Limit corporation changes per game round

The Top corp, the single top corp, has dominated the top tier of workers for years in our server. The honest players in 2nd and lower placed corps get crushed and almost never get access to any of the best workers. It has been a winner takes all game amoung the top corps for some time. This creates a feedback loop that further perpetuates the issue. The best players MUST join that single top corp to monoploize both worker access and top corp CE points if they want to do well in both those realms. Rinse and repeat and you have more or less the same 25 players winning every single game both as players and as a corp. For years. Are games where the outcome is known ahead of time fun? Is it fun to be crushed by the same players again an again?

Corps that reform give something very important up. The dump all of their corp prestige. Gone. Andy they pay to do this, both in game $ to upgrade the HQ upon reforming and also in disrtuption (loss) of majorites as this happenes. It takes a team of very active players to pull this off. With these notable strategic sacrifices, such corps won't ever effectively compete for top corp CE points. They wont ever be the best corp. By NOT trying to be the top corp and also the top players and also the top city (all you have to do is connect to it for credit here, like the top corp, the top city has been won by the same city for years, but that one aspect is all they focus on) and also control much of the map, active smaller corp have a shot at top player positions. Also, since the top corp that is coming at us to "teach us a lesson", they have discovered that they now have the costs of defending their _many_ majorities, after attacking ours, etc and for the first time in years that has opened up an opportunity for other strong full sized corps are actually occasionally outbid them for some of the better workers. You are being asked to end this.

Now, for the first time in years, the same person and members of the same corp is not winning both the top corp and also the player positions. They are quite upset. And reporting us. And starting fights. And chasing us all over the map. And it isn't working. We were ready for them. They are well played and we have learned a lto form watching them. And now they are here above trying to beat us down with a rule change instead of out hauling us.

If RN wants a dynamic game that allows alternative strategies, then they will continue to allow mergers and splits, as things are now. If the goal is to have one corp win both the top corp ranking AND ALSO the top player positions in every game, for years, then the idea proposed above will do exactly that.

I am Triarius, chair and fouding member of The Dogs. RN knows who I am and my track record. As well as that of my team. Since anyone that beats this top roving corp is accused of cheating, I'm posting exactly who I am pubically.

After years and years of the same player winning, one of us won last game. Maybe that was a fluke? But another of us is looking good this game and Im in second, agai (SMH). The established corp will still win the top corp poisiton, just like in every game, but they are NOT also currenlty winning in the indivdual rankings. They are excellent players, we have been watching and learing from them for years. But they over extended, dont play well with others and are now and trying to change the game since they are failing at dominating the top corp position and also the top player positions after over extending and picking a fight with the 14 of us. Since attacking us backfired, reporitng us didn't work. . . here we are! Weeeee!

T

Please do not change the game. Mediocrity is killing everything. The ability to take a game and give several ways to win is great. It gives everyone a choice on how to achieve. If you make this game one dimensional the joy of playing will not be worth the effort. Right now you have a small corp that has figured out how to achieve. The achievements do not hinder anyone else from playing the same style and winning. We don't have to play anyone else's style, we could, but we choose not to. They could play our style but they choose not to. That is what makes this game great! If RN chooses to make RN one dimensional then RN will be just like every other game. Mediocre. Boring.

Yeah, cool. Fair responce. As someone who is NOT new to this game or this server, and as studied the Rover Play book for years, I can tell that you are not in "one of the most well known corporations on the server" your in THE MOST
WELL KNOWN CORP ON THE SERVER" Yall have won top corp for many many years. You still will! And until recently, the top player spots too.

Yall are very upset in that you are not winning BOTH to crop AND ALSO the top player spots. . .

I don't really like monoploies or games with predictive outcomes of the same corp and players always winning. Especially if it is by dominating everyone else. Yall found an explint too: be the top corp and simply crush everyone else. Win all the best workers all the time. At one point, yall were buyign workers you didnt need just to flush them. That works and attracts more top players and rinse and repeat this strategy every game and nothing ever changes. Take everything you can, all the time. Crush any opposition. Both corps play the game competatively; I get it. I was one of you many many many year ago. I happen to not think your style of play is "fair" but games often are not fair and often have tipping points. I do think bullying is sometimes a bit much and have lost good friends due to it; I still miss MadMartha who left, after winning the server due to the bulling, maybe 5 years ago. Better player than I'll ever be. Noob/Duckie will know who I'm talking about. That might have been the last time one of you didnt win. Until now.

So we can agree to dissagree on what is "fair".

Speaking of fair, did you know that I've payed this game your style? And also that some of your top players have played this game the way we play it? Why was that OK then? They did quite well. Is it ot cheating when they play the same way but is when we are? Same question for majoriites. OK for you to break them and kick others around but the end of the world if anyone else breaks yours. All yall had to do was leave us alone in 2 cites. . . I get it. This is a competative game and there are only so many top 10 spots and we are in your chairs at the bar. Guess what, we have watched your play book for a long time and we ain't moving.

This isnt as personal as it seems. Don't get me wrong, after the repeated industry attacks and agreement breakings, I do intentionally provoke you. As one of my military vet players pointed out, "Rovers only respect force". After you started a fight with us by attacking us again and again in our core city despite the agreement we had since day 1, we realized that you have A LOT OF TERRITORY to defend. And not many allies. And you always get youe way and dont know what to do when you dont. Other top corps were actually winning the best workers for the first time in years. Attacking the 14 of us has been great for us! So bring it! Keep over extending yourselves! Double down on GREED. Teach us "cheaters" a lesson! Now your in the poisition that we really don't care if we continue to fight till the end of the game or not. We didnt start this but it seems to be going well. iMarius is way ahead. Fighting isnt working so. . . REPORT HIM!

Reporting us hasn't worked. Dang! No red lights. Not one. How many of you reported RevengeMD? We usually keep him locked up. But this is way more fun! Hulk smash!

So now, to protect your monoply on both top corp and top players you are lobbying to change the rules in your favor. Maybe that will work. Maybe not. I hope not, the same people winning multiple aspects of the game for years and years isn't much fun. I understand you dont see it that way.

In other news, RN has new birthday server where everyone starts the same, cant buy more gold, and there is a single modest entrance fee. Probably less alts.
We hope to see Phonix and other big spenders and industry breakers there. Ha ha ha Yeah, the accusations of me not alwasy being nice are true! I'll give ya that one! Mu ha ha!

Miami for the WIN!

Cheers

I think this is a game. If you want something, take it. If you don't have enough cash for the majority then you didn't want it bad enough anyway. If you want a worker, pay for it. If you don't then don't pay for it. Talk smack, I like that, it is cool Don't cry. Not cool. Have fun or play something else. That's my two and a half cents.

Amen. This GAME certainly isn't what I expected but if every game was the same and the same person and corp won, that would be boring. I admit, I wasn't happy when yall kept attacking us, thought we had an agreement with the TOP DUCK on DAY ONE. I was mistaken. Those attacks, well more so our responce to them were great fun! I havent let Revenge out in a looong time. Having been on the receiveing end of that, I almost feel sorry for you. Almost. We also have this thing called alies. You know, other corps that we are friendly with us us that we dont try to crush. Nevermind. . . . I can see that one is to much of a streatch. Anyway, this is our best game ever and last game was pretty awesome for us Doogs. The corp that always wins top corp, top players and connects to the top city is now trying to change the rules of the entire game to protect their monopoly on winning everything (top players, corp and connected to top city). Pretty sweet! Anyway, feel free to break our stuff; chase us all over the map, report us, try to change the entire game just for you (ha ha ha!), etc We have popcorn. This is fantastic!

Nerisrath wrote:

I think we should limit the number of times you can change corporations/associations in one game round. - I think 3 is reasonable.

There is a particular group of players on my primary server that have found a serious way to abuse game mechanics. They are all top players, with large resources at their disposal and every few days they disband the corporation and start a new one. This allows them to maintain cheap easy to acquire bonus prestige workers and other desirable workers at a much cheaper rate, because instead of bidding against the top largest corps, they are bidding against small, low prestige newbie associations without knowledge or cash. While they may not have a very high ranked Association, the individual players are gaining tens even hundreds of thousands more prestige than other more honest players in the top ranks.

I think it's okay because such strategy has it's own cons:
1. Spending gold for worker slots
2. Lack of video's
3. More online to collect all trainstation bonuses in time
4. Missing top corp achievement
5. Not top prestige in the endgame
6. Every player missing worker bid is crucial
7. Anybody can use this strategy and beat you with your own weapon
I think it's good that game has such mechanics because it's providing variability, which is good for the game.

I've read of this specific strategy somewhere on this forum as far back as last year I believe.
Nothing new invented there. The issue called back then is, if I remember correctly, that the first few levels of HQ pay way too much prestige for the price invested (more than the 1PP for 10k $, that is already a cheap ratio at the end). But since I don't remember the numbers, and don't really care...

I personnally don't like it. I feel like, if I want to claim achievements of greatness, as you seem to Triarius, I should beat the others fair and square, on their territory, so that there is no question as to who is the boss. But I don't know of the history between your 2 teams...

We've done that on a french server, same winner since the beginning of the server, extremely boring. We built a team, we saw a weakness in part of their strategy, we won top corp the first round after the creation of that team, we've won first region, first corp and winning megacity ever since, while changing partners every game.

The problem of the repeating winners is something I don't like either, but at some point, if your team of friends is just too good, compared to the others, what do you do ? split in two ? That's a fair question I've been asking myself, because after my team has won 4 servers in a row, I fear the server will just become dull for everyone. A few active corps already left to a new express, to claim top spot there, as they couldn't beat us. And that is an issue.

sacroima wrote:

The issue called back then is, if I remember correctly, that the first few levels of HQ pay way too much prestige for the price invested (more than the 1PP for 10k $, that is already a cheap ratio at the end). But since I don't remember the numbers, and don't really care..

These prestige for first levels is tiny anyway, you can't win round only because of it (cooldown for changing corp is still 24hours)

Don't we already have a reply from RN in this stuff? This strategy that has been aroound for years. . . Some of you (your corp) have played it.

4) Yes

Ever watch Game of Thrones? I am a Stark. I beleive that leadership is responsabile for all the actions of their their team. When I say you, I often meant your corp. Your corp has done these things. I thought that was clear but appologise for incorrect pronoun use.

Your (corp) leadership has chosen to repedidly allow your (corp) players to walk all over us. No responce. No appologies. Same issue day after day. Lets teach them a lesson stuff. And after this happened enough times, we responded. . . The game already has mechanism in place to deal with conflicts. We dealt with the conflict. Apparently yall didnt like or expect us to take the fight to you. To bad. Not your choice. It turend out to be fun. And guess what, this unexpectadily is working out great for us! Not only did we discover how thin you (corp) are spread, but we notice other top 25 corps actually winning workers! Sweet! Double win!

Glass houses. Stones.

At the end of the day, I beleive that I am responsible for the actions of all the members of my team. When I started out as chair, many years ago, I gave warnings and booted players that simpy were not good fits to our vision. Nothing personal, not a good fit. Haven't had to boot anyone in years. I have an amazing team right now. Yall (all of you) have no idea how good the teamwork is over here and what it takes to do what we do. They keep me around as chair but at least 4 of us that I taught (and learned from) could replace me as chair with absolutely no loss in corp ability. So proud of this team.

Being booted sounds harsh but isnt the end of the world. For the first few years I never did better than 26th. Untill 3 of use were booted, surrounded and rivaled. . . by what was the top corp, for suggesting better ways to play from winthin the corp. Booted, rivaled and surrounded sounds awful but we impleted our math/stats based ideas. . . and they worked! I finsihed in the top 10 for the first time ever in a very hostile environment. MadMartha won the very next game. Ask Noob about this sometime. . . Where is Avy? Noobs right hand man back then; heavy coiner and absolutely no ethics. Noob had to choose between him and us, we lost that one and got booted. Avy and Noob had a falling out a few games later. But we were already gone. Onwards and upwards. Dogs do learn from these lessons. We may not learn what was intended. . . Lot of resperct for Noob. . .

If there is a theme here, it is that opportuity often comes in unexpected forms.

It took many years to get the team I have now. We have very few rules over here but how we treat those we have agreements with and how we treat our allies are on that short list. I'm not saying you/your corp have to do things this way, Id prefer if you kept on steamrolling everyone else actually and I care less and less how you (corp) chose to play. Attack us all you like. Im saying if you (your corp and you also, this thread, nothing personal, but how I see this thread) bully everyone else on the server and try to foroce us to do things your way (how I view this thread), don't keep agreements and attack other strong corps, that might come back to bite you/your corp. Especially if you/your corp is spread real thin. And you are spread real thin. . . I keep mentioning that. Pubically. Intentionally.

And now everyone knows/sees that you (corp) can be beat.

Change is hard.

So yes "you" personally are going to be effected by the choices of those arround you. Especially your leadership. In life, in games, etc. And "you" personally have a choice about who you choose to play with. What you turn a blind eye to. And yes it is just a game. But both corps play intesly and who we are comes through, doesnt it?

5) You (personally) should try this out. Go out into the real world and pass judgements on others. Post your opionions about how everyone else should do things and if they dont agree to your (persoal and corp this time) way, try to force laws on them to do things your way. That will make you (personal and corp) real popular.

Yes, I do think your corp is attacking us everway they can, with more and more desperation, including this sillyness. I get it. We are in top individual spots and you feel you are entitiled to them. I do think you (personal) are part of the attacks (Exhibit A is this silly thread asking the entire game to change just for you (personal/and corp). so you (corp) can always win on multiple fronts. And Im calling that out. Again. And your still pushing for your way despite the ruling from RN and knowlege that your teamates have already done this and can do it in the future? Really?

I look forward to what yall (all of you) throw at us next. What new lessons will you teach us? Each new front seems more and more. . . desperate. Change is hard.

Pssssst Rover majorities are many and WEAK. I like saying that that truth pubically. Lets keep this thread going. The attacks on us, the reporting (everyone that isnt in your corp is an alt by the way) and now this have all worked out great for us. Since you (personal) like to tell others what to do and how to play, I suggest that you (personal) continue to IGNORE RNs ruling and continue to petiton for a rule change that would your enforce ownership of both top corp and also top player spots.

9) We are as well.

Since you speak about maths, nothing related to the subject, but I have to talk about it

Yes, math is great, and any math-based strategy is on paper the best. The problem is, you need to craft your team around those math principles. It's very difficult in practice to have 25 players that follow all of it (basically like robots) to achieve 100% efficiency.

You can have examples of it everywhere (landmarks that take too long to fill up because people deliver to cities, 1 majority that can be broken by 1 single player because the corp that should hold it doesn't invest enough (or too few people of that corp do), ... There are many examples. Workers are another, it's very difficult to find a corp in which all players pay the worker its due value.

That's why, in practice, math is part of the answer, but only part of it And more and more, after 1.5 years of playing, I feel you need to be great in social interactions, and social understanding, to perform in RN, math just is a slight bonus.

I don'T know if that was diskussed in the english part of the forums already. Maybe in the old forum. But I can confirm that this tactic is verry old. Wasn't even new when I startet the game years ago. So we can assume the RN knows it and is ok with that.

Back in the days there was another tactic city teams used but RN didn't liked it and introduced thr 24h timer to prevent it. Before that you could change your association every 5 minutes or even faster. So when workers for cheaper buildings or cheaper tracks were available one corps per city would try to get it. Players with money would switch assos to bid for that worker. If the bid was successfull the whole city would temporary join the the asso, take advantage of the worker and went back to their asso after that.

Yes, sacroim, maths only get you so far. And not very far at all by themselves. After we take over weak blue cities and level them a bunch of times, we actually will give them back when we can and work with blue players to flip them back and forth. That takes some of those people skills that you metioned that are indeed so valuable. The opposition takes and holds and takes some more. Makes agrements and breaks them. So this is one of the social areas where we are different from them. If you look again, you will see me baiting them above about the difference in allies and how we treat others. . . My role is chair and when we feel we have been treaded on, also "bad cop". Another of us is likely to win this time so I've painted a big target on my back. Last game I helped Doog win. At one point I had 25 of those big slow trains that have a lot of tractions slowing down the opposition! Ha ha ha! As a small corp of just 14 players, we have to be extra careful in how we treat others, especially stronger corps. We dont alwasy get it right but we do try to be careful. By not being in lots of fights, not crushing everyone in sight and not trying to own everything, PMing other chairs, eating crow when we have to, having allies, we do OK when a fight comes to us. So yes, very good point. If this game was agaisnt robots, and not humans with all human emotions, weaknesses and benifits, it wouldn't be any fun.

Yes Rovers, I think this thead is an attack on my corp and how we play. Ironically as it is coming from, and seems to be supported by, multiple members of a corp which has some well known players that have played and currently play exactly the same way both here and on other servers. Yall absolutely know better, but here we are anyway. No one likes others trying to tell them that they have to play the game thier way and then trying to enfocre that with rules changes when the attacks and alt reporting have failed. Especially in a "do as we say but not as we do" situation like this. Yes, I do see this and your corps support for it as yet anothor "front" of the fight you 25 guys started with the 14 of us. I do think this is another cheap shot in a series like the alt accusations/questions aimed at RevengeMD (everyone got that name? RevengeMD) for having the audacity of attacking you guys back in less than subtile ways at places and times that were not convienient for you. Same pattern here. You either win or the other guys are cheating. Same, exact pattern of behavior. Very consistant. Someone does something you (corp) don't like and you (corp) automatically think they are an alt or try to change the rules in your favor, etc. I get it, change is hard and we are all humans and not robots. And Dogs are in "your" seats in one aspect of the game and despite the attacks in game, the reporting and now this, you don;t like the fact that we still aren't moving. So you casue some drama and make an issue out of something that your best players do, RN already knows about, etc. . . Yes, Im am treating you (personal and corp), and this post as yet another a hostile attack on us. Given who you have in your corp and how they play accross multiple servers, the complete (but understandable) public silence from those players that play the sameway, and the likes to your post from your corp, the prior attacks, can you see why I might take that position?

My only question is, what are you (corp) going to try to pull next?

Want to beat us in the individual rankings? Then out play us. How about that? You have every right to make agreements and break them, attack us, chase us all over the map, give up corp points and try our strategy, be less greedy, be more greedy, call me a 5 year old (well I did and still do bait you (corp) after those initial multiple attacks that made quite clear that yall are hostile, I might deserve that one), whatever. The game already has methods for conflict resolution built in. . . which, if we continue, and Im not yet sure you will be given a choice at this point, help OTHER 25 player top corps win some good Workers for a change. . . This fight we didnt want seems to be working well for my team. Guess what we do with things that benifit us? Yeah, that would be the reason we double down every single time you guys hit us. This is no different than any of the other attacks IMHO.

We thought that we had much better things to do than fight you guys this game, but like you, we don't control what other players and corps do. Only how we respond. Interesting that the thing we tried to avoid the most, conflict among top players, with agreements with you and very careful play around Omaha in era 1, even though we were outhauling you on some RGs, has completely backfired. . . yet this has worked out quite well for us.

Waiting for your next move.

T

This doesn't happen on my server....well, not that I've noticed. My city doesn't have enough players on it for that "tactic" to be effective. So it's quite nice.

I don't see why the strong corps fight each other for the workers while the weak corps get them almost for free. This is a very weird mechanic to me.

Open all simultaneous worker-auctions to all corps and all these problems are gone.