Ikariam Basics-Please Read Upon Your Acceptance to the Alliance

Welcome to Hereos of Trait alliance!

Please find some helpful tips to ensure your success here!

How not to be an easy target…

1.ALWAYS keep your hideouts at least 2 levels higher than your town hall.

2. Build your walls and keep them at least the same level as your town hall or higher.

3. Build up your warehouses and check safe storage space. Resources that are safe in your warehouses (you can build more than one and keep them as permanent buildings or demolish them later) can not be pillaged.

4. Donate wood to your island resources!!! Pillagers and Pirates look for justified “reasons” to attack you. If you are not donating to your islands you are considered a leacher and there is a very good chance you will be attacked for it! Most players have been on the islands you inhabit for long periods of time and the mills and mines are at the levels they are because of their past donations. As a resident of the islands you are expected to donate wood weekly to all your mines and mills. If you aren’t donating we can’t justify defending you if you are called out as a leacher.

Ikariam revolves around these 3 things:
Strategy
Social Interaction
Building
Those are the reasons why people like the game. It requires time and effort, but becomes extremely fun after time.

In Ikariam, I have found there are four things that are very important
1.Space and Happiness (= population).
2.Talking skills (diplomacy) and tactical skills.
3.Logic.
4.Activeness.
Because your Ikariam account can become fairly "personalized", you can really get into it. There is also so much you can do with it.

Building is a fun thing to do
Pillaging is a fun thing to do
Trading and/or monopolizing your local market can be fun too
Being an active member of your alliance can too be fun.

In the beginning you have a town hall, 10 available building slots, 1 wall slot (for a wall, lol) and 2 sea slots.
Here are theories on importance of certain structures:

Most Important (should try to get all of these in your towns):
Hideout - need to protect sensitive information within your empire/town
Warehouse - need for storage space in your town
Carpenter - when you have all upgrades and a full carpenter, you can have a 46% cut from your building wood cost, nearly a 50% off deal for all structures!
Architect Office - same deal as carpenter, except only for marble (used in almost all buildings)
Tavern - Provides happiness based on wine consumption
Museum - Provides happiness based on cultural treaties (sign with other people)
Governor Residence/Palace - if you have other towns, this is a MUST. It is expensive, but stops all corruption when the GR level is equal to colony total.

You now have 3 build slots left! Let's look at the options

Academy - should attempt to get in all towns, but not necessary, provides scientists for research.
Barracks - build troops here
Embassy - allows you to join an alliance, as well as sign garrison rights and trade treaties. You'll need only one of these in your empire but I'd recommend building it up so you'll have diplomacy points for garrison rights and treaties
Trade Post - so you can sell your surplus goods
Lux building - these include Forester, Stonemason, Alchemist tower, Glassblower and Winegrower. They provide a 2% bonus per level, which can become REAL handy.
Workshop - not necessary, but nice to upgrade your troops
Optician - put this in a town, and fully upgrade it, and you can chug out experiments fast and thus get technology faster.

Bad buildings
Temple - you need islander cooperation for this, and the payoff is just not worth it. Don't bother with it! (I will say we use one in BOMB currently though and it’s a nice option to have if you want, but you’ll need to help utilize the alliance members so message Kassandra if you are wanting to build a temple somewhere)
Fireworks shack - not necessary, because the only thing it cuts price from is military units and the GR upgrade, and it just isn't worth that when something more valuable could be there.
Spare warehouse - you don't need this, unless your doing something real expensive or are trying to keep resources safe. So better not waste space.

So now hopefully you can make more careful decisions about what YOU build!
Come up with a building strategy, and apply that to your towns. The goal is to create an efficient town that puts every build slot to it's fullest capability.

You wanna get a trading port, and upgrade it a lot. The bigger it is, the faster you can load stuff, and the faster it get's out. Nice to have large ports in a mass resource evacuation. Ports are also important as they help with loading troops out of your towns quickly. If allies station their troops in your towns in large amounts then they will be stuck loading forever if you have small trading ports.

Etiquette & Communication : Before you go off willy nilly, you should read the rules. If you break them, guess what! Your banned! Not fun, trust me. Sometimes bans are short, some are permanent, but it is very important that you keep yourself in line, or else
Also, this kind of goes with diplomacy. There are certain things you have to know about Ikariam communication. 1.Don't be arrogant unless you can be arrogant. 2. Don't get mad. Always try to stay calm, you'll be respected, and respect is key in a game where by the click of a button you could be attacked. Don't get mad especially if someone much larger than you pillaged you. Whining to the pillager only gives them entertainment, and even I love this sadistic form of comedy, point being... If you do complain to the pillager, simply ask in the flattest way possible why they pillaged you, and what you can do to change it. Overall, just maintain your public image, it can damage your account if someone doesn't like you and they always attack you cause they don't like you.

Also, donate to your luxury resource production spot and your lumber mill. People will attack you if you don't cooperate. You will also be respected on your island. If you don't, you may be pillaged.

Finding a large player is also a good move in Ikariam. A large player normally can supply you with necessary resources that you need/want but aren't available. They can also provide protection, trade, and some kind of "companion" within Ikariam. They are definitely nice to have. Feel free to look for BOMB members who share your islands or are near your area. Message them and make friends. I am sure they will be happy to help or trade with you if they are able.

Playstyle: By 50k points, your playstyle may be fairly set, but playstyle can almost never be set in stone, unless your a hardcore INSERT PLAYSTYLE HERE. Basically, there are three main playstyles, but they all revolve around building (or at least normally): Pacifist, Pirate, Warrior, Trader.
Pacifists pretty much protect but don't pillage for resources, and self gather the resources that they need. Fairly boring, but most players are pacifists in the beginning. Pirates live off the young or weak to gather resources, while gathering resources themselves too. Pirates can become both infamous and/or hated, but it is a fun style! Warriors fight other people their size, normally order keepers, and can be a mix of pirate and pacifist (pirating large ruffians and instigators). Traders trade for resources. Normally, you evolve into your playstyle based on your environment (a peaceful area may make a hardcore pacifist or someone who takes advantage of the local weaklings and becomes a fat pirate).

Economy: Marble is used for buildings, crystal for anything to do with technological advancement, sulfur for soldiers, wine for taverns (happiness) and wood for pretty much everything. By colonizing, you can expand your economy gold-wise and resource-wise. Each citizen of your town produces both a negative effect on your happiness and 3 gold in taxes per hour. If they are working, they don't pay taxes, and if they are scientists, they both don't pay taxes and cost 6 gold upkeep. Resource production buildings like the Saw Mill have a limit on workers. Eventually, this limit will LIMIT you. You'll want to expand. You do so by donating, which is why it is so important to donate, more workers. More non-workers, more gold, more workers more resources. You can view gold stuff by clicking the gold icon in the upper left hand corner, with gold in it.

Combat:
Land combat:
In land combat, there are four actions: Deploy troops or defend town (deploy troops is only available if it's currently occupied, in your alliance, occupied by someone in your alliance, your diplomat has a garrison rights treaty with that guy specific town, or you have a garrison rights treaty with that guy's specific town). These are normally defensive actions. The offensives ones are occupy (put troops in a town forcefully, occupied player gets 10% of any loot gathered by pillaging other towns via that town) and pillage (you loot someone of their stuff.)

There are 5 major sections, 4 of them are key, and 1 is useful later.

The main four are:
Frontline
Flank
Ranged
Auxiliary

The fifth is
Air

The goal of the battle is to either:
a.) decimate the enemy's army to have victory
b.) run their morale out to have victory

Your front line has two key units, Hoplite and Steam Giant. If you run out (which basically means YOU LOSE) of these troops, all other types will drain into it, because it is the key element of your army.

Your flanks, if they break through the enemies flank, will attack ranged, siege, and frontliners, and cause a negative morale effect on the enemy.

Ranged units support your front line (maybe flanks) by shooting other people, which can be helpful, especially when the gunsman comes in, who does about 11 more damage than a hoplite.

Auxiliary units provide morale or heal troops. the cook (morale) is necessary, while the doctor (healer) is a nice addition.

Air power basically does this...

Bombardiers blow things up, starting with siege, while gyrocopters protect bombardiers. Only air units can attack other air units.

Each of these can and DO play an extremely important role in victory. For example, an army without a flank will quickly be crushed by one that does.

Naval battles are strait forward. There are front line ships and ranged ships. They attack frontline ships. Dive boats can only be attacked by dive boats, and are "unlocked" by research later on in the game, and they attack boats on the surface, like a submarine.

Research: At the academy, you can adjust your scientist total. The more scientists, the more research you can make. From these things, you get a certain amount of research points per hour, and they pool up until you have enough research points to buy a research, at which point it is available to buy by research points. Some researches increase the scientists research output. You need researches for military, economic, scientific and diplomat & seafaring advancements.

Now go out there and apply these tips and information to your account!