Ive given my alliance Knights Virtue the following instructions. 

If there is a rare herb close by without an army there- you can harvest it- feel free to protect it, if you deem it valuable enough for protection. 

DO NOT harvest herbs on a players sov. Simply put- this is land that is claimed and the person who claimed it has ownership. You wouldnt put your hands in another mans fridge without first asking permission. 

As far as land that is shared with many ppl in a close proximity- such as the middle kingdom, Tor Carrock I would make suggestion- instead of sending an army of 1-5 men as a placement army make sure you have an adequate defense for a spot you are gonna use an army to claim res. They are your army so use them at your own risk. If and or when they get wiped off the map- build another one. Hopefully the res you were guarding was worth their sacrifice. 

Some may say well this is a bit extreme, why not just bump a player off a tile if you want?

The problem with this theory is as player A and Player B bump each other back and forth - whatever res they are fighting over is constantly being farmed without the chance to regrow. The GM's have stated sum of these are rare.  I have found a cpl via scouting very close to me with only 1 item there. I am purposely letting it germinate and not harvesting it. 

This is my veiw but I m curious to the general communities thoughts. 

For example, one of the players could harvest it and maintain an army there, the other player could get 1 out of 5 items harvested, with the understanding that if others tried to invade both players would express solidarity in their resistance -- or perhaps reach out to include the other player.  

Sure, this is a sort of idealized view of things and it probably won't work in every instance, but it may work in some of them.

Enjoy.  

Oh, and I propose this as Illy Lingo:

Traditional Basic Res = T1 Res

Herbs, Hides, Minerals = T2 Res

Rare Herbs, Animal Parts, Rare Minerals = T3 Res

Advanced Goods = T4 res (or weapons, generically)

you seriously want to regulate the resource industry? 

it's next to impossible, you can not pretend to control all or the mines.

and if someone sends a camping army, that person shall be ready to lose it.

if you have time to start a war for such petty matters, feel free to do it, but don't expect all of illy to droop their harvesting and power games to run in your help, for they may be exploiting the very mine you are fighting a war over as you do so.

 

Yes. That sums it up.  I think the game could well take off now....and become a real learning experience.

I don't know how to manage this mess, I think any solution will be bad. If we reach some common agreement about rare nodes property, than we will have some people or alliances controlling large amount of them. If we don't find a way to agree, we will face more and more conflict, heading this game to something we strongly tried to avoid.

Both way are bad.

I start like Tradev2, be prepared.

Do you realize that any square between two cities placed exactly 10 squares away each other, are inside both 10 squares areas ??

In high density locations a plot could be inside 10 sq area of many cities.

Please set a rule, if you can find one which work. I will love it. And I will also point its weakness.

Can you provide a list of your cities that we should not occupy near?

Unless someone gets annoyed that their x was just slaughtered and moves against the "aggressor"

gameplayer wrote: these resource areas should be fought over

And here I thought the Illy community was different.

gameplayer wrote: it is not an act of total warfare but a competition to gain an edge over another player...and finally the devs have taken control back of their game! beware the gods that control the game and let the best players win these plots

And what of new players who will never gain access to special resources, what with the larger, better equipped and supported armies planted on the nodes? Claiming, harvesting or guarding resources should work exactly the same way as one would try settling near a city - message the people close to it, and work something out.

I think many people sent out armies to hold spots regardless of position. But I am also sure most of them will just step back if asked. So I suggest you to just contact him, and ask politely to move away. If this doesn't work, ask his alliance leadership. 

We are all a little foolish those days because of the news, (included me), but I am confident all those issues can be easily solved.

There are a lot of inactive newbie cities.  It's much easier to put an army there and wait for a message than see if the newbie is active.  Communicating is the key.  For the most part, that's how it works here.

Are rare resources meant for new players.  They are further up the tech tree and you need a supply of both horses and books (x10 books) to build.  Maybe a somewhat new player (1-2 months) but you have to be somewhat established to able to hunt rare resources.

As for the other special resources, I have a 6 day old account that's having no trouble harvesting all the minerals and herbs it can.  It even got 650 grapes before the location was shut down.  That account has harvested over 5,000 minerals and 5,000 herbs from the default spawn location.  Cotters are very cheap and even a new account can rebuilt them if they are killed and a new account can support x20 of them.  The trouble I see is what is a newbie to do with all that stuff?  Can't trade it (talking 1,000s of research points to get trade tech).  Can't use it.  From what I see the flaw is in the game, not the community.  The game doesn't give newbies anything to do with this stuff but the community isn't stopping newbies from getting it.

this aint Farmville, you want that go there :)

If you want to solo then accept the fact that people wont fear you at all, they will take any res around your town and kill your harvesters without hesitation, thats the price you pay.

"...right, as the world goes, is only in question between equals in power, while the strong do what they can and the weak suffer what they must." - Thucydides

Meaning newer players will forever be in a laggy pace of advancement... Unless of course people can avoid killing each other over rainbowstones.

Is that too much to ask, honestly?

Likewise new players shouldn't have to worry about armies parked right next to their villages, especially for those who've recently moved from more aggressive RTS games to Illy. And unfortunately since scarce resources have been invested this large value into them, they are going to inevitably seem very valuable to new players as well.

This has been changed so that incoming animals will not kill harvesters.  As long as there are no live animals on a square when your harvester lands, it will be OK.  It is NOT necessary to occupy a square with an army to protect a harvester from animals, only to ensure that there are not live animals there when they arrive, either by sweeping with an army directly before their arrival or for short harvesting runs checking to make sure there are no animals incoming to the square.

That's the advantage of parking an army there.  One soldier can protect your gatherers from a legion, myriad, etc... of animals.  How big an army do you send out to sweep plots?  The game also provides no easy mechanism to coordinate arrival times.  Sure sweeping would work, but what is the advantage and how do others know you have incoming gatherers that will not bump?  I started off not parking armies.  But other people gunning for the same places and then animals made it just painful and impractical.  I have armies of 1 on all the rare resources I'm harvesting and I've negotiated out the division with all my neighbors.

From my limited perspective, it looks like all these issues are being resolved amicably where-ever both parties wish to do so - and that is in almost all cases.

This isn't a big statistical sample, but from a Lords of Frost perspective, I'm aware of 6 "resource disputes" in the last week.

3 were resolved by individual players dropping one another an email.

1 is ongoing, but nobody seems much bothered - all perfectly friendly.

1 involved a slightly more official "on behalf of the Alliance" type email, but still led to a friendly resolution

That's 5/6 being easily sorted by people being decent and pleasant. It's testament to the friendly attitude of many of the Aliances up in the north - EE, Camelot, etc.

I guess a lot of us settled up here to get away from potential conflict, so maybe this is unrepresentative, but certainly my limited experience supports JimJams' expectation. These issues should be easily resolved, and generally are.

I can feel for the larger alliances in such a dispute.  They have as much a right to compete as anyone, and if "you are bigger so you lose" is the default, that's not very fun for them either.  I can say from experience as a leader of a not-as-small-as-we-once-were alliance that the line between being kind and giving everyone a chance and letting people walk all over you is a difficult one to discern.  I can only imagine how hard it would be for a top 10 alliance.

I have been thinking in such situations one option would be to have a competition, sort of a king of the hill competition for a set period of time to determine the owner of a square.  The result could be the "winner" receiving 75% share and the "loser" receiving a 25% share.  That way everyone has fun, and in many ways everyone wins in the end.

Am interested in what people think of this.

Great idea, unfortunately I don't think its applicable. 

A tournament or competition becomes impossible to control when the sides start getting help from other alliances. Then the bickering continues about who broke what rules in what order and what the consequences should/are for that. 

If a square is a big deal to you, fight for it. If not, don't fight for it. If you are unable to fight for it, then wait. Come up with a good game plan, and strike when the moment is right. 

Rill, you and I disagree on many things, but I don't think you would ever allow your alliance to attack a square that is being held by a smaller alliance.

Oh please, this is a little guy against a big guy, and hypocrisy is transparent.  

I tend to be a socialist (which is why my brothers always beat me at Monopoly).  I believe that cooperation and collaboration are ultimately the winningest strategy.  At the same time, I think there's a place for healthy competition.

I don't know what the "right answer" is in all this.  Maybe there are as many right answers as there are squares on the map.

I do think Illy will be healthier in the long run if people could compete in some way for particular squares without having a bunch of drama over who is good and who is bad and who is right and who is wrong.  I think it would be fun to have a match of strategy and armies in which no one's city is at stake.

Maybe the key is for the smaller alliances to line up a coalition that will allow them to compete with the larger alliance.

I don't have the answers, but I do think that the way forward is one in which we emphasize respect and having fun, and whenever possible development of win-win-win-win solutions (since many times there are more than two parties involved in a potential conflict).

Could it be that we are imagining the problem?

o wait, maybe imagined that spy report...

 

I'm really glad those with the power have a chance to use it on something worthwhile now, since it adds such a more exciting dynamic to the game. When we create concrete, absolute rules like "first come, first serve" and "everyone should get a piece of the pie," the game becomes nothing but monotony, luck, and a heaping helping of whining. Since real lives and livelihoods are not in danger here, and in most cases neither are the cities people have been building for months or years, I see no problem in accepting that "might makes right."

 

Let's say a player twice your size claims a rare herb spot and kills your harvesters in the process, even though you were there first. Why do you deserve it? Because you saw it first? What about the amount of time and dedication that player put in to grow his armies and cities so that he/she could possess the power to lay claim to such spot? Does that take a backseat to you happening to see the spot on the map first, a factor which measures nothing other than chance and perhaps a little diligence?

 

As someone mentioned earlier, communication is key. Here's an example of a situation that occured today. I spotter a rare herb spot unguarded, about 8 or so squares from another player. I greatly desired to harvest the spot, as the rare herbs around my gatherer city were all strongly protected and I'm in no position to even barter with the behemoths around it. Before sending an army, however, I messaged the nearby player asking if he/she was planning to harvest there, and if not, could I occupy and harvest it? I got a reply back thanking me for the contact, and that I was free to harvest. Lucky me! I promptly threw together a few charioteers to race to the spot and occupy until my herbalists made it.

 

Unfortunately, when I logged on later today, I was notified that my soldiers had slaughters some poor gatherers who apparently had been sent out and moved onto the spot between the time when I sent my troops and when they arrived. I decided the best thing to do was send the player an apology message. Lo and behold, the player responded, thanked me for the notice, and said he/she didn't even notice anything had happened, recognized that it was accidental, and that was that.

 

Once I'm big enough to have a decent army, I would love to engage in some friendly competition, premeditated and organized, with my neighbors for the rare spots. I would also like to test out some shared harvesting systems where we take turns owning the spot and harvesting, perhaps on a weekly basis. Overall I'm very happy with all the updates and the fact that it seems to have stirred the denizens of Illy a little.

How long has your city been there?  If your city popped up next to someone else's harvest spot, should they automatically be expected to yield it?

I don't know the answer to this, btw, it is a difficult question.  On the one hand, newer players need a chance to grow.  On the other hand, existing players should not always be expected to automatically yield.  Personally I think a sharing arrangement would be ideal, but not everyone is going to agree with that either.

This happened to one of the spots I was harvesting.  The city didn't pop up there but was settled next to a plot I was harvesting about 2 weeks after harvesting started.  When the new guy bumped my cotter, I offered to share with the new guy (I actually gave him three choices, bump each other, fight or share).

His reply was a befuddled sorry, I didn't see your cotter and an offer to send me herbs and minerals.  I really didn't want his stuff, just some way to share that plot if he was interested in it.  I didn't reply and he hasn't bothered my cotters since.

I agree, new people should be given a chance.  If they are smart, they will offer to harvest for the bigger player and just send the bigger guy some sort of split of the herbs/minerals.  If they are not smart, they'll cede the location or try to fight for it.  With how the harvesting is set up there is plenty of opportunity for compromise.  I can only send 1 cotter to that spot but it could probably support 4 full time...

Why not ask why any new player deserves anything he makes or builds?  I think the short answer is that because those players powerful in Illy have sort of crafted that view into the world.  How that view translates into rare resources is an unanswered question but it's pretty clear that there is a significant percent of players that don't allow unfettered harassment and bullying of "the smaller" by "the larger".

If someone smaller than me, took something from someone smaller than them and the situation occur ed near me then I'd be happy to fight for that.  If it was an easy fight, and it had a clear moral casus belli then I think most people would be happy to do the same.  I think that's what most people relish and look forward to because...  I'm getting very close to psychoanalyzing people and history so I'll stop before this becomes very befuddled. 

i dunno about this topic, but growing a large army and keep pop rising is a tad bit difficult.....

about newbies... and taking what is theirs and so on..

here, newbies have not to worry about aggression and are granted a safe growth, whit no fear of annihilation. a historical event in MMO. 

now, demanding minerals is a whole other story.. you can claim those in virtue of your vital space and the so called 10 square rule. 

but any rare resource should not be confused with basic minerals, basic herbs. those IMO are exactly what newbies should focus on. there is a time for the shininess later on.  cause, dear newbie, rares are more easy for advanced players to get compared to basics, this makes the idea a newbie is meddling around with ..say miners guild kinda infuriating.. new players with less than 4 towns should not even think about advanced resources, they should think to expand and get sound towns and a buck trough cotters. . .  

i think no one should man a basic resource plot ( maybe hides and wine) cause those are not really worth defending. 

 

 

 

 

You asked: Why not ask why any new player deserves anything he makes or builds? I'd say that in most cases the small player deserves those items because they produced them all on their own. They built up their res plots/purchases the res, constructed the necessary buildings, performed the nedded research, and produced the items all on their own, in the confines of their city. Because of that, they do deserve what they make and build. That's doesn't make it against the game's rules to thieve or siege and capture a smaller player's goods, but it does make it frowned upon by most of the community.

 

Any form of gathering (basic res, herbs/minerals/hides/parts, grapes, etc.) is a different story entirely. Player's didn't choose where plots popped up, and at this early stage most players haven't had the chance to move near a fertile harvesting area. Herbs, minerals, and other gatherable res were placed on the map by the developers for the players, and it's up to them to earn the ability to harvest.

 

Tell me, is there any reason a smaller player should deserve a harvesting spot they do not have the resources and power to claim or secure? Not only do they lack the military force to fend off larger players who want the spot, they also are less likely to have the necessary trade and crafting research to either put that rare res to use or distribute it to the rest of the community. Faced with this perspective, is it fair to demand that larger players yield to smaller player on the ground of "It's closer to me" or "I saw it first," both of which seem to me like pretty arbitrary ways of determining harvesting right?

Certainly, if it were that simple then no, I don't believe the community would bestow on the smaller player an inherent right.  But there are other scenarios I could conceive.  If a smaller player has been working the plot for a few weeks and if he/she has put forth the effort to build the infrastructure to pull the material from Elgea, would the community look on it as "fair" for a big player to send a larger army and claim the resource?  How about the scenario where it's the big player sitting on the resource doing nothing with it (that's happening right now) after taking it from the little player?

Certainly there are different scenarios.  It's a game, so really I don't believe there is an absolute "right" and "wrong".  I am convinced that there is a right and wrong for this community and it may not come down to a simple "might makes right" contest between the two claimants.  There may be a bigger force that decides otherwise.  It happens here and that's all I'm saying.

Would a player like Morph send troops 1,000s of [distance things] because someone said something disrespectful in global chat if Elgea was like that?

 

Indeed, I agree. You proposed some cases I had not considered thoroughly. I believe this is where politics and communication come in handy.

 

 

Let's take the first example: a smaller player has developed a strong system of harvesting and out of the blue a larger player comes claims it on the basis of might makes right. The smaller player has options. First would be to contact the larger player and explain "I've been working this plot efficiently for weeks now, could you give it back. Or, perhaps we can comes to an agreement about sharing it."  In many cases, given the kind community, this will probably work. If it does not work, then one could see if the larger player is in an alliance and contact their leadership, explaining the situation. It might turn out the larger player is acting in a way that their alliance deems unfavorable, and they can handle it for you. A more crafty, political approach might be to contact a strong neighbor and say, "Hey, this big guy took the spot I've been harvesting for weeks, if you could help me resolve the issue, we could share the plot or I could give you a share of the harvests."

 

Now the second example: A big player sitting on a resource doing nothing. Again, my first move would be to contact that player. It could be they planned on harvesting but haven't gotten around to doing the necessary research and building. Whatever the case, you might be able to work out a deal where you harvest and give them a cut of the crop, or take turns harvesting the spot. If that fails, the other options above: consulting with their alliance, your alliance, or nearby neighbors, are all viable ways for smaller players to gain some more even footing with larger players.

 

I still agree with Rorgash that "might makes right," but what is important to remember is that might isn't restricted to military might; the right words to the right people at the right time can be far more powerful, and I think players are going to figure this out more as Trade v2 matures.

If say a new player happened to find a rare herb patch in a jungle full of regular herbs, two exclusive resources would immediately present themselves to the player, with two easy actions available.

1. Harvest loads of normal herbs with cheap cotters.

2. With said abundance of normal herbs, make some harvesters.

The inherent value of resources is very attractive indeed.

Rorgash wrote: might is always right, if one is might enough to claim the rights a weaker power has nothing to say :) atleast not until they have gathered together to have a greater power :)

I have seen someone from 50 tiles away lockdown a patch a new player was harvesting (which was just 1 tile away) for 4 days, harvesting much less. That's a highly extreme anecdote that ticks virtually all the Illy NOPE boxes, but it proves the point that it's most definitely not always right.

SugarFree wrote: You may think that an exodus right next gives you all rights. Maybe a siege army to your town will make you change yer mind?

 

Not much to say to your first point, its accurate.

 

As to the second, what is "right" is irrelevant when there is no ability to enforce it. In the scenario you posed, if there is no possible way to prevent this from occuring, what good does it do to say that it's wrong? We can tell people to play a certian way, but it will only matter if we have the "might" to make it "right," so to speak.

 

Your third point raises valid questions, but I think the answer is that there can be no default response. Every player and alliance has their own policy for this, being aware of these expectations and communication whenever there is a shred of doubt is, in my opinion, the best approach.

I find camping resources for an extended period of time (more than a few hours just to make sure your specialists aren't slain by animals, if you really must) extremely wrong/in open contrast with the spirit Illy had until this update. Moreover it is act of hostility as you can clearly read from the logs when you send your armies to occupy a square that can easily cause incidents and that in the best case will prevent neutral players from gathering resources that you can't really call yours just because you say so, even if in your sovereign lands. Let me further elaborate on this: the only way to claim those resources are yours is camping them (although NAP and confeds can still harvest them). My take on this though, like I already said, is that this is an act of hostility and should be treated as such. If you send soldiers to prevent other players from gathering then you should expect to be attacked and should keep the conflict on that square and that square only, without calling a war on an act of aggression from the other party when you were the first to throw the challenging gauntlet. The only exception I would give to this are animal parts dropped by your own fights. In that case I would agree to camp the spot if you notice your neighbors like to harvest "your" drops. I realize my pow is clearly not the pow of many players since I've scouted camping armies composed of 2 soldiers. Well, camping a res with 2 soldiers only because backed up by the threat of war from a large alliance (+confeds maybe) is the typical bully attitude. So I say: the community now wants to camp resources and fight for them? Ok, by all means let's do it. But without escalating it to a war. Any conflict on a square of resources should be confined to that square, this is my take. This could be interesting without ruining the game.

Regarding automatical ownership of resources on sovereign squares... I disagree even with this, anyways it is obvious that one would be advantaged both in bumping and in fighting for a resource that is within 7-10 distance from their towns compared to someone coming from 100 distance and yes I've had at least 3 such cases since I do not camp any resource. Eventually they will give up wasting time, that's my experience, even though I even let them gather a few times out of compassion :P

My last thought is about camping rare herbs in order to let them grow in numbers. First of all do they even grow? Second, you still don't prevent allies, nap and confeds to harvest them. Third this is the best way to obtain the opposite result. Because rare resources are mostly camped, as soon as someone spots one not camped or camped by non neutral armies will send as many harvesters as possible without scouting, with obvious results. 

I find that if the community would adopt a more mature approach as it always did in past we would obtain better results. If there wasn't all this hurry to seize resources for oneself we could instruct the community to scout-before-harvest and preserve herb patches.

And about bumping? This is hilarious because I read of many players outraged by bumping, the same players would repeatedly state in GC that bumping can't be considered a hassle, it is part of the game and one should deal with it. What has changed now? I have only one word to describe this change and that is greed.

i rage at NaP harvesting all the times. they still bump. 

1. Remove all diplomatic relationships. List them instead on the alliance summary page.

2. If you want the resource, occupy it. Occupy the bejebus out of it, but don't risk more than you can afford to lose.

3. Dont gather on people's sov, its rude.

That being said, please commence with the many and often extremely far fetched 'what if' scenarios...

But I want no  from people when they get  too.

Theres more than just tourneys to use an army for now. 

Talk to your neighbors and secure a agreement of some kind, so that the close people harvest, and the people in the area kill any outsiders 

Theres many ways to play this update, and You Will See No Payment to Compensate the loss of your armies if we arrive in a skirmish.