expanders

[Margus]

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