Strike oneDue to popular request in an earlier thread on these boards, I went out looking for AquaSeaFoam to ask him a few questions! I hope you enjoy reading!
Strike twobut also developed the modern exploring "cow" strategy designed to economically support a top kingdom.
Strike threeWhat impact do you think Absalom has had on Utopia in the past and present?
Had to stop there.......... Didnt have my boots on and it was real thick.
DreamworksSo Very Wet
Err no? Check here: http://forums.utopia-game.com/showth...yer-InterviewsOriginally Posted by imbushe
He's giving his answers on the questions, it doesn't mean they're neccecarily facts though.
@Elit; let it go ;p. I do think I should have just let go of that question and not asked though.
should I have bolded popular?
DreamworksSo Very Wet
No need because it doesn't change the fact alot of people named him as a candidate for an interview, hence 'popular request'.
Prot is correct. Nicely done interview.
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I suppose our definition of a lot is different. I see his name several times, but several mentions/questions not requests. It's w/e would not be hard to find another 15 things he says that are inaccurate about himself and his role in utopia.
DreamworksSo Very Wet
Popular has more than 1 defenition. Our defenition isn't different, but you are simply misinterpreting this one.
The question on that thread was "Who would you like to see interviewed". Simply posting a name makes it a request.
Elit's just mad that his beloved kingdom got farmed. His huge unwarranted overinflated ego just couldn't take losing 20k acres in 48h to a kingdom who was being hit down 2v1 gb style.
Elit, I was asked a question and I answered it. Relax. He wanted to know my reasons and I gave them. You may feel those reasons were not justified, but that doesn't change that those were my reasons.
imbushe,
You're clearly wrong on your first point as prot already demonstrated. A number of people suggested that I be interviewed and prot took the initiative. If you don't like me and don't want to read the interview, don't worry, reading it is completely optional.
On your second point, I coined the term "cow" (short for cash cow) in age 19 after developing a strategy to use large provinces to abuse the tb system. Cow is the preferred term since "bank" is a building. I was the #1 prov that age and my kd had all of the top 3 world provinces (twin cows and one large killer.) The strat benefited from an old tb loophole that allowed provinces to send aid to those under 1/4 of their nw tb free. After my kingdom continued to use improved versions of this strat successfully in subsequent ages (including along with other allies like Pansies), I and others felt that cows were overpowered and I helped petition Mehul to nerf them by removing the tb loophole (which he eventually did). Cows had proved to be so dominant however, that kingdoms continued to use them with great success even without the tb loophole.
I obviously didn't invent "having a big province" or whatever, however I, and later with me, Absalom, did initiate the modern use (that became common) of a large exploring cow for the benefit of top kingdoms. Since that time, early age top kingdom positioning has often relied on the use of cows, cow killers, etc in an attempt to establish cow control. A large part of the reason for the widespread early age cf's was to try and help a group establish cow control.
Absalom kingdoms have often been been accused of being afraid to fight even wars due to hiding behind the strength of cows. It's quite likely cows would have been the logical evolution of the game in due time anyway, but I did set the ball rolling on it by devising the strategy, the implementation method, successfully demonstrating it to good kingdom effect, and then selling the benefits to allies who in turn implemented it, followed by competition later implementing it.
Point 3 is an opinion question. I can't really get that one wrong even if you have a different opinion. I think I've been in a pretty good position to see the effect Absalom has had though. What is your vantage point?
Tennent, I think you are mistaken with your crosslogging thoughts. Absalom as an alliance always took a serious stand against such things and those in the know from days when the book was being written on crosslogging know who the serious crosslogging kingdoms were. That is not to say all absalom kingdoms were perfect; probably most did some limited illegal account sitting and some even did some outright crosslogging. The reality though is that Absalom has always been against such things and as a whole, Absalom kingdoms mostly avoided crosslogging even when much of the competition was well known to crosslog their full kingdom through munk, etc. If you know anything about the crosslogging issues, you should know which kingdoms were on munk (or their own private crosslogging tools) since that information was not hard to obtain.
Last edited by AquaSeaFoam; 14-01-2012 at 07:17.
Would have been interesting to see how cows would have been treated in subsequent ages had I not retired. Public opinion was pretty close to 50/50 for/against with me being the loudest and most vocal opponnent, with my last age being an alliance war that involved half the top 100 over a single fed province hit being deemed dirty.
I still believe the best allure of the game was a structure where someone could create a province in a ghetto and be #1. I imagine this is what first grabbed your interest in the game in ages 3-5 and the same with me. I always remember those as the most fun ages I've had with the game. Granted this has happenned recently but it requires naps with the entire server nowadays, so is a little different beast. If the game were to revive in a facebook or bring new users structure, I think that is the way to bring in the new math geeks like you and I were twelve years ago.
Allowing people multiple goals always keeps the game fresh, and once it became impossible to succeed without being in a large kingdom, I feel it made the game more stale and repetitive.
Last edited by flogger; 14-01-2012 at 07:56.
What I read is:
You abused TB mechanics first and then took a stand against it.
You're responsible for all the top kd bank Naps.
You crosslogged, but took a stand against it.
From an earlier posts: you 2vs1-ed to take a stand against it.
Can you see why people have trouble with this ASF?
[QUOTE=AquaSeaFoam;15128841]Elit, I was asked a question and I answered it. Relax. He wanted to know my reasons and I gave them. You may feel those reasons were not justified, but that doesn't change that those were my reasons.
imbushe,
You're clearly wrong on your first point as prot already demonstrated. A number of people suggested that I be interviewed and prot took the initiative. If you don't like me and don't want to read the interview, don't worry, reading it is completely optional.
On your second point, I coined the term "cow" (short for cash cow) in age 19 after developing a strategy to use large provinces to abuse the tb system. Cow is the preferred term since "bank" is a building. I was the #1 prov that age and my kd had all of the top 3 world provinces (twin cows and one large killer.) The strat benefited from an old tb loophole that allowed provinces to send aid to those under 1/4 of their nw tb free. After my kingdom continued to use improved versions of this strat successfully in subsequent ages (including along with other allies like Pansies), I and others felt that cows were overpowered and I helped petition Mehul to nerf them by removing the tb loophole (which he eventually did). Cows had proved to be so dominant however, that kingdoms continued to use them with great success even without the tb loophole.
I can't remember all the details but I'm pretty sure we used that strategy to some degree in Desire age 18 with AoD as our explorer/bank.
Did i miss the link on the utopia throne page or hasn't it been there?
Just noticed the thread and i've rarely seen an interview worth reading as much as this one.
Loved it.
I always carefully stay out of big sized top kd's ever since i played in one during my 3rd age and got so bored i felt like quitting the game.
Therefor i have no clue about all the big boys names and without this article i would never have found out about ASF even existing, but loved reading this and thank both prot and ASF for their efforts.
flogger, the earlier cows I was referring to were not fed but instead fed smaller provinces all they wanted without ruining their trade balance. The feeding (and in turn gbp abuse for more feeding) came later as cows "caught on" and cow battles for dominant positioning ensued. I very much agree with the rest of what you said.
Lews, indeed Desire and others like Mordor did use large provinces for good effect in previous ages. I'm really not trying to claim otherwise or act like I invented being a big province so sorry if it appears like I was. A better representation might be that I coined the word cow and developed/popularized a strategy utilizing an exploring province to aid the kingdom, buy and slay dragons, etc with large attacker (killer) support (later evolving into allied group support) that from that point on became a key component to the #1 kingdom competition for the majority of ages afterwards. Also, I'm not trying to claim that these cows are good for the game, in fact I believe the opposite and have often suggested a better balance between exploring and attacking so that exploring isn't so overpowered.
Scavenger, I abused the strength of exploring combined with an old intentional feature that allowed you to send tb free aid to provinces under 1/4 your size. Despite being good at this strategy, I felt it was overpowered so suggested the strategy I had used (more than once) with good success be weakened. Top kingdom cow naps are a natural result of multiple kingdoms wanting cows. Un-cf'd cows are a naturally unstable condition and either they will cf, or to quote the Highlander, "In the end, there can be only one." The early age "temporary allying up to establish cow dominance" was largely a response by non Absalom groups wanting to ensure Absalom could not establish such cows and in place, they establish their own. Again, I'm not trying to claim this is good for the game, just the result of the situation.
I didn't ever crosslog in the context that many well known top kingdoms did. In the past, I did use illegal sitting (typically done by a non playing ex-kingdom member) for players who were going on vacations. I'm not trying to claim this was legit to do and am not bragging about having done it in the past, just being honest. Many other kingdoms in the past would do every wave 25 hits, with crosslogging a large percentage of the kingdom very regularly. This was typically done through tools like munk. I was always against such things and my kingdoms did not do it and if a kingdom wanted to join Absalom it was a condition that they got off munk. Again, I'm not trying to claim that I or Absalom were or are perfect, and some kingdoms most likely did crosslog some accounts at various times. I'm just trying to be honest with those flaws and also put them in context. The reality is that Absalom was very clearly against such things and if an Absalom kingdom was resorting to any serious crosslogging, then they were in for some stern talks from Absalom court and at risk of being asked ot leave the alliance. This is in contrast to some other groups who openly helped their alliance mates get set up for max crosslogging on munk and never had provinces miss a wave despite only having 12 players online for most of those waves and terrible activity apart from those waves.
Yes, we 2v1'd and gb'd to take a stand against 2v1'ing and gb'ing. I understand the irony in this, however people are also sent to prison if they illegally imprison someone, and may even be killed if they kill someone. If someone knows they won't get away with 2v1'ing someone because it'll happen back to them, then they are less likely to do it in the first place. Absalom from the start (hense the name if you've ever read the biblical story of Absalom) has valued justice and vengeance against those who wrong us. Some might prefer we change our name to Jesus and adopt a policy of forgiveness and turnig the other cheek, but while that would be nicer, that's just not who we choose to be.
Even if you disagree with my opinions, hopefully you found them interesting, and you can be assured that these are my real opinions based on my experiences.
I didn't even know ASF before this article - but now I know. What a breath of fresh air amidst the fetid miasma now pervading the halls of Utopia - I mean, just compare what he's saying compared to Realest or who's-that-other-guy-interviewed-before-realest? Well done ASF - you may be right or wrong but at least you're sharing something interesting with us - unlike all the ego-swollen people before you.
[I comment based only on what I read in Utopia News interviews - if there are other good folks like ASF not yet interviewed, I would happily retract my comment about the lack of fresh air at the top of Utopia.]
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