expanders

When I first started playing this game, I noticed that many players use same kind of strategy for first 500 turns. They make 199 turns, then wait till they have 250-300 turns on hand and start expanding/building. They end up with 4-6k land (in extreme cases, 8k land) and as they have been off their protection for ~10 minutes, they haven't been grabbed yet. Me and other active netters who I talk with, call them the "expanders". I have used this term for roughly 6 years. The netter who can grab most "expanders" will make the best jump and is most likely to gain top1 position. With game chat option available I can see who is online (unless someone has disabled it) and because the "expanders" have been doing this for years, I can just tell by their name if I should search his state every 2 minutes to see when he expands. Not if he expands, but when he expands. If the expander is casher, then I also have to spy him constantly to get him before he buys his army. If the expander is indy, then I have to wait when he stops gaining land and spy after few minutes to see when he sells his whole army to PM. They always do the same and it is very bad for their state. I even net only on sets that I know I can be online 2-3 first days as much as I can. I can even predict the hours when they will most likely come online and expand their land to 4-6k. In this set, for example, I gained around 5k land from the expanders before I had made 300 turns total. The "expanders", on the other hand, used 500 turns to get ~6k land, but lost 2-3k of their land very soon.

So the reason for this thread is... please stop this :). First get 3k land and wait till you are grabbed. Then proceed making your turns :)

Don't stop this.

What about the Lvl8 defenceless n00bs?

These are people (brilliant example is Maggio) who sell what little army they have, upgrade everything to lvl8, then never buy anything again. They then become gb'less land farms. I was farming Maggio all set like that last set.

But yeah, everything Margus has said is 100% true. Now that only 10-20 ppl play, guess might as well have even more disclosure on top1 strategies to make it a bit more even.

Isn't it obvious that we need to do some mass recruiting for this game. I mean you can't just tell all 20 people who play this game to play the exact same way and expect it to be fun. I mean you practically have the strategy to running a good state posted on the how to play page. We need to get this game popular again and get some fresh blood pumping new ideas, as well as giving the people who don't have all day every day to land grab a fighting chance by having more than enough people to attack. I remember always being able to find plenty of people to lg back in the day, now there are like 5 a day to choose from and they are a race to get. Not to mention we probably need to get some rivalries and wars going. And ya we really need to change up the nations amongst the top players to keep it interesting. As of right now majority of top netters are in the same nation so the competition is more or less internal and not against other nations. Not to say it isn't totally fun to net but if we want to change things up in the future we need more players and more changes in nations members. Also I have been drinking all evening so if anything I said makes no sense my apologies. Also, noobs don't stand a chance. I think we should have atleast 1 designated nation with 1 experienced player to invite noobs to their nation, try to get them involved in the game and teach them how to play. That is how we will get new people to stick around. Just some more thoughts. I know y'all love hearing my drunken rants but this game is the shit and it deserves to have any players!

Many' players

Long story short there need to be all types of players I this game which is easier to accomplish with lots of players. We should be coming up with ideas in getting more people involved with the game and not focusing on minor changes