Curse of the veteran n**b

[Gothmog]

I have through studies of the kds I have had the pleasure of randoming/trading into the last ages discovered that there's no new players anymore. There's only vast hords of people coming back after breaks of 4-5 years and doing an age or two and then leaving again, so the player material is more or less the same guys as back in 2003, but they're taking shifts playing.

The bieffect of this is that you get alot of really stubborn, not really up to date veterann**bs that run most of the kds.

My kd this age, who for some very strange(and sad for utopia's state) managed to end around top30 last age, reelected an old king that immidiatly declared that we all should be 700 acres 5 days oop for warring purposes. I asked him why, and he had no real answer. Basically, beeing the same size had the advantage of making us all more or less equal sizewise ;) As you can see the argument is somewhat of a catch-22, but auggests that kings below top20 this age base their strats not on facts nor strats based on numbers, but old things they've picked up, but never understood.

I then traded into another kd that decided that the best way to war was to have everyone grow to 3k acres through dicing and then start warring. And if we all sat really quiet and had huge defence noone would attack us. Having decided that dicing myself through wave after wave of freebie attacks on us would be a bit tiresome I left.

And landed in a kd with 5 active players and a demand of using irc. They had pimp, they used the ingame forum, yet unless you idled with the 4 others on irc, you had to leave.

So in my experience most kds are managed by old veterann**bs that have picked up ideas over the years, failed to adapt them to changes and who enforces them blindly. The No-pk in war rule is a sign of the same.

Now I am in a new ghetto where the king write everything in caps lock and insists on everyone updating their pimp info every 12th hour and have had 3 rollcalls thus far :)

It's become a curous game this, it's a postapocalyptic game ;) Where small bands of survivors band together with dimishing resources and knowledge is forever lost and only remembered through myths and strange rules }:->

[Catwalk]

LOL love your description of the postapocalyptic society. I fully support IRC and Pimp discipline in kingdoms who actually have those standards, it's absolutely retarded to try to enforce such rules in kingdoms that are way below. Very sad if lower ranked kingdoms seek to become top through simple imitation without understanding. Discipline doesn't make a top kingdom, nor do all top kingdoms have discipline.

The plan about being 700 acres 5 days OOP is not so bad, though. Making sure noone falls behind is a good idea long-term, and for early warring 700 acres is a decent size to be pumped at. Would be better if it stated 700-800 so it's not just a rigid number, of course.

I then traded into another kd that decided that the best way to war was to have everyone grow to 3k acres through dicing and then start warring. And if we all sat really quiet and had huge defence noone would attack us. Having decided that dicing myself through wave after wave of freebie attacks on us would be a bit tiresome I left.

Did they have a monarch named Matty by any chance?

[Gothmog]

I have no problems with staying more or less the same size OOP. But when such an order is given without any reason, with no strat to back it up or no idea to why it would be advantageous I get some worries.

If I am to blindly follow a kings strats and orders I will make sure the king is alot better than myself, and that king was no YF or Sid ;)

As for the irc, pimp and supertools used. Well, if you're a neanderthal you're prolly better off with a spear than with a machinegun...

But it's funny :) And a bit sad that so many people have placed their faith, strat and game in the hands of people with virtually no idea and no knowledge to strategies or game dynamics.

To commemorate this I will ask every king to report how often a ghetto manage to PK a prov this age, and how often that "No PK" is a term in a war between two such less-than-superb kds ;) Please msg me and I will make a summary by the end of age. I suspect the number of provs PK-ed(not sure they really understand the concept though) by a ghetto will be more or less equal to the times I have performed in an off Broadway play.

[stoffi]

Lol, gothmog. Better off with a spear. :p

I think I made a thread about this some time ago, that the big problem in ghettoes nowadays, is that they are usually ran by EXTREMELY arrogant ppl, and they ALWAYS know what's best, but they don't know why it is best.... You can never argue with such ppl, because they believe their opinion is the best no matter what.

I've done as you, Gothmog, during the last ages I've spent all my time in loads of ghettoes, usually many different ones at once. Sometimes you bump into friendly guys ofc, who know they don't know it all. But a large majority of the monarchs(in ghettoes I've been in), are arrogant n00bs.
You got 2 alternatives really.

1: Kill them all.(this is usually done best by getting multies in the kd)
2: Search on for a kd with a wise monarch who realizes he isn't wise... Because it's extremely rare to find capable monarchs in ghettoes.


And lol, ghettoes don't know what a pk is, even decent kds have problems understanding what it is. :)

[Peto]

Last age several KDs asked me for war terms and all asked for no PK, I agreed to no PK of course since PK (now) is almost always just a waste of time and energy. But it can be fun to threathen with it LOL.
Since I was so "nice" and agreed to some terms I managed to get them to agree to less other terms. (I don't like war terms at all...but better war with terms than no war at all)

One KD accused us of breaking the terms...took us some time to understand what they were refering to.....the answer was that for them PK was Peasant Killing, and they did not mean province death from zero peasants...they just meant the hoirrible act of killing their peasants LOL I tried to explain that The Geneva Conventions...treatment of non-combatants...does not apply in Utopia :)

[stoffi]

And who the hell started making up war terms? Some time ago, asking for war terms equalled nuuuuub kd. And it still does, only more kds are nubs. :)

there is no such thing as war terms in utopia, you can do whatever you want. Like Peto says, the Geneva Conventions don't apply here :p

[Hurlin]

It's become a curous game this, it's a postapocalyptic game ;) Where small bands of survivors band together with dimishing resources and knowledge is forever lost and only remembered through myths and strange rules }:->

You have no one to blame but your self I offered you a slot to random into ..... and obviously you have'nt done that or you would be mentioning my anti IRC rules.

[VT2]

"As you can see the argument is somewhat of a catch-22, but auggests that kings below top20 this age base their strats not on facts nor strats based on numbers, but old things they've picked up, but never understood."

That's been in effect since sometime around 2005. Sad but true.

Warterms are just a waste. My only term is that the kingdom who surrenders first loses.
And yeah, I've been accused of breaking terms that didn't exist, by the simple act of killing someone's peasants.
"WAAAAAAAAH! IT HURTS! YOU'RE NOT SUPPOSED TO DO THAT! IT'S NO FUN! :(:(:(:(:( NOW YOU DON'T GET A SURRENDER!!!!!!!!!!!"

[Ironballs]

Yes, it's always been interesting how whatever new tool top kingdoms start using to improve their performance once it becomes known all kingdoms feel they "must" have it. Even if they are so poor and have no idea how to use it to improve their kingdom they still must have it because successful kingdoms use it! So many kingdoms in the past have required pimp or whatever and get absolutely no measurable benefit it's silly.

Province strategy wise the game is probably even worse, "I've used xxxx strat for the last 5 years and always done well why should I change?". Fact of the matter is that the game was so low growth the last few years I played strategy really had very little affect for the average player over a 3 month age.

[VT2]

After ten years, it would seriously surprise me if things hadn't degraded to knowledge and new ideas being both rare and archaic.

[Catwalk]

The best thing that can be done for ghettos is to improve the flow of information. Nubs don't know where to go for quality advice, leading them to rely on their n00b veteran monarchs (apologies to ghetto monarchs, some of which are quite good).

[VT2]

Too bad no one who's any good wants to stay in the ghetto - especially not now, with legalized cheating.

[TheRock]

Legalized cheating is an oxymoron, isn't it?

[VT2]

Yepp, but it's still fun to say.

[Toadi]

I like how VT2 makes fun of these who live in the past of Utopia and yet he talks about surrender.

Way to fool yourself !