I dont think opening up news to public shows market sales, which it should, but anyway, i put my tech for $1k (and didnt even have any of the techs you mention, only had bus/res/mil, so it's impossible for me to have done what you say), and my military I sold for $155 and $156. i didnt sell anything for a particularly high price.

http://www.earthempires.com/express/206/ranks/95

so no, i didnt do anything to "even the field"

hah! the flip side of that is that i only ran 100k turrets until the last 24-30 hours (low expenses). vic and dogmilk made their hits hurt, which sucked, but that's the price of doing business i guess.

fun strat, esp when you dont have time to play. i was out of town for the weekend seeing my brother/niece and going to a mbv show with a friend. theres probably potential to squeeze a bit more net out of it, without the rough hits, selling military for more, and if my last tech sales reached the market on time.

winning as an all-exp isn't really up to you because if someone runs a 30m country youre out of luck. turns out this time the one guy who ran one did not do it legit so kinda cool for me