User:Alti/Illyriad

Alti plays Illyriad (game homepage) with the moniker Alti.

Mature gamers will find that Illyriad supports a deep game that tests many of the rationalist virtues.

FAQ

Is there anything I should bear in mind when creating an account?

It is possible to start the game with an advantage if you are recommended by an existing player through the buddy program, which means that you create your account by following a link provided rather than via the button on the Illyriad homepage. This earns the recommending player 100 prestige upon getting to the population required for a second town, which will indebt that player to you. It is reasonable to ask for a prestige scrap or 20 million in gold in exchange. Alternatively that player can help you grow and owe you a favour. If you would like to take me up on this offer, sign up using the link http://illyriad.com/?347401 - other players might advertise their conditions at the Attracting new players via the buddy program thread I created at the Illyriad forum: possibly their terms are better than mine.

The best choices for races at the start are probably elf (which has the edge for war, see Warmongering In Illyriad: The Best Race for N00bs) or orc (which is probably the best choice for trader/gatherer); gender doesn't matter.

Should I join an alliance?

The main practical consequences of joining an alliance are that the social circle who you are involved on includes the people on your alliance's chat. If you are in an alliance, that means that these are the people you should beg for resources, while if you are not in an alliance, begging on general chat, while officially not allowed, will tend to get you lots of free resources. How much and how fast you get resources when you are in an alliance depends on who the other players are: if you join an alliance of small players or one that is not so active, you will be hampered growing at the start.

Asking about which alliances are recruiting on general chat is probably a good idea; you are likely to get pointed to one of the forum posts about choosing alliances, but chatting is a better way to figure out which alliances are the best fit for what you want to get out of the game. Don't be afraid to join and leave several alliances until you find one that is a good fit, and don't move your towns to an alliances hub before you feel committed to them.

Some players prefer to be independent, although in my view it is mostly missing out on the best of what the game has to offer.

Growing towns is boring, but you don't seem to be able to have much fun until you have some big towns: how do I get big towns with as little time investment as possible?

Three things:

1. Alliances can help you grow, by supplying you with resources (basic resources, that is, wood, clay, iron and stone, and advanced res, such as books) and in other ways
2. Prestige allows you to instabuild (that is, instantly build up the two buildings in your build queue), which, if you can source enough basic resources allows you to build up very quickly. Some alliances offer new players a daily prestige budget, allowing you to build up without paying for prestige.
3. Sitters can build up your towns while you are away. Good sitters are likely to be experienced players, who have a good idea as to how best to go about building towns and be able to deal with trouble you get into: they can be mentors and allies to you. But beware, bad sitters can destroy your town and ruin your reputation. It is fair to compensate sitters in such ways as allowing them to keep the advanced resources you build while you are inactive. After a couple of months away from the game, a good sitter might have transformed your account into something that carries heft in the game.

Note that sitters can't spend prestige for you, so sitters will be able to grow your towns faster if you log in regularly and instabuild.

If you are so bored that you are considering quitting, I suggest you find a sitter and take a break from the game for 3 months. After that time talk to your sitter and look at what he/she has done with your account and see if maybe the game seems interesting again. It takes time to get into the game and size matters, but once you have knowledge and size in the game, you can enjoy its depth and breadth.

Resources

• The Illyriad Telegraph - a blog that gives stories from its team of intrepid reporters, which includes me.
• Warmongering in Illyriad - a blog by player Ten Kulch that is a treasure mine of information about the military side of the game.
• Several posts in the forum give useful advice and guidance on game mechanics, such as:
  1. Discoveries - documents how to learn mysteries, a productive way of passing time in the game;
  2. Enforced Account Removal - the rules on how accounts are deleted from the game is essential to know if you get into recycling towns;
  3. Moving cities - Documents the exodus technology, the reusable but expensive way of moving towns;
  4. The Magical 7 Food Mountain - Gives guidance on how to terraform the resource profile of your choice onto the most strategically advantageous tile. Since the guide was written, it has become possible to teleport a town other than your capital, making terraforming easier to do and starting the terraforming industry, potentially an excellent way to get started with a pile of gold for keen new players;
  5. I've Been Robbed - How to track down thieves. You generally need a bit of luck with this; and
  6. Basic Self Defense for New Players - I had to think twice about recommending this one, because it is a mixture of good advice and bad advice. That said, learning to double-check advice you hear is good practice, so I will leave this up as something to be puzzled over. IGM me if you have any questions.
• There are a number of battle calculators available that allow you to predict the outcome of battles. The one at bestmagicbears.com is run by Kodabear (former chancellor of Toothless?) and so is highly regarded.
• There are two scripts that add tools to your game session doing such useful things as keep an overview of resources at your towns and hubs, help you track thieves, and keep account of the progress you have made with mysteries. Illytools (the resurrection) is documented on the forum at IllyTools:Resurrectio, and the script for Tensmoor's DurcTools is documented at DurcTools.