The news has started to fill up with these curious land trading hits. In fact it becomes difficult to follow what is going on among those actually playing the game so full of the land trades has the news starting to get.

I remember what must have been the very beginnings of these things when I last played. Although there were few then and carried out by countries paired within the same clan. They were thought rather naff but clearly they have developed apace. It seems to be by far the single biggest change to have happened in 1a.

Is there any major alliance which doesn't bother with them or are they now universal?

Thinking about it, I suppose that land grabbing skills, which used to be important, have become largely redundant as far as netgaining goes. Although I see some bold fellows attempting at least some grabs rather than trades so I suppose there is still a smal place for the old skills.

Which means, perhaps, that now the guy who finishes on top of the tree has demonstrated superior stocking and destocking skills, as well as the patience to carry out as many or more of the land trades as his neighbour.

Still can't say I like the look of it. Perhaps I need to try it to see where the fun lies.

The best players still get the edge. Not all trades are equal. Plus the hardest part of the game is still destocking.

My achilles heel, Requiem. Hardly ever get so far as to need to do it so when I do I suck big time.

most fun part of the game is retalling those landgrabbers

It used to be that bottomfeeding was preferred because it was something an entire alliance could do fairly simply and effectively. There are exactly two countries in the game doing something that I'd say fits the description of what bottomfeeding used to be, and that's probably about the limit to what can be supported by that style of grabbing as things stand. Generally, bottomfeeding is no longer a viable strategy.

Land trading is an effective and efficient replacement. It is something that favours tags who put effort into doing it properly, and it is something only tags with good protection can do on a large scale basis. It appears to me that proper trading is still as much of a skill as bottomfeeding use to be, which is to say that it always favoured those with the proper tools who put in the effort.

bottomfeeding is a skill as writing 8008135 on a calculator is getting to second base.

When bottom feeding meant finding half a dozen targets each of which was grabbed once I had a certain respect for its exponents. As it is now, well if land trading has reduced bottom feeding then there is at least one good thing to say in favour of land trading.

I don't doubt that land trading can be done more or less efficiently. What can't? It is the boredom of it that troubles me.

To find a target, evaluate the risk of retal, calculate the break, hit and then see whether the retal comes along gets the adrenaline going. There is elation and disappointment aplenty. Working out with slide rule and calculator in hand which from a list offers best advantage through a land trade seems to me tame by comparison.

braden: I don't know if I'd agree with that, but if you look at my post you'll not find the phrase "bottomfeeding is a skill" anyway.

Furious: Much of bottomfeeding was just doing a country search on GT, plugging the values into a grabbing calc, and then making the hit. It was always about efficiency and effectiveness, and never about excitement. You didn't want excitement when bottomfeeding, that was bad.

It isn't that land trading has reduced bottomfeeding, it is that bottomfeeding isn't viable in a game where there aren't thousands of countries, many of which are bots. Land trading exists because there aren't any other alternatives.

Couldn't we just grab from each other's countries?

That's what happens on the solo servers.

yes we could but that'd lead to some1 gaining more than others etc.

This isn't a solo server. The dynamics of alliance politics mean people band together to protect their land, and before long that leads to the kind of balance you find here. It really didn't take long for retal policies, pacts, and the like to show up after tags were put in.

Yes and when I played before all that stuff seemed to me much the best part of the game. It required lots of human inter-reaction, you could not easily build that into other forms of computer gaming. There is a board game, Diplomacy, which has a certain amount but no-where near as complex as here.

However this land trading seems to me to be an exploit in that it undermines the intrinsic combative nature of the game by exploiting ghost acres in a way that is remote from their intended purpose and produces sterile play. Ghost acres are needed to expand available land as a set develops and military power expands. I suppose some fairly major change could be attempted. The exploit, if that is what it is, rests on military losses being insignificant as compared to the advantage gained from the acres won. So perhaps military losses could be increased (a lot). The balance of the game would be changed significantly though. We would all be going back to school on grabbing techniques.

If you were a games theorist/interactive decision theorist I suppose you would see land trading as the final phase of co-operation winning out over conflict.

Again, you don't seem to understand the details of landtrading, just the surface level information based on outside observation. I'm going to hazard a guess that you've never actually traded competitively. You're not gaining ghost acres and losing a tiny bit of military. You're gaining ghost acres, spending many extra turns on CSes, rebuilding several times what you've gained for each trade, and(thanks to the latest nerf) sending faaaar more units than are necessary to break in order to maximize ghost gains.

And there's even more subtlety than that(which you'd have to understand to make it to the top 10), but those are the basics.

Back in the Earth:2025 days, ghost acres were removed when land trading was originally coming into use, as it was viewed as an exploit. However, it was deliberately added back in when EE came to be. At this point, it is a feature and certainly not an exploit.

One of the results of the removal of ghost acres back in the day was that all-x strategies became far, far more prevalent and grabbing (and activity with it) went down dramatically. Making changes that would dramatically deter land trading would likely be the kiss of death for the game at this point.

I don't think I am advocating change. There is no-where for Pang and qzjul to run a Beta nor do they have the time and resources. It is too much to expect that they could introduce a radical change which managed to keep gameplay balanced.

I did not know that ghost acres were removed for a time. Not at all surpried that it didn't work.

Perhaps land trading is now permanent.

But I'm going to have a think about whether there might not be tactics that exploit it. (Wicked grin.)

Targeting land traders means targeting established tags. I honestly can't imagine why you'd think something like that would be a good idea, or why you'd announce it on AT.

I target no tag that does not target mine. But I happily target land wherever it is to be found. :)

I'm pretty sure all established tags have land:land retal policies these days meaning that the only benefit you'd possibly derive from hitting them is the ghost acres. You'd effectively be land trading yourself, only with higher military losses and inspiring hostility instead of goodwill.

You'd be better served by establishing your ability to retal and by finding people willing to pact you than by constantly attempting to aggravate larger tags.

iccyh do you mind me telling you that you are showing a bit of tunnel vision. I am not speaking as a representative of my clan, or making announcements I am just chewing the fat with you.

I am sure we could debate clan politics together and how to foster a fledgling clan in the hard world of 1a. But the subject we were discussing, and the subject of the thread, is land trading. It is the biggest change to the Alliance server game that has happened since last I played and it is interesting. :)

I don't mind you telling me that at all, but I think you're mistaken: on AT, you are OMA. Your tag wears absolutely everything you say.

Most people aren't going to spend to try to sort out the difference between your personal opinion and your tag's official position or inclination, especially those you've already written you (and OMA) off as not worth their time. I suspect there are a lot of those people and I suspect those people include a lot of leaders in established tags.

Generally, the safest course is not to post at all as no matter what you say you're likely to offend someone. Perhaps this sounds like I'm ignoring my own advice with how often I post here, but I personally don't advocate for doing the safest thing as that is far less fun.

I topped bottom feeding until trades started so I guess I had to trade

We're two of a kind on that one, iccyh. :)

Land trading is a skill, especially competitive land trading. I will not deny that. To that extent when and if you can be one of the most efficient land traders, I am sure there is some elation and thrill in that. But for the rest of us peons land trading, I at least find it boring. However, I get the impression that you all are missing what Furious is talking about.

Land grabbing when done right and when you dont have to worry about % L:L retal, but just a basic progressive retal, is bigger adrenaline rush than just being one of the best land traders. Not only that, but that adrenaline rush can be shared by a lot more players than just those few top land traders. The sense of grabbing and then waiting to see if a retal will be done, done in time and will they get as much land back in the retal. There are other factors that can come into play as well, like trying to outrun a retal (which I personally dont like) or making it so costly for them that they lose more resources than the land they gained back or for the retal'ing clan in picking the best country to do the retal (and vice versa too like in knowing who best retal countries are and waiting until they are busy before hitting your target for an LG).

And no I am not talking about bottom feeding, nor sadly with policies of most major clans top feeding either.

PS: I also find it odd that so many around here seem to think Land Trading exists because there is no other alternative. Odd because WW4 and Mars (although could be wrong about mars) do not have ghost acres and therefore no land trading, but that is convo for another topic or thread.

damn, that means i've gotten to second base finally!

maybe i'll reach third base by the time im 30

That is exactly the point.

Land grabbing has risks and rewards. There are all sorts of skills that come into play. I know nothing whatsoever of the mechanics of land trading and accept that there are skills involved there too. But the risks and rewards seem to me muted as compared to grabbing.

My own best skills in the game lie in target selection. I am good at selecting a target mainly because I have always had plenty of time and the inclination to invest that time. The news is the primary source of information but other information is relevant too. Knowing players and their styles of play; what people say on AT; things picked up in the margins of the game. And then my spies go in and I evaluate what THEY tell me. More skills come into play. Will there be a retal - how much or little will that hurt. What would it cost to look for another target. How about saving this one for later? Lots and lots and lots of stuff.

The judgments made are of the intuitive kind. You have your calculator in hand ready to calculate the break but you are thinking about people. How cross will the guy be? Is it my country that will suffer the consequences if he explodes? How much fun can I have if it turns into a duel?

For me this - and what happens betwen different clans and within a clan - has always been the stuff of Earth. It still is on the solo servers. But in 1a things now seem to have moved on.

Then why did you whine so much when you got hit?

some1 who isn't interested on grabbing gets grabbed so now that player needs to spend alot money on jets and oil and that money is away from buying stock and turns spent on spying are away from teching/exploring and even if that player gets lost land back (thx to ghosties) expenses cut income (again less stocked bushels) and turns spent on rebuilding are away from teching/exploring so again less money etc and getting money back from those jets won't be easy (I recently bought over 2m jets in FFA and although I got jets with cheap price and have managed to sell most of those with profit still that country which bought those jets is behind others money and techwise (landwise its bit ahead others but that doesn't help that much)) since price goes up and down and it takes a long time to sell those jets away (if wants profit).

HA - more land is GOOD Marshal. Betcha that country gets ahead of the others. :) Report back on it.

Which, I suppose is why we have land trading.

if gets grabbed by country which has maxed milstrat and defender has low ms then getting lost land back with 1 hit even with ghosties is difficult.

atm my country is barely 1st of those countries running same strat (techlevels vary a bit between countries and it has still some jets).

As landwise its a bit ahead my money is on it.

Always bet on the land (unless the competitor is ebert or Oldman or such).

nw wise too although others have more money.