28-10-2001 19:49									#1
	Gang bang! Suffering from ads?

Ha, well I won't win this month's tourney game, that's for sure!

I was doing OK, sitting around 30th but playing at too steady a pace. There was a danger that I would lose touch with the leaders. So I picked on a couple of very tempting weak targets - but guys I'd hit before.

Now the danger of doing this is pretty obvious. The victim gets pissed off at you, abandons their efforts to do well and just devotes all their energies to getting even.

In this case what that turns out to mean is that the two weak targets have got their pals to join in and for the last couple of days I have had my back to the wall fighting off an all out attack from no less than six opponents.

So I certainly won't win the tourney!

Surviving at all will be an achievement although I have set myself the additional objective of staying in the top 100.

Fighting off attacks of this kind is called "stonewalling" and is an art in itself. I have had no prior experience of it but it turns out to be bags of fun. My particular opponents are all weak players so it is not too difficult to predict what they will do next - or even to manoevre them into doing what you want them to do. And then to counter so as to delay their progress.

But it becomes very difficult to manage your country.

The attack these guys chose is the guerilla strike. This pits the attackers troops (one particular type of military unit) against the defenders troops. If the defence is broken, civilians are killed. If the defender's civilian population is reduced to zero his country dies.

This was a poor choice of attack from the off. It is the standard method of killing countries in wars taking place in the main game (1A) but there it is used by well organised clans running to many members. So they have the turns available to make the long, long series of attacks needed to get the defender's population down to nil.

There being six assailants and with the benefit of being able to choose the moment to strike these guys should still have been able to pull it off but they bungled it. They would have done better to choose a different form of attack which pits tank against tank and destroys buildings. This does not kill a country off but the reason it is the standard revenge method in tourney is that it maims the defender badly, even if it is continued for only a couple of dozen turns. Buildings are the main source of production and therefore money. Knock down an opponent's buildings and he is left with a lot of expensive unproductive land. It is hard to find a way back. If you also use missiles to destroy some of his military, sharks will smell blood and come along to pick at his carcass.

Anyway, these guys didn't appreciate this point and went for the outright kill.

And they have managed to get my population down to about 250. From their point of view they are so nearly there. Just a couple of dozen more hits and I am dead!

But I managed to hang on long enough to sell a bunch of stuff and to rebuild stout defences. I now have half a million troops standing between them and my last 250 civilians.

They could still get through but would have to devote all the resources of their 6 countries to the task.

And I don't think they have the organisation or the commitment.

Better than that, I am not reduced to a wholly passive defence. With only 250 civilians my expenses are a whopping half a million bucks a turn (it is population that generates tax revenue which, together with profits from sales, offsets the expenses of maintaining the army). And ordinarily this would cut my income to nil. Because turns are usually needed for buildings to generate goods which can be sold.

But the particular strategy I have been playing has a phase at the end where you do not need turns to generate income. What you need is money. All your buildings do is reduce the cost of buying military on your "private" market which you can sell at a huge profit on the public market.

So every time I can survive for a period of 6 hours I generate more cash (it takes that long to re-sell the military units). If they give me one, or maybe two, more 6 hour cycles (and if I play the markets right) I will have made enough cash this way to move over to the offensive, despite the six to one odds.

If I can pull that off I will be pleased as punch.

(But, even so, next time I shall try very hard not to pick on anyone quite so blatantly. It is just not winning play.)

Many people say they play in tourney mainly for practice so that they can apply what they learn in the main, 1A, game. I don't think I do - because the tourney game is worth winning in its own right - but all this is still timely because the main game has something of a global conflict going on in it at the moment with every major clan involved on one side or another in a war. So the stonewalling skills I have been acquiring may well come in useful.

	02-11-2001 05:44									#2
	Inflate your Upload Space

I lasted, in the end, through 6 straight days of determined attacking. Well, I say determined but one of the 6 did get totally disheartened and wandered off and one or two of the others also got a bit half hearted.

But still, six days of 6 against 1 - I'm quite pleased that I held out to the end. And I did get to start taking their land off them too, despite all the attacks (over 600 hits against me), by the end.

But I didn't stay in the top 100. Slipped to 130th. Which is 5 places too low to retain my level B standing, I have dropped to level C.

After they had been pummelling at me for 4 days, unsuccesfully, I started a thread on the main chat board where Earth players visit - a juvenile thing it is. But anyway, it turns out that one of these guys set up a clan a while back and has pretensions to make a name for himself within the Earth community.

He put up with the banter he came in for, not being able to kill off a newbie, quite well. But I noticed he redoubled his efforts after that. If the other five had shown this guy's determination I could not have lasted three days, let alone 6.

A nice thing that happened is that the 6 against 1 got noticed by the other people playing the game. Well, you couldn't miss it really as one of the things in the game from which you get information is a news service and, with all their attacks, the news was substantially made up of long lists of attacks always featuring my country as the defender.

Well, tourney is meant to be an individual game and people thought the 6 against 1 thing was lame. And they gradually started doing something about it - quite uninvited by me. two joined in on my side and creamed two of my attackers. And one guy sent me foreign aid - that is a sort of gift. Again, quite unsolicited by me.

Anyway, the new tourney has begun and I am determined to do really well. I'm playing a super fast start up and will see whether, this time, i can't get to the top earlier and without putting anyone's nose too much out of joint.

We will see.

	05-11-2001 22:19									#4
	Support Apolyton, buy Galactic Civilizations

Do you play, Rexer?

Anyway I didn't quite get the start-up right but it went pretty well and so did the first set of moves out of protection (you get 100 turns to establish yourself during which time you can't attack them and they can't attack you).

I've been able to start switching to techer at a good early stage but now comes a difficult period where I will slip back in the rankings. I must find some easy targets and get by on what may be quite a limited income while I build up on labs.

But tech prices are very high and the market for military units is good so people will have money in their pockets. Which I hope they will spend on exorbitantly priced tech points.

And with high prices I won't be quite so vulnerable to any Tom **** or Harry with enough cash to buy in a couple of hunded k of jets.

No sign yet of any fellow techers, though. Which seems always to be my fate.

	06-11-2001 20:23									#5
	Lose 30 kilos (of popups)

In the main game (1A), I checked in to-day to find, first, a message from my clan to say that our war with Elitez has ended, and second, that this came too late for my country, which was killed off last night.

Damn.

Anyway it gives me a chance to try a new startup and muck about a bit till the end of the set. I'm going to try out a tyranny farmer strategy because food prices are very high.

In the tourney game I continue to play in luck. One guy has made a succesful hit against me but he may be the last as I have completed my switch and started to build up some usful tech without having dropped off the pace. For once my defence looks quite good.

I need a couple of good offence allies (a current one isn't going to keep up) and to find three techers with whom to make research alliances. Where to find them is a puzzle as yet. But if I manage that I don't see anyone holding me.

I have noticed a pair of countries who always make their attacks one after the other and which appear to play exactly the same style. They have been defence/offence and intel allies from the off.

Sadly I think they are two counties played by the same person. This is a device which confers a sizeable advantage but is also cheating.

I have complained to the admin but the evidence is thin - after all the two countries could be run by siblings or friends who use the same computer and play their turns one after the other. So I am not expecting action from there.

I am consulting my allies. Depending on their reaction I am minded to put the situation to one of the two countries and invite explanation. If none is forthcoming I will then send a message to the top 50 countries saying that the two countries will be invited to withdraw on the basis that, if they don't, all the top countries will combine to evict them. I will tell everyone that they must each give up 8 turns to the task, making 2 specialist attacks on one offender with tanks and then 2 on the other, starting with the No. 1 country and working on down. I will say that any top 50 country failing to join in will be evicted from the game by the rest in like fashion. Maybe I'll try to gain support from the top 10 countries first and then get the No. 1 to issue the eviction notice speaking for that group.

The game needs some self policing mechanisms. There is thought to be a fair bit of cheating. Inevitable with so many youngsters playing.

	09-11-2001 01:34									#6
	Suffering from ads?

'tis some sort of online game? Where can I find it? Is it good? (Dumb question, if you would think it sux then why post here all that )

	09-11-2001 19:18									#7
	Increase Your PM Length

Yes, it is an on-line game.

I am enjoying it. The gameplay is nothing very fancy but there are a lot of people who play and the clan structure can make the game lively and fun.

You can get to it via [html]http://games.swirve.com[/html]. Swirve do three or four games. The one I am playing is called Earth 2025.

	12-11-2001 18:46									#8
	Support Apolyton, buy GURPS/ Alpha Centauri

Well, I didn't do anything about the two countries who always play one after the other. They suffered some setbacks and have dropped down the rankings to abscurity.

Maybe that should not put me off - but it does.

My own game hovers on the edge of being good. I am 20th at present and in pretty good shape. But I keep sustaining the odd hit and that is bad. By now I should have got my defence sorted out. And the hits mean I am a good thousand acres down on where I would have hoped to be.

In the main game it turns out I suck as a farmer. I just can't seem to judge the market for bushells. It's frustrating checking in only to find your goods have not sold and all you can sensibly do is check straight back out again.

I changed clan recently and I'm in some danger of starting to look like a wally to my new clan mates!

	13-11-2001 21:54									#9
	Support Apolyton, pre-order Civilization IV

I was looking for targets yesterday and checked on the two countries which always played one immediately after the other. Both have been deleted. So perhaps the admin took note of my report to them after all.

Anyway, I continue to play in luck and am now top 10 with good defence. If I could find another techer with whom to make a research alliance, and if my allies turn out loyal, then I'm set for a good finish.

I've changed allies more in this set than in the past and I'm not sure that is good play. You get more support in that you change to secure a more powerful ally; but you finish up with allies of doubtful loyalty. Anyway, we'll see.

If I can gain 5,000 to 7,000 acres in the next five or six days then I will be able to make a switch to re-selling - something which has been interupted the last twice I've embarked upon it. I'm anxious to see how it works because it is the last part of the Theocracy, Techer Re-seller (TTR) strategy for me to master. I have a decent grasp of the earlier phases but the re-selling aspect remains something of a mystery. As far as I know the plan is just to build up cash, get more and more land (to expand the private market where military units are cheap) and to make money not by playing turns but rather by buying and selling.

If I get to the bottom of that it might be time to try a new strategy. I'll probably try casher next.

I'm improving slightly as a Tyrrany farmer in 1A. It's a very different style to TTR.

A thing which is going on at the moment is that some of the honest players in the top tourney game, led by a guy called Killer, are seeking to expel the country which won by cheating last time. This is not so easy to do as the form the cheating takes is to run several countries. So those countries will resist the ejection.

And, of course, people hesitate to join in out of self interest.

I am encouraging this process by posting on the strategy forum. I had one exchange with the cheat - challenging him to admit or deny that he is a cheat. He made a weaselish response. The fact that he won't add barefaced lying to his cheating is in his favour.

Now I am exchanging posts with the guy who came second and who, it is virtually certain, cheats in the same way. He too fights shy of robust denial. And his posts, while foul mouthed, suggest that he may have just a little shame at his cheating.

All in all, I do not despair that the ethics of the game can be improved.

If the players get more active, the admin may take notice and improve their contribution.

	14-11-2001 19:07									#10
	Suffering from ads?

Mmmm. I made a nice 450 acre hit in the tourney game - a top ten country with no allies, no tech and weakish defence. But he does have a fair few jets. If he sinks every cent he has got into getting more (and maybe declares war, too) he can retal against me.

That would be a bit suicidal but it is human nature to want to hit back. So now I must wait til I go back in game to see if he does that or not.

If he doesn't I'm in good shape.

Several other top ten countries attacked each other too so things are hot at the moment. We should really all leave each other alone and pick off the aspiring countries just below us. My excuse is I failed about 10 spy missions in a row and was getting a bit desperate to find a target. A TTR player can't afford to lose turns like that. If I'd been able to use the 10 turns to research I'd have generated about 12,500 tech points which would convert to about $27.5 mill in money.

Anyway my defence, for once, is in goodish shape. I doubt the other jet heavy countries could break me - unless they have very good allies.

I put everything into spy production to see if I can cure the problem with failing spy ops and if that has worked, and I don't run into a succesful retal, then I think I'll get the 6,000 acres I now want over the nect 6 days. That will then leave 8 days for stockpiling and attempting the re-selling.

The tech market weakened to-day so I guess I'll be selling onto a falling market from now on. Military prices are high though so I'm hoping Indie tech keeps high.

In the 1A game I got attacked by a bunch of characters in a small clan who over-reacted to a small landgrab. They have got hold of the idea that you need to retaliate hits made on your members but haven't cottoned on to the normal policies which clans run. I am not sure what the foreign affaires peole in my clan will do. Earlier in the set they would not have tolerated such behaviour and there would have been some kill runs. But it is nearthe end, my country is just a re-start and the clan doing the attacking are plainly insignificant. So my guess is they will do nothing and let the thing get forgotten about.

One thing I noticed is how easy it is as a tyrrany farmer just to rebuild the damage and press on. The damage would have hurt a techer lots more.

I'm still struggling with the food market. The price seems very volatile. $35 one minute, $65 the next.

Also I am feeling my way with bottom feeding. The trick is to guess the right number of jets to send. hard to work out what the clues are lacking a spy report. At the moment I send too many. Anyway, I expect it is a knack.

	17-11-2001 00:25									#11
	Increase the size of your Attachments

Eeeee. How frustrating. The game let me in for a brief moment, long enough to see that I had $100 mill to spend but then it froze and now it won't let me in at all.

All that lovely money. Just sitting there!!

Bet that when it finally relents and lets me in I find I've been attacked a dozen times in the meanwhile.

Grrrrr.

Stupid bloody game, anyway.

Maybe I should go and play some bridge?

	21-11-2001 22:55									#12
	Inflate your Upload Space

Haha, it relented and let me in. Only one succesful adverse grab and I've recovered to lie 5th. Now it is stockpiling time. And then a chance to try to get the hang of the re-seller phase.

My BPT is too low for a good full blooded swith to re-seller so I'm thinking I'll tear down my 1,000 odd acres of indies and build maybe just one to two thousand acres of military bases, then run a mixed techer/re-seller for a while gradually tailing off on the teching as the crash unfolds.

The immediate challenge is to get bus/res up high enough and to judge how much military to carry to stay safe from being molested by stockpile raiders.

Just maybe I'll need to be careful not to hit the front too soon also?

	26-11-2001 01:46									#13
	Increase Your PM Length

Well, I stayed nicely in fifth, got bus, res miltary and SDI well up, tore down most of the indies and put up military bases and now I've taken the plunge and spent $600 odd million on my private market.

From now on I think my expenses will just be too high to make further teching for sale profitable. So I will now go back to grabbing - to expand my private market - and hope to make sizeable profits from re-selling.

I'll need to read the market in military units well.

How much teching I should do to keep the critical techs up I don't know. I suppose it is a question of looking at the prices for those techs on the market and working out whether bearing the expenses is cheaper than just buying in the tech.

Anyway spending the $600 mill took me to second and one more round of re-selling will probably take me clear. I'll have to hope I'm not suicided on too vigorously.

One good thing is that nukes will actually be doing me a favour. It costs money to demolish buildings (ready to build more Military Bases) whereas a nuke clears your land of buildings free.

I don't think anyone can now hope to attack me in any other way, I have a really sizeable quantity of troops and tanks.

I am far from confident that I am setting about the re-selling in an effective manner - but I guess that at least I'm picking up some experience at it.

	27-11-2001 20:48									#14
	Support Apolyton buy from Amazon

Re-selling is tricky.

I think the trick is to keep enough money on hand to make sure your private market is fully bought out. So you have to get MBs and Military tech up to the point where you can re-sell turrets and jets profitably as well as troops and tanks.

It's a tricky balance to strike.

I have just got to the point where I can sell turrets as well as the other three units. Up to now I have been cautious about prices - it is particularly important to sell because the sale reduces your expenses to allow turns to be used for teching as well as generating the money to fund the next round of re-selling. But I was not making progress so this time I've tried to outguess the market and gone for keen prices rather than cautious ones.

I am lying about fourth. If anyone has a really good stockpile they will leap a long way past me. But, on the other hand, I might gain enough momentum from the profits as they accumulate to make a huge killing in the last 24 hours when prices go through the roof.

But I'll have to plan to stay on line throughout the last day or two to pull that off.

Another aspect of the balancing act reqired is that you need to go back to grabbing some land - in order to expand the private market. But grabbing at this stage costs a chunk of networth because you have to break through hefty defences. I am choosing targets with 2 or 3 mill turrets plus a lot of troops and tanks on top. So I lose a heap of military (which equates to NW).

Maybe I should target the people who are stockpiling. Or top feed.

After another three or four rounds of re-selling I'll have to see if that is possible.

I can see that full 100% MB re-selling would be OK in 1A where there is time to let it gain momentum. It's a bit complex for tourney, though. I think I would have done better just to tech out the last week and to stockpile.

Anyway, the next couple of days will tell.

	28-11-2001 23:10									#15
	Support Apolyton, buy Galactic Civilizations

A good day yesterday. I sold at excellent prices and grabbed for a thousand acres at a cost of only 80k jets.

I've hit the guy I grabbed twice before so he'll want to suicide on me. But he won't be able to get spies through - unless he gets very lucky - and can only hit me effectively in one way. Without a spy report he won't know what sort of attack will succeed.

He may still attack the right way - because it is the way that plays to his strengths. But I figure the hits won't hurt too much. And there is always the chance he'll think I just look too big and mean to hit back.

Anyway, the thing I really can't work out is whether other countries have yet made their jumps. It doesn't look like it but it is getting very late.

Anyway, I'll stay on line to-morrow and see what happens. If two or three jump to 20 mill networth or more I doubt I can quite catch them. If no-one does I'm going to win, I think.

I only have to manage top 15 to get into the top game.

	30-11-2001 21:30									#16
	Full PM-box? Change here!

Well, the guy attempted to grab back his land. He should have been able to judge that my networth put me well out of his reach. And he did not even try a spy mission, just sank his stockpile in more jets and sent them at me on a Planned Strike.

Which promptly bounced.

Anyway other things went OK too so by yesterday, last day but one, I was in range of the top guy. But a couple of small things went awry - I misjudged the market a little which cost me a few hours, and therefore one full round of re-selling. Then 800k of jets which I put on right at the death failed to sell.

So I came up just about 1 mill networth too low to overtake the leader.

I had a go to take him down with missiles but his defences held.

So I settled for second.

Which comfortably gets me into the A game.

1A is coming to an end as well as this month's tourney game so I will get to start two new countries off in a day or two's time. I figure to be experienced enough now so that, with a bit of luck, I may be able to get myself into contention, certainly in 2A but just maybe in 1A also.

We shall see.

Meanwhile my campaign to clean up a bit of the cheating by self help (rather than merely moaning about the admin) has made progress.

One of the game's alumni, Killer led a campaign to throw out the two countries which won 2A last set by obvious cheating. Also a toady of theirs.

I plug away on the message boards telling anyone who will listen that conventions (a la the Civ 2 cheat list) are common in games of all kinds. Steadily others join in but there has been no flood of support.

Oddly resistance of a kind comes from some other well known "veterans" of the game (if a 15/16 year old can be a vet - lol). They sem to feel threatened in the sense that if the current generation of players work out a method their tolerance for the cheating and their wet moaning about the admin will tarnish their status as the established alumni.

Anyway, now I am in the A game I may be able to focus my efforts onto a smaller - but influential - group.

I wonder if my commitment to the game will last once I acquire Civ3. I have a feeling that it won't. But then, if I get close to a win n 2A next month that may either keep my appetite keen - or, I suppose, slake my thirst for ever (to mix my metaphors most gruesomely).

	03-12-2001 04:14									#17
	Support Apolyton, buy Galactic Civilizations: Deluxe Edition

Good work, EST, I think I'll try to find the important links and bump it so that people like kassiopea, etc. can find interest in the game.

	05-01-2002 08:43									#18
	Support Apolyton, buy Call to Power 2

youre a good player est! ive been playing earth for about 3 months now.. im ranked 23rd in one of the 'special' standard earth games.. its only got 500 or so people in it. Im also about 120th in game 'v' of the tournament.

any really surefire starting strategies i can use? i thought i started with a real bang, but apparently not, since im only 120th.

any advice, est? thanks!

	07-01-2002 01:11									#19
	Support Apolyton buy from Amazon

When does the new round start? I haven't played in a while so it will be interesting to start again.

I do have one question though. Are missiles as powerful as they used to be? That was always my favorite retal when a stronger oponent attacked me.

	09-01-2002 01:13									#20
	Tired of ads?

look on the site ... it says there

hey, want to start the apolyton clan
that would be awesome!

	19-01-2002 21:28									#21
	Suffering from ads?

We've already had one apolytone clan, but it was killed by treachery.
Feel free to start a new one up

	22-01-2002 21:50									#22
	Help yourself to an AD-FREE life

quote: Originally posted by DarkCloud We've already had one apolytone clan, but it was killed by treachery.

What happened?

	03-02-2002 00:05									#23
	Got spare money?

quote: Originally posted by DinoDoc What happened?

Basically, individuals having multiple countries/logins - which is against the rules of Earth2025, and IMO, poor gamesmanship, not to mention outright cheating.

Yes, these multis occur quite often in the game. Normally when a person is found out to be a multi, he/she is either banned (which doesn't occur that often), or they are killed off by the other players.

Concerning the Aployton Clan, this situation ended up with the disbandment of Apolyton (people leaving the clan) because an investigation led to fingers being pointed at the leadership - accusing them of having multis...it wasn't a pretty sight, to say the least.