WarPath Loses Nearly 140bn To Heist

On January 15th, WarPath's account was allegedly cleared of gold and resources by Nikesha, who sat him at the time. The total centrum value of the theft was estimated to be 138,126,495,000 gold. Given current tome pricing, this is roughly equivalent to £4,100 GBP ($5,000 USD). The majority of the value came from large stockpiles of crafted equipment, with 12.8bn coming from Plainsmans Armour alone. 

To pull off the heist, Nikesha reportedly used Warpath's super-user powers to remove the rest of TCol leadership's control. She also tanked WarPath's population, causing him to fall from a total population of around 550,000 to  429,343 at time of writing, and disbanded around 250k thieves. She then used alliance prestige to move the stolen goods to a new account and abandoned after restoring TCol leadership's powers.

Nikesha had the following to say about the heist:

'it isn't just the dollar value. it is a dead game where people no longer craft. or sell that quantity of items any more. this is 10 years of warpath bullying and hording ill gotten gains and war tributes'

For a full listing of the alleged haul, click here

Thus far, neither TCol nor WarPath have given comment.

EDIT:

TCol have responded, with Grombrindal giving the following statement:

'We have confirmed that this took place, but have no further comment until Warpath himself is informed and has time to process the implications. [...]. Sitting rights are a matter of trust and sometimes helpfulness/generosity. Sadly trust can be misplaced, and generosity can be taken advantage of.'

Author: Eowan

mCrow, Aesir, and RUM enter into Article 5 Confed

 

On the 26th of February, Captain Kindly announced that mCrow, Aesir and RUM had entered into an Article 5 confederation.

When asked to comment further, he had the following to say;
'It was made to have mutual defense against assholes attacking one of us. We are relaxed alliances and we are not waiting for PvP assholes to try one of us. That's it.'

Article 5 is a reference to NATO's Article 5 which lays out the collective defence of member states, and is as follows:

“The Parties agree that an armed attack against one or more of them in Europe or North America shall be considered an attack against them all and consequently they agree that, if such an armed attack occurs, each of them, in exercise of the right of individual or collective self-defence recognized by Article 51 of the Charter of the United Nations, will assist the Party or Parties so attacked by taking forthwith, individually and in concert with the other Parties, such action as it deems necessary, including the use of armed force, to restore and maintain the security of the North Atlantic area.

Any such armed attack and all measures taken as a result thereof shall immediately be reported to the Security Council. Such measures shall be terminated when the Security Council has taken the measures necessary to restore and maintain international peace and security.”

Author: Eowan

Good guy Helmsman helper of newbies, Sieged in Keshalia

This article is somewhat biased but tries to ask questions, which are up to the reader to answer with their own opinions and feelings, as well as revealing facts about in-game policies and unspoken rules which question the actions of the few.

Illyriad is a great game with many different ways to play. There are almost no limitations once the basic game has been mastered. Of course, the mechanics have boundaries and borders to what is possible and some aspects of the game exist to push the player base into experimenting.
There exists an agreement; rules set in stone after over a decade of play that a good chunk of players subscribe to. Then there are those who ignore this agreement, to attack others for no apparent reason other than to throw around pixel power and wield a giant scuttler stinger.
Previously there were confederations who stood up to aggressors and enforced the tenets of that agreement. Who is there today to uphold these principles?

On the 18th of February, The Colonist Empire [TCol] laid siege upon a player who goes by the name Helmsman, from the alliance Achaean’s League [ACHE]. The town being sieged had been grandfathered into TCol’s land claim (LC) by previous TCol leaders.

He has a reputation in this game for being the good guy; the friendly neighbor who brings you a keg of beer, when all you needed was a few cents to get the one beer at the corner shop. He asks nothing in return and will keep helping someone until they feel ready to venture onwards in the Illyriad lands.
The player sieging Helmsman goes by the name of Ashka and is currently the leader of TCol. The raze text is on his profile page: “2022-02-18 Pants Free for Boggie, belonging to Helmsman which was located at 756|-128 has been razed by Ashka.” It is like it is displayed proudly as a trophy. An achievement. What a great win, sieging the friendly next-door neighbor who did nothing and razing his town to the ground. Truly impressive.

TCol are currently at war with Northern Ascension [ASCN] and have been involved in that war for around 7months by now. Lots have happened for ASCN in the war, but it seems their true foe is not TCol; The Fallen Order [FALLN]. FALLN are in many veteran players eyes, the fiercest military alliance in the game, although TCol claim that title on their profile page, quote:
“TCol has a long and proud history as one of the oldest military alliances in the game. Over the years we merged with DB, TA2IN, SIN, and TRST, resulting in the preeminent pvp alliance in Illyriad. We are a group of nice people who enjoy, and are knowledgeable about, Ilyriad [sic]. We believe in strategic play and enjoy the military aspect of the game.” 

The author of this article has been a member of TCol for 2 years and knows many of the players. Yes, most of them are nice – But man, they can be some cruel mudafukas and only really care about who they can target next. Will it be you?
Here is a quote from the leader Ashka, that he wrote out to the Global Chat on the 22nd of February: 

[23:22]<Ashka> If it wasn’t for Skarr my policy of razing all noobs would be in effect
[23:23]<Ashka> I could care less if they stay or go
[02:10]<Ashka> But yes I’m the bad guy. I warned someone over 6 months to leave my land. I know most of you hate the landclaim but it’s there.

The fact that a leader of an alliance means this, is disturbing to most people. Sure, sometimes we get hot-headed in a game that we all spend a lot of time in. Discussions or debates take a turn and all of a sudden, we find ourselves in the deep end of the swimming pool, after reading back what has been written by our own hands. Still, four days after the siege, Ashka displays how he feels and thinks by writing this to the public eye to see. Disgraceful? Honorable? Up to you. Regardless of what you think, this player is the leader of 50 other accounts who probably also have an opinion weighing one way or the other.

The matter at hand here, is how an innocent player was sieged. The LC is the excuse given; according to Ashka a period of 6months was given to Helmsman for him to move his city out of the LC. And according to Helmsman and some other people ACHE, there existed a truce for Helmsman to be in the region. No evidence has been presented to show that Helmsman provoked TCol, posed a threat to anyone or bothered anyone when residing peacefully in Keshalia. Still, Ashka felt the need to use his tiny scuttler stinger and raze Helms to the ground. Some of Ashka’s followers claim he did it simply because he could.
How many of you can raze peaceful players because you can? Probably 100% of you. But do you do it? Do you just ignore long standing agreements made by those who came before you? That is in a lot of people’s reality overstepping many boundaries and showing disrespect to the alliance that you are a part of.

--
Before writing this article, Helmsman and Ashka were both contacted and asked if they wanted to chip in with information but have not responded.

Terraform Pricing

In February 2017, Dakota published an article on terraform prices. As it has been some time since then, I decided to do a refresh of it. In the previous article, terraforms were broken down into three categories; custom, prospect, and alliance.

Custom terraforms are ones where the buyer can choose the distribution, such as a 7 food / 3 stone distribution. Prospect terraforms are terraforms that use the starting distribution of a race, such as the human's all 5s distribution. Alliance terraforms are terraforms for alliance-mates.

As before, this is for a standard terraform, a rushed terraform will often cost more.

	Custom	Prospect	Alliance
Mean	38.4	31.8	15.6
Median	36.5	36.5	0
Minimum	25	25	0
Maximum	73	36.5	36.5

10 Terraformers were surveyed, and the price of a scrap was taken as being 36.5 mil.

Compared to the last survey, there has been a significant increase in the average price of a custom terraform; from 30.9 mil to 38.4. However, the most common price was 36.5, just 1.5 mil above the previous mode, with 70% of respondents giving a price of 1 scrap. Most prices were given in terms of scraps, with those who didn't give a price in scraps saying that they would take a scrap as payment. This is perhaps the largest change, as in 2017 all prices were given in gold.

A scrap was also the most common price given for prospect terraforms, though there was a bit more divergence with one player offering a 10 million gold rebate for scraps. The shift to scraps has led to a 13.3 million gold increase in the price of prospect terraforms.

Alliance terraforms were by far the cheapest, with an average price of 15.6 million, however this is over three times the average in 2017. Most players either offered them for the same price or for free to alliance-mates. Players often said that prices for alliance-mates would vary based on how long their buyer had been in their alliance, as well as their size.

Author: Eowan

Is Rok Breaking the Code of Conduct?

 

A concerning report has reached me that Rok may have broken the ToS. At 05:55 server time on the 12th of December Rok distributed the email of former NIGHT member Mike, seemingly in retaliation for Mike's exposing of the Lady Kynecha situation. This would seem to violate the 10th rule of the code of conduct which 'strictly prohibits [...]  posting personal information such as address, phone number, real name or other identifying information'.

This does bring to mind a second apparent code of conduct violation. The second violation revolves around the account currently known as Lucille. The account was formerly known as Sir Bradly, a name that was previously used by Rok and it did appear to be controlled by him. Since the renaming, the account has seemingly passed to Daisy who was recently linked with illegal account sharing. As Rok currently has control of two accounts, his alt being Judge, this would seem to be in breach of multiaccounting rules, potentially in addition to account sharing rules.

When asked in GC about these allegations, Rok refused to comment.

An anonymous source in NIGHT stated that Rok had been 'drinking heavily' recently, a claim backed up by AC logs where Rok described himself as 'shitfaced'. This could have impacted his judgement, leading to the alleged code of conduct violations. When asked to comment on this, Rok deflected saying 'Well, I drink coffee excessively'

Author: Eowan

Amid Rumours of Internal Confusion, NIGHT Leadership Disagree On Age Of Alliance

Controversy has emerged as to the age of NIGHT. Today, second in command Daisy stated in GC that NIGHT are a 'new alliance'. This runs contrary to leader Succulent's previous claim that NIGHT are in fact the same alliance that landclaimed back in February. NIGHT's alliance page would indicate that the alliance was formed in September 2020. 

This comes as rumours have emerged that there are tensions within the NIGHT alliance. An anonymous source speaking to the telegraph stated that  the conflict was between Morghulis, Succulent and Daisy. The conflicts were said to arise from a lack of direction within NIGHT. My source had the following to say:

'no one calls the shots

no one plans ops, no one can plan an op

daisy is too busy sending all her cav at the coanhara tile to impress axis

no organization'

It could be that the blame for this lack of organisation and shot calling is the result of Succulent being largely absent. In an AC log from NIGHT, she had the following to say 'So idk what this shit is about I'm never here'.  

However, Daisy could also be muddying the waters. In the same AC log, she said 'we need to come up with a game plan and who does what, please'  to which Succulent responded 'We laid out in slack who's in charge of what.'. Daisy refused to comment on the tensions when asked repeatedly in GC.

Whether the organisational problems are the result of Succulent's inactivity, Daisy's failure to read slack, or something else is up for debate, however it is worrying to see in such an old/new alliance.

Author: Eowan

NIGHT is 'ruining the game' says former NIGHT member

 

Yesterday, NIGHT member Mike began mailing many alliances across Illyriad. The IGM detailed the case of Lady Kynecha [Aerie] who had been the subject of NIGHT's recent efforts to establish a landclaim in the deserts of Coanhara.

Lady Kynecha complied with this request, moving towns from Coanhara to Westmarch where she already had towns. One town in Coanhara was razed as it did not have exodus. After moving and allowing a town to be razed at NIGHT's request, Lady Kynecha came under attack from a now former member of YARR, Axis, who has since joined NIGHT, as well as other NIGHT players.

The continued attack by NIGHT players on Lady Kynecha is was prompted Mike's mailing spree, as Mike viewed this as a betrayal of his word to Lady Kynecha. In further correspondence with Mike, he went on to state that these 'assholes are ruining the game'. In addition to this, he made an accusation of account sharing towards Kimmyeo stating that her 'other illegal is salgerluk'.  This is in addition to the Petrus Fons account named in the original IGM.

Other NIGHT players refused to comment directly to the telegraph, however Mike did send me IGMs between him and Succulent on the matter. In them, Succulent said 'I don't particularly agree with what he's doing but I take the side of NIGHT>everyone else.' going on to say 'Plus we haven't officially LC'd WM, but we may at some point in the future.'

I was also sent a number of AC logs. In these, some interesting revelations about low troop counts in NIGHT came to light. Ininaatig, upon being asked how many spears he had, stated he had 25k spears while Daisy gave a count of 120k spears.

So, inhabitants of Coanhara and Westmarch beware; an alliance with low troop counts is coming for you.

To read the full text of the original IGM, click here

EDIT: After publishing, Captain Kindly got in touch to say the following about Salgerluk:
He is active. And does not sound like Kimmy. I recognize an older guy when I see one

Author: Eowan