Ikariam
From WikIkariam, the Ikariam wiki - Guides, buildings, ships and more.
Contents |
| This page still needs to be updated with correct links and/or cleaned up!!! |
[edit] General Information
Ikariam is a free online real-time strategy game released in 2008 by Gameforge AG. The concept behind Ikariam is much like Sid Meier's well-known Civilization games. Each player is given a small town and constructs buildings such as Barracks, Ports, and Taverns to create a larger town, and palaces, which are constructed to allow for the expansion of the empire. Unlike most online browser games, Ikariam puts great emphasis on trade and diplomacy, though it does also feature combat. It is impossible for a town to be completely captured by another player, but it can still be pillaged, controlled, or blockaded.
[edit] Gameplay
Ikariam runs on different servers, referred to as "worlds" or "realms". Servers aimed at different countries or language-groups use the same names for their worlds. There is a Test Server and a Speed Server currently online, too.
Players of Ikariam start off on an island with other players, a miracle, a luxury resource source (Quarry, Sulphur pit, Vineyard or Crystal mine), a saw mill, an island forum (Agora) and a Barbarian village.
The luxury goods are:
- Crystal Glass – Needed for the academy, temple, doctors, spies, and military improvements in the workshop. Can also be used to accelerate research, as soon as Experiments (Science) has been discovered.
- Marble – Needed for higher expansion stages of most buildings.
- Sulphur – Needed for all units and war ships except Slingers, Rams, Diving Boats, Doctors, Cooks and Speramen
- Wine – Needed for keeping citizens happy (through the tavern), increasing the town population, and training cooks.
Players need to research in each of the four research trees – Seafaring, Military, Economy, or Science - in the Academy, in order to build better structures; Military to create higher-level land-based units to pillage other people's towns or defend one's own; and Seafaring to establish new colonies, and to create better ships for blockading other people's ports to intercept the cargo ships going through, or for clearing such blockades.
Players can research diplomacy, which means they can forge alliances (groups of players who cannot attack one another and in most cases help each other with resources and defense). Players can also, with other research, create trade agreements (whereby other players cannot take goods from a market offer if a player with a trade agreement with the offerer accepts it) and Cultural Goods agreements (which allow players to exchange goods at museums, increasing happiness).
