Ancient tales of Utopia

Back in the first age, the relations were much different. You could only declare relations with those of the same island. War gave benefits as it does now, Peace gave a defensive bonus as it does now, and Ally disallowed military attacks between two kingdoms IF both kingdoms set their status to Ally. Neutral was the default which did nothing. At the same time, all intra-island attacks gave higher gains in attacks.

So many kingdoms were torn between wanting to ally with their neighbors or wanting to landgrab them for easier gains that required no boats. So back in those days there was MUCH MORE going on inside the islands. Sometimes it was heavy warfare, sometimes it was tight bonds between each other. Most islands were a mix, yet Island #1 and Island #2 each had their stuff together. There was VERY little intra-island warfare and most all kingdoms of those islands knew each other and worked together. The main reason Island #1 and Island #2 were so successful in this was that the first few islands filled up first with those who signed up first. And those were naturally the already die-hard fans who knew what they were doing. Newer players just signing up got put in new islands that filled up and then the next island filled up. So it was really unbalanced for the most part.

But anyways... ADAMANTIUM 50:4 started rallying all of Island #4 together to wage war with all of Island #2. He did an exceptional job in getting his island together and they started with 1:2's regent, stomped him down to the ground and moved onto 2:2's regent. The plan was to go down the list and destroy each regent one by one. It was a good plan yet still flawed. What better way to convince the victim island to work together than to make it known that they'd all eventually get attacked? Random attacks would have left the "chances are it won't be us" attitude in many regents but this caused everyone to realize they had no choice but to fight back before it was their own turn.

Island #2 immediately started to crush all of Island #4. Island #7 then joined forces with Island #4 which led to Island #1 joining forces with Island #2. So the 1 & 2 vs 4 & 7 Island War shook the continent... ADAMANTIUM died so quickly that I didn't even know he was targeted for destruction. Island #7's main leader also got crushed, but not destroyed. The first 2 or 3 kingdoms on Island #2 were severely hurt and more damage done across the whole island, but overall we won. My kingdom pretty much made it through unscathed even though we were a primary fighting force in the war.

And all of this fighting brought together an already well bonded group of regents. Being a life-saver one day and begging for help the next made the whole island like one big kingdom that worked together to insure the survival of all. Without the relations being set up the way they were, and without the Island Wars, I'd have never met half the people I know today.

Those wars created a sense of loyalty to one's allies more so than anything else. Loki should be able to add to this story from things he remembers that I left out.

Now, anyone interested in hearing how much different the game was back in the beta days? :) Everything was named differently. I was the kingdom of Tasavalta of The Forgotten Isle #39 (Brittania). Now I'm the province of Tasavalta of Descending Shadow 12:22. Kingdom (province now) Island (kingdom now) Continent (island now) So when someone asked my location, I told them #39 on Brittania (or Continent #2) rather than now when I'd say 12:22. It just wasn't normal to say 39:2 as the game never listed things that way. It's weird to look back at old Crystal Ball reports now. No relations at all. No Boats. No Fame. Fame was instituted later in the first age yet it was earned much differently. It was something like 5 Fame per day to the highest NW province per kingdom. Regent's got another 5 or so points per hour, the Top ranked province for land and NW on each island got something like +15 per hour. So most kingdoms only had a single province with any fame at all as the regent typically had the most NW so got the only two bonuses. Fame didn't do anything at that point anyway though.

Back to the betas: There were no Tools, Crime or Channelling Sciences. No Avians, Undead or Halflings. No world rankings, only continent listings. No banners. No nifty little buttons on the paper. No Dragons. No Sink Boats, Mystic Vortex, Vermin, Quick Feet, Illusionary Forces, Reflect Magic, Invisibility, Fog, Incite Riots, Shadowlight, Miners Mystique, Haste, or Mind Focus. Nightmares, Clear Sight, and Expose Thieves eventually came about, but not at first. There used to be a Thievery Operation called Drug Armies which would reduce the victim's military power by a small percentage.But multi's would gangbang a province with a ton of Drug Armies and then attack so it was removed.

Temples increased Rune Production. In the first age they were changed to decreasing Rune Decay, then completely removed in the second age. Clinics increased the rate you replaced your peasantry. Markets increased your income. (Later changed to Banks.) There were no Watchtowers or Shipyards. Schools existed but I forget what they did. Mills were around but reduced building time, not cost. Learn attacks didn't exist. Multiple accounts were legal. It was a beta game and the more accounts we had, the more bugs we had so the more Solarianet (what Echelon used to be called) could fix the game. There was a guy named Anti who had about 5 different regencies. He only played Orc and he named each island Antis Orc Slaughterhouse, Antis Orc Marauders, etc... Even though multiple accounts were not against the rules, it caused a huge stir among the players that he was overdoing it as most of his islands were always at the top of the continents. But it does prove that he knew what the hell he was doing with this game!

The Networth formula was COMPLETELY different. In the middle of the second beta round Solarianet actually changed it. No warning whatsoever, everyone just changed from one hour to the next as military was made more valuable and science made much less valuable. I had a ton of science and dropped by 50% while others suddenly doubled. It was absolute mayhem since Solarianet never bothered telling us what happened.

There wasn't any of this auto-drafting. You had to pay for your soldiers just like every other unit. This made Night Strike and Nightmares much more powerful than it is today. Nightmares could actually kill off soldiers in training once all standing soldiers were gone. But don't think it was that much harder since you had to pay for soldiers, because troops were cheaper back then. Soldiers were about 100gc, specialists typically 250gc and Dwarven Elites at 1100gc still being the highest. But it did make the game more challenging as you had to manage your population on your own and didn't have these nice calculations telling you you're at 75% military. It took more understanding of the game to realize when you were short on peasants and how to rectify the situation. It also made it more challenging in that you had to log in and keep those soldiers in training. Rather than now when you can set your draft high and go away for 2 days, come back and explore 200 acres with all those free soldiers. Logging in all the time meant a lot more to success back then.

And that's all I can remember for now. Perhaps Loki or anyone else who played back in the betas can remember other things.

- Tasavalta -