...and everything went quiet.

[Natmus]

Suddenly everything went quiet. Isn't anything happening? Nothing at all? No raids, no scoutings?

What happened to the Federation talks? Anyone?

Barring that, any gossip?

Have anybody noticed how cheap lunber has become on the market? My guess is that everybody is busy building soldiers, leaving everybody with a surplus of lumber and stone. Me too, by the way. Let me know if anybody needs some pebbles or sticks

[Starshatter]

We've all got hangovers. Federation? Isn't that a Swiss tennis player? I will be ready to partake in adult conversation in about a week. Until then, my head hurts, my room is dark and the kids are banished. Garcon, fetch my ice cubes and favourite rabbit, I feel a special evening coming on................

[Arminius]

Yeah, boring, isn't it. I'm quietly building up my isles, and training spears for defence. Told 'No.' to a spotty teenager who wanted to join Morkin. Ordered two prints by Xalthorn from deviantArt. Trained some more spear fighters. Shuffle goods between islands. Messed up MMU game in-between. Nothing much happening on Travian either. Yawn. Going to bed early.

Highlight of the day: HSV beat Viking Stavanger 2:0 in the UEFA Cup.

[Natmus]

Even so, Morkin got honourable mention on the unofficial forum:

s13.invisionfree.com/Inselkampf_s1_forum/index.php?showtopic=77

Nice to get some recognition at last ;D

I have spent the last few days scouting for inactive isles, but either they are heavily farmed by other players, or there simply aren't any inactive isles anymore, so I'm not spending any time sending out raids.

[Natmus]

What's that with the Xalthorn prints? Is he an artist?

[Arminius]

natmus said:

Even so, Morkin got honourable mention on the unofficial forum:

s13.invisionfree.com/Inselkampf_s1_forum/index.php?showtopic=77

Nice to get some recognition at last ;D

WHF are Germans, like my 'friend' whose message from Raul I posted earlier. Still don't know how, but they seem to have quickly managed to get pacts with top players.

And it feels great to be taken seriously at last!

[Arminius]

natmus said:

What's that with the Xalthorn prints? Is he an artist?

Yes, computer art/ray tracing. Hobby only, though, but they look really good. Just do a web search on Xalthorn and it comes up top on google.

[Freiegeister]

natmus said:

Even so, Morkin got honourable mention on the unofficial forum:

s13.invisionfree.com/Inselkampf_s1_forum/index.php?showtopic=77

Nice to get some recognition at last ;D

I have spent the last few days scouting for inactive isles, but either they are heavily farmed by other players, or there simply aren't any inactive isles anymore, so I'm not spending any time sending out raids.

Geez, not bad recognition too.

I don't mind lord_of_chaos. Nice guy and is often selling lumber at 1:1. He's in Wraith now, after resigning as admin of Corsairs and then moving to Nemesis.

[lyrypryl]

natmus said:

Suddenly everything went quiet. Isn't anything happening? Nothing at all? No raids, no scoutings?

What happened to the Federation talks? Anyone?

Barring that, any gossip?

Have anybody noticed how cheap lunber has become on the market? My guess is that everybody is busy building soldiers, leaving everybody with a surplus of lumber and stone. Me too, by the way. Let me know if anybody needs some pebbles or sticks

Natmus. Thank you for your help in trying to find an agreement between our alliances.
I don't know what everybody is thinking, but I don't see much interest.
Nobody seems to be able to go even a little bit over the simple building of his/her own isles/army. Nobody is understanding that, if they want to fight at the same level with the "big guys", they cannot stay alone.
It is probably useless that I continue to talk for convincing somebody, but I want to do a last try.

I make an example.
Let's suppose that we have a strong player, Baul of the alliance Waterfox. Baul has 27 isles and 25000 points.
I'm Lyrypryl of the alliance Workin, with my two isles and 1900 points.
I don't necessarily want to fight against him, but I want to be at his same level for not risking to be easily destroyed.
I'm veeeery proud of my alliance and I refuse merging with others, I refuse players who want to join but that are not my friends, I refuse to join any group of other alliances.
What can I still do? Only two things: to develop my isles and to sign peace treaties. Peace treaties cannot help me to increase my power, but only to avoid troubles with some alliance.
The only thing I can really do for catching Baul is building.
I build my army, my buildings, I colonise new isles. Build, colonise, build, colonise,.....I do a perfect job. Well, I finally reach 27 isles and 25000 points.
Wow! I'm great! I'm the best!
I go to check Baul rank and I see that he has 361 isles and 315000 points. Yes, in all my greatness, I forgot a small particular: also Baul can build and colonise.
I was so intelligent that I didn't understand that I have no chance to catch or face Baul, except if he decides to stop his game waiting for me.

If any of you want to be a big one, has better to listen to us.

[ashimar]

Ah, but Lyrypryl forgets another important factor in the equation: Waul may not only do a good job at building, but Waul can also loose a lot of points when some other Scemo! can't wait and attacks him, or he wages war on others and gets overextended. By keeping low profile and avoiding wars or incurring wra(i)th ;D and continueing to build, Dorkin can get on top of the world. A federation is a nice abstract idea, but it won't work when the elements that make up most alliances are "instable isotopes". And I should know...

[Natmus]

lyrypryl said:

If any of you want to be a big one, has better to listen to us.

I don't really think any of us can become a big one, not anymore. Free isles are very rare, and the current big ones send 20 catapults with each of their colony ships, just in case one of us small guys get there first and build up the main house.

As one of the big ones write:
"If I take one of your isles, it's not personal.
If you try to take it back, it becomes personal."

Our alternative to being big is being many. Morkin has had some succeesses, not because we are big, but because we can field at least 20 active players willing to fight if anyone is being attacked. That can scare off a few big ones, at least.
Getting more smaller alliances together will increase our number of willing fighters to maybe 50 players. The problem is one of solidarity. Sometimes entire fleets are lost, and then the player that has lost a fleet will have to depend on his or her allies for protection until a new fleet has been built. What is comes down to is trust, ultimatly.

[Arminius]

natmus said:

The problem is one of solidarity. Sometimes entire fleets are lost, and then the player that has lost a fleet will have to depend on his or her allies for protection until a new fleet has been built. What is comes down to is trust, ultimatly.

I think that's what makes us strong: solidarity plus recklessness, being prepared to throw everything at the enemy without regard for losses. We're friends, and we know we are mortal...

And I doubt that the same degree of coherence can be achieved in any greater unit. When you can't trust that people behave reasonably. Heck, it's hard enough with the loose cannons we've got within Morkin ;D What if Deadwood has a bad day and decides to attack thief_priest, expecting that everybody helps him out?

[Natmus]

ohhh, theif_priest. Now that would be a challenge What a glorious way to go

[lyrypryl]

As first thing I answer to Ashimar. If the creators of this game had your same ideas, the alliance system would not exist in Inselkampf.

Second answer for Arminius. My alliance, differently than Morkin, has never attacked anybody. Every time that we had a trouble, it was because somebody else attacked us. Also in these cases, we always solved the problem pacifically. Natmus can confirm this.
There are much higher chances that you got troubles because of one of your players does something wrong, not because of one of us.

The last answer is for everybody.
Gothdruk was the first, months ago to contact Morkin for trying to cooperate, but he got no answers.
That time I remember that Croix_Noire told me that it was useless to speak with you.
I didn't want to accept that there were no chances. Maybe because I believe in the people more than them, or maybe simply because I'm a girl.
Instead now, after that I tried by myself, I feel disappointed.
We didn't come here for asking anything. We came here for offering what we have, even if it is not much.

You can keep your alliance close like you have always done. We will not be back again.

[Perun]

Am I missing something here? Why is lyrypryl sad and angry? I don't understand. Could someone please explain?