Utopia, the World of Legends

[Toad]

Utopia is an online Internet browser based med-fan game.
I'm new to the game, trying to understand how that big thing works because It looks awesome.

Who plays this game? I'm in kingdom 6:31

[Bram]

OMG toadi quit it RIGHT NOW!

I was really into that years back. It cost me the better part of a year in university. Examples (all of these, and many, many more really happened on multiple occcasions):

I'd be at parties, getting really nervous and asking the host if I could sneak upstairs and log on because I needed to train troops.

I'd skip classes because my king ordered me to Crystal Ball some kingdom we weer at war with at exactly 14:00.

I'd set my alarm at 4 o'clock in the morning and get up because that would be exactly when my armies returned.

That game is far, far more addictive than Magic and at one point, you start worshipping Mehul the Creator (OMG I'm doing it again!). You start speaking with respect about the legendary Monkeys. And what's worse, you start being better at the game than the rest of your kingdom, growing far too large in comparison and thus getting hit left and right. You start believing that it really matters. You start cheating by multying, scripting, and account trading. You even start writing bad poetry for those stupid contests to get rid of those annoying banners.

Eventually, I even made King and we had a fairly succesful kingdom on the Battlefield server (the Squirrel Kingdom...I hear they still exist). I eventually gave my account away to a friend (since I couldn't bring myself to suiciding on some random kingdom).

I hear the game rules have changed somewhat (they do after ever reset). I'm sure I'd be able to get back into it in no time, but I don't wanna. And you should't, either

[Toad]

Well Aurelia wouldn't let me do all that anyways

I'll just try It for a couple of days and see how It goes...

[Bram]

Well Aurelia wouldn't let me do all that anyways  

I'll just try It for a couple of days and see how It goes...

Fill in the name of my ex girlfriend of the time for Aurelia in that post, and you'll have a word-by-word transcript of what I said back then..

[kirdape3]

I played it back in the day as well.  It's a fine game, but you can and will lose too much of your existence on it.  ESPECIALLY if you want to become in any way good at it.

[Magi]

Oh man I'm going to send this link to sooo many people...it's going to be great

What's that? Exams? pfffft

[jpmeyer]

Oh man, this sounds like Nukezone.  I so set my alarm clock for like 4am so that I won't miss my attacks when my clan is at war.

[rvs]

Planetarion > all those games :p

and my regular life is extremely glad I stopped playing it

[Dr. Sylvan]

See, I'm a pretty hardcore guy by all accounts, but when I tried Utopia it struck me as a silly game, like if you made StarCraft turn-based. In StarCraft, the key to breaking from amateur to intermediate awesomeness was/is memorized and reflexively speedy build order memorization, and Utopia struck me as having that weakness in an extreme degree. Magic was more interesting, so I put my time there. And look where that got me!

[Bram]

It's not turn based, though. And it's hugely interactive. It is an organisid free-for-all. Two of my friends actually quit magic altogether for Utopia.

and Utopia struck me as having that weakness in an extreme degree

No, not at all. For one thing, since at the beginning of every new age (every couple of months or so) the rules (such as the races' characteristics and the production of structures) tend to change, which means that an erstwhile succesful strategy will not be so effective after a reset. Mehul functions like a sort of DCI and R&D all in one in that he can 'punish' stronger races, but also create new ones (or new structures, or or concepts). There's no 'correct' order in which you can do things. You only have a couple of months to grow really big, so based on Mehul's changes (which are announced shortly before the reset) you have to devise a strategy for your kingdom's growth, which means that you have to specify different tasks for the different provices under your command (remember that the provinces are the actual players!).

It requires imagination (since it's all text and tables-based), abstract thought, strategic planning, tactical action, good communication with the provinces in your kingdom, dedication, intelligence, and lots and lots of reading to keep up. The feeling of achievement when it works, is huge.

Kirdape3 is right. Someone like Toad will not be satisfied with just entering some random numbers and see how things turn out. He'll want to be good at it, and he could be. Except he'll have to sacrifice every minute of spare time he has, and more.

One more example. Years ago (I think in 2001) I went on vacation to the tropical island of Bonaire. It's a really small diver's paradise. Sun, sea, beautiful beaches and aquatic life second only to the great barrier reef. I was in the most luxurious hotel on the island and was surrounded by hot women. I'm talking attractive young topless Dutch girls here.

Now my hotel didn't have an internet connection (it's still pretty rare over there since it's still kind of a backward place that doesn't attract too many tourists yet). I set my Utopia account on Vacation mode before I left (which basically implies that you can't be randomly hit by enemies, but won'texperience any growth either). It was actually difficult for me to do that; I can only compare it to a heavy smoker that has to give up smoking for the next three weeks.

So here's the problem. During my vacation, there was a (planned) massive reset (the start of a new age) and if you want to stay in the same kingdom, you have to say so before the new age starts.

So I spend TWO DAYS trotting around a tropical island ignoring sun, sea, booze and women in order to find an internet cafe where I could reset my account. And here's the really bad part: I enjoyed my vacation more after I succesfully did so.

Several months after that I thought about that incident some more, and I quit.

Planetarion > all those games :p

Utopia was the original, though. Planetarion is a spinoff. And, oh yeah, it's practically the same. Instead of imagining your armies to be a horde of bloodthirsty zombies, you imagine them to be a fleet of spaceships. That's about as fundamental as the difference gets.

[rvs]

Utopia was the original, though. Planetarion is a spinoff. And, oh yeah, it's practically the same. Instead of imagining your armies to be a horde of bloodthirsty zombies, you imagine them to be a fleet of spaceships. That's about as fundamental as the difference gets.

Where is that wisdom coming from? Planetarion is widely recognised as the most succesfull in its genre, and wether or not it was the first with the idea, it was afaik the first to put it out there in a big fashion.

[Bram]

Where is that wisdom coming from? Planetarion is widely recognised as the most succesfull in its genre, and wether or not it was the first with the idea, it was afaik the first to put it out there in a big fashion.

That's simply not true. While it's true that Planetarion was/is mroe succesful, the idea was def. stolen from Utopia. Also, although Planetarion had a player support of about twice that of Utopia when I played, I hardly think you can say that Utopia didn't 'put it put there in a big fashion'. I mean, it's only a factor two...That's like saying my post count is low simpy because Jacobs is higher

[rvs]

Where is that wisdom coming from? Planetarion is widely recognised as the most succesfull in its genre, and wether or not it was the first with the idea, it was afaik the first to put it out there in a big fashion.

That's simply not true. While it's true that Planetarion was/is mroe succesful, the idea was def. stolen from Utopia. Also, although Planetarion had a player support of about twice that of Utopia when I played, I hardly think you can say that Utopia didn't 'put it put there in a big fashion'. I mean, it's only a factor two...That's like saying my post count is low simpy because Jacobs is higher

This still doesn't answer where you got the info so that you can state as a fact that you are correct.

[Bram]

This still doesn't answer where you got the info so that you can state as a fact that you are correct.

The fact that you can't prove something doesn't make it untrue But even so:

From FOKzine:

Utopia a world unlike any other is één van de meest populaire interactieve webgames die er bestaan. Aan het spel doen meer dan tachtigduizend mensen mee over de hele wereld.

From imafish.co.uk

In Planetarion’s peak the game had over 100,000 players though once the game went pay to play the game slowly lost players.

'

So that pretty much shows you that, while Planetarion was indeed (at least at one point) more popular than Utopia, the difference is really peanuts.

from PaySu.com:

Planetarion - Yet another Utopia-Inspired game, this time in space.

[BurningIce]

I played this game a few years ago too, and I can only echo Bram's statements... What a colossal time waster.  It was fun, sure, but I think if one's going to waste time, there are better ways to do it.  

Still, enjoy while you play, Toad.

[Sylvester]

Toad: I've been playing this game since Age 9. It's gotten dumber and dumber with time (Mehul doesn't seem to actually understand how he made a good game), but anways. Get on irc.evek.org #ehc or #famous. EHC is basically a bunch of people from an old group, we're pretty much all ex-SK (superkingdom - think 25 people who all know each other and "accidentally" got in the same kingdom, all über-active) players. Famous is my own ol' SK. Depending on the people there, it'll either be
1. full, with no one talking
2. only morons talking
3. Tree and some people talking about math.

I'm "Pikachiu" (yeah, don't ask) on that game and community.

Basically, if you can handle basic calculus and use a spreadsheet (or program a wee bit), there are only two things that separate you from top 100: your kingdom and your willingness to log in at extremely random hours.

Oh, and yeah, Utopia is still online crack. You probably don't even want to start playing for real. The game is shit, but I still managed to let myself be traded in a kd (puffy if any of you is following the war wins race). I'm trying to find someone to replace me, though. The only fun part is the first ~2 weeks, before stagnation (basically, when everyone has the optimal draft rate and nearly all the land entering the game is due to the 5 acres bonus) sets in, and you still have to think about your strat. For me it's like 2-3 nights spent in front of my computer with excel, maple and emacs. But, the thing is, I could do that for a kd without actually playing the game... :/

[Toad]

I've been reading to docs and other stuff so far and the game looks really interesting. It's quite what I've been searching for an online game, because It adds a mathematical view to basic strategies. I've found a couple of online softwares to avoid using Maple and spreadsheets (most notably, Utopia Angel). Yet, the world will be reseted

I don't want to log in there at extremely random hours though. Britanny wouldn't let me do that anyways

[Bram]

Formatters like Utopia Angel (and to a lesser degree Prophet) are an absolute requirement for playing the game right.

If I really can't steer you away from this, you should check out http://www.utopiatemple.com. It holds all the best resources (as well as an online formatter for if yuo're forced to do Crystal Balls while at a friend's birthday party or something...).

For reference: loggin on at insane hours was a requirement for staying in my kingdom back in the day. We wanted to be the best, so we had to make a' tag-team'  strategy where we would have players from all over the world, spanning various timezones, so that some 50%  of our players would be awake at all a times. Lots of illegal account swapping went on to implement that.

 MSN was a prerequisite for communication, and I even had some of the guys' cell phone numbers in case of emergencies. Also, I had the login info for all of the large players, which I used to reevaluate their strategies or deploy their armies if need be.

Also, if a province didn't put in the required hours or log in when we needed him, we would ruthlessly raze him to replace him with a random new player who might be more inclined to do my bidding. It took several ages, but we ended up with a really tight, succesful KD.

Come to think of it, it was kind of like being a moderator on TMD  :lol:

[Toad]

The funniest thing I have noticed so far is that I tend to rule my Province as I would play Magic... My current Province is ruled by an Elf Sage and has a Mage strategy, implying  setting up a strong defense. It's like a Blue based Control Province

I already downloaded Utopia Angel. I'm still trying to figurate out how this works :lol:

My King is an ass though, he's not willing to spend time teaching me the game :<

[Bram]

That is kind of stupid yes. Ruthless as I have may been in my rule, I always took time to explain the game. Some of my most valuable subjects came from that.

Ofcourse, there had to be something in return. Dedication, and obedience. Fail that, and I would let my other provinces go to work on ya(sadly, I could never do the razing myself, since a king should take care not to grow too quickly. Back when I played, at least, the king got certain cool growth bonuses).

[Toad]

Well I've found some good strategies on Utopiatemple.com for my playstyle, so that will be OK for me. It just took me a while to understand the fundamental building concepts. Now I go for a 10% Farm 20% Guild 10% Tower 25% Mill 20% Bank 15% Tavern strategy

That is, he is quite a dick about forum activity and province growth and he's prone to nuke co-provincials that are not worth it

[Bram]

Well, I was a dick abotu those things, too. Problem is, it should pay off. How long into tha Age are we now and what's the KD's networth (or island position, rather, since the NW may have changed).

By the way, lol@taverns. Those are new to me. What the hell do they do?

[Toad]

The Age ends by April 4th. Close to the end ...
Total Networth: 2,832,497 gc. That is, terrible (most powerful KD is 50,381,345 gc).

Taverns
Lowers Draft Costs by % * 4 (99% Max)
Lowers Mercenary Costs by % * 3

[Bram]

Well then, just use the end of this round for practice and move to a random new kingdom.

Possibly, you won't even get the 'stay with this kingdom' option because you were there for too briefly (assuming you made a new account, ofcourse).

It's more fun to build a KD up from scratch anyway, and you can already tell this asshole king is not compatible with your playstyle.

[Sylvester]

Toad, I can get you an account in a new KD, warring on WoL. It'll be serious-esque, but if you can login two-three times a day (with a decent spread), you should be able to keep up. I won't play, because I just managed to leave Puffy, but I can coach you. Tell me very soon (in the next ~6 hours) so I can have a french account created for you

PM me here or on IRC.

[Toad]

PM sent, thanks a lot