The news team
Main editor: Hopla Spell checkers: Mogwai Reporters: Gabriella IM_Mike Joffer Mirarik Corsini Sharpe12 IronMan7 Graphic designer: Hopla
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News
Welcome to the September issue of the Ikariam Scrolls. This month, quite a lot has happened around Ikariam, so here is a quick recap of it. First, one of the biggest changes is the domain change of Ikariam. The domain was changed for all Ikariam related pages including game, board and support. You can find more info about the domain change here. Second, some changes have happened in the team. This month, we said goodbye to our Community Manager Anemsalok, who was replaced by Badidol. We welcome Badidol into our community. Two trial moderators have been promoted to full mods, congratulations Milo and Disconnect. Also, B2du, Cellurar and Chak475 have been promoted to full Game Operators.
Content
The News Team............................................2 Vacancies.....................................................2 News............................................................3 Interview with sharpe12...............................4 Mobile update 1.2.0.....................................6 Interview with Artic_Viking..........................7 Joffer’s Ikariascope.....................................11 Monthly interview......................................12 The final word.............................................13 Classifieds...................................................13
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Third, version 0.5.8 was rolled out in live server on September 2nd, bringing with it many changes to the battle system. You can see the change log here. Also, an update for the Ikariam Mobile came out on September 16. You can read more about the update on page 6.
Interview with sharpe12
This time we had the pleasure to interview sharpe12. He is an experianced player, who caught our attention by declaring 10 wars at once in Ares.
- First, thanks for doing the int with us. - Could you tell us something about yourself? sharpe12: Erm, well I'm 18 I like science and geography. - How long have you been playing Ikariam? sharpe12: 1 year in current stint but I did a few months in 2009 - In what servers do you play? sharpe12: Ypsilon, chi,psi, ares - Why have you chosen those? sharpe12: Ypsilon- because well that was the newest server when I started up a year ago so this seemed a natural place to start. Chi- I had an enemy on ypsilon who left the game world, so when I heard that he had started up on chi I thaught I'd give him company ;) Psi- I got a little bored with ypsilon as my main account so I decided to go on a new server which is more active Ares- I have a few months with no real exam pressure so I thought why not, give me a bit of experience. Since joining that gameworldthe number of conflicts I've been in over all gameworlds has increased from 2 all the way to 19 - Could you tell us a little about your past with Ikariam? sharpe12: Lambda- dont remember much from that. Ypsilon- Alliances- WAR, World (Leader/Diplomat) , T-Rex (Home Sec), -ROS- my current alliance (Leader). Well as you can see I've managed to lead a pair of decent alliances the latter 5th place and I've been home sec of 1 st place when it was up there. Psi- I was in _UE_ (General) but I disagreed with policies so I resigned and am currently unallied. And Ares- I was the diplomat of LEGION but left due the reasons we are about to discuss. As you can see I have a habit of moving into the higher ranks - You recently decleared alot of wars in Ares - 10 of them. Why did you decide to do so? sharpe12: Simply you get a badge (whatever that is) if you get into the top 10 in various ranks so I thought I'm going to get defensive points one, I then thought how do I get the most people to attack me. Obviously declare war on 237 people in 10 alliances. - How did you pick your targets? sharpe12: Alliances rank 11-20 (shh but I plan to declare war on the top 10 later on) - Wont it be hard to be an unallied player against 10 alliances? sharpe12: Yes, but the point is to get defensive points as opposed to wining them so it doesn't really matter 4|Page
- Why didn't you go in war while allied? sharpe12: Well why share the fun. I'm trying to get an early start on the competition with 4 months left. Although I could have declared as diplomat of Legion I don't imagine anyone would thank me for that. - How are the wars going? sharpe12: Awfully, un-expectantly no one is coming over to attack me. Most think its a joke. - Have you yet regreted the decision to take on so many alliances at once? sharpe12: Erm no, not really in fact I plan on doing it again. After all it is a game and any damage is short term as the server only lasts 4 more months. - What's your general take on the war server? sharpe12: In general I quite like it, a good idea game developers. Although my only criticism would be the gold pillaging, I don't think it's a very good idea. - What is your opinion on Piracy and Helios tower? sharpe12: Well, when piracy first started I gave it a go, I like the extra gold. But on ypsilon we had a ban on piracy for 2 rounds so I haven't really used it since except for an occasional gold boost. I haven't used the Helios tower, but from what I here it's quite a good boost. (Not sure why you wouldn't use the resource boosters separately). - Is there anything you would like to see to change in Ikariam? sharpe12: Yes, I started a thread a couple of months ago it made it into the top rated. In short it was basically a notice system for alliance chat so you can see when it has been used. - Is there anything you would like to be added to the game? sharpe12: Not really, maybe an extra flank unit for more advanced armies. - What is the funniest thing that happened to you in Ikariam? sharpe12: Well I once accused tiarra of being a 70 yr old Scotsman in a kilt, her reaction was funny. The social corner in general has some funny banter. I'm sure there are others but this is what popped to mind. - Any advice for new users joining Ikariam? sharpe12: Most importantly invest in Academies and getting those first four towns (1 in each resource) as fast as possible.
Member of the Month After a small break, the Member of the Month competition is on again. You can check it out here.
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Mobile update 1.2.0 Halfway thru September, Gameforge announced the next update for its Mobile Apps for iOS (Apple) and Android. This upgrade comes with a few new features and a long list of (small) bug fixes. What is it all about? One of the new features is that the market place is now available, which is perfect for the merchants, builders and fighters among us. Players have the possibility to buy and sell wherever they are. This update also fixes a popular complaint, the application notifications, which simply are all updates of all individual accounts, now can be turned off. This is a small change, but makes a lot of difference for those who didn't want to receive this information in the first place. It's also a vital change for those with limited mobile internet access, or those who regularly travel abroad (roaming limit). Alliance circular messages can also be written and answered now, which was another popular demand for the application itself. It is also possible to write message to people on your friends list and to alliance members. Settings have been slightly redesigned to be more menu-friendly, instead of just one long menu. Also, the Helios towers are now displayed on the islands. Gameforge describes how you can send circular messages: "Alliance circular messages can be written by going to the diplomacy advisor, messages and then clicking the button on the bottom of the screen. In the following dialogue choose the recipient "Alliance" and write your circular mail." No new version without bug fixes as they say, and this update is no exception on that golden rule. The countdown and crew strength are now displayed properly in pirate fortresses, naval missions now show the right battle fields in the preview-overview, gold production in the resource overview now shows the correct value, city names are now readable even in reduced graphics, changing islands now gives the correct wonders, production of research points is now displayed correctly in the resource overview and barracks are also correctly adjusted so that it doesn't look any more as if you could demolish the barracks while building troops. This was never possible in the first place, but it appeared that it was possible. After the release of the new version, there was a small problem with writing the update to the SDcart. This problem has been fixed as well. You can read the full change log here. -Written by IM_Mike
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Interview with Artic_Viking This time we had the pleasure to interview Artic_Viking. Artic_Viking is a a longtime and an experianced Ikariam player, also the founder of the EIMU project in Omikron. - For start, can you please tell us something about yourself? Artic_Viking: Yeah I'm 37 years old, live in Iceland and I work for a shipping company, I'm interested in Computers Technology, Philosophy, Global Politics and related stuff. - When did you first start playing Ikariam? I started playing Ikariam in March 2008 - What brought you to Ikariam? Artic_Viking: I was playing another game and I first saw Ikariam mentioned when a fellow member in a local clan made a small post about it, so thats how I started playing the game. - In what servers do you play? Artic_Viking: I started on Gamma server but then in June 2010 I wanted to try out another project over on Omikron server which was just starting at that time, so I only seriously played on 2 servers for the 4 years I have been playing the game, I got banned for one year on Gamma server in April 2009 over some petty stuff which I could have avoided by reading the rules better but I didnt want to roll over and play dumb as I was advised to do coz I felt I was more doing GF a favor by playing than they were doing me and other players with terrible hardcut patches, also I had recruited 30 guys from BF2 to join the game by then since November 2008 in an attempt to help counter the diminishing numbers. then in April 2010 after not playing ikariam for 1 year I got a message saying "Your citizens are missing you" I was curious to see how the account was doing, and sure enough it was still there and so began the work of climbing back up into Top10 from the Top 444th I was in then. I didnt move all my towns to that Wine island I'm currently on till in March 2011 in an effort to streamline my gameplay as it was getting to be too much work having two accounts so it was either to spend some ambro on moving towns or dump/giveaway the account, good thing I didnt dump it I guess. - So you make Youtube videos about Ikariam. What could tell us about them Artic_Viking: Yeah I have a youtube account for game videos here. They are mostly raw screenrecordings of what I think may be of interest in the gameplay big builds and such. I just released one the other day where I'm donating 62 Million resources in one go to the Wine island I'm on in Gamma just for fun as I can hardly afford the gold to put more citizens into the already level 38 Wineyard and level 45 Sawmill but then everything you do this late in the game is bound to be very expensive with very little gain per resource spent, thats one of the curses of having really big accounts, it doesnt take allot of time to get to the endgame in Ikariam, but then its only a browsergame so perhaps its to be expected. - Would you concider yourself a builder or fighter? Artic_Viking: I'm a builder in this game but then I was a fighter in another game, so you could say I apply different strategy for different games usually whatever I think is the most effective one, 7|Page
fighting aint so very effective in Ikariam except for if you want to count the piracy which is rather controversial, We just lost Samus a large member of our alliance over on Omikron today over that he wanted to leave so he could do some fighting with local leechers and high-price padders before he'll quit playing the game, on that subject I think there is need to make the piracy game more balanced, its giving too few players too much and pissing off allot more players in the progress anyway thats just my 2 cents put into the pile of cents already out there. - I've heard you've got a top account in Gamma, based only on wine. What could you tell us about that ? Artic_Viking: The single Wine island account I have on Gamma is just a result of a long time research into the most efficient way to play the game, I'm actually kinda reluctant to promote it too much as I think if it would become more common then GF might want to change the game some more and make it unefficient, anyway first of all this is a ambro dependent playstyle so there is no doubt about that but wine boosting costs less than marble boosting so even though starting building on a marble island comes in handy in the early part of the game the long term benefits come from being on a wine island even though one has to convert wine to marble allot in the beginning but with large storage capacity it wont be as expensive, having all towns on the same island is excellent for transport times but not as good for large area coverage if you pillage or trade allot, but then some may want to have 1 mobile and only 11 full size towns, I build my 12th town coz I could, and there is nothing that I have heard that sais the game accounts cant sustain more towns in the future, that f.ex would make the game more interesting for the current supersize players that are bored or complaining about not having a mobile town. for more info about how my account on Gamma is setup can be seen in my youtube screen-recordings I mentioned earlier. - You have started the EIMU project in Omikron. Would you care to talk about it a little? Artic_Viking: The EIMU project is a rather large matter and difficult to put into few lines but basically what it can be seen as is a alliance over on Omikron that has allot of large players even though it got less than 40 its in the Top1 TS position and it dominates the Donation highscore at over 100 million resources donated on average per member for over 4 billion resources (not counting the donations of past members), In June 2010 when Omikron started my vacation was also starting and I got this idea to make a project with likeminded players in the game so I made 13 new accounts, one on each of the other UK servers and with those accounts I contacted all the players on all the servers that had over 20 million donated according to the donation ranking which had just recently been added to the highscore and had not been prior and so nobody knew how much everyone else had donate, anyway I must have contacted like 300 players during those 3 days before the server started and finally got 50 players to join, the first 3 months were one of the most challenging time i have ever had in Ikariam I dont think I spent much time outside the game when I wasnt sleeping or at my full time outdoor work, anyway step by step we planted towns on a bunch of islands up in the north west of the map until we had about 24 islands almost fully inhabited by alliance members and donations were being enforced seriously, we even developed our own donation based ranking system, we did coordinated colonization of islands to avoid them getting filled by randomly planted new players, then after a while we also realized the benefits of keeping the sawmills at like 25% larger level than the luxurys for even more wood for donations.
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Being all tightly packed together on these islands like that meant minimal waste of donated resources as most all spots on the increasingly more advanced islands were full and so even though the first 3-6 months were allot of hard work it paid off as we progressed and then paid even more off and more and more and so on, EIMU is largely a core area with just a bunch of islands with prime account growing conditions and we are always interested in like-minded players joining the ranks especially if they can move to the area or wait for a account giveaway when older members choose to stop playing. Why is it called EIMU, well when i was making the alliance I was in a hurry to get members in and EIMU was at the top of my mind, I loosely associated it with being "Elite Ikariam Members United" but the origin of it can be traced to the name given the containers owned by the shipping company I work for and I have to punch into a computer every day EIMU so I guess you can classify it as a little personal humor coz I really didnt know if this would work out or not when i started it it was purely an experiment :) thankfully it worked out extremely well despite some setbacks mainly due to all the experienced players invited that were willing to partake in this donation project which EIMU is, I could go more into details about how we made all this work but its a very looong story so maybe some other time. - How do you find time to manage so many different projects? Artic_Viking: About how much time it takes to maintain a account like my Gamma account then its actually hardly any work, its all automated, I dont have to worry about wine.. EVER hehe, I dont have to move resources much at all between towns as they all are 98% the same make the same type of resources in the same quantity's and I upgrade them together when I upgrade and I donate together when I donate so its always the same, I just have to do whatever action I do 12 times, once in every town, basically I think I could get away with logging on only once a week but I have logged on almost every day since I began playing and I have never entered vacation mode on my accounts voluntarily in the 4 years I have played this game. - Where are you on the top score of your world(s)? Artic_Viking: On Gamma I'm in Top 1 rank in Total score, Donation score, Resources score, Master builder score, and Building level score, or 5 of the 7 Permanent highscores. only permanent highscores I'm not at the top in are in research as I stopped research a long time ago or after I reached future 4, I dont invest much at all in the 6 Non-permanent highscores for obvious reasons with all do respect for those that like those scores more, its just that I like to be efficient and dont believe in spending my resources on temporary gains :) - Do you have a favorite player? Artic_Viking: Favorite player, hmm I dont know but I have had players that I have regretted to see leave the game such as Odjit who among other things made our nice looking alliance logo and a cool large map of our area with the core island cluster and the surrounding clusters for better organization effort during the early stages of our alliance, then also I remember a little player who called himself EIMU Fan and had planted a town in our area but I had to ask to leave coz our rules were very strict about who was allowed to settle in our area back then as larger more productive 9|Page
members needed town spaces to keep the efficiency at a maximum, in retrospect maximum efficiency isnt always worth the price, small players can also contribute if you bother to give them the time to prove themselfs, currently all good donators small and large are welcome to our area as long as they follow a simple guideline, dont be cheap on donations and dont make troubles with other players. - What is the funniest thing that has happened to you in ikariam? Artic_Viking: funniest thing that has happened to me in Ikariam, I dont know, I guess I play the game a little more seriously than others so its always been more of a 2nd work for me than a thing of entertainment, still I guess having the EIMU project work out this well is in retrospect funny as I had to change my own accounts plans for what I wanted to do over on Omikron which was to try out the single island system but I saw that the alliance would benefit more from having the leader more spread out over the area for a better oversight so yeah funny enough I ended up changing my Gamma account into a single island system instead. - To wrap it up - do you have any advice for new players joining Ikariam? Artic_Viking: Advise to new players well let me see, yeah dont forget that donations are a big thing and IMO still a underestimated way to excel in the game especially on account like this, as a example I have roughly calculated that I have made a total of around 1 billion resources on this account from the beginning and of that I have donated 400 million or 40%, I'm probably donating more than I need to now so I think 25% would be a fine thumbrule for those wanting to do the same, if you dont use ambro or share islands with many who dont use ambrosia then favor the sawmills over the luxurys, it will pay off after a while as everybody will have excess wood and so donations wont be that hard to make. Finally for curious players wanting to have a look at the EIMU area then here is a invite link. (We remind you that if you already have an account in Omikron, you cannot register a new one)
Server Psi launched On the 30th of August, a new server Psi was opened. If you are not yet there, you can register to Psi from here.
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Ikariascope This Ikariascope describes the current influences from the planets and the Zodiac, which can be felt by all people, no matter what sign you have because of your birth in a specific time of the year. The Ikariascope describes the trends for the coming month. It is like fashion: lots of people love to follow the main stream but everybody is free to swim against it. The month of October will be dominated by two signs of the Zodiac: Libra and Scorpio, because the Sun moves through the sign Libra until October 23, then it will transfer to the sign Scorpio.
The sign Libra is characterized by harmony. Libra will always search and care for balance and peace. She loves beauty and searches to gratify her senses. Time to upgrade museums and taverns! She hates to hurt others. That makes that it takes long time to make decisions. Ruler of Libra is Venus. This planet goes through Scorpio until October 8, then it will transfer to Sagittarius (the Archer). So until October 8 jealousy will play a role and finances, in Ikariam gold stock, will be important. After October 8 one’s ambitions and high-principled goals will become important.
Trade The planet Mercurius is ruler of trade in Ikariam. This planet takes position in the sign Scorpio in October. Trade with extreme prices will be possible. When you sell for extreme high price or buy for extreme low price, you will feel excited and almighty. When you are not able to sell or buy goods for reasonable price you might feel desperate and jealous. From October 21 Mercurius will be retrograde: trade will be almost impossible because of the extreme prices.
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The sign Scorpio is characterized by deep emotions and extremes. Scorpio has great power, which can be used for the well-being of others but also for destruction and extermination as well. Responsibility for the control over power is the theme of this sign. Emotions in Scorpio can be extreme: desperate love, consuming hatred, eat one’s heart out with jealousy. These extreme emotions are not often expressed. Sometimes after years of holding back an outburst of extreme emotions can explode. Revenge is sweet for Scorpio especially when it’s delayed for a long time. Scorpio is intuitive, not easy to relate with. Scorpio sees the hidden and repressed motives of others. Ruler of Scorpio is Pluto. This planet takes position in Capricorn in October. That brings more control and responsibility. Perseverance and persistence are very strong.
Building
Fights
Venus rules the building activities in Ikariam. First week of October Venus takes position in Scorpio. Then gold stock will become very important. Time to upgrade buildings that will increase gold income: city halls, museums, taverns, governor’s houses in cities where corruption is. From October 8, Venus will travel through Sagittarius. Time to develop a plan for ideal structure in your cities for the long term and to start realizing this plan step by step.
Mars is the ruler of fights and wars. Until October 15 Mars will go through the sign Leo. That makes that fights and wars will be fought with full confidence and determination, with large armies and fleets. After October 15 Mars will go through the sign Virgo. Time to evaluate the troops and ships. Strategic composing of army and fleet will become more important than a large amount of troops and ships. Virgo hates risks, so players will be tentative in their actions.
-Written by Joffer
Monthly interview with RJC
World you are playing in? Chi, Omi, Iota, Alpha - I'm more active on Chi than anywhere else currently. If you had choice for your new colony, on what island would you do it - sulfur or crystal? And why? Depends on the stage of my account - but I would probably go for sulphur in later game to give more military capacity, early in game crystal is more useful to speed research and workshop upgrades. I would never look for more than 2 crystal towns, but have up to 5 sulphur towns (mainly for the Forge miracle in older servers) What do you think about piracy? Is it helpfull? Piracy is the most effective way on a new server to dominate - take Chi and my alliance Nwolf who have won the last 5 or 6 cycles taking over half the top 30 places last time. We now dominate piracy and our growth means we are able to dominate militarily as well. A lot of other players are unhappy with that, some have left the game
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however others have vowed to spend unlimited ambrosia to try to stop us. Personally I hate piracy as I find it very boring. It is extremely time consuming to play properly, so I only play it occassionally not every round. What would happen in the future with the bashing rule, which has been removed? What is your opinion? Glad it has been removed hope it doesn't come back Does the player depend on the alliance or alliance depends on the player? The alliance depends on the quality of it's players, the best players will tend to congregate together as a server matures,however a good leadership will attract good players to join. There are some players that start alliances on several new servers but they fail each time, there are others who always seem to lead sucessful alliances. -Written by Gabriella
The final word
W
e wish to thank everyone who helped along to publishing this edition. We hope you had fun reading it. If you wish to comment on any of the articles you can do it here.
If you have any ideas about what to write, who to interview or you think we should interview you, please leave a PM to Hopla with the info what should we do and why. Any hints about anything interesting are welcomed aswell. If you want to have your own add in the classifieds section leave a PM to Hopla. Remember to see what we need, to publish your ad, in here.
Looking for members Game-world: Ypsilon Alliance name Oak and Shield : Position in the high-score: 5 Short intro: We are reasonably good at war How to contact: Danp, Lord Bern or Sharpe12
Winner of Bingo
The winner of last month’s Bingo was rmpa.
Congratulations
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