DeletedUser14786
Guest
I recently returned from a month-long hiatus from this server to find it a wildly different place than the Lambda I left. I've been in Ocean 55 since day 1 and I consider it to be one of, if not the hottest and most volatile ocean of Lambda in terms of intense fighting. As one of the few (6 by my count) remaining veterans from the beginnings of Semper Fidelis I also consider myself to be in a unique position to tell the ocean's history from inside the alliances that defined O55 for most of this server. For anybody wondering how Lambda became the world that it now is (and you're too lazy to look back in the forum archives) I believe you'll find this a good read.
Lambda opened November 1st and Ocean 55 became the first fully developed ocean in the core. Unlike O45, which only became completely developed days later, fighting in O55 started early. There were no pre-made alliances (except perhaps the 6 founders of the Marines and the Narwhal-Penguinz war), but nevertheless two alliances quickly came to power in O55––Semper Fidelis, led by Killabanana and The Bloody Ravens, led by koan123. The two alliances, wary of each other but knowing that an early war would be detrimental to both made a 1 month NAP.
Other notable powers in the core of Lambda at the time were Inctus and Real Madrid Elite in O54, The Narwhals in the core and O45, and the SGC in O44. The Marines soon made a name for themselves by declaring war on "Real Madrid and Co," which at the time totaled Over 12 "wing" alliances and close to 400 players. Like any proper MRA, Real Madrid was concerned about the odds
(22 Marines versus 400 RME) at the time and formed a coalition which was to be led by Koan123, Real Madrid and :supermad: Muzzy's Grandma. Semper Fidelis briefly joined the shared forum and Koan123 was led to believe that Semper Fidelis would join in the fight. However the general consensus within SFi was that the coalition was deeply flawed and Semper Fidelis stayed neutral.
Our suspicions were confirmed when Koan123 was rimmed 2 days into the war.
Semper Fidelis benefited immensely from this, as without leadership all of the good players from TBR within O55 drifted over to Semper Fidelis. Absolute control of O55 then became the the mantra of SFi. Although it had the highest turnover rate of the top 12 alliances, Semper Fidelis became successful because it kept recruiting in new players and merging with smaller, successful alliances. With a list of enemy alliances 10 times as long as a list of pacts, one can image that we made a lot of friends in that ocean. Butro: and we aimed for manifest destiny.
SokMboppers became the first player to take a SFi city, credit to him. He also quickly became a top defender and this launched the first major O55 war. Semper Fidelis squared off against the War Mongers, The Great Empire East and The Great Empire South, among others in a 2 front war.
Soon Semper Fidelis reached the #2 spot in points and the #2 spot in all battle point statistics. If anybody is curious to see how the war turned out an entertaining thread is at http://forum.en.grepolis.com/showthread.php?t=13980 Semper Fidelis proved extremely successful, maintaining it's grip on O55. If memory serves me right the conquering score was something like 40:4. SFi was even able to defend against CS attacks on the O55/O56 border while players were absent for long periods of time.
(War Mongers)
Needless to say O55 was having the good fight until The Great Empire alliances collapsed and reformed as 9th Legion and Infectious State in early-december. This began a new chapter for O55. It was around Christmas when Killabanana became tired of leading SFi by himself. Seeing a lot of inactivity in the alliance (due to Christmas and other holidays) Killabanana became worried about the long-term solvency of SFi. To make matters worse the Marines, who had had an unofficial NAP with SFi were beginning to encroach into O55 from the north. They were about to finish off Real Madrid Elite (that is the story of O54, which will not be discussed here) and Killabanana decided that merging the larger, more active players of SFi was in his and ultimately in SFi's best interest. Overnight the #2 alliance disappeared, turning The Marines into Lambda's powerhouse. SFi disbanded with a city gain/loss record of close to 200/4.
This created a large power vacuum as one an imagine. S.W.A.T took a number of the SFi players and Infectious State gained their first foothold in O55 by absorbing some southern former SFi members. The Marines then began expansion into O55, which more often than not involved attacking S.W.A.T in a cruel twist of fate. Lack of a central power in O55 also created an invitation for IS to begin expansion northward. S.W.A.T, suffering from structural problems
disbanded, with many of their players forming System Worms in a league with IS against the Marines. From that point on System Worms became the punching bag of the 10 Marines in O55 and the Marines became the punching bag of IS, which neatly exploited System worms to cover its foothold in southern O55. After some initial failures, IS generally enjoyed success against the Marines in O55 and advanced at a decent clip.
But the Marines had larger problems. They had stopped recruiting after the merger and by the end of January their membership was beginning to dwindle. Arguably the greatest player this server ever saw, PolskaPrince started a business which took off and he had to quit playing. Worse, The Marines, who through early successes had an average score twice that of the next alliance in December, were feeling the effects of morale. Enfo, the #1 attacker for the first few months of this server quit when he was attacked with swords by a 1500 point player and expended 2000 offensive troops to kill the little guy's 500 defensive units. :Angry: He posted his thoughts on the Marine Forum, and there wasn't much we could do but commiserate. We were all feeling it. We were spending more time in this game to less and less benefit.
IS continued to make steady progress in O55, and I am still impressed by the efficiency of some of their players. (A 230 LS nuke from a city with (-) wood? Impressive Satia.) One Marine ended up in the hospital; others drifted away. Gendodo's leaving had to do with RL obligations, and when Thunder left The Marines only had about 25 active members, although there were several more in the alliance that had entered V-mode for various reasons.
Due to a number of RL commitments I also decided that I couldn't play 3 servers of Grepolis simultaneously and left The Marines on February 6th. I don't know if there exists an unbiased story of what happened in O55 after I left, but I would love to hear that unbiased story. Clearly the Marines have lost much of O55 due to their 2 front war, but even more so due to inactivity. I maintained my bp ranking while away, even though I haven't attacked in over a month, which means a lot of good players left Lambda. As best I know, nobody defeated The Marines. You cannot defeat an enemy that walks away. Who can add to my story?
Lambda opened November 1st and Ocean 55 became the first fully developed ocean in the core. Unlike O45, which only became completely developed days later, fighting in O55 started early. There were no pre-made alliances (except perhaps the 6 founders of the Marines and the Narwhal-Penguinz war), but nevertheless two alliances quickly came to power in O55––Semper Fidelis, led by Killabanana and The Bloody Ravens, led by koan123. The two alliances, wary of each other but knowing that an early war would be detrimental to both made a 1 month NAP.
Other notable powers in the core of Lambda at the time were Inctus and Real Madrid Elite in O54, The Narwhals in the core and O45, and the SGC in O44. The Marines soon made a name for themselves by declaring war on "Real Madrid and Co," which at the time totaled Over 12 "wing" alliances and close to 400 players. Like any proper MRA, Real Madrid was concerned about the odds
(22 Marines versus 400 RME) at the time and formed a coalition which was to be led by Koan123, Real Madrid and :supermad: Muzzy's Grandma. Semper Fidelis briefly joined the shared forum and Koan123 was led to believe that Semper Fidelis would join in the fight. However the general consensus within SFi was that the coalition was deeply flawed and Semper Fidelis stayed neutral. Our suspicions were confirmed when Koan123 was rimmed 2 days into the war.
Semper Fidelis benefited immensely from this, as without leadership all of the good players from TBR within O55 drifted over to Semper Fidelis. Absolute control of O55 then became the the mantra of SFi. Although it had the highest turnover rate of the top 12 alliances, Semper Fidelis became successful because it kept recruiting in new players and merging with smaller, successful alliances. With a list of enemy alliances 10 times as long as a list of pacts, one can image that we made a lot of friends in that ocean. But
ro: and we aimed for manifest destiny.SokMboppers became the first player to take a SFi city, credit to him. He also quickly became a top defender
and this launched the first major O55 war. Semper Fidelis squared off against the War Mongers, The Great Empire East and The Great Empire South, among others in a 2 front war.
Soon Semper Fidelis reached the #2 spot in points and the #2 spot in all battle point statistics. If anybody is curious to see how the war turned out an entertaining thread is at http://forum.en.grepolis.com/showthread.php?t=13980 Semper Fidelis proved extremely successful, maintaining it's grip on O55. If memory serves me right the conquering score was something like 40:4. SFi was even able to defend against CS attacks on the O55/O56 border while players were absent for long periods of time.
(War Mongers)
Needless to say O55 was having the good fight until The Great Empire alliances collapsed and reformed as 9th Legion and Infectious State in early-december. This began a new chapter for O55. It was around Christmas when Killabanana became tired of leading SFi by himself. Seeing a lot of inactivity in the alliance (due to Christmas and other holidays) Killabanana became worried about the long-term solvency of SFi. To make matters worse the Marines, who had had an unofficial NAP with SFi were beginning to encroach into O55 from the north. They were about to finish off Real Madrid Elite (that is the story of O54, which will not be discussed here) and Killabanana decided that merging the larger, more active players of SFi was in his and ultimately in SFi's best interest. Overnight the #2 alliance disappeared, turning The Marines into Lambda's powerhouse. SFi disbanded with a city gain/loss record of close to 200/4.
This created a large power vacuum as one an imagine. S.W.A.T took a number of the SFi players and Infectious State gained their first foothold in O55 by absorbing some southern former SFi members. The Marines then began expansion into O55, which more often than not involved attacking S.W.A.T in a cruel twist of fate.
Lack of a central power in O55 also created an invitation for IS to begin expansion northward. S.W.A.T, suffering from structural problems
disbanded, with many of their players forming System Worms in a league with IS against the Marines. From that point on System Worms became the punching bag of the 10 Marines in O55 and the Marines became the punching bag of IS, which neatly exploited System worms to cover its foothold in southern O55. After some initial failures, IS generally enjoyed success against the Marines in O55 and advanced at a decent clip.
But the Marines had larger problems. They had stopped recruiting after the merger and by the end of January their membership was beginning to dwindle. Arguably the greatest player this server ever saw, PolskaPrince started a business which took off and he had to quit playing. Worse, The Marines, who through early successes had an average score twice that of the next alliance in December, were feeling the effects of morale. Enfo, the #1 attacker for the first few months of this server quit when he was attacked with swords by a 1500 point player and expended 2000 offensive troops to kill the little guy's 500 defensive units. :Angry: He posted his thoughts on the Marine Forum, and there wasn't much we could do but commiserate. We were all feeling it. We were spending more time in this game to less and less benefit.
IS continued to make steady progress in O55, and I am still impressed by the efficiency of some of their players. (A 230 LS nuke from a city with (-) wood? Impressive Satia.) One Marine ended up in the hospital; others drifted away. Gendodo's leaving had to do with RL obligations, and when Thunder left The Marines only had about 25 active members, although there were several more in the alliance that had entered V-mode for various reasons.
Due to a number of RL commitments I also decided that I couldn't play 3 servers of Grepolis simultaneously and left The Marines on February 6th. I don't know if there exists an unbiased story of what happened in O55 after I left, but I would love to hear that unbiased story. Clearly the Marines have lost much of O55 due to their 2 front war, but even more so due to inactivity. I maintained my bp ranking while away, even though I haven't attacked in over a month, which means a lot of good players left Lambda. As best I know, nobody defeated The Marines. You cannot defeat an enemy that walks away. Who can add to my story?
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