So there I was on my holidays in the Basque country in southern France (had a lovely time, thank you for asking) when I spotted this in a church. How curious and in fact reminded me that I had not even thought about GEWar for nearly 3 weeks! Imagine my surprise when I returned yesterday to find all my cities taken by an AO alliance!
Indeed GEWar moves in mysterious ways!
So the reset is here! Woot! Not as exiting as the last one, but interesting nonetheless.
I must say it was absolutely awesome playing in Ronin, each and everyone in the alliance was superb. Special respect to pitoh for taking leadership responsibility when no-one else wanted to after Othafa. He did a grand job. Big up the Mighty P!
Well I won't be in an alliance next reset BUT I will still be playing! So look out those who may have peeved me off :0
So as many will know and have debated bank interest will be cancelled as of 18 July.
I welcome this as it will reduce those players who do nothing but save and then only act before a reset.
Things still need to be done to encourage long term players such as a levels score like they have in other online games. I do not refer to the levels system that is in the donators game as that refers to different worlds. Each player should have a system which rates their experience in the game. This could be a composite derived from the new score system?
Well the reset looms large so wishing everyone a rollocking reset ride!
Things have been quiet on the blogging front I know, so Dr GEWarLove brings you an interview with the player Biggest to keep the readers going.
How did you first get into GEWar?
By accident - stumbled across it whilst doing some work we were hoping to link with Google Earth - was at work and logged in!
How long have you been playing it for?
Off and on for 18 months - work takes me away at times but then I get lots of time off - jewelling is king I think!
What newbie mistake(s) do you remember making?
Attacking too early - like most people? Just wanted to get going, but now I need to ensure I have sufficient reserves to continue fighting.
What are the good things about GEWar, what are the bad things?
I've met, spoken to loads of people from across the world - it is a great community - I don't add to the forum though - I read it with interest but spend more time analysing and planning both inside the alliance and with others. The worst, apart from the addiction is the way some people forget it is a game, a break from reality - the way the whole world has an interest is fantstic.
What were the memorable moments for you in GEWar?
I've watched many good players, seen many great battles for the resource cities, loads of nukings but overall I liked the The Whirlpool Alliance from Australia and their "battles" with GDI - lots of little spats, but I really liked is when they combined to attack the Chinese - took me a while to work out what was going on!
Do you think you will be playing GEWar in 2 years time?
I really hope so - work has taken me away too often recently - if things improve globally then maybe I'll be able to sit behind a desk and get home every night to play etc. My job is brilliant but gets in the way of GEWar!
Many thanks to Biggest!
There is an interesting thread going on where new players (those who have played for less than a month) can write a short autobiography to win some geos.
Go check it out.
++Update++
Lol, seems an oversight in the competition has been spotted by xorgthezombie.
Also I do believe I have received my first blog spam in the comments to this post. Apparently, according to BabelFish, the guy is selling personalised t-shirts!
To paraphrase a famous (misquoted) saying "Peace in our time" (very much hoping of course that Ronin does not end up with egg on face like Neville Chamberlain did before WWII!), Ronin has come to a peace settlement with BNW.
Of course there are still a few issues including for example some BNW members getting to hear of it, disagreements over prices of Indian cities, Indian cities being sold off to other alliances etc but nothing that cannot be ironed out.
The new scoring system may well have played its part in this outcome as it means that BNW's original goal of obtaining a gold star is pretty much out of reach.
Speaking of which the general consensus is that the scoring system is a welcome change to the game. It has certainly opened up the game and it seems it is much more dynamic, of course this is still early days and inevitably diplomacy will balance out the initial attacking phase.
A picture of pitoh celebrating:
Is "protected" the new black? There seems to be a new trend in one man alliances being "protected" by a bigger alliance:
"protected by BNW"
"RED DWARF PROTECTEDalliance"
"dont touch me or red dwarf will hurt you"
"dont touch me or Ronin will hurt you"
By the way the Ronin one is not in anyway affiliated to us, when we messaged the player he replied he was "trying to start a war in this boring game".
The most popular name variation at the moment is Red Dwarf.
And the funniest is: "i got new shoes today woot woot and i love hannah" which funnily enough has an ex-Ronin member.
After the bad news about the speed slots some good news, BNW have been denied gold star status for another month!
Events unfolded about 0400 server time Tuesday 12 June when xmen_oz took Tokyo:
One of the biggest single battles in a while for sure.
This was followed by an assault on Mumbai by our own kerithp and bringing up the rear was yours truely with an invasion of Kolkata.
Reaching for the stars is not as easy as it looks ;)
Apparently you can no longer load "multiple tabs" in your browser to do the slots. The reason cited was load on the server. This was our main tactic to bring down shields so a set back there for us. Queries have been made as to what constitutes "multi tabbed" browsing. But we are not holding our breath.
Another new feature, a score system has been introduced, Luke and his team have been busy, well done!
It will be reset in a few days then expect all sorts of activity! Will this silence the whiners? I doubt it, a new generation of said people will pop up no doubt.
A new industry feature has been added. Hopefully this will develop so that attackers can get a percentage of the industry as loot? Also maybe armies could be bought more cheaply the more industry you have?
In other news the cost of nukes has gone down to 3000 geos.
Well the much talked about new feature has been implemented. This will indeed open up new tactical interest and could not have come at a better time for Ronin.
Leaving your city will cause shields to be dropped, this will mean even more careful scrutinising of the latest activity page!
Ever fancied running your own Reggae Sound System? Then check out Littlecountry.net.
The Mickey Dread and Reggae 2 are eirie!
Furthermore, Reggae lovers, I recommend you check out pitoh's tunes on his blog as well! (scroll down on the left of the page.)
Another Bloody Sunday somewhere in a distant land:
Is it wise to confide in an Internet gaming forum about personal issues? One brave soul did that recently when he decided to write about a doomed love affair. Obviously such a salacious bit of news in the otherwise staid atmosphere of a gaming forum drew much attention.
To what extent writing about the experience was cathartic and whether that justified the publication is very debatable. I for one would never open up as the author did even if it was very much related to GEWar. However I think he did the community a great service by alerting people to the issues involved.
Inevitably comments were made that upset the author and may have led to his recent decision to quit the game? All I can say is that though I do not know the guy I wish to say that what he did was a brave thing (ignoring the moral aspects of the story) and I applaud his decision.
Whoar. Nuketastic mate. Mana from heaven so to speak, well not if you were getting nuked that is. Tuesday morning about 0130 server time, the shields were brought down by slot playing Bisbicos. For the first hour or so I was sat twiddling my thumbs since I had no nukes and no cities. Luckily I was saved and a kind soul loaned me their cities.
maVerik reports some figures - though my tally was 5 not 4, tsk, tsk and he replicates brains with light switches for a living or something ;) - whilst DalairHudson provides an amusing commentary.
++Update++
Manitonda has done a nifty flash animation.
So I went to bed last night having dealt with some attacks from Yellow Submarine, all was well in GEWar world. There had been talk of BNW getting ready to attack us because of a dispute with one of our members. But seeing as we had a NAP with them, no worries in my mind about what was about to take place (well actually I did have some worries since I had dealings with BNW last reset and followed what was going on when they fought SJ)...
...I get up this morning and yes I had been zeroed and Ronin were no longer at the top of the ranks. Well what a nice start to the day!
BNW took their opportunity and profited, kudos to them. And actually not having any cities, relinquishing all worldly goods as it were, is a surprisingly pleasant experience.
Well we shall regroup and let BNW take the strain of trying to keep that value hehe.
...for holding a city for nearly 9 hours. We have not been keeping records but surely this must be the longest they have held a city?
Hmm, maybe Ronin should initiate a prize for the length of time YS/NA are able to keep a city. Off the top of my head, perhaps the prize could be advice on how to use bonds?
In other news AO are warring with RD, making the server very slow lol (though the number of armies I have currently is not helping server speed either!). Anyway good luck to both and wish them the maximum amount of fun.
I am pleased to bring you an interview with an OG or Original GEWarrior, indienestmonnom, who provides an interesting reflection on wider and higher goals for GEWar.
How did you first get into GEWar?
I jumped into Gewar in August 2005, around the 15th, i believe. I had just discovered GE and i was searching for a wargame using it. I found GoogleEarthHacks, Mickey and... It has began. I’m 39 years old now, and since i was a child, i’ve always been a fan of the Risk game, and saying, a fan of every kind of wargame. Gewar still be the best for me.
What newbie mistake(s) do you remember making?
Making other alliances’ cities as a waypoint (and being attacked outside, of course), attacking with only one huge army, forgetting to put a nukeshield on high value cities, believing that i’m the strongest... All current noob mistakes...
What are the good things about GEWar, what are the bad things?
It fits exactly the ergonomy of the GE’s rounded map, rules are simple and efficient, and the network worldwide process brings an incredible psychological and diplomatic dimension to the tactical game. This last point can make anykind of board wargame evolve to a RPG, and we often see how it can affect individual egos...
Because, worse in GEwar is... Its players ! Most of them are young guns, very proud and mindless, too much self-determined, acting without any consideration for their own alliance, always fantasizing about absolute power... But, most of the time, when they keep playing after one year, they learn about self-effacement, about patience and solidarity...
This makes me come to my main opinion about Gewar. What misses the more to this game is a political approach of playing. Look, there are a lot of alliances. Most of them are poor and not very active. In the top ten, we see un-determined alliances’ relationships. I mean that we fight each other (when we’re compelled) without any conceptual, or idealistic reasons. We fight because we used to be enemies (we could also be allies without any more reason), or because we’re defending an ally, or because we don’t like some other players... But where’s the goal ? Be the top one ? What for ? Everybody is defeatable, just need the geos. Is it a question of geos, then ? So, money’s everything in both real life and game ?
So, my wishes would be to get more significant policy, as in real life. Not an RPG style (because we’re not exactly playing a role), but a combination of real shared geographic roots, culture, language, political opinions. Let’s try to reorganize alliances like the real world and see if the balance of power ends on same results ! For example, i’m not an extremist in any way, and i’ll always want to fight fascism or dictatorship directly. And i’m quite sure, that there are some players in Gewar who will be my preferred targets if their alliance was formed around those kind of idea... I’ll have a real reason to fight. Our motivation will be strongest both sides, and the process of self-assimilation, who guarantee the success of good stories, will allow GEwar to get to a higher level in 21st century’s games. Except the fact that playground map is copied on real earth, it will become as fame as “Second Life”, but with wargame internal mechanism...
What is the background and vision behind the Federation/Coalition?
This was a part of what is said above. I would like the European continent to be organized, as a single force, like we try to do in real life. And for now, there are opposite points of view between involved alliances in Europe. More or less, two sides, which were called the Federation (Ukraine, SJ, NO and some others) and the Coalition (UN, SSC and some others). Since AO declared war to NO, since SJ left all their cities, since Ukraine came down and SSC met various problems, everybody has its own thing to sort out. You’ll hear more later about the Federation, for sure. The fact is that UN isn’t very active, currently, but that’s another story...
What were the memorable moments for you in GEWar?
Memorable moments are greatest moments of NO:
- when NO was owning the whole European continent and farther, from Scotland to Iraq, from Casablanca to Moscow, all cities were orange !!
- when NO took Atlantis, the mythical and temporary city.
Do you think you will be playing GEWar in 2 years time?
Yes. Definitely. I consider that this game is at its youngest age. Many evolutions can make it become one of the most famous game in the world. Stay tuned !
Many thanks to indienestmonnom!
I bought a GP2X recently. At first I thought I had made a big mistake. I initially wanted something to play video that I could use in my classes without the need to carry my portable computer. The GP2X has a tv-out and can play all videos after conversion. However there are dedicated portable media players out there and I was thinking maybe I should have gone for one of those....
...and then I loaded up some emulators! Man! Woot! Now I can play arcade classics and console classics. Of the console games I have been impressed with the Sega Megadrive emulator (Picodrive) and the Game Boy Advance emulator (Gpsp). Of course the MAME emulator kicks ass for memory lane fans!
Plus since the handheld uses a modified Linux OS all of the above software and more can be downloaded free. Of course it is not for the casual user who can opt for a PSP.
If you like your classic games I can easily recommend the GP2X. And come on what modern games can beat them for gameplay?!
No I am not talking about a rave. I have not pulled an all-nighter in GEWar since near the end of the last reset. And the one other time when I was in Incognito. The reason for this one is that NA have been active and luckily for me no work tomorrow!
Near the end of the session, as I was getting tired, I managed to pm the opposition instead of my leader pitoh, lol. Luckily for me it was not a crucial pm, rather innocuous. The opposition guy pmed me back highly amused.
So might as well add that I was hugely disappointed not to win the blog competition. Boo hoo hoo. Congratulations to helo though and I echo his wish that at least some of the blogs keep going. And a big shout to all who did a blog even those who only did one entry, you know who you are you slackers!
Not much news wise in the game features though a post by fluteflute alerted me to some possible changes Luke is planning. Essentially making nuke shields more flexible and bringing a welcome addition to strategy in the game. Which I think is sorely lacking. Credit of course to pitoh for these ideas, though not sure if they had been raised before?
Now I am off to bed even though it is now morning. Good night!
Bill Shankly, the celebrated Liverpool manager from the sixties, famously said one time :
Some people believe football is a matter of life and death.
I'm very disappointed with that attitude.
I can assure you it is much, much more important than that.
Lol, okay this post is somewhat related to gaming and hence to GEWar. You see the connection and agree with my reasoning don't you? I can't seem to resist posts which contain scantily clothed women recently. I think it is because the weather has turned very fine here recently, and the smell of summer is around the corner!
Again hat tip to Virtual Illusion for the video.
In a series of one day matches at Wuhan and Basco, on dry arid wickets the opening batsman of Team Bot Alliance was dealt a thumping blow by the superb pace bowling of GDTV. The decisive game came at Wuhan.
The crowd seemed to be settling in to watch a long innings by the mighty willow whacker 'Banny, as he is know affectionately by his GEWar fans. But GDTV from Team Tiger blasted down the pitch and clean bowled the City Terroriser.
The tailender WarPeace_Clone, unaffectionately known as the Git, is making a stand at Cairo.
Wuhan scorecard:
Some post match commentary by Luke.
Sports is another crucial example of the indoctrination system . . . It offers people something to pay attention to that is of no importance . . . It keeps them from worrying about things that matter to their lives that they might have an idea of something about . . . People have the most exotic information and understanding about all sorts of arcane issues . . . It's a way of building up irrational attitudes of submission to authority, and group cohesion behind leadership elements, in fact its training in irrational jingoism . . . That's why energy is devoted to supporting them . . . and advertisers are willing to pay for them.
This feature is about salacious and not so salacious gossip that is currently doing the rounds in the GEWar community. All names will be anonymous to protect the guilty.
So the current buzz round the GEWar cooler is that one well known player from the past, lets call him, totally randomly of course, PB, has re-appeared under a new guise. Said character was well known, loved and hated in equal measure.
The newly reincarnated player, let's abbreviate, again totally randomly to the letter G, has already been muted, a characteristic shared by the former incarnation.
Onto new machinations: a noob S, sent out a pm asking three players help in attacking a city. Now most observers would say that this is somewhat peculiar. Fine, ask for advice but help in attacking a city on the day you join? Unless one is totally tactless this is really far-fetched.
The cynical amongst you may be thinking that it was a ploy by another alliance to cause mischief? NO surely not. And you perceptive people may well be right!
Remember dear readers, you heard it here first, off the record, on the QT and very hush hush.
Should you hear of any rumours/slander/gossip and all things speculative please get in touch. Confidentiality assured.
So another installment of what will be occasional chats with various GEWar players. Today we talk with Angel, another GEWar Grrl gamer.
How did you first get into GEWar?
My brother played it some months and told me about GEwar. I created an account and was addicted ;-)
Bad things: I think Luke is sitting on the wrong horse called "new version". With some improvements this version would be more than enough..There are tons of good suggestions in the forums, but nearly nothing is implemented..
Boss Hogg that cheeky, money grabbing, over-eating County Commissioner from the Dukes Of Hazard and Rabban the city hungry, attention-seeking megolomaniac from GEWar, surely twin brothers separated at birth by some unfortunate/fortunate series of events? You don't agree? Witness the eerily similar cheeky yet deranged smile; imagine Rabban in white holding a fat ciger shouting "I'm gonna git me those Dukes!". You agree now don't you? I hazard a guess that Rabban's true mission is to be re-united with his long lost sibling. Luke, we must be told the truth!
And stay tuned for "Sheriff Rosco P Co's Boss Hogg files"...
++Update++
So we have a new player "WarPeace_Clone" who is Rabban's accomplice. Hmm...sounds like maybe the long lost brothers are now re-united? I shall be monitoring to see if the price of cotton goes up due to a sudden demand for white linen suits with matching ten-gallon hats!
So the mysterious 'flu' caught by our armies was a very well done April Fools joke. Well done Luke and the team.
Furthermore, I think that there is some merit there for having this or something similar as a permanent feature. That is, armies out of cities or homebases would have a limited life-time. It would encourage more thoughtful use of spare armies. This may well encourage more fighting and also would reduce unnecessary load on the server.
By the way, I managed to fall twice for the disguised "secret admirer" post, once by the wily jester Luke and once by Suicidal, that brings my tally to six! Damn! I is truely a fool.
Has the "baddy" Rabban added anything to GEWar? Has it made playing GEWar more interesting? Certainly a handful of players seem to be engaged by this "character". Some, like nimchief, are not convinced. I have enjoyed thinking about the backstory but how long will even this interest last? And the story of Ronin will only really be interesting to Ronin players, even if that!
Peter Molyneux is a big name in the computer games industry, in the clip below he talks about trying to engage games players by making characters they really care about.
And the next clip is an interesting montage of the evolution of videogames over the last thirty years.
Hat tip to Virtual Illusion for both of the above videos.
There it was again, "ratatata ratata tata ta", it was definitely coming from the other side of the valley. The unmistakable sound of small arms gunfire. Shaomian had just found another crystal of life in the never ending, magnificent valleys of the Himalayas. He was quickly becoming very addicted to the hunt for these since his first encounter with one. He did not know how to rationalise the amazing energy these crystals seemed to radiate. His whole being seemed to be boosted and he partially guessed now that he was hooked on these things much like a drug addict.
Quickly he made his way over to the stream that was meandering lazily in the spring morning. He was sure he had heard the cutting blades of an attack helicopter rising above the sound of the gunfire. There was some better cover closer to the far side of the stream and a good vantage point for whatever was heading here from the adjoining valley.
As he settled down for what he calculated may be a wait of a few hours he cast his mind back to what the old monk had told him about the crystals.
"Yes these crystals of life are very powerful, so much so that you can quickly lose your rational sense and your mind would react purely on an emotional basis. From the outside your behaviour would very much approximate to that of paranoid schizophrenia. Yet from your point of view you would very much believe you were in control. Fortunately most human minds burn out from the experience before they can do much harm to others. Others who have been trained in the ways of mindfulness can last longer. And there are the rare individuals who are born being able to cope with this power. One such fellow studied in the same monastery as I did many moons ago. A remarkable student but cursed with a coldness that left him isolated from others."
Shaomian somehow knew that the monk was talking about Rabban although the monk knew him by another name. "Yes this fellow who you know as 'Rabban' was very much skilled in the ways of combat by the time he left our monastery. Unfortunately he did not want to continue learning our philosophy once he had discovered the existence of the crystals. He left suddenly one night with a copy of the map after murdering our librarian to get it."
The stockmarket, I don't see the point really. I remember when I first started I was wow okay so lets look for trends, is it on the up, hmm can we short this stock? And then lo and behold I was informed that all stocks were on a cycle, pretty boring really, no real room for analysis.
About three people in my alliance use the stocks regularly and seem enthused with it. Some want it to reflect a real stockmarket with price dependent on how many buyers and sellers there are and for it to be linked to the geos circulating in the game. I would like to see this but as many previous discussions in the forum have revealed this would detract from the main aim of GEWar.
A more volatile stockmarket may be in the running though so bigger swings would make watching the stocks slightly more interesting than say watching NA post their latest whines considered opinion on the state of GEWar.
PMS Clan is an all-girl gaming club of more than 250 members. Their motto:
We may have boobs, but that doesn't make us nØØbs.
Well my story began a couple months ago, when my roommate discovered this intense program called Google Earth. For weeks I would sit and watch him play on this globe like, user interface. Once I became bored of watching, I actually downloaded it myself. However, he was again, way ahead of me. He was already off searching for more things we could do with our new favorite toy, Google Earth. It didn't take long before he found a game that used our new toy as the main game board. While he was off, slowly becoming addicted, I was still mesmerized by Google Earth. It wasn't until he refused to go to sleep some nights and used the excuse "I need to occupy this nuked city", when I realized what I was missing. I quickly jumped on board, and ever more quickly became "addicted". However, I consider it more of a passion now, than an addiction. Haha.
While others talk Ronin acts and yesterday made a stand against the attention seeker Rabban. At the city of Nuevo Laredo, the stupendous act of bravery by Ronin disciple scanlan can be seen below:
Who will be next to step up to the plate? Who will walk the walk and not just talk the talk?
++Update++
Just for those who may have missed them, check out Lykos's Agent Wolfe's Rabban Update Files to keep up with the latest antics of the wannabe meglomaniac.
So my alliance leader the mighty pitoh has a blog, the latest GEWar related post titled "We are the Center of the Universe" had me cracking up. Nice one peenyman! :)
Attention all you donator game players enter the New GEWar Design competition. Shadowdani has offered a prize:
The author of the winning style will get a high trained army with the size of your choice (there is a limit though, but it is pretty high ) and the geo amount of its upkeep for one week, based on your current upkeep.
An interesting show armies tool done by Hovard, another option should Google Earth keep crashing on you!
++Update++
After fluteflute's comments, I raised a query through helpdesk, they responded:
show_armies.php should only be opened through Google Earth. A whole can of worms has been opened here with the links to hovards tool. I am sure that the coders are working to block it.
The young disciple looked up, the curator was bringing her what looked like some refreshments.
"My, you are a keen scholar, aren't you? You've been there for some hours,” he said “but please don’t forgot to rest and recuperate that brain of yours. Here’s some hot chai, just the ticket.”
“Thank you” she replied taking a cup. “The translation is taking longer than I thought. But, err... I don’t understand the 'just the ticket' reference? Obviously an idiomatic expression but I have not come across it before”
“One cannot be expected to know everything eh!” he joked back. “By the way you do know that the book you are reading was originally part of a larger set? Unfortunately those originals are not here but we do have copies.” Then out of thin air he produced a reference crystal. “This has the copies of what has now been termed The GEWar Bible.” Then he left adding “You can use the washbasin near the door to clean the cup.”
The disciple looked around for a ystal-reader and saw a reading lounge towards the far left-hand side wall of the Ancient Earth history room.
The second moon of the planet was now casting its light into the room. She was reminded now how long she had already been there and thankful that the curator was looking after her.
She took the nearest recliner and hooked up the crystal. The reader flickered alive.
°°access Main Index°°
°°°loading°°°
[]The GEWar Bible
An interesting new project, City Market, by Martok who brought you the modded script Redux2. He describes it:
The goal of this service is to become the favourite place if you want to expand and are looking for a city in a specific place, or if you want to get fast cash for your little pacific island.Looks like it could prove to be very useful. Note it is still in test phase.
The other way round, newbies will be able to come here and get a city of their own, probably cheaper than on the free market. This is possible due to the fact that I keep cities for a few days, thus making a bit of profit before selling.
It was during the tumultous period when Rabban had just been elected to the Senate that a young doctor, Shaomian Itaima, attended one of the newly elected senator’s victory speeches. Shaomian had just struggled through a long arduous shift at the hospital, he was exhausted. He thought he would get used to seeing the blood, be able to handle the screams, but it seemed the civil disorder was getting worse and the army was relentless in its brutality on the people.
He had to admit that Rabban was charismatic, his words seemed to hypnotise those present. Although he did not like to see himself as an idealist, the young medic was enthralled. After working, elbow deep in the misery of broken limbs, spilt intestines, ear-shattering screams, Shaomian was looking for salvation.
And here now was a senator that was saying that he wanted a world with no armies, no borders, no nuclear weapons of mass destruction.
By the time Rabban was elected world leader Shaomian had gotten tired and dis-illusioned with medicine, with saving those he could, only to see them on the operating table the next week. He had voted for Rabban but the more he learnt of the iconic leader the more he grew disturbed. A colleague had recently left the profession and joined one of the many new armies that were organising and jostling for power in the emerging chaos. Shaomian joined him, leaving his old life of blood for a new one.
After the fall and arrest of Rabban, Shaomian was fighting in the TLI alliance when he decided to quit and retreat from the world that had become more and more cruel. He travelled far and learnt many ancient secrets. On one such occasion whilst resting near the foot of Mount Fuji he crossed paths with an old monk. Being the only souls that they had seen in many moons they immediately struck up a conversation. It turned out that the monk had in fact not seen another person for 50 years, and was very keen to hear of the news from the life that he too had shunned all those years earlier. In gratitude for the exchange the monk gave Shaomian a map.
“This map,” said the monk “contains the locations of the jewels of life. It is said that whoever finds these jewels will become powerful. And that such a power can bring order to chaos.”
“Ah! So you have found the place which many have looked for since its destruction.” The young Ronin disciple squinted uneasily at the curator of the library which many had indeed thought was but a legend. The old man moved gracefully towards the young woman and reached out his hand to greet her in the way it was said that humans greeted each other many centuries ago.
Having studied ancient Earth history and customs the disciple immediately held out her hand, and clasped the old man’s hand with a firm grip.
“Good, good,” chuckled the curator “You are not as green as you seem,” he waved his hand towards a massive oak door. “Follow me,” he said curtly and the two of them walked into the Ancient Earth history room.
Without trying to hide her amazement the disciple gasped at the room that she was led into, it was unlike any library she had ever been in. Marble floors shimmered like light from water. There were jewels encrusted on the bookshelves, twinkling like stars on a clear winter sky.
“This way,” said the old man as he led them into non-descript cubby-hole in the far corner of the room. It was far removed from the opulance of the main room.
“This...” said the curator pointing to a heavy brown book that was chained to a bookshelf “...is what you have been looking for.” The disciple let out a gasp, for indeed the book matched the description that she had deciphered in her many researches.
The curator seeing her excitement and what he detected as a little fear decided to leave the young woman to her thoughts.
Can this really be the book that the alliance spoke of? If so what light will it shed? She knew that even though many answers may lay hidden in there surely many more questions would also arise.
Luke has written a backstory as to how GEWar came to be. He gives some clues:
A long time ago I wrote the story of GEWar(part fictional, part based on events..though never posted).
Part of the story was the Character Rabban. A terrorist which lead to the fall of all governments, which started GEWar in the first place.
Well...let's just say that after his capture 2 years ago, he's escaped.
It struck me as odd how people tend to prefer the less intellectually demanding games for geos? For instance players seem to go mad for the PM Games Master closest to some set times game. Now, I can see the attraction of this - no thinking involved. And before you ask I did have a go! But heck unless you are a real saddo, you must have better things to do than hang around waiting for those times and on a Saturday to boot!
Why not manage your time better and have a go at say one of the quests that is run by Othafa? The current Quest 4 finishes on the 17 March. Trust me this quest is very straightforward, the tricky bit is to get the co-ordinates as close as possible to the location of the last picture.
And, okay, I admit I have not entered the maths puzzles set by XorgtheZombie, man I really do have better things to do!
For people who think that the GEWar forums are over-moderated, why not have a look at the new unmoderated forum brought to you by the people from the Standard.
Spies, hate 'em or hate 'em, they are inevitable. So how can you counter them?
Well let's talk to an ex-spy and see what we can learn :
Well I don't know too much about spying given my short career doing it. I can tell you that the only reason I wanted to spy was out of sheer boredom in my old alliance before it dissolved. It really isn't all its cracked up to be unless you have a good reason for doing it. Spies tend to work best it seems when they are closely related to the people they are spying for and not just a free agent.
I have noticed two major spying methods. The first involves low activity maybe on banking resources and seems to result in eventually being kicked. The second is what I did. I was as active as possible as much or more than most people in the alliance. A lot of people seem to have issues with this kind of spying because they end up feeling betrayed. I will say though that I'm not even sure how I was caught. I could have been ratted on or it could have been a script tracking me.
I would say don't spy if you want to hold large cities and be a solid player. Spy if you have nothing to lose and don't fear having your reputation tarnished.
PROJECT FAKE SPY
In this strategy you have a person who has just joined your alliance send out invitations for selling information about your alliance. The people then take the bait, and you send out FAKE'd info for geos. Great fund raiser for noobs. Probably can only be done once, and then BOOM! No more spying problems. Ever. Act outraged like it was a real spy.
REMEMBER:
According to General Patton:
"The only way to stop people is to make them stop playing the game."
1. Get hhmira's jewel file.
2. Get the resource planting overlays (right-click/save-as) :
Oil file (planting on the edges seems to give most barrels of oil)
Cotton file
Diamond file (you will need to contact ska for this file)
3. Invest in bonds
You can invest up to a maximum of 2500 geos in bonds, there are three types of bonds:
7 day (40%)
14 day (150%)
and 30 day (400%)
E.g. for a 14 day bond invest 178.5 (2500/14) geos each day.
Most people opt for the 14 day bond as the best compromise between risk and reward.
4. Get Martok's Redux 2 script from the script library. Read fluteflute's description of it.
++Update++
There's some useful information in this post, Tips for newbies, by Luke.
Okay Luke has confirmed that where you plant resources has no effect on the output you get, the same command runs each time. Ah well, at least your plantings can look orderly!
Hey pitoh man I thought you might find this interesting both professionally and personally!
More on the story here: Chef's reggae sauce for Sainsbury's
++Update++
Remarkably after this posting pitoh immediately bought two crates of the above mentioned Reggae Reggae Sauce. One of the consequences of this was felt by the unsuspecting city of Heraklion:
Luke was rumoured to be heading to Kingston to pick up the other crate of the increasingly popular sauce...
From time to time I will try to dig up what I think are useful/interesting past posts from the forum.
So the first one that I want to highlight is a strategy to deal with mercenaries from fahhem: Mercenary targetting you?
++Update++
If you want to do your own digging then fluteflute has put up a custom Google search called GEWar Search, this searches the old forum site (hosted on Google Earth Hacks) as well as the current one.
Well I don't think I am going to have much time to do any postings in the next few days. In the meantime readers (I know there are some out there!) should check out some GEWar shaggy dog stories.
Hats off to WindRunner! Man that is some verbal diahorrea ;) C'mon, can anyone top him!?
++Update++
Unsurprisingly WindRunner won this game with a word count of 3164! Surprisingly my entry got censored! boo hoo :(
From Internet Addiction web site :
Answer "yes" or "no" to the following statements to see if you may be addicted to online gaming:
1. Do you need to play online games with increasing amounts of time in order to achieve the desired excitement?
2. Are you preoccupied with gaming (thinking about it when offline, anticipating your next online session)?
3. Have you lied to friends and family members to conceal extent of your online gaming?
4. Do you feel restless or irritable when attempting to cut down or stop online gaming?
5. Have you made repeated unsuccessful efforts to control, cut back, or stop online gaming?
6. Do you use gaming as a way of escaping from problems or relieve feelings of helplessness, guilt, anxiety, or depression?
7. Have you jeopardized or lost a significant relationship, or even risked your marriage because of your online gaming habit?
8. Have you jeopardized a job, educational, or career opportunity because of your online gaming habit?
If you answered "yes" to any of the above questions, you may be addicted to online gaming.
Here's me thinking players entering the Geos Blogspot game would naturally publicise each other's blogs. Think again, when I noticed the feed footer that fluteflute added to his blog settings :
Thanks for reading my GEWar blog. To advertise your GEWar blog here please deposit 1k into my GEWar account with a link to your blog. Thank You.
500 geos and a PM will get you a link on my Blog
+++Guest post+++
Sir,
I admit that the new latest activity comments are funny, and they have been admirably covered by fluteflute - New attacks 'comment' and by helo - Humour latest activity log. There are sure to be many grammar points for the English pedants amongst us, such as the spelling of 'beautifull' picked up by fluteflute.
Another grammatical point comes in the example attacks comments below :
______ could not bother less to have lost the city as the inhabitants were quite annoying with that dialect.
So the above is the scene when my GF is out for the night. Very relaxing!
Notice all the essential requirements, Google Earth monitoring the sacred territory, a nice Thai curry courtesy of the aforementioned GF and some liquid refreshment.
Lovely...
...Cheers!
This amusing post by Red Ivan reminded me of a song (many apologies to UB40!) :
Red, Red whine
Got to make another post
Make me forget that I
still need AO so
Red, Red whine
It's up to you the other alliances
All NA can do, we've done
But AO cities won't go
No they just won't go
I'd have thought
That with time
Thoughts of AO
Would leave my head
It was wrong
And I find
Just one thing makes me forget
Red, Red whine
NA stay close to me
Don't let me post alone
It's tearin' apart
My GEWAR heart
In GEWar you can play independently or in an alliance. My alliance is Ronin and needless to say they are fabulous. In alphabetical order:
Angel - divine but deadly
Gradaigh - you want defence you got it
il_sir - jaw jaw but if you piss him off then it is war war
kerithp - will save your soul before taking it
maVerik - don't mention BNW when he is around
nite_worker - don't sleep when he is around
nucleus - young gun quick on the draw
pitoh - brings the herbal heat
scanlan - down under lurker
Ska - lyrical murderer
SilentLucidity - eee its grim up north lad
sneeky - the Karachi kid
sowens - he's big in the other place
Of course each and every member has been in previous alliances, and I need to name check some players who are no longer in Ronin:
Othafa
TracyJunior
Jabotabek
akin
allskinners
mrfix
MountainBoy
1. GEWar is free. Though you can donate and get certain advantages.
2. If you ever liked the boardgame Risk, chances are, you will like this game.
3. Get to know and use Google Earth.
4. Make great new online friends!
5. TV is dead. Long live GEWar!
That was my first GEWar blog post!
