My Impression of Utopia Today

[Panthira]

I travel. My assessments of the kingdoms I visit is something I keep to myself. I'll see as many as 7 kingdoms in one age when I travel. Lately I've been spending more time in one kingdom at a time as the player base shrank.

I'd say the most challenging problem is the ability and willingness of players to actually work as a team. All organized kingdoms I've visited are totalitarian. This sounds worse than it plays, but it is controlled. Less organized kingdoms tend not to know what that chemistry is. Luckily I'm a veteran of an RPG group of over 30 years and have clarity on this.

I'm frankly surprised at the lack of task force organization in this game. I was just listening to Robert Gates about his system of objective: he delegates. This is a cultural problem. IMHO, the kingdom that learns to delegate and practice teamwork will go far. And I mean without bots and com systems. Heck, I'm competitive now and i have challenge idioms to stunt my performance. The bots and com systems simply give warlords a reason to bark more than actually accomplish something. Of course they have strategic value, but I see it squandered on dividing the kingdom more than getting the benefit of waking peons to arms.

I'm not making a kingdom if I have to run it. If anything I'll live and die by how well the team works together. I've made a template that is ready to activate, but till then I'll continue my journey. I'm sure a lot of guys are homers and love their kingdom. That's good.

We still should invest more in making new players feel comfortable or old players welcome. I'll take vlahul with open arms even if we ended up warring age after age. I'm comfortable with angry guys as much as well mannered nobles.

Travel, meaning defect or a new KD each age?

As far as my province, it feels like a wash. I am helping out everyone else while still maintaining as best I can. No one has GC to steal that I can find, and I used Upo today, which was entirely unhelpful. Maybe in wars it would be more so.

So my stealth ran out. I gave my soldiers away, I gave gc I had away, I posted the 20+ SoTs on Upo. And could do no more in Fort, especially.

[Panthira]

meh

the more I read, the more I think, "I rescind my suggestion to talk to pyro's".....

No idea what this means? I will take a guess... You offered a possible spot but are now taking it back because "meh".
Shrug. Thank you?

[Shai]

Welcome back to the game Panthira :)

Safe to say, it is not the same Utopia as it was under the Barduvian horde and Absalom Era :)

[Coren]

I can't say about your KD dynamics and how that could be improved. But single KD isn't complete picture how all KDs are playing. Single KD isn't even a complete view to what all same type KDs are doing. There is loosely three types of KDs in utopia. Of course some KDs are father apart from stereotypic example or even between two type groups.

Minority of KD keep growing. These KDs will go to war or use fort sparingly. They want to take full advantage of explore to grow and pump science. Fort or war would hinder both science and explore. These KDs can be found from top of land and NW charts. If I understand correctly your preference would be to play in this type of KD. This type of KDs were more common in old days but game changes have made warring type of KD easier to run.

Then there is KDs that have military like organization. These KDs are looking to fight and win wars for war wins and honour. Of course here is some variance but military like homogeneous structure with strong leaderships works best for their purposes. Of course if players in KD are more experienced and skilled that a less micromanagement is required from leadership to archive victories (like elite military units). These KDs fight wars often and use fortified often to train military after damages in a war. You end up to this type of KD. For comparison to real life military our KD sizes is only about 2-3 battle units that have very few people in leadership positions.

Then there is KDs that aren't organized. Those can also grow pretty big too. But these often have problems with activity and skill level of players. If they grow too much they will be farmed by stronger and bigger KDs keeping them mostly out of charts. Also they have no chance to win a war against a second type KD even tough they might be about same size. That leaves them mostly to play out of war if they don't wish to beaten badly.

As for why uniform sizes important. The gains are base on NW difference. If you can chain someone from opponents top down under your lowest NW province you practically disable that province from war. To make this kind of chain easier to execute it helps that everybody keep very close size.

You can also steal from fort and eowcf but number of targets that are profitable to you is a lot less than when you are normal. That makes it very hard to find good enough targets.

[Panthira]

OMG Shai. How are you?

[Panthira]

I have never played this game to just explore and grow big. If I had played that way, I would have been top 10, not to toot my own horn. That was never the objective for me or my kingdoms. Opponent worthy, kingdom strat, and participation were mandatory in my larger kingdoms. Participation and have a blast in my ghetto kingdoms.
The people I met in Utopia allowed me to express myself in ways I can't irl. As a woman, I am not allowed to be aggressive, have much of an opinion, like cars, know how computers work (inside and out), and so on. I have more in common with men than I do with most women. That was fine when I was a kid. As a woman though, other women do not appreciate me being in their man's life, so male friends are not easy to come by. Utopia was an excellent outlet for that for the most part.

That said, I don't want to see the game die. I would like to see it revitalized and given some TLC.

[citadela01]

Just move on.
If u were in a KD that you have history with or they used up real money to invite you in i'd understand loyalty.

As it stands just move on untill you find KD you enjoy playing in.

[Zauper]

I doubt you really knew what average kingdoms were like back in the day, Zauper. No offense, but anything you played in was probably at least in the top 25%, which didn't take a lot, but was still well above the average.

I respect the thought that my mere presence would escalate a kd to the top 25%. However, I idled in the priv of many complete ghettos and interacted with more through my role in the late teens and early 20s with ZEA.

The stupid "kingdom rules" post that pops up here every now and then is exactly an example of a ghetto trying to copy the top.

[Panthira]

I love the strength behind the debates. Juuuuust teetering on the brink of verbal warfare, yet maintaining enough civility and space to convey aggressive discourse, while not entirely oppressing the other person's opinions.

I love Utopians. They are a special breed, some of you.

Today is my birthday. I thought of putting my real pic up, and then I remembered the banners of old. No way! You people can be ruthless.

[zsivhawk]

Zauper, did you play in a Genesis kd during the first Genesis age that ended #1 land and NW and close to the top on the honor chart? The kingdom name was Paradigm, and we had the #1 land/NW province as well.

[Panthira]

Just move on.
If u were in a KD that you have history with or they used up real money to invite you in i'd understand loyalty.

As it stands just move on untill you find KD you enjoy playing in.

The monarch is my friend. My husband is my kingdom mate, which is a special challenge in itself. Hmmn....

[FATstrat]

As a woman, I am not allowed to be aggressive, have much of an opinion, like cars, know how computers work (inside and out), and so on. I have more in common with men than I do with most women. That was fine when I was a kid. As a woman though, other women do not appreciate me being in their man's life, so male friends are not easy to come by.

Do you live in the middle east?

[Elldallan]

That is so unfortunate, because again, I was told this is how it is in most of Utopia. Unless you are in the ghettos, then expect to die.

Well all of that is unfortunately essentially true. If you grow too far from your kd median you'll be a hindrance to them because nobody will war them since they have a "cow" that can't be taken down.
Grow too far from your kd median and you'll be a juicy target for practically everybody in your size range since you're alone wolf who can't defend himself.

And yes, with the increasing availibility of intel collection tools the nitpicking micromanagement have spread outside of top kd's, everybody expects you to upload your intel to the kd intel cache and then ppl will whine when you don't run exactly the numbers they want you to run.
If you want to be more involved then get involved by chiming in on strategy/tactics decisions, ask why you're doing something thisway and suggest adifferent way etc.


EDIT: Happy b-day Panthira :)

[Band of Horses]

I respect the thought that my mere presence would escalate a kd to the top 25%. However, I idled in the priv of many complete ghettos and interacted with more through my role in the late teens and early 20s with ZEA.

The stupid "kingdom rules" post that pops up here every now and then is exactly an example of a ghetto trying to copy the top.

My posts became bottom 25% after allying with Zauper.

I love the strength behind the debates. Juuuuust teetering on the brink of verbal warfare, yet maintaining enough civility and space to convey aggressive discourse, while not entirely oppressing the other person's opinions.

I love Utopians. They are a special breed, some of you.

Today is my birthday. I thought of putting my real pic up, and then I remembered the banners of old. No way! You people can be ruthless.

Happy Birthday! May your day be filled with happiness.

[Shai]

OMG Shai. How are you?

I'm great? How are you? Apart from a lil frustrated with the current state of the game that is :P

Now I must know what u edited out! ;)


An edit of my own: Happy Birthday!