Twice in one day!

The URL to my specific island on my Ikariam game has an ID of 1337. I don’t know why I haven’t noticed before today.

This is not a joke, I promise. I know I could have just changed the URL to reflect the 1337 for the ID attribute, but believe me I didn’t. I can’t believe the Reference Burst Theory™ that just happened. Check the comments of the previous post to see how the references are coming together precisely as predicted by RBT™.

Here’s the proof that I didn’t just change the URL. When hovering over the “Island” button in my Ikariam game, you can see the URL of the button in the status bar of my Firefox browser:

Anyone who has doubted my theory up until now has no reason to disbelieve any longer.

I wasn’t sure, but now I know!

I’ve been reminiscing about all the video games I’ve played in my many years of gaming (going on 21 years of conscious gaming). When I think about my favorite video games, three or four immediately come to mind. But when I sit down to write about it and access my mental catalog of titles, I realize that they barely fit in a top 10 favorites list.

It’s not too often that I have 10 favorites of anything. The problem with 10 favorites is it’s like having 10 winners in a race. No one cares that there are 10 winners. We want to know who was absolutely FIRST. The others just make up the first 9 to lose.

I get annoyed when people refuse to have a favorite of something, like how American Idol is secretly your favorite reality prime time TV show but you’re too afraid to admit it. It’s a cop-out when you say you don’t have a true favorite in a category, like how Backstreet Boys is your favorite pop cross-over hip hop all male dancing group but you’re ashamed to say it for some reason.

Not proclaiming your favorite of something is usually due to one (or all) of four possible reasons:

• 1) you are too lazy to put any effort into it
• 2) your opinions are too easily swayed to hold fast to any one thing for too long
• 3) you’re embarassed
• 4) you have trouble committing

That list sounds like it applies to relationships or something. Well take all that nonsense somewhere else because this is The Gimcrack Miscellany and we don’t like talking about things that make us feel vulnerable and/or pathetic.

So why am I saying all this on a top 10 list? Because I’m not talking favorites here, I’m talking ‘most played’ - read the title again. Aha! Yyyyyyyep. I’m not breaking any of my rules because these aren’t necessarily my top 10 favorites just because I played them the most.

Upon further thought, it just so happens that this list corresponds exactly with my top 10 favorites list…

Anyway, the number of hours you log playing a game has nothing to do with whether or not it’s your favorite game. Well, I guess it has to have something to do with it, but how else do you explain the huge numbers behind Tetris, Pacman, and Freecell? Those aren’t anyone’s favorite games, trust me. 85% of wives will say at least one of them is their favorite, but we know they’re lying. Brain Ninjas wins, hands down.

Oh, and one more thing, I realize this is a top 10 list instead of a top 5 list. What’s your point? Ye Old Top Fiver™ is just a marketing tool. It’s not meant to be taken literally - it’s a brand that people trust. Just ask our LOLheads™ or Reference Burst Theory™ divisions.

Honorable Mention

I could have made this a top 101 list, but it would’ve taken me several days and multiple posts to make a list of that caliber. So, before we get to the top 10, here is a list of honorable mentions that I wish I had time to talk about:

25. Donkey Kong Country
24. Scorched Earth
23. Wii Tennis
22. Quake II
21. Unreal
20. Return to Castle Wolfenstein
19. Quake
18. Roller Coaster Tycoon
17. Mario Kart 64
16. The Sims
15. Age of Empires II
14. Galaga
13. GTA Vice City
12. Goldeneye
11. The Dig

Awww, boo hoo - your game didn’t make it into the top 10. Write your own damn blog then. ON WITH THE TOP 10!

Read the rest of this entry »

I’ve been getting quite a few blog hits regarding Ikariam. The game is still so new that I was apparently one of the first wave of bloggers to mention it, and now The Gimcrack Miscellany is coming up in all sorts of search results for Ikariam. Rightly so, as a lot of the instructional verbiage sprinkled throughout the game has not yet been translated from German >> English >> l337 (so I can understand it).

Here are some tips and tricks I’ve figured out in Ikariam that may be of some assistance to you and yours.

How To Start An Alliance

So, you want to be an alliance leader? No you don’t. If that didn’t convince you, then here’s how.

• Change your field of research to Seafaring.
• Research Foreign Cultures.
• Build your Embassy. The first level of your embassy gives you 3 diplomacy points, and each upgrade to the Embassy gives you 1 more point. To get hella points, build embassies in all your towns and get 3 points for each level 1 Embassy you build.
• Click on your Embassy to create your alliance. This requires 3 diplomacy points, not a level 3 Embassy like it says at the top (it’s a misprint).
• Name your alliance and come up with a “handle” or “alliance code” or whatever they call it. This is used to easily identify and list your alliance in the high scores list. So, if you name your alliance My Lil PWNies, your handle might be PWN or PWNY or something that uniquely represents the heart of your alliance.

Just like that, you are an alliance leader. But you’re extremely lonely because your alliance only has one member.

How To Invite People To Your Alliance

This is a little tricker. Growing your alliance requires diplomacy points. If you have, say, 6 diplomacy points, you need to transfer them to your alliance by clicking on your Embassy and selecting the “transfer diplomacy points” link in the left hand column. Each diplomacy point allows you to invite another person to your alliance. The question is, how do you invite them if you don’t speak German?

• Click on the world view and find your friend who should be working but instead is playing Ikariam.
• Click Diplomacy
• You have to select the correct subject. This is where all the confusion in the world of Ikariam exists. If the geniuses at Gameforge.de would simply translate the 20 or so possible words that appear in this drop down list to English, the world would be a much better place. You’re trying to find the one that invites them to your alliance. Sadly, I can’t remember which one it is and I can’t view it in my account since I’m already a member of an alliance.
  

  I realize this is probably the only reason you are still reading this guide, and I’ve failed you. Here’s what I can tell you, it’s not the one that says “Kultur…something…” because that is for a cultural treaty. It’s also not the one that says “Handalsab…something…” because I think that one is for a military treaty.

• Once you send the message, the person has to accept the invitation. All he has to do is click the Accept button in the message you sent him and he’s in!

Now you and your buddy can team up against that guy on your island who doesn’t even have an alliance. What? That guy just joined the #2 ranked alliance and is now ravaging you with his amassing army 6 times a day?

How To Leave Your Alliance Once You Figure Out You Can’t Really Lead One On Your Own

Go to your alliance page and disband your alliance (via the link on the left column). This way, you’ll get your diplomacy points back. If you hand over leadership or quit the alliance, I’m not sure what happens. Do you really want to find out? OK, so now you and your friend are homeless and angry and dirty and ready to get that guy back who’s been abusing you mentally, verbally, and sexually.

How To Join A Top Ranked Alliance

This is the most important step in the game. Capitalizing on other people’s work is what it’s all about. Don’t try to reinvent the wheel, man, just ride the glory of a top ranked alliance so all the other n00bs on your island look at you with fear and trembling. I stock up resources like it’s y2k with the measliest defense you’ve ever seen. And I have not been attacked a single time.

It’s obviously because people see I’m part of something bigger and scarier that will come get you in your sleep if you mess with it. So how do you get into a top ranked alliance?

• Click Highscore at the top of the page
• Click Alliance Highscore in the left column
• Look for an alliance that is ranked in the top 100 and that has an average score of 4000+ points (preferrably).
• Click Write Message under the Actions column next to the alliance you want to apply for.
• Write a very brief message to the diplomat. Just say your name, coords, and rank/points that you currently have. Also, ask him for the URL of the alliance forum. If he doesn’t know what you’re talking about, don’t join the alliance, because an external private forum is crucial to manage alliance communication.
• Go to the forum and look for a post that says Alliance Application or some such jargon. Post a reply with the same information that you sent the diplomat in-game.
• Rinse and repeat for 5 - 10 different alliances. You are probably not going to get into the first few that you choose, but being in an alliance at least in the top 100 is going to guarantee that you don’t get attacked near as much as being in no alliance, or an alliance between you and your best mate ranked in the bottom 100.

Every alliance has an external alliance page (within Ikariam) that is viewable to the public. This usually has forum information on it, as well as other information about the overall goals of the alliance. This page is not accessible in the Highscore section, and the only way I know how to get to it, unfortunately, is to know the coords of a member in the alliance. Once you have the coords, you can go to Island View, click on the player, and then click on their alliance name in the left column.

Good luck finding coords as they’re not publicly posted very often. Ikariam discourages posting of coords in their internal forums, so don’t bother trying to find them there either.

Once the alliance decides to recruit you, they will send you a message and all you have to do his hit the Accept button. Voila, you’re in!

I happen to be in the #1 ranked alliance on Gamma called 300 Spartans. Our alliance leader, Leonidas, also happens to be the #1 ranked player on our server out of 19,931 players. Since I’ve been in the alliance, I’ve had absolutely no problems with any other players, which is probably why I’m currently ranked #275. Just in case you were wondering, that’s inside the top .02 percent.

The best part is, you can do the same thing. Just follow these simple steps and you can ride on the coat tails of other people’s glory, and have a thriving, peaceful civilization that always reminds you of Age of Empires when you first glance at it and then you remember how much better that game was and how you wish it was browser-based so you could play it at work.

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