Friday 16 November 2018

Elements of Artifice Scoring

The final scores in the Elements of Artifice tournament



Overall:


Hucbold888195358
Danger Russ508169134
Fanuidhol20206248
thereefa200218223
Brocoli179993363
Dingo108357514
Wraith54534251
Bonemash3239730
Altassi23740107
Emperor of Diplomacy47348
bg_HateR605
Bivin91

 Large League
 
Hucbold8881953581
Danger Russ5081691341
Bonemash32397301
Medium League

Fanuidhol202062482
thereefa2002182232
Brocoli1799933632
Dingo1083575142
Wraith545342512
Altassi237401072
Small League

Emperor of Diplomacy473483
bg_HateR6053
Bivin913

Thursday 11 October 2018

Elements of Artifice Tournament Announcement.


The DEVs have released the first part of a 'multi tier' content release; Elements of Artifice.

The update has brought 125 new pieces of equipment into the game, as well as showing items for the anticipated release of a fourth school of magic.

Many of the new items require components created using this fourth school of magic however, the ones that do not need the components are currently craftable.

To celebrate this update, I would like to announce my second server-wide tournament. The Elements of Artifice Hunting tournament will run from the 11th of November to the 11th of December.

Its a hunting tournament with the aim being to kill as many NPCs as possible.

It will be run using a google form that uses the same method that Tensmoor's Individual Hunting Tournament Tool will use. Only the XML links to combat reports will be used so you do not have to send me your API key.

During the tournament, updates will be posted here regularly.

There will be 3 leagues; Small, Medium and Large.

The small league will be for players with 4 towns or fewer.

The medium league will be for players with between 5 and 9 towns.

The large league will be for players with 10 or more towns.

As with the 1st Small Alliance Tournament, these entrance fees will be used entirely to fund the prize pot for each tournament league. Additionally, donations would be greatly appreciated.

Prizes will be awarded to the 3 players with the highest number of NPC kills in each league.

Players should IGM me to let me know they are going to compete

Best of luck to everyone,

UPDATE:
Due to a large anonymous donation, all entrance fees have been waived.

-Eowan

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

Sunday 26 August 2018

1st Small Alliance Tournament Begins



The small alliance tournament has now begun.

The teams and locations are are follows:
Blue Team
G!High Hills363/-1975/323/-1827/
ICONFremorn-846/173
BLXHigh Hills276/-1899//205/-1805
Red Team
Q&SKal Tirikan-343/712/
MoVKormandly-560/-2664-364/-2438/
*AA*Kal Tirikan/ Ragallon-474/594322/444



Blue team one is surrounded by a mixture
 of large and small hills with a volcano
to the South East. The town itself is on a
large hill.

Blue team two has plains to the East but
otherwise is surrounded by small hills.
The town is on a small hill.

Blue team three is on a small hill with
other small hills to the South and West.
The rest of the squares around the town
are small forests. 

Blue team four only has 3 squares from
which it can be sieged. These squares are
all small hills while the town is on plains.

Blue team five has a small forest to the
South West and large hills to the North East
and North West. The remainder are small
hills with the town also on a small hill

Red team one is on a large mountain with
more large mountains to the North, East
and West. Directly to the South is a small
mountain with small hills on the South
East and South West corners.

Red team two is on a small hill surrounded
by a mixture of large hills, small mountains
and large forests with a small hill to the
North East

Red team three is on a small mountain
and is surrounded with small mountains,
large mountains, and small hills. There
is also a volcanic peak to the West.


Red team four is on a small forest with a
large forest to the South West and plains to
the West. All the other squares around it are
small forests.

Red team five is on a large hill with other
large hills to the South, North and North
West. There are small hills to the West,
South West and North East. To the East is a
small mountain and to the South East is a
small forest.

Author: Eowan 

Monday 13 August 2018

pTory at War With BSH and TCol



On the 8th of August, TCol declared war on pTory after after Arthur, who was in pTory at the time, sieged one of Bkka's cities.

Bkka is reportedly away from the game at the moment as a result of real life issues and as a result of this, they dropped out of TCol in order to remain neutral. This then apparently gave Arthur the impression that the account was unattached and available for sieging. When asked for comment, Arthur said the following:

'I was looking for a new town and stumbled across her account with flat lined growth, no alliance and decent pop. I captured a town and Tcol took offence since she was a former member. I had incoming attacks before an igm, and they declared war before I made my 2nd reply. Several ptory members had incoming/quit the alliance soon after the wardec so I left the alliance and told Tcol to focus on me instead, that it didn't involve ptory.'

The issue comes from the fact that as a result of a surrender agreement from an earlier war with TCol, pTory were not allowed into the CDS. Arthur sieging the town violated this agreement though as Arthur was a recent entrant to pTory meaning there is a chance he was not aware of this.

A peace deal was offered to pTory by TCol which goes as follows:

'I have talked to my counsil and to Bkka, as well as with Arthur. Since Arthur exo´d our city away, and has since left pTory we have deicded to take one of his cities in return for ours. Since it seems pTory had little knowledge of the fact beforehand, we will once again strive to be lenient. These are our terms for a (renewed) surrender agreement; 

1) 500 million gold, by way of fine for breaking your original surrender terms, 

2) A paragraph will be added and maintained on the pTory alliance profile explaining that its members are not allowed to enter CDS territory for any reason, as part of a surrender to Tcol (this is to avoid repetition of this incident, and I expect it to be written in respectful language. I don´t want to see the word bully or similar appear in this text).

3) pTory will apologize to Bkka for the transgression against her while she was ill. 

If you agree to these terms, please reply directly to this message stating that you accept. A peace offer will then be issued in good faith that you will fulfill your obligations, and Tcol will be ordered to stop all actions against pTory. Attacks on route will continue, but no new operations, diplo or military, will be launched.'

When I asked Grombrindal about the 500 million payment he said the following:
'Because I felt it would be an easy sum to pay, and expected it to be accepted in a heartbeat. It´s not our fault pTory doesn´t educate its new members on its political realities. Althought the other part of this surrender deal is that they do from now on.'

It should be noted that during this conversation with Grombrindal, he mentioned that the payment had already been made though by someone external to pTory saying that 'double' the amount requested had been paid.

During this, Grombrindal had a spy monitoring pTory AC and after the offer of a peace agreement was sent to Hellie, she sent out the following mass mail:

'I am doing my best to keep you all updated on every communication with Grombindl.  Please share your communications with tCol in our alliance wide.  It is aparent that tcol members are now bullying our members with private igms.  POST them alliance wide, so we can all see what the tactics are.

I do not want this to escalate.  We will not retaliate.  We are not at war, and have no aggresive intentions in this matter.  Arthur, the gent who seiged a town in mal moshta is paying the price for his actions.

We are negotiating a fair treaty, with resonable terms.  We have not been an agressor here, there has been no actions taken by our members to defend, they are only executing attacks that hide the bullying from global chat and abusing our integrety by breaching our alliance chat.

Taunting, and goading are a war tacticis  that I abhore, I will not willingly partiipate in.  Please refrain from being dragged into the muck in global chat.

Any personal igms you receive, that are a threat or veiled attempt at subverting our council should be posted alliance wide, to ensure that you all are kept in the loop and that we can provide you with appropriate council.  Please mark these notes in the subject line with ''alliance wide''.

To our Traitor, 1.  good show, several have left this alliance, two have abandoned, and i lost an hour of my life trying to save another, she will abandon shortly: congratulations. Best of luck poaching our elgean members, nothing like a hostage on your team.   2.  you are still with us, you must really have a thing for ptory?  isn't your own alliance fun and filled with positive encouragement? and 3. most importantly #3, when you are copy and pasting from our a/c , ensure it is accurate.  as the first note you sent to Grmbrindle was inaccurate and out of context.  I said ''hold on, Bianca..... I'm thinking...... and it hurts.'' it was a joke.  

For the rest of you Purgatorians...... move your towns, use the resources that I have set up in Chulbran.  I'll make it fun and a game, to see who can get their towns there the fastest!

Hellie.'

Grombrindal then reportedly sent the following IGM to several pTory members:

'Hail pTory ,

This mail is going out to several, or all, of your roster because once more Yuki (that´s Hellie for you poor new pTory members) has chosen to complicate a simple matter with unnecessary drama and an approach of mock transparency. This mail will address why Tcol declared war on pTroy, and why we think our surrender terms are more than reasonable. It will also serve as an introduction for a request I will make of you at the end.

Last year pTory was led into war with Tcol and TA2IN (then 2 separate alliances) by Yuki. She ragequit shortly after, leaving it to Ubi to negotiate a surrender. The surrender terms were mild, with Tcol only demanding that pTory permanently leave the CDS landclaim, and laying claim to Yuki´s (now abandoned) cities in that area. After this occurred, TomR returned and claimed leadership of pTory (I will not go into the injustice suffered by Ubi after this occurrence, you can ask your leadership if you are interested). Upon being asked, TomR reaffirmed his compliance with the surrender terms agreed by Ubi.

Since this event, no further conflict (or even contact) was had between Tcol and pTory. Until last week, when a pTory member entered the CDS claim to capture the city of a hospitalized Tcol member. Not only was this a cowardly act of aggression, but it clearly constituted a breach of the surrender terms agreed last year. 

Trough dialogue with all involved parties, Tcol reached the tentative conclusion that pTory leadership did not have advanced knowledge of the act committed by Arthur. In this light we offered a set of 3 very mild surrender terms; a round sum of 500M gold, paid not for the city, but as a fine for breaking the earlier treaty; a clause on the pTory profile to avoid future incidents, and an apology.

Now, it has come to my attention that your leadership considers 500M too steep a price. New players in your AC are quick to agree, not understanding the merely symbolic value of such a sum. To put things in perspective for those, yet poor, players; most Tcol members keep at least 100M in each city to offset goldburns of several tons. To further put things in perspective, pTory has a trade rank of over 20 Billion, and former pTory council members that have been in Tcol since the previous war assure me pTory could easily get together 5 Billion. 

I notice, to my dismay, the usual Yuki rhetoric involving bullying is emerging once more. Tcol does not recognize itself in such descriptions, and we will not be pulled into one of her drama queen episodes again. Therefore I hereby request that you remove Yuki (Hellie/Thumper) from these proceedings. If you wish to continue peace talks, have Dendro, or anyone else trustworthy you have left, contact me.

We are not bullying; we were wronged, a surrender treaty was broken, and a price must be paid. 

Kind Regards,

Grom'

He also sent the following IGM to Bianca BoeHammer (Willd):

'Please stop spreading nonsense. pTory isn´t  being asked to pay 500M for one city, they are being fined because they broke their peace terms. The alliance has a trade rank of over 20B, so it will certainly not cost anyone real money. Think very carefully about how you proceed because my mood is not improving with this charade you are putting up in AC. '

Some in pTory are saying that this shows that Grombrindal is policing their AC saying that what is said there is none of Grombrindal's business.

In a brief interview with Grombrindal, he had the following to say about it:

'Meh, Willd was an old friend. I tried to get her to reverse course...I wouldn't call that policing them'

Bianca BoeHammer and her partner Heavy Hand have both abandoned their accounts and could not be reached for comment.


The following mass mail was then sent out to TCol:
'Hail Tcol, 
Peace has been agreed on with pTory, and seperately with Arthur. Please halt all actions against pTory members, and Arthur, recall what you can, and resume operations against Saints and Aesir. 
Victory to Tcol! 
Grom'

It seems that these orders were followed as some blockades that had been placed on Walela's town of Silent Corner have been removed.

However, the peace offer with pTory has since been withdrawn, when asked why Grombrindal said the following:
'Because they did not accept it, and didn't communicate with me directly once. I only talked to <redacted> and received no official surrender....This, to me, is unacceptable. As such, pTory is now at war with Tcol indefinetely'

BSH, a supporting alliances of the CDS, declared war on pTory at 10:37 server time today.

Skorg refused to give comment and when asked for comment, Hellie sent the following IGM from Grombrindal:
'Deal is off. We will not talk again.'

I've received several IGMs about this which are not included here. This is due to the fact that while they are relevant, their inclusion would lengthen an already quotation heavy story and they do not directly add events that were already discussed in other IGMs.
I've also redacted the name of the person who paid pTory's surrender. This is because they originally asked for privacy in this when they told me about it before I had received any news of it from other players. If they wish their name to be made public, I will do this at their request.

EDIT 1:
As I published this article, the following IGM was sent to me by Hellie:

Just a quick update:

Peace was offered between Tcol and pTory, all terms were met. 

The offer has now been recinded.  There was a hidden time clause for the offer, I am sorry, Purgatory, that was never communicated to me.

BSH have now declared on pTory.

Do not retalliate, nothing has changed, we did nothing wrong.  To retaliate gives them fuel.  Bullying will stop in Illyriad if we talk about it.  We have lost many players from our alliance because of this. 

Bianca/Willd/Heavy's Other Hand has been bullied personally, and abandoned - a huge loss to the game, as she was one of the most active g/c players, and supplier of newbies - shame.

Your council are still working as a team, Bahar, Guilliem, Dendro, Gromp, Tomr, Mon Mothma and I are working on resolving this untenable situation.

H.

EDIT 2:
After the publishing of this article, Grombrindal got in touch saying that a key aspect was missed out and this was the complete reason for his decision to withdraw the peace offer. He said that it was because pTory, rather than accepting peace, were seeking out dev intervention to have the war undone rather than ended via a peace agreement.
He said the following:
'Its the combination of things. They did not negotiate, <redacted> handled it all. I accepted because I really wanted to be done with it. And then they say, meh we´ll wait to see if the devs come to our aid instead.'

A source also sent me a pTory AC log showing pTory leadership discussing this after publication.

Author: Eowan

Saturday 11 August 2018

YOrk Sieged Out of Keshalia for Defending His Kills /// ~NS~ Purging Keshalia



YOrk [VAST], was recently sieged out of the region of Keshalia after defending a kill he made from Briann [~NS~] who attempted to poach his kill.

The situation started when Briann noticed a kill near his city. He claims to have scouted it but despite significant investigation, no scout report has been sent to me detailing this. He then sent an army to the kill to occupy it.

YOrk, who had intended to harvest the kill, had harvesters killed by this army. Again, no evidence has been supplied by ~NS~ who claim that YOrk sent the harvesters after the army landed. YOrk then cleared the square of Briann's troops.

This led to retaliation from Briann in the form of diplos and demands from Gijak Kafak for '2k saddles, 2k horses, and 5 mill gold' in compensation for Briann's troop losses while attempting to poach a kill which was reportedly a legion of scaled chargers.

I got in touch with Gijak Kafak and YOrk and they gave the following statements:
YOrk:
Hi there man 
Im not too active lately so sorry for the late answer. Its a long story, some bugger called Briuan started occupying my kills in Keshalia. He killed quite a few of my skinners too. So i sent my army to clear it away, NS mailed me threatening and demanding some payments tpo compensate their losses but i sent them all to hell. After that they launched a campaign against me, taking my Keshalia towns. 
That's pretty it. 
Good hunting, Y.

Gijak Kafak:
Briann so a kill unattended and had been for well over a week. he had scouted it several times ( no i will not go back through thousands of igms to dredge up scout reports) never was anything there or the amount of things there change. He placed a army on it and sent harvestors. 6 hrs later YOrk saw him there and sent harvestors. Well as anyone with a brain knows troops on a sq will kill harvesters, which they did. YOrk then sent a army any killed Brianns. That is what the issue was and that was the issue. YOrk sent and you can see his copy and paste that his harvesters arrived on the square and where killed by Brianns army meaning Brianns army was there and in place. It is what I tried to explaining to YOrk. His alliance did not want to work it out and kicked him from their ranks. So we did what we had to do YOrk was unwilling to be reasonable and we deemed him unworthy of being a guest in the LC after he for no reason killed another army of Brianns 8 sqs from Brianns city. The first incident was 12sqs from Briann and 38 sq from YORk. If it was YOrks kill then that far from his city he should have had a army on it. OK there is the info you requested anything thing else in the matter is unworth my time Please do not igm me again

When I got in touch with Briann about getting hold of those scout reports or notification logs so I could have ~NS~'s full story, I was threatened with the sieging of both my account and the accounts that I was permitted to have in relation to the Small Alliance Tournament for the purposes of making flags by Gijak Kafak

YOrk has since had all of his Keshalian towns removed.

Gijak Kafak also threatened to report me if I published IGMs which can be found by clicking here.

It should be noted for those who attempt to suppress the publishing of IGMs on this site, in the past I have had problems with the DEVS in relation to the publishing of information related to the DEVS punishments of players. I was informed during these problems that as long as there was no link to articles breaching the rules in the forums, it was permitted by former Community Manager, GM Rikoo. 





YOrk's sieging comes shortly after a list of unaligned players was sent to me by a source within ~NS~ indicating it is likely that ~NS~ are beginning a general purge of the Keshalia region, the list is as follows:

Kingly

Sir Richard

wvamorgan

tanker1

Khaleesi

SnugSnug

electrician

plumberman

Chieftan

Devicus


It has been confirmed to me that SnugSnug has reached alternative arrangements to prevent sieging. Others on the list have not managed this.

After a discussion with Gijak Kafak about this list, my source then informed me that ~NS~ were attempting to locate them through the use of IGM API keys. Reportedly, kicking was meant to occur yesterday morning however, to the best of my knowledge, no one has been kicked indicating the API key method was ineffective.

Author: Eowan 





Thursday 26 July 2018

Jenny the Hermit Follow Up

While discussing the situation with Jenny the Hermit in GC, I received the following IGM from a friend of Jenny the Hermit who asked to remain anonymous:

Hello, 
I noticed your defence of Jenny the Hermit in Global Chat and just wanted to thank you and let you know that you are spot-on about what happened. She, myself and another player joined this game from another one; she and the other player quickly used Tenaril to relocate to the area in question in Farshards; they specifically chose that spot because it was it was unoccupied and relatively desolate, and had no way of reasonably knowing about the "land claim" that she encroached on by a mere 10 squares. They also sieged and brought the other player down to zero before doing so to Jenny. In both cases, they messaged at one point that they would give them 14 days to move before attacking, which I think is an unreasonable amount of time to give a brand new player to be able to exodus, since they had each obviously used their Tenaril already. In Jenny's case, buck1 messaged her on July 20 saying she had 4 weeks to move. As you can see, she did not receive nearly that. I think it's quite clear that the actions of RofC can only be described as bullying of a player who could not possibly have (and I can assure you would never have) presented any threat to their alliance. There wan absolutely no need for urgency on their part in asking her to move: she was not any threat to them or in their way for any reason, and the misunderstanding was entirely forseeable, as there is simply no readily available information on land claims, particularly to new players. 
Thanks,
<REDACTED>


Also worth noting: They DID give the option to join RoFC also, but why would anyone want to join and pay taxes to an alliance that treats new players this way?


The IGM from buck1
As you can see, Jenny was given well under a week after being promised four... given the considerable time and resources it takes to get exodus, it would likely have been impossible for her to even attempt to move.

Interestingly, when buck1 was a new player, he accidentally settled a town well within my 10 squares. Rather than razing him, I helped him grow and gave him plenty of time to exodus. It would've been nice to see that paid forward.

Author: Eowan

RoFC Force One Town Player Out of The Game



RoFC have started to crack down in their landclaim leading to them noobringing at least one 1 town player causing said player to abandon.

Jenny's growth charts
Jenny likely used her Tenaril's Spell of Ultimate Teleportation to move into Farshards, not knowing about the landclaim. She had never joined an alliance (judging by her username, she intended to remain unattached) meaning she had no support against RoFC.

The people in RoFC who sieged Jenny were Saxon and Moksha as she faced a double siege.

Herald Siege Page

After the sieges landed, Jenny abandoned and she has since been noobringed.

Jenny's Town During Siege

Jenny's Town Now

Within hours of this happening, Snot of RoFC was in GC talking about how RoFC were going to 'Make Illyriad Great Again'. When I brought up Jenny being forced out of the game, I was described as 'fake news' and a 'troll'.

Many others in GC joined me in my public criticism of RoFC but when did people even start to think this was OK? RoFC has had a history of attacking small, largely defenceless accounts; that's what led to the Hobblez situation that has also been reported on here. This is not a one off, this is how RoFC act.

I'm going to be messaging every single non-RoFC aligned player in the RoFC landclaims of Farshards and Lapo'a Lua offering them aid with moving and a place in Cala or VAST if they want. If you would like to support those who are facing a similar situation to that of Jenny the Hermit, get your alliance leader to send me an IGM and I will add you to the list of people taking in those who are being assaulted by RoFC.


EDIT:
Iron have cancelled a NAP with RoFC, saying that they do not wish to be associated with RoFC anymore.

Author: Eowan 



Thursday 25 January 2018

How the war really began.

Normally, I wouldn't publish the following IGMs but given the amount of lies Snot has been spouting in GC about the start of the war, I feel I have no choice.


Notice the date on that IGM. War was declared by Aesir in December.

As for why this war happened, it happened as a result of TA2IN imposing a cartel on Silversteel sales. The SINdicate started this war, but fair enough they are war players. Most players in the SINdicate are pretty honest about that. Snot however likes to label her enemies the warmongers.

At the time this IGM was sent, Eresh was in Loki leadership.

Author: Eowan The Short.