I've noticed something quite disappointing in this game.  Most of the players have their alliances allied with alliances, so you could have one alliance have a defense pact with 20 others. This makes war very hard to accomplish, and on that note.  I have noticed even though this is a war game, people just tend to drift towards peace.  Any act of violence tends to drift towards the offender being wiped out by EVERYONE. 

  So in short, this game has now become a upgrade your cities kind of game.

Any thoughts?

 

 

"Do not attack me or my alliance"

 

Instead, I see this as a Social Network with armies.  The best RL analogy is prison where everyone must join a prison gang in order to survive.  And many of the prison gangs employ "beat ins" whereby the initiate is first given a whupping before being allowed in the gang and "enjoying" the benefits of gang protection.  And even once in a gang, members are bought and sold like a prison whores.

 

Illy equivalents:

Beat in...Like TMM, an alliance attacks a recruit until the recruit joins.

Prison whore trading...When an alliance is gang-banged and the suriving members are distributed among the victorious alliances as war prizes.

 

In Illy, War means Death.   It means a player's cities will be destroyed...which means the defeated player has sacrificed a lot of time building something that is now gone.  Rational players do not risk destruction of something they have worked long and hard to create.  Hence, the "drift" towards peace.  In this sense, Illy is like the RW - successful economies avoid total war as the cost exceeds the benefits.

 

There are alliances that enjoy letting evil-doers hang around so the evil-doer can rebuild and misbehave again - and then the so-called "good guys" can beat up the evil-doer again.  Repeat, Rinse.  This is the history of Nige/alts.  This is the plan of many of the alliances currently battling Nige/alts.  However, there are some truly good guys that intend to completely eliminate Nige/Alts.  I have serious doubts this will actually occur.  To my eye, the "good guys" that play this way are actually the truly evil ones...Evil is the absence of Good.  When Good Men stand idle, evil occurs.  A truly Good Man must ALWAYS WORK towards creating Good.

 

The absence of a substantive, game-oriented reason for conflict leads players to boredom.  And in their boredom, they become suicidal and start wars for no reason except to get themselves destroyed.  Tubana of Medival Knights and many of White Co leaders suffered from this disease.

 

I have high expectations for the upcoming Faction AI.  My hope is that the factions will create a game-oriented reason for real players to engage in conflict.  And thus transform Illy into a Game with a Social Network.

 

Fingers crossed.

So true....

/me looks innocent

XD jk i like this game more then other "war" games where u bassicly have no chance if u join in later

and i agree that this is more like real world war is costly XD

Only thing keeping me going is making sure my alliance survives. It survives and i accomplished my goals

"beginning to heat up"?

I'd say Illy is running hot, presently.  

War being hard to acclomplish isn't necesary a bad thing. It makes it a challenge. Maybe players should be warned for this fact. If you want to start a war, make very sure you have enough allies or make sure your enemy has not enough. The fact that players seem just to be townbuilding doesn't mean they really do. For all you know they are all trying to create a scenario in which they can act out a war, but as others do the same no one dares to start out of fear to be utterly destroyed. Not saying this is the case, but it could be. 

Maybe this is a wargame that takes a lot of preparation before someone can risk to start the actual war. But I also like the fact this game is fun for players who don't like a wargaming style. I agree that players shouldn't be wiped out for being in a war. The winning side could ask for a weekly amount of resources instead of destroying all towns of losing side. That way they loser is punished and winner gets refund for lost income. But it seems hard for people to come together on what would be fair amounts.

(Hurrrrahhhhh for Corwin - thread back on topic!)

Underneath this, is the question of what sort of game this.

What is undeniably true, is that it's a city-builder. You have no build cities. No option. Whatever else you want to do, you have to build up your city.

After that, there are clearly some extensive military elements, including the ability to wage war on other players. Does that make it a wargame? That's arguable. But what I have noticed is that "it's a wargame" is generally the rallying cry of the bully - of the militarily-strong player who wants to make life miserable for weaker players. So, I'd be suspicious of that claim. But it can be plausibly made.

So, Illyriad is a city builder. And it can be a war game if you wish.

You can, of course, also play it as a "tournament game", where you only use your armies for consensual PvP or PvE combats. (That's pretty well what I'm doing. I started following this path at Tournament #2; then when Tournament #3 became the preserve of about 2 dozen huge players I started thinking of ways to democratize tournament-style play. Hence, Lords of Frost, illyolympics, me cheerleading for SunStorm's seize-a-city challenge, etc.) But that's actually a sort of wargamer who has taken an abstinence pledge. (Or more accurately, someone with the capability to be a wargamer, but who has made the conscious decision not to act like a ****head.)

Can it also be a diplomatic game, or a trading game? The developers would obviously like people to play that way, judging by the text of the front page. But how possible is it?

I started out wanting to trade, as there was then talk of "Trade v2"; but I got bored trading after about 6 months; once Trade v2 does come in, perhaps this will make a trading path more viable, as a long-term focus, particularly if it can un-hitch trade from military. (Right now, to be militarily strong you need to build lots of weapons... and to have something to trade you need to build lots of weapons... so it isn't really an alternative path! That's why so many militarily strong players also have lots of gold - they make weapons to build troops, and when they max on troops they sell the surplus.)

Diplomacy? Hmmm. I'm very intrigued by what people like Conclave are doing. But it does strike me that with one simple rule change (and no doubt the wargamers have already petitioned the GMs demanding this, as they'll hate the idea that there is someone they can't **** on) they will immediately become very vulnerable to the wargamers.

Which kind of brings me to my point. You can play this game lots of ways. You can play it purely as a city builder. You can play it as a wargame - which it can be. You can play it as a game of trade or subterfuge - though your options are more limited there. But whatever style you choose, the wargamers have the trump card: a wargamer can drive the peaceful players out of the game; they do not have any equivalent power.

For me, building and diplomacy are my guilty pleasures in the game.  However, I would like more tournaments (1) where all players can become involved regardless of their size in the game and (2) where players can direct their troops to something other than other players. 

Now to address the other posts I made: 

Kurfist wrote: Aurordan wrote: Surely your spy would have been more useful and secure if you hadn't announced to the world that you had one? I can keep him/her around.  I don't really care as long as the player builds up.

Sorry for my poor public display.  There is no "spy" - I simply wanted confirmation that you have yet another alliance...  It is as I suspected. 

Sneaky.  I'll have to watch you. 

I think in this game, much like in real life, no matter how "peaceful" you may be, you have to maintain forces sufficient to defend yourself against your neighbors.  Pacifism isn't going to work for people to try to just opt out of war, you need to be well enough defended that it isn't worthwhile. 

Kurdruk said:

I do not agree.

It might be an interesting challenge sir, to see whether a wargamer could drive a peaceful player out of Illy -- or whether a peaceful player could drive a wargamer out.  If anyone is interested in this sort of challenge, contact me in game and we can decide on the rules, including what would constitute "being driven out."

All in good fun, of course.

Logic and scientific research says one... I only see one through my research, that being the one at the top of the screen that shows the lunar phase. That would be the one in phase with the RL one. Same as the seasons are (near enough) in phase with the RL ones.

Refer to my IGM... The later is already in progress technically.

Firstly the pacifists don't need the Illy NATO on their side to make a player to quit regardless of if the player is a warmonger or not. Maybe an Illy UN (yes I know this sounds kind of like the IllySPN network from the last tournament) wouldn't be such a bad idea. I know it has been banded about by a whole load of alliance leaders for a few months... Don't deny it you buggers!

Secondly NATO is NOT a nation!!! It's a multi-national defence pact! Mainly North America and Western Europe. Yes it's basically a coalition... Conspiracy theorists can make what they want to from that.

The rules absolutely favor wargamers. By wargamers, I mean people who play this as a war game - who favor military units, know how to use them, and want to use them. I do not necessarily mean aggressive or antisocial players. H? are wargamers - very impressive wargamers, as it happens.

The community is very different. This is not how the rules work, but how the dominant players choose to play within those rules. So, when people say "ah, but the evil bully cannot prosper, because of alliances / diplomacy / H? /whatever" that's what they mean. If a wargamer gets out of line, a bigger bunch of wargamers will stomp on him. That has nothing to do with the rules, and everything to do with how the big wargamers choose to exercise the power that the rules have given them. (This is also, in its detail, highly arguable. I personally think that the people who see "the community" / the lynch-mob in waiting / H? and it's hangers-on /whoever as "NATO" are either deluding themselves or just sucking up. But that's a topic for another post, no doubt.)

Not really.

The wargamer can launch a siege.

The peaceful player, who has small armies and hasn't bothered with the siege tech or units, either fails to defend against the siege and gets driven out, or defends himself and doesn't.

I was chatting to one small player who expects to have a siege army ready by the time he hits population 3000 in his capital. That looks very doable to me (though a slightly inefficient build!)

Meanwhile, if we take alliances like Free Trade Guild and Conclave at their words (and assume they aren't building wargame-style abilities), then what would they do if attacked by such a player? Say "ah, I shall be revenged! - see, I have placed orders on the Market!" or "mwahahahaha! now I shall retaliate by Spying you to death!"...?

They have no recourse in the rules - only (they hope!) in the community.

Siege all my cities to the ground, and I will simply rebuild them.  I LIKE building cities.

Also Id like to point out that if people quit because loosing a war and loosing part of cities its not sieging someone out. Sieging all of someones cities is and even then you can still continue if you really wish. As rill says.  I don't doubt that big player with lot of diplomats could drive peaceful players out of game too with constant rampage and stopping him from building his cities.  

As the same way diplomacy (not diplomatic units) and mostly diplomacy between alliances and real players,  is also important in the game and cannot be ignored as many has noticed to their demise. And the game gives a good opportunity for people to discuss in the forums and in the chats. 

Community of the game is important but people tend to over emphasis on it. Community is not something that has one mind and especially it does not have same opinion as I do or you do. It can only agree about some quite essential things like "new players should not be bullied out of the game".