Test Article
This article is taken from issue #35 from the Orkfian Times.
As reported in last issue (issue 34), Head of Orkfia Martel announced he will now host two versions of Orkfia on his server much to the joy of many players.
Rather than having to choose which version you play, every person is able to have one tribe on each server.
Originally when ORKFiA started back in 2001 the plan was for it to have each age lasting around 6 real time weeks, with a full reset inbetween each age so players could start afresh.
This meant there was no heritage and every single tribe every age, regardless of how badly or well they had done in the past had an equal start at 250 acres.
The market and science of each alliance was set back to zero and the protection period was 48 real time hours. This meant that as everyone came OOP (Out Of Protection) at the same moment you could get away with a much lower DPA (Defence Per Acre) than the 450+ DPA you tend to think is normal in Infinity. This was because you knew other people could only have so much offence available to attack with after 48 hours and you knew they could not have much science bonus yet.
A big part of the game was indeed the protection period as if you could get it right you could grow from 250 to 750 or even 1000+ acres before protection was up, then if you could combine this with enough defence to deter other players from attacking you at OOP time and a little bit of offence you could come OOP with all guns blazing and attack those poor unfortunates who did not train enough defence.
If you perfected this you would be the envy of the rest of Orkfia, certainly gaining the respect of your alliance mates and being ahead now could put you ahead for the whole age.
But for those who got their protection period wrong, it meant your whole age would be ruined as it was an almost impossible task to catch up (although it has been done).
Some people would try to be a bigshot and explore to 1k+ acres but then discover they didn’t have enough defence come OOP and become a landfarm to enemies whilst their alliance either point and laugh at them or boot them out… You could be so paranoid about this that you explore to only 500 acres and then come OOP with so much defence you cripple your growth and lag behind for the rest of the age.
The worst scenario is when you worked out a perfect strategy after spending hours poring over the guides and using the Species strat tester (linked in the player guide under “useful tools”)… you would feel so pleased that you were going to come OOP and be King of Orkfia for certain. It might involve arranging your sleep pattern at four hour intervals through the night, and calling in sick to work/school but it was worth it. Then after 41 hours of hardly any sleep and working through the strat you discover a fatal flaw – that you haven’t trained soldiers and you will come OOP with no defence. This scenario caused many an Orkfian to break down and cry.
Alliances were made or broken in those crucial first 48 hours and it was a pressure to get it right as the stakes were high – 6 weeks of fun and taunting others with your beautiful tribe or 6 weeks of misery waiting for the next age to begin so you can try again.
It was a harsh cycle, but one Orkfians were used to and Orkfia existed that way until early Autumn 2006 when the Infinity concept came in.
Infinity is the current game which has been running for the past year. Infinity still has ages but there is no gap in play so you can fit your schedule around yourself. If you turn up in the middle of an age it makes no difference so you can happily create a tribe and play straight away. If you mess up, you can recreate in peace without the pressure of everyone else being ahead of you.
However it is no easy ride as after your 8 hour protection period again you will often find you need to raise your defence per acre pretty rapidly if you are to survive, due to the ongoing accrual of science by some alliances some tribes can have huge bonuses in offence – so you are safe from no one.
