Advice #9 - Starting off a Town![Triangle Program]

The Triangle Program is an attempt to reveal my construction strategies in a few Advices.

Why do I call it the triangle program? Every vertex of a triangle is supported by two lines, making it one of the strongest geometric shapes. The circle I will not use because circles do not have lines, making it difficult if impossible to pull off a "Circle program" with the limited spaces we are provided with. Anyways, the same here, as everything supports everything in the Triangle Program.

There are three lines:

Line A: Economy Buildings

Line B: Happiness Buildings

Line C: War Buildings

Some buildings are a mix of some, in which case they are a "vertex building." A vertex will be Vertex AB for example. That means that they make the town both do something with the economy that is good, and do something for happiness that is good.

(things with (?) by them means they are one of the three optionals)

These are the buildings you will use:

Carpenter - Line A

Forester - Line A

Wall - Line C

Warehouse - Vertex AC

Hideout - Line C

Academy - Framework

Barracks(?) - Line C

Tavern - Line B

Embassy(?) - Line A

Trade Post (?) - Line A

Trade Port - Line A

Shipyard - Line C

Architect Office - Line A

Luxury Production building - Line A

Forester - Line A

Governors Residence - Vertex AB

Museum(Beu) - Line B

Look complicated? Not really. But everything turns out to support each other.

Now that we have established the Triangle, we will dive into what the intention of this post is, to learn how to get a good town start.

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You colonize a new town, you got lots of corruption going on. Not good. The first thing you want to do is setup a Tavern. When that is complete, hopefully you will have shipped wine and wood in at the same time. Build the GR (Governors Residence), and put the four wine in per hour. When this is done, you may have a decent growing town. After your GR is complete, build a warehouse. Ship in the necessary amount of wood and marble for this town, and upgrade the GR. If you have to continue on, do so, but keep this in mind:

Try to upgrade the Carpenter and Tavern along the way too.

Now, when you get corruption free, you want to try to get the Tavern to level 10. This will give you a population blast, and you can grow substantially. When that's done, move on to the carpenter. Attempt to get it on par with your other towns, but don't sweat it. Then build a wall. You have established a scaffolding for your triangle.

Later I will go into more depth of how to build up on this triangle, but that should help quite a bit for you if you start up a new town.

Advice #8 - War Strategy!

I will fulfill my promise by giving you...war strategy
War Strategy will be Part 3 of a 3 part Strategy Pack [yes this is a tag too].
Battle Strategy, Pirate Strategy, and War Strategy

I have given you some basic concepts for Piracy and Battling, and now that you have some idea of how to hone down these skills because of the other parts of the Strategy Pack, I will now give you the final piece of the puzzle; War Strategy.

War Strategy is probably the funnest aspects of this pack. If you utilize the advice given in this pack, you will create a powerful force - this force is you. You must be active during a war though, to pull everything off. It requires that you apply the battle strategies I have given you, and when used correctly, you can fight enemies when outnumbered.

Troop Content

You will probably want your entire attack army here. You'll also want lots of doctors, because you want as much to survive as possible.

Name Tricks

A great way to fool someone is to play with a local's name. Say a local player was named TIGER. Do this. TlGER. See? Different word right there, but looks practically the same. At first glance, you may be able to trick someone into being less diligent.

Strategy 1: Setting up Base

What do you think is the best forward base? An allies town? An occupied town? A military war colony? No, none of these. The best way is to get a garrison rights treaty with someone in the enemy's region. It's like occupation, but no one knows you have troops there unless information is leaked to it, they spy on it, or if you attack from it. How do you stop them from finding out? Hope they don't attack/spy out the town for a pillage, and don't attack from it. What this base does is it gives you a place to fall back on, and if you don't directly attack from it, it should be a safe haven. When you want to attack, you occupy a town, and attack from there. Don't worry about them finding out where your town is. Defending a town can be quite easy, along with the fact if you push offense first, it's hard to be pushed back on the defense unless you get mauled there, and if you follow this guide carefully, that probably won't happen.

Things you want this town to be: A fairly large town, not to big and noticeable, maybe between 10-50k points. You want the walls to be fairly large, in case you are discovered. Also, you want the town itself to be large. Your going to want to have lots of action points, and action points require a high leveled town. Level 15 or above should be ok.

Hint: You have to propose a garrison rights treaty to them. They should accept it, as there is absolutely nothing to lose with a Garrison Rights Treaty (GRT), and everything to gain (10% pillaged resources for example). Make sure they know this, so that they'll be more sure to sign it.

Hint: You have to have 11 diplomacy points, and they only have to have two.

Strategy 2: Picking War Camps

You should try to set up two to three war camps. You attack from these war camps, and continue to hit each target city. When you win, pull back immediately to your Main Local Base (the town you have garrison rights with). Cancel all but one of the occupations from your Palace. You want to create the idea that there could possibly more trouble coming from there. Always try to create illusions if you can.

You can also deploy from the occupied town, to occupy another town, and keep island hopping. If you can get an enemy to pursue you from Town A, attack Town A, it will be weakened. Check out their military score, and if you think the number shown in them military screen is substantial, make the strike. Hit and Run right there.

tip: make sure the towns you occupy have at least 2 action points; one to pillage with and one to retreat with.

Hint: Don't occupy a town on their island, they may react quicker, and you may not have a counter plan set up yet. Make sure that the enemy group doesn't have towns on islands that you occupy at first. As you develop into the area, it becomes more safe and smart to do so when they are more aware of your presence somewhere.

hint: You can cancel an occupation at your palace.

Strategy 3: Take advantage of their attacks

Say you wake up one day and HOLY SMOKES THEIR COMIN TO PILLAGE ME WITH 2.5k TROOPS AND I HAVE NO SOLDIERS ON THE HOME FRONT!!!! Don't sweat it. Just pull out all of the resources from that town, save wine (pull everything not under the protection limit a few minutes before the attack), and you'll have nothing to worry about. What? Are you saying you care that you lost? Don't ever care about who won or lost. Thing about how the battle effected the war. That's all that matters.

Now they have sent 2.5k troops to attack 1Town B, and they are halfway through a 17 hour trip. There's no way they can stop you now! Pillage their capital, it's vulnerable! See how we just took advantage of something that was supposedly bad, and now it's nothing bad and all good!

Strategy 4: Call in some friends

Everything is better when your fighting with a friend. You can do a whole lot more. If you apply teamwork and these strategies, you will practically own the battlefield!!

Strategy 5: Luring the Armies

Attack a town with a few spearmen. You'll see how many troops they have there, the walls level, and you could possibly lure enemy troops in to your occupied town, and you can attack that town from another occupied base. It's all about getting enemy troops out.

Strategy 6: Power of a Navy

Bring in a naval fleet. Navies are often shunned, but if you can lock down their towns (by blockading), you can break them.

Apply all of this to your war strategy, and you will have a much better war play!

Advice #7 - Happiness![Town Advice]

Happiness is the essence of the game. Without happiness, you couldn't grow a population, and thus you couldn't do anything. Thus, it is important to know how to get happiness.

Every 50 happiness gives you +1 persons produced per hour. So 200 total net happiness equals 4 people produced every hour. But this number changes. Every 1 citizen produced subtracts from the happiness per hour by 1. That means if you have 132 people, you only get 68 happiness, which is 1.36 growth per hour. Each happiness is worth double it's root number. That means 1 happiness is a growth of .02 per hour. That means 50 happiness equals a growth of 1 per hour. In this section today, we will go through the mechanics of Ikariam Happiness.

There are six sources of happiness normally, and seven sources of happiness for the capital.

(Capital Only) Capital's Bonus: This bonus comes along with being the top city of your empire. You do not get this until you research Well Digging. It's 50 happiness is pretty helpful though; thats a whole extra person you get per hour. So if your population grew 3.22 people per hour, if it was your capital, it would be 4.22 people per hour. When you research Utopia, it goes from 50 to 250 happiness, which is an extra 4 people per hour!

Through Research: There are various technologies that get you more happiness. Holiday and the Economic futures get you happiness bonuses. Holiday gives you 25 extra happiness (+.5 persons per hour) and the Futures start off as +10 happiness, and multiply by the future's level (so a lvl 3 future would be +30 happiness). As Holiday gives you +.5 persons per hour, it can be quite helpful in producing more people.

Basic Bonus: The basic bonus is currently set at 196. This means at the start if your population was theoretically at zero, you would get +3.92 people per hour! But you don't, because it starts at a population of 40 (but don't despair, because it just speeds things up when you have 40 people, more gold, scientists, and wood workers). But because of the 40 population, you have to knock of 40 happiness, so it is at 156 net happiness in the beginning of your town (not counting possible corruption). That means your growth is 3.12 in the beginning. This basic bonus though is essential to your early game growth, and should give you a big enough wave to ride in your first town until you get taverns.

Tavern: The Tavern is the foundation of your happiness production. Cheap, self supporting, and the first happiness building you get, it is the staple building of your town, if you ever want it to grow. Each Tavern level gets you +12 happiness, or +.24 people per hour. In the tavern, happiness is not based on how much wine you produce, but what interval you produce it at. Each interval produces 60 happiness. That means each level to it's max gives you +72 happiness. If your town consumes 8 wine then, then your town will produce +120 happiness, or +2.4 people per hour, +24 happiness, so an additional +.48 people per hour, a total of 2.88 growth per hour. Hopefully you can see that the Tavern is extremely important to your town.

Hint: It is wise to keep a fairly large sum of wine in your towns, like 5,000. (That was two sources, the building itself, and the wine consumed)

Museum: Unlike the Tavern, each museum level gives you +20 happiness. Each level gives you space for one cultural exchange, and you sign a treaty with someone, and you get a Cultural Asset Treaty, a CAT, or simplified to Cultural Treaty, or CT;Both are used. Anyways, each CT gives you + 70 happiness. That means each level to its max gives you +90 happiness. That's pretty good, but this is of course because they are so expensive. So a level 3 Museum to it's best gives you +270 happiness, or +5.4 growth! Now hopefully your convinced to build both the Tavern and Museum! Also, the Museum relieves a lot of pressure from the wine producing cities, as wine is in less demand. (That was two sources, the building itself, and the CT's)

Negative Effects: Corruption and Population have a negative effect on happiness.

Don't worry about corruption so much though, as it is just there when your GR level isn't to the amount of colonies you have (three colonies = Level 3 GR). Corruption is calculated as a number that is a little less than all of your happiness factors multiplied by the decimal form of the percentage of your corruption. Sounds complicated? Not really. Say you have a total of 200 happiness, and 15% corruption. You would move the decimal left two points, so it is now ".15". You multiply 200 by .15, and viola, you get your number, 30. This number is subtracted from your entire happiness total, so your net happiness would be 170 happiness. Whenever you calculate corruption though, the happiness reduction is a little more "user friendly", so it would probably be -28 or -29 happiness.

Population reduces happiness for every citizen you have. That means 200 citizens (as explained earlier) deduct 200 happiness from the town. Simple as that.

So let's do a problem here. 196 basic bonus, 25 research happiness, 24 tavern building bonus, 120 wine bonus, 20 museum building bonus, 70 CT bonus. -232 of population, and there is no 10% corruption.

24+120+25+196+20+70 = 455

.1 x 455 = 45.5, round down to (user friendlyness) 44.

-232 happiness from population, so 232 +44 = 276

455-276 = 179 happiness (growth of 3.58 persons per hour)

Now that you know the math behind the Happiness, take advantage of it!

Advice #6 - Pirate Strategy!

I will fulfill my promise by giving you...war strategy
Pirate Strategy will be Part 2 of a 3 part Strategy Pack [yes this is a tag too].

Battle Strategy, Pirate Strategy, and War Strategy

Piracy is such an important part of playing, but yet, some people overlook it, or take it too seriously, and don't attack others, which yes, this is fine, some people are there and they help. We love these guys. But there aren't a lot, and you gotta learn how to pirate and live out in the rough world.

|--==Piracy==--|

This page does have some Ika-slang, which will be highlighted as blue words (except in circular message), and the term meaning will be given at the bottom.

You've been attacked before (probably) and you've lost resources, sometimes a lot, sometimes not so much. Do you know why? Some guy saw your town, saw your score, and saw a juicy looking town. He spied on you, and viola, found magical [not to be taken seriously, the only "magical" resource is ambrosia] resources that weren't being used! So he decided to pillage you. Then you complain to the alliance. But you only saw your perspective on it, but now, we flip the perspective, and show you the world of "dog eat dog" world. Welcome to the world of Pirates.

=1=Pillage Classes=1=

The people who stock up (stockpile) on resources, the stockpilers, are like the vegetables, they are at the bottom of the Ikariam Chain. They just sit there and don't spend, or do so slowly. Normally they'll have over 20,000 of at least two different resources. People pillage the crap out of these whiners, yet for some reason this race of "people" is not extinct. Sometimes they may pillage other players and noob pirates, but generally, they don't pillage. You should hunt these players down and hound them until there isn't anything left or you have pillaged them six times (Bashing rule, see http://ikariam.com/rules.php) within 24 hours.

tip: The whining of the victims of your pillages is the most hilarious form of sadistic comedy within Ikariam.

Next is "other players". They can be fairly easy, not as juicy, and you may get a bigger fight from them, but not too much hassle. Then comes noob pirates. They channel resources from other farms so that they have resources. But oh, you come along and take it from them! Mwahaha! Noob farms are great for less work for you too, so if you spy correctly, you can find your local noob farm.

Up the ladder is the next thing -Oh joy, this isn't next in the ladder, but is scattered all over. Guardian players, policers, etc. You may have hit the wrong guy, and this guy is out to get you. You gotta show these players that you got the skills to smash them back down into the ground, that this is your turf, and that no one will tell them who and who not to pillage. Attack them too, pillage them, and farm them. Make them pay forever for the act they committed, until someone you can't beat around comes in to teach you a lesson, one way or another.

So back to the ladder, the next thing is other pirates. You may never meet head on, but you may find other large players who seem to have good armies but "stockpile". They may be a hardcore stockpiler, OR another pirate. If you pillage them, you may risk a large conflict, a pirate conflict, that like always, will lead to each other beating the crap out of one another. Think about risks.

Next up are the Warriors. These guys are always fighting, not just people without armies, but people with armies. They are powerhouses to be afraid of.

=2=Pirating Skills=2=

1. Pirate defense!

Defending yourself against pirates is a must. There are three things to do:

A. Upgrade your hideout alot, so that it is harder to spy on that town.

B. Build a navy, this way you can block incoming attack fleets.

C. Don't stockpile! Make sure your town doesn't look juicy, so people won't pillage it! SPEND SPEND SPEND!

Tips for piracy:

A. Espionage -

Spying is a vital part of pirating, the more in depth, the better. The main concept is to spy on how much resources they have. If they have alot, you ca'tn afford to wait. Pillage soon. If not, and you aren't on their island, here is a good strategy. Spy if they are online. If they are, the plan may not come out as accurate, due to spending and resource movement. But anyways, spy how much they have at one point, and then spy on how much they have an hour later. You will know how much they make per hour, and can calculate how much they will have in a given amount of time. You can also spy on fleet movement from their largest city or sulfur town, because one of these two towns is probably their main attack center. You may be able to see if they pillage a lot. If they grow fairly steadily, you should try to pillage them, since they can be some of the best targets.

B. Careful Ship Numbers

Once you've spied on their resources, look at their town. Check out the level of the warehouse, and multiply that number by 80 (this calculation will change in 3.3). If it was a level 10 warehouse, it would store 800 resources. So if they had 2467 total wood, they would only have 1667 wood available to pillage. That would mean you should take 3 ships. You then should calculate troop space. You may have enough leftover space to carry that 167 wood, just have to do the calculations so that the exact number of necessary ships is sent. Remember that little section in Tip #5?

C. Check out the Trade Post

The trade post doesn't protect resources. That means if "Player A" has 10,000 marble at the trading post, he's got 10,000 wood up for a pillage!

=3=Benefits=3=

Resources! The great benefit of the sea (the channel which you get these resources)! This is one of the easiest, cheapest ways of getting resources, and definitely the most fun!

==Ika-Slang==

Pirates - A player who is well seasoned in the art of piracy, and is well known in their area or globally for their pirating. The true term though, would be one who pillages on a regular basis.

Stockpilers - they spend from zero to slow, and have lots of resources that you pillage easily. One who stockpiles

Stockpile - The act of having lots of resources, and never spending them. Normally results in a barrage of pillages.

Whiner - One who always complains to the alliance, normally about not having resources, or being attacked (the attack normally provoked by the act of stockpiling), but never does anything for themselves or the alliance. Normally they grow about 100 points a month. Normally you wonder why there are training alliance leaders who can stand their antics.

Other Player - These people grow at normal lengths of time, checking in and out, but manage not to stockpile.

Noob Pirate - a player that is a noob but pirates other, smaller noobs too. Sometimes, if he is successful enough/not active enough, he can fall into the "Stockpiler" category and be sucked into the vicious vacuum of constant strife from pillaging.

Farm - Any source of outside resources in which the resources are obtained by pillaging. Normally these players don't donate, are annoying, or stockpile, but Farm's are not restricted to the latter three examples.

Advice #5 - Your Port![Economics Advice]

The Port - the most important trade structure you have. Learning how to use it is quite helpful...

On the left sidebar are three things:

The thing you know, the upgrade box. Cost, time, and option to upgrade, along with the choice to demolish.

Below it is a new thing; the box that tells you how much each boat can hold, which is 500 resources. Then is loading speed. This tells you how many goods are loaded per minute. The higher this is, the better. You make this larger by upgrading the port. The bigger your port is, the more you can do with it. These are the things you can do with a larger port:

• Quicker resource evacuations when under attack
• Quicker trade

Two things, it may seem small, doesn't it? But let's say you judge the size of your army, and it may live, may lose, but you realize the resources are too important to get out. Because you invested in a large port, you manage to evacuate thousands of resources, and possibly it all. Know what that means? You saved resources!! That means you did things quick and efficiently, and that's what I'm trying to tell you this whole time, efficient-ness is necessary!

Move over, and you can see how many cargo boats you have, but more importantly, how much it costs. Below it, you can see incoming traders, your traders leaving, and and ships loading.

Now that you know the basics of that, now we'll get down to the cargo boat.

Does it ever feel like you never have enough cargo boats? We can fix that!

Say a building costs 1100 wood. It is about 20 minutes away, but you have other trades to do. It produces 100 wood per hour, and currently has 60 wood in town. Should we send 1100 wood, or 1000 wood? For that tiny 100, which would narrow down to 40 (which because of resource intake will probably lower to 0 very soon), your wasting a cargo boat! Why don't we go for the 1000 instead? 2 instead of 3. Know your empire, and don't use the bar. Type in how much you are gonna send, the bar is evil. Mwahaha it says, but you will not fall to its temptation. Don't be lazy - type in the number.

So if you had 5 trips nationwide that were like this, you could have saved 2500 cargo room (5 boats) just by using common sense and efficient-ness. Thats an entire shipment that could be used doing something productive! By typing, you can save lots of time!

Also, at your trading post, type in how much you will buy. The same deal happens here as it does at the port, save boats!

Hopefully now you will be a much more efficient trader, realizing the mechanics of your port.

Advice #4 - Battle Strategy![Military Advice]

I will fulfill my promise by giving you...war strategy
Battle strategy will be Part 1 of a 3 part Strategy Pack [yes this is a tag too].

Battle Strategy, Pirate Strategy, and War Strategy

ratio key (hoplite/steam giant:swordsman:gunner(no ranged unit besides him):siege craft:cook)

doctors are not in the ratio as they are not completely necessary, and can be put in at any number

Plan 1: My Personal Battle Plan - The Pincer

This is what you try to do in a Plan 1 situation ratio: 10:10:8:1:2. Do you get that? If not, this is what it means. If you have 100 hoplites (first number) you would also have 100 swordsmen, 80 gunners (sulfur carabineers), 10 siege craft, and 20 cooks.

This plan takes advantage of the fact that most people have less flank force than front line force, so we'll break the flank. The large number of sulfur carabineers creates a huge volley of bullets that will help keep your front line alive, if outnumbered. Remember, doctors can help you when outnumbered. By breaking their flank A.S.A.P., you have complete access to everything behind them, they are virtually sitting ducks; you'll see the results of a good flank once it happens.

Plan 2: Hold Out

This is a great plan for when your in trouble. 10:10:10:1 or 0:5, and then throw in lots of doctors, like 20 to 40, and throw more in if the enemy has more doctors than you. This is what you want to happen: The doctors keep more hoplites alive than the enemy, while the flanks possibly take the enemy down, and the ranged units tear at the enemies front line.

With morale high and health high, you can possibly win, or succeed in just holding an army at bay.

Plan 3: Attrition

15:10:10:3:5 . You want 15 steam giants, not hoplites. Steam giants can slaughter hoplites, I've seen it happen to my own troops, didn't go back to hoplites. Once you get steam giants, make sure you use 'em. Now that we got that covered, we realize that we can massacre enemy forces, especially if they are hoplites. Your flanks may be able to do some damage to, along with your gunners. Your artillery can pack a punch also, as you see here. You may be able to kill more than he, but it may take awhile

Destroying a Wall

2:1. Use steam giants if you can when doing this, not anything else. Why? Because steam giants can take the hits. Hoplites die instantly to most wall shots. Steam giants will die much slower, so it is wise to resort to them instead, while the artillery is demolishing the walls. Once it looks as if the walls are about to go down, send in an attack force, then send in full force.

Rotating

Send in a Wall Destruction Force (WDF), first, then send in a smaller Pincer Force (PF). Send in a larger PF, and continue to rotate these groups. When one group is taking hefty hits, maybe low morale, withdraw it, and replace it with a new group. You can fight a lot more battles doing this rather than dumping troops into one.

Whats Key in strategy?

To me, I think it's key to employ lots of flanks. These overlooked buggers can turn the tide if you win the flank battles.

Well now that you have read that, you now have a good idea of how to fight big battles and battles just in general, next we'll move onto pirating... later today.

Advice #3 - Power Force![Military Advice]

Today your gonna learn about 3.2 armies! 3.2 brought a totally new era of fighting, now involving a lot more deciding than in the old days, leading to a, if you adapt correctly, more fun combat system.

We'll look at the key points of an Ikariam Army.

The three most important for your Ikariam army are the Frontline, then Flanks and Auxiliary. Frontline is ranked #1, and the other just barely trailing behind in #2. There is a reason for this close bond.
Frontline force: Without a frontline force, you won't be able to sustain the damage that will be done on the replacement troops, basically, you lose all of your hoplites/steam giants, your a sitting duck, unless you got reinforcements coming quick. Once you run out of morale, or you run out of troops to funnel into the frontline, you lose. So yes, the frontline is the most important thing.

Flank: These guys are basically the "morale detractors" if you use them right. Many players don't realize the powerful effect of a mighty flank is. Say you defeat the enemies flank. Guess what? You have total access to slaughter their ranged units, and come in to squeeze down their front line units, which can be devastating both physically (deaths) and psychologically (morale).

Auxiliary: The Doctor and Cook are your two helpers in the game, and trust me, you'll learn to love 'em. Cooks rank #1 of the two, because they keep morale up. You lose morale (which goes down quicker than troop count, especially in big battles), you lose the battle. You need to make sure you sustain morale. Things like suffering more deaths than the enemy, being flanked, being outnumbered player wise (a 2 v 1 battle will not have favorable morale conditions for the "1")and just attrition (each round subtracts 10% from morale, all of which can never bubble up with correct cook total) can grind it down. Doctors heal your troops, and if your outnumbered, they can be your friend, in fact, anywhere they are your friend. If your death toll is lower than yours, your gonna be doing much better! Doctors create more efficient armies basically.

Now we'll go to the other things.

Siege: You NEED these to bust down walls. It wasn't put down in the top three just because it isn't as important to an open battle. They are a necessity though to win an attack on a walled town, which trust me, will be practically any town you attack. Always use the most up to date siege weapon you have, and mass employ. The walls can rip up hoplites. Also, these siege craft can smash enemy infantry, although I think they still kill 1 by 1.

Ranged: They shoot at your enemy! They provide an extra punch, especially Sulfur Carabineers. Archers and slingers though shouldn't be employed though, unless changes are made, just because their stats are so crappy, it isn't worth the cost. Only S.C.'s should ever be used, and make sure you fill up your ranks, they can slaughter soldiers!

Air: When you first get gyro's, don't build them. Only build them once you get bombardiers (balloons). What do gyros do? Attack enemy balloons and defend your balloons! What do balloons do? Drop bombs on enemy troops, but they destroy siege craft first. If you have lots of siege craft, you should stock up on gyros possibly, unless you aren't in conflict with players with balloons. You can send balloons on bombing runs, using small groups of soldiers as your frontline, to last a round, and to do damage to enemy siege power.

Strategy will be posted tomorrow
But now that you know this, I at least have ideas bubbling around in your head!

Advice #2 – Importance of Marble[Economics Advice]

Marble is an extremely important resource. You should try to get half of your towns to be marble. So a good town ratio would be 1:2 for marble towns. You will find as you progress through the game, that you are in desperate need for this resource, so let's look at the ways you can maximize your marble capabilities!

#1: Know the Future! The future's flying at you the faster you develop, and it's important to nail down the marble to your warehouse of resources, and have a permanent source of it. As I said, every one out of two towns should produce marble.

#2: Get the Architect Office! By knocking off a total of 46% end product (with techs added in), it's definitely worth investing in this structure. In the beginning, put more effort into your carpenter, but when things get expensive, get your architect some more skills by upgrading his office!

#3: Get the Stonemason in your marble Polis'! They will pay off, when you get an extra 200-300 marble per hour!

#4: Understanding goals. If you want both the stonemason and town hall done, upgrade the stonemason first, so you'll get the Town Hall/Stonemason operation done faster, because you get extra marble. See?

#5: Always be spending! Make like an American from 2000 and spend spend spend! It's the name of the game in Ikariam, because if you don't use it, a pirate will steal it [pirate is a player who constantly steals people's resources]. It will be worth it, just don't save up, spend NOW!

So hopefully you have an idea of how to manage marble. Apply each of these to your empire and you should succeed with marble!

Advice #1 - Power Colony! [Town Advice]

What is the goal of each colony? To contribute to your confederation of city states, or empire, kingdom, whatever you feel like calling it. Now in Ikariam, everything is important. Every building is important.

In my plans, I organize things into 4 major sections. I knock off each systematically, after reaching a building level goal of, for example, level 15 carpenter, I move onto the next goal.

1. Primary goal : Carpenter/Architect building

why? Because they cut prices down. A lvl 32 carpenter and architect office with all building cutting upgrades will add up to a total of 46% off! Don't you go to buy things when it's got that kind of deal! These two buildings save you boatloads!

Secondary goal: Tavern - this always remains a secondary goal in my books because with it you get more population, and with more population, you can get more workers, and more money. Each non-working citizen pays 3 gold per hour in taxes. Always upgrade taverns whenever your people are neutral.

2. Primary goal: Luxury Buildings and Forester

why? Because they give you bonus resources! That means more resources to fill in a smaller hole (hole being cost, the architect/carpenter cut that cost, making a smaller hole, :P) Yes, you are now on the road of efficient expenses, resource management, and ohh, the joy of getting things done faster and cleaner!

Secondary goal: If your carpenter/architect office are still fairly cheap, still nail at them if you don't have enough resources for a lux+ building, but enough for these guys, and you are going somewhere, or just leaving for an extended period of time. Also, go at those taverns!

3. Primary goal: Taverns

Why? As I explained earlier, they maintain your happiness. Try to get them sky high, but make sure your wine consumption isn't ridiculously high, or else you'll get that sudden "drowziness"given by energy drinks that Five Hour Energy people always proclaim. But if you are riding a wave of growth of 4 people per hour, your economy will skyrocket! More gold, workers, resources, cheaper buildings, we're on a roll!

Secondary goal: Pretty much anything that's cheap. It's a free for all here.

4. Primary Goal: Academies and Hideouts: Technology is important, and you gotta seal the deal with great spy protection. Always try to employ as much scientists as possible at once. Do note though, that they cost six upkeep and don't pay taxes, a total of -9 gold per hour on your economy. Hideouts are extremely important in making sure people don't figure out stuff. Make sure all of your towns are on top of things though, because there are two major universal things that can bite your butt if you don't have a hideout there: online status and messaging types and messaging partners. If they do it enough, they can trace patterns, figure out your partners, and even figure out your position outline just by these things. Very important to nail everything down completely.

Secondary Goal: Anything that works

Always throw in town upgrades, etc. in there, but don't build the temple. Please, it has no point but to give you a cruddy bonus if you can get all of your island mates (which they won't) to participate. Not worth the time or resources.

Also remember to keep your GR's up to date, or else the corruption will really be a thorn in your side.

You will hopefully have this down: Cheap buildings, good income (both gold and resources) because of high population, good spy protection, and high technological levels.

That's just Advice #1!

Hello, Ikariam

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