END OF AGE 87: AGE REVIEW w/ ASCENSION

The Kingdom of ASCENSION proudly presents their Age 87 Summary and Final war!

The age drew to a close and I sat in the tavern listening to all the great tales of feats and crowns that had been won. Many contenders have great stories and without enemies like these the winners would not have had much resistance in their climb to the top. Ascension has generally gone to war with the top end of the server and usually does so from nearly any position. They are no easy foe to war, having gone to war with them many times I can attest to their skill on the battlefield. I sat down at the table where the Ascension leadership was laughing and drinking pitchers of ale. The King turned me and offered me a mug, we drank together while he told me of his great age.

1) What is your kingdom and your position?
Monarch of Ascension

2) Do you play WoL only or GEN as a kingdom as well?
WoL only.

3) How was your age in one word?
Predictable

4) What did you think of changes?
I enjoyed the changes.

5) Did you use any of the major changes to your advantage?
The biggest usage of the major changes would be the significant spell cost reduction elves had which was huge for expedited ritual casting.

6) What was your least favorite change this age?
I was really excited for the instant war once both kingdoms hit 25/25. I was bummed when that got removed.

7) What would you like to see changed in the game next age?
See above.

8) How did this age go overall with the kingdom loadout you picked? would you have done it differently?
It went fairly well all things considered. Hindsight is 20/20 pre age we said hey Elf mystic/heretic core would be great but meh its boring then it won the age haha oh well.

9) How was the player base? did you find a lot of new faces were coming to you this age?
We have a few new faces this age and some returning vets. The age attrition is real. People have jobs that change and families grow so the strain is felt with that. We accommodate that to the best of our abilities.

10) If there was ONE MAJOR change you would make to Utopia - What would it be?
Hmmm…. Utopia loves it some RNG so how about each age kingdoms get built from the player pool through a RNG selection.

11) How many wars did you get yourselves into and how did they all work out?
We warred four times total. They all went according to plan so to speak. 9:11 was our third war they prepped well and they executed to get the W. They opted to chain our tms so we just grew our attackers huge in prep for WD and post war explore. 5:10 also got the W but we extracted 30k acres before WD so we weren’t too upset about that.

12) Do you want to give any shout outs to other kingdoms who out performed this age?
9:11 was in their eowcf and we knew they were coming for us. We did our best to prep for them and counter what we knew they’d do but they were able to execute accordingly.

13) Any honorable mentions to players who out performed the ENTIRE age?
I have some hardcore vet players that have been around for a while and they always are appreciated. I had two new recruits come in Nikkmp3 and Soshaan. Out the gates they were extremely active, always looking for a way to be helpful and eager to learn. That type of new energy in kingdom full old vets was a pleasant surprise to the age.

15) What are you plans for the upcoming age?
We typically push for land/nw crown. Hopefully we get it. If not hopefully someone other than Eme haha but seriously enough is enough.

16) Are you recruiting? if yes, how would you like to be contacted?
We are currently not recruiting but if anyone has interest in the future they can reach me at sabott #5446

17) How did Corona Virus affect your age?
We had a few players who were directly impacted from it and ended up stepping away which was unfortunate.

18) Any other comments?
Thank you for the consideration for the interview.

At the same time Sabbot was kind enough to also provide a recap of the last war of the age.

FINAL WAR OF AGE 87

1) What is your kingdom and your position?
Monarch of Ascension

2) How did you find your last war? (arranged or wave)
Our last war of the age we received a wave on a silver platter.

3) Who was your opponent and why did you pick them?
I feel like this needs a little extra back story. We warred 5:10. Initially we prepped our eowcf for Ronins. We ran low tpa/dpa 0 wt. They waved us out of range so we ended up waving 8:11 while 9:11 was waving 5:10 then 5:10 waved us armies out while 9:11 was waving them. We were at 28m off to just shy of 13m defense. Our age goal was land/nw for the age so we jumped at the opportunity to siphon up land.

4) When you run your wars, is it micro managed waves or do you have a preset plan?
The wars are micro managed. There is a preset plan a win condition we are looking for. A “W” doesn’t always equate to a war win points for us. If our positioning aligns with our age objective we pursue that.

5) How did you feel about your attacker choices?
I was really happy with our human/orc necro core. Late age we ran 25 attackers no true TM.

6) Did your TM choices compliment the attackers well this age?
Absolutely.

7) What was the biggest issue your attackers faced?
We didn’t tend to run into any issues really. Majority of the wars we opted to run 0 rax as chains and the constant influx of acres would drastically spread our armies. When we pushed for deep chains the first three war keeping armies aligned was vital to that.

8) What was the biggest issue your TMs faced?
The biggest issue we ran into was their inability to sustain UB. The meta pushes UB TM’s in particular mystics. UB Mystics tend to win the neck and neck wars.

9) What approach did you use on your waves? did it work?
We were patient with our waves. Zero rax allowed armies to stay synced. We would NM and NW chain. NM to open defenses up for quads taps. Run enough offense on TM to squeeze in a hit or two per wave.

10) How did you FINISH THEM off?
We ran a versatile TM mixture. We were able to remove opposing offenses well and open up opposing TMs with ours fairly consistent which allowed us to dictate the flow of most of our wars.

11) Any honorable mentions to your kingdom mates who went above and beyond?
I appreciate everyone who dedicates their time and energy into the age. Ervgotti is a machine and he’s been helping toe the line since we met I probably would’ve quit a few ages back if it wasn’t for his ability to help split the responsibility of running a kingdom. Some of my other guys appreciate discretion so I won’t toss names out. The guys who are always willing to sit, swap mentors and set their alarms to make it work are greatly appreciated and I let them know that.

12) Is there anything you would change about the 'WAR' experience in Utopia?
Not so much “in” war but finding war. I can’t express my level of frustration wasting time age after age waving up or laterally just to receive a in game messages about timing, lighting, the mood etc etc. I feel the server has gotten softer over the years with the attrition of the hardcore player base dying out.

13) Any final thoughts?
Shrinking the kingdom size to 22 would help the majority more than the minority on the server. There would be a lot more full kingdoms this way also. I think doing something like that would allow a lot more kingdoms to find themselves having opportunity to war and or compete through the age without taking anything away from the traditional 23-25 man kingdoms.

Thank you so much ASCENSION! See you on the battlefield in Age 88!