suicide is that that only effects one player.  This skews the entire game.

A team could create or destroy an emp overnight.  This one strat has the ability to destabilize the entire game, and I honestly dont care for it.

[Shadow]

This is similar to the troop loop - an overpowered strat based on an unintednded consequence of the math used to program the game. When such things are found, they are invariably coded out. Remember when the guy from imperium came here and used the PM exploit to get 11 quinitillion net? That was also a legitimate use of game mechanics, but I don't hear you complaining that the net was removed.

In short, thank you for finding a bug, we can now make the game a little more balanced by removing it.

As for the rest of it, sure, it's a legite strat and you can use your turns however you want. But in the interest of not unbalancing things, we need to slow it down. If everyone did that the first day of turbo, there would be 2 million land in the game on the second day, every set, and frankly, that's not fun at all.

[CobyCopper]

This is similar to the troop loop - an overpowered strat based on an unintednded consequence of the math used to program the game. When such things are found, they are invariably coded out. Remember when the guy from imperium came here and used the PM exploit to get 11 quinitillion net? That was also a legitimate use of game mechanics, but I don't hear you complaining that the net was removed.

In short, thank you for finding a bug, we can now make the game a little more balanced by removing it.

As for the rest of it, sure, it's a legite strat and you can use your turns however you want. But in the interest of not unbalancing things, we need to slow it down. If everyone did that the first day of turbo, there would be 2 million land in the game on the second day, every set, and frankly, that's not fun at all.

There are several ways to use this strat in pure form or in hybrid. Now then: figure out a way to nerf scouting then. Getting 100k land into the game overnight isn't much of an exploit: especially considering the physical workload and lack of substantial benefit. Anyways--scouting isn't an exploit. It's scouting: a core portion of the game.

Drawbacks
1) You're incredibly easy to kill
2) Everyone benefits from additional land: it should scale up the NWs generated as land available increases. It could be a strategic addition of, say, 250k acres. It also makes you rely on those scouters: you can't give them a thing that they'd want on the server.
3) The WORST that could happen is we have Emperor Land Farm with, say, 250,000,000 acres. It's the admin's account--if it got out of hand like that, delete the new land. You disown the land you drop--so it's effectively free domain for admins or other players.

[Shade]

As for the rest of it, sure, it's a legite strat and you can use your turns however you want. But in the interest of not unbalancing things, we need to slow it down. If everyone did that the first day of turbo, there would be 2 million land in the game on the second day, every set, and frankly, that's not fun at all.

As I said, I'm not opposed to cap placed on scouting, leadering and indy have each had their nerfs over the years, the explorer can do it too, I just don't want to immedietly make the strat illegal.

and I feel compelled to point out that I did not abuse the revive bug, and the use of 'a couple players' and 'they' and 'we' are seriously annoying me.

[Shadow]

Easy - max out the scouted land per turn at 100.

OR

do not allow land to be dropped if you have less than 500 land (or do not allow anyone to drop past 500) (my personal favorirte)

OR

get rid of the land farm

OR

put a cap on the frequency of dropping land - twice per hour?

There are tons of ways to get this out of the game.

[CobyCopper]

Easy - max out the scouted land per turn at 100.
That's an option, but I don't think it should effect everyone until, perhaps, the leave protection?
OR

do not allow land to be dropped if you have less than 500 land (my personal favorirte)
Another option, but there are strategic reasons to drop a lot of land.
OR

get rid of the land farm
And then you can have the opposite effect: leaders or anyone else can destroy land
OR

put a cap on the frequency of dropping land - twice per hour?
Which I disagree with, personally. It'd stunt pure-leader strats or when people make a mistake in how much they drop (not enough, for example)
There are tons of ways to get this out of the game.

Do consider that the advents of the leader strategy and the industrial strategy, both were far overpowered. This is a new strategy: and right now it is overpowered. I say let it play out over a round or two, and then decide how to stunt it. Leaders and indyers can benefit greatly from this strat as it is.

[Shadow]

If you can name me one time that anyone has ever had to drop below 500 land for strategy purposes other than assisted suicide, please tell me.

The cap of 100 would likely only affect one turn in protection - after that first scout, it drops below 100 land per scout anyway

also, a leaderer need only drop once per run if he is careful. Maybe make it a credit system, like aid. 5 drops, regain one per hour.

[windhound]

Neither indy nor leader strats started out like this.  I was around for both.

I believe Beatles was the first to try leadering, and he was laughed at for it.
Pure indying was more an evolutionary step, I'm not sure there was a proper 'first'

Noone is laughing about an extra 100k per run being introduced to the game every run.  Its a threat to the game's balance...  and only one player has to do it for said results.  If more started...

Another important factor is that the horde doing the strat is pure mule.  Its only doing work for the 'benefit' of others.  It gets zero gain out of the whole thing, so I dont consider it a proper strat.  Both indy and leader benefit themselves first and others second, which is in keeping with the game's goals.

[CobyCopper]

If you can name me one time that anyone has ever had to drop below 500 land for strategy purposes other than assisted suicide, please tell me.

The cap of 100 would likely only affect one turn in protection - after that first scout, it drops below 100 land per scout anyway

also, a leaderer need only drop once per run if he is careful. Maybe make it a credit system, like aid. 5 drops, regain one per hour.

Impenetrable fortress of a fox. Low land, immaculate ratio, many cloaks, and a load of troops. Unique situations really. Other then that, early-game scouting. It's unlikely you'll profit from your first run, but you can make sure your allies do (and set you up for it) by making land for them to use. It doesn't have to be 100+k land, it can be even 10-20k additional.

Anyways--not everyone will be perfect. IF a leader's under constant assault, they may choose that dropping land after a round of suicides is the better course then keeping it. If you're under assault or jump the gun, if you just ran, or if you're rationing land for your clan...

Anyways--as I said, I think we should let this strategy run its course over the period of 1-2 rounds (months), then make decisions on how to check it back.

[Gen. Volkov]

Coby, Shade, do you agree that things like the troop loop and the PM exploit were game unbalancers, even if they were perfectly legal? Heck, the orginal version of stoat was a game unbalancer. So, they were nerfed or otherwise fixed. We can all already see the many potential problems inherent in this new strategy. If it's going to be allowed at all, it has to be nerfed. If 10 players used it like it is right now, there could be 1 million land in the game on the first DAY. Buy the end of the set, there could be over 30 million land in the game. I've played in games like that, and frankly, it's no fun. Everything is too easy.

Personally, I'm with windy, I think the whole idea goes against the spirit of the game. It's not a legit strat for personal benefit, it's abusing game mechanics to inject land into the game, with no reward for oneself.

[Shadow]

If people insist that it's not overpowered, we could always use it to get ereptor several million land per week until they acknowledge how insane it is ^_^