Grepolis - The West in Greece, or something

[Samwise]

I have a harpy.  It's pretty awesome.  I've also got more than 300 defensive infantry, so I should be all set to hold Thermopylae.

[CmdrSlack]

I didn't have a pre-planned upgrade path, but I'm pretty happy with my city so far. I don't have a market, but have all of the other basic improvements built.

Given that I have about 70 hoplites and 110 swords/archers (combined total of both), I think I may just move my production to troops and academy upgrades. I'd like to get to horsemen and am almost there.

[Von Douchemore]

I've got about 400 infantry (following Samwise's advice of 1:1:2 S/A/H ratio) and a CENTAUR  

I'm also missing the marketplace here, too lazy to build 4 cave upgrades for that shit. I rather keep researching for Pegasi and Chariots.  

[Ghambit]

You guys are still playing this thing?
How's this game better/worse than any of the 5 million other pbbg we've tried?

[grebo]

It's hard to say why I'm still playing this, it really doesn't offer much beyond the standard pbbg city building experience.

I think the main difference is just that newbie units are such good defenders.  Other than that it's lots of upgrading buildings and training giant piles of guys while waiting for something to happen.

Speaking of that, one of my alliance mates attacked someone, got wiped out and became a farm.  Now we all get to run to his rescue.  Finally, something to do!

[Samwise]

Those of you without marketplaces are missing out.  You can generate a good amount of free resources just by trading back and forth with the farming villages, almost as much as you get by just farming them (and you can do both at once).

[grebo]

Also you can sell your silver for wood/stone at a 1:1.5 ratio fairly quickly, as people are always hungry for silver.  Coupled with the trading villages, this can be pretty profitable.

[Samwise]

Also you can sell your silver for wood/stone at a 1:1.5 ratio fairly quickly, as people are always hungry for silver.  Coupled with the trading villages, this can be pretty profitable.

Wait, what?  Do people not know about the trading villages or do they need such massive quantities of silver that the villages can't keep up?

[Azaroth]

I find myself mostly stone starved. I was buying silver when I was building my caves though, and I can see doing so again when I start building mythical units.

[grebo]

Also you can sell your silver for wood/stone at a 1:1.5 ratio fairly quickly, as people are always hungry for silver.  Coupled with the trading villages, this can be pretty profitable.

Wait, what?  Do people not know about the trading villages or do they need such massive quantities of silver that the villages can't keep up?

I figure most people are impatient and keep the village mood at around 20%, unable to resist the attack button when it creeps up to 60.  They never get the chance to trade and consequently have no way to get silver when they run out except by buying it on the market. 

[CmdrSlack]

The suck thing is that having a marketplace requires me to level up my cave -- which appears to require an assload of silver. It's next on my list now that I have horsemen researched, tho.

[Samwise]

I'm almost ready to build my merchant.     Luckily the market upgrades are pretty cheap.

[Azaroth]

Just about to have a Minotaur. Sweet! 

[Ghambit]

I just started a Gamma city (SE section)... faster, newer, yada yada

(sigh)

[Righ]

I have around 300 troops, a dozen of which are chariots.

[Azaroth]

How much faster is Gamma? When did it start?

I don't know if I could start again. Game is an exact copy of Ikariam, just not as good.

But I AM just about to start raping my island with Minotaurs... which is kind of entertaining.

[Ghambit]

How much faster is Gamma? When did it start?

I don't know if I could start again. Game is an exact copy of Ikariam, just not as good.

But I AM just about to start raping my island with Minotaurs... which is kind of entertaining.

Started 4th of Feb. and World Speed is 2 instead of 1.  Unit speed is the same though.
Are you relegated to only playing on 1 server?  Doesnt seem like it.

[Azaroth]

Ah. Well, starting three or four days behind everyone else is one thing. Nearly two weeks is another. You can't really do that in these games.

[Ghambit]

Ah. Well, starting three or four days behind everyone else is one thing. Nearly two weeks is another. You can't really do that in these games.

These people are lambs.  I lead them to slaughter (if the game doesnt bore me too quickly).

in other news:  the game does indeed have an interesting "feel."  I guess it's Ikariam meets The West.  Definitely on the casual side, less intimidating.  The majority of the gameplay seems to be meta on the boards and in recruitment.

Early game diplomacy is pretty rampant on my island as all the main Alliances vye for the better players' attention.  It's amazing what a simple thing like being close to other people on an island does to the psychology of a game.

[Righ]

Ah. Well, starting three or four days behind everyone else is one thing. Nearly two weeks is another. You can't really do that in these games.

Actually, that isn't true - no matter when you start, you will start on an island with people who started at roughly the same time as you. You get several days of protection from attacks. It takes considerably more than two weeks for even the most catassy players to build all the shit they need to start conquering towns on other islands, and when they do, they're not going to go after the newbie islands because there's no gain. The ones who start significantly ahead of you will be fighting each other when that time comes.

The first attacks will come from people on your own island once people start using the quantity of resources daily that the island NPC farms alone can't provide. If you want to play less aggressively at the start you can almost entirely eliminate the threat of local attack by aligning with the players on your island with the largest armies and fastest city growth, worshipping Athena and building a tower.

[Azaroth]

Yeah, but with Zeus I get Minotaurs, dude. Minotaurs.

I'm finally building my statue. For more Minotaurs.

Why does it take 30 humans to create a Minotaur? Are they morphed into one somehow? Are they fed to it?

[grebo]

Also you can sell your silver for wood/stone at a 1:1.5 ratio fairly quickly, as people are always hungry for silver.  Coupled with the trading villages, this can be pretty profitable.

Wait, what?  Do people not know about the trading villages or do they need such massive quantities of silver that the villages can't keep up?

I've been regularly selling my silver coins for stone/wood at a 1.8 ratio and I'm still the cheapest on my market.  I'm considering going up to 2.0 but that just seems criminal.  Lots rarely take longer than an hour to sell.  Truly the hunger for silver coins has no end.

[Righ]

That'll be people building horseman armies.

[Samwise]

I'm not even researching horsemen.  Going to turtle up on my island full of allies with hoplites as my main offense and defense.  Harpies fill the raiding gap nicely, and once I start tapping out the local inactive villages I can send them overseas without having to rely on those slow-ass transports.

[Azaroth]

Got into the top 250.

But hey... don't build the statue.

My divine favor points went from 3.5/hour to 4.1/hour. 

[Draegan]

I stopped playing after 15 horsemen killed 30+ footmen, 30+ archers and 30+ hepolites attacking my city.

[Ghambit]

I stopped playing after 15 horsemen killed 30+ footmen, 30+ archers and 30+ hepolites attacking my city.

Are you serious?
See... this is why I liked games like Napwar (even though I stopped playing).  Sure, it's more grognard and not as casual fun as Grepolis, but at least it's fuckin sensible.
It's almost like you have to look beyond the logic of the unit names and just concentrate on stats.  Horsemen might as well be Sherman tanks and Footmen might as well be desk jockies.

[Samwise]

See, if he'd been following my 1:1:2 ratio the extra hoplites would have raped those horsemen.   

It is kinda lame how there isn't a dedicated defensive counter to blunt damage.  Hoplites and chariots have the best blunt defense, and they're by no means specialized defenders.

[Ghambit]

If they started getting into dedi. counters and such the game would get too bloated for the innogames audience.  My only gripe thus far is even on a speed 2 server the beginning game is wicked slow unless you go premium.  Also, if you dont preplan you can seriously gimp your research points (I like the academy mechanic a lot, as well as the temple).  I put in about 30 seconds 3 times a day and that's it.  Does it get more involved later on?

btw, if anyone is on Gamma (which, I dunno why you wouldn't be) I'm in a pretty good alliance called "Condemned."

[Samwise]

If you aren't sending raids off every hour or so in the early game, you're probably falling far behind everyone else who is.  Later on it actually seems to be less of an issue since raiding becomes a smaller part of your income (unless you have a really big but poorly defended player near you that you can farm) and your raids tend to be larger and less frequent.

[Ghambit]

Anyone done the math on sending off multiple raids to different places rather than sending big ones to one place?
I assume there's diminishing returns going the all-in route.

[Samwise]

There's a limit to the size of the haul you can pull back in one raid, based on the strength of the village.

The mood of the village will also decrease the more you take from it; once the mood is sufficiently low they'll start fighting back (making raiding them more costly) and they will no longer trade with you (which is annoying).

My strategy has been to send a squad of 25-30 archers each time I see a village above 90% mood.  A squad that size drops them down by about 9%, keeping them just happy enough to keep trading with me.


For player villages (even ones that have gone grey) it's different; no mood, but they have a set amount of resources in their warehouse that are up for grabs, so sometimes you might hit a village and find that it's empty because you or someone else has just tapped it out.  You also can't use purely defensive units like archers to raid them, since even an undefended player village has a bit of innate defense that'll kill offensively weak units.

[Azaroth]

Also spying is expensive.

[Azaroth]

Manticore army begins.

Also... why am I playing this?

[grebo]

See, if he'd been following my 1:1:2 ratio the extra hoplites would have raped those horsemen.   

It is kinda lame how there isn't a dedicated defensive counter to blunt damage.  Hoplites and chariots have the best blunt defense, and they're by no means specialized defenders.

Pegasus!  I fear not the horsemen.

Just so everyone knows, if you support a player with troops and he gets attacked, guess who gets the battle points for what your dudes kill?  Ya, the guy you're helping.  Lame.