OK, I'm sure that everyone will concede that a landgrab is a valid method of obtaining much needed resources for your country and no one disputes this. However, there is that unwritten "Rule" that most people follow of what the ramifications of a landgrab are.

Most people subscribe to the idea that a landgrab when conducted only once is not a "hostile" act by one country against another, and most everyone will agree that a strike back, or retal is something to be risked as a consequence of a landgrab.

Some want to make them punishable using various and sundry methods that are almost guaranteed to benefit the "larger" country, by and large. For example, the people who claim what is defined as a "Land:Land" retal system for "violations" of the "rule" that you should play the game by "bottomfeeding" because hitting a country in your scores list for land should be discouraged for some inexplicable reason. Thus enabling the "landgrabee" to be able to repeatedly hit the aggressor country multiple times until he has achieved enough land recovery as what he ostensibly lost. I take a simpler view of this situaion. I believe in 1:1 retals, if a retal is even justified.

A second method a acquiring resources is to steal them from another country, such as raiding food supplies or oil, or banks, or stealing tech, etc. For some reason, just like in real life, players get all crazy when this is done to them. There is something about financial crime that irks a lot of people, very much. And thus, the penalties for doing this and getting caught are genearally extreme. And I can understand that to a large degree because I myself nave tormented players by stealing a few turns of tech every day for an entire set in express and I know that they had to be getting very frustrated that I hadn't been caught doing it.

In my book, it was a valid method of acquiring tech resources and I could always sell the excess tech that I stole on the market. This was especially profitable after converting to a farmer from a techer. So I could Steal a LOT of tech per turn. In some cases, I could steal more than I could produce myself per turn.

Anyone else venture to have a say on this subject?

http://www.earthgraphs.com/...iBRUNO&warreport=Show

It all depends on what your goal is. If you want to win then generally bottom feeding and hitting people that can't or won't retal is the way to go. If you want to poss people off or just be generally annoying you can steal and topfeed. Someone can prove me wrong but I don't remember the last time a top feeding spy heavy spy opper has won express.

Never has Never will. Poor players like Cerbert always dream about a game where hitting the top counties makes sense and where they can assert theiyre will thruough spies and tanks. Doesnt work that way in reality my friend. #keepdreaming

Sherbet is a garbage player. I whooped him so bad in the FFA 1v1 I posted above (he had the FS lol) that he raged on the forums that I was cheating.

It was fun. maybe he wants to do it again.

I don't think there are any rules outside of what one can enforce. It's much harder to enforce a strict policy on a solo server. There are intelligent spots to grab in both directions, it's a matter of having the skill to identify and act on them when the opportunity is there to do so.

I love these types of convos... from experience, I would say it depends on the server,

However on solo servers in general 1:1 retal. Personally I feel if you go around land grabbing smaller countries and they succeed in retaling your land grab then it is over regardless of who got what. Land grabbing in express is truly a gamble because it allows players to store a major amount turns. The latter is a dimension that some land grabbers forget, what it basically does is allow a player to play 300+ turns with lower expenses and stockpile enough cash to buy oil and military for a retal. With a successful spyop they can adjust their military and weapons tech accordingly, and a good player will for the most part walk away with more land then what was taken from them.

The objective of a retal is to make sure you get more land back than what was taken, and a retal when done correctly is supposed to hurt. The very nature of a retal in most case will be a smaller country hitting a bigger country, because the bigger country usually 2-3x larger initiated the acts of aggression. In express those who do landgrab are counting on players not retalling, and to maintain their game play for a better finish. Things can go a bit crazy if a player loses sight of that goal, or realizes it is unreachable. Land grabbing should, does, and will always carry a risk, to go out land grabbing on a solo server expecting no risk, is dumb in my opinion. Especially on a server like express, where the amount of turns stored gives the advantage to those who would seek to take retals.

There was an old rule in E2025, the land you take only counts if you can keep it... diplomacy and playing style weighs heavily in what others will let you keep. Someone that does a few land grabs here and there, sends a private message out, only hits countries once in a reset, and picks their own target vs. targets in DR, will usually do better in keeping the land they take.