Posts by GambleUS

  • Question about Dockyard

    Thank you for the answers on this, I'm going to assume that the best strategy would be to get all of my upgrades and freighters before converting the GR into a Palace if I want to keep the level 4 town.

    Quote from JamesBond79
    Quote from User12996
    Quote from JamesBond79

    I can't answer for sure because it's a very special case and it hasn't happened to me, but personally I believe it's similar to the one below and won't give you the ability to upgrade.

    Makes sense, but what happened? Did you accidentally downgrade your GR?

    No, that's a different case. I'm sorry to say it:saint:, but I had tried it on the account in an older version where for a period of time you could upgrade the dockyard even if you didn't have the required levels, through premium.:whistling:

    This begs the question, even though you can't upgrade further, can you use the freighters you may have bought already?



    Quote from User12996

    I'm not sure if you can continue to build it, but I wouldn't recommend doing this unless you already wanted to move your capital.


    Simply the amount of resource required to get to GR10 and then build another GR10 from scratch isn't worth making sure every city can have a Dockyard. You'd only lose out on your main and you can still upgrade your GR cities' dockyard's higher and higher.

    The resource investment would be worth it for me in this scenario, I want the capital bonus and perks on a level 4 town (I use the small battlefield, high wall strategy in this town).

  • Question about Dockyard

    Hey I had a quick question about Dockyards.


    I have a level 4 colony that I want to level the GR to 10 and get a dockyard there.

    Can I then convert the Governors Residence into a Palace and continue to use the dockyard / upgrade and buy in it?


    Just want to know before I invest the resources into this.

  • Best War City Layout

    I know I'm pretty late to this conversation but I think your town looks like it's wasting some spaces. I don't see the point in the Barracks, Tavern, or reduction buildings.


    In fact I don't see the point in upgrading past level 1 for the town hall on something like this. You'd want to take full advantage of the Bottleneck your battlefield will be. Only 6 mortars can be on the battlefield against your wall at a time, it will take a very long time to destroy, especially with the inclusion of Bombardiers and a Colossus. This town would become an impenetrable bank.


    EDIT: Since you are at like level 4 on the town hall and do not plan to upgrade it further, I would just drop the Governors residence/Tavern/Museum and or treating it like a normal city to begin with. If it isn't taking advantage of Population growth to produce soldiers/gold/etc then the loss in corruption makes no difference.


    My preferred set up:

    Level 1 Town Hall

    Palace (Main capital)

    Level 48 Town Wall

    5 warehouses

    3 Dumps

    Sea Chart

    x2 Trading Port

    Embassy (More Diplo points)

    Temple (Free wonder, wherever you set up. Preferably Poseidon or Colossus)

    ALL Reducers (to lower Palace upgrades)

    Dockyard (Level 10 Palace = Free Dockyard).

    OPTIONAL SPACES: Barracks (Feed population to other towns) , Hideout, Trading Post, Black market


    Get Insta-Colossus and no one can ever harm your town or keep it blockaded for very long.

  • Marble islands all full?

    To be honest a mega server would be better than a bunch of smaller servers. I understand the issue for some is the leaderboard and being the top of each world but in the long run what does it matter to be King if you rule over a dead server?


    I would like Draxo or another GF Staff member to explain the limitations, if any on having one. Since he mentions it earlier in this thread I was hoping for some information on that.


    I've said before how I feel having one consistent world that has tournaments and fosters some sense of community would generate profit for GF beyond all of these random servers that die out.


    International servers already get more active and daily play than any other server, why not continue to build on that?

  • Marble islands all full?

    I'm not sure how that would matter. If they increased the size of the world they could just modify the sea chart archive to assist further travel.

    Is there like, an actual technical reasoning for why the worlds can not be doubled in size?


    I'm assuming the servers just can not handle more Islands? or its only a certain capacity of players a server can realistically handle?


    If there's no technical reason, I see a lot more benefit in an extended world map. People like me already hide out on the edges of the world and do not see much action, I don't see how this would affect those who want to find battle.

  • Graveyard abusing in new servers

    Quote from returned player
    Quote from Draxo

    It has been this way already for years. Any account can be moved to any server where it does not end up in TOP 50 by total score.

    I know that, but what the point of new server if you can transfer player with 150k research points waiting for use plus gold and materials?

    I don't see the disadvantage. I mean I get it, they start off with high researches, armies and gold. However, there are ways you can easily catch back up to them, if you are willing.


    Ambrosia allows you to do plenty of things to completely bolster your experience and level the playing field. You can convert thousands of wood into any resource you want, you can jump islands (Premium spots exist too), Plant a colony far out and speed there to get a decent neighborhoods. There's really nothing Ambrosia can't do to get you on their level in under a week.


    That's what Game Forge is banking on as well, that the competition of those leaderboards will generate people competing = $$$ for them.


    Way I see it, whether you face off against old empires on the new server or new empires using ambrosia, you're going to face the same issues. It's not going to be fair for you one way or another, even if the other players are starting off fresh as well.

  • Merging war servers.

    Quote from Adalya

    Guys, what are your impressions after the server merge, I came late, 5600 players arrived before me, of course there were no good miracles left near my allies, I went to the totally opposite side, I'm honestly quite disappointed and I hope that something will happen over time change. It's my fault I couldn't switch earlier, I had commitments, but certainly a lot of players have already set up their accounts and a lot of multi accounts have been left in absent mode to save good spots on good miracles for players to come. How did you go, are you satisfied?

    For me, I have skated to the end of the world in order to gather some good spots. I'm very hopeful for the server merge and I think it will be nice to see how things shape up!


    You speak to the problem of not having enough miracles to fit the huge migration of players.

    I'd really like to see if it was possible for them to populate more islands instead of new servers.


    It's to be expected they will probably add more global servers like they did for the regular worlds but I would really like to see a situation where they just make the world bigger. If there are actual limitations on making more islands, fair play but otherwise I would like to see an expanded map over a whole new world.


    Quality over Quantity as well. Pouring more into making this server interesting like tournaments and bringing back badges. Overall, I am for just a one stable world that has new islands, some game-sponsored tournaments. I think that's what will help build the community more.

  • Military Update

    I'd like to see Doctors and Cooks /Tenders have bigger roles in battle. If cooks/enders could have a slot and be killed separately that would be interesting.

    Doctors being able to heal units or buff units in battle would be nice as well.


    Making Morale its own battle in itself would be cool.


    Maybe the introduction of more random elements. I liked Crusader Kings 2 concept of battle where you had a leader of the military and their traits affected how they maneuvered in war. If this was a new unit "Flank Commander, Infantry Specialist, Logistics Specialist" or something like that and it gave a boost to Flanks, Hoplites, Morale in battles that would be interesting too.


    For Instance, Spearman could become more interesting if you had say "King of Pikes" or something that gave increased durability and strength to the Spearman (because in-game lore, the Leader can teach these civilians how to make a proper line of spears against enemies).


    Terrain and weather also could affect war. If you're on wine islands, maybe the land is more mushy and grassy (slower times for battle). Maybe its more explosive and dangerous on sulfur islands (Random deaths of units on each side due to explosions) and more mountainous on Marble (Harder to attack the defender due to the terrain of their city being on stone mountains)



    All depends what the coding and script will allow.

  • What's the current status on multi-accounting?

    Quote from Draxo
    Quote from GambleUS

    Yes this is against the rules, but that would mean the Game Operators/Staff would have to prove the cheating is occurring and that would mean they would have to assume things without concrete facts which makes a ban some what unfair/illegitimate

    Yes, it's against the rules and your accounts would be banned for it. There is nothing to assume if the 3rd account has been used for moving resources.

    In what way would you honestly be able to prove that a player who pillages X account and being pillaged by another player automatically means they are intentionally moving resources? It could be a player protecting their weaker alt account from further attacks. There's no rule against pillaging other players that happen to have your Alternative accounts resources. Sure, direct transportation of resources from Player 1 to Player 2 to get the resources to Player 3 is blatant circumventing, but Pillaging is not.


    In this way, you would either have to use your own assumptions to get to a conclusion that the accounts are moving resources. Otherwise, it could be that I have X amount of accounts on an island, and another player is pillaging one of my alts that I want to protect. That's a plausible scenario that will not be an easily proved lie unless openly admitted.


    To further my point, If I had a bank of army/fleets and I can't directly transfer them to my alternate account the simplest way to get it to them is the same method as the pillaging, I just sell it to a different player to "wash my hands" of it who has a different IP address. From there they can then resell it to my alternate account and there is no legit way to prove if it was a real sell or circumventing rules. There's also no real way for the "middle-men
    in these trades to be held responsible, they could be a legit normal player who sells units. It can get MUCH more complicated if you have multiple people involved, and I have no doubt that has happened before.


    This is how many people play this game, I'm not making anything up out of thin air with this system. Multi-accounting is a slippery slope and there is no concrete way to combat it besides outright banning the use of it.

  • What's the current status on multi-accounting?

    Yes this is against the rules, but that would mean the Game Operators/Staff would have to prove the cheating is occurring and that would mean they would have to assume things without concrete facts which makes a ban some what unfair/illegitimate

  • What's the current status on multi-accounting?

    No, in simpler terms you can move up to 11 different accounts to a server. Once there they will all have to be linked via an IP-Treaty, and can't have fleet or military contact.

  • Merge of new local servers

    Yes, any server of any country except war/test servers, since those are special condition servers and your account (assumably) wouldn't be compatible with the regular game worlds.

  • What's the current status on multi-accounting?

    Quote from ReturnOfKing
    Quote from Starman
    Quote from GambleUS

    The "I know a guy who knows guy who knows a guy" game can go far.

    One guy I knew, used his accounts, from the first merge, to donate to his islands. Now with the graveyarding, those donations get cloned... Thinking in terms of decades, it's a viable strategy which will give huge results.


    Starman

    what's graveyarding? how do resources get cloned?

    If you have multiple accounts on multiple servers, you can go inactive on one and after an amount of time (depending on the growth of the account, max like 2 months I think?) the account will enter asphodel or the game's "Graveyard".


    You have to pull it out by transferring it to a world server. The benefit is you collect multiple town teleports (so imagine having 10 town teleports for every single colony you own) , the donations your account has made to prior islands and resource booster rewards.


    This was the Ikariam team's way of avoiding deleting premium feature accounts while still preserving their opportunity to play the game once/if they return.


    Some people have amassed so many alt account they are able to merge over like 11 of them to a server and hold islands, supply players with gold/militaries, and so on.

  • "Some of our men were caught drunk whilst on duty. We have taken disciplinary measures." -- huh?

    Quote from ReturnOfKing
    Quote from GambleUS

    For this specific message it means they spied on your garrison/army/navy. Spies have a in-game lore explanation where they give the soldiers on duty wine and they end up so drunk the spies are able to count how much military you have and report to the enemy ruler.


    Also this message means that the aggressor's spies succeeded in finding the information. and you may have an attack on the way if they deemed your storage attractive enough.

    thank you for the great explanation! it's better than anything else i've seen online. Are you referencing a blog or something with more information I could reference for later or just your own knowledge?

    No problem! My own experiences, and mostly the in-game explains it when you perform the action when you pull the slider for how many spies you are using.

  • "Some of our men were caught drunk whilst on duty. We have taken disciplinary measures." -- huh?

    For this specific message it means they spied on your garrison/army/navy. Spies have a in-game lore explanation where they give the soldiers on duty wine and they end up so drunk the spies are able to count how much military you have and report to the enemy ruler.


    Also this message means that the aggressor's spies succeeded in finding the information. and you may have an attack on the way if they deemed your storage attractive enough.

  • What's the current status on multi-accounting?

    I mean technically there are ways to abuse this.


    If someone wants to "wash their resources" all they have to do is arrange for someone (alliance or other) to pillage their resources off the account and trade it to them or just send it to them.


    Honestly, you could go further and just have both players in the same alliance or someone outside the alliance pillage use an alt account to pillage resources and have the main player who needs them to also pillage said resources from the alt. There is no inherent "cheating" there as the pillaging is fair game and there are no strict rules on pillages resources coming into possession of a main account holder via third party.


    This is how people get away with Banks for armies/navies. The "I know a guy who knows guy who knows a guy" game can go far.

  • Global War Server Inquiry + Suggestions on In-game event

    I tried to do some research about the Global War Server and it seems like its been about two years since that was planned. Is there an update that can be provided for hopes of a merged War server, or perhaps just a global server in general?


    If there will be a global war server I do have suggestions.


    It would be nice if this server type could become really competitive. Under the conditions of war servers it would be awesome to introduce a Server-wide Tournament hosted by the Ikariam team involving wars between the different alliances or players.


    I would name it "War Games of the Gods" as an in-game event, where alliances can sign up to face each other in brackets (or free for all), or even pit players against others who sign up.


    You can treat this like the Piracy game, where they have a month (or however long the duration is set) to acquire the most offensive points/defensive points/resources against other players or alliances, this would be separate from the normal High score board. You can use the gauntlet war features such as highlighting enemy town locations and Generals being able to place cross hairs on specific towns.


    Getting more creative, you can add win conditions like capturing leaders towns or holding specific capitals for X amount of time for more points to your team/self.



    Winners earnings could be:

    Ambrosia

    Resources

    Gold

    Premium Traders

    Badges (Similar to what was earned on war servers, players could get badges that show what event they competed in and what rank they placed as an alliance or single player)


    I think the game already has the tools to accomplish this if it were run by an Admin who did it manually (Drawing up a Tournament, signups, having alliances gauntlet war each other and counting up the damages/resources collected, awarding winners, etc), but the automation is there as well to add something in-game.


    Just my thoughts!

  • Suggestions for a new player

    I agree with a lot of stuff in here but I will also add my own advice.


    It depends on the server and where you are located, how you can play the game.


    Personally I find investing in military early to only benefit you IF you plan on being active pillaging. The same goes for holding hideouts in all of your towns. I say this because, in a lot of older servers most players are going to be much more advanced than you and you will not be able to defend against them with your military or hide outs. If they want intel on you they can throw as many decoys and spies from all of their towns and find out what they need to find out, and if they want to blockade you/pillage you there is very little your hoplites/spearman/Rams and low level walls can do against their Steam Giants, Carbineers and Mortars.


    Best bet? Invest in Warehouses in every single town. I personally always use my capital as a Level 1 town hall with extremely high Town Walls/Warehouses and dump most of my resources for my other towns into it as a sort of "Safe house". The other towns can hold resources, but this town acts as the main storage for everything. I also make two trade ports in it to make loading resources and transporting faster. Later down the line I add a sea chart archive and multiple depots/Resource reducers like carpenter/etc to make future upgrade of the palace easier. I usually plant this town on a Poseidon/Dolphin wonder island because the low amount of population makes it easy to load up temples and activate it. Your Capital is a "free" town, so for me, especially in early game when upgrading palaces, I have the first town be anything (but try to relocate to a Poseidon island for the faster transport) and follow up with Marble > Sulfur > Wine and Finally a Crystal town and have a complete 4 towns for producing resources while the capital pulls most of those resources together. After that you can really invest in resource boosters/reducers on every town and choose from there what islands your future towns will be on.


    I don't personally agree with Museums. I think now that the game is a little more inactive, it poses more harm than help for you. If you do want to pillage others, it makes it difficult to have any competition because those you have treaties with aren't going to war with you. Even if you actually don't want to war anyone, investing in a museum means you need to find cultural treaties and the game is not active enough to have treaties with everyone. You'll find it hard to get the return on investment of the museum. I usually focus on wine press/producing more wine for towns and sticking with that.



    TL;DR: In short, Get your first 4-5 towns on Poseidon islands (The big dolphins) so you can get a permanent boost to transporting resources. If you can get just three of the first towns to be Marble > Sulfur > Wine in that order and Poseidon, you have a good setup. Try to look for islands that are an hour maybe even two hours out. You're looking for longevity and once you have a permanent Poseidon the distance of these islands won't matter. In the mean time, you can invest into Hideouts/A Small army and use the spies to search inactives around you. You might score big on resources and go pillage them while you work on building your towns up, and it can become a fun mini-game searching for resources.