Fair Warning to the Game

[Calvin74]

I think you guys just start to circulate the food (read: buy back your own food from the market) from time to time, or at least this would save you some cash when done correctly.

Right now the problem lies in the number of players, there aren't enough farmers (most of the sets) for decent stocking. Food price hits 100 too soon. This creates this awkward situation where farmers themselves buy off all the available food.

It made me wonder how much food/cash does a farmer lose then? So I looked at the losses of a top farmer (in both cases it was Salabanzi):
Jan 2011 SaLaBaNz1(#57) [CR] 40.916 $371.814.680
May 2011 SaLaBaNz1(#63) [CR] 28.189 $244.536.451

Now I'm not going to lay down you the numbers just yet, because I'm interested to know how much food/cash do you people think he lost in those 2 sets? To make the guessing a bit easier I can tell that he most likely was somewhat more active in January set, because the cash/food combined had about the same value what he lost in May set. Most of the losses in January set came from cash and in May set from food.

This bank size talk reminds me Domination, where we had only 20G bank! There were 2 ways to compensate this: different land grab formula that made easier for stockers to keep their land + taking goods back from market was free, but you couldn't do it before 24h.

Basically I don't mind making changes in bank size limit, because it's probably the easiest solution if you want to give a score boost to stocking farmers, but there are others who can benefit from it as well, like top state who has say 450-500G on hand (you can also guess where did I come up with this number). Combine increased bank limit with premium account (money from sold goods ends up directly in bank) and in the end of the set you should be able to see the results. However BeeNo has a good point - are (stocking) farmers underpowered compared to others and do they need boost? In the end I think it comes down to how much time does one have to invest (on average) in order to get a certain score.

Lastly, I believe you actually can save some money if you would keep your extra cash in army (that is, if there is anything to buy), especially when your nations tax is 0%.

i am not saying that the bank needs to be raised and think it would be better with a different lg formula AND if the cash lost wasn't so high or capped out per hit...

also sal got a bit of help those sets and having tested the limits myself i am confident to say that in the current game scenario without help a stocking farmer will not break 300m. that is the upper limit of that strat. the upside is that if played correctly the low end of the scale starts around 150m nw and moves up quickly...

keeping the extra cash in military is one way to do it however that can quickly screw a country over if the military doesn't sell and you either can't play turns or you play turns with a significantly higher loss due to upkeep.

i think farmer is strong enough however i think indy is overpowered and casher/techer are too weak to compete. techer is just worthless right now given that by day 3-4 they are at a 60% or more disadvantage.

comparing a farmer stocker to a casher stocker is doable but 9 times out of 10 a casher stocker will not even come close in the end to a farmer. they just can't maintain the land alright i am 3k acres ahead of devil and he plays pretty decent (although he has made fewer grabs than i have he has lost less in grabs as well) and he would have to cash 100% of his turns to get the same production i get. if this were to happen the land differential would only increase putting him at even more of a disadvantage. i wont go into his stock details however i am confident to say he has the most stocked of any casher however his stock is a pretty far cry from what the top farmers have stocked at this point right now.

and this is less than half way into the set.

however i didn't start this thread to turn into a farmer vs the world thread.
you guys may not like our tactics and i know there will be complaining later in the set and i was hoping to get a big tag to start the farmer support to help the market. yes we will keep hundreds of millions of food on hand and you guys can debate if there is a smarter way to do it. however over the last few years i have tested every single method of this strat and know that this is what brings the highest end game finish


and to reiterate stocker isn't underpowered. certain strats MIGHT be but as a whole farmer isn't weak. what pisses of most stockers and prevents this from being a viable strat is the landgrab formula and the cash loss forumla vs the food loss forumla.

also the fact that cash brings in NW and food doesn't so holding cash hurts us even more

[Ragnar]

So, how many of you guys listened to King David's warning on the seven year famine and stocked up on food???

[Calvin74]

So, how many of you guys listened to King David's warning on the seven year famine and stocked up on food???

according to recent chat boxes not enough correctly used the time of feast to prepare for the time of famine

but don't worry people in just a number of days there will be feast again!
i will post a few days out from when we are selling food to let people know do they can save turns in order to maximize their returns

[Ragnar]

that strat only works cause your nation is the only farming nation. It won't work next set. You'll be forced to sell during the set or sit on your food at the end.

Any one wanna guess what the change is??? er we already do sell during the set. We just choose to sell during the last five days of the set!!!!

[Nat22]

Any one wanna guess what the change is??? er we already do sell during the set. We just choose to sell during the last five days of the set!!!!

You're not allowed more than 200 mill food on hand at any given time... HA!

[Clowntown]

OMG FOOD BANKS!

Now what u gonna do.. 150 mill cap on food stored put that on everon enot just farmers.. that should make things interesting

[BeeNo]

granary's?