Ikariam Mini Review

Basics

This is a web browser based game that primarily uses a point and click type interface. It is time based and even after you log off your game continues.

You start off your game on an island with 9 other players. Each island has two resources and a deity statue. There are many islands in a particular world (looks like a hundred or more). On each island there are also empty plots open to settlement.

Everything you do takes a certain amount of time. Researching certain skills, assigning more people to the task and upgrades will reduce the amount of time needed to accomplish most of the tasks. So time and its management is a very important part of the game. For example I usually hold off on researching higher level tech until I go to bed. I then put as much man power into scientists so that it will be done shortly after I wake up in the morning. Then I reduce the scientists in the morning and put them back to gathering resources so that I can do shorter lived tasks (like upgrading buildings) during the day. These types of things only take 30-60 minutes.

Interface:

Nice and intuitive. Point and click for the most part. Graphics are simple but don't get in the way.

Economy:

It appears that each island always has wood, which is one component needed to construct all the buildings I have come across so far. In addition you have one other resource.

The other resources available in the game are

Sulfur
Crystal
Granit
Wine (grapes)

To gather these resources you assign a number of workers. Resources appear to be infinite and all players on the island harvest from that limitless pool.

Wood can be gathered immediately and you can assign up to 20 workers in the beginning. For each worker you gain one wood per hour.

The special resources can only be gathered after you have researched a certain technology. Once that happens you can now assign workers to this resource but instead of each worker producing one unit per hour it takes 2 workers to produce one unit per hour.

To be able to gather resources faster you have to expand the resource gathering level of the entire island. This is important because any player on the island can contribute to this effort as much, or as little, as they want.

For example on my island the second level of wood gathering allows you to assign up to 30 workers (producing 30 wood per hour) to the wood resource. To get to the second level 550 wood has to "donated" to the effort. One player donated about 300 wood, me and three others donated the remaining amounts. That meant that 6 players donated nothing to the effort. BUT they still get to use the extra capacity just like everybody else.

The same is true for the special resource on your island. To expand the gathering capabilities requires a certain amount of wood to be donated by one or more players on the island. After that new level is reached ALL players can now take advantage of the expanded capabilities.

You start the game, I think, with 50 people total. Each person not assigned a job brings in 4 gold per hour. People assigned to gathering resources produce no gold. People assigned to research/science cost 8 gold per hour. People assigned to the military cost 4 gold per hour (this may change with the type of military unit created).

You cannot gather resources that are not on your island. So if you need granite and there is none you have to buy some from another player on another island. (Or they can simply transport some to you using the Trading PORT but I really don't understand that part very well yet).

To buy resources you must first construct a Trading POST (different from the trading PORT). The first level of Trading Post allows you to trade with players up to one unit away from your own island. As you expand your trading post you can trade with islands further away. (I don't know the max level yet.)

This is one of the coolest parts of the game that I have seen so far.

You put out bids for both what you want and what you need. Example: My island has crystal and none of the islands around me have it. So I offered 30 crystal at 30 gold each. Other players with a Trading Post can then accept my offer and the goods will be delivered by ship.

I also need granite to expand my Trading Post. I put out an offer to buy 40 granite at 15 each.

Overnight other players accepted both my bids so when I woke up my coffers where fuller and I had the granite I needed to complete one of my expansions.

To complete the transactions you do need ships to haul the goods. The bigger the transaction the more ships you need since each ship can only carry so much. It also takes a certain amount of time to load the ships. This loading time can be decreased by both technology research and expanding your Trading DOCK.

Also you have to be quick. One you drill down into the details of a trade others can come and snatch the items away.

Building:

Some buildings and their upgrades require a combination of wood and one of the above resources. For example the trading post building requires both wood and granite. Expanding your town center (which allows for a larger population) requires wood and granite for the 3 and higher levels. Expanding your Academy (which allows you to employ more scientists and thus increased your research rate) requires wood and crystal.

You start the game with 50 of all the special resources. But after that you have to buy, as described above, the resources you need. I believe you can also just accept resources from other players (they can just ship them to you) but I don't know the details yet.

There are a couple of buildings you can build right away that only need wood. Trading Ports and Academy are two of them (you start with a Town Center). And some building expansions only require wood at the lower levels. But some buildings require not only special resources but also certain technology to be researched.

The expansion of building allows benefits. Academy will allow you to assign more scientist to research. Barracks train troops faster. Town hall allows a larger population.

Science/Technology:

There is the technology tree that anybody familiar with Civilization will understand. Each tech allows new actions/buildings or increases the effectiveness of current actions.

There are four branches in the tree. Seafaring, Economy, Military and Science.

Researching paper gives a bonus to science research.

Economy allows the gathering of special resources and building of a trading post.

Wine pressing allows you to build a tavern which keeps your population happier.

Researching a technology can be very expensive but not directly. Each person you assign to be a scientist costs 8 gold per hour and produces one research point per hour. Some technologies takes hundreds even hundreds of thousands of points.

Of course some technologies require you research technologies from other branches.

Military:

I don't know much about this aspect yet. I know you build units and the units are dependent on having the manpower and technology. They also cost upkeep per hour.

Some of the options are to Pillage where you take resources away from other players. You can blockade other players ports (and I assume this means they cannot trade.)

You can also fight other players. Again I know nothing really about this.

From the game instructions

Ikariam differentiates between two types of battles: Sea battles carried out by war ships and battles on land, carried out by soldiers and war machines. All troops have the following values:
• Damage - The unit´s destructive power
• Armour Protection - The ability to take on damage
• Stamina - The unit´s staying power, which plays a big role in large battles spanning many rounds
• Special Abilities - Particular characteristic of the unit
• Speed - How fast is the unit; with mixed allies the speed of the slowest unit counts
• Class - Human or machine. The latter profits only half as much from doctors.
• Costs - Citizens, building material and luxury resources needed to recruit these units
• Upkeep - The hourly costs to be paid for the unit. (Attention! Double the upkeep when the units are travelling!)
Available Special Abilities:
• Assault - The unit receives a 30% damage bonus if on the attacking side.
• Resistance - The unit receives a 30% armour protection bonus if on the defending side.
• Battering Ram - The unit can damage the town walls, if existent.
• Healer - The unit can avoid casualties on their side per battle round.
• Refresh - Each battle round the unit can give exhausted units their stamina back.

Pasted from <http://s5.ikariam.org/index.php?view=informations&articleId=10014&mainId =10014>

Spying/Alliances:

Another area I have little experience in. You can send simple messages to other players. There are also options of setting up embassies in their cities.

You can set up Alliances that others can join. Alliances sound pretty cool. They are set up by a player and other players can join if they have enough diplomat points. The leaders within the alliance get certain benefits. The leaders are: Leader, General, Interior Minister, Diplomat. Each one gets perks. They sound kinda like dedicated guilds. I don't know what the benefits "regular" (non leader) alliance members receive.

There are also various types of treaties. Trade, military etc. that you can enter into with the expenditure of diplomat points.

Trade treaties. If you have this type a treaty with another player once you click the trade button others cannot snatch the items from under you.

Cultural Good treaty. You receive odd cultural goods from the players you have the treaty with. This only serves to keep your people happy.

Military treaty. Can you other players cities to stage military operations from. Costs more to do this.



There is an espionage option. You can build "hideouts" in other players cities and position spies to gather information. These spies can be caught and there is a chance the spy will give away who sent them.

From the game instructions.

• Inspect Camp Status - You find out how many resources are in the town.
• Spy out Garrison - How many and what types of soldiers, war machines and war ships are stationed within the town.
• Monitor fleet and troops movements - A fleet´s origin and destination, the total number of units and transport ships as well as the arrival time.
• Spy out Treasury - How much gold is in the treasury.
• Spy out State of Research - You learn which discoveries were last made.
• Monitor Message Traffic - You learn with whom the spy victim has exchanged messages with within the last few hours. You can only see the subject of the message, not the content.
• Call back spy - Your spy returns to his Hideout.

Pasted from <http://s5.ikariam.org/index.php?view=informations&articleId=10021&mainId =10021>

Problems:

Well, some of the controls, mainly the sliders for assigning number of workers to a task, don't always work. This is never a real problem because you can always type the number you want.

This game was written in another language (German I think) and not everything has been translated yet. Also not a problem because those things are either not real important or you know what it is. For example there a few buttons that have "ya!" instead of "yes!".

That is it for problems that I can see.