Poll: Cropping. Dirty play or fair game?

Question: Do you think that cropping someone is dirty tactics or a valid strategy?

background: Cropping, for the sake of this discussion, is either (a) attacking an opponents city that doesn't have any troops exposed, but that has a declining crop supply, and/or (b) attacking a crop oasis in attempt to push someone into a declining crop situation or hasten the declining crop. The net effect of either/both of these attacks is to starve the opponents hunted troops and expose them for attack.

please reply with your opinion, as well as your server number. I'm curious to see if there is a big difference on the subject in various servers.

[redgun]

Fair game. If a player can handle the consequences of cropping anoter then by all means Dø it. Is not nice when they crop someone but complain when they get mass attacked afterwards.

Just my opinion ^

my response:
Server 13.

I have been playing for 3 months but only recently built up a huge army. With that army, I was eager to get into some battles, so I decided to starve some people as I have seen the topic discussed on the forum. Within a few hours, I had a slew of foes and friends telling me that this tactic was dirty and out of line, receiving a number of attacks/threats from heavy hitters. I stopped.

I decided to sacrifice most of my army by attacking a level 10 fort. There's no point in keeping a big force if you can't use it. Are other servers like this?

cropping is fair game, this is a war game after all, think of it as putting a city under siege and not allowing supplies through. on s23 i have developed a system of helping players to rebuild after i take large amounts of prestige of them, this is a vicious circle but hey thats life. its become accepted on s23 as part of the game, everyone has got wiser and now uses cavs to take oasises a long way away from there army and learnt to split there army to make it easier.

fair game ;p

[Backburner]

This actually depends on which server you are from, on the older servers cropping is highly frowned upon and generally considered taboo, I have known people whom felt obliged to boot members from their alliance after cropping have been used.

On the newer server this is more relaxed as the newer players started the game later and gotten used to cropping being used on various pvp tournaments. So you are alot more likely to experience cropping there.

You will usually find that the older players whom started on s1 are much less likely to use cropping tactic and stick to what they consider fair play.

In my opinion, cropping is a valid tactic in the game, but I would never use it myself unless someone tries it on me first. To me, cropping have a lot more disadvantages than advantage.

While it is easier to obtain prestige, to me when someone's army starve home after cropping it would mean that a large chunk of potential prestige have been lost due to starvation. You can catch someone for 50k+ if you get their full army but you will maybe get around 15k if you crop them. I know plenty of top players who gains prestige very fast without the need for cropping.

Secondly, the overuse of cropping causes new players whom have just started to quit, I have seen this happen on a number of servers, to me, this is just unwise as you're actively killing your own server as well as the gaming experience.

Lastly, the retaliation, as soon as you crop people, people will crop you, I have also seen this happen a number of times, big alliances thinking they can crop the smaller alliance for prestige but end up with half the server coming after them with constant cropping and fort stealing.

Simply put, cropping is an effective tactic but way more trouble than it's worth.

Cropping <3

thats all im gonna say

Cropping <3

thats all im gonna say

Which servers are you on?

I'm on s13. I believe cropping to be just a part of the game, just as stealing forts or taking out pr left in an oasis. It is a war game after all and the way to enjoy the most out of it is to fight. I know many people who disagree and just want peace but then, they only use this app as a glorified yahoo messenger.

Cropping is a great way to test a player’s strength and to start little personal wars when you get bored. I agree that a lot of newer players leave the game when this happens but if they can't handle the heat then how long were they gonna play before they went inactive anyway? I personally have never been cropped because 1) I maxed scout first so my warehouse numbers are invisible and 2) I'm not a silly goofball who takes oasises next to his cities. If your crop numbers are hidden and your oasises hard to find then 9 times outta 10 no one will go through the trouble. By the time someone could find all my crop oasises I would have already started getting new ones.

It ain't dirty play, its smart play against lazy opponents.

Math

What Backburner said is both eloquent and true. We S1 people frown upon it. In my alliance, when I cropped someone, I was roundly chastised for it, and swore the act off for the duration. Cropping is regarded a cowardice.

Other servers? If that's your thing, more power to you.