Bhrytos

My thoughts on Bhrytos (NOTE, COPIED AND PASTED FROM A GOOGLE DOC, POSSIBLE FORMATTING ISSUES AND MISSING PICTURES)

I’ll preface this by saying that although I am not necessarily ‘new’ to Grepolis per se, looking back on how I played this game in the past leads me to say that this is my first time playing the game seriously. And by that I mean that in the past (I was much younger for one thing) I didn’t understand the game at all, and also didn’t stick around in any world for longer than 2-3 weeks. So this 6/6 start with three cities world was basically my crash course introduction into the game, and what an introduction it was. So, let’s take it from the top.

Beginner Protection
I think I started the world a day late or something like that, and at the start I was just simming (as everyone does). I colonized a rock (big mistake turns out), don’t do that (at least not on a world of this speed). I got pretty big in terms of points, I think I was top ~20 or something like that, maybe even top 10. Around the third day I was invited into an alliance called ‘Enemy Mine’ (more on them later). At the time I was sitting in the south portion of the world, surrounded by Rogue, while EM was in the northwest. I thought to myself ‘wow I’m pretty far away from these guys, maybe I shouldn’t be here’ and made a post saying as much on the forums, and one of the leaders replied to me along the lines of “2 hour bir TT, not too bad”. In the end, my motivations for joining rested on two factors: 1. I was really dying to read an alliance forums (turns out playing the game by yourself is a bit lonely? Who would have thought), and 2. I judged that this alliance had potential (mostly from the fact that a few of the leaders had the blue crowns). From my brief experience on other worlds, I noticed that the top alliance at the start of the game were usually there because of excessive recruiting and sister alliances, and that when people realize there can only be 35 winners the top players will bail and make their own super alliance and win. This analysis I wouldn’t say is too far off, I’ve seen it happen a few times, most notably on the world that came out a few days earlier: Abdera (see Blitz and TBD), but there were a few factors that made this analysis horribly incorrect (although to be fair I couldn’t have known at the time).

Going offensive and OP 1
Over the course of this world I was OP’d twice by Rogue, this is the story of the first one. At the time Rogue was still swimming comfortably in the number one position (by a pretty wide margin I think). I was still growing really fast (this was around ~1.5 weeks into the world I think?) and mostly building defensive units (but I was a noob at the time so they weren’t very good defense). I basically came to the conclusion that all the good players attacked. So I decided I needed to start attacking. Up until this point I had received no attacks from Rogue, but I told myself that being afraid of retaliation would only hinder my success on the world, so I began to attack people who I thought were weaker links in the Rogue chain. And it went okay for a few days. Not much retaliation, I was favor farming and gaining BP, alright we take those. Around three days into this adventure I started getting incoming attacks on all my cities courtesy of none other than Game Error. I was still a complete noob. I had no clue what to do. Honestly not much to say here. I posted all my cities to the forums, and I still got rimmed. Had I been a bit more experienced, I would have realized I was about to get rimmed, then sent a CS to colonize in my alliance’s core, but I was really bad I guess. At this point I thought about quitting. I got rimmed, my alliance basically has no chance to beat Rogue, why not just quit now. Even when Rogue breaks up (which I still thought would happen) there is no way the elite players will invite me into their super team. But for some reason I didn’t quit. It sounds cliche, but I honestly don’t remember why I didn’t quit at that time. Maybe I still had hope of winning? Maybe I was just having fun and enjoying the game? Maybe I just wanted to see who would win, I’m not sure. Also of note: While I was about to get rimmed I exchanged a few messages with Brajanz0r, leader of Rogue (foreshadowing maybe…).

Results of OP1.

OP2 and the Planet Zoo Era
After OP1 I clicked the restart near my alliance button and started to rebuild in O44. I quickly climbed back up the rankings (my main city was named Planet Zoo) and built my defenses a little better. At the time Rogue was relatively new to the ocean (they were mostly based in the center), but it seemed they were looking to expand into 44. I really don’t remember anything notable happening during this time, so we will get straight into the OP. Honestly, not much to say about this one either, I got OP’d, but this time I was just a bit more experienced. I sent a few colony ships to the rim to ensure I wouldn’t get rimmed again, had high walls everywhere I think, and even had my levelled up Leo sitting in Planet Zoo. I think EM was around 3-4 in the alliance rankings or something like that at the time, there was actually a decent bit of support. Not all my cities went down. I think I only lost 5 cities (although my 5 biggest cities all pretty much on core islands). But life goes on. I wasn’t rimmed so I would rebuild once again.
Result of OP2.

Post OP2
After I started writing this I realize that a lot of these periods are filled with a lot of nothing. Compared to what I will write in the next section this time is honestly not that memorable. No discord, not many MM’s from EM, no real leadership decisions, not much happened. I built up defensive cities out on the rim so that I wouldn’t get destroyed again. I don’t even remember where I was in the point rankings at the time, but I imagine it was close to top 20? One day on the forums I remember seeing an attack thread post against TNL. It showed a few empty cities, so as standard procedure I cross revolted them. Around this time I also exchanged a few messages with TNL (note they were just a bit of back and forth banter). I think EM had dropped to around 7th in points or something, and we were overtaken by our sister alliance (who was formerly Legion?). We basically had no leadership to be honest. I was the biggest member, and people from Gods of War and Damage Inc were literally messaging me for diplomatic inquiries. I would respond something along the lines of “I can’t make the decision unilaterally, but I’ll pass it onto the leadership” and then I would post it onto the internal forums. Three or four people (none of the original leaders) would respond with something like “I would be okay with that” or “maybe we could do that” and then I would somehow have to make up a response to the person from the other alliance. At the time it was understood that the only chance to win would be a merger of all the top players, however based on my own observation of the coordination between the other alliances (and the fact that Dropbears were NAP’d with Rogue) I realized that there wasn’t much of a chance. The thought that Rogue might have internal struggles and disband was pretty much gone. But I was still here. Building, sending out birs and dlu, taking ghosts and internals.

The Rogue Era
At this point I’m a full defense player. All my tokens are going into levelling up daidalos. I spend my time playing the game sending out birs and dlu, and trading wood and stone to my Daid city in order to create ~400 birs, then move him to the next city and repeat. Most of my cities are somewhere around the rim in 44 and I expand basically by conquering inactive solo players or taking internals. I have maybe 5 OLU cities and 3 LS cities (out of around 45 at the time). I see another post on the forums about a coordinated attack on Brajanz0r. It is really close to my core area, so I basically send in cats to knock the walls down. Not much, but hey, I’m not an offensive player at this point. Later that day I exchanged a few more messages with Brajanz0r which eventually ended with him offering me a spot in Rogue. At this point I was wholly confident that a Rogue victory would be the only way this world could end. But I had a hard choice before me. To join Rogue I would have to leave behind all the people that I had played with for the past few weeks and join the team that had been hitting us nonstop. I won’t get into my reasons behind the decision because they basically only matter to one set of people: those who were in EM1 and EM2 at the time. And if you are one of those people I more or less explained why I was leaving in an EM forum post at the time, and for those who cared enough to message me their thoughts I tried to answer any questions. But after I got that message I felt really good. I felt like I had been acknowledged by the players that basically had locked the server since beginner protection. But I was still conflicted on what to do. I went for a run, had a meal, and then I messaged a few of my closest friends on discord (none of whom play this game xD) and even talked to my roommate (apartment mates?) about what they thought. I received the message in the morning, and told Brajan that I would have an answer by 8 pm. I joined Rogue, and the rest is history.

A note to those who played on Bhrytos
I had a bit of this in my profile, but not everyone reads that so I’ll flesh it out more here. Regardless of how everything settled in the end, thank you for making my first real world a memorable one.
To those in EM: Know that I stand by all the forum posts and messages I sent. Whatever you think of me, I will still be grateful that you guys had my back even if I didn’t have your backs in the end. As I told Justme, I apologize that I didn’t fight with you guys until the end. If I could append something onto that message it would be this: I don’t regret leaving. Despite the fact that I know some people hate me, (from some of the messages I received after) and I’m sure other people also hate me, but just didn’t want to send a mean message, I am glad I joined Rogue. I saw things that I would have never had the chance to see otherwise, and met some really cool people.

To those in Rogue: If you’re on discord you’ll probably recognize me. I’m the one with the avatar of the anime girl face pasted on top of Kanye West. I don’t feel the need to say much here, because I’m active on discord and people there probably know how I feel about them :). But for those not on discord: it was a great run, and I’m glad I could play with you guys <3.

Below is a copy of my final profile from Bhrytos. (the first line is in reference to a girl I was talking to at the time xD)

f for me getting rejected by sarah, was fun while it lasted lol ss

I'll write my full thoughts on the world out later this weekend but for now:

thanks to the friends and those who supported me during my time in EM, for the friendship, advice, and help when I needed it

thanks to brajanz0r and TNL for taking the chance on me and bringing me in

thanks to sanford for the work and planning he put into making sure we succeeded in OPs and other activities

thanks again to brajanz0r for his great leadership :)

thanks to Rogue II for playing hard and helping to make this possible

thanks to rim for being awesome to play with

thanks to all the people in rogue1/2 not mentioned here for the work you guys put in and the help you all have given to me

and of course, congratulations guys :) we did it