Sunday, August 12, 2012

Hiring Bloggers!

I am so happy to announce that my blog, Pixurai II's GoodGame Empire Blog, is the number one blog about GoodGame Empire (in English at least). How do I know this? If you search "goodgame empire blog" or even search a topic in GoodGame Empire that I have blogged about, such as "goodgame empire outpost," and my blog will appear on the first page most of the time. Sometimes, my blog is even the third search result, right under the GoodGame Empire website and the GoodGame Empire forums website. Surprisingly, this is the first blog I've ever done (not including academic blogs forced on me in school), so I'm really proud and would like to thank all of my readers for reading my posts and  supporting me with every single one of your views on my blog.

Even though this is my first blog, I still want to try something new, which includes having multiple people help me with my blog so that I can get more posts and more information for readers of my blog. I will be creating a tab above for anyone who would like to help my blog as an author. Of course, I don't have anything to give or any way to pay anyone who wants to help me (including myself). So at least for now, people who want to become authors won't be able to receive any salary or anything, but I myself don't receive any money from this blog either. For anyone who wants to help with this blog, please email me at pixurai2gameblog@gmail.com. Lastly, I am about to launch an editing session, where I am going to look through all of the blog posts that I have typed for this blog and I am going to edit them to remove the grammar mistakes and confusing sentences that I often find. For the next week or so, I won't be posting a lot of posts, only the ones that are urgent or important, so that I can spend my time making my old posts better.

Friday, August 10, 2012

Day 19 Diary Entry


After that terrible leader of PATRIOT kicked my out of his alliance, I decided that I would never join another alliance. Instead, I would create my own. So that's exactly what I did. My alliance is called Dragon Blade, which for some reason isn't taken yet, which shows how little number of alliances exist in the game. I've already have one recruit to my alliance, even though she says she's only 10 years old. She does kind of act as though she's ten, with her ignorance of many of this game's features and strategies and the way she chats. Anyways, if any of the readers of my blog would want to join my alliance, simply message me. Like all other alliances, I made requirements for joining my alliance, which are you need an outpost (same thing as saying you need to be level 13) and you need to pay a daily taxes of 500 wood, 500 stone, or 50 coins. The tax thing might change, but I don't plan on following the footsteps of the terrible leader of PATRIOT and keep rising the required level. I've built a ton of Dwellings, my total population is close to 300, so I can rebuild my army in a few days even if that bug appeared again and I loss my entire army. No one is attacking me, so I am able to safely and steadily level up.

EGA 2012 Promotion 2


So today, I've received a message in my mailbox that is the second promotion. This promotion is actually kind of good for players who don't buy rubies, but for those who do purchase a lot of rubies, this still isn't a very good promotion. I think the admins of the game created this promotion because GoodGame Empire made it to the finals of the EGA or something. Unfortunately, it's not very clear how you can claim the reward. From the GoodGame Empire forum, I think it says that you need to email awards@goodgamestudios.com with the confirmation link in your email for the registration of the EGA website. Also, you need to tell them the world that you are on, which I have no clue where to find what world your castle is in. I personally feel that this kind of stuff is really confusing and it's simply terrible to make voters do so much work, so I'm not even going to bother voting or claiming the rewards.

Thursday, August 9, 2012

Day 18 Diary Entry


I was so happy when I joined the PATRIOT alliance, and today, I was already kicked out of it, even though they promised me that I could stay so long as I was active. I used to like the leader of that alliance, but that leader keeps on changing the rules. The leader continually changing the requirements to be just slightly below his own level and honor so that he is able to keep only the best players while still meeting the requirements himself. For those who plan on creating their own alliance, never do what the leader of PATRIOT does. It's ok to kick inactive players, but it's never ok to forget your friends simply because you have become very powerful (I learned from Naruto). Also, I've had my third conflict with a player who attacked my castle (outpost this time again). Unfortunately, this player is a little more of a jerk and doesn't care, he simply wants my honor and earn glory from me. Don't be like him. It's always better to make more friends than more foes, because "dumplings always tastes better with friends" (I learned from Shaman King). The screenshot above is my outpost, which is doing well, building Woodcutter and Guard House, plus a few more resource plants and a lot more Dwellings so I can rebuild my army faster. Lastly, I think I've figured out that for players at level 60, they don't build a ton of decorations purely for the purpose of supporting Dwellings or Town Houses, they do it so that their resource production rate is extremely high.

Missing Army Bug

Just recently, on two of my accounts, I have lost my entire army of attackers due to a bug. After searching online, I've discovered that many others also have the same issue, but GoodGame Empire still hasn't fixed it. Apparently, the only way get your army back is to report the bug on the GoodGame Empire forums under "Technical problems and bugs." Then if you get lucky, the admins of the game will add your lost army back. Unfortunately, new players are not allowed to create a forums account, so  that means there is nothing you can do except build another army.

If you have never experienced this problem, allow me to explain. Like usual, I attack robber baron castles whenever I can to gain loot and complete quests. So just a few days ago, I sent my army to attack, but a day later, when I checked back, my army was gone when it should've returned already. When I check my battle report, it shows that I've only lost one attacker, when in fact my castle showed that I had no attackers since I sent all of my attackers out. At first I thought it was a loading issue, but my food supply also showed that I had a ton of food that I wasn't using, and after many reloads and restarts, it still showed the same thing. That is why I want to warn anyone who reads this to try to send out the smallest army possible and attack multiple places at once, so that even if the bug appears at one place, it won't appear at the other places.

Prime Day Promotion


From the weeks that I've been playing GoodGame Empire, no promotion every appeared more than once, so that would be blogging about them is kind of useless unless I blog about them before they disappear, but that would be really hard with high school starting for me, so I might discontinue blogging about these promotions if they never reappear, but I know that some camps that appear outside your main castle do reappear, such as the Traveling Merchant or the Traveling Knight.

Anyways, this promotion doesn't last very long, maybe only a few hours, but this is the most expensive and most rewarding promotion. As shown above, it tells me that I need another 31,000 rubies to open the chest, but since I own a few rubies myself, it is strange that the number of rubies I are 0's instead of random numbers. Because of that, I'm not sure if you can use your own rubies to open the lock or you have to purchase them specifically for this promotion. The rewards are all advanced and stronger versions of normal tools and soldiers. Because of that, they have different names, but I'm going to use the name of the tools and soldiers that correspond the those special ones. Shown on the screen above, from left to right, the rewards are 50 Siege Towers, 150 Crossbowman, 25 Iron Rams, and 150 Swordsman. I don't think the soldiers that you are in the reward require any food, so if you have 31,000 rubies, your army would be set.

Glory Contest


There was a new camp that appeared outside my castle yesterday, with the same name of "Herald's tent," which is the exact same name for the camp that promoted the EGA (see "EGA 2012 Promotion" post), but this camp is different. The camp is a competition where you have can receive a prize of 100 rubies and 10,000 coins for having the most glory. Actually, the top 100 players with the most glory all receive the same prize, which I feel is strange, because the first place winner should get a bigger prize. Then, everyone else who get above 747 glory points (at least for at the time the screenshot above was taken) receives a participation prize of 25 rubies and 1,000 coins. I think the contest lasts for less than a week, but if you aren't already in the top 100, it's quite hard to get into the top 100, even if you bought a Marauder. To get even enough glory points to be considered a participant (the ones who get the participation prize), you have to buy a Marauder in order to get enough glory within the time limit of the contest, so unless you are already in the top 100, it's not worth it to spend 999 rubies to buy a Marauder and receive only 100 rubies back.

Wednesday, August 8, 2012

EGA 2012 Promotion


I am going to abbreviat European Games Award into EGA, because European Games Award is just too long to type out every time. Well, GoodGame was voted number one last year I think for EGA, so they are trying to get number one again this year. I wasn't playing last year, so I have no idea whether or not they had a promotion to gain more votes. You can vote by clicking on the camp set up outside your castle, the same place all of the other camps are set up. Once you click on that camp, the page that is shown above should appear and you can press "Go vote" to go to the EGA website to vote. The reward is 100 rubies if and only if GoodGame Empire wins number one. Even for players who don't buy rubies, 100 is a very small number, and to players who do buy rubies, 100 is like nothing. You can't build any of the ruby buildings using only 100 rubies. So I think this promotion is terrible, even though all you have to do is vote. Plus it's not right to give rewards for voting for which game, because it's kind of like bribing then. Lastly, the promotion also says that if GoodGame Empire wins number one and surpasses the number two game by 50%, the reward is bumped up to 150, also a very small number. I mean, obviously the best European browser game for the last 10 years has been Runescape, so for GoodGame Empire to place number one last year means good games such as Runescape didn't even participate, meaning the EGA is a really small and unimportant award.

Monday, August 6, 2012

Guide to Alliances

As I mentioned earlier today, I have finally joined an alliance, and even though I still feel that it is completely unnecessary to join one, now I feel that alliances make the game more fun. You get to actually chat with people instead of messaging them every time, so with a bit of social skills, you can strike up good conversations. Not only do alliances have chats, they also have supply, as shown in the screenshot below. As you can see, my alliance, PATRIOT, has a ton of wood, stone, and coins in our supply, but we lack rubies. If your alliance can store up a certain amount of rubies as well as other resources, then you can improve your alliance by allowing more members, and many other power-ups such as increase travel speed, increase loot, and so on. Unfortunately, no one is able to withdraw any resource from the alliance supply box, so everything stays until it is used up.


Another feature about alliances is pacts and truces. As shown below, your alliance is able to make pacts, where you are not allowed to attack each other and promise to support and help each other. Your alliance's pacts are shown at the left column of a page similar to the screenshot below. The middle column is for non-aggression truces. That means so long as the truce is existing, neither side of the agreement is allowed attack each other. I believe that for both pacts and truces, there is a limit of five other alliances that you can form pacts or truces with. Please correct me if I'm wrong. Now, on the very right column shown below, is the alliances that your alliance is at war with. This means that people in those alliances will more likely attack your castle with no reason other than war. Try to never strike up a war, especially if you have a low level, you will get destroyed.


Finally, allow me to wrap up with some other features of alliances. Alliances are able to level up, and they level up from collecting glory that members of that alliance earns. Once the amount of glory that is required is met, your alliance will level up and gain resources, coins, and rubies. It also makes your alliance look better to be a higher level, and I'm not sure if your alliance level can fall since you lose glory points every day.

Day 15 Diary Entry


Today has been a really big day for me. I finally joined an alliance! And I joined one that I really like. Apparently, the alliance that I'm in was created by Patriotis (who I posted about in the "Let's Look at a Pro: Patriotis" post). Anyways, the screenshot above is my new outpost. Actually, its like two or three days old and has been beaten a lot. Remember how I was saying in my "Day 14 Diary Entry" that my outpost was captured? Well, once an outpost is captured, the original owner and the conquerer of the outpost share flags on the outpost for 24 hours, and then it all turns over to the player who conquered the outpost. However, after around 12 hours or so, my outpost came back into my control and the conquering player's flag was gone! Unfortunately, that player tried again, but failed this time. I earned a ton of honor from his failed invasions, bumping me up to over 400 honor points, which is one of the requirements to join my alliance. Not only that, but after exchanging a few messages with the player who attacked me, we're in a pretty good relationship and he promises not to attack me again. The same thing happened with another player who attacked me, so it's always smart to be nice and try to be friends with any player who attack you. I'm finally running out of money and collecting more has been more difficult, especially since I'm using twice as much coins now with two castles.

Sunday, August 5, 2012

Day 14 Diary Entry


Recently, my luck has been pretty bad. First, my closest neighboring castle who is close to level 20 suddenly attacked me. Of course, later he messaged me something similar to an apology. It's what I usually try to do to seem nicer after attacking a real player. Also, that same player attacked me again with a smaller army and this time got defeated. I don't know if he wanted me to win on purpose to repay, but if so, it's a really good idea. However, after that player did that, my honor points are back up to like around 160 and I'm going to be a target for others. The next bad thing is that a day or two after I expanded, this level 32 player is trying to capture my outpost, as shown above! I made a dumb move in capturing a rare outpost, so make sure that your first outpost is never a rare one, because you will get attacked and that outpost will be taken over. I knew my army was no match for the invading army, so I made a smart choice by moving all of my soldiers from my outpost to my main so that I don't have to lose all of them and the coins I spent on them.

Saturday, August 4, 2012

Guide to Honor Points


Honor points aren't useful for anything, but I guess it makes you look good if you have a ton of honor points. First of all, you can gain honor points from attacking real players or defending from real players. However, not all players will give you honor points. Right before you attack a real player, there should be a screen that estimates about how much honor you will receive. If the player you are attacking has 200 or less points than you, then you can never receive honor points from them. This means, if you have high honor points, then other player with high honor points will try to attack you and steal your honor points for themselves. That is why before you try to get any honor points, you have to make sure your defenses are ready for players much higher in level than you. The higher your honor points get, the less people you are able to attack and gain more honor, and the more people are able to get honor points from you. Having low honor points is a good way to avoid getting attacked, especially if you have over a level 10. There are usually so many new players who quit at level 6 or 7 that if there was someone who wanted to gain honor from castles who have no honor, they would get it from a level 6 or 7 player and not you. Basically, my strategy is to have no honor (do not attack a single player) until you reach a really high level, best if you could out-level every other player around you before you start getting honor points, or else you will quickly get attacked until you have no more honor points.

Thursday, August 2, 2012

Be Cautious of Outposts


Today, I have learned that you should not easily mess with outposts. Well, before that, I already finished building my Estate and I really wanted to expand, so I sent out my a very small army to accompany my castellan. The castellan moves very slowly, so it took like an hour to move one unit in the world map. Unfortunately, I got defeated, which made me confused. So then I sent an agent to espionage the outpost where I got defeated, and my results are shown above. The outpost has like 60-70 soldiers! Of course, getting into the Courtyard isn't hard, but then winning at the courtyard is extremely hard. Even though all of the soldiers are armed civilians, they are still good at defending in big numbers. But still, if you had an army of 60 attackers, you could win. Strangely, there is nothing inside of the castle except for a Keep, and it is able to support so many defenders.

Day 11 Diary Entry


Yeah, I know, my posting has dramatically slowed down. It's actually not because I don't have much to write about. The reason is that my mom isn't allowing me to use my Macbook Pro anymore, so she takes it to work with her everyday, and then keeps it in her car. Meaning, while my mom is at work, I am forced to use a public computer in my library. Unfortunately, I hate Windows' screenshot thing because when I take it screenshot on a public computer, the pic goes into my clipboard, so I can paste it to word or something. However, I don't know why, but I simply can't paste the screenshots onto Blogger, so now I am forced to sneak into my mom's car at night and take my laptop and not get a lot of sleep in order to write and make screenshots for this blog.

Anyways, about my castle, I've leveled up to level 13, meaning now I can expand soon! Before I can expand, I must build an Estate, which takes like 14 hours. After it is done building, I'm thinking about finding an outpost with food/wood or food/stone (primary/secondary; please see my "The Perfect Outposts" post for more information). I expanded and even though recently, I'm not adding a lot of new buildings, I'm upgrading all of my current buildings. Especially my resource plants, I don't like too many Farmhouses because my newest Farmhouse only produce about 42% occupancy. My castle is still running quite smoothly, even though I'm playing a lot less now, and I'm very lucky to have good neighbors that don't attack me.

Wednesday, August 1, 2012

Traveling Knight


So this is the second time that this promotion has appeared. What you have to do is collect relics from defeating robber baron castles, similar to the map pieces. You need a total of eight pieces of the relic to get the reward that is very good. As shown above, the reward is 60 soldiers with 10 tools that are similar to siege towers. I'm pretty sure that this promotion lasts for two days or 48 hours, which is a very short amount of time to collect eight relics. Well, I guess that's why the reward is so high. You probably need multiple commanders to attack multiple robber baron castles simultaneously and have a really big army. Or you'll need to become one of those addicts who play 24/7 to complete this. You can also buy relic pieces for 330 rubies apiece, which is pretty expensive.

Spy Camp


Today, two more temporary camps popped up right outside my castle today. This time is is a Spy Camp and a Traveling Knight. I'll talk about the Traveling Knight in the next post, so this post is going to be about the Spy Camp. Basically, it is telling you to go attack a computer-controlled castle, similar to robber baron castles, except this one is much stronger. When I did an espionage on the castle, I discovered that they have one city guard, and they have around 40-50 defenders (not including ones in the courtyard), all of them being Spearmen or Bowmen. The reward for defeating this castle is 30 rubies and a seven day protection from robber baron castles, plus all of the loot from the castle. If you have a very small army, do not attempt this because you will most likely be defeated by that castle. I highly recommend using all of the tools you have and doing an espionage. You can even train more soldiers than your food supply can support because you will lose a lot of soldiers while fighting this castle.