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’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.

A week ago I deleted my oGame account in a fit of rage. At the time, my rank was hovering in the mid 600s and I was about to start trying for moon shots. With thousands of rocket launchers, hundreds of levels of mines, 9 planets, and the almighty ability to start building Deathstars on the horizon, I was hit by a pro in 2 waves and lost everything.

I feel a little ashamed of the private message I sent him, which I most definitely will not post here. Judging by his lack of response, he’s either too good to respond to such a low-down, dirty message, or he’s Chinese. In either case it doesn’t matter because I proceeded to click the delete account button. When you click the delete button, oGame gives you something like 7 days to undo your decision by clicking the UNdelete button, just in case you were delerious when you clicked it or someone hax0red your account.

I did not click the undelete button.

I realize the point of the game is to attack people, but they’re not supposed to attack ME! It actually was a little dirty because I hadn’t been attacking anyone, didn’t have a fleet or very many resources stored up at the time for him to loot, and he did it in the middle of the day. His boldness infuriated me. All I had to do was click the oGame tab on my browser anytime between 11:00am and 1:00pm that day and see that he was on his way to kill me, and I could’ve fleetsaved. But this, by chance, happened to be the ONE day I happened to not check my oGame, by chance, over lunch break at work, coincidentally, by chance. It also happened, by chance, to be the first time, somehow, that anyone has attacked me at all in months, happenchance, oddly enough. Put those two together and you get one helluva coincidence.

I don’t like when people who are already experts, and don’t need any luck, get extremely lucky. It causes baby puppies to fall off cliffs and oGame accounts to be deleted.

Now that oGame’s out of the picture, I’ve started a new browser-based MMO game by the same creators - LOL. It’s called Ikariam and graphically it’s far superior to oGame. It’s got the look and feel of Age of Empires, and the setting to go along with it - taking place in the ancient Mediterranean Sea.

It works similarly to oGame. You build, research, and deploy buildings, technologies, and ships, respectively, but instead of space ships, deuterium mines, and hyperspace technology it’s catapult ships, taverns, and seafaring technology. There are a lot of differences besides the beautiful interface and graphics, however. One of the main differences so far is having to choose a research specialization from the get go. I’m not sure how easy it will be to research all 4 branches, if it’s even possible, but I know it will take a long time. It took 1.25 hours to research the first level, which was Conservation, and the level I’m currently on - Wine Press - takes 22 hours.

There is also more of a co-op feel in the addition of donations. You can donate to sawmills, vineyards, even the gods, to increase the wealth of your local island - which helps out the 10 or so other people with towns nearby. I suspect the effects of this new element will be quite interesting. What happens if you’re the only cheap miser not donating for the greater good? A stern warning from the other towns? An errant catapult or a wayward battalion of swordsmen “accidentally” showing up on your doorstep? I’m not going to find out.

I’ve only been playing for a few days so I can’t tell you how good the game is, or what it’s even truly about. When I started a few days back, there were only 3 servers to choose from (that number’s up to 5 already), as opposed to oGame which has something like 33. The game has only been around since Valentine’s Day this year, so I’m probably pretty high up in the ranks already. You should get in the game now while it’s still brand new! It’s really easy to create your account and get started, and there is even a “first steps” guide right on the main page which is well-written and gets you up on your feet in no time.

Best of all, it’s free!

So, what’s to stop the same thing from happening to me in Ikariam that happened to me in oGame? Nothing - what’s the point of your question?