You can get up to 40k but that means the SM or Lux is already 50+.
3k is chump change, too. There's all kind of stories of people spending a lot more on mobile games.
There was a facebook game that I personally knew of a player that had to have dropped about $250K on. The funny thing is, they eventually shut that game down after blizzard bought them out.
1796 total points and top donater on perseus server. 41 billion. How does someone with 1796 points become the top donator on the server?
You would think a GO would have spotted this "discrepancy"
1 Doisdoido 41,246,432
Donations aren't typically something that is highly analyzed like that.
Just tested, confirmed.
If it wasn't that, then it was an account made in Turkey, loaded with ambro, and graveyarded somewhere else.
that is entirely possible
Display MoreIIRC, a long time ago you could buy lamp oil with the initial ambro when it went on sale so what an alliance did was have everyone make an alt, get the 32 ambro, buy lamp oil, and then GY.
I'm not sure how GYing works with lamp oil, but I assume if you do it with multiple accounts something like this happens. Let's pretend it's 4 accounts.
Accounts 1, 2, 3, 4 buy lamp oil and donate it, then immediately start to GY. This is 120 days of oil.
While GYing, assuming it's 37 days, Accounts 3 and 4 get their oil refunded. 83 days of oil left.
3 and 4 GY to the same server 44 days later. 76 days of oil left.
3 and 4 use their oil again then immediately start to GY. 136 days of oil left.
3 and 4 GY 37 days later. With 99 days of oil left, they both get refunded again and can repeat the process indefinitely.
No, I'm talking a single 60 point account that had gotten enough lamp oil to cover multiple entire island chains for 60 days.
Seems like those island spots would be stolen in the interim.
Other parts of this whole argument unaddressed, many islands have "place holders" on them.
I have always thought this was to reserve a place to put a town later, but it would be useful for this purpose too.
I know I have seen a situation where a 60 point account that was a year old has donated lamp oil for an entire alliance's islands and shares none of those islands nor had it built any of the helios towers. Interestingly enough, none of those helios towers were built by anyone that was on any of those islands. I doubt the mines and mills were built up with ambrosia and donating/GY does seem like a more viable option. I just went to look up that player with the lamp oil, and they got a red X ban... So, I assume they were up to no good. That entire alliance has a single player left that is not inactive/banned/in vacation mode. I would venture to say the game staff is doing their job effectively.
It took me weeks to even find their single city.
Display MoreBut your hourly production is unaffected by them staying there and not donating. Your hourly production is the same whether they are there or those spots are empty (unless they occupy all spots so you cannot build another town on same island)
EVERYBODY SHOULD DONATE TO ISLANDS! not arguing against that. but their donations are just an extra for you.
I would not call it leeching but free-riding. leeching is best reserved for wonders, where them not doing their part directly diminishes your own priests.
Again everybody should donate to mills and quarries, everybody is better off that way
That depends on how broad your view is...
If the island is full, they are taking a spot that could be filled by someone that would improve the island.
They are taking advantage of something that was created by the efforts of those around them, and giving nothing in return.
Something that many people probably got used to, by starting on islands that were built up by people that are long gone from the game.
What's wrong with that? Learning to read island mates production is easier than Tarot cards and more accurate 🤣.
What I mean is not "Are my neighbors producing?"
"What (and how much) does it affect my hourly production?"
If someone is leeching, and benefiting from my resource contribution to the island...
It does most definitely impact my hourly production.
Had they done their part, the mine/mill would be producing more by levelling up.
There are all kinds of things you can determine about your neighbors with contrasting their scores.
There used to be a website that took all the scores and made graphs showing at what rate an account had grown for several months back.
That means he snuck in some troops, while yours were en route.
You would have gotten a msg in your town advisor saying your troops had turned around and were unable to complete their mission, if had had built or gotten a naval ship there fast enough.
oh come on,a blind man could see these scripts being used.
Want me to explain how ikabot works?
You basically dont have to do anything and can run 100 accounts useing it.
it logs in for you, reinforces battles(clearly seen) makes trades and does everything a human would do with better timing.
once you know it you can see how well it works except for a col. That screws it right up. you program each bot individually. you really dont have to even log in as it does it for you.
You see the results.
A GO has to look at their tools and find a mechanism in how that was accomplished, and determine if they can establish that a rule was broken.
Very different things.
I recall numerous times that I believed a rule was being broken (when I was a GO), but for various reasons could not establish it.
Outside of it simply being a volunteer job, it can require multiple days to establish some bans because the evidence is so weak that you damn near require a mountain of it. Bans are not issued out of speculation, they are there based on what can be proven.
Getting pretty bad when regular players can see and figure out how these guys are cheating yet the GO's cant.
GO's have very specific guidelines to follow, to justify banning someone.
They have specific tools they use, which require specific metrics to conclude a ban is justified.
I will not discuss the tools, or the criteria in any detail.
They cannot just go with a "gut feeling" or belief that someone is cheating.
When a ban is enacted, the reason and the evidence has to be documented.
That is why such bans are difficult to enforce.
If they could enforce them effectively, probably half the people playing the game would have been banned for scripting long ago.
We can pillage the inactives dry. The problems came for players that were on islands that had many inactives that made it tactically difficult to cover them all.
I pillage daily what I could produce in a week.
The sending wine thing was from before they got the graveyard system to mostly work. It was great for keeping farms productive.
In the right context, pillaging and occupying makes the game much more interesting.
What i want to say is that 8 million gold is not that much for a ship. and the cost stays more or less the same for further ships too. consider buying them an investment, once you buy they you will have them forever and no one could destroy them or steal them from you.
And if you have ambrosia you can always buy Phoenician ones
1 ship for 8M is not horrible...
Until you need to buy 15 more of them, for a total of a little more than 120M (to get half of the job done)...
Or 40 more of them, for a total of a little more than 320M (to really be able to run an account smoothly).
That's my point, in that while freighters serve a purpose... You either need quite a few of them or they need to move significantly faster.
I didn't want to devalue what people already have, by suggesting they become cheaper (to make more of them accessible).
I apparently was wrong, in thinking that making them faster would be a better received suggestion.
Display MoreYou forgot to mention one really important thing about cost scaling. freighters start at larger cost base, but they increase a lot slower than trade ships.
1st freighter costs 8,023,999 gold
and freighter n.100 costs 10,794,021 gold
while trade ship n.200 costs 4,972,878 gold
and trade ship .300 costs 95,816,508 gold
Freighters are meant to be more of a endgame thing for big accounts. that is why they make financial sense only after X amount of trade ships, but from then on they accelerate past them. that is why they cost 8 million each, but you can buy a lot of them at that price.
Just some back of the envelope calculations again: assuming you have 10 cities with 3000 citizens (this seems conservative estimation). if you go in gold mode shut down all production, research and military you can earn 90.000 gold per hour. assuming you have shrine at level 36 as i do that gives you 77% extra income. that is 160.000 gold per hour. That is 3.840.000 gold per day. that should roughly be your income in gold mode. if it is true that you can make same or more with selling resources. then lets round up to 4 million gold per day
Assuming you already have 10 freighters, and you want to get to 25 (8 million gold per ship) - so in 30 days you should have enough gold to get you to your goal.
Much of what you are suggesting involves stunting account growth.
Even with a capped shrine like I have, it still doesn't make sense for me to do what you suggest. Without going into to much detail on how my account is constructed, your assumptions on my account are incorrect. Those numbers are inaccurate, when applied to me. To achieve those numbers would make my account more vulnerable and require a military that is impractical to support indefinitely without outside support. Going into gold mode means firing, selling or killing off in combat my troops and ships... Only to have to rebuild them later.
You shouldn't have to stop account growth to be able to move materials that you need to actually grow the account.
I'd never suggest you'd simply list it on the trading post. I was suggesting that you'd see if you could sell it for gold to an alliance member or fulfill someone's buy request.
Which further ties up even more ships.
Display Moreyes they can
with their inactive army...it is for sure a fight in first place
what they really can't is to replenish that army and continue
BUT
as i said, their allies or the enemies which you are planning to atack from that inactive "base" can very well defend it so there is a fight on that inactive town anyway
where would be the problem?
there is nothing stoping them to defend an inactive town OR to occupy it themselves first...
That will also be scattered, when the inactive goes GY.
I get why you want to occupy an inactive... I've seen my share of islands that I wanted to pillage, where the entire island was inactive, so I couldn't plant a floater there and I couldn't occupy an inactive... Which was very frustrating. I've even seen entire island groups like this, so I couldn't even use an adjacent island.
Were you aware that you used to be able to send wine to inactive towns, to keep the citizens happy and productive? They stopped that, too.
Display MoreBefore freighters, the reason I never pillaged something was because it was always 2 choices: Move resources between my cities or pillage. I always ended up going with moving resources. I can't remember when I've ever had ships sitting before freighters.
The biggest confusion I have is this. When we merged, the mines weren't producing anything, so I set all of my cities to Plutus.
My largest account made 100m gold during that time and my smaller accounts made 40m gold. That's easily ~5-12 freighters.
If you can make more gold selling, then sell. Prioritizing raising gold by selling resources over pillaging would quickly get you the freighters you needed.
Here is the catch 22... The more resources you sell, the bigger target you paint on yourself to be pillaged. So you have to have a bigger military anyway.
I did the math, and concluded that even with the bigger military to protect what I'm selling... I'm still better off than going into turtle/gold mode.
So, that military can either be sitting around doing nothing or it can pay for itself by getting you more resources.
I'm selling half the resources I produce and building with the resources I pillage and half of my production.
I just looked up the cumulative cost of cargo ships.
You have spent less TOTAL on your first 103 cargo ships, than your first freighter.
Now, 200 cargo ships get you into the ballpark of 20 Freighters.
Now, you can argue that you still have 10X the capacity with the freighters (when you are looking at them based on cost vs capacity)... However, you also have 30X the speed with the cargo ships. So, when looking at that, you can argue that you can move 3X as much (assuming one is diligent), in the same time frame.
Now, the point where it becomes more cost effective to buy a freighter based on unit price (without speed weighted into it) is the 66th cargo ship. If you were to weight the speed, it is the 175th. When you factor in their lack of versatility, it would be much later than either.
We can argue that this is a VERY late stage game offering, for when the sheer amount of resources being moved around is staggering and quite frankly they could really be obtained faster than the resources could be gathered... Most likely being bought in large numbers by players that really don't have much that's interesting left to do outside of chasing their 21st town (all the futures done, buildings hard capped, etc)...
But, why should they not be able to be obtained in useful amounts by players at earlier stages of the game without otherwise halting their production and growth to do so? They would be viable for players at earlier stages of the game for commerce and internal shipping, and are accessible to players that either have a TH of 35 or a GR lvl 10. Those are not necessarily "late stage" requirements.
Freighters have other intelligent uses outside of just moving the massive requirements of later stage GR resources.
We can argue that these sorts of things are intentional speed bumps, to slow us down and make the game longer...
But, let's also be real... Some of these building resource requirements are so great that we would either need to take out a second mortgage on our homes to buy enough ambrosia to achieve them or hope our descendants will achieve them on our behalf. We really don't need to be artificially slowed down by such things.
I dont have anything to prove it but it makes sense with the ridiculous amount of multis they have.
I know that because they have ambroed at least 50 towns to our islands and they all dont do anything but sit there.
Apparently it even does pirate raids for you.
Depending on how knowledgeable/motivated the GO is, there are ways to determine a player is using bots.
But, it is a complex issue and I am limited on how much I can discuss on the matter.
