Advice #10 - Exploding a Town[Triangle Program]

To "explode" a town, you have to rapidly expand the happiness line.

Buildings: Tavern-Museum(?)-Town Hall

What you want to do after you complete the GR level's is get the population sky high. To do this, upgrade the tavern twice, then upgrade the town hall.

By filling up the order in the tavern, you can get a lot of happiness, which is a lot of population

The museum, if you have it, will do a lot for you too

the goal of exploding a town is to get a good population; the more population, the more tax payers, the more resource gatherers, the bigger your economy is. It will help that town be more self sufficient later on.

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 #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!