Illyriad
2010- Major events
The birth
of Illyriad
The game was
started in the 21st of February, in
order to create a game with the depth of EVE Online, but as a normal free
browser game. The Game Masters (GMs) wanted to make a game that they would wish
to play themselves, which still changes as you logout, and which can work on as
many browsers as possible. Most importantly, however, the GMs wanted to make a
game which can be affected by the player, a game in which you aren't set into
one direct play style but have options- Military or diplomatic? Alliance or no
alliance? Peaceful or aggressive?- a game which is commonly called a sandbox.
Harmless
and White
This is
arguably the largest part of Illyriad's history. It is the story of the two
first and greatest alliances in the game, and how they clashed and fought to
the death.
When the
game began, a number of players from EVE Online came to the game. Foremost
among them was Jonny101, a player who in this game is known as Diablito. Others
came from another game, and they formed Harmless? (at that time called DiggIK).
The players from EVE formed Danger. Those from DiggIK had heard of Diablito, as
in his role as Jonny101 he was a legend, who loved to manipulate people, to be
the bad guy, so to speak. They therefore were curious, but wary- for good
reason, as it turned out. Diablito wanted to be number one, and nothing would
stop him from pursuing his aim. He immediately placed a spy in the rank of
Harmless and joined an alliance called Danger, under Laura Christine (now
EmilyJade). With some friendly banter, a
joking war was declared which didn't go much beyond a couple of tongue-in-cheek
forum threads. But Diablito didn't agree- and offered KP the chance for DA to
be destroyed. He offered to declare war on every alliance in the game, in
return for some resources (advanced and basic) so that he could start off the
first mercenary alliance, the White Company. KP replied with the promise to
think about it, but in actuality he was never planning on agreeing. Diablito didn't like this idea, and soon a
number of exploits were put into operation, as well as a few low-scale raids.
He joined White, and the two alliances had a very quiet battle. Harmless concentrated
on their economy; White on their armies.
This continued for a number of weeks, until Diablito started to turn really
nasty.
He offered to
harass a player in Harmless, who shall remain nameless, until he quit the game.
This was due to the complaints of impulsiveness coming from Harmless (the
player was one of those unfortunate enough to be hit by thieves, and wanted
revenge). Harmless never did this, and after Diablito's spy discovered that
Mars, a member of Black (the White Company's training alliance) was in fact the
alt of Naive, he started to begin the war in earnest. It soon became a question
of waiting to when siege would come out, and then who would get siege engines
first. The answer to that question is unknown, but White struck first. He tried to siege HonoredMule's capital, but
ultimately he failed due to the efforts of Harmless. Harmless then sieged and
destroyed Diablito's capital, Gay Paris, along with Diablito's armies and
strong commanders. Afterwards, LauraChristine's capital was razed, and it was
at this point when White begged for peace. They claimed that White was being
destroyed by inactivity, and Harmless decided to give them a chance. They
limited retribution to the leaders of White, offered terms of surrender and
waited for the White answer. But soon they discovered that this was merely a
delaying tactic, that White and its allies were simply gathering their
strength. And with this, Harmless decided to destroy White completely.
Medieval
Knights
After the
fall of Gay Paris, the capital of Diablito in the white war, Diablito quickly
realised he needed allies if he was to win the war against Harmless.
Unfortunately, the only one he could find was one that was in fact doomed to
destruction and failure- Medieval Knights, led by Tubana.
Tubana led a
group of people who rank amongst the most respected players of Illy, including
The_Dude and Shrapnel.
To the
advantage of Diablito, although it did not save his alliance in the end, Tubana
was not in the habit of discussing his actions with his officers, and chose to
regard the NAP with White as a confederation. Yet further to Diablito's and
Tubana's detriment, Tubana was in the habit of attacking Dlords members, which
goes to show that it is very unwise to have more than one enemy at one time. In
fact, Dlords became a greater enemy to Tubana than Harmless, in fact.
Belargyle,
the leader of Dlords, decided that enough was enough and formed a coalition of over
half a dozen alliances, with Harmless and the Knights who say Ni (who later
reformed as TMM- see later) being the most noteworthy.
Tubana
lasted barely 24 hours of the attacks from the coalition listed above before
quitting MK and- weirdly- chose to make yet another enemy, in the remnants of
MK. He attacked The_Dude, who along with the other members of MK sieged one of
his cities. Dlords handled the rest, which obliterated Tubana from the game.
The man left just one legacy besides memories- a message inside TD's inbox. The
message read simply, 'You suck.' MK
reformed as Phoenix, which is a fairly suitable name to my way of thinking- an
alliance raising from the ashes of their old one. But hey, maybe that's just
the poet in me.
But this was
not the end for PX. Shortly after Tubana
was defeated, a peace agreement was signed between Belargyle and MK. The
coalition swore to abide by any decisions made by the head of Dlords- but a
short while later Ni broke the agreement. First, they attacked and defeated
Rupe's armies, then they sent a huge multitude of forces at The_Dude. Sadly,
none of the alliances who assisted Dlords took a stand against this, for which
they all have their reasons. For instance, Harmless were unwilling to break
their code of assisting only those allied to them, and chose to stand by their
guidelines. For better or worse, the choices were made, and TD stood alone (the
rest of Phoenix were sick of war and were unwilling to help) against the wrath
of Ni. He left Illy then, returning only with the news of factions and the
creation of the city move spell. Meanwhile, PX merged into Tranquil Vision, and
Ni decided to leave them alone.
STA and S&B
In August,
Skulls and Bones started relentlessly attacking one of the STA members, until
they player left the game. Sta attempted to negotiate with S&B, but Zork
(the leader of S&B) ignored their messages and continued to attack S&B.
After some deliberation, the leaders of STA (Noryasha Grunk, duuvian etc) chose
to declare war on S&B, and began sieging some cities. They maintained not
to accept peace from Zork, although they would accept surrenders from members
provided they left the alliance. Soon Zork feared that they had bitten off more
than they could chew, and called in some favours from TRR and FoF. StA won
through with the assistance of Crows Beak, however, and they continued to siege
Zork until he and Borg left the alliance, when peace was negotiated.
Shrapnel
(-57, -115).
This place
on the map is marked by a statue of gold, of a dwarf in armour wielding an axe
and a shield. The square is specially named, with simply the words 'In
Memoriam: Shrapnel'. In addition, one of the sister alliances to FDU is known
as Shrapnel's Memorial Academy. These
two facts hint at comparatively little- that there was once a person in Illy
called Shrapnel, that he died, that he was connected to FDU and that he was a
large figure in Illyriad. But that isn't the full story of the man who in
Illyriad was called Shrapnel, but in real life was called Case Deis.
Shrapnel was
the founder of the Free Defence Union, one of the oldest and finest training
alliance. His alt was called Grog, who as a character was a startling contrast
to Shrapnel- Grog was the leader of the Unified Orc Scourge, and his primary
interests (as stated on his profile) were beer and elf women. US have now
merged into BSH, so both of Case's account's legacies live on today.
Case died on
the 8th of October, 2010, to the shock of many. You can read his obituary here:
http://starbeacon.com/legacy/x1644187719/Case-E-Deis
Rest in
peace, Case.
TMM
An alliance,
many months ago, was formed by Juno. The players were huge, with about half a
dozen or so ranking amongst the top ten players in the land. There was the
leader, Juno. There was Nige, Ragmanon, Butler, yosh*tribes, AVa64 and cog
soldier. They called themselves the Mal Motshans, and as one might imagine they
claimed residence in Mal Motsha. As a point for historical curiosity, it seems
that Mal Motsha is doomed to be claimed by many nations, as the Dark Star
Dominion, otherwise known as TCol and BSH have followed TMM's example (albeit
in a less violent manner) and have claimed TMM. The full history is long and
can be seen later on in the 2011 section of this history, but it is rather
interesting that BSH (who are the closest thing that the game has to a
descendant of US) have chosen to make their own claim on Mal Motsha. This is
beside the point, however.
The Mal
Motshans went about defending their claim on the land of Mal Motsha in
completely the wrong way, as history appears to show us. They started sending
threats to all inside Mal Motsha, saying that they had one extremely simple
choice: Join, or die. A surprisingly small number of people took him up on his
offer; it appears that most contacted were either stubborn or inactive. The
unfortunate thing for TMM however (although maybe unfortunate is the wrong
word- foolish may be closer to the mark) was that their ambitions led them to
the path of US, who were still grieving over the loss of their leader, and
possibly even more foolishly that of Toothless?. They gave the same threat they
had been giving to others- and began their path to destruction.
You see, the
people of Illyriad were outraged by the audacity of such a man that would
attempt to menace an innocent alliance, an alliance of new players, and an
alliance that was vulnerable after the death of its leader. The first alliance
to answer the plea for aid was Dark Blight, US' long time ally, declaring war
minutes after US did. Then Middle Earth United, then Harmless, then Goonies,
then Dlords,
WOTP (now Curse), Peace, AEsir and finally Fremen empire (at the time Colonist
Empires). TMM lasted barely two weeks before collapsing, the members fleeing
the ruins of their alliance. They received no mercy however, although
interestingly they asked for none. Soon, there was no trace of the Mal Motshans
on the map.
TMM was
something of a turning point for Illyriad. The players had a choice: they could
sit by, and let the bloodbath happen, setting a precedant, or they could take a
stand and fight TMM. It's my opinion that it is that, combined with the
devastating penalties for siege in the game, that has paved the way for the
Illyriad we know today- where wars are strange events, where the attack of a
new player is an event for wonder and amazement. TMM was a turning point for
Illyriad, where the game could have followed the path of Travian, Tribal Wars,
Grepolis and many more, and become 'just one of those games' where to have even
a hope of surviving you had to be there in the beginning. Or it could've done
what it did, and become a game where newbies are defended, fed and encouraged.
Is this a good thing, or a bad thing?
WE vs
PoS/VALAR/Calaquendi
This war
does seem to be for slightly... dubious causes. Allegedly, the Prisoners of
Society began to fight WE after Cyan, the largest player in WE, was accused of
thieving from PoS, Calaquendi and VALAR members. Although the surviving members
of WE, such as RMY Sgt-Shankstar, still deny the allegations to this day, they
were believed by the trio of WE's enemies and they started to thieve, attack
and eventually siege Cyan. Yearick and other WE members attempted to defend the
man, but WE were badly outnumbered and Cyan and Yearick were sieged to the
ground.
The First Tournament- Armok's Blood Bowl
While this tournament is not the acknowledge first tournament,
since it was player built rather than designed by the GMs. It was the first
competition between players, however, and for that reason it deserves its
position in this list.
A position, or a 'flag' was chosen in the southwest of the
map. The winner would either be the person to hold the location for 48 hours or
for the longest period over 35 days. 8 players were allowed to participate, all
from different alliances. No military aid was allowed to be given.
The players who participated were some random guy (actual
name, not just me forgetting), Ulrich Heintz, Lionz Heartz, G0DsDestroyer,
Amorphias (handicapped at one city), duuvian, Smoking GNU (handicapped at two
cities and one inexperienced commander) and -hypocritical-. The third place
contest got 50k gold and 1k adv res, second got 100k gold and 2k adv res, and
the third place prize got the rest of the stockpile. This was 400k gold, 200
saddles, 3500 plate, 1000 swords, 1000 chain, 100 siege blocks, 1500 books,
2000 beer, 1250 cows, 600 horses, 1000 bows and 120k of the four types of basic
resources. Most interestingly, however, GM Stormcrow offered 100 Brood mothers,
Elder Weavers and Errant Knights.
In the end, the winner was Amorphias, with second going to
duuvian and G0Ds coming third.
DB
I feel that the efforts on my behalf to write DB's history
again would be wasteful, since I have already written one history. Whilst some
events come into 2011, about half is in 2010, so I have decided to categorise
it here.
http://illyriad.honoredsoft.com/wiki/Elgea:Dark_Blight/History
2011-Major Events
The King's First Tournament
Capture the flags! It was a fairly simple principle, in fact
identical to the recent tournament to celebrate the game's second anniversary,
except for there being less squares- 8 squares, at [500,500], [500,0],
[500,-500], [0,500], [0,-500], [-500, 0], [-500,500] and [-500,-500]. The
person who had held the squares for the longest wins the tournament. Easy as.
As you could probably imagine, Harmless won the tournament- holding their
squares by 95 days. In second place, Tranquil Vision, holding the squares for
43 days, whilst in third came the Curse of the Wolves, holding the squares for
35 days. After that was Goonies, then Invictus, Dwarven Lords, Murder of Crows,
Good Company, Toothless, Prisoners of Society, Aesir, Unified Orc Scourge,
Crows Beak, the Commonwealth, the Order of the Phoenix, Hey That's My Bike, Res
Ipsa Loquitor and Free Defence Union. Harmless got 20million gold to their
coffers, 50 Elite Praetorian Guardsmen per PARTICIPATING member, 200 prestige
per participating member and an Obelisk to be placed on the map in reward for
their victory. You can see this statue at [-282, -511]. Tranquil Vision got 10
million gold to their coffers, 35 Elite Praetorian Guardsmen per participating
member and 160 prestige per participating member, whilst Curse got 6 million
gold to their coffers, 20 Elite Praetorian Guardsmen and 120 prestige per
participating member.
[500,500] was won by Harmless, [500,0] was won by Goonies,
[500,-500] was won by Invictus, [0,500] was won by Tranquil Vision, [0,-500]
was won by Harmless, [-500, 0] was won by Tranquil Vision, [-500,500] was won
by Curse of the Wolves and [-500,-500], which was won by Harmless. The alliances who won the square got 5
million gold to their coffers, plus 50 Praetorian Guardsmen and 100 prestige
per participating member. Other statistics which may be of interest are as
follows:
·
Harmless suffered the heaviest losses whilst
attacking, losing 234k troops. After them come Invictus, then Dwarven Lords.
·
Tranquil Vision lost the most defending- a huge
477k troops were lost. After that came Curse of the Wolves, then Goonies.
·
HonoredMule lost the most troops during attacks,
losing 64k troops, after which came Sloter5 then flipper.
·
Pasi lost the most during defence- 57k troops-
after which came Shakyala then Tanis.
·
Out of all of the troops lost in attacks, 142k
were Knights, 124k were trueshots and 113k were Stalwarts.
·
Out of all the troops lost in defence, 157k were
Trueshots, 131k were Longbowmen and 95k were Pikemen.
·
85 siege engines were lost in the competition.
Whoever sent them needs a lesson in how to fight :P
King's 2nd Tournament- Bloodthirst for
Knowledge
This tournament came surprisingly quickly
after the first. Two months is all the people of Illy had to replenish their
forces, but this new tournament was different to the first. The first
tournament was an alliance tournament; this was a one-player tournament.
The official line, in the role-playing
aspect of things, was that a new museum of Natural History had been built at
Centrum. King Sigurd, in the interests of achieving specimens of all of these
different creatures, requested that the 'Lords and Ladies' of Illyriad send
their troops far and wide to capture anatomical specimens of these creatures.
The players of Illy would be paid 10 gold pieces for each piece of anatomical
evidence captured, and the winners of the five categories- the Idividual and
Alliance categories for Largest Collection and Most Unique connection, and in
addition the Individual awards for best hunter of one specific animal. For the
Individual winners of Largest Collection and Most Unique collection, they would
receive 300 free prestige and 50 Elite Praetorian Guardsmen; for second 200
prestige and 30 elite praetorians and third they would receive 100 prestige and
10 Elite Praetorians. For each player in an alliance which wins a category,
there is 150 prestige and 15 elite praetorians, for each player in a category
runner-up there is 100 prestige and 10 Praetorian Guardsmen, and for each
player in an alliance which comes third in a category there is 50 prestige and
5 Praetorians. Finally, each player who gathers the most animal parts from one
specific animal get 100 prestige and 10 Praetorians. You couldn't steal the
animal parts from other players.
For each animal part gained, a player could
get 10 gold pieces.
Many people, when they read the rules of the
tournament, assumed that Harmless would do what they had done in the previous
tournament- and win. But in actuallity, it was Valar who was starting to take
the lead, so Harmless resorted to less well known and simple tactics.
They identified their main and most
dangerous competitors- for example, Boromir, the number one attacker. Then,
they watched the spawn spots around this person's city, and when a legion or a
host came up they would send one diplomat to this square, thus employing the
'locking mechanism' which exists so that when you send troops to squares, you
don't arrive disappointed (it's basically that when you send troops to NPCs
they're locked in place and won't respawn elsewhere. The Devs decided this was
not an exploit, and with some grumbling Illy got on with it. However, it did
them no good.
In the Alliance Category, Largest
Collection, Valar won, Harmless came second and Peace came third.
In the Alliance Category most Unique
collection, Valar won, mCrow came second and Peace came third (Harmless came
fourth).
In the Individual Category Largest
collection, Boromir won, darkone came second and ScottFitz came third.
In the Individual Category Most Unique
Collection, Raritor won, Sloter came second and Boromir came third.
For Individual Hunters:
Alligator: Kurdruk
Anaconda: Rhea
Arctic Wolves: Tanis
Baboons: torshavn
Black Bears: Jerec Cross
Black Panthers: _duQ
Brown Bears: pepe
Cobras: Sir-Les
Coral Snake: sooner
Cyclopes:
shawdow
Elephants: Empress Olivia
Fire Salamanders: Kumomoto
Gharials: Raritor
Giant Beetles: torshavn
Giant Rats: Boromir
Giant Scorpions: sooner
Giant Scuttlers: Boromir
Giant Snakes: Boromir
Giant Spiders: Boromir
Golden Monkeys: Kumomoto
Ice Salamanders: Gunfo
Jaguars: Yahweh
Leopards: Amorphias
Lions: Kumomoto
Mammoths: Gunfo
Massive Scarabs: _duQ
Poisonous Crawlers: Beerman
Polar Bears: Angrum
Pumas: torshavn
Rhinoceros: Amorphias
Roaming Trolls: darkone
Salamanders: threefootthree
Saurians: Beerman
Scaled Chargers: Boromir
Scritchers: Boromir
Simien Wolves: Korg!
Snow Leopards: Telchar
Tigers: Sir-Les
White Tigers: Beerman
Wild dogs: Boromir
Wolves: Boromir
12,972,554 NPCs died in this tournament, and 5,099,860 player
troops. This included 246 siege engines and 1662 Praetorian Guardsmen gained in
the last tournament.
_duQ
Now, this incident definitely deserves it's
place in the history book. It cemented the frame of mind which is held in Illy
to this day, and made the game different to the other games which are out there which do not care
about new players and the like.
The Order of the Valar was an alliance that,
like almost all other alliances, had a leader and then various officers. The
leader was Azreil, but his main officers were players such as tigre, darkone-
and _duQ, who you may remember from winning two categories in the second
tournament. But _duQ had a player near him, a player called berberos. And after
some territory squabbles between the two of them- there seems to be no true way
to get to the bottom of this story. Berberos claims that _duQ thought he was too
close to him, _duQ claims that berberos had insulted him and killed some of his
caravans. I shan't take sides, but only tell you the facts. So, _duQ first
bribed berberos to move, then threatened him and his alliance, Nightbringers,
to remain silent. Eventually, _duQ placed a siege on berberos' town; but then
Createure broke this siege with his cavalry. _duQ continued attacking berberos,
in what he claimed was a great master plan to draw Harmless' troops away from
them. If this is true, however, he was let down by the members of his own
alliance.
Meanwhile, berberos had gone to GC. Lorre
heard about it, and started announcing loudly in Global Chat about how he would
defend berberos, even at one point leaving PA so that he wouldn't draw his
alliance into it. _duQ didn't defend himself at this point, which in the eyes
of some proved his guilt. Meanwhile, Createure continued to defend berberos.
A separate incident, which was actually the
real reason that _duQ was ejected from his alliance, was that _duQ attempted to
bump Anjire's caravans, then antagonise him by occupying close to his town.
Things escalated, but then Azreil eventually decided enough was enough and
kicked _duQ from the alliance.
KT
Come the spring of 2011, there was a small tidal wave of new alliances
as the game enjoyed a surge of popularity- possibly due, in no small part, to
the efforts of Beau Hindman. One of these new alliances was called Havoc
Unleashed, and it was led by a man called Johnny112. He had a number of
alliance members but a number of them didn't like his rule. They split off from
the main alliance and formed a second alliance, known as Knights Templar. The
players who formed this alliance were Baughb, StJude, Gaia Nutella Tulips,
Majono and StJill. StJude was one of the most vocal players in Illyriad, which
is probably why what started out as a war between alliances where nobody could
use siege engines was turned into a war which earned the attention of some of
the largest players in the game, and later turned into a war with some of the largest
alliances in the game.
So, KT began, under the leadership of Baughb and with StJude
as his spokesperson (anyone who wishes to take that time to browse the Politics
and Diplomacy subforum will probably understand why I shy away from using the
word 'diplomat'), to thieve and blight some of the smaller players of Havoc
Unleashed. It was only a matter of time until they were caught, since that was
in the era where large groups of players on GC would watch a diplo return to
its home- before the age of diplo visibility radii. Sure enough, they were
caught, and war was started between Havoc and KT. It was largely a newb war,
but it spiced up when a couple of KT members researched the siege technology
and placed two sieges and a blockade on Johnny 112's capital, sieges which
Havoc were unable to remove until three large players, Amroth Anguireal,
Belthazor and myself, Nokigon, destroyed the sieges and blockade. Myself and
Belthazor hit KT with some thieves and scouts, before stopping and allowing the conflict to continue at its usual
rate. Soon, the alliance 'Empire of Qingdao' under the leadership of Clavicus
Vile joined the fray, and after a couple of months of stalemate the war ended.
Only for it to be restarted again, a couple of months later... That, however,
sort of fizzled out. Around this rough time, Baughb was suspended for
multiaccounting, then RES and Champ started fighting KT and Jude decided to
declare war on nearly every alliance in Illyria. Soon Harmless joined the
fight, but little records exist after that point because a far more momentous
occasion happened and Jude drifted into inactivity. And with Jude, KT died
pretty quickly.
King's Third Tournament- Harvest the Elementals
The official story, posted in the herald, was as follows.
Elementals, apparently, have always existed in the land of Illyriad, and at
this point in time Geomancer Herrolf, the master of Earth in the Circle of
Five, announced that the Circle could now accurately predict where and when
elementals will arise. He explained that they rose when the energies given out
by death joined with the natural spirits in the land, and that the old
tournament sites were therefore the place where hundreds of elementals would
spawn over the next thirty days. In addition, they had heard troubling reports
of these elementals spawning in abandoned cities, seemingly drawn by the death
there like moths to a flame.
The reality.... the Third Tournament was here. The 8 tournament
squares from the first tournament was the sites for elementals to rise, 4 times
a day, and to be able to capture these
elementals you had to be the person occupying this square when the elemental
was spawned. Originally there were elementals spawning into abandoned cities,
however this was causing coding issues and were removed. 20 prestige was
awarded for each elemental captured, and each person who got the most
elementals in the individual squares would be awarded a commemorative statue.
I won't post a day to day account of this tournament, since
this document is already 8 pages long on Word and to do that would push it all
the way up to 10. The long and the short
of it was that the results are as follows:
-500|500 (Fire Elementals) : Won by Jezma of Crows.
0|500 (Earth Elementals): Won by Tanis of Curse
500|500 (Air elementals): Won by Capricorne of Crow
500|0 (Water elementals): Won by gixy of Curse
500|-500 (Fire elementals): Won by Mandarins31 of VIC
0|-500 (Earth Elementals): TIE between Sloter, Pasi and
flipper of VIC, WE and Dlords respectively
-500|-500 (Air Elementals): Won by Llyorn of Jaensch of H?
-500|0 (Water Elementals): Won by Ector the Fury of Crow.
PA And Confederates vs S&B+Alts
I find myself in the interesting situation where two of the
last few events that I have written in this history, I was involved in. One may
take from this conclusion the thought that I am a nosy guy, or that I have my
fingers in a lot of pies. One would probably be more accurate if he/she had
taken the first conclusion.... but I digress.
PA was once, and in many ways still is (in its new form as
II) a greatly respected alliance with a
great number of confederates. Some of those confederates included mCrow, WoT,
and yes, the Cave of Knowledge. PA was always very vocal, with Lorre often
standing up for what he believed in. And of course, there was the duQ business
mentioned earlier. Lorre won a lot of respect with his actions.... but in a lot
of fields, he lost it also.
Zork2010,
a player only accessible through his sitter in S&B - at this point, we
believed the sitter to be Borg, another S&B player- sent thieves to one of
Lorre's cities, Tal'Pat'Ryn. A second wave was soon sent, as well as five
armies from S&B players and a war declaration. However, this was a foolish
move on the behalf of S&B, for Zork did not plan the arrival of many of the
allies of PA. The following message was sent to all of the allies of Lorre: Most Loyal friends and Confederates of Lorre;
Respected
Alliance, [Insert alliance name here]:
Lorre
and Persona Armoniosa {P A} request your support.
Taken from the Diplomacy page in the Herald:
Skull
& Bones [S & B] and Persona Armoniosa [{P A}] enter War Fri, Aug 05,
2011
War has been declared on {P A} after Lorre was hit by large
number of thieves at his city “Tal'pat'Ryn.” These attacks were tracked to a
former member of S&B. A second wave of thieves was launched, war was
declared, and five armies were launched on Lorre along with several other armies
launched at other players by S&B members. Tal'pat'Ryn’s defenses will soon
fail - and with time, Lorre's city will likely fall.
Send these words to your finest soldiers:
Prepare your troops! Ready your diplomats!
We wait only for word from Lorre, at which time the counter strike will begin!
And, ladies and gentlemen, that is exclusive information from
my inbox. In any case, the point is the
same. The confederates of Lorre went to war against S&B, but speaking from
a Cave point of view when we sent a siege against a S&B city known as
Alexandria, we were struck by countless cavalry strikes that went far and
beyond the military force that our scouts had led us to believe that we would
be facing. The reason for this? The sender of the cavalry strikes was not from
S&B, but from a Curse player known as roller. And on the forums, a known
troll called Lionz Heart- a troll, however, who had been high up in the Curse
leadership- accused roller of being the sitter of both Zork and Borg. The plot,
as they say, thickens. Soon after, S&B fled to Curse.
So, PA and co formed an embassy, contacted Iduna- the then
leader of Curse- and we discussed condition. We were compensated for troops,
and if I remember correctly Iduna was intending to punish roller in some way.
However, the morning brought a new surprise. Roller, bringing the accounts
Spirit and Borg, joined either VALAR or their sister alliance MAIAR. The
S&B war was over, but a far greater storm cloud was gathering on the
horizon.
VALAR War
So far, each year of Illyriad has involved the community going
to war with one large alliance. Interesting coincidence; it leads me to wonder
who the victim of 2012 will be... Anyway, shortly after roller took shelter in
Valar Lorre and Amroth Anguireal, leaders of PA and Champ, declared war on
Valar. At first, few people went to war alongside Lorre- Valar was, at the time, the second biggest
alliance in the game, after all. Curse was also involved since they were
attempting to get revenge from roller and spirit for abandoning Curse. And then
Harmless joined in, starting a true war for the first time in 18 months
according to Killer Poodle. After Harmless joined the fight, there was
something of a tidal wave of alliance joining. WoT, Dlords, mCrow..... A lot of
alliance joined the war against Valar. Why? Well, in my mind Kurdruk put it
quite well. It could be one or more of 7 reasons: 1) Harmless want revenge for
losing a tournament. Quite petty.
2) It's because of a small group of people are finally using
their armies to back up their mouths. Certainly, during _duQ and S&B Lorre
in particular was very mouthy.
3) Valar are bullies and this was their comeuppance.
4) It's because of Roller and Spirit, etc- due to Valar taking
in bloodsoaked refugees this massive tidal wave of war has been sparked.
5) CONSPIRACY!
6) Some players are bored. Actually, this is more likely than
one would think- Harmless had fun as one of its 5 motives for war.
7) All, several, or some of the above.
The answer to these is one that you get for a number of important
questions: the world may never know. Whatever the reason may have been, war
arrived, in all of its fury, and whilst many expected a decent fight despite
the great disparity in size- as seen in Tournament II, Valar had some damn good
fighters- Boromir, a member of Valar, was at the time No.1 in Attack. And
anyway, Valar were still pretty damn big. If they had held back and let
themselves get attacked, and only sent out troops to destroy sieges, then they
might have been able to form a stand that would be remembered forever. They
could have crippled a number of alliances, but after all it is very easily said
but not so easily done. And anyway, Harmless were good tacticians. It was
almost certainly less easy than the way which I portray the combat. But this
eventuality exists only in my mind, and either way, this was not what happened.
Of course, not everyone joined the fight. Myself and Jasche,
representing the Cave and VIC, both posted on the forums counselling peace,
mostly because we were unhappy about the sheer weight of numbers, but as it
happened our counsel was unnecessary. Peace arrived with the ejection of Azreil
and darkone from Valar, and CristinaZah took the leadership of Valar in order
to negotiate peace. The third world war of Illy was over.
Tournament IV: The Undead Horde
About halfway through December, the Rift was formed. Thein game background to this was that one of
the Circle of Five's mages had been performing experiments in Ursor with the
aid of some of the shamans of the Blood Reavers, when his experiment went
disastrously wrong. What this meant for Illyriad: a new tournament was here,
and it was different to any that have come before.
The players had to occupy a standing stone with an army and
then defend it overnight against the armies of Undead that came to meet you
there. Alternatively, you could have occupied a square at the Rift in Ursor at 533|835.
The object of this was that all the players were divided into Leagues according
to their population, and they had to compete with other members of their League
to gain experience for their commander. At the end of the thirty days, the
winner was the one with the most experience for their commander in their
League. He/she would get 450 prestige and a T-Shirt. For second would be 250
prestige an Illyriad T-Shirt, and third would be 150 prestige and a T-Shirt.
The Undead varied in size and unit type, formed skeleton warriors to zombies to
undead dragons. At the end of the tournament, the results were as follows.
League
A - Population 100k+
1st
- Naper
2nd
- Naper
3rd
- Torshavn
League
B - Population 100k-50k
1st
- Silverlake
2nd
- Createure
3rd
- Sir-John
League
C - Population 50k-20k
1st
- Sibh
2nd
- Lune Noire
3rd
- NightFury
League
D - Population 20k-5k
1st
- Stealthy
2nd
- Arthurian
3rd
- Grisna
League
E - Population 5k-2k
1st
- Ahaliel
2nd
- BenDover
3rd
- FortchernKavanagh
League
F - Population 2k-500
1st
- Locke
2nd
- Sansoran
3rd
- R-Man
League
G - Population 500 and below
1st
- Miradamian
2nd
- Jadedthang
3rd -
Lady Bethadhiell
Yes, that's right: Naper got first and second place with two
different commanders in League A.
2012- Major Events
LWO War
The orcs of the Black Skull Horde had earlier in the year
formed the tightest packed mega-confederation in the game with the Colony and
the Skullcrusher's Horde, a mega-confederation that is called the Dominion of
the Dark Star. Based in Mal Motsha, it was a force to be reckoned with. In
addition, they had a couple of allies who were not in the Dominion; such as the
Armory, or the Cave of Knowledge (although the Cave has since joined this
group).
However, it is inevitable for an alliance of Orcs to be
considered more aggressive, if not necessarily war-mongering, than most other
alliances. And they were 'fundamentally opposed' to an alliance by the name of
Love World Order, an alliance which was more of an anarchical alliance that
promoted love and peace. This alliance started storming the cities of the Black
Skull Horde with thieves, and when they were eventually caught they gave two
reasons for their attacks. The first was that LWO was fundamentally opposed to
BSH, as has already been stated, and the second was that they were allied to
the Cave- who they considered to simply be DB.
Since this offended my alliance,
and in any case we were allied to BSH, the Cave went to war alongside BSH and
TCol. The plan was that the Cave and BSH would perform the offensive, whilst
TCol would stay in reserve and protect Dominion cities. As it turned out, this
was unnecessary and TCol were free to give Dlords a run for its money in Mal
Motsha. The Cave sieged 3 cities, and BSH sieged 2. Only one of the sieges, one
from BSH, succeeded however- a combination of several bugs and forces from LWO
killed a couple of sieges. However, the thing that defeated most of the sieges
is the delaying tactics that LWO employed a number of times- whilst LWO Seaside
amongst other cities were ready to fall, LWO attempted to call for peace.
However, this was a delaying action, and sieges continued. Confessor's Palace,
a city heavily defended by LWO belonging to Altaria, fell under a BSH siege
reinforced by Cave troops.
Eventually,
LWO called for peace for real. Their main members scattered, and LWO was
reduced to a fraction of their former power. Despite BSH originally attending
to push for terms, Skull was persuaded that what had already been achieved was
significant. This war was over.
Tournament V: The 2nd Anniversary
Surprisingly quickly for the GMs, the fifth tournament arrived
around late February to celebrate the beginning of the third year that the game
has been running for. And, in typical Dev style, they did it by killing a bunch
of our troops.
For each of the regions in the game, there was a square. 37 in
all, they were a variety of terrain types and biomes. An alliance tournament,
the winner of each square gained 25 prestige and 10 Praetorian Guardsmen per
participating player. There were no second place prizes. The alliance that had
the total highest amount of hours held through the squares got 1 year's worth
of free service at the Enjin website which included a bunch of excellent tools.
In addition to this they got a Tournament statue, 50 elite praetorians
and 50 scribes of Allembine per participating player. The second placed
alliance gained 6 months of service from TypeFrag, a statue, 35 elite
Praetorians and 35 Scribes of Allembine. The third place placed alliance gained
the same as second, except with 20 elite Praetorians and scribes of Allembine
instead of 35. The alliances that won squares are:
Harmless
[H?]: Azura, Farra Isle, Kumala, Lan Larosh, Qarosslan,
Ragallon, Rill Archipelago, Stormstone Island, Tallimar, Tor Carrock, Ursor and
Windlost
Invictus
[VIC]: Arran, Elijal, Keppen and Zanpur
Victrix
[VICX]: Djebeli and Larn
Curse
of the Wolves [Curse]: Fremorn, Meilla and Kal Tirikan
Murder
of Crows [mCrow]: Kem and Norweld
Crows
Nest [nCrow]: Keshalia and Tamarin
D'Haran
Empire [DE]: Kul Tar
Toothless
[T?]: Laoshin
The
Crows [Crow]: Lucerna
Dwarven
Lords [Dlord]: Mal Motsha, Taomist and Perrigor
Knights
Virtue [~KV~]: The Wastes
~Tranquil~Vision~
[Peace]: The Western Realms and Middle Kingdom
Absaroke
[Absa]: Trome and Turalia
EAGLES
EYRIE [EE]: Wolgast
Some
statistics are that 21,162,565 troops died in this tournament. 8112289 humans,
6439081 elves, 4971448 dwarves and 1637486 orcs- as well as nearly a thousand
tournament reward troops and 1074 Scrawny Wolves.
Other
statistics include: Sloter, fighting a 69k casualty battle in Tor Carrock,
which was the biggest battle in the world at that time; Harmless posting a
record for the largest number of troops on an encampment- 630k troops; Fremorn
was the highest casualty square; and the poor Elf Trueshot, suffering 2.7
million casualties; Peace, losing 2.5million troops- the irony...
The Long Road
The Long Road was an alliance founded by a player known as Eternal Fire. This player had previously played Illyriad in a large number of different accounts, such as Kurfist and Attila the Hun, and his poor reputation acquired over these previous accounts would come back to haunt him in his latest visit.
TLR was founded in late 2011. Some months after this, a few leading TLR members left the alliance to form a new one- The Liberation [HEAT]. Through the use of a spy, TLR discovered that they were preparing for war against TLR. TLR declared war pre-emptively and managed to win a victory against HEAT.
A few months later, after some heated verbal rhetoric in GC (in other words a slagging off war) a state of war was declared between TLR and The Red Order under Thordor. Despite some offers of aid from leading members of nCrow, TLR once again won their war. However, some of the details of the terms of surrender meant that TRO had to give medals (involving giving RL money) to members of TLR. This caused a lot of outrage in the community and lead to Aesir going to war against TLR in retaliation. However, they backed down after public opinion then turned against them, and alliances such as BSH threatened to defend TLR. However, the term in the ToS about giving medals was quietly removed.
At this time, a lot of dissent started to brew in TLR. EF became paranoid and slightly erratic in his actions, and he alienated those around him. When EF ignored several important messages from The Duke of Shade, The Duke sent a few blockades to EF's capital. In retaliation, EF declared war. For many in TLR this was the last straw. Whilst the war went ahead, soon most people in TLR left to form a new alliance- Trivium.
NC vs STEEL
This engagement was the first time that the alliance Night Crusaders, a relatively small fighting alliance, came to the attention of the wider community. They would later have a defining role on the future of Illyriad.
NC declared war on STEEL on the 9th of September... or perhaps more accurately, they declared war on Gimardoran, the leader of Steel Confessors. They claimed in their opening post that it was because "he annnoys us" and because they wanted to enjoy the war game. They added later that there were many issues that Gimardoran had caused between STEEL and NC.
This caused split reactions amongst the community; many felt that their honesty in their reasons should be applauded, whilst others thought that it was setting a dangerous precedent. Some even went so far as to claim that it would become the norm to fight people for the sake of entertainment, which would lead to them leaving the game.
HANSA and DARK both declared war on NC to defend STEEL, but this did not stop NC from razing Gimardoran's capital. KCrow also offered aid to STEEL. However, after NC razed Gimardoran's capital, they offered unconditional peace.
Tournament VI: The Dark Harvest
On October 1st, the Devs announced a new tournament. This was essentially similar to the last tournament- there was a square per region, and an alliance had to hold it for as long as possible. The area where the tournaments differed was that you gained points for holding the tournament square not for the longest period of time, but for holding it at the start of every hour.
At the start of every hour, during the first week, ten souls were "harvested" by the alliance holding the square. After the first week, the bloodiest squares attracted more souls. The bloodiest square in each week attracted an extra 10 souls per hour; the tenth bloodiest attracted an extra 1, the second bloodiest attracted 9 and so on. It last for four weeks and ended at midnight on October 31st.
The prizes: For EACH SQUARE (most souls gathered throughout the month): 1st Place: 40 Skyclad Warriors and a tournament sword to each participating player in that alliance. 2nd Place: 20 Skyclad Warriors to each participating player in that alliance. 3rd Place: 10 Skyclad Warriors to each participating player in that alliance.
For the OVER ALL winners (most souls gathered in total during the month): 1st Place: 6000 Prestige to the Alliance Prestige pool, an Alliance Tournament Statue, and a tournament victor's Gold Medal for all participating members of the Alliance. 2nd Place: 4000 Prestige to the Alliance Prestige pool, and a tournament victor's Silver Medal for all participating members of the Alliance. 3rd Place: 2000 Prestige to the Alliance Prestige pool, and a tournament victor's Bronze Medal for all participating members of the Alliance.
The Skyclad Warriors did cause some disappointment; they were less effective than Kobold Cohorts, and although they were supposed to have a Special Ability, this ability did not work.
The top 3 overall winners were:
1st The Crows [Crow] with 60705 souls collected.
2nd Crows Nest [nCrow] with 36682 souls collected.
3rd Pending... [Soon™] with 35918 souls collected.
Individual square winners were:
Pending... [Soon™] with Arran, Azura, The Western Realms and Wolgast. The Crows [Crow] with Djebeli, Lucerna, Perrigor, Trome, Turalia, Windlost and Zanpur. The Crow's Wings [CrowW] with Elijal. Slaves to Armok [StA] with Farra Isle and Rill Archipelago. Elysian Fields [Shade] with Fremorn, Kal Tirikan, Lan Larosh and The Wastes. Victrix [VICX] with Kem and Larn. Toothless [T?] with Keppen. Crows Nest [nCrow] with Keshalia, Qarosslan, Tamarin and Taomist. SnugglersCrowalition [HUGcr] with Kul Tar. Kaendran Crows [KCrow] with Kumala. Eight Hand Crow [eCrow] with Laoshin. The Colony [TCol] with Mal Motsha and Ragallon. Curse of the Wolves [Curse] with Meilla. Calaquendi Crow [Calcr] with Middle Kingdom. Murder of Crows [mCrow] with Norweld. Dwarven Druids [Druid] with Stormstone Island. Chosen Eagles [CE] with Tallimar. Res Ipsa Loquitor [RES] with Tor Carrock. AEsir [AEsir] with Ursor.
There was some glitches on a few days of the tournament, but overall it was a reasonably popular tournament. This was the first "hold a square" tournament not won by Harmless; they did not compete fully.
Consone War
On the 2nd of July, 2012, Jasche announced in the Illyriad forums that a new "mega-confederation" had been formed. This was comprised of Invictus, World's End, Knight's Virtue (which later dissolved itself, although many of their members joined Consone alliances for the later war), Absaroke, Eagles Eyrie, Dwarven Druids, Fairy Road Authority, Eagles First Flight (although this was a training alliance), Knight's Temperance (also a training alliance), Sages of Illyriad and Victrix (although Victrix later left, remaining an ally). World End Siegers and Lords of the Frost later joined.
This dramatically changed the balance of power. Whilst the Crow Federation had existed for a considerable amount of time in the game, as had Harmless? and their close allies, Harmless and the Crowfed had enjoyed an amicable relationship for a considerable amount of time (until things went sour in late 2013). Consone and Harmless did not have the benefit of this relationship, and many Consone and many Harmless players openly criticised each other, and accused the other of bullying.
Allegations of bullying and oppression continued to blight Consone's history. Harmless claimed that Consone used the weight of their considerable size to allow themselves to conduct their negotiations with overt aggression. Consone claimed something similar in response to Harmless.
Eventually, Rhyagelle was involved in a resource dispute with their neighbour, Skeleton Boar (not members of Consone but friends/allies of Absaroke) which was over a Trove mine, which has led to the reference to the conflict as the "Trove War" (as Trove is worthless currently, many have used this as a basis for ridicule). Whilst the two alliance were making progress towards resolving this conflict, Absaroke, intervened to kill Rhyagelle troops occupying the Trove mine. In response to this, Rhyagelle (after attempting diplomacy) declared war on Absaroke.
Absaroke called on their ally Invictus to break Rhyagelle sieges. In response, Rhyagelle called for aid from their ally, Harmless. Within a few days, Dwarven Lords and Night Crusaders also declared their aid for Rhyagelle. Very quickly, Consone was at war with Harmless and their allies (this also included Res Ipsa Loquitor, who were fighting WE in an unrelated incident). A few weeks later the Dominion, Dark Empire and Nightbringers also joined the war on Harmless' side, and the Order of the Valar (in their seemingly determined aim to fight Harmless wherever possible) joined the war on Consone's side. Affirmative Action also joined the war a few months later on Consone's side, and Trivium and the Arkadian Kingdom joined on Harmless' side.
As Harmless was the alliance that declared war on Consone, many people accused them of using the new tournament (which had begun on the first of October, and Harmless had conspicuously not competed in this tournament- something which they had never done before) to allow Consone to weaken their troops before Harmless fought them. This allegation was denied by Harmless, but many people continue to believe it.
Consone were weakened by the tournament, were spread out across the map and many of their members were not militarised. By contrast, all of the alliances fighting them were regional fighting alliances, well prepared for a war. Despite Consone's size advantage they were comprehensively defeated. Fairy Roads Authority were the first to surrender, but after a few months and several razed towns Consone itself dissolved. Over March 2013 the various alliances in Consone surrendered to the Coalition.
However, this war caused lingering resentment and bad feeling from many of the main parties. It led to the dissolution of Frost and of WE, and the peace terms (which were heavy on the amount of cities which had to be razed) caused outrage, especially in EE. In addition to that, Dark Empire felt that the conduct of the war was handled badly, such as the siege which was held to take a Silversteel mine from VIC. It set the scene for the next world war, the Coalition War, that was to come later that year. It also began to divide the leading alliances in the server into very definite sides- the Coalition, led by Harmless, and what was later to be dubbed the "Grand Alliance".
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