EoA Article: Age of Light (Age 45)

**Edited February 15th, 2010 to include comments and Charts. Some sections and comments are still missing.

Fiat Lux: The Age of Light

In the beginning, OMAC coded the new Utopia. And the WoL was full of bugs and errors; and a dark future was upon us to face. And OMAC said, Let there be light. And there was light: the Age of Light. And OMAC saw the light, that it was good—at least, good enough for them.

Welcome to the end of the Age of Light, where a simple word such as ‘light’ can define many things. A vast amount of uncertainty loomed over the Utopian community as the age began. Three weeks of frustration, due to game instability and broken communication, resulted in a significant drop in the player base. As the game finally began, there were a couple more breakdowns during protection and once during OOP. Coding bugs and errors ran rampant, and the performance speed of the game also deterred many players from continuing. Eventually however, game stability improved and the age took off – with minor adjustments being made every now and then to fix the major errors that still clouded the WoL (Note: This will be discussed later on). Like all ages, the Age of Light had its own defining moments: continuous frustrations of hour-change ticks that have proved to be advantageous but also detrimental for kingdoms; the characteristic rise and fall of kingdoms old and new; and the mass deletions towards the end of the age that left many Utopians questioning the validity of OMAC’s actions. It was an action-packed age for the most part, and there was plenty of controversy to go around. In turn, this is what defined the Age of Light: a glow that illuminates, and a glare that obscures.

The Second Crowning

An intense race for the top of the charts was already established since the beginning of the Age of Light. It was a special age for the kingdom of Sonata – a kingdom that was formed one age before and claimed the prestigious NW/Land crown for the Age of Change. They now have two back-to-back crowns to celebrate for. Sonata remained in #1 throughout the age starting from YR1, having some major tussles with Trinity of Absalom and Equilibrium of Absalom along the way. Sanctuary of Absalom, Mercy of Absalom, Rage of Absalom, and Secrets rounded up the T5. uTimes had a chance to interview Realest, monarch of Sonata.

uTimes: Tell us about how your age went! Did you intend to go for #1 this age from the start?

Realest: From the very start, crowning was our intention, which is why we chose the setup we did. We went with 23 DE randoming/dicing core, and we would have fed up 2 avian banks to hopefully eat up DE banks that we felt were gonna be prevalent up top. However, server failure pretty much made it impossible to do that so we scrapped that plan and played them as normal provinces. In retrospect, we should have killed them and use move codes to make them DE, but that didn't really cross my mind until it was too late. Anyway, overall, the first few weeks of OOP went as expected, and then we got waved by Trinity. I personally love getting waved by kingdoms I feel are inferior to mine, because it guarantees that I will have button on them, so I do not have to deal with retal wars which is a prevalent gayness amongst weaker kingdoms. In my opinion, the war went extremely well. It allowed us to create a big avian that was instrumental in hitting subsequent banks down the line, which were Rage and Equilibrium of Absalom, two of our biggest competitors, for duration CFs. From there, we continued to dice and prepared for those two CFs to expire. Our age end saw us fight with EQ for a little over a week out of war, which escalated into a three day war after. We won that conflict, and Rage noticed us shortly after, so we ducked into FW to end the age. In the end, EoA went by pretty normally and peacefully.

uTimes: Do you think your choice of set-up was the right choice for this age compared to your competition? ie. How would you view your KD set-up vs. the other KDs that went Orc set-up?

Realest: In general, a DE vs Orc matchup favours the Orc imo, so I would play our kd setup defensively, like we did against EQ. This means high forts, high pop sci, and high epa, and control the button. In an ideal world, Orcs using anon and me being able to declare means I can fit in close to 2 war waves before they can do their first, so that would be instrumental in chaining them down with "suicide" double taps. Of course, with server lag and spotty activity it may be an issue, but in theory, that is what we'd do. Heavy emphasis would be put on the cow war as well, since our cow is a Merchant, while EQ had Mystic and Rage had Shepherd, so I feel our cow personality is the strongest. It also helps we have an extremely active and skilled player on our cow, in Syntico, whom I felt did a great job during the age, so that adds to our tactical advantage.

uTimes: What were some of the major challenges Sonata had to face this age?

Realest: We really only had one problematic obstacle that I can recall. This was when 15:7 as we called them at the start (Sanctuary of Absalom), had a formidable setup with their gnomes who got big and created a barrier that made it difficult for us to start a cow. Luckily, things worked out there after talking to dorje and we arranged a nap, so we were able to start our cow after. Another problem we had, which was a big morale downer in the kd, was when our usual nubs and nubesses (no names) went bouncing their hits. Lastly, an annoying problem was when waves became outta sync during wars because of server lag delaying hits, and it would prolong army returns to weird hours. Hell, one time, my army would not send out for about 80 minutes! :]

uTimes: Achieving back-to-back crowns must be very exciting, especially since Pansies and Playboys have been the only two other kingdoms that have been able to achieve this feat. Was there anything special about this crown compared to last age's? Was it easier the second time around?

Realest: Well, I guess the main thing different about last age and this age was our mentality. Last age we took the age in stride and then gunned for crown when it seemed right. This age, we aimed for the crown from the get go, and our setup was pretty much do or die, so there was a bit more risk involved. We also had the luxury of having more friendlies this age, starting with Dirty- who gave us valuable input on our decisions, and then our alliance group members, namely CGG with his knowledge and connections, mod with his organization in keeping track of the scene as we were setting up, Spheric with his cuddles, and Cheese overlooking things in general. Also, it was nice of coss to give me his time to entertain me with interesting convos. So a big thank you to all of them here. Ultimately, I would say this age felt tougher because we had expectations so there was added pressure, but I wouldn't say one crown was easier than the other as both were unique in its own way.

uTimes: Any particular moments this age you thought were definitive or memorable for your kingdom?

Realest: I think the ‘funnest’ moment this age was when EQ finally exited their FW after a boring week and a half and we got down and incredibly dirty into war. The war was really fun for us, as wave two saw 24 of us logged in and we did some fun soldier and monarchy bounces, taking advantage of OMAC's poor coding of kd pages not updating instantly. Quite frankly, I didn't expect my kd to be that active after a boring hostile and playing on a laggy server, so it was memorable for me. I guess my kd would also think it was funny I didn't want to hit EQ's cow until Syntico and fimbul finally coaxed me into it, so that is probably memorable for them as I was "shaking". Overall, just being able to play utopia with 24 other amazing individuals is memorable and definitive enough for me. Oh, let’s not forget that Sonata is now home to a 10 time crown winner. I try so hard every day, but in the presence of that man, I feel so inadequate. fml.

uTimes: What do you think was the key to your kingdom's success this age?

Realest: Well first and foremost, winning is always a team effort, so obviously this one goes out to my kd. A big shout out to phiwha, Chronic, charmey, arafel, cefria, octobrev, seijim2, Simon, Greaser, redtalun, Dazza, fimbul, gergoth, Rapala, Ryo, Phlayre, zmasternr1, r4d, clarey, anglcbtryl, nemo, silent_killer, Versace, and Syntico here for their efforts. To be more specific, our displaced azns leadership is very solid, starting from Phlayre who whispers sweet nothings into my ear, to fimbul who quotes weirdos to me, and lastly phiwha, who acts like a woman at times. Like I said earlier, we had a strong cow where the kd derived most of its strength from, in Syntico, who gays me way too much but whom I still like... as a friend. Lastly, we have our lovely ladies in amazing support roles, clarey doing paperwork, charmey as rally person, and Versace meanfacing people... that is, when the three of them are not causing me trouble, namely the mean one!

A Crowning Glory

Once again, the battle of the banks for the Age of Light continued to dazzle the WoL with interesting twists and turns. Sam, player of Sylar, from the kingdom ‘The Triumvirate (7:5)’, ended the age at approximately 43k acres, well ahead of any of the other cows this age. Evolution complete from Sanctuary of Absalom, nefarious from Sonata (played by Syntico), Mr Moo from Rage of Absalom (played by Khain), and The Reborn Awakener from Mercy of Absalom (played by flogger) rounded up the T5 provinces in NW/Land. uTimes had a chance to interview Sam. His interview is attached below.

uTimes: Tell us about the course of your age. How was it like playing ‘solo’?

Sam: Well, the age really started out with Big PM’ing me a couple times looking to do some killing and maybe a bank in a ghetto. I told him to go find dubai, and eventually the three of us joined together under dubai's leadership to find some other players, and run a small setup in a kingdom which we had monarchy in. As you know, the age was riddled with downtime, and as it turns out, I was one of the few provinces who managed to log in and explore before the downtime, which put me at #1 when they came back up. Our original intent was to run three killers, and possibly send one up as a bank once we had secured enough CFs through hitting kingdoms, but with the downtime giving me a bit of a lead, we decided it would be best if I just kept going OOP. And from there, it was basically all dubai and Big being two of the best killers on the server securing CFs.

uTimes: Was this your first time cow’ing ‘solo’? If not, tell us about your other times as well, and what did you do differently this time?

Sam: This was not actually my first time cowing solo, I had attempted this operation with dubai once before, during an age off from 7th. That age (Age 41), I played a Human named Gabriel Gray, and was on route to possibly win the age, when a shell played by Fixxxer broke a NAP they had made with dubai, and hit me several times, which caused me to either enter VM or FW or something like that. This time, we had another killer, and were a bit lucky with the downtime.

uTimes: Who were the key players in your kingdom that made your #1 province happen?

Sam: Dubai leading, Big playing a killer, Froggy, paddy, beavis, pot, Jane, sqwishy, and all the noobs who wouldn't IRC that we decided were obedient enough not to die.

uTimes: What do you think were some of the key events this age that allowed you to achieve #1?

Sam: I'd say the age was actually pretty boring after the start. We managed a war win against 10:13, which ended with a war win for us.

uTimes: Was there a time (or more than one time) during the age you felt your reign could be challenged?

Sam: Yes, Mercy's cow had enough acres in their pool to overtake me, until they decided they would have to farm out their kingdom to explore them all, so let the rest of their chained provinces take what they needed. I was also told that Sleepy had agreed to war Sanctuary starting like a week [before EoA], but I guess that wasn't true, or they cancelled it. Jdorje would have passed me in acres, or close to it if that had come to pass.

uTimes: Did you have any plans if either of those scenarios didn’t play out the way they did? (Say if Mercy decided to explore their cow)

Sam: Well, actually, yes. We had a CF ending with Secrets May of YR10, and I would have had to convert and fight him (and probably take acres due to my size advantage) if we hadn't realized that neither of those things were going to happen.

uTimes: Overall, were you satisfied with your results this age? Would there be anything you would have liked to change if you had the chance to?

Sam: Very satisfied, #1 province was something I had tried for (well at least cowing) several times, I actually forget how many, probably six or so. And I was very happy to finally get it. I don't think I would change anything, since nothing really went too badly for us. Some more wars would have been nice, but almost everyone in range knew not to give us the button.

uTimes: Would you say you had a flawless age? Or were any mistakes you may have made so minor they didn’t matter?

Sam: I guess you could say that, I never got hit, or was in much danger of getting hit for any amount that would have mattered. I did manage to PK one of our players by sending him too many soldiers to the wrong province to hold them, and that player didn’t log in soon enough after so they died. But at least they got to pick a new race and personality.

Overall Province Land Rankings (Age 45)
1 Sylar(7:5) The Triumvirate(7:5) Dark Elf 43768
2 Evolution complete(15:7) Sanctuary of Absalom(15:7) Gnome 38049
3 nefarious(17:16) Sonata(17:16) Dark Elf 37370
4 Mr Moo(18:14) Rage of Absalom(18:14) Dark Elf 33457
5 The Reborn Awakener(15:29) Mercy of Absalom(15:29) Dark Elf 32724
6 Soooooooo emo(13:25) Secrets(13:25) Dark Elf 31478
7 emansdrawkcab(20:18) Stoopid N Uuglies(20:18) Dark Elf 29613
8 Big Bong Theory(16:34) Ogres(16:34) Dark Elf 25416
9 cutex(17:16) Sonata(17:16) Dark Elf 15983
10 reinheitsgebot(17:16) Sonata(17:16) Dark Elf 15210

Overall Province Networth Rankings (Age 45)
1 Sylar(7:5) The Triumvirate(7:5) Dark Elf 11333333
2 Evolution complete(15:7) Sanctuary of Absalom(15:7) Gnome 6745660
3 Mr Moo(18:14) Rage of Absalom(18:14) Dark Elf 6160534
4 The Reborn Awakener(15:29) Mercy of Absalom(15:29) Dark Elf 5898215
5 nefarious(17:16) Sonata(17:16) Dark Elf 5353353
6 Soooooooo emo(13:25) Secrets(13:25) Dark Elf 5017776
7 Fruity(7:5) The Triumvirate(7:5) Dark Elf 5006979
8 MoneyLovesMe(7:5) The Triumvirate(7:5) Dark Elf 4277234
9 emansdrawkcab(20:18) Stoopid N Uuglies(20:18) Dark Elf 4080782
10 Big Bong Theory(16:34) Ogres(16:34) Dark Elf 3587039

Lights, Drama, Action

Fresh out of the gate, the Age of Light began with a number of intriguing episodes. Trinity of Absalom, the then #1 kingdom at the time, received some intra-kingdom action as well as a defection only a couple of days after OOP.

April 23 of YR0 In local kingdom strife Erecto(11:3) invaded Peskipiksi Pesternomi(11:3) and razed 277 acres of land.
April 23 of YR0 In local kingdom strife, Erecto(11:3) invaded Peskipiksi Pesternomi(11:3) and captured 199 acres of land.
May 15 of YR0 As the ultimate betrayal, Dobby destroys all in the land of Finite Incantatem before leaving for a new kingdom.

Later into YR1, as the dust began to settle and chart positions were better defined, Trinity, ranked #2 kingdom on the NW/Land charts at the time, waved Sonata, the #1 kingdom. Sonata declared immediately after and Trinity withdrew in February of YR2. Details of the war can be found here. The beginning of YR2 marked the instigation of the bank wars. Conflicts were aplenty between kingdoms. One major event that sparked some controversy included the kingdoms Rage of Absalom and Boondock Saints (a merger between Freedom and Schadenfreude). On May 18th YR2, the #2 ranked kingdom of Saints sent a wave of hits into Rage, netting a total of 7k~ acres, which was unretaliated and CF’ed. YR3 rolled along and on July 18th YR3, Sanctuary of Absalom broke CF with Saints, but at the same time, Saints also broke CF with Rage. Thus began the three-way hostile: Saints waved Rage, and then Sanctuary waved Saints. Rage retaliated twice on Saints’ provinces before Saints declared war on Sanctuary on July 20th YR3. On March 12th YR4, Saints withdrew from war with Sanctuary.

YR4 and YR5 were an interesting two weeks for the kingdoms in the T20. Mercy of Absalom and Rapture hit it off with a retal-war, which started in March and lasted until July. Pulse waved Trinity on April 15th, YR4, sending Trinity into FW, and a CF sealed a couple of days later. Saints had some unfinished business to attend to with Rage after their war with Sanctuary, and ended up in a retal-war with Rage, which started on May 8th YR4, and lasted all the way to June of YR5. Equilibrium of Absalom and HaLL of Heroes had their share of retal-wars as well from May to June, which ended in a CF. Even the kingdom that housed the #1 province (who called themselves Dubai Pwns) was busy, having their killers hit Secrets' bank as well as Old School's bank all in the same day. But this was just the beginning. Secrets’ and Heroes’ initial retal-war turned into a war when Heroes declared on February 3rd YR4, with Heroes withdrawing on April 8th YR5. Equilibrium then hit into Zenobias Zealots' FW in July YR4, with a CF deal that was reached in February YR5. The galore of hostiles and wars ended with Mercy of Absalom, Sleepy, Pulse, and ZZ in February of YR5. Initially, it was just Mercy and Sleepy engaged in a retal-war, with Sleepy going into FW in March YR5; then Pulse was added in on April 15th YR5, sending a wave of hits into Mercy. ZZ turned the trio into a quartet by waving Pulse on April 16th YR5. From there, Mercy declared war on Pulse on June 3rd YR5, and withdrew on January 6th YR6.

As the holiday season neared, Sanctuary, Sonata, and Equilibrium received early/late presents from a player named louisruffin, in the form of bounce waves. Starting March 1st YR6, Evolution complete from Sanctuary received a bounce wave of 80+ hits from a multitude of provinces in different kingdoms. Sanctuary informed us that the aggregation of provinces was controlled by the player louisruffin. Reasons for the attacks were stated that they were "just for fun". For femalevolence of Sonata, the bounce waves began on March 24th YR6, and lasted into YR7. Reasons for the attacks were revealed below by louisruffin himself:

Equilibrium's Big Bang Theory received a similar fate, being bounce waved from YR7 to YR8.

The later parts of the age into YR8 saw Sonata and Equilibrium duke it out in an approximately two-week conflict, which started from a retal-war, gone FW, to finally a real war. There were two levels of combat that went on during the two weeks: the cow battle, and the rest of the kingdom as a whole. Sonata's and Equilibrium’s banks traded hits that produced a line of the biggest hits in the WoL for the Age of Light, which ranged from approximately 2.5k acres to 4k acres per hit. Smack in the middle of their retal-war during YR9, a number of kingdoms throughout the WoL received mass deletions at the hands of OMAC. Unfortunately, the details of the mass deletions remain unknown to us at this time. Sonata declared on Equilibrium on April 1st YR10, and Equilibrium withdrew from the war on June 12th YR10, putting Sonata at approximately 270k acres, having gained a total of nearly 24k acres in the war.

This age, like many others, attracted an abundance of EoA action. It started when Sleepy launched a wave of hits into Secrets on July 12th YR10, which ended in a CF on July 18th YR10. Then on January 4th YR11, Sanctuary sent a wave of hits into BIO after BIO had previously sent Dragons of Absalom into a FW. BIO proceeded to retal-war with Sanctuary until EoA. On January 16th YR11, Pulse waved Equilibrium, to which Equilibrium responded to by declaring on Pulse two hours later. Lastly, on February 3rd YR11, Rage waved into Sleepy, and Sleepy declared on February 5th YR11. Both the wars lasted until EoA.

In the Spotlight

Evil Intentions took the #1 honor crown for this age, with Whispers taking the runner-up spot behind EI by approximately 13k honor points. Seduction TF, Balance, and BIO took the remaining three spots to round up the T5. This age was also peculiar in the sense that there was no prince to be crowned during the Age of Light. The highest honor achieved this age was at 6k points by Cannabis ala Pronce from Smoking Kills.

Overall Kingdom Honor Rankings (Age 45)
1 Evil Intentions(9:6) 80529
2 W h i s p e r s(14:36) 67195
3 Seduction TF War(7:31) 65968
4 Balance Rebuilding(11:33) 60911
5 UP YOURS SANC(12:30) 58244
6 PUFFY GIRLS(18:29) 58088
7 The Flying Kingdom TF(15:36) 57036
8 Bunnies TF RAWR(15:12) 55312
9 Stronghold of HaJ(12:12) 54138
10 Have a can of PULSEaid(13:28) 53719

Overall Province Honor Rankings (Age 45)
1 Cannabis ala Pronce(18:16) Smoking Kills(18:16) Dark Elf 6084
2 14 xxxxxxxx0xxxxxxxx(14:36) W h i s p e r s(14:36) Gnome 5285
3 QiY(19:14) EoA Hostiling xxxxx xxx - STFO(19:14) Dark Elf 5138
4 Styles(5:11) Savman Is Le Noob(5:11) Dark Elf 5107
5 Licor de Portugal(7:5) The Triumvirate(7:5) Elf 4812
6 Baby Poison Dart Frog(14:14) War Babies(14:14) Dark Elf 4748
7 YOU-Troels(9:6) Evil Intentions(9:6) Elf 4720
8 Hoegaarden(9:17) Alcoholics WAR STFO(9:17) Dark Elf 4571
9 Deadly Panda(7:22) Deadly Realm WAR(7:22) Dark Elf 4413
10 Fruit Loops(9:6) Evil Intentions(9:6) Elf 4278

A New Divide

It’s been about 13 weeks since Sean and Brian launched the new Utopia. There have been mixed remarks in regards to the overall quality and presentation of the game, but that you can find in the Jolt Utopia forums. Some highlights of this age include some of the following prominent bugs. The full list can again, be found in the Jolt Utopia forums. Notably here.

Game Break OOP: Attacking disabled.
First War of the Age: Odyssey vs. Dragons of Absalom. The kingdom that was declared on could not perform ops/spells/attacks until after hour change.
Overpopulation Bug: Desertions happened, but could still attack over 15%.
Dragon Bugs: Emerald Dragon produced the same -8% ME loss (which is supposedly the effect of a Ruby); unsure if dragon effects stacked, however. Most are saying that all Dragon effects were the same as Ruby. It is unconfirmed whether this bug has been fixed to date.
Amnesia Bug: Very little/Virtually no science was retrained; books that were amnesia'ed were mostly lost forever.
Declare Range Bug: Kingdoms could declare below and above 50% of other kingdom's range.
Nightstrike Bug: Sending 10 thieves for NS yielded a far bigger capacity of kills than it should have.
Landlust Bug: LL gains produced a fixed percentage of land instead of a random range.
+ Gains Bug: Doing +hours on hits into/out of a war gave unusually large gains. The extra gains do not take into account the -75% war gains factor.
Vacation Mode Bug: It is possible to aid provinces in VM.

Undoubtedly there were/are a lot more bugs worth mentioning. However, as mentioned above, these are just some of the highlights. The rest of the bugs can be found either in the Jolt forums or by common knowledge circling around.

As for the new age, a couple of things to keep in mind:

The updated changes for the Age of Light have been posted in detail here.

A couple of tools and accessories launched for the new age are listed below:

Dragon Portal: DP offers a variety of tools ranging from a fully compatible IRC KD bot to their online formatters (Ultima).

Utopia Temple: BG will continue to update Utopia Angel for the new age, however he did mention in a recent inquiry that he will no longer be updating the All-in-One formatter.

GuanYuCwK’s Simulator: A detailed simulator for helping players with province management. User-friendly and vigorously updated upon bug/error detection.

Utopia Pimp: Known to have updated to be compatible with the new age. Details can be read on the site.

The Afterglow

At last, we come to the end of yet another age. It's been a peculiar 12 weeks, and while we're unsure of what the future holds, we can always relish the present and hold on to what we have, or reminisce about the good (or bad?) times. For some, it’s been an age of discovery; fine-tuning the kinks and preparing for an even better age from here on out. For others, it’s just another age of distinction to add to the records; waltzing through the motions like clockwork, and nothing can break the rhythm. In light of it all, there is hope. The Age of Light marked the beginning of a new era for Utopia, as well as a future to tread into—a future where differences define the aspect of individuality, and excellence, as always, is recognized.

uTimes would like to apologize for the delay of the article as well as the missing pieces of information currently. Unfortunately, due to the lack of updates regarding the EoA Charts for Age 45, we can only go by what we know at hand. Should the Charts be updated in the near future, additional information will be added. Meanwhile, we would like to wish everyone a happy new age! Many thanks to all participating kingdoms and individuals so far for their time and contributions towards the EoA article, and any mistakes of facts, comments, or additional information you think you may want us to be aware about, please contact a staff member in #uTimes on IRC. Best of luck in the new age!

Comments

fimbul, from Sonata, #1 NW/Land KD, commented,
"We must believe in luck. For how else can we explain the success of those we don't like?"

flogger, from Mercy of Absalom, #3 NW/Land KD, commented,
"So that means we're 3rd best, right?"

AquaSeaFoam, from Rage of Absalom, #4 NW/Land KD, commented,
"Boooorrrrrrrrriiing."

Fate1316, from Whispers, #2 Honor KD, commented,
"Rock Paper Scissors is not for the faint of heart. If you want to be the best, learn to use the bowl."

Fallstaff, from Seduction TF, #3 Honor KD, commented,
"Nice to get #3 in honor. Kingdom did great."

CallipygianOne, from Balance, #4 Honor KD, commented,
"We feel that we had our strongest age yet. If given the opportunity to war anyone we believe that we would hold our own. Look for a strong showing from us next age. Oh and I <3 Pandas."

Death, from Bring It On, #5 Honor KD, commented,
"I like to thanks BIO for yet another great age and hope to have many more :)"

Sam, from The Trumvirate, #1 NW/Land Province, commented,
"I'd like to thank dubai and Big for all their help, as well as all the players of 7:5, good luck in your new home. Thanks as well to everyone who has helped me on a previous attempt: all of 7th's crew, dubai again, and jdorje for lots of help as well."

Syntico, from Sonata, #3 Land/#5 NW Province, commented,
"I'd love to explain my Big Boing Theory, how about my place.. saturday?"

flogger, from Mercy of Absalom, #5 Land/#4 NW Province, commented,
"I take great pride in the fact that I'm the only utopian lazy enough not to walk away with an age win."