Sunday 30 September 2018

CDS Alliances Prepare For War, A Second TCol Planned?



I've recently had the following mass mail sent to me from PTC (formerly DSA). It discusses plans for the CDS with regards to its war with Iron.

From: Pink Camo [PTC]
Subject: RE: NEW PLANS
Received: 21 Sep 2018 15:49
Original Message:
Greetings DSA!
I have some exciting news to share! DSA will be going through some  major changes. I am changing the name of DSA to PTC, Peaceful Traders Coalition. PTC will recruit peaceful players who want to trade, craft, hunt NPCs, and support TCol. Everyone will be REQUIRED to contribute and support. PTC's cities and members will also be in direct danger of being sieged/attacked. The reason for this is that as soon as the enemies of TCol find out that we are a support alliance, they will try to stop it. Because of the horribly placed cities due to sitting next to rare items that we harvest, TCol will NOT defend us. They cannot waste troops attacking on mountains and/or in forests. The only cities they are obliged to defend will be cities that are surrounded by plains, and inside of the CDS. 
The other part of my exciting news is that Zenorra will be leaving TCol to create a new alliance called TCol2. This new alliance will be filled with defensible cities (surrounded by plains), and instead of troops, they will have diplo forces like thieves, scouts, spies, saboteurs, etc. TCol2 will be the first of its kind in Illyriad. We believe that a well timed force of thieves has the possibility to wipe out huge amounts of armies.  All cities will be required to stay inside of the CDS land claim for defenses.
Please let me know your thoughts on this, and if you want to participate in the above alliances. Unfortunately, anyone who does not want to participate fully will have to leave. The days of a free ride is over.
Pinky

When asked to comment, Grombrindal said this:
On content, it is largely a brainstorm session that got send out too soon. We are trying to find a use for DSA, have been for years. DSA city placement has always been a liability. I can only assume this was meant to persuade some of them to fix it.

He also sent me an exchange between Agalloch and Pink Camo in which Agalloch referred to PTC as 'new targets' after one of them was found harvesting gear from the siege of Death INC.

UPDATE:
Further IGMs  between Agalloch and Pink Camo have been sent to me showing that they resolved the issue non-violently.

Author: Eowan

Saturday 29 September 2018

Responses to ~NS~ Follow Up Article



I got in touch with Grombrindal, Pink Camo and Myr about the follow up article on ~NS~ leaving CDS.
Pink Camo has not yet given comment but Myr did respond in the comments of the article:
'NS was without my leadership for awhile, this lead to misunderstandings and issues. No need to drag it out. While I personally have no beef with Ubi I would not have invited him to NS had I been there knowing the history he had with many former ptory players and then this whole latest explosion wouldn't have happened. When I have had time to work things out with Grom I will comment on the future of NS but until then I have no further comments. ~ Myr'

Grombrindal also responded to my request for comment, saying the following:
I am not entirely sure what to comment on since it contains a flood of little facts interwoven with lies and..erm...alternative interpretation. I am particularly confounded by the line about Gijak being loyal to Yuki. Had I known that, I would have cracked down on it much, much earlier (big bully as I apparently am). Gijak was in no way singled out after the war, and received the same grace period IGM all pTory members did (he did indeed respond in a hotheaded fashion, but I have no intent of dragging this up to play the man). I approved NS as an acceptable alliance for pTory members to members to join after the war, but it was pitched to me by Myr´s alt (then a loyal member of Tcol) as an alliance loyal to, and working toward, Tcol´s and the CDSs goals. The argument that pursuaded me was her insistence that these members were disgruntled not with Tcol, but with pTory leadership. If they had pitched NS as a refugee camp for pTory loyalists, anyone with a minimal knowledge of Illy politics can grasp that I would never have gone along with their revival as part of the CDS. 
Regards, 
Grom


Grombrindal's alt, Niccolò Minionvelli, has been invited to ~NS~ by Myr to help with discussing the options for ~NS~ players.

Author: Eowan

Wednesday 26 September 2018

Blue Team Wins the Small Alliance Tournament


Despite a last minute siege by *AA* and MoV, the Blue Team have won the small alliance tournament 2-1. The siege was by PhoenixFire of MoV and cuzdeath of *AA* with cuzdeath's siege causing most of the damage. Dingo of *AA* also tenariled a town close to the flag in the final hours of the tournament.

There was 138 population left to go before Red Team could capture Blue Team Two when the tournament ended at noon today.

Blue Team have won the following prize pot, which will be split up and distributed shortly:

510,000 Cows
34 Scraps
2596231650 Gold
10 Tentacles
2,000 Arctic Wolf Fur
5,000 Arctic Wolf Teeth
200 Black Bear Fur
2,000 Salamander Fang
1500 Snow Leopard Fur
247 Black Panther Fur
1750 Polar Bear Fur
100 Hillman's Bow
100 Mountain Bow
100 Three-Wood Bow
100 Forester's Spear
100 Hill-Tribe Spear
100 Cloth-Backed Leather
100 Forester's Armour
100 Hardened Leather
100 Highland Armour
100 Vanguard's Armour
100 Cloth-Backed Chainmail
100 Reinforced Chainmail
10 Wine
10,000 Leather Armour
10,000 Bows


Author: Eowan

Monday 24 September 2018

Death INC Razed.


Death INC, belonging to Tool of Iron was razed by Simba of TCol today at 02:57.

The town had previously been sieged by TCol as referenced in the article on the declaration of war between Iron and TCol.

When I asked Agalloch and Grombrindal about the raze, they gave the following comments:

Sent By:Agalloch [Iron]
Received By:Eowan Splintspur [Cala]
Date:24 Sep 2018 13:44
It took em 7 days to raze an isolated town that had 2.5k trrops in it originally with 0 level coomanders :)
it cost them over 500k troops a confed oh and babyboy spend 300 prestige to change his name to Ihateyouall! i(s that the cherry on top?)
P.S and as a bonus i got a couple players out of it :P

Sent By:Grombrindal [TCol]
Received By:Eowan Splintspur [Cala]
Date:24 Sep 2018 13:47
Not much to tell about the siege. It was not one of out finest works, but we managed despite massive pres building and enemy support by Aesir and Saints. We really did not want to fight this war, but if Aga declares and leaves his alt in our back yard, we have little choice but to remove it.

Author: Eowan 

~NS~ / CDS Follow Up




After I published the article on ~NS~ leaving CDS, I received IGMs from Gijak Kafak which can be found here. Due to their length, importance and the fact that they deal not only with ~NS~ leaving CDS but other things as well, I have decided to publish them as a part of a separate article rather than an update added to the end of the previous article.

There are four IGMs and I shall give a description of their contents in each case. They detail a lot of the background to what caused ~NS~ to leave CDS, saying that much of what has been going on within ~NS~ has been at the orders of TCol.


The first IGM chain came with the subject about the spy' and it started with Pride of ~NS~ discussing his suspicions of who had leaked information to me previously in an IGM to Gijak Kafak.
However, it soon moved on to Gijak Kafak explaining a lot of the background to ~NS~ leaving CDS amongst other things.

The explanation began with Gijak Kafak describing an incident with Briann where Briann had gone 'off on a tangent about wanting to siege everyone in kesh that was not green on the map' which went against the order set out by the leadership of ~NS~. Gijak lost his cool with Briann who then 'went crying to Zen and Grom' about his treatment of Briann. Apparently Briann then doctored IGMs to make Gijak look bad.
He then went on to mention how TCol started to pull large members from ~NS~, citing Twitch as an example saying 'Twitch was the first with the lie he wanted to war. ( If Twitch wanted to war then why did he run from the war presented to him from SIN[...]). '
At the same time, Grombrindal sent Pink Camo to ~NS~ with Gijak claiming in the IGMs that it was an attempt to take direct control of ~NS~.
He goes on to describe arguments between him and Pink, the first of which was relating to members of BSH, nCrow and TCol settling in Keshalia which had been promised to ~NS~.

However, this argument does not seem to be what truly set events in motion that led to ~NS~ leaving CDS. It seems that a large part of the reason why ~NS~ left CDS was that Ubiquitous Feral, a returning player who was in pTory leadership during the first TCol/pTory war, was invited to ~NS~.
Gijak Kafak was in pTory during the events of the first war and stated the following:

"The next thing was to bring Ubi into NS. Ubi is a coward and trouble maker. He screwed Yuki over in Ptory, got everyone except a loyal few turned against her. Grom with all his pompous attitude that he is fair and never rude, is bullshit. I was the most outspoken on what was done to Yuki. So I was chosen as the scapegoat. Grom sent me an igm stating I had to move from Kesh or they was going to raze me. I went off and in rage typed most of the igm wrong. I tend to do that when I'm not thinking clearly. I immediately had incoming military attacks and diplo attacks to all 3 of my under 3k pop towns. My smallest town was only 6 or 7 hundred (so much for Tcol's word they do not attack small players). I am the type of person I don't bring my troubles to others. I started igm'ing friend to thieve me to keep Tcol's thieves from getting my stockpile. Myr was the first to respond. During this with all the attacks and diplos coming in Ubi sent a alliance wide igm stating anyone who sent help or tried to defend me would suffer the same fate I am receiving. Then he kicked me from Ptory. Myr took me in under force into NS, and here I am fixing to be under threat again by Tcol. LOL. There are other here in NS that Ubi screwed over and treated like shit. Grom and Zen knew this so they brought him into NS with the response that we were being childish by not accepting Ubi. When I press further that it was bs I got an igm from Pink that stated back them Ubi was following Grom and Zens orders and that we had no reason to hold a grudge to Ubi. So Tcol picked the player that supported Yuki the most and sentenced him death to make the rest become sheeple and bow to their demands and used Ubi to do it,"

Note: I have edited this to clear up typos amongst other things. The original text can be found in the full log of the IGMs.

Gijak then compared his situation now to that of Ubiquitous' during the pTory/TCol war, saying he was just being used as a scapegoat in the clearing of Keshalia. He felt like Grombrindal had thrown him under the bus when Grombrindal had claimed he had no knowledge of ~NS~'s activities.

During this time, Myr apparently got into an argument with Grombrindal and Zenorra about ~NS~ being used as a puppet alliance. This then left to Pink leaving ~NS~ and returning to DSA, 'since she had accomplished what she came here for ,,, to tear us apart'.

Gijak finished his lengthy paragraph by saying 'I didn't want to clear small players . I was truly more comfortable dealing with the larger players that could defend themselves. But as it was I was following orders. I was again like Ubi made the face of the wrong doing and threw under the bus when there was complaints Tcol denied knowledge.'


The final IGM in the chain was the one addressed to me. In it, Gijak explained another example of TCol apparently interfering in ~NS~ business with regards to Urika leaving ~NS~.
'Urika left NS started an alliance and started moving towns. Within 8 hrs of leaving Grom Igm'd him and said move now or die since you left ns. But no Grom isnt a bully. I will send you Groms igm to urika i think it will be easy to find. Later on today. So urika came back to NS and quit. but no there is noone being a bully.'

The next two IGMs, with the titles 'Keshalia' and 'Ubiquitous Feral. has accepted' contain discussions that Gijak referenced in the first IGM. Keshalia relates to Urika leaving ~NS~ while Ubiquitous Feral. has accepted' relates to Ubiquitous Feral joining ~NS~.

The final IGM, titled 'One More thing.' was a single IGM addressed solely to me. It said the following:
'As far as land claims go. It was origanally pro-claimed land claims were for the BL, it was a unwrittten agreement. Land Claims in Elgea are wrong. The game spawns people extremely close to Tcols claim. The only way to enforce the claim is to bully everyone out. See the way it is , Tcol and the puppets can only start with the little ones. BSH is the likly choice for the new puppet Kesh bullies as they are moving in at a rapid pace. They will not attack the larger ones, hell they will not even talk to the larger ones. So hopefully soon there will be a revolt on this whole land claim issue. If there isnt then the entire game is as risk, because other bully idiots will get the idea that they can claim, eventually everyone will be forced into alliance they hate or be killed, where is the fun in that. LC in elgea should be banned and not allowed, only the devs can change and fix that, otherwise as it is the game will be doomed, as no one will want to play being forced to play someonelses way.'

This string of IGMs seriously alter the narrative around ~NS~'s recent actions. I recommend those who are interested to read the originals as due to their length, many details have been omitted here.

If anyone from TCol leadership, or indeed anyone from any high ranking position within CDS or ~NS~, would like to add further comment to this, IGM me and I will publish it.


Author: Eowan

Saturday 22 September 2018

Blue Team Hits Back



The Blue Team has managed to capture 2 Red Flags, Red Team One and Red Team Two.

Red Team One was initially brought to capture population but by the time this was reached, the siege camp sent by Pomodoro had been broken and the other siegers were not able to capture. The town was then reduced to 0 population and another siege was sent by Pomodoro. This siege proved successful and the town was captured at 18 Sep 2018 17:31. It has since been exodused and is set to land in High Hills within the next 24 hours.

While the sieges on Red Team One were entirely BLX led, Red Team Two was a collaboration between BLX and G!. After a number of sieges by Pomodoro [BLX], KillerHud [G!], Sturm [BLX] and Icehole [BLX], KillerHud was able to capture the city at 22 Sep 2018 03:28.

Red Team Two has not been exodused yet so Red Team could recapture it, potentially.

With the capture of these flags, Red Team no longer has any flags in the Broken Lands while Blue Team have all 4 of their remaining flags there.

Author: Eowan

Friday 21 September 2018

~NS~ leaves CDS


The following mass mail was sent to me by an anonymous source in ~NS~:
Hello Squires,
I know I haven't been around much the past few months but I have been around on and off behind the scenes. Those of you who have been here a while may remember that NS was revived to give a home to members of pTory who were in Keshalia and didn't want to move. I made an arrangement with tCol to allow us to stay here. Unfortunately that arrangement is no longer working out. 
We are still working on the details but NS will soon withdraw from Keshalia. Here are your options: 
  1. Join a TCol approved alliance or TCol itself if you are ready for war. 
  2. Wait and see what alliance will replace NS as guardian of Keshalia and join that clan.
  3. Move out of Keshalia.
Take your time and think over your options, ask questions. Once you have decided on your path I will be happy to help you get there. For those that chose to move we will work on an exodus schedule that you're comfortable with. 
Remember, this is just a game so make the choice that will ensure you have a good time in the game.
For those who will be departing us, it has been an honor to play with you and I wish you all the best.
Take care,
Myr

It should be noted that I have redacted a sentence from this due to personal information being shared that I felt was not my place to publish.

The IGM was sent on the 19th of September.

~NS~ has lost just over 25% of its members since the around the 11th when membership peaked at just over 40. It now stands at 30.

Notable leavers include ryder, who has abandoned both his main and Ice Man, and also Pink Camo who has returned to DSA.

It is not clear yet whether these players leaving is related to the events that caused ~NS~ to split from CDS.

I also have not been made aware of whether  ~NS~ has any plans for where they will relocate to currently.

When I reached out to Grombrindal, leader of TCol, he said the following:
I cannot comment. I want to ensure this divorce takes place as smoothly as possible, and sharing my grievances with the press would not further that goal. 

Myr has not responded to my request for a comment though Thorin Oakenshield has told me to 'Fuck off'

If and when I receive any further information on this, I will post an update here.

Author: Eowan

Wednesday 19 September 2018

Iron Declares on TCol


Iron Crusade declared war on TCol at roughly 2pm server time, 14th September.

When asked why, Agalloch gave the following response:
'josh talking shit [...] we are bored I dont need other reasons or to make up bullshit excuses I just like pressing red buttons!!!'

Grombrindal sent me the following IGMs after I approached him for a comment:

From: Agalloch [Iron]
Subject: RE: RE: War
Received: 14 Sep 2018 14:55
Original Message:
I dont see any reason for peace between us you have in your alliance members that have attacked and razed IRON towns, I see your presence in the BL's as a threat unless you plan on kicking out those players and leaving the area this shall continue or till as you say we get bored.

From: Grombrindal [TCol]
Subject: RE: War
Received: 14 Sep 2018 14:49
Original Message:
Hey Aga,
As I mentioned before Tcol has no interest in this war happening. If you insist we will simply defend, but it would become dull rather soon, and I would prefer declaring peace and be done with it. Your thoughts?
Grom

The alliance members involved are reportedly "josh, kaggen and all their sats mostly"

Josh had been under pressure from Iron for a while, being forced to exodus two towns into a troll hole to avoid facing a siege at Illycon.

There was a siege on Tool [Iron] 's town of Death INC but that has since been broken. There are currently blockades on the North East, North West, and South West tiles of the town.

Hog was briefly at war with Iron but has since surrendered. This is believed to have been what led to an outburst by Snagglepuss in GC who has renamed his alt to Ihateyouall and claimed to be leaving the game.

EDIT:
Agalloch has appeared in GC and made it clear that the war with Hog revolved entirely around Snagglepuss and did not have a further involvement with the rest of Hog.

Author: Eowan

Sunday 16 September 2018

First Blood to Red Team



Red Team has taken the lead in the Small Alliance Tournament after capturing Blue Team Five in Fremorn.

5 sieges landed from 20:11 to 21:40 on the 10th. 3 of these survived with Pasi [*AA*] taking the town at 18:29 on the 11th and then exodusing it into Ragallon, taking the flag out of play.

The flag has since been razed.

Blue Team have responded with a siege op on Red Team One led by BLX. This is not the first time the Blue Team has targeted Red Team One with a number of earlier sieges, again led by BLX.

Red Team Two is also under siege by BLX.

Author: Eowan