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[windhound]

Alright twits.

Disabling vacation would probably be the simplest, but I like the idea of a simple land leak.  Would prevent people from locking the land and taking it into vacation via idle-out -- just takes, what, 7 days? 
On reg that's two skipped runs.

Solution-ish:
Add together the land in the current top ten, divide by 10, and use that as the goal.  Currently that would be around 60k, so not a burden on the average player. 
When you go into vacation you lose a certain percentage of your land per day until you're below the goal.  Land given to the land farm.
Make it so it takes 0.1% per turn cycle so its a slow leak

So a relevant example:
200,000 acres taken into vacation
200 acres lost first turn cycle
Down to 173k first day
Down to 150k second
Down to 130k third
Down to 112k fourth
Down to 97k fifth
Down to 84k sixth
Down to 73k seventh
Down to 64k eighth
And would be at 60k on the ninth day, to fall no further unless the average land in to top 10 changes.

Feel free to correct my maths, I wrote a quick excel macro 'cause its what I had open:

Code Select Expand

Sub PartSum()
Dim count As Integer
count = 144
While (count > 0)
    Cells(1, 1) = Cells(1,1) - (Cells( 1,1)*.001)
    count = count - 1
Wend
End Sub

So 9 days to normalize.  Fair enough?
Game code wise, it should be maybe 5 lines in turns.php

[Sharptooh]

That's a clever solution, but it sounds to me like it's an over complicated solution for a simple problem, it still wouldn't solve the land problem completely either (you could still successfully lock large amounts of land for a few days)

[Shadow]

Stamp of approval.

[windhound]

Oh I donno Sharpy
Its not very complicated, it really should be just a few lines to turns.php which runs every 10 min (hands out turns, does some cleanup, etc).

>pull top ten land values, divide by 10
>store goal
>load players
>while there are still players to check
>>if player land > goal
>>>landfarm land = landfarm land + (player land * .001)
>>>player land = player land - (player land * .001)

You can still take land out of the game, but once in vacation you're stuck for 3 days (iirc).  So you if you take 200k acres into vacation, you will lose 70k by the time you can sign in again.  Meanwhile you haven't gained any turns.  It prevents people from idling out with insane amounts of land as well, as you're going to lose quite a bit very quickly.

I'm happy to consider other options.  Land leak seems one of the better as far as fairness and simplicity (it doesn't affect anyone other than those with above average land).
I could just give abusers one week bans, but that leaves room for complainers and false positives. 
Removing the option to put yourself on vacation means people will have to wait 7 days, but if they can keep the land that long they're home free -- and have full turns for whenever they feel like signing in again.
Judging by the current behavior just leaving it as-is isn't a great option.

Other ideas?
Reasons why Land Leak is a bad idea? 

I'll try to get it working tonightish, and pending objections I'll implement it on Friday afternoon.  You twits hiding land via vacation have a lag time before its implemented so you can come out and play fairly.

[Shadow]

I thought of something like this earlier, but my idea was simply to cut off land immediately to the average once they clicked go into vacation, and then not take any away if they idled out. I like your way better, no reason not to reintroduce idle land to the game as well. When this does go in, though, the game will be flooded with land. We'll see how that changes things.

When you do implement it be careful: you'll have to delete for each building type individually, including freeland, and then add the total destroyed to the farm. Nothing more complicated, but just a few more lines than what you have above.

[Gen. Volkov]

I like the land leak idea as well, though I agree with Shadow, you do need a bit more code than was posted, and you need to make sure it only affects those in vacation. Don't want active players randomly losing land.

[Wolf Snare]

Or we can steal your cash, buy your food, steal your cash again, buy your food again, and then we when have all your food and cash, sell all your food for more cash, and buy out the markets, setting one of us up as emp.

baaaaaaaaaahahahahaha. cute.

[Wolf Snare]

They're after me lucky charms!

Time   Event
14.8 hours ago   The Hounds of Ulster (#7) attacked you!   You held your defense and your enemy was repelled, but you lost:
3,237,620 Rats
You managed to destroy:
636,841 Rats

[Firetooth]

Double posting, reported.

[Drakus]

Finally, some game action!

[Gen. Volkov]

Well, had to see how many rats you had, didn't I?

[Drakus]

Yeah yeah, volkov. I didn't think you would attack...might have to break you...

[Wolf Snare]

Time   Event
6.1 hours ago   Sharptooth (#27) attacked you!   You held your defense and your enemy was repelled, but you lost:
5,364,304 Rats
You managed to destroy:
7,972,841 Rats
6.1 hours ago   You find Sharptooth (#27) attempting to view your army!

ohnoes!

[Firetooth]

Is this your idea of heckling? How cute. :P

[Gen. Volkov]

Yeah yeah, volkov. I didn't think you would attack...might have to break you...

I'm guessing you are either "The Saber Truth" or "Savanaux the Terrible". Or possibly Kaz, I don't really care. You're all cannon fodder Snare or Sevz recruited, and wouldn't know a decent strategy if it hit you in the face. Agency has just spent the last day reaming the lot of you because you are on low health with no leaders. So I would just shut it if I were you. I never expected to break Snare, I was just trying to get a feel for how many rats he had, as I couldn't spy him. You, on the other hand, I could wreck in half a run, if I cared.