The @drugwars team has been writing an update post every day and continues constant development. This project shows very good initiative. Perhaps too good of an initiative!

Call me crazy. Maybe it's just my delusions of grandeur and persecution kicking in, but is the @drugwars team reading my blog and reacting to it?

A month ago I brought up DrugWars (TI-83 version) and how it would be a good adaptation for Steem. A week later development began.

I wrote a "strategy guide" explaining how to exploit the system, with a Sybil attack that involved buying level one Cocina on multiple accounts. Yesterday, @drugwars announced they would increase the cost of the Cocina upgrade.

I wrote that "The Heist is for suckers," and today they are doing a special event where the Heist is worth just as much as the main payout. Going forward the Heist will double in value from 1% to 2%, while the main payout will get reduced from 7% to 6%.

drugwars-news-referrals-sunday-event-and-some-other-updates

Now, I'm not going to make the claim that my analysis of the game is groundbreaking or anything. It wasn't hard to come to these conclusions. However, I can't help but feel like the community has a strong voice when it comes to @drugwars development. This is a great thing.

At first, I thought maybe I should just keep my mouth shut and play exploit the game to the fullest. I was pretty annoyed when I saw that the Heist was buffed and the main payout was nerfed. I was basing my entire strategy on the current rule-set.

However, transparency is key. Would I rather have a broken game that I can exploit for a few months and then dissipates into obscurity? Or do I want a game with long lasting staying power with real strategy that players can profit from? The question is painfully rhetorical and obvious, and so, I will continue to be transparent.

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How much do I stand to gain from obscuring my activity and exploiting this system to the fullest? $10?

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Strategy update:

I continue to run my six accounts. The two newest accounts, @lottoshi, and @irated, are primed to get both Level 2 Industrial Distillery & 3D Metal Printing.

On all of my accounts I opted to get level 2 weapons and alcohol production before focusing back on drug production. I've taken a big temporary hit to my drug production with the intention of catapulting my accounts much farther ahead than if I had rushed drug production.

I already had way too much drug production and many of my resources were going straight into the Heist. Eventually, this seemed like a big waste, because the Heist just gives you a one-time payout and doesn't increase the strength of your account. Whereas if you use all your resources to level up your production buildings you can get a bigger share of the daily payout permanently.

This is a very interesting development. At first, I was very annoyed that the Heist payout was being buffed to 2% and the main payout nerfed to 6%. Then I realized that this is a great spread. The Heist is going to have even more competition and incentive to invest drugs into it. This means that many more accounts are going to burn resources for short-term gains while I attempt to take bigger long-term steps by increasing my daily production.

When you think about it, the 100% reward gain of the Heist possibly trumps the 14% reward loss on drug production. Sure, we'll be getting 14% less base rewards on the main payout, but the incentives have changed; meaning less accounts are going to be in competition for the main reward, and more people will be in competition for rewards that offer only a short-term one-time payout. It's not ridiculous to think that a development like this might actually help players like me get a bigger return on the main payout in the long run, while at the same time make users who value the Heist happy as well. Win-win.

Tomorrow, the bottom four of my six accounts will have 50k drug production per day and 100k weapons/alcohol production. The 50K drug production comes from my base buy of level 2 cocina and level one pharma lab for Steem, so four of my accounts haven't acquired any extra drug production in 4 days. Instead, I've been leveraging my initial build (50k/0.2k/35k) into the 50k/100k/100k spread I have now.

I've spent 19.8 Steem on each of my alt accounts. Even without increasing my drug production yet, after three payouts I've already gotten back 9.6 Steem with another payout due within the hour. It becomes very clear to me that my return of investment here is going to be pretty damn good. In two days, all of my accounts will get level 2 Pharma Lab for free, increasing my drug production by 50% (and, in effect, my payouts). With such high rates of weapon/alcohol production it's going to be very easy for me to progress quickly to level 3 and 4.

The nice thing about my main account is that it paves the way for the rest. I get to see what's coming, and if I make any mistakes I begin to refine my strategy for my other accounts that come in the wake of those errors.

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https://staging.drugwars.io/#!/ref/@edicted

Shout out to @solarwarrior, @teutonium, and @protegeaa for using my referral code. @solarwarrior's account is giving me an estimated payout of 0.537 Steem, implying that his account is farming twice as many drugs as mine. He's raking in 200k drugs per day with a daily reward of 10.7 Steem... like a boss.

Hopefully we can all create a gang and try to leverage that cooperation into even more gains.

#winning