When Azzer left Astroempires. Many of us tried bushtarion for the first time, this round. Of the 7 people from my AE alliance that tried it, I'm the only one who stayed.
My Alliance gets mauled badly. I get 0'd every other night because it's hard to have night cover, and being a working person with a family, I can't stay up all night. Heh, the wife wasn't too pleased when I brought the netbook and phone into the bedroom and got texted 3 times that night. Heh. Sleep mode seems like a good idea, but the use of it is discouraged in my alliance. So I continue to get 0'd every other night, and learn that any BCs i spend on game cash (which is also looked down on) is basically wasted...because I get 0'd again soon after. But I buy bush cash because I can afford it, and it allows me to help my alliance in defends and attacks..which is where the fun and entertainment lie. I also bought BCs so I could buy purchase units for other folks in my guild who could not afford it.
The stigma around BCs and sleep mode...make me feel dirty and disingenuous...and I've now been zeored enough that I resolve not to spend BCs on game cash anymore. It's not worth it.
I can say that we recently got into a war. We tried to get help from a loose NAP that we had with another allaince...whichi didn't work out to well. And the Alliance that we were at war with had help from at least 3 other alliances. That's good for the folks who get 0'd by the "helper" alliances (they get insurance). But bad for folks who get 0'd by the actual warring alliance (like me). I'm still sorting out my feelings on this..like any war, there are allies, and this is understandable..but I think that once war is declared, 30-45% attacks shouldn't be allowed by alliances that are not directly declared in the war. I spent 30 bucks last week (because war was declared) and got zeroe'd that night lol. (No insurance either). And 70% of the attackers were not in the alliance that declared..and many were attacking with HUGE armies at 30-35% range. There is something flawed about the way war is handled.
So I've basically had to start over. This being my first round, it's still fun to learn. I don't really know anything different than the powerblocks. I don't get all the names that refer to the lack of "Of" in this round, quite frankly they annoy me.:mrgreen:
One thign that might be cool... is that if you get 0'd by someone from an alliance that you are at war with, you can choose to come back with as a different route, and keep whatever land you had at the time of your zeroing and being able to choose some researches that you would liek to transfer to the new route. We were very vulnerable to RPGs, for example...and it would be nice to come back as a different route, with a little head start (i.e. having the land and all your research done). You could sstill make it so that the purchase unit would have to be bought..then perhaps you would have another avenue of cashflow besides BCs for game cash.
AS this is my first round, take everything I've said with a grain of salt, but I figured I might as well put a brain dump on here, since it seems like Azzer would read it.
Thanks for reading!
Edit; Regardign sleep mode...perhaps the use of it should be restricted during war time (i.e. durign war you can only go into sleep mode for 24 hours or more). This might help reduce the stigma of using it for folks... like for getting a good night's sleep before a big presentation at work or something.
A VERY good post from a new player.
True about BCs being a waste of money and no more will I be spending while the game is like it is (private me and I will tell you how much I have spent on this game trying to grow and defend ally members).
The game is dying from:
Powerblock (and I have been in some).
Cheaters (and I have been in some and he who shall not be named turns a blind eye).
Lack of morals.
1. Get rid of eta+2 for top 200 players.
2. Bring back A-NAPs for alliances being bashed.
3. Balance the routes. Robos now rule. Spec Ops is useless. Bikers back to ETA 4.