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Lemmy
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Bubblewrap
Dec 2000
time: 06:30
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New age, new thread.
I'm playing as Undead this round, again, not really serious and semi-suiciding.
Gonna try and take maximum advantage of the "Homes hold 35 people"-thing for Undead, and have 40% homes, 30% arms, 20% Guilds and 10% Towers from the start....i'll have to try and fit in some WT and Barracks later on though.
I'm also in a new kingdom now, my last monarch sucked, threatening to kill of any Peasants instead of helping them.
But now they all want me to become an Orc and use their strategy...i declined. I wonder how they will take it 
As last age, i'm on the WoL server, province Ancient Bubblewrap (24:21).
btw Eli, what happened to your smurf-kingdom now?
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Lemmy
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Bubblewrap
Dec 2000
time: 06:30
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* Lemmy pokes
you people still alive?
Current state of my province
quote:
The Province of Ancient Bubblewrap (24:21)
[http://www.utopiatemple.com Angel v1.49 Beta]
Utopian Date: February 4th, YR1
RL Date: September 17th, 2003 (9:00 GMT)
Ruler Name: Sir Lemmy the Sorcerer
Personality & Race: The Mystic, Undead
Land: 470 Acres
Money: 515gc (14,397gc raw daily income)
Food: 75,865 bushels
Runes: 1,436 runes
Population: 13,355 citizens (28.41 per Acre)
Peasants: 5,581 (86% Employed)
Happy: b:100%, t:3.0gc, p:101.5%, m:100%
Trade Balance: 6,958gc (0% tax rate)
Networth: 73,404 (156.18 per Acre)
Thieves+Wizards+Science Networth: 4,843gc
Soldiers: 642 (56% estimated draft rate)
Skeletons: 1,175 (4,700 offense points)
Zombies: 2,238 (8,952 defense points)
Ghouls: 3,020 (18,120 offense / 15,100 defense)
War-Horses: 690 (up to 690 additional offense)
Prisoners: 0
Total Modified Offense: 24,152 (51.39 per Acre)
Practical (50% elites): 15,092 (32.11 per Acre)
Total Modified Defense: 24,694 (52.54 per Acre)
Practical (50% elites): 17,144 (36.48 per Acre)
[500 Acres land assumed for thieves calculation]
Thieves: 400 (0.80 per Acre / 100% Stealth)
Wizards: 299 (0.64 per Acre / 74% Mana)
Crystal-Ball on your province will show:
Maximum Possible Thieves: 734 (1.47 per Acre)
Estimated Thieves Number: 550 (1.10 per Acre)
Maximum Possible Wizards: 734 (1.56 per Acre)
Estimated Wizards Number: 175 (0.37 per Acre)
Buildings: 935gc to build, 468gc to raze
Away bonus: 27,905gc (12h) / 83,715gc (20h)
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I'll be plundering a target with 1.8 mil gc soon, then i'll train some of those soldiers into ghouls 
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Sore Loser
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Aarhus, Denmark
Sep 2003
time: 06:30
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Game structure
The game is divided into rounds, typically lasting between 3 and 4 months. Each month, the game is restarted and the rules are tweaked. This is done for several reasons. Primarily because the game grows stale the longer a round lasts. Eventually the power balance will be more or less static, the big get bigger and the down-trodden stay down. Furthermore, DPA inflation serves to grind the economy to a halt. The rules are changed both to weed out overpowered strategies (or loopholes, depending on your perspective) and to keep the game fresh. IMO, this is one of the best features of Utopia. Even though it's a fairly simple game, it can stay challenging for a long time because you must get used to new strategies every round.
Players are automatically organized in kingdoms of up to 25 players. The players of a kingdom may elect a monarch to lead them. Generally, players in a good kingdom will stick together and there will be little internal rivalry. Kingdoms are not split up between rounds, meaning that you can stay with your kingdom mates. This helps to create strong intra-kingdom bonds, and I think that this is what keeps most players playing.
Each player controls a province. A province is defined by the following aspects:
Size - measured in acres
Building setup - one building per acre
Population - 15 peasants (last time I checked, which is a long time ago) per acre, more for homes. Peasants generate income and manpower ("gc" and "utilization").
Military - up to 80% of your peasants can be drafted and trained into various unit types. Each unit has offence and defence ratings. These are used to calculate combat strength. The numbers are simply added up, and the strongest side wins (off ratings used for the attacking player's units and def ratings used for the defending player's units), although chance is also a factor.
Science - through science you can get bonuses for various aspects of your province: Housing, income, military strength, food production, etc. Science output is determined by the number of science points you have per acre, meaning that you need to keep investing as you grow just to keep the same percentile bonus.
You get land in two (well, three) ways: Exploration or conquest. Exploring means discovering and cultivating unexplored land and is easy and safe, but the price per acre is tied to the size of your province, meaning that it gets prohibitively expensive the bigger you get. Conquest means sending your military units to another province, have them club the other guy's units and then roll up carpets of land which they bring back home and spread out on vacant spots. You can also cast a spell that gives you land, but last time I checked this wasn't very cost-efficient.
The game is all about growth. You grow by balancing three basic factors: Income, offence and defence. If you have too little income but a vast army then you can't take full advantage of your offencive potential as you need to develop your new possessions. The "per acre" principle is crucial here: No matter how big your army is, you measure it in DPA and OPA meaning "defence per acre" and "offence per acre". If your OPA gets too low then you can't hit people close to your own size, and you are penalized with poor returns if you hit someone substantially smaller. If your DPA gets too low then you've managed to paint a bull's eye on yourself, and someone will drop by sooner or later to help you get your DPA back up. He usually does this by grabbing some of your land. Same thing with IPA, income per acre. If the size of your province grows faster than your income then your IPA will drop, meaning that you need to slow down your growth.
Since IPA, DPA and OPA all are related directly to your population, you need to make the most of it. This is done via buildings and science. Buildings also use the "per acre" principle, meaning that the bonus you get from most buildings is determined by the number of buildings of that type you have per acre. If you have 20 armouries and 200 acres then you get a 10% bonus multiplied by the bonus factor of armouries (I think it's 2) meaning that you get a 20% discount on all troop training costs.
Most buildings either produce goods (food and runes), decrease costs, increase income or affect your abilities in various (combat strength, building/training time, spying/magic capability, etc). In order to make the most of your land, you need to find out which buildings suit your needs best. For example, if you play as an explorer then your military budget will likely be low (seeing as you have few, if any, offencive troops) and armouries will likely be a bad choice. Conversely, if you choose to run a high-efficiency province with a high overall strength per acre then schools (higher effect per science point) and universities (more science points per gc) are a good choice.
There is a LOT more, but this should cover the basics.
EDIT: The game is divided into turns, changing every hour. The whole game is updated every turn, meaning that all actions are measured in the number of turns it takes. Buildings typically take between 10 and 20 turns to build, attacks take a bit less. You don't have to log on every turn since you can give orders in advance. The primary reason to log on often is to train troops, since you can only put as many troops in training as you have gold. Other reasons include taking maximum advantage of your spies and mystics, communication with your kingdom mates and just overall addiction.
EDIT2: Utopia has a very active gaming community. While I played, I posted a lot on the forums. The game's creator and maintainer, Mehul Patel, listens to the ideas the players put forth. I have had a large number of ideas implemented myself. Another project that I failed in was my anti-trading campaign. Since kingdom interaction is crucial and you risk ending up with inactive or ungifted players, many players resort to account trading, meaning that newbies are offered a big province in a mediocre kingdom in exchange for his province, letting good players form kingdoms together. I believe this ruins one of Utopia's finest points, namely learning to cooperate with players that are all over the spectre. Spending blood, sweat and tears to teach your newbies how to play the game is a key aspect of the game, IMO. And there is no greater satisfaction than seeing your crappy kingdom rise every round through diligent training and teamwork. Unfortunately, most top kingdoms are formed through account trading, meaning they're next to impossible to compete with on even grounds.
Last edited by Sore Loser on 24-09-2003 at 20:37
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08-09-2003 14:53
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