Cybernations

[Kryptic]

I already made note of someone who has water/lumber in purple that isn't full on trades... I hope it'll still work out.

First I have to see who accepts and who doesn't.

[llearch n'n'daCorna]

Interesting how people keep wandering up.

How are you doing guys?

Are you seriously expansionist with your alliance or are you just a buch of guys watching each other's back?

The latter - just a bunch of guys watching each other's backs. :-)


Why? Did you want a mutually defensive alliance or something? :-)

This is from/to Solaris of Cherkovia.

[Tezkat]

So... who all is planning to help out our poor newbie?

I have to say, I'm eyeing her obscenely cheap tech prices with much avarice. (If I'm not mistaken, it'll cost her ~$400k for 30 Tech and ~$800k to buy a full 50 at once.)  As a wealthy, developed nation, it's my responsibility to exploit her third-world economy in exchange for financial support.

Anyways, I do have some cash in the bank to send. Maybe even lots of cash if she's interested sending a little tech back my way. Is anyone else planning on sending her stuff in the near future? I could bounce my aid package through you to speed things up...

[llearch n'n'daCorna]

Much the same,if he's willing.

Surely he should be interested in getting the right trades first, though? Gold would help a lot, especially if he starts buying up -large- chunks of tech...


I'd be interested in a clear hundred, if he'd do it for a cool 1.75 or so...

He could be making some serious money off that...

[Arcalane]

I am (slowly) amassing funds and could probably be persuaded to fling 100/200 k over.

[Tezkat]

Much the same,if he's willing.

Surely he should be interested in getting the right trades first, though? Gold would help a lot, especially if he starts buying up -large- chunks of tech...


I'd be interested in a clear hundred, if he'd do it for a cool 1.75 or so...

He could be making some serious money off that...

Um... I think you can only send 50 tech and/or $2 million in aid at once. Besides, going all the way from 0 to 100 in one shot would cost him almost $2.2 million. Remember, you can only buy tech in blocks of 10.

He's already got the gold, though (and I figured that into my calculations). We'll need to buy him a harbour to complete his trade set.

I am (slowly) amassing funds and could probably be persuaded to fling 100/200 k over.

Hmm... okay. I'll send my first batch through you then. If all goes well, expect it some time after update.

[llearch n'n'daCorna]

Um... I think you can only send 50 tech and/or $2 million in aid at once. Besides, going all the way from 0 to 100 in one shot would cost him almost $2.2 million. Remember, you can only buy tech in blocks of 10.

It's not like I've done massive trades, of course. :-]

And I'm happy to run it in two batches. -No- worries. Along with a bonus when he's done. :-]

[Tezkat]

Helpful information for would be techsploiters:

0-10 Tech: $95k
0-20 Tech: $238k
0-30 Tech: $409k
0-40 Tech: $599k
0-50 Tech: $808k
0-60 Tech: $1045k
0-70 Tech: $1292k
0-80 Tech: $1548k
0-90 Tech: $1834k
0-100 Tech: $2128k

I'm missing a few data points because of the cheat mode, but those should be within $10k or so of the actual values with Gold factored in. Of course, the second half of the table is largely meaningless if you can only send 50 Tech at once. It's in her best interest to drop himself back to zero with each shipment until we're done milking her.

I'll be aiming to pad each aid package by about half a mil. That should give her plenty to grow on and still be a very good deal for me.

[llearch n'n'daCorna]

so... 1.3 million for 50 levels?

That's above the "going" rate of 1.1 for 50, I'll admit. While being.. uh... well below the estimated 2.2 million I'd pay at my going rate of $43,829.40/level (so, it'd be a heck of a lot more by the time I got up there...)

Personally, I kinda want to push infrastructure up to catch up with you, Tez, but given your number of fanatic worshippers and banks and factories, I think I'm pushing it...

Oh, well. At least I can finally buy another bank. If I feel that way inclined, I might sell off the missile defence and buy another bank as well...

[Tezkat]

Well... the point of this operation was supposed to be newbie bumpage, not getting the best tech prices. As in... I was gonna give her half a million for free anyway. This way I just get something more than warm fuzzies in return.

Course... it would help if Kryptic dropped in to help us plan...


EDIT: Oops... just noticed that Kryptic's profile indicates that she's a girl...

[Kryptic]

It's okay. I've been called male on Gaia before when I had a female avatar and said blatant things about being female. I don't really care.

Alright - sorry about slacking off - all my planned trades have gone though, I have the Lumber/Water nation that I like in my notes.

As long as it's something to get me started, I'll be fine. I got your plan-thing Tezkat, and I plan on following it. 

I'll do this Technology thing - as long as you guys walk me though it first. I'm still a little confused.

Okay, a lot confused. But I'd be very willing to make a deal that helps everybody out.

[Tezkat]

Cool. If you have any questions, just ask.

As for the aid thing. Once you've purchased all the tech for me, you go to my nation and click on the Aid button to send me 50 tech. It's that simple.

You can only make one transaction every 10 days with each person, which is why I'm sending you my aid shipment via Arcatech instead of directly. You also have 4 aid "slots" to use every 10 days (so one shipment in and one shipment out uses up half of them). After you're done with me, there will be 2 left for llearch to use, if he's interested.

Oh... final note... I should have warned you more carefully, but... it's generally a good idea to stop collecting taxes as soon as you learn someone's going to send you aid (and have the cash to pay your bills until then). When you build up with aid money, the taxes from the previous days are retroactively boosted to the new level. You're probably only making around a few thousand a day now, but after the first boost from me, your daily collection will spike to like $40k.


Arc... I sent you $1.4 mil. Hopefully, you can add at least an extra $100k. I provided Kryptic with a plan that should just barely get her a factory and a harbour with that after buying my tech. Assuming my math is right this time, of course.

[llearch n'n'daCorna]

llearch is busy saving, or something. So it'll be a few days yet before I can fork over the cash.

I envy you your banks and factories, Tez. In a nice way, of course, but still...


How about I bounce 1.5 million straight to Kryptic, and Kryptic passes 50 tech to Kasarn, who passes 40 to me. Sound fair to all concerned?

Then we pull the same thing again in 10 days time.

It'll take me 5 days to save the cash, mind. And Kryptic, you should hold on to the spare cash until after the trade goes through, before you go buying more tech. If you're shifting off 50 levels, buy -just- 50 levels, send those, then buy the rest, since you'll get more bang for your buck, as it were.

[Kasarn]

It's fine by me.

[Arcalane]

Arc... I sent you $1.4 mil. Hopefully, you can add at least an extra $100k. I provided Kryptic with a plan that should just barely get her a factory and a harbour with that after buying my tech. Assuming my math is right this time, of course.

Bounced + 100k, for a total of 1.5mil.

EDIT: Plus I'm now to the point where I'm pulling 200k a turn. Expenses are roughly 65k at the moment.

[llearch n'n'daCorna]

It's fine by me.

Ya think?

You wanna do the same thing Arc is doing, or the way I suggested? Either is more or less fine by me, both will slow me down for a while, but my way spreads the growth, whereas Tezkat's way spreads the paying.

Either works. *shrug*

[Josh Massa]

I'm actually in need of lumber and oil. I have iron and uranium as my resources. Anyone interested in trading? (I'm on blue team)

[Kryptic]

Well, I just finished up with that first Aid. 50 Tech coming your way, Tez.

[llearch n'n'daCorna]

I'm actually in need of lumber and oil. I have iron and uranium as my resources. Anyone interested in trading? (I'm on blue team)

I don't think any of us has lumber and oil - I think we've got a lumber and aluminum, but no oil - and we're all purple.

And I think we're mostly maxed out on trades. Certainly Mr Wooden AL is.

[Josh Massa]

Ah, darn. I already have aluminum. Nation name is Apocolypse (yes I spelled it wrong when I made the account  )



EDIT - I hear your nations are very good and make a lot of money each day. Now not to be all "newbie" or anything, but my nation is only two months old. Do any of you think I can have some AID or something? 

[Tezkat]

Well, I just finished up with that first Aid. 50 Tech coming your way, Tez.

Thanks! Now if I could only figure out where the tech-to-infra sweet spot that improves my environment is...


All in all, that worked out pretty well. I'm happy to see my building plan was on the money this time.


Some tips for round 2 with llearch...

Save up turns (by not collecting taxes) if you can... at least right before receiving his package. That way, you'll have a second growth spurt after using the cash to buy new toys just by collecting taxes.

In a similar vein, you'd ideally want to still have the tech on your side at collection time before sending it out. 50 tech represents a fairly large income boost for a nation your size. It's a best of both worlds scenario--you'll be at 50 tech for income purposes, but back to 0 when it comes to buy more.

The basic plan of spending most of your spare cash on infra will continue to serve you well. That's pretty much what CN is about: infra, infra, and more infra! (Until you go to war, of course, but that's a different story. )

As far as improvements go, I'd continue to go all factories in your situation. It's by far the best bang for your buck with large nations raining aid down on you.

I'm actually in need of lumber and oil. I have iron and uranium as my resources. Anyone interested in trading? (I'm on blue team)

We're all on purple. Have you been using the trade finder? Blue is the second-largest team. There are like 54 nations with the resources you want, many of whom have open trading slots.

A better question might be why you want those resources. Oil is a pretty crappy resource unless you have everything else you need for Automobiles (which you don't). Lumber and Coal would at least give you Construction and Fine Jewelry (and a nice infra price improvement). It's a somewhat less common package, though.

EDIT - I hear your nations are very good and make a lot of money each day. Now not to be all "newbie" or anything, but my nation is only two months old. Do any of you think I can have some AID or something? 

Well... our top nations are a little busy in the aid department at the moment. As you can see in this thread, we're currently devoting the majority of our weekly incomes to bootstrapping a new member (and boosting our alliance's tech levels ). That's likely to go on for another few weeks until we get her established. We might be able to work you in somewhere...

If I might add... your nation configuration is a bit strange. You're geared up for heavy fighting (to the point that you're sacrificing serious income for combat buffs and gear) and have a lot of tech for your infra level, but you don't have a history of conflict.

How's your alliance working out for you? Are they heavy warmongers or something?

[Josh Massa]

PLUS is a pretty darn wacky alliance actually. I've only been part of them for about a month and they have already wanted me to help in about 6 wars. I just have high military powers because people have threatened to attack me for no reason, so I want to make sure I would be able to defend myself if they were to go through with their threats.

[Kryptic]

Heh - I wonder if anyone in the game has higher Efficiency than me.

Right after Tezkat's Aid, I was at a little over 400 efficiency, now I'm at 303. >,<

[llearch n'n'daCorna]

I don't have the cash yet, but I will tomorrow.

Watch for incoming Aid, Kryptic. It should be a cool mil and a half, and if you can pass on 50 levels of tech to Kasarn, that'd be appreciated.

By Kasarn, at least. :-]

I leave it to you to sort out what you're going to do with your abundance of cash. :-]

[Kryptic]

Thankies - I'll figure out something. Probably just more infra & soldiers.

And, uh, bills. Stupid Bills.

But it informed me today that my nations a week old and I get +2 population happiness today. Dude - I don't think they can get much happier without their brains exploding or sacrificing themselves to their almighty queen Yggdrasil. 

Er, uh. Thanks again.

[llearch n'n'daCorna]

Aim for more than 20%, but less than 60% soldiers to citizens - I usually hang around 1/3rd.

If you hit anything above, you get unhappy citizens. If you hit below, you get anarchy, and unhappy citizens, plus you can't do anything about it for three days...

[Kryptic]

Would it be wise to invest in a Foreign Ministry? School? Or maybe just stick with Factories?

Hrrm.

[Arcalane]

Stadiums and Banks.

[Tezkat]

Heh - I wonder if anyone in the game has higher Efficiency than me.

Right after Tezkat's Aid, I was at a little over 400 efficiency, now I'm at 303. >,<

During the third great server war, I saw a number of people drop $20 game donations and/or $2 million aid packages on newborn nations. That put their efficiency ratings up into the thousands, if only for the first day or two...

But it informed me today that my nations a week old and I get +2 population happiness today. Dude - I don't think they can get much happier without their brains exploding or sacrificing themselves to their almighty queen Yggdrasil. 

Oh yeah... that's a useful thing to consider in terms of aid timing. You get a temporary +2 Happiness birthday bonus on days 8, 15, 31, and so on. When you're saving up turns anyway, that's another thing that can boost your income when you finally do collect taxes. I'll aim to get you your second package sometime before your second week birthday party.

Would it be wise to invest in a Foreign Ministry? School? Or maybe just stick with Factories?

Hrrm.

Factories are far superior at this stage. Most of your income is not your own, after all, so you want to improve purchasing power rather than revenue generation. Later on, you can switch to stadiums and/or banks, depending on your per capita income.

As for the foreign ministry... that's something you can get eventually if you want to do a lot more tech trading with the rest of the alliance. However, there are only two of us providing the bulk of the aid, so a pair of in-out transactions every 10 days should suffice for now. Both llearch and I have foreign ministries if there's a need to spread stuff around.

[llearch n'n'daCorna]

I guess I aim next for 31? Or should I hit ~20 and then 31, for the next two aid packages?