The news team
Main editor: Hopla Spell checkers: Mogwai Reporters: Gabriella IM_Mike Joffer Mirarik Corsini Sharpe12 IronMan7 Graphic designer: Hopla
Vacancies
Game Operator position The game team is looking for Game Operators. Check out the applications here. Fan Art Helper position The Fan Art team is looking for helpers. Check out the applications here.
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News Welcome to read the Ikariam Scrolls. Since our last release quite alot has happened, so lets get caught up. Version 0.5.9 has been launched in the live servers on October 16th, bringing with it The Black Market, many bugfixes and some changes to the miracle system. Ikariam Mobile also got an update on October 16th. Now it is possible to raid other plaers using a mobile device. Due to public demand a new sytem for finding script users in Piracy was taken into use. The checks will be performed reguraly to catch anyone who tries to rise his capture point score by cheating. Someone new members have joined the staff aswell. We welcome Valorous to the game team and hope you do well in your new position.
Content
The News Team................................................2 Vacancies.........................................................2 News................................................................3 Interview with Rmpa........................................4 Shady traders and godly reshapes?...................6 Psi- Early Powerhouses and future predictions..8 Slowing Decay on Ypsilon..................................9 Ikariascope......................................................10 The final word.................................................11
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SOTW competitions are back on. SOTW is a weekly signature creating event, where winners are selected by public voting. Each week a theme is chosen by the Fan Art staf and announced in the public. Check out the SOTW competitions in the Fan Art Competitions section On a sadder note, we must announce that this will be the last issue of the Ikariam Scrolls. Due to various reasons Ikariam Scrolls is retiring. We want to thank you all for reading.
Interview with Rmpa
This time we had the pleasure to interview one of our lovley Global Moderators, Rmpa. - First, could you tell us something little about yourself? Rmpa: Im 26 yo and Im from Serbia. Im civil engineer IRL and I have to say that Im BIG supporter of FC Red Star from Belgrade, former European and World Champs. I needed to say this :) hehehe... anyway, since Im still looking for full time job I have anough free time for playing games, actually atm I play just Ikariam and thats it. - How did you find Ikariam? Rmpa: I found Ikariam since the beginning, in 2008. I played OGame at that time (not any more), and we got the message there that there is a new game called Ikariam. So, few players from there, including me, gave a shoot and came to first server Alpha.de but since I didnt knew german so well I moved to the .org server. And as its obvious Im still here. - In what servers do you play currently? Rmpa: I played on many servers and communities. Just imagine to handle 12 accounts in the same time and to be active on all of them ?!! Yes, I had them in 2011 and that year was my most active year in Ikariam. Now I have less accounts... hmmm... wait till count them... I have 6 accounts now, but Im really active only on Omikron (IGN: rmpa, ally: Dr-F), Sigma (IGN: rmpa, ally: P-R), Chi (ally: NWOLF, IGN: changing it), ARES (IGN: White Eagle, ally: DAWAR) :) and now I play actively only on .org server. I left all others atm because RL duties. - Why did you decide to join the team? Rmpa: I decided to join the team because I started to spent a lot of time on Boards and I really started to love it. I was in some kind of doubt in that time. I didnt knew for which position to apply, for MODs or GOs but at the end I decided to be a MOD, but I think that I will soon try to be a GO. I wanted to learn more about the game and I thought that I will learn more if Im in the team. Eventually I found that being a part of the team is REALLY RELAXING and FUNNY and I really enjoy it. I have to say for the future readers that being a teamler is not so much demanding and if you have enough time you will find a lot of great people here around (lol Im sounding like the team PR ahha) - Who do you think has the hardest position to fill in the team? Rmpa: SMODs and SGOs * rmpa running from our dears GA and BA - Player wise, are you more of a builder or a fighter? Rmpa: Im builder and fighter, maybe more fighter. I cant separate those two things. The reason why I had so many accounts is that I cant just sit back and move resources around, I like to fight, so I always have at least one account where Im fighting.Im in problem where I have to fight on two or even more accounts and believe me that in some moments I had to struggle with fighting on several accounts. 4|Page
Thats the really charm of this game. and + to be one of the leaders in wars :) very stressful work to do, believe me - Sounds like fun :) - What would you like to see change in Ika (mechanics wise) Rmpa: Ikariam changed totally since the beginning. Now its far more demanding game and players have to spare more time on playing it. I would change the piracy. I have totally enough facts to say that piracy "killed" the old fashioned style of playing, fighting etc. On all communities. We dont have so much fighting and everyone is running from the "real Ikariam fights" etc. I guess that it is because we have less newcomers and exp players will avoid to fight if they can and just chase the CPs. So the main thing which I would change are : 1.) Piracy prizes should be just gold ofc bigger ammounts than now, 2.) Move forges back to sulphur islands, so basicly you will have to choose style of playing, and if you want to fight and if you want to have lower cooldown you have to sacrifice your towns and build them on sulphur. - What is the funniest thing that has happened to you in Ikariam? Rmpa: maybe when I was trying to find someone for hours when I realized that Im searching on wrong server Sigma.com insteed sigma.org :) Or when I changed the nick in the nick of opossite leader and chat with their general and made him to go in wrong direction, that’s the most famous moment in history of my playing - What would be your advise to new users starting Ika? Rmpa: 1.) Follow the rules, 2.) Read the helpful articles on Boards (Help and Questions Section, Guides, Discussion Sections etc) 3.) Try to find the alliance where you will find players who will answer you on your questions, protect you etc. In every alliance you will find at least 1 exp player who will help the newcomers. 4.) Grow enough large and pillage others for resources. Dont just build and be quiet as eventually someone will steal your resources. You have to learn how to fight and how to defend and no one will touch you :) - Thank you for the int!:)
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Shady traders and godly reshapes?
Shady traders and godly reshapes? Version 0.5.9, the latest instalment of Ikariam, comes with a Black Market and a wonders rebalance. But what does it mean? We will explain it in our last edition of the Ikariam Scrolls. Black Market As stated, the new version contains a Black Market. While the market is in no aspect coloured black, it's a place where you can sell units and navy. Units can be bought in the trading post, so those on the buying side won't need to sacrifice building spots. The buyer, however, will have to pick up the troops or ships with his or her own trade ships. He or she can use all five trade resources or gold to trade, depending on what the sellers demands. Both options, trade goods and gold, have their limitations. Resources require a lot of space on the trade ships, which greatly decreases the amount of units the buyer can pick up. Gold on the other hand is hard to come by in the long wars and generally is more crucial to keep, in the long wars. Units or ships cannot be offered or sold when they are in battle, scarred or inside an occupation of the town of port. The building 'Black Market' has 25 levels. Each level, up to level 23, gives the possibility to add another unit or a ship to the picture. Each level also comes with a tax deduction, a percentage the seller loses on the transaction itself. Those deductions start at 23% at the first level and end at 1% at the maximum level, so it's also beneficial to upgrade the building to level 25, even if you already can sell all the units you wish. Also interesting to note: players with no alliance can sell up to eight kinds of troops or ships. Those who have joined an alliance have four additional slots. It's also possible to sell units to players who haven't researched those units yet. However, those players cannot upgrade their units yet (as they haven't researched it yet), so these units remain vulnerable nevertheless. Upgrades will always be adapted to those of the buyers one. The upgrade might change some of the rules of rebuild. While some fighters will not really need the upgrade, it might come in handy for some of our builders, who have under-invested in the military part of their account. They can now buy an army without much effort. This might give back some action on some servers, but it also might not. Fighters can also sell their units at the end of each war instead of firing them. However, it should be noted they should be extremely careful because of the normal market rules of supply and demand. If the offer stays available too long, the additional financial loss might eat some, if not all, of the profit. The update might be useful for some, but useless for others. However, unlike changes like piracy and many others, the update doesn't really require you to use it. A good fighter will not be in a huge disadvantage of not using it. However, only time can tell how the new building will affect ingame wars.
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Wonders rebalance Gameforge changed some of the effects of the wonders, in order to make the lesser used ones more popular. The effect of the following wonders has been doubled:
Hades: max of 80% payback of marble in battle own cities instead of 40%; Demeter: max of 12/h population growth instead of 6/h; Athene: max of 400% additional safe trade goods instead of 200%; Hermes: max of 200% load speed in own ports instead of 100%; Ares: max of 200(,)0 (%) morale in battle own cities instead of 100(,)0(%); Colossus: additional scattered time has been doubled (max of 6 hours instead of 3);
There are also two other changes:
Demeter now works longer: 36 hours instead of 24. That means that the wonder has been made three times more powerful. Colossus' effect has been slightly reshaped: the old 10-20-30-60-100-effect has been changed to 20-40-60-80-100.
The question is whether these changes will be sufficient to make some of the lesser used miracles more attractive to the masses. The answer is: probably not. While miracles like Demeter made a huge step forward, some other miracles still have their old defects, which is why players will not use them often. Once, Ares was used to give morale to battles in fleet fights. When tenders were introduced, the miracle could still be used in foreign towns to slaughter some armies that weren't accompanied with cooks or tenders and would otherwise have scattered. Recent changes, including the fix that turned the effect of Ares off in foreign cities and the fix to the spear/slinger-trick, made the wonder lose much of its original value. The maximum effect of 200% morale doesn't make much sense either because the old 100% boost was already maximizing the morale bar. On a more positive side: fighters can get a more decent effect on lower levels, which might be where the miracle could be used again, like for example some occupations. An other example would be Hermes, that could only be used in own ports. Wouldn't it be more interesting if the miracle would also have effect in foreign cities (loading) and decrease the load time for pillages as well? Such changes would require more coding, but I believe that they would make more sense when it comes to increasing the value of all miracles, rather than changing a few variables in the code of the game. This is also my last article, as the Ikariam Scrolls are stopping. It was a pleasure writing for you. Best regards and thanks for reading my articles! -Written by IM_Mike
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Psi- Early Powerhouses and future predictions We are already 2 months into the new world Psi, but who are the power alliances and who are the dark horses? Let's first have a roundup of our events so far:
1 War DKZ vs ROAR A number one alliance has emerged in FIGHT _UE_ seem a bit feisty And well that's about it so far.
So who appear to be the power alliances in the world? So far, I can see NWO, BLOOD, FIGHT and _UE_ being our major military powers and will engage in the majority of wars and perhaps, weed out a few of their rivals fairly soon. However, I see that NUKE can be a bit of a dark horse. They seem like an elite alliance who will eventually reach the top with patience and if they keep strict entrance requirements. However, this kind of alliance tends to go quite unnoticed as they go about their business and allows them to be largely unaffected by wars. Further down we have the alliance EOG in 4th. I'm not quite sure how they will get on. They have the highest membership numbers, which usually means they will have a lot of none fighters in wars. They may become an easy target for the alliances previously mentioned. Of course, we can't discard the idea of a strong Vietnamese alliance in _VF_. There are many Vietnamese players on Ikariam and they usually have a strong alliance on most worlds. So, my opinion of which alliance will come out on top over 4-5 months is NUKE if they keep up their current recruitment policies. -Written by Sharpe12
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Slowing Decay on Ypsilon
It's become quite apparent on Ypsilon that we are getting less and less players every day. For example, in the last 2 weeks we have lost 50 players and now we only have 600. In fact, just 3 days ago, my Diplomat was just saying he is now the only player in all of his islands. He used to be in quite an active area and caused us quite a few headaches. So, what are we going to do about it? Well, we have started an inter-alliance conference on what to do. We proposed many ideas and debated on them. Some ideas have included a smaller player alliance to leapfrog smaller players into the larger alliances in hopes to stop them from leaving the game from getting bored. Or promoting the game world on the Ikariam scrolls and board. But these are only having a limited amount of success, so what do we need to? Do we need to encourage the players we have to stay and keep everyone involved? I would argue yes. In my alliance, on the game-world, I have been trying out a little experiment. My theory is that if you keep the players actively involved in conflicts they will stay interested in the game and are more likely to stay. So far this has worked quite well, we have high membership and more impressively, low rates of decay to inactive. In our history we've only had around 6 people go inactive which 2 of them came back soon after. So what am I trying to say? That war, as opposed to splitting opinions and isolating players, as you would expect, is actually having a good effect on our world population. If we get more involved and manage conflict well, we can prolong our game world life and slow if not stop decay. So how do we get more growth into Ypsilon? If you have any ideas contact me and we can try to implement it. -Written by Sharpe12
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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 November will be dominated by two signs of the Zodiac: Scorpio and Sagittarius, because the Sun moves through the sign Scorpio until November 23, then it will transfer to the sign Sagittarius.
The sign Scorpio is characterized by deep emotions and extremes. Scorpio has great power, which can be used for the well-being of others or 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, and not easy to relate with. Scorpio sees the hidden and repressed motives of others. The ruler of Scorpio is Pluto. This planet takes position in Capricorn in November. That brings more control and responsibility. Perseverance and persistence are very strong. The sign Sagittarius is characterized by the love for adventure, travel and philosophy. Sagittarius aims for the higher and divine. He is jovial, idealistic and optimistic. He searches for knowledge and wisdom. He is honest and straightforward. He loves freedom. The ruler of Sagittarius is Jupiter. Jupiter takes position in the sign Cancer in November. From November 7, Jupiter will be retrograde. Jupiter brings expansion, in Cancer
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it will mean expansion overseas. But because Jupiter is retrograde, it will be hard to realize and only will happen in your dreams. Trade The planet Mercury is ruler of trade in Ikariam. This planet takes position in the sign Scorpio in November. First part of November, Mercury will be retrograde: trade will be almost impossible because of the extreme prices. From November 11, Mercury will move forward through the Zodiac again. 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.
Building Venus rules the building activities in Ikariam. First week of November, Venus takes position in the sign Sagittarius. The ideal structure in your cities is leading. Temples and academics are important too as religion and science are important for Sagittarius. From November 6, Venus will travel through the sign Capricorn. Ambition and score becomes important. Expansion of buildings that give lots of points will become important. Finances
and buildings that give less investments of resources will get priority. Fights Mars is the ruler of fights and wars. In November, 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
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.
We wish to thank all our readers once more for your time you have put into reading our releases over the past months.
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