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, timing exploring better, 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