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Why the World Domination Strategy inevitably fails
If there is anything to love about this game, is that we as players, round after round, aim to out-strategize each other. And certainly, this very factor is what keeps many of us here, attempting to out-wit each other.
I still remember the first time I saw Barricade come out of newbie with RWCE, and couldn't help myself from thinking "What a fucking genius", despite the fact that every round I would do my best to bring him down.
This time around, I was quite surprised to see Darius try to pull world domination, a strategy I kept perfecting over and over again in EA, although I most certainly can not claim any credit for being it's originator. I'm surprised because he kept beating me while I perfected the strat, and yet decided to go for it anyway.
There are some differences between pulling it off in SK and pulling it off in EA. In EA Terra was severely nerfed (+15% bonuses, -25% income) but Oceanic was severely propped up (+10% research needed, +20% def, - 50% building costs). And of course, DW (+25% offense, -50% goon cost). Another factor to consider was that in EA static researches only cost half of what they do in SK (so EC = 25000), which made it viable for any PT to come out with RWCE and a playable KD; This round's bonus allowed for that too.
There is basically one reason why early world domination with DW doesn't work - and that reason is economical.
For a DW to be world dominant early on, it needs to rely on its goons discount. The problem is that you need exponentially more goons, and for that you need pop, which DWs suck at. Playing all pop DW means you have a -10% to -15% income disadvantage compared to a multiple terrain on SMs. Nevermind when you compare that to a TF or Mount.
This is balanced out, or even advantageous for DW as long as you are making goons, because of the huge discount. However the moment you need to make defense, you are strapped for cash so bad that you just can't keep up if other people start making offense. Therefore your answer is to make more offense to force them into making defense.
In a one-on-one situation, the DW will always win, because you don't have the cash to make as much defense as the DW makes offense, and there's no way you're going to match the DW's offense.
Problem is, world domination means dominating everyone.
Most will only build defense, some will try to match your offense (especially other DWs), and others will build tanks - you break them, they break you. Tanks can lead to a domino effect, and no one really wants to take that risk (well, some do), because essentially it'll end up in a suicide circle, and the TF wins because of faster returns. If you don't go into a suicide circle, the DW will keep pushing goons but there comes a point where the other players have so many tanks (that they can't send out) but the DW player can't break. So you just end up timing your hits around the DW player. Your WLs are back before his, and you have a better economy.
just as an aside, on EA the economical advantage of the oceanic KD was that the defense you built was always worth 20% more, but the DW's offense was only worth 25% more when you attacked. So oceanic tanks were better than DW tanks the majority of the time
This much you probably already knew.
But if the DW's economy is the problem, how do you make that economy more viable?
On SK that's even harder to do, because Terra's have such a massive economical advantage. Although to be fair, on EA Oceanic's -50% off building costs also increased exponentially the longer the round went.
As I've already pointed out, the DW's problem is that it can't keep up with defense. We've seen it a thousand times people try all tanks defense on DW and it just simply falls flat after a while. You need the LTs/LDs, and more importantly you need TCs, which on a DW feels like a waste, because running 10% TCs on 90% discounted goons means.... that your TCs are giving you an extra $6 of discount! Yay, what a damn f*ing waste of land.
This was what led to me writing the article about TCs.
Basically you have to figure out exactly how much money you could be making with SMs instead of TCs, and train enough units per hour to justify the TCs, and hopefully you will still have some soldiers left over to train into goons. This way your tanks (and LDs) are costing you as much as everyone else's, and your goons are coming for free, offsetting the economical disadvantage.
It's hard to verify mathematically if it will completely offset the fact that you went all pop on a -10% pop planet type.
DW SM = 120 * 1.25 = $150
DW Res = 50 * (1.20-0.1) * 1.25 * 1.95 = $134
and if we compare that to a Terra.....
TF SM = 120 * (1.45-0.1) = $162
TF Res = 50 * 1.4 * 1.45 * 1.95 = $198
so for every res, a TF gets almost 50% more than a DW.
On top of that, TF gets 20% more defense and gets 20% offense.
Long story short, BCart, it's time to balance the planet types already.
You had a nice run Darius. clap clap
Comments
TLDR;
Terra®
Kidding it was a good read but my first statement still stands
Matching wits? Damn, is that what we are doing...
No fair. I am witless.
Well tbh Rmag I wasnt really trying to live. It is inevitable that I will die to something no matter how perfect my kd, because of general envy or fear when I start trashing everyone. Plus theres really no way to completely dominate the round even with a small playerbase solo, due to the way research works and the way pts work.. even with an infinitely superior kd, being slowed down just a little means you will get caught and inevitably die.
This was my first round on dw, and to be fair to you I did actually learn/reconsider something from this post, which was that I shouldve dropped tcs when I switched to making LTs and converted them to SMs a little earlier. I also think I overdid it a bit on the pop, but again to be fair I wasnt planning on making it more than maybe a day or two past today with a functional KD
The only time I ever made the truly god kd that could literally fend off the universe, I was RR and meadows made 200+ manual multies to kill me with kidnaps, and it just forced me to convert back because logging in every single tick at :57 for a week straight was literally killing me irl lmao
Well Darius, as I said, you've beaten me when I've used this strategy, several times. And I kept working on it, over and over again. This post is definitely not meant to be an attack on you, but literally just pushing the strategy discussion further. Last know record of SK strategies library: Vindicator
And lol yeh meadows.
I think the only DW over 50k land I ever saw was hers. All other DWs would die before that.
you saying people to lower theirselces to outwit me lol? a donkey could do it.
Any one speak Hazzian? I need translation ^^
Hazza has lost his only title now that alliances are gone: HoF Lord
I used to have that job when first joined 2ndC.
It's the new members slot... Like the "Prospect" of a motorcycle gang.
How many years now has Hazza been doing it?
TBH. I'm tired of all this Hazza bashing. I come away feeling bad about it afterwards.
His problem is obviously out of his control.
But still... I can't help myself
I know it all comes from love. You all love me.
We do xxx
it would be mean not to
The larger my kingdom became the less fun I had. I always tried to stay well defended and build a kingom that could suicide break anyone that I felt disrespected a great defense. Large kingdoms slowly turn you into a bitch. Ice could attest to this as he would often start fucking with my kingdom, even disbanding shit to remind me I wasn't supposed to care. We fought everytime I hit top 10 behind the scene because I'd start to become useless and self centered. Our wrath would often be unleashed upon the kingdom with the audacity to message us or a friend that it was simply our turn. Our turn, oh hell naw you hit us and bypass the moron with more land and all offense flying another UA's flag, fuck that shit you're done mufuka. That would create an instant conflict and more often than not I had a stack of multis to destroy their defense and an alliance run by a buddy to eat the main course, followed by the multis finishing them off. PF conflicts were always smoke and mirrors with the real beef being that you disrespected our UA and there were better targets. I preferred wrapping up the entire exchange within 59 minutes regardless of size so that you would see your top kingdom hit a kingdom with our flag and disappear that hour. If the person had a lot of support in the pfs and I disliked them I might drag that out for a week just to humor everyone and give them false hope. I would always use my resources to protect my alliance and friends in a typical fashion. Not once did I ever ruin anyones round to get myself or another affiliate to a higher rank. I did ruin many friendships by breaking into accounts and suiciding them when they refused to participate. I did this often to many good people and often felt bad about it but they knew what they signed up for. We were a UA that means everyone moves not everyone but you because you are top 10. Sped, no offense but you are a good example. You will back out when it is your turn but we all know this by now. You use others to get where you want and try to flee when your number is called. Many people will do this it's rare that they won't. ScreaminSK was one of the most hardcore mofoz to ever play he would shit all over anyone regardless of his rank and investment at a moments notice, much respect to him if he is still lurking.
I approached the game a bit differently, it was always about the fight and creating the biggest scene and dragging everyone else into it. There were so many backup accounts and shared accounts amongst crew that there were rarely occasions where we blew the entire load. Even after the dust settled and everything listed as owned by me or the crew had perished most people were actually handed replacements. I never got along with the networth whores and their quest to devote nothing to a war that didn't benefit them and the petty bs and betrayals they would spin. Time after time I'd turn on them and put them up as a target which often led to everyone yelling at me and the alliance falling apart. Many of the known networth whores absolutely hated me and would disband entire sectors if they landed in my alliance or even my sector.
We never used bots we spun all of our accounts and it was fun. Most of us left and wanted no part of the script wars that followed as they are mostly competitions among coders which didn't generate enough interest to us.
Thats because its not fun to have your shit ruined by someone who doesnt care about their KD dank. Skill in this game isnt beating someone up with superior numbers, skill comes from careful planning and execution, hunting your prey for days in advance with a secret sci rush to outgrow them at a level so you can hit them in a week, with the risk of being punished for it today.
Skill is hoarding cash and clicking 10000 times in an hour to build 10k tfs in one flawless tick and catch your enemy off guard
There is true glory in a 1vX all the way down to 1v1. There is no glory in a Xv1 until all the way down to 1. Xv1 is just admitting your own inferiority before the fight begins.
I always left you guys alone if you were playing legit and not scripting. If you weren't engaged in a UA and doing your own thing I always tried to respect that. Some of you are exceptionally gifted and talented people and it a shame that the bots blurred the line making it so difficult to differentiate between the two. I don't think we ever bumped heads Darius because you were just doing your thing. People hanging with those we knew were up to no good wouldn't get that benefit of the doubt. As one of the leaders our existence was to mop up the baddies for people, not to ruin the guy that is amazing at figuring out the formula. Unfortunately we did make mistakes along the way. Bots really screwed it all up because the amount of resources needed to kill a single person using them was a huge mountain to climb. The result of that we would target their "friends" and that's when we really flew off the rails and become a bunch of dickheads.
Im sure I fought you as Exalted or Cyrus when I was in xLTx/xMGx, but yeah not when I was reborn as Darius
You probably fought with me against myself a few times as well.
Dank still talking nonesense and Darius still pretending to be good, nothing new here.
oh I forgot you existed
i bet you never though, i bet whilst playing this game you always think " i wish everyone would rate me as highly as Lynog the goat "
lynog the goat
:-(