Little Racoon wrote:
Diabolical wrote:
When my empire gets huge, usually the other bigger players join together to take me down.
And that is why you pretend to be weak and have a small one instead.
Tried it...doesn't fly when they can see your army size every four days in the World Herald.
It's now time for a pointed soapbox tangent.
~0~
Actually, I've just won a match where I was totally dominant. I had an army three times as big as anyone else. But they all banded against me in a world-spanning coalition....and I was actually winning against their combined forces, for quite some time, until, alas, one of them bought a bunch of Gold, and then started spamming everything....and I mean everything. Suddenly, I had nuclear factories springing up next door with nuclear bombers and nuclear missiles flying everywhere. There were maxed out scouts zipping through my front lines at lightning speed, having had their paths just been cleared out by tons of pristine new bombers.
He told me it was his birthday and so he treated himself to a 20 British Pound Gold purchase and got an 800% bonus. In a way, though I was pissed, I was almost laughing at the absurdity of all the nukes flying. Frankly, it was a terrible way for me to go down when considering that I'd committed over a month of master strategy and the fact that the past couple weeks have been so intense that it was cutting into my real time for most other things...what with having to practically camp out at the computer to fight against 5 other world powers operating out of different time zones. Yet, I was doing it....and I was clearly -- and strongly* -- trending upwards. Yes, I was winning.
Now, I'm all for supporting Bytro. But there's got to be another way than letting people ruin the game with premium points, right? I've suggested countless wonderful ways in which they could raise lots of money, but they just aren't interested in any of them, as far as I can tell. Do any of you noobs reading this have any idea what it feels like to spend literally months of your life on perfect matches only to be cheated by the kiss of death of a thick pocketbook? And I'm not allowed to really vent my frustration here for fear of getting swatted down. You know what I mean.
I suppose, if there was an alternative forum, one not owned by Bytro, then that'd be the place to rant and rave. Heck, I've even suggested, before, that Bytro makes a special Rant section of the forums (rated for 18+) where people can voice what they want without worrying about having their words censored or worse. Of course, that was shot down, too. And, even if there were an alternative forum, it'd be disallowed to even name it, probably, in this forum.
~0~
Anyway, I did mention that I actually won that match. What? With Gold, you think? NO! Though I did spend a little bit of Gold to stop another Golder -- earlier -- from nuking both of my primary nuke sites (he did a near-flawless simultaneous attack and I had to build some last-minute AA. But I didn't feel bad about spending some of my own hard-won Gold on that since he pretty much wiped out all my forward missile silos on his front with bombers galore...and he was using his own Gold to do all that, as well. But, he wasn't the primary Golding opponent, such as it were.
The other guy, we'll call him "Birthday Boy", spent copious amounts of Gold in the past several days. As a result of his insane spending, I went from having an army three times the size as anyone else, down to only having a competitively-sized army, equivalent to just one of my opponents. And, along the way, I was in full retreat, giving up ground across most of Eurasia...which I had only days before totally dominated.
So, how did I win, then? Simple. I appealed to Birthday Boy's humor and then reason. I joked with him about all the nukes and such. I told him I was pulling back everything....and he got tons of land for it. But then I explained how all the land wouldn't matter in his score when considering they were going for a coalition victory. I then convinced him to let me join his coalition since one of his mates abandoned....and so that way, I wouldn't have lost everything. I explained to him how his Gold prize...and everyone else's in his coalition...would be the same, either way. So, he went along with that. However, it took an extra couple days to convince his partners (one of whom had control of their coalition.
I told them how I worked so hard and had earned a spot in their coalition, and they consented, but not before the first lighter-Golder grabbed as much of my land as he could (apparently realizing that his stats would gain from the province captures). Still, I came away with a technical victory and a capital that was nearly invincible (except against Gold-bought nuclear missiles) with over 100 defensive units stacked in an uber fortress and another 50 or so en route.
~0~
Alas, what else could I do in the face of an uneven playing field? And that's why I'm not a fan of Gold. It isn't that it hurts the company. I have no desire to punish Bytro or any other company that uses premium points. Heck, I'm all for it on single-player games. But having it "pay to win" (as so many people call it), makes it so us poor folks have it extra difficult to pull off a victory. In that match which I just described, I was winning with guile, skill, strategy, cunning, and any other numerous mental adjectives and adverbs.
But when money was introduced into the equation, I became an instant loser. So, you have to ask yourself, "Why would anyone want to lose that way?" Now, I can tolerate a whole lot. I am fine with losing to others who outwit me. After all, who doesn't enjoy a good challenge? As unpleasant as it is, I can tolerate losing to sore winners and, heck, even the real asshole jerks who want to try to make you feel bad for losing.
I'm totally cool with losing. Losing is a part of life. I've lost at lots of things in my life. And it's not fun, but it's life. But to lose simply because I'm poor is about the lowest of bottom-feeding ways in which to lose in life. Who actually roots for the rich yuppy to win in life over the poor sap who works their butt off? Now, I'm no socialist, and, in fact, I'm actually quite a capitalist, in principle. But when some rich folks lord it over others, it galls me just as much as the next man.
So, when is this going to get fixed?
~0~
(*Note: I really was winning. Though I had about 2/5ths of the world and 2/5ths of the forces, I had K/D ratios nearly 2:1 against most of my opponents. In fact, had none of them cracked open their wallets, I probably would have it nearly to a 3:1 K/D ratio and 50% of the world, by now, having had a huge momentum right up until the Gold-spending went into high gear.)
It seemed like such a waste to destroy an entire battle station just to eliminate one man. But Charlie knew that it was the only way to ensure the absolute and total destruction of Quasi-duck, once and for all.
