Grepolis Tools of Trade

Usefull links of stats sites

http://www.grepostats.com/world/en1/index

http://en1.grepolismaps.org/

http://grepolis.gamestats.org/?lang=en

http://www.grepotools.co.uk/

http://www.grepo-world.com/index.php

Tags: greasemonkey, Grepolis, grepolis scripts, grepolis stats, grepolis tools, grepolis world data, innogames, online players, pbbg, rpg, strategy game

Lord of Ultima – New limited multi use Beta Key

Another multi use Beta Key has been released by the developers of Lord of Ultima

Key: DW6C-N9XG-WHPW-MJNT

Already have access? Give it to your friends.
Don’t wait any longer, JOIN THE FIGHT!

Tags: alliance, beta key, browser game, browsergames, CE Gamers, closed beta key, electronic arts, free game, Lord of Ultima, lordofultima, online players, rpg, strategy game

Lords of Ultima – multi use Closed Beta Key for 1000 Members

Hi,

as I our Beta slots, again, ran out quite quickly due to high demand I am happy to inform you
that we can offer you specific Closed Beta keys that ensure another 1000 players access to
EA’s Lord of Ultima.

· The key is not functional before Wednesday the 3rd of March 09:00 AM GMT +1.
· The key is a multiple use key that allows 1000 players to enter the Beta.
· After the number of usages has been consumed the key will stop functioning.
(make sure to sign up for our Twitter for the next round of keys http://twitter.com/OfficialLoU)

A34P-WTKE-BB5C-N7UN

Please feel free to make the key available to the visitors of your site together with the specifications on its usage
and information on the ongoing Beta.

Of course we will keep you posted on any further developments on the Lord of Ultima Beta in the future
and will provide more material as soon as it can be made available.

Best regards and thank you for your cooperation.

Michael Krach
Producer

DICE
EA Digital Illusions CE AB
Katarinavägen 15
P.O. Box 20068
SE-104 60 Stockholm, Sweden
www.dice.se

Tags: beta key, browser game, browsergames, closed beta, closed beta key, dice, dice.se, electronic arts, free game, Lord of Ultima, online players, pbbg, rpg, strategy game

The validity of bots and scripts in kingsage… by Kappot

Let’s start with the following game rule as found here.

7. bots and scripts

Please obey the Terms and Conditions:
5. Special terms and conditions for the use of online games and all subsections from 5.1 to 5.7.

There are certain tools which are allowed. A list of permissible scripts can be found on the forum.

Should you be unsure whether a tool which you have is permissible or not, please contact Support and send them the script.
If you would like to write a script, please ask Game Support if your script is permissible before uploading it. ?

It references special Terms and Conditions as well as stating that:

• Certain tools are allowed;
• A list of these is available on the forum (never even seen such a section on the kingsage.org forum. I could be that these words are still part of a standard template that has remained unmodified…);
• If you are unsure whether a tool is allowed, to contact support and send them the script;
• If you’d like to write a script, to contact support first to obtain permission.

The terms and conditions can be found here.

Of interest are:

5.2.The user is prohibited from any form of manipulative interference in the online game. In particular, the user is not entitled to use measures, mechanisms or software that could interfere with the function or the course of the game. The user may not take measures that may cause an unreasonable or excessive burden on the technical capacity. The user is not allowed to block, to rewrite or to modify contents generated by the game administration or to interfere in any other manner with the game.

5.3.The user is also prohibited from running the online game (including all individual web pages) with other programs besides the Internet browser or the client program that has been provided. This refers in particular to so-called bots and other tools meant to replace or supplement the Web interface. Also prohibited are scripts and completely or partially automated programs that provide the user with an advantage over other users. This includes auto-refresh-functions and other integrated mechanisms of the Internet browser, if it includes automated operations.

5.4.    The user may under no circumstances
a) create or use cheats, mods and/or hacks, and any other third party software products that may change the result of the online games,
b) use software, that allows “data mining” or otherwise intercepts or collects information in connection with the online games,
c) use outside of online games, buy for “real” money or sell or swap virtual objects that are used in online games.
This includes all evasions, similar actions or actions that match in their effect the aforementioned bans.

5.5.    The application of advertising suppressing measures is prohibited. It is immaterial whether advertising is deliberately suppressed or generally blocked e .g. by so-called Pop-Up Blockers, or similar.

5.6.    Log-in is only permitted on the homepage of each online game and the Gameforge portal page. An automated opening of the user accounts, regardless of whether the home page is displayed or not, is not permitted.

Which brings me to my next thought: GreaseMonkey for Firefox, GreaseMetal for Chrome and GreaseKitfor Safari. We also have GreaseFire for Firefox in order to help us  find java-scripts for sites on userscripts.org. Wikipedia mentions:

For Internet Explorer, similar functionality is offered by IE7pro , Trixie (Internet Explorer) andiMacros.

As a side note, have a look at some 200 user scripts for another OG, Ikariam.

Running GreaseMonkey in Firefox does not break terms and conditions in section 5.2. or in any section at all. How could it? No one tells me how I use my browser… or that I’m tied to either Internet Explorer, Firefox, Safari, Chrome, Opera, lynx or any other browser. I read the paper with FF, read my email, get the tv guide etc etc… I don’t just use it for one website… This is an excerpt fromdiveintogreasemonkey.org:

Greasemonkey is a Firefox extension that allows you to write scripts that alter the web pages you visit. You can use it to make a web site more readable or more usable. You can fix rendering bugs that the site owner can’t be bothered to fix themselves. You can alter pages so they work better with assistive technologies that speak a web page out loud or convert it to Braille. You can even automatically retrieve data from other sites to make two sites more interconnected.

Greasemonkey by itself does none of these things. In fact, after you install it, you won’t notice any change at all… until you start installing what are called “user scripts”. A user script is just a chunk of Javascript code, with some additional information that tells Greasemonkey where and when it should be run. Each user script can target a specific page, a specific site, or a group of sites. A user script can do anything you can do in Javascript. In fact, it can do even more than that, because Greasemonkey provides special functions that are only available to user scripts.

Well then, I hear you say..What about this nifty user script called KingsAgeX of which I wrotepreviously. What does it do and more importantly, how does it work? How is it against the rules? How is it not against the rules? Does it break the terms and conditions you agreed to? Can OG actually uphold such terms and conditions in the first place?

Some facts:

KingsAgeX collects and displays information in the same way it is displayed to the user. It does not alter or manipulate information which it retrieves for you. It is the same information and more of it. It does not play the game, you do. It does not auto-refresh. It does give you a menu option and buttons to click on which are not part of the game menu, it’s part of the HTML that is generated on YOUR BROWSER on YOUR COMPUTER. It does this in mid-air so to speak or on-the-fly. The important thing to note is that your browser still interfaces with the KingsAge server in exactly the same way!

It is partially automated in that it collects data you would otherwise have to click a thousand times for. You could call it a macro that you run on your computer. Normally, you click this much anyway, and that’s how you spend your time playing the game. The unfair advantage is gained because through KingsAgeX you use a considerable less amount of time to do your Intel. Thus, the remaining time you can then choose to spend in Planning or Operations. This speeds up decision making and makes it easier to manage your assets. However, the unfair advantage is lost when everyone uses it. Just like history teaches us, warfare is all about gaining and loosing edges – all the time. Can OG stipulate to you how you use your time playing their game? I think not.

In a sense, it can be detected, because it looks as if you’ve clicked (say for example) a thousand URL’s in a very short time span when you generate a server map. However, if I can manually stitch a map together in 35minutes (which I have done by taking ~16 screenshots and then using Microsoft’s free ICE) and KingsAgeX is made to do it in 35minutes, there’s no difference in web traffic. It’s exactly the same. Save for the interval between clicks. Mine would vary (I can get interrupted – I am human), KingsAgeX would always have the same interval..If KingsAgeX was made to do this with a random interval, it would be another matter again…

In conclusion,  a web browser displays information. GreaseMonkey enables you to load a userscript which can re-arrange this information and or add information from the same or other sources in mid air/on the fly and then display it in your browser. The manner in which this information and or other information is retrieved is through your browser and is the same should you have done so manually. OG can ask you to comply and you can choose to say yes, but these terms cannot be binding for using Greasemonkey userscripts as you are NOT:

…Guilty of manipulative interfering in the online game. (Whatever that may be. Do you mean gaining root access on the server and changing low level code? — Different story that, innit?)

…Interfering with the function or course of the game. (On a technical level you are interacting with it in exactly the same way)

…Blocking, rewriting or modifying content. The content from the server stays the same. If I have non exclusive use from my colleague at work to print out his email, overlay the email with my own thin plastic and highlight certain sections on the thin, plastic and see through layer with a yellow marker pen, it’s my prerogative. I can give his print-out back unmodified.

…Using cheats, mods or hacks. No parameters are changed and send back to the server. As stated before, Firefox remains Firefox. The browser remains the browser. This is the vehicle we speak through and it remains unaltered. Argue differently!

…Data mining. You are not sending data from the kingsage server to another third party server. This however is how kahelper.com works though.

Here we go:

Section 5.3 is absolute rubbish. Who is to stop me from compiling my own browser to access the internet? Everyone knows for example Firefox is open source right?

Section 5.5 is absolute rubbish. I use Adblock Plus for Firefox. You trying to tell me again how to use my browser and view the net? To disable it on kingsage.org or other OG sites? Rubbish.

Section 5.6 People…..

Log-in is only permitted on the homepage of each online game and the Gameforge portal page. An automated opening of the user accounts, regardless of whether the home page is displayed or not, is not permitted.

Well, what about the remember password for sites function found in every browser these days? For every time I logged in, I broke that section…and many with me. Are you telling me again how to use my browser and view the net?

My point: KingsAgeX ought to be endorsed by KingsAge as the experience everyone should share in. Make it so.

Cheers

Tags: browsergames, gameforge, KingsAge, kingsage bots, kingsage greasemonkey, kingsage rules, kingsage scripts, pbbg, rpg, strategy game

Tribal Wars goes 6.0

Hello,

Teamplaying and working together has just become even more important in this new version of Tribal Wars, and today is the big day: Tribal Wars 6.0 is online now!

With this huge update, we have plenty of great new features for you. By introducing army camps into the game, we make teamplay even more important for your tribe. As a tribe, you can create army camps in any empty space on the map to use as a base camp near your enemies for upcoming attacks. When the camp is attacked, you will automatically defend it side by side with your tribemates. So as a team you can use these mighty forts to bring victory to your tribe.

Besides this, you can gain achievements on your own. From now on, we will give you awards for several different achievements, which you can show off to other players in your personal profile. This may be a certain number of points or a great battle victory. Sometimes, you may even get an award if you were extremely lucky – or unlucky. It does not matter in which period of the game you play, you will always have the chance to gain awards.

Furthermore, we have a special addition for premium account users: You can now play Tribal Wars on your mobile phone with an improved user interface. This works on iPhones and mobile phones running Android. All you have to do is to start your mobile browser and visit the Tribal Wars page – as you will see, the whole design has been adjusted for mobile browsing. It works just like a special Tribal Wars app. But since you can run it with your browser, there is no need to buy special software.

This is not all: There are several other updates and new features being introduced in this exciting new version. You can see details of these on your Tribal Wars forum.

All these features can be tested on our new worlds that have started today. We hope to see you there!

Your Tribal Wars team

www.tribalwars.net

Tags: browser game, browsergames, free game, innogames, pbbg, strategy game, tribal wars, TribalWars

Ruler of Zu

Title: Ruler Of Zu
Owner: Henna Boy Ltd
URL: http://www.rulerofzu.com

Theme: Ruler of zu is a free to play mmorpg based on times when mythical creatures lived, magic was rife and the brave undertook great quests to prove their worth.

Ruler of zu is a constantly expanding fantasy game where players can participate in an open ended game either as an individual or part of a gang.

Content is added on a weekly basis and the land of Zu currently stretches over 55 cities has over 400 items to gather and 300+ npcs to test your strength against.

Some of the features include:

Dragon ownership – Own, train and equip a dragon. Dragon play is a big part of Zu gameplay where you can train, equip, race and even fly with your dragon across the lands. Fight other players dragons to become the Ruler of Zu.

Commit crimes
Train in different statistics to increase your abilities and ensure your attacks are successful.
Find weapons and various types of armor to equip yourself and your dragon
Grow crops, rear animals and when they reach maturity crop/slaughter them for items.
Undertake quests that pit your wits against monsters and beings to receive rewards. Dont take them lightly some quests are more tricky than they seem.
Player markets
Organised inventory

Learn skills such as magic, healing, dragon flight and more to enable you to make better things for you and your dragon.

Crafting workshop where you can create new items or combine items into enhanced types.

This is just some of the gameplay available

Tags: browser game, browsergames, CE Gamers, online players, pbbg, ruler of zu, strategy game

Nowhere Else and Beyond

Nowhere Else and Beyond (NEaB) is the first web based real multiplayer RPG and PBBG that allows players to explore exotic locations in 2D, interact with other players, collect and play our in game card game and build your own island and create quests within it.

The best part is it’s free, you play RIGHT AWAY (no need for registrations) and it runs within your browser and works on all platforms without any download. Firefox recommended as it provides better performances, but NEaB runs well on Internet Explorer too.

One of the unique traits of NEaB is that you can see and interact with other players directly on the maps, during combat, or in towns. Also our chat, one of the most fully featured of Ajax chats, will let you really enjoy the player community.

Main features:

Website: www.nowhere-else.org

Tags: alain bertrand, browser game, browsergames, free game, NEaB, Nowhere Else and Beyond, Nowhere-Else, pbbg, rpg, strategy game

Star Trek Online Released Public

Website: http://www.startrekonline.com/frontpage

Tags: atari, cryptic studios, mmo, mmorpg, online players, star trek, star trek game, star trek online, startrek, strategy game

Grepolis – Unit Overviews by Odoakar

PART 1: UNIT OVERVIEW

SWORDSMAN
Blunt Weapons 5
Speed 8
Booty 16
Defense Blunt 14
Defense Sharp 8
Defense Distance 30
Overall Defense 52
Defense per farm space 52
Offense per farm space 5
Unit costs: 190, 0, 170
Build time: 0:17:10 (at Barracks lvl 5)

SLINGER
Distance Weapons 19
Speed 14
Booty 8
Defense Blunt 7
Defense Sharp 8
Defense Distance 2
Overall Defense 17
Defense per farm space 17
Offense per farm space 19
Unit costs:55/100/40
Build time: 0:19:04

ARCHER
Distance Weapons 8
Speed 12
Booty 24
Defense Blunt 6
Defense Sharp 25
Defense Distance 12
Overall Defense 42
Defense per farm space 42
Offense per farm space 8
Unit costs: 120/0/75
Build time: 0:18:07

HOPLITE
Sharp Weapons 16
Speed 6
Booty 8
Defense Blunt 18
Defense Sharp 12
Defense Distance 7
Overall Defense 37
Defense per farm space 37
Offense per farm space 16
Unit costs: 0/75/150
Build time: 0:21:56

HORSEMAN
Blunt Weapons 60
Speed 22
Booty 72
Defense Blunt 18
Defense Sharp 0
Defense Distance 24
Overall Defense 42
Defense per farm space 14
Offense per farm space 20
Unit costs: 240/120/360
Build time: 0:21:56

CHARIOT
Sharp Weapons 56
Speed 18
Booty 64
Defense Blunt 76
Defense Sharp 16
Defense Distance 56
Overall Defense 148
Defense per farm space 37
Offense per farm space 14
Unit costs: 200/440/320
Build time: 1:31:35

CATAPULT
Distance Weapons 100
Speed 1
Booty 400
Defense Blunt 30
Defense Sharp 30
Defense Distance 30
Overall Defense 90
Defense per farm space 6
Offense per farm space 6

BEST OVERALL DEFENSE

As we can see, Swordsman has the highest defense per farm space of 52, so defensive force of only Swordsmen would have highest overall value. However, it would certainly be weak against sharp weapons (hoplites)

Second best defensive unit is Archer, with 42 defensive points per farm space. With Sharp Defense value of Archer being the highest, we can see that it combines well with Swordsman. Their combined defense would be 20/33/42 (Blunt/Sharp/Distance) per 2 farm spaces. As we can see, it would be weak against Blunt Weapons.

Chariot is the third best defensive units if we look at defense per farm space (37 in this case). It also has the best defense against Blunt weapons, and is perfect in combination with Swords/Archers. It’s good to notice that instead of 1 Chariot you can have 4 Hoplites with combined Defense Blunt of 72, which is just little short of Chariot’s 76.

This part needs re-evaluation, see Snowman8’s post:
Combined defense of Sword/Archer/Chariot mix would be 39/37/56 per 3 farm spaces, or 108/99/122 (total of 329) for 1 Sword/3 Archer/1 Chariot. This can be replaced with a build of 1 Sword/3 Archer/4 Hoplites which would give 104/131/94 (total of 329) defense distribution.

Possible corrections would have to be made for different kinds of opponent’s offensive builds.

Still, it is clear that possible defensive builds will consist of either Swords, Archers, Hoplites or Swords, Archers, Chariots. It is important to notice that Chariots move 3 times faster than Hoplites, so will be suited for fast support. This is in many ways similar to TW defensive builds where usually Swords are replaced by Heavy Cavalry.

Let’s compare the mentioned builds in terms of resources used, and time to build. Again, this is done for lvl 5 barracks. Higher lvls will just scale the time, but the ratio will remain the same.

1) 1 Sword/3 Archers/1 Chariot

Time to build: 0:17:10/0:54:21/1:31:35, in total 2:43:06
Resources to build: 655/440/630

2) 1 Sword/3 Archers/4 Hoplites

Time to build: 0:17:10/0:54:21/1:27:44, in total 2:39:15
Resource to build: 455/300/910

As we can see, 2) builds faster, but has (very) uneven resources.

If you have other possible builds that you would like to see presented here, just post them in the thread, and I’ll check build times, and resources needed to train them, and possible their defensive values.

BEST OVERALL OFFENSE

When talking about possible offensive force, we can see that that Horseman has highest offense per farm space of 20 (Blunt), followed by Slinger (Distance) with offense per farm space of 19, and Hoplite (Sharp) with offense of 16.
Obviously, army consisting of only Horseman would have highest possible overall offense, but could be easily countered with Chariot. A mix of these 3 units presents the best overall offensive force. The overall offensive power of this army would be 20/19/16 per 3 farm spaces. If we were to aim for best all round attacking force, we see that the desired ratio would be 1.25/1.2/1 (Horseman/Slinger/Hoplite) per 3 farm spaces, or speaking in terms on how many units we need to build, ratio would be 1,25 Horsemen/3,6 Slingers/3 Hoplites. Or 13/36/30, so we don’t cut our horses into little parts

Obviously catapults will be integral part of any decent offensive force, the only question is how many catapults will be needed to tear down walls from its max value to 0. Once we know that number we can start integrating the catapult numbers in our troops ratio.

Things to do:
- evaluate contribution of mythical units to these forces
- evaluate naval forces

Tags: alliance, Grepolis, grepolis units, innogames, strategy game, units

EA jumps in the browser game world with Lord of Ultima

Electronic Arts has quietly resurrected one of the most highly regarded and important PC franchises of all time, releasing a beta version of a new Ultima game called Lords of Ultima.

Lord of Ultima is a free to play MMORTS developed by EA’s German-based browser game studios “EA Phenomic”.

Build your own individual and unique city in the harsh Middle Ages and build a mighty empire. You play with thousands of other players …

Lord of Ultima is a new browser game, which is offered by Electronic Arts. The strategy was developed with a medieval flair of EA Phenomic it has produced games such as the settlers, Battleforge and SpellForce.

At the moment the game is in the closed beta phase, so it can be tested only by a limited number of players. The Open Beta will have to wait, but probably not long in coming.

The Lord of Ultima, which is currently available only in English available, you will have the task of founding a medieval city, build a wall to provide security and to convert it to your little town in a thriving city.

You are responsible for the construction of defense facilities, including trade agreements with other players and you’re constantly looking at, of course, that sufficient resources available. Without resources you finally can build nothing.

Eventually, you’ll find that it too narrow in your city. Then you have to expand in Lord of Ultima luckily you will have the ability to integrate more areas in your kingdom. It is of advantage, of course, to have a powerful fighting forces, because not all areas can be conquered so easily. In Lord of Ultima you’ll get it done with other players who have only one goal: the most powerful Lord of all times.

Screenshots removed by request from Electroni Arts

Beta at https://www.lordofultima.com/en#

Discussion at http://www.makewebgames.com/general/31692-electronic-arts-jumps-on-the-browsergame-market/

Tags: browser game, browsergames, CE Gamers, electronic arts, free game, Lord of Ultima, lordofultima, pbbg, phenomic, strategy game, ultima