Are there just plain nOObs playing oiler and making the market so fked up due to their nOObness, or is it a few people doing it purposely?

I'm wondering cuz I played oiler this set and it was horrid.

the only way I see oiler is going to get somewhere in this game is for the attack mechanism to be tweaked to require more oil than now. at least 3x of the current rate.

Most run some oil rigs just to accommodate the hits.. suiciders in most instant need next to nothing when you want to finish the countries off.

also the possibility of 150 countries using/needing oil in a massive scale.. is also very low.

oh yea.. loads of nooblets as well.

that's my take.

I ran oiler before I left and it wasn't nearly as bad as I saw this past set, it was truly bad as if done purposely :-(

1 barrel should only support 10 units instead of 25.

Agreed, oiler strat is pointless at this point.

They changed the units per barrel formula from what it was a year ago?

Only newbs ever play oiler I thought.

No they didn't, in fact they nerfed the fascist oil production bonus so there'd be even less oil on the market (thus theoretically making it more expensive).

Interesting, wow, that's got me scratching my head now, ya blid, gotta be the nOOblet factor, my best finish ever in xpress (20ish) was as an oiler/farmer hybrid, one of those sets where oil was selling over $170 most of the set and peaking at over $300 several times, If I was 100% oiler I would have been way better finisher, well I dunno, this week I'm going to Montana again and forget about grabbing anything, might have to do all x something :/

montana is beautiful. i can't wait for my first visit there (no plans, but brother? I got plans!)

Nerfing Facist Oil production doesn't make the strat better because there's less oil, it makes the strat worse because theres less oil produced from that one person whilst non-Facists's still make the same amount of oil.

One issue is that you can buy oil for like 400 or less from ur priv and this caps the ceiling pretty hard.

Also theres no wars thus not needed as much oil. Oil should support less units really.

Livingston area is stunning, take Hwy 89 South following the Yellowstone river cutting thru the mountains towards the national park and you will reach paradise :-)

That's all true but the idea was that it'd buff oiler. Obviously it encourages commies etc to just produce their own (if the prices actually do go up... if they stay low, then just buy the cheap oil. Either way, oilers lose)

If non-Fascists are making oil, then they aren't being optimal with their country build. Those rigs could have been buildings for their main strat instead. It is an oiler buff, since non-oilers either have to pay more for oil, OR play non-optimally to have to make their own oil.

So you mean it helps oilers not by really helping oilers but by hurting everyone else. Only thing is, a farmer and a commie have a pretty low threshold where making their own oil is superior anyway. Say turrets are selling for $135. That's a $121.5 take for a commie and 1 acre makes 1.86 * 1.35 * 1.5 turrets = 3.77 turrets, so the commie is making about $457.6 per acre. Rigs produce 2 barrels/turn. 457.6 / 1.1 / 2 = $208. Even before this change there have been periods in *most* Primary resets (not Express though) where oil exceeds this price. Here's the last three resets before the change, for example:
http://www.eestats.com/primary/oldmarket/435
http://www.eestats.com/primary/oldmarket/416
http://www.eestats.com/primary/oldmarket/396
So it was *already* borderline 'optimal' for a commie to be carrying some oil rigs of their own. Therefore increasing oil prices more only really would be wringing more oil out of cashers and techers a bit, and in exchage though maybe convincing more commies & farmers to keep some rigs, so I'd argue whether or not it helps fascist oilers at all, especially noting the actual 25% production mark down.

Also I kind of wonder if "helping by hurting" logic holds up completely for an oiler. Say oil on the public market had a $1500 floor. Everyone would always make their own oil. Therefore despite the ultra high price oilers would have no income. Obviously that's an extreme example that might not really hold up in a more practical case and I don't feel like thinking about it right now. But it does make me question the 'helping by hurting' philosophy, even if it drags everyone else down it doesn't necessarily mean it lifts the oiler up at all, and I think there's a distinction between depressing the scores of others and actually successfully making oiler 'competitive' at all.

Not really. You have failed to take into account 2 things:
1. Cost to build said rigs. If the player actually built them (so this can be $0 if he didn't build any).
2. Cost to rebuild said rigs. This rebuild cost rises the longer he waits to do so on larger acres.

It takes way more than $208 oil to break even. If he waits until he grows an extra 10000 acres to rebuild 1 rig, that extra 10000 costs him an extra 10000*3*1.2 = $36000 dollars (ignoring the exponential portion of the building cost formula). If it took 6 days to gain that 10k acres, then $36000/(6*54) = $111 per turn. SO it would take $319 oil to break even - if he chose to delay tearing down the rigs. And we know it's going to be higher than this, because the build cost formula is exponential.

And even then, Techers and Cashers shouldn't hold rigs at all, as their income is %land based on the strat's building types.

It does work though. Consider the resets where the overall tech prices on the market are extremely high (and all other prices are the same). Due to slower growth rates of all countries as a consequence, the top 10 finishing NWs are much lower than if the whole reset had overall low tech prices.

The same applies to oil, but to a much lesser extent. More expensive oil (and same prices for everything else) leads to slower growth for everyone (though its not significant enough because oil demand is way lower than tech demand in general, and oil prices downright doesn't affect all-explorers) - except oilers.

Yeah, tech is different from oil so it doesn't help oilers in the same way.

And I dunno about the first thing, I was thinking of indies/farmers just grabbing oilers and leaving the rigs up. Interesting numbers on the cost of delaying conversion though, I hadn't considered that. but then again, money has a greater value now than later with an upward spiral effect.

Next set primary name: Upward Spiral

Leech Hunter From Hell :p

Like I said, decrease units sent per oil, increase Facist production.

Ah TDA, when I saw you made the last post I expected something more stimulating than that