Revitalizing Ikariam

    Hello guys,

    I think we all agree that Ikariam needs a good bath in the fountain of youth to regain its former glory.

    But since the whereabouts of the fountain is, unfortunately, unknown we need something else, we need a clear vision and another thing that I like very much: a Plan



    My plan is very simple, it's divided into 3 parts:

    1. Addressing the issues we face in the game; unbalanced and outdated mechanics, exploits, bugs as well as adding much needed new features and laying down the foundation for easy embarking for new players. Also fixing the monetization part of the game because I think the game has a higher potential when it comes to earning money and if done correctly this will actually adress some of the most notorious issues the game is facing.


    2. Extending game reach: This one is mainly on Gameforge because we will need a good Mobile Application, it's not uncommon for a browser game to have a good mobile app, unlike the old Ikariam app. A good example would be "Rise of Cultures" by InnoGames which has an app and a browser version that are pretty much the same, or "Call of War" by Bytro Labs which has a mobile app that's a bit different and, to be honest, inferior to the browser version but is very functional, actually I think their Android app is just a browser that loads a mobile version of the game's website and implements mobile rewarded Ads.

    By the way both of these companies are based in Germany so, if needed, Gameforge can try to commandeer some talents from them. ;):evil:


    3. Increase the player base: Once we have fixed the issues and made a mobile app or at the very very least optimized mobile browser version we need to gain more players which is done by a good advertising campaign, a thing which I know the company won't be very happy to do but remember more players = more revenue which will be pretty much guaranteed at this point since we have fixed the monetization in part 1 of the plan, also if we have a mobile app we can gain A LOT of players simply by having a good app store optimization (ASO).


    Now the plan must take into consideration the 2 parties of any game; the player and the developer.

    I have read a lot of posts by players and some suggestions appear good but will actually cause greater harm if implemented and some are valid and reasonable of which feware extremely balanced as if they were made by a game designer.

    The bad request will cause harm because they either:

    a) Focus on a certain situation the player is currently facing i.e. the player requests a change that would benefit him right now regardless of anything else, much more of a cheat code to use when needed rather than a useful change, or

    b) Don't take into consideration the the long lasting effects of such changes which is a thing the devs themselves have been guilty of lately which, to be honest, is not uncommon for game devs.

    Since we have came to the devs allow me to say that I think they don't play the game, at least not enough to know the real priorities of the players. I know the players sometimes make unreasonable requests as I have mentioned earlier but I have been getting the vibe that the devs are dismissing some valid requests and concerns without any good reasons, or at least without stating such good reasons.


    I think I can understand the different points of view of both the players and devs, I understand the players as I have played Ikariam since 2008 as well as many other games, similar to and different from Ikariam, so I know a lot of what can potentially work or ruin a game, also I have some game development experience so I have can understand the devs, at least better than the average player.

    According to such assumption I'll proceed with the first part of the plan, Addressing the in-game issues.


    I'll start a series of discussions about each issue, one after another.

    I'll begin with defining the issue itself, its impact and causes and will give some suggestions for fixing it then the rest of us players can give their opinion on the subject, give data from their in-game experience, suggest remedies for the issue or point out potential problems that may arise from other people's suggestions also we will need the game dev team to engage with us in these discussions to point out any problems they think will arise from popular suggestions and give us and idea about any technical difficulties that may stop them from implementing such suggestions, they will need to do so towards the end of each discussion so they will have as much data as possible before replying and to limit unnecessary friction.


    Now I'd like to ask everyone to kindly Mention the top 3 issues you face in the game starting with the one that harms you the most so we can establish a priority for our subsequent discussions and I'll start with the one that causes the greatest concern for players.


    Finally I'd like to apologize for the lengthy article and to thank you for reading it all the way through.

    Thank!

    I'd mention what i've experienced/concluded and then move onto what your saying and relate it.


    So the starting point for us is the same. We need new playerbase that will actually play long-term and not get 'pushed off'. My idea was a stand-alone server with no transfers. Currently the new servers have transfers closed for 42 days and i've actually got to experience the benefits and drawbacks. From a first glance on the new USA server it is extremely healthy but extremely unpopulated. The EN server on the other hand is very popular, i don't know why, i can only speculate that the EN servers are always more active. The very very basic oversight is that the regions with the cheaper ambro develops alot faster then the regions with more expensive. Not a little bit more, a number im not even prepared to say. But that only becomes an issue when the transfers open, otherwise it favours pay-to-win but it doesn't tip the scales of balance. Almost everyone will actually agree with new non-transferable servers, the issue im begining to realize is the demand just isn't enough. And in the event a merge happens with the other side of ikariam, you might aswell not bother


    So it's too early to draw a conclusion to that but from speculation, if you solved ALL of ikariams problems and implimented it on a new server, i still feel the player-base isn't enough to sustain. Thats just how i feel. So yes, phone application ikariam is almost vital - people already play on phone ika while its being extremely dissadvantaged with the set-up. Then also advertising. Most new players are old returning players, it needs something to draw that attention again but if they return to current-state ika, it would eventually be unsuccessful.


    What im saying isn't even something new. Other games have closed transfers to develop player growth and the minute transfers open, thats when most of the playerbase gets cleaned out. The longer the development time, the increased chance of survival. This is common sense


    Now onto the top issue the game faces, and i'd rank them in my personal experience. The very first thing i will say is the longer the game is out, the more developed the community get. So to go back to a perfect nostalgic landscape is not possible, but there can certainly be progress. The example of this is one game i played, the clans were very small, the first could years of the game we were just wandering about not knowing much and having fun. Upon the games new release, everyone knew what to do and our clan was now over 100 people just rushing this once dosile-slower paced game. Urbanization / Industrialization of the game, this is irreversible. Now, my issues in order:


    1-Bots ------------------- Ugh. The full umbrella of it, Piracy bots, discord bots, production bots. The population is getting replaced with a fake population

    2-Unit-upgrades ------------- People will disagree, i just hate everything about it. I fight you, i fight you fair, why is this even in the game. I got alot to say

    3-Cheap ambro -------------- This causes alot of problems. alot. Thats all i will say

    4-Multi-accounting ----------- IP sharing is not terrible but this allows too much twisting of the rules. Its basically a trojan horse for rule breakers

    5-Banks --------------------- Takes alot of fun out of the combat and takes away vital parts of the game. Creates undefeatable opponents

    6-Lenience -------------------- Lenience to rule breakers is hinderance to the rule-abiders. This takes many forms but if i can see it, admins can certainly see it.

    7-Locking and Bleeding ---- Its not against the rules, its just not the intentions of the game, like banks but generally leaning on the toxic side of ika

    8-Out-of-Touch ---------------- This one you touched on, the developers just don't know. Just listen to the people who do know, please

    9-Idleness --------------------- Unstimulation. Time kills everything, there needs to be a draw factor. This could be cross-server wars, events or better servers


    There's more, i just need to think about it. I think gameforge need to think about it more. All they need to do is sit down and say 'how can i create new, healthy playerbase. If a player joins a server tomorrow, how can we make him enjoy himself and stay' . A much needed QoL reform.


    So most people i've played with over this roughly 3 year journey have quit or is largely inactive, my personal solution is develop in other games in the event this becomes unplayable because lets be honest, this is a foundation-block reform required. In my opinion. Let me hear if my opinions are far away or close to what you've experienced. I will probably add to this post when i have time and ideas

    1. Bots will be an eternal war. Yes, Ikariam takes action against bots. Someone recently tried to bot and complained on the forums about getting banned while doing so. This is dead internet theory in a nutshell and it is what it is. It'll always be a power struggle between both sides. I'm also up to 36 accounts, which probably look like bots, because my accounts just move to the edge of the map and build quietly.


    2. Unit upgrades - I don't have a problem with this. It's nice for accounts to have something to invest in. Plus, it makes crystal a lot more valuable, which is a good thing.


    3. Cheap ambro is only a problem if someone is getting it for a disproportionate price compared to someone else. As long as everyone is paying the same price, it doesn't matter.


    4. IP sharing is very limited which addresses multi accounting in a fair manner. If you obey the rules of IP sharing, you can only indirectly help your account through donations. The issue is illegal multis, but as they're already breaking the rules (and Ikariam is banning them when feasible).


    5. Banks - badidol has made a statement about banks. From Discord: Add a 24 hour pillage and blackmarket ban after vmode (about general banks) As they finally finished 15.1 hopefully we'll have more information soon.


    6. I'm unaware of any lenience, but I imagine this is a GO to GO thing.


    7. Locking and bleeding is the only offensive strategy available. I've used it when someone nearby didn't want to make peace so I locked his towns down for over 2 months until he quit.


    8. Everyone from every game ever will always say the developers are out of touch, but the reality is the game designers have different objectives than the player base. For example, unit upgrades are likely designed to encourage more ambro for premium traders. The metric they're chasing is increasing revenue which may create friction within the player base.


    9. This will vary server by server. Personally, I prefer sleepy servers, but everyone will have their preference. They did try the Hydra event a while back and will probably rerun it again.

    So funny story, the 'new experiment server' i was referencing came to a close from me not being able to login. That is why i had time to write all this nonsense in the forums in the meantime. Ironically, the conclusion i've came to is that my IP has been banned off S59 because it has mistaken me for a bot. If i've came to that conclusion, and someone else has, and someone else has etc, i will accept it as the most credible source. They've even insinuated i've been scripting twice which i can only laugh at. So in answer to you, yeah, i have recently found out they are taken measures against bots. I'd give an explination, i play close to 24/7 and leave my PC running - this could be a long explanation and i can't be bothered, i find this all ammusing but if i was serious about this game it should make me very very sad. I can actually expand on this answer for 200 paragraphs to be honest but i actually placed bots as #1 grievance as im fighting hundreds of them in plain sight and nothing is getting done and there is no criteria to report. Bots are free-range to live and yet humans are getting banned for mimicking close to a bot. This entire experience feels like some wacky alternate timeline stuff.


    On the subject of Unit upgrades, my alliance member fought 2 alliances at same time, he knows them from another server and doesn't really like them. Anyway, 79/80 of them went in V mode within 12 hours. They have military, just can't fight back because they are un-upgraded. This isn't even good upgrades, it just average yet they can't defend. WHY IS THIS A GOOD IDEA. EVEN AS YOU BEING THE MORE-UPGRADE, THERE IS NO VICTORY IN THE BIGGER NUMBER!! I said i dislike, i continue to dislike, even if i have the advantage.


    In not addressing all the points, im just saying my opinion doesn't change, not even slightly

    Hey Cheech and User12996 ,

    Thank you for sharing your insights :)


    I like the idea of closing account transfer to some servers, we will definitely need to implement this feature in some servers after launching a new app to make it easier for new players to get started.

    Account transfer isn't essentially bad, you already can't transfer your account to a server if it will end up in top 50 total score but there still is a room for improvement, blocking transfers to a server for some time after its start is a good thing although I think that the period you mentioned is a bit too short because by the end of it it's already impossible for many accounts to transfer to this new world because the will end up in the top 50.

    But as you said it's too early to draw conclusions and we need to wait and see, it's a natural part of the game, or any software, development cycle.

    I'll be discussing account transfer later in relation to other problems because transferring 1 account to another world doesn't cause a problem on its own, I can't elaborate without making this post too lengthy so let's keep it for later.


    About Ambrosia prices, it's natural to have price differences because what is considered affordable or even cheap for some one living in San Francisco or London could be substantially expensive for someone in a low cost of living county, like South East Asia countries for example, for them you are the one getting cheap Ambrosia actually.

    So you need to use different prices or you will end up losing potential revenue, this is the case even when selling ceiling fans in different countries.

    But are you sure guys there's any price difference? I read about this a couple of times before but I've just checked the price in the EN server/community, 2 other servers with 2 different languages and one of the international Pangaia worlds as well and I found the Ambrosia price to be exactly the same. e.g. 1700 Ambrosia for $100 in all of them.

    So it appears to me that the price difference, if there's indeed a price difference, is not based on the community, so what is it based on? IP address? Because, if so, it's easily manipulated and they need to change it or the company might be losing money already, let alone affecting players' experience.

    From a game dev POV I'm equally concerned about losing revenue and annoying players.

    Could someone from Gameforge please tell us if there are any price differences? badidol ? We need to know more about this before we can discuss it any further. Thanks!


    That said I need to mention it's not likely going to be a top priority to fix right now unless it's influencing other problems because, although it feels unfair, it's not breaking the game or causing immediate military advantage to for one side over the other except in some extreme cases, let me know if I'm wrong.


    Now for the remaining issues you have mentioned, I have encountered pretty much all of them.

    I really like something you did here which is differentiating between different types of multiple accounts, because multiple accounts term refers to one player owning more than one account in the same game world.

    We have bots which, as you mentioned, are further divided into several types depending of their purpose but they generally have low points and limited fighting capabilities.

    We also have the actual multis which can be very close to there owners main account, some are legal multis with IP sharing which pretty much are unable to help each other thus having low potential for causing problems, and some are illegal multis which are the ones causing problems.

    I will be surely discussing multis as a top priority issue.


    Unit upgrades: unit upgrades are not actually as bad as you think, there's a somewhat evil intention behind them but I won't upset the devs by discussing it now.

    Other than that the upgrades also aim to fix a crucial design problem which is low demand on crystal glass which in turn causes less demand on city spots on crystal islands and more demand on marble islands, and if a player opts to be more balanced and have more crystal towns anyway he will end up with a ton of unneeded crystal, now that's a problem in game economy which has two fixes:

    a) Cutting the source. i.e. making you get fewer resources.

    In Ikariam that means making fewer crystal islands which will obviously require rebuilding the islands world. Why? Because simply lowering the amount of produced crystal per worker won't be enough and players like new features more than getting resources income lowered.

    b) Creating a sink. i.e. something that will drain the extra resources which is exactly what they did but they did NOT design and test it properly.

    Now if you need some advice regarding upgrades then just don't invest in obsolete units like archers or slingers, don't invest in upgrading the defense of ranged/second-line units and keep in mind that a player will need a large difference in upgrade levels to have an observable advantage over you, at least it is the case for many unit types.


    Banks: there's a lot of ideas we can implement to end them, in fact I think the first thing I'll be discussing in details is going to be banks, especially that User mentioned they are already discussing it on Discord.


    Leniency do exist, in some servers more than others, I'll even need to mention an incident highlighting this:

    Several years ago there was a GO on my world, luckily retired now :D, who had a large area, well OVER 20 ISLANDS, covered with piracy bots, each is a small 3 cities account doing one thing only: producing piracy points. I pirated one of them once and I got threatened by him "Don't do this again or we will have a problem".

    So yes there is leniency and there's also a great deal of GO corruption in some communities and we can't complain or we will get banned for good, I'm actually at a serious risk of getting unfairly banned from the forums for discussing a similar issue a few days ago.


    Locking and bleeding: A long time ago there was a rule limiting this; you would get banned for pillaging a smaller, total points, player more than 5 times in a 24 hour period. It had some gray area though as some said it applies to each city individually so you can attack each city of that player 5 times.

    Anyway, as the player base deteriorated this rule got removed to enhance engagement, there were not enough accounts to fight as some would argue.

    This rule could be applied again for new servers where alliances are still forming and unable to defend its members effectively, for older servers I don't know if it's a good idea.


    Idleness: if we fix multis and banks there's going to be a large amount of action going on, we also have events as a possible remedy to this issue I happen to have some grand ideas for events like a "Persian" event maybe? 8)

    You know, Persia was a great adversary of Greece trying to invade it several times including the one with the 300 Spartans, so why not?


    Finally about the scripting part, lately I have got my attention drawn to the fact that I some times repeat some tasks in a regular timely manner and it could be mistaken for scripting so it, unfortunately, is a thing to keep in mind when playing any game, I would suggest contacting support and reasoning with them to get your ban lifted.

    Quote from Cheech

    So funny story, the 'new experiment server' i was referencing came to a close from me not being able to login. That is why i had time to write all this nonsense in the forums in the meantime. Ironically, the conclusion i've came to is that my IP has been banned off S59 because it has mistaken me for a bot. If i've came to that conclusion, and someone else has, and someone else has etc, i will accept it as the most credible source. They've even insinuated i've been scripting twice which i can only laugh at. So in answer to you, yeah, i have recently found out they are taken measures against bots. I'd give an explination, i play close to 24/7 and leave my PC running - this could be a long explanation and i can't be bothered, i find this all ammusing but if i was serious about this game it should make me very very sad. I can actually expand on this answer for 200 paragraphs to be honest but i actually placed bots as #1 grievance as im fighting hundreds of them in plain sight and nothing is getting done and there is no criteria to report. Bots are free-range to live and yet humans are getting banned for mimicking close to a bot. This entire experience feels like some wacky alternate timeline stuff.


    On the subject of Unit upgrades, my alliance member fought 2 alliances at same time, he knows them from another server and doesn't really like them. Anyway, 79/80 of them went in V mode within 12 hours. They have military, just can't fight back because they are un-upgraded. This isn't even good upgrades, it just average yet they can't defend. WHY IS THIS A GOOD IDEA. EVEN AS YOU BEING THE MORE-UPGRADE, THERE IS NO VICTORY IN THE BIGGER NUMBER!! I said i dislike, i continue to dislike, even if i have the advantage.


    In not addressing all the points, im just saying my opinion doesn't change, not even slightly

    I do the same thing and have 36 ikariam accounts but I've never been flagged as a bot.

    Quote from A.A

    Locking and bleeding: A long time ago there was a rule limiting this; you would get banned for pillaging a smaller, total points, player more than 5 times in a 24 hour period. It had some gray area though as some said it applies to each city individually so you can attack each city of that player 5 times.

    Anyway, as the player base deteriorated this rule got removed to enhance engagement, there were not enough accounts to fight as some would argue.

    This rule could be applied again for new servers where alliances are still forming and unable to defend its members effectively, for older servers I don't know if it's a good idea.

    Pillaging more than 5x in 24h isn't locking and bleeding, that's bashing.


    Personally, I'm in favor of reintroducing the bashing rule.


    As far as locking and bleeding, I assumed you meant occupying someone's ports so they can't ship wine. That's what my friend and I did so we effectively bled him out of wine over 2 months. We had little interest in pillaging him because we wanted peace.

    Ok, im going to expand on the quotes you said above. Not all the points, just the ones i disagree with the most.


    Ambrosia prices do influence alot of problems, there's about 6 or 7 really big ones actually and yes, military too. They are responsible for the massive donation accounts flooding new servers, both mines and helious. Then they can buy spartans and open them on new servers, trojan horse the server. There's a million ways to trojan horse a new server, thats why transfers are fundamentally BAD, the only possitive is populism which i have stated, has decreased. Ambro also causes mobile targets, 1 guy i was fighting was warping 2 or 3 times a day, a turkish account so obviously we know the issue here. And its unfair becuase i dont have the purchasing power to do the same and we know that its roughly 10x cheaper. If i was spending £2 for a warp instead of £20, id be warping 2 or 3 times a day too. Then there's all the shop items that can benefit a ambrosia account. These topics i can spend days typing over.


    Multi-accounting isn't too bad when it's all IP shared, but almost everyone i fight is not IP shared and i know their combat style because its their only fingerfrint. I know a person by their military actions because everyone is unique, the accounts fighting not IP-shared and its always the same. The same in every server, particularly with the bigger account


    When i said locking and bleeding, i didn't mean bashing. Locking is sending actions to someone's towns to make them unable to warp, freightering is the worst, it can be around 30 days and the ability to lock every town very very easily, i dont mean locking as in blockading. Bleeding is miracle bleeding. These are in-game mechanics and not breaking, just not too nice an idea


    So when i said about my account being IP banned, there is 2 possible ways. Either the system detected heavy online usage (probably about 20 hours/day) and blocks it OR i got reported as a bot and im guilty by assumption. I know the person who would have reported me because i basically threatened them 'attack me and i'd attack you back right away' kinda thing. The thing that i don't like is the admins saying 'We recommend not going back to using automated scripts' , which just literally says i'm scripting. The biggest advocate for anti-bots is using a scripting bot service, you heard it here folks. What a joke.

    Are you playing from a shared IP address or something? Like a library, dorm, or other public area.

    Quote from Cheech

    Ok, im going to expand on the quotes you said above. Not all the points, just the ones i disagree with the most.


    Ambrosia prices do influence alot of problems, there's about 6 or 7 really big ones actually and yes, military too. They are responsible for the massive donation accounts flooding new servers, both mines and helious. Then they can buy spartans and open them on new servers, trojan horse the server. There's a million ways to trojan horse a new server, thats why transfers are fundamentally BAD, the only possitive is populism which i have stated, has decreased. Ambro also causes mobile targets, 1 guy i was fighting was warping 2 or 3 times a day, a turkish account so obviously we know the issue here. And its unfair becuase i dont have the purchasing power to do the same and we know that its roughly 10x cheaper. If i was spending £2 for a warp instead of £20, id be warping 2 or 3 times a day too. Then there's all the shop items that can benefit a ambrosia account. These topics i can spend days typing over.


    Thanks for the extra info,

    I'm aware of donation accounts but I was going to discuss them with multis, I mean they fit more with multis because such players, most of the time, don't use their main accounts, they use smaller accounts then abuse the graveyard to donate again and again and again.

    Also you can get donation accounts without cheap Ambrosia you just need to wait for an "80% extra Ambrosia" offer when buying and donate to a 50+ mines; for a 50+ forest you get 40K wood/Ambrosia and I think it's 50K wood for lvl 50+ luxury goods mines. This way you will end up with +122M - 153M wood donated for $100 USD according to the price I mentioned earlier, you can get even more if an Ambrosia cashback event applies to donations or if you opt to buy the largest bundle.

    I did see Danish players using these donation accounts, so I guess not cheap Ambrosia for them.


    Using that many Spartans is a something I didn't encounter because, you guessed it guys, Banks!

    But you are correct if we fix banks cheap Ambrosia will be used to make banks of Spartans, but luckily they are a front line units and we don't and SHOULD NOT have any premium units other than this or we will be facing a new, worse type of banks.


    The warping guy you mentioned is indeed an extreme cases, not common at all.

    I once fought, alongside my alliance, a Turkish alliance in one of the Pangaias and they didn't do this, they moved few cities to the area of our leader and didn't move them until after the war. Then they, expectedly, got a bank open and kept sending endless amounts of units towards us.



    The aforementioned is for clarification only I'm not dismissing your concerns whatsoever, just pointing out other factors affectimg the issues you mentioned especially that you indeed have a very good reason to be concerned if Ambrosia is indeed 10x cheaper in the Turkey, I mean that's way beyond the cost of living and average salary differences between Turkey and the most expensive countries.

    Totally requires attention, thank you for clarifying that.



    Quote from Cheech

    When i said locking and bleeding, i didn't mean bashing. Locking is sending actions to someone's towns to make them unable to warp, freightering is the worst, it can be around 30 days and the ability to lock every town very very easily, i dont mean locking as in blockading. Bleeding is miracle bleeding. These are in-game mechanics and not breaking, just not too nice an idea

    Thanks for the clarification, I thought you meant blockading the cities and bleeding the resources dry, essentially bashing.

    I don't know why you mentioned locking because as you defined it it's your answer to the warping guy, it's a working mechanic.

    Bleeding the miracles is of course a bad thing, the way the miracles work encourages "cooperation or war" interplayer mechanics which good but easily abused by players either by using bots to maintain miracles or by ruining the miracle for neighbors, it needs overhauling and I have several ideas for that.



    Quote from User12996

    I do the same thing and have 36 ikariam accounts but I've never been flagged as a bot.

    The rules says that you can have a max of 11 accounts in one server/world and they need to have IP sharing active.

    If everybody gets to own 36 accounts in the same server then over than 97% of the accounts will be multis, a server with 5000 accounts will contain about 138 players only.

    My idea to prevent people from spending disproportionately and having many legal ( or not legal ) accounts to support donations (and eliminate multiple accounts...) is this


    The game must become individualistic.

    Mines must produce for each player according to what he only has donated.

    Even the temple and miracles must only have an effect on those who have donated and in proportionality to how much they have donated.


    There are many other things, but for me, the most important place to start is this.

    firma-nuovo-forum.jpg

    They aren't all on the same server. I don't know why you'd assume they were. I play on multiple servers. Right now I'm playing on 11 different servers. Two servers do have 11 accounts properly IP shared.

    IMO, the solution that solves the problem most gracefully is not this, but say account A has donated 1m to both the sawmill and luxury mine.


    When account A ghosts, both the sawmill and luxury mine lose 1m in donations, resulting in potential negative donations For the sake of it, let's say both mines had a current donation of 100,000 before the account ghosted. After the account ghosts, both of the mines would be -900,000. The game could also enforce any mine debt to be paid off first before donations can be applied to other mines.


    This somewhat gracefully solves the issue because if account A comes back, the account can redonate the 900,000 to both and resolve the debt and any account with an absurd amount of donations can only donate to an island once.


    For miracles, you should be able to donate beyond level 5 of the miracle to reduce max faith and max cd as well as the temple levels giving base faith and increasing the faith generated per priest.

    And there is people with that many accounts, it's common knowledge on discord that accounts and gens and gold are sold on a daily basis.I would not recommend this game to anyone starting out, they wont stand a chance.

    There are plenty of servers out there. I'm playing on one now and it's very inactive. New players would do fine there.

    Quote from The crow

    The illegal multis are killing this game, that and the fact people are buying and selling accounts and gens and gold and nothing is done about it.

    As I've told you before, the difficulty is having solid proof.


    You can suspect this and suspect that, which is fine, but it's hard to prove what's going on.


    A big problem is that the bad actors immediately move to third party communication.


    I've even had to explain to you, multiple times, that a single screenshot without a timestamp isn't proof of anything.

    Im almost convinced your badidols burner account ahaha


    Anyway, the issue is these problems have been allowed to develop for years, separating the people from the well-developed problem would be hard.


    If you take general banks away, there will be outrage. If you take multi-accounting away, there will be outrage. If you implement negative resource / debt mines, there will ben outrage. Gold banks take longer to transfer - there was already outrage for that and what they introduced wasn't even a solution, just a harder to exploit measure. Even altering ambro prices will cause outrage. People sometimes put years into their ikariam plan, removing stuff will only loose what population ikariam has left. Thats why a new server to impliment stuff would work perfect, people aren't loosing anything, they are just developing with altered rules.


    The test server is basically what is ideal being stand-alone and separate but id explain the problems with that. First, its years old, account are massive. Second, i heard it started with unlimited ambro, then they removed ambro entirely. So we got an unfair development for sure. Also since you can't purchase ambro, its profit it none. Keeping players there isn't beneficial unless the players can benefit themselves, and i will explain why they can't. So the statement from the manager was you were to treat test server like any other server, it's rules apply, which basically limits its testing ability but thats fine. Then, after me attacking a person, he defended with about 15 accounts all not IP-shared and i reported with evidence. The funny part is in the ticket system, the admins said 'This is a loose server and not connected, rules don't apply' - thats not word for word but you get the idea. So there is both enforcement and no enforcement ahahaahahahahahaha. Joke, all of it is a bad joke, i would love to explain this further and name names, honestly. Besides the enforcement issue, there is no benefit to test server. Its slow, everything is standard rate and putting time into it is relatively pointless


    Its strange how they have all the right things, just the wrong ideas. My IP adress is my home adress, the same it's been for 3 years btw


    Individualistic ikariam and debt mines are interesting ideas, it would be intersting what direction ika is intending to go in

    There are plenty of solid proofs. The problem is somewhere else..


    As Mayekawa said, in 1965 among other things " The element that has overshadowed the fundamental principles of modern architecture and distorted its mission is today's morality, which determines human actions and the system of values that lie behind this morality".


    That and more were said in "Thoughts on civilization in architecture". Kunio Mayekawa



    I like this discussions very much, I didn't start any "in details" threads as per my plan and we already have a lot of ideas about different problems, their effects, the new problems arising from addressing them and even some solutions suggested.


    Just a quick answer to User12996, I thought the 36 accounts where all on the same server becaus we were talking about multis and you mentioned 36 accounts, if they are not in the same server they are not considered multis, you should have clarified their distribution, anyway I'm glad you are going by the rules ^^


    Now I like to discuss the following quote first becaus it's the most important thing, I hope the devs can read this carefully:


    You almost read my mind, I have a very similar idea to fix donating multiple times, let me first clarify why your version would caue a problem:

    Creating a dept for the island itself is bad because players tend to chose islands based on their forest and mine levels so if I chose a developed island and build a city there and invest in making it a great city then after a year or two my neighbor/s who made the largest donations goes to the graveyard for good or changes server I'll be unable to upgrade the mines before donating Millions of wood first to pay the dept and it's not uncommon for large players to take a long break from the game, quit or change world.

    So how could we adjust the idea? Should we a) give the player no refund for donations at all? Or b) check if he lands to the same islands before giving him the refund?

    Of course NOT, because if we do so and the player goes to graveyard and comes back to find some of his islands completely occupied he might need to relocate ALL of his cities to another area so he will need the refund so (a) isn't a valid answer and if some of his cities land on their original islands and we give no refund for those cities he will be losing a large portion of his refund for this cities which he will need when relocating all of his cities.


    So the answer is keeping a record of which islands the player donated for and in wich server and create the dept for only the said player and only in the said islands, example for player A:


    World[1] {

    world = Pangaia 2

    island[1]: 52:52 - donations { luxury goods mine = 5M, forest = 3M}

    island[2]: 48:53 - donations { luxury goods mine = 3.2M, forest = 100k}

    }

    note: the programmers can structure this however they see fits.


    So when he comes back he would get full refund for his donations as it's the case right now but finds a dept on HIM, and only on HIM:

    In island (52:52); luxury goods mine dept = 5M, forest dept = 3M and his donations on the donations list = 0, when he donates 1M to the forest for example his forest dept is reduced to 2M, his donations on the list shows 1M but the current total donations, "available" as the game calls it, and what's required for the next level remains the same until the whole of his dept for this island is paid.


    This way we are not forcing other players to pay depts that they aren't responsible for.


    Problem: Now we can notice that a player may think: "ok I'll pay the dept of one island then use all the remaining refund to upgrade this island, then go to the graveyard and do the same for another one of my islands."

    Solution: Check all the islands on which he has cities right now and if one of them still has dept then he can NOT use the refund to donate for other islands beyond their dept, he can donate to these islands beyond thier dept using real wood only.


    This way if the player isn't using one of his old islands he can use exactly the amount he donated for that particular island to donate for the new islands.


    This donation records should persist no matter how many times the player goes to the graveyard, only updated, and regardless of which server he transfers to so that if the player changes island, goes to the graveyard, returns to the same server and goes back to the first island to donate for it he will find the dept waiting for him.


    Let me know what you think guys and badidol too we didn't hear from the game team yet.


    Thanks!^^