Now that we've got that underway, we can get into my summary of the year... My Yearly Business Report, if you will.

The new year in Apolyton started on July 28, 2002 on an auspicious note... the day before (a day especially important for being my 2nd year anniversary at the site), Eli had started a thread detailing how "Civilization Fanatics Center" (CFC) was receiving more monthly hits than Apolyton. However, as Chris 62 was quick to point out "The stats looked fairly equal." And, as the year progressed, Apolyton found that it had little to fear. Apolyton always had more registered members than CFC. And CFC, wracked by migrations, splits and internecine quarrels, was the more volatile of the two sites. Meanwhile, Apolyton continued it's big city, cosmopolitan flavor, featuring the Finnish threads (instigated by Lazarus and the Gimp's "Evil, Evil Finland" thread.) Rasbelin's post supporting Apolyton pretty much sums up why Apolyton is the best Internet Forum Site for Civvers:

"Poly still covers a much larger section of Sid's production and has a larger number of extra features (i.e. shop, radio, 'The Column'). I refer to my very recent pro Poly post () on CFC... where I listed some of the things Poly beats CFC in. So Poly still is the site for me. As I said, more activities; and if you're settled here, then it's easier to stay here and be active here."

For example, I consider myself a typical Apolytoner, I came here to post my ideas for Civilization III after lurking since 1998. (And even longer if you count my lurking at Dan and Markos' old sites...) Then I got involved in AC-Fictioneering and GMing an AC-Story Game along with [LordLMP]. Then, after a few months, I migrated to the Off-Topic and later to other sections of the site- posting in all Civilization III and Civilization II sections. As the site expanded, so did my horizons. When more things were added, I came back. There was always something new for me here. And there always WILL BE something new for me here; whether it be Europa Universalis, Galactic Civilizations, Nation States, or Rise of Nations, Apolyton covers the GOOD games. Apolyton focuses on new things: Apolyton has one of the best, ever-changing, multi-interested communities on the Interet. I have visited and posted at many forums since registering at Apolyton, but I have found that none have what Apolyton has to offer. Active topics on anything Turn-Based (TB). Interesting people. Myriad opportunities to post, grow and learn. Apolyton is majestic. Apolyton is grand. Apolyton is my forum of choice.

Future Ideas
I can see Apolyton continuing as it is, and perhaps growing somewhat due to the release of Rise of Nations; I can see some posters leaving and others coming back (after a long sojurn dictated by compuslory army service, school, etc). I can see Apolyton expanding to cover other games; specificially I can see Apolyton covering mroe Turn-Based Strategy/Real-Time Strategy hybrids as they are produced. And, while I can't see Apolyton becoming a force in the Europa Universalis experience, I can see them perhaps fostering a Heroes of Might and Magic spinoff forum, when and if the fifth game in that series is as great as Heroes III.

I can see Firaxis Games producing a Civilization IV about 3-4 years from now ;) Hopefully Apoltyon will still be around then. I can hope that Mark and Dan will continue to webmaster for at least 3-4 years... But, barring a major release of a Civ title -- I worry that after 5 years, Apolyton might begin a decline... But that is so far in the future that it isn't worth mentioning. And anyways, if Apolyton lasts 10 years, that will be 9 years longer than most sites, and 7 years longer than most sites of its size. Apolyton's forum community is important. Apolyton's forum community has kept the site active, with members submitting files, downloading them and giving feedback. As long as the forums are active, I can see Apolyton as being active and frequently updated. As long as there are good people giving good advice, I can see Apolyton continuing on into the future for many more years.

[----That was the short form; here's the verbose (read: wordy) description [If you're looking for your name in an official site article; this is where it is likely to be found -- so read on.]

The Year in Lists The new year, in addition to bringing new members, brought new smilies, the somewhat popular party hat smilie, as well as the more popular :band: smilie. However, I still think that this smilie---> is the best smilie ever created. Be sure to use it well and often. Can you bElieve that at the beginning of this Apoly-Year, GenghisFarb was only a Warlord

On the 27th, the day before the birthday party, we also had a Poly vs. Counterglow thread. Apolyton won hands down... And still would, should a similar poll be conducted. On the 30th, rah was appointed the Off-Topic's third moderator- thereby increasing Ming's influence and power, since, of course, as we all know- rah is Ming's twin brother. On the 8th of August, MarkG created the CivIII-Stories section for the Apolyton Directory (only mentioning this because I'm the Civ III-Stories Moderator ). And I'd like to say that the August Hall of Fame induction ran smoothly, but it didn't. However, it was the first Hall of Fame to be expanded to the CivIII-General section, at the urging of Locutus and notyoueither. Since then, it has become a staple of the forums, present in anywhere from 4-6 sections at any one time. (Although, the other idea proposed in the thread, the Veteran's Committee fell through, with only Jay Bee and Ming volunteering).

Sometime during mid-August, I started a stock-market manipulation game based on Apolyton, in the 'Off-Topic' forum. *End Is Forever*, myself, and DinoDoc ended with the highest networth values at the end of the week. In late August, Ming ran away with a poll on the best moderators of Apolyton, winning 22 votes... MarkG followed leagues behind with merely 11. Perhaps people really do like Ming... or they were afraid of his banning rod. Also in August, the 'Other Games' forum section expereinced a brief Heroes of Might and Magic renaissance, culminating in Andemagne asking MarkG for a HOMM forum... MarkG refused; wisely perhaps, because after 3 months of intense HOMM posting, the activity dropped off and the 'Other Games' section mainly returned to regular postings and Skanky Burns' "Best Game" Polls. In September, after DarkCloud compiled a listing of which nation flag had the most posts... MarkG decided to make the job easier for him and created a data script that took all the fun out of list making, automating the data, and determining which nations had the highest post count average and totals. Also in September, MarkG merged the 'Scenario League' with the 'CivII-Creation' forum, thereby leaving the "Spanish Civ II Site" as the only 'Hosted Site' to have its own private forums ("WesW"'s forums going offline a few months before due to lack of interest).

In November, orange released the second edition of the Apolyton Yearbook, an internet presentation showcasing the pictures of various Apolytoners. The entire work took several megabytes and lots of hard work and perseverance as orange collected the data from hundreds of Apolytoners over the course of two years. It was released to wild praise. Regular talking and Apolyton-topic features, such as "What brought you to Apolyton" continued to appear, as did people requesting new forums -- and new forum sections were made including the 'Future Civilizations' section, the 'Classic Civilizations' section, the consolidation of the Europa Universalis forum, the Rise of Nations split sections, the GalCiv split sections, the Master of Orion fiction forum (which has since been retracted), and a NationsStates forum was created in November or December 2002. In addition, with Archaic and Drogue supplying much material for roleplaying in that particular game. In addition, MarkG was also persuaded to add a Master of Orion/Master of Orion II thread for nostalgia reasons and a Civilization: The Boardgame section.

All forum sections were quite active; even the lesser-visited Boardgame, 'Classic Civ' and 'Future Civs' sections still get at least 5-10 posts every two days- which is much more than most sites can boast. The Dinosaurs forum continues its inauspicious place, hidden beneath the 'Other Games' section, and the Earth:2025 forums are no more. I would say more on this issue, analyzing the 'Diplomacy', Stella Polaris, Trade Wars and Candle'Bre forums for activity, but Apolyton has simply grown too large for one soul to categorize it all. The 'Democracy Games', under the tutelage of Trip, MrWhereItsAt, UnOrthOdOx (With his CivIII-DemoGame Jungle Times), notyoueither, BetaHound, cavebear and many others continued to flourish, being one of Apolyton's prime features. The 'CivIII Democracy' games, thanks to Trip, really took off as he started the idea of team-play in the 'CivIII: PTW Democracy Game'. To date, Apolyton currently has about five thriving teams competing against each other in those games.

The Stories Contest, newly resurrected by DarkCloud in December 2002, received lots of press in the Apolyton News Articles, run by MarkG. Over 4 rounds were completed in the space of a few months as people such as vovansim and Centauri18 posted myriad high-quality tales. Also in December 2002, the Hall of Fame's 3rd anniversary was heralded by cross-postings in the Civilization: Call To Power, CivIII, 'Off-Topic' and 'Other Games' sections. The Hall of Fame also featured new profiles for each of its members, in order to educate newbies about the hallowed heroes of Apolyton past. In January 2003, after the latest Hall of Fame voting, a vote wracked by the Counterglow conspiracy to elect a certain three posters to the Hall... Big Crunch persuaded myself to create a list of the Best Avatars on Apolyton. The list went fairly well, although I can't remember who won off the top of my head right now.

And More Stuff
Well, I hope you enjoy Apolyton and truly enjoyed this stroll down memory lane. Please take some time in your life to remember the people of Apolyton, the people who work behind the scenes and make your day happy. Please remember MarkG, DanQ, rah,Gramphos, Solver, Locutus, myself [If you visit the Civ III-Stories Section ], Rasbelin [When he was a Stella Polaris [forum] moderator], Ming, MichaeltheGreat, Rah, and many many others, just regular forum posters.

And remember, on issues of Apolyton history, don't ask the Site Owners because "[h]eh, of course mods don't know, it's DarkCloud who's supposed to know everything" --Solver.

/DarkCloud