Wanted to start by saying that I will vote no for half price noble packets. I've agreed with everything MK's said to this point, so until now I've felt no reason to post since I'd pretty much only be copying. But now, SG, you've brought up a point drawn from the past that MK has not had the chance to experience. I've had a much wider range of worlds, starting areas, success and failure, so I wanted to address some points that thus far were unanswered.
You are a rim player. I am a core player. We grew up differently. I remember W16 in far more dangerous, exciting and chaotic days... when 60 tribes were struggling neck-and-neck for dominance and no one had the luxury of hiding behind continents (or even mere fields) of safe territory. There was danger in every direction, and you dared not noble faster than you could populate armies to protect your captures.
I know the feeling, while most worlds I joined and played as a noob (even in this one), I learned as I went. Finally, I felt as if I'd finally felt as if I'd established myself as a well rounded player in W39. There I got the chance to experience life in the core, fighting with players like Onaryc/Cyrano, Boske, Norach, Randalthor (ex-Hippos if you remember him SG) and against others such as Pervis, Devil, PP, and AI. I'd have to say that in W39, it was the equivalent of two Hippos joining the world. We were fighting each other for the spot as top dog, but other tribes were trying to take shots at us too. Though I've quit now, I still remember those frantic days of trying to snipe trains sent from an hour or two away, dodging and backtiming nukes, all starting with
single villages. So rather than coordinating with some of your friends to take some villages from a single player, you had a couple of players willing to sacrifice their offense just so a single tribemate could take a single village. And though my tribe lost that war, I emerged having not lost nothing more than a lot of sleep. So I too know this feeling, if not more so.
When I took 20 villages in a month, and I had 40 to start with, I was growing 50% a month! Not like now when I have 600 and take 30 a month = 5% gowth. I feel stagnant. :icon_sad:
Want to switch places? I'm taking much less than that per month. Despite high inactivity, LSHRV is putting up a great fight and doing whatever they can to prevent us from taking their villages. Franco going inactive in the middle of our territory was a blessing just to see my score rise daily for around a week.
C² is at WAR. Against an opponent that might have been able to make-or-break you! And are any of Raven's noble packets assisting in the war effort? No, possibly just troops; where is the glory of conquest? Of battle? During the Euthanasia/PnX war, a Plight player of comparable size to Raven (DiveKing) launched himself from K29 all the way to K05 to participate in the war. Many worthy victories did he achieve, and he is still growing strong in battle. DiveKing is but one of many tribe mates who summoned the courage to make the same six-continent-journey to join the war! ... to participate with his team Euthanising the "lazy and grossly incompetent players" that deserved to put out of their W16 misery.
I think this is more a question of playing style preference. Take chess for example. There are two main playing styles: positional and attacking. Positional is a slower paced game, dedicated more towards strategy and slowly weakening your enemy while gaining strength. It's often slow, but safer. The other, attacking, is just what it sounds like. A player throws everything they have at the opponent and tries to win quickly in a spectacular display. This can result in a quick, decisive victory, but it can also cause the attacker to lose just as quickly. It's the same here. To me, Raven is the more positional player, taking barbs, even though he dislikes it, and building them up so that he can use the troops for the betterment of the tribe. Dive was the attacking player in this situation, launching himself half way across the world to join the fight. He was obviously successful in this and benefited from his decision.
D'oh! Now it all sinks in. I guess that combination of quotes did, indeed, shed light on why you and I view the world differently. I prefer to Euthanise, not assimilate. Such a task requires nobles to be used to conquer, instead of resulting in a noble surplus.
Just had to poke a little fun at you here SG with simple stats.
Plight members: 80
C2 members: 72
So who's the one assimilating again?
True. Same "players," but playing different accounts, without spending the nobles required to conquer each village. Swap small players into the large quitters and noble out only the small player. It is, as you put it, an effective management strategy. It keeps the old, loyal player around and it drastically boosts his account size, without having to do battle or to use many nobles. The trade off? Personal pride, perhaps. I could not say. I would not care to go by any other identity than Seagryfn, even if I could become more powerful by "swapping." Do I really want to ruin that sense of pride and achievement by making the game easier? I like that it's difficult, since it gives me a better feeling if I succeed (on my own merits).
Again, here's another example that I've personally experienced. You are absolutely right in your reasoning SG. When Adam and the old Crosa approached me asking that I take over the account, I was at first hesitant. The size and location, great though they were, of the account didn't really matter to me. I took a lot of pride in what I'd done on the Jurasu account in game. It was the one I was known as, and I knew that I'd done it all myself. And then suddenly I was asked to give all that away to take over what someone else had started. At one point, I almost decided on saying no.
The one thing that made up my mind to take over the account was the thought that doing so was not for me, but for the tribe. The then ~3m Crosa account was much more important than the ~1m Jurasu account, and that's what convinced me to do it.
@Truscott - That's probably a problem of resource mismanagement on your part. I can build whatever I may need in my villages, queue troops for days and still store ~1k packets per day (full farms contributes to this since they don't use resources for anything else). But this also acts as a point for why I don't want half prices packets. I can train nearly 2 nobles per day.