Arcana

Ogame Order Sheet - 2 days in September, 2007

The Justified War - Ogame 10

A bit has been happening in Universe 31 on the Ogame, where I am into my fourth week of building a stellar empire. The most important factor in the strategic environment that has changed is that I have passed 5000 points, so anyone can now attack me and I can attack anyone. I feel like a very small fish in a very big sea.

Almost as soon as I passed 5000 points I started being checked out by espionage probes from various powers that be in the local galactic neighborhood. Initially worried by the experience (as a probe will usually preceed an attack upon a planet) I became a bit more relaxed when I realised that the pattern of probing was consistent with being part of a systemised scanning of the neighborhood, and that as long as I didn't stand out in any way to the viewer, I was just one of many and unlikely to be attacked if my defences made it appear to be a costly proposition.

This strategy (ie. keeping my head down) worked for a while. I used the time to rebuild the remnants that were left of my cruiser fleet after the Brushfire War, built up my productive facilities to a self sustaining level, and poured resources into the development of research facilities and techological advances on my home world.

For a while I was able to have a 'nodal' system going, with my three planets, each in a planetary system separated from the other by at least 20 such systems, sending out farming fleets to attack the most attractive of the vulnerable planets thereabouts. The 'outer' nodes of the system were used as collection points for other fleets which transported surpluses back to my homeworld, where is located the hungry maw of my scientific behemoth.

I used the resources to drive along my research into the high tech required to produce heavy ships of war. I have just now reached the point (in about seven minutes time, actually, as I write this) where I (will) know how to make battleships. I will use these powerful spacecraft to exert my influence further into my galaxy (I have only really checked out about 1 twelfth of it so far).

Or, so I thought. And then I was attacked by a bunctious nearby upstart, who'd just made it into the cruiser age. He smashed his fleet in a 'sneak' raid upon one of my colonies. I don't think he even knew that I managed to have a whole fleet of cruisers arrive about seven seconds before his own fleet of fighters and freighters did, giving his light fleet no chance.

I returned the favour by sending a strong force against his homeworld about 20 hours later. Although I didn't break through his defences and lost a lot of shit in the doing of it, I totally destroyed his own fleet and severely damaged his defences.

I used an online 'combat simulator' to make sure my fleet would have a chance before allowing it to strike home. I have added a link to speedsim (the combat simulator I used) on my 'MMPORG Resource's page. Follow the link to this page from the sidebar of this blog if you are interested.

Preparing to shift from my high research levels to running things as a 'war economy,' I am only now awaiting the necessary completion of my final technology advance (level 3 in 'hyperdrive') to allow me to build battleships. This will happen in 4 minutes. Then I will prosecute my Justified War against Sylwek Kalisz.

See you later.

Rank: 2001
Points: 6532 points

Renaissance Kingdoms 6

My scottish peasant continues to struggle along in the virtual village of Renaissance age Whithorn, County of Galloway, Kingdom of Scotland. Things have moved along since I last posted on the experience of playing this game.

I am now ranked 'level 1' and start having some actual choices in the game. I made the transition by going to see the county chancellor, paying him 90p, and chosing the type of land mine would be (from various crops or livestock). He then told me to bugger off for a day while he fixed up the paperwork.

So it was back to the mines. Except that I couldn't 'cause they weren't hiring! And the wage had dropped from 16p to 15p. So I had to go and work for the church again to earn my keep, eating bread that I had stached at home.

The following day I got the title for my field. I proudly (or at least as proudly as I could in a loincloth) went off to market to buy me a piglet and knife (so poignant), as well as a few bags of corn with which to feed the little bugger on if I could work out how to do this.

For the last few days I've been grabbing work in the mines when I can, grizzling about the wages on the forum, eating bread and watching my pig root around in my field. Will be using my knife as soon as it has fattened up a bit more.

Brushfire Battles - Ogame 9

With a false sense of confidence gained after his pre-emptive strike on 'Cheese', a local active player who had the misfortune to be misunderstood and falsely punished (crushed) as a consequence, although entirely innocent of any wrong doing, the Great Drac cast his eye further afield and gazed covetously upon the next available planet ripe for plunder. Having kickstarted his empire through pluder, the Great Drac grew greedy.

Without warning, his space fleets struck the unsuspecting world of the victim, wrecking its defences and carting off its resources to the devilish mills of the seat of empire. Again, and again, Drac's raiders hammered the now defenceless victim, seizing all of value.

Of course, this situation couldn't go on forever. From his distant homeland, the victim sent first his probes and then his attack fleet against the homeworld of the Great Drac's warfleets. Because of Drac's deviousness, however, the only contact the victim had had with the forces of Drac had been with those despatched from the homeworld. Thus, the victim didn't know of the existence of Drac's colonies. Lucky for Drac.

For a brief period the fleets of Drac and his victim swept in waves at each other. The victim, perhaps not as alive to the information that can be gleaned from such things, launched fleets from all of his scattered planets, none of them close to the land of Drac. From Drac's perspective , this was akin to 'reconnaisance by fire'.

Anyway, to cut a long story short, there were two major battles. In the first, Drac's prized fleet of space cruisers pounded themselves apart against the defences of the victim's main colony. This was the end of Drac's ambition for a war of conquest.

The victim's fleet, much larger in numbers of vessels than Drac's capital fleet had been, broke through the defences of the homeworld only to discover the valued resources that had been there had been lifted off planet at the last moment by the wily defenders. His fleets, disconsolate at the lack of plunder, limped back across the galaxy to their lairs.

And thus ended the Brushfire War.

Rank : 2700
Points: 3653

Renaissance 5

I have been playing Renaissance Kingdoms for a bit over 2 weeks now. The discursive world, created by the combination of game engine and thousand(s) of active players, all occuring real in real time in/on the virtual world of renaissance age western europe, continues to grow on me. Closest thing to compare it to in my experience was those old 'Tamagochi' virtual pets from about ten years ago.

Not much happens to the outward eye, but as the days and weeks pass, positions within the medieval village grow and change, preferments occur, businesses build, the priest conducts marriages and baptisms, deals are done on market days - all on top of the weekly grind of working in the mines, meetings in taverns to talk about corn prices or whatever, going to market to get your bread and going to church on sundays.

Over time people become known, and you develop a strange fondness for your outwardly boring scottish peasant, because you know what his dreams really are!

At the moment, I continue to work in the mines to build up my little nest egg with which I intend to well stock my field once I receive it from the county chancellor and cross his palm with 90 hard earned 'pounds'. My dream? In the short term, get a pig farm, knife and trousers.

Was it not always so?

Ogame 8

I have been playing Ogame for nearly 2 weeks now and am presently ranked 3048 with 2271 points. My colony, Iguana, is now thriving, with capacity to build its own fleet and conduct basic research if necessary. I am using it as a base from which to snoop around the next 50 planetary systems, and then go and raid out the resources available from planets owned by inactive players. Goal here, to have Iguana set up as insurance to retreat to if I start getting hammered at home on Aardv Ark.

Which might be a possibility as I am stongly considering attacking my second active player, also a member of the fairly weak alliance to which my first victim belonged. The advantage of doing this successfully will be that I will have cleared them out of the local area. The disadvantage (successful or not) is that I might bring myself up on the radar as a potential threat to others in that alliance and they might then pull their fingers out and come for me.

Perhaps I'll get another colony going somewhere else entirely first ...

Ogame 7 Renaissance 4

In my online Ogame I have risen to Rank 3207, with 1645 points. I have over a thousand players in cohort above me now, and about half that below. Met 14 - Cry 13 - Deut 12 - Sol 17 - Fus 4 - Rob 7 - Ship 5 - Res 7 - Missile silo 3.

I am consolidating on Cruiser level technology and taken a bit of an aggressive turn. I have pounded my system neighbor's fleet and turned his planet into a farmyard for me. He is part of an alliance, but my research leads me to think that they're a bit ameture, so I'm willing to take the chance. I did feel that I'd ruined his day, however, just before my first strike fleet struck.

I have my first colony set up about 50 planetary systems away. It is on a huge planet, which I intend to develop eventually into shipyard with attached mines. Should be massive!

Have had another RL friend, Dave, start up in this universe. Welcome to Ogame, Dave!

In my Renaissance Kingdoms game I have finally accumulated 3 trust points. Of interest, only one of these came from a fellow Newbie, and even he sounds like an interesting dude in RL. The other two points came from one of the original players of the game (great privelege!) and the other from one of the more interactive middle class players of Whithorn (the weaver, actually).

Whithorn has undergone a bit of a bread shortage recently, following the impostion of suggested price ceilings by the newly elected Mayor. Bread seems to be coming on the market at the moment, so things are picking up. A lot of the poor must have thrown themselves on charity of the church to avoid starvation however. I was lucky, I'd a couple extra bread loaves hidden in my hut and so was able to keep on earning by working in the mines.

I get to go up to level 1 shortly, will need to go to the church for a retreat for a couple nights first and then head to the county offices of the chancellor for my title deed to my block of land. What do I want to be when I grow up?

Ogame 6 - Poaching Gazeteer

This morning my Ogame stats were as follows: Rank 3679 - 615 points - Cohort above 761 players - Cohort below 368 players - Met 14 - Cry 11 - Deut 11 - Solar 15 - Fusion 4 - Rob 6 - Yard 4 - Res 6.

Having made my leap to the stars, I sent out my probes to nearby planetary systems and started looking for potential threats and juicy targets. I have mapped out about 50 such systems in the form of a 'gazeteer', though only really taking note of either those players in my cohort (ie No more than five times and no less than one fifth my point total, thus being able to attack, and be attacked by, me), and those who are 'inactive' (haven't been online for seven days).

I have noted where active players are (there are maybe a couple dozen nearby who fit the bill). At this stage, this is so that I can best avoid them. If patterns of their play become evident through my broad survey (such as one fellow who is colonising his own and a neighboring planetary system, farming a couple of 'inactives' into the ground), I make a note of that also. My aim here is to have an idea of who is around so that I can advantageously position myself in relation to them, primarily by the art of avoidance.

At present all similarly ranked players in the neighborhood seem to be concentrating upon a less 'aggressive' activity than outright war - the ancient art of 'farming'. In the lexicon of Ogame 'farming' and 'raiding' are two accepted ways of feeding one's empire. 'Farmers' harvest the planets of inactive players around, 'raiders' take out other player's resource colonies (or homeworlds if able). I see 'poaching' as the 'third way' of Ogame foraging, utilising the fact that we in Australia are playing while europe works, means that we can go on anonymous night raids upon inactive planets which are being farmed by others through the day. The trick is to do it only to the extent that they either don't notice at all or they aren't inconvenienced to the extent that they devote resources to catching me.

The tricky thing about doing all of this is that it is pretty labour intensive, even when systemised. It is all very interesting, but map information is dating from the moment in Realtime that you obtain it. My 'map' is really more of a 'scan', because each spy mission to a planet records a different moment in time. Thus the map is more of a 'thinking aid' than an answer to the problems of the poacher, and I rely as much on wit and intuition as I do upon logic and planning.

All this will change as the population of my cohort grows and the reach of my empire expands. I will keep you updated.

Renaissance 3

I have continued my participation in the online world of Renaissance Kingdoms. My character is still clad in loincloth and working in the mines (albeit, did a bit of labour for other players on their farms). I have saved a few pounds and gained a couple reputation points from the trust bestowed upon me by two other more experienced players.

Besides the day to day mundanities of eating and signing up for work, I have sussed out the world around a little. Certainly, since the election for mayor was conclusively decided in the first round (Karelian became mayor), things have become a little more involved, with a minimum wage being instituted, milita recruited and the general argy bargy of political economy kicking off.

Significantly, there is now a Whithorn Forum in operation, where players in the game engage in yet another layer of discourse in their shared creation of a living online experience. Most of what is discussed there, and of what goes on in the town, is way over my head (being a newbie peasant). But I have worked out that there are potential fracture lines throughout (worker/owner, scott/english, Clan Campbell/Clan Stuart, etc). There is also poetry and visual artwork starting to be created.

I think that over time this bucolic universe might become very involved!

Ogame Update 6

As of this morning, I am ranked 3934 with 268 points. My upper and lower cohorts continue to expand (503 and 291 players respectively). The main significance of this statistic (beyond any potential ego factor) lies in the increasing number of players in the cohorts who I can both attack and be attacked by. In the earliest days of my stellar adventure I would have to travel a long way (way beyond my ability) to located a world occupied by an active player who was potentially an opponent (they must be no more than five times or no less than one fifth my point total to fit the bill (as long as I am under 5000 pts)). Thus the scope for interactivity and engagement increases as I progress. And also the risks.

Till now I have been able to ignore potential opponents because our still low point totals mean that we don't really have the capacity for fleet destroying activity. That is beginning to change now, as players above me will certainly have the ability to destroy my fleets, swarm over my defences and plunder my hoarded resources.

I suspect the only way to save my resources is to spend them on-planet (buildings, research). This is because opponents, while they can destroy your fleet and steal your resources, cannot degrade your on-planet development. Thus, they can only hold you down, not kill you.

Phew...

Building Development: Met 13 - Cry 8 - Deut 8 - Solar 13 - Fusion 3 - Rob 5 - Ship 4 - Res 4. I am not showing my research levels etc nor noting stages of major technological development at this point. That is because, at this time, that would be to potentially give away information to opponents that they wouldn't otherwise be able to get. Eventually I will be able to cover this aspect of the game on this blog because I will be able to safely assume that espionage is being conducted against myself.

Notable moments: Raiding, fleet destruction, arms race. Gazetteer, espionage probes, fusion power mgt.

Ogame Update 5

At start of tonight's session I was randked 4198, with 77 points to my name. There are 223 in my 'upper cohort' and 176 in my lower cohort (until I reach 5000pts I can only attack or be attacked by players who's victory points are no less than a fifth, or no more than five times, mine).

My stats are:

Metal 10 - Crystal 8 - Deuterium 7 - Solar 11 - Robotics 4 - Shipyard 3 - Research 2

I have passed a couple of milestones in the game.

Firstly, I launched my first space vehicle (a small freighter) on my first raid. I picked a nearby inactive player whose rank was significantly below mine, and sent my freighter on an 'attack' mission to it. A couple hours, my freighter returned from the undefended planet with a few hundred resource units. Encouraged, I picked a slightly further opponent and repeated the mission. Hours later, my ship returned laden with valuable resources.

Secondly, I have now got a bit of a convoy route going to a couple of planets, to harvest their production. Just to shake things up a bit and keep me a bit unpredictable, I have also built a light fighter which also runs on the routes. It should be able to handle likely opposition if I pick my targets carefully.

Finally, 'Drayzzok' (Robbo in RL) has established contact. I gather he is sending me a 'welcome gift' of valuable resources from his own well stocked reserves. Had a bit of a chat with him while I wait for the loot. It's funny, but I understood 90% of what he had to say about the game. I week ago, 90% of it went over my head.

Must be learning!

Ogame update 4

At start of my evening's play on Ogame
Rank 4307 - 41 Points - 267 in cohort above and 48 below
Met 9 - Cry 8 - Deu 7 - Pow 11 - Rob 3 - Shp 2 - Res 2.

Quick MMPORG Update

My two online campaign games were going as follows as of end of day 2:

Ogame: I entered the space age! I launched a solar satellite to supplement my solar power plant. Energy needs are a continuing challenge as my mines and production facilities expand to keep up with demand. I continued my planetary development, the aim being to be able to be in position to build and launch proper space vessels at the end of the following day.

Rank 4388
Points 25
Cohort 164

Metal 9 - Crystal 8 - Deut 5 - Solar 10 - Robotics 2 - Shipyard 2 - Research 2

Renaissance Kingdoms: I took up alternative payment away from the mine, ploughing Tobi Von Helmut's fields for him. The pay rate is the same. Other than that, a meal of bread and veges (increasing my charisma) and a beer, reading a few letters (mainly with directions and encouragement from more senior players), and a building resolve to buy decent clothes.

Renaissance 2

In Rennaisance Kingdoms, I continue to work at the mines and buy my food at the market. I was enviously eyeing off a shirt at the market earlier, but it is presently way above my means. I have, however, decided I trust the fellow that sells me bread. I have decided to talk to him about us organising a block peasant vote for the upcoming elections, and then seeing what we can get out the bargaining power that that gives us. IF the candidates hear of my little tilt at subterranean power, at least I'm not 'agin any of them (yet). That should at least save my head. I hope ...

Postscript : I spent far too much money in the pub, talking to a couple friendly helpful citizens. For some reason, I then went and gave yet more money to the church to distribute to the poor. Had interesting chat in the tavern with Rubywax, similar interests in this historical era in RL. Ruby raises sheep for a living and is becoming part of the establishment in the village.

This is an interesting multiverse, there appears to be no combat in it. Although it may also be the type of society I live in and its peripheral nature to the heart of things. At least I have worked out how to go up a level. All have to do is do it.

Oh well, off to the mines we go!

Ogame Update 2

I am keeping on with my recent MMPORG games. As with most 'developmental' games, a lot potentially rests upon how the initial period of the game is played out.

In Ogame, I regard the approaching advent of spacetravel from my home world as being an epochal marker. The game 'character' of my little enterprise will be derived from the terms upon which I set forth, the peculiar mix of technologies and developments (themselves a product of my decisions about when to produce/create what). In this way the game mechanic seems to be along the lines of Hearts of Iron and Civillisation (both the Sid Meyer computer game and the Avalon Hill classic boardgame). I suspect the combat will be a ramped up version of that which graced my previous games of Medieval Diplomacy. It will be interesting to see what online interactivity adds to the mix.

It's a pretty inward game for me at present, I don't know enough about things to want to give away my ignorance by engaging with those around. Although at least in the local system of my own world all other players present (each with one or more planets of the system under their control) are so far ranked above me and have so many points, that I am beneath their notice and they can't attack me.

Ogame has a great 'newbie' rule. One can only attack or be attacked by someone who is within five times your own point value. Thus, I have 9 points as I write this. Only those with 45 or less can attack me. There are 150 players who have between 9 and 45 points (there are thousands below). This is my cohort.

Postscript At the end of the night's session I am ranked 4461 and have 17 points. I think my 'cohort' now numbers 161 players who have higher scores. My State of development is as follows:

Metal 7
Crystal 7
Dueterium 5
Solar Plant 8
Robotics Factory 2
Shipyard 1
Research Laboratory 1