Warfare in Illyriad™

Warfare, as I have found in the MMO Illyriad™ is scarce from a new player level and is only somewhat active on a PvP scale  when you are a more *along* in the game.  So in a sense, warfare as a player can be either experienced at the *Stone Age* level of experience and damage to other players or at the *Nuclear Age* where siege capability is commonly researched on both conflicting sides, capable of destroying months or years worth of work in a short week. Is this a problem? perhaps, but can one really make warfare easier PvP wise?

Warfare, as a new player is fought only because the new players is eager to fight. These players come from other war games like Evony™ or Astro Empire™ where armies are critical to your survival. And so these players come pouring into Illyriad™ with the same desire to conqueror their neighbors before they in turn are conquered, but wait..this is Illyriad™.

There is no immediate threat for new players in Illyriad, in fact bullying is highly discouraged and bullied will be dealt with by the GP's if found guilty in their kangaroo court (though we'll continue with that later). If a player(either new or around 10% lower population then the aggressor) is under attack and comes onto global, you will see an instant frenzy of activity! You will find players instantly ship out resources to the *victim* (could easily be the original aggressor but no one does much investigation in the beginning), weapons, basic resources are shipped. Players give out advice to the *victim* to join an alliance for added protection, conveniently advertising their own alliances while doing so. Others race to gather their forces to attack the bully, or hastily igm the other newb who attacked the victim and get the attacks to stop.  Conflict ceased, or is it?


What happens if you encourage peace, in a war game? You encourage players to build up, to house armies, to secure good sov so you can get more population to fund more soldiers..then what? Do we honestly believe that those we teach will just lose the blood-lust over time? No..we can't expect that, what we instead are expecting all new players to stop conflict, to grow, to build armies, to research the techs then..kill npc critters. How can we believe this helps the game play? Someone may stick around to grow the army because *they are expecting to do something with it*, when they finally reach the ability to house a Legion-sized force, they are told simply to harvest npcs. This will then cause some people to leave the game in a fit of glory, such as simply attacking an alliance in a bid to use their military for something other then pest control.

Of course there are times when people can actually use their armies against other players, one such occasion is when a player is found guilty by the GP's of bullying, usual punishment is execution. At this point a thousand and one armies appear and kill the players cities, often driving him out of the game while the GP's congratulate themselves on their victory against bullying, though wouldn't you say that is bullying in itself? You are punishing someone..for attacking someone smaller.. by killing his cities..through vast majority of firepower.. Who punishes the GP bullies?


In time there will be updates that unleash AI's that *should* increases PvP in the community, but who is to say when that will be released? How many more players will be sucked into the pacifism that is taking over Illyriad, how many more will simply wait for another kangaroo court case so they can actually use their military?
Too many..