2001-07-01 - 11:54 p.m.

Planetarion: The Decline(?) of Fury

Aren't all of you glad that I am clearly labeling all my entries about the online game Planetarion so all you people who don't care (which is probably most of you) can avoid reading them?

On the flip side, I've gotten some emails from Planetarion players who found my journal using Google or some other search engine. Mainly they want advice on how to handle the game situations they find themselves in. But it has made me aware that there may be a small audience of PA players reading what I am saying. So, I could be accused of disloyalty by dishing the dirt on my galaxy. If I cared about that, which I don't.

In the original draft of this entry I gave a long winded history of Fury, and all sort of inside information. In recent weeks, Fury has gotten a number of black eyes, especially in terms of security. I really wouldn't want to add to that. While some hostile alliance finding my diary would certainly make my hit count go up (yay!) it would probably not be good news for my alliance mates. (boo!)

But the real reason I trashed the original draft is because it was boring. It was turgid and I hated it. So let's see if I can't present some information on Fury and make it interesting. And hopefully SHORTER.

Like I said before Fury, my alliance, won the last round of Planetarion. They had the number one player and the number one galaxy. However, when the game gets reset everyone gets put back to zero. The fact that you were a top 100 player doesn't matter a jot - you have to start your climb to the top all over again.

The fact that Fury was #1 last round was actually a liability coming in to the new round - there were plenty of players with scores to settle and axes to grind.

Foremost in this group was an alliance called Legion or VtS (Victurus te Saluto). Fury and Legion had totally dominated the previous round, until Fury stabbed Legion in the back, with the help of a Legion splinter group called Wolfpack. This bit of timely strategy enabled Fury to coast over the finish line alone.

Thanks to the bitter rivalry between Fury and Legion, much of Planetarion became polarized into two camps: Legion and its allies Elysium and Xanadu, and Fury and Wolfpack.

Fury's plan was to remain underground - wearing no alliance tags - until they were big enough to make a play for the top again. However, this mania for secrecy was hard on the rank and file fury members, and the non-Furys in their galaxy. Attacking and defending was greatly restricted because you couldn't know who was a Fury and who wasn't. This proved to be a big source of friction in my galaxy, and I bet this was the case in other galaxies too.

For much of this round the Fury/Legion war has been a cold war. The new rules of this round greatly slanted battles in the favor of the defenders. It seemed hardly worthwhile to mount an attack if it was so easy to get defense.

However, this situation changed greatly when the Planetarion creators did some mid-round tinkering. Suddenly attacking became much more attractive. Sadly, this also made some of Fury's problems more acute.

As the round progressed, Legion took some lumps, but they changed their stripes. Legion and its allies renamed themselves VEX standing for VtS-Elysium-Xanadu. This was clever for two reasons - first, it bound their allies closer to them by sharing a common name. Second it allowed Legion to tag up without admitting they were Legion. If anything, Legion had more enemies from the previous round than Fury did, but you could never know if there were any Legion in a VEX tagged galaxy.

The conflict between Fury and Legion was not exactly two-sided. A major player in the conflict was an alliance called NoS (another Latin abbreviation) along with their ally CELL.

At the beginning of this round it was assumed that NoS was in Legion's corner, but when Fury seemed to be in the ascendancy, they switched sides and became allied with Fury.

Then Fury had a series of reverses. They had some bad defenses and bungled attacks. The members began to complain about never finding an officer when they needed one, and so on. The problem with Fury's mania for secrecy became apparent when Fury accidentally launched a major assault on one of its own galaxies. Oops!

Most alliances are lead by a High Council (HC) of several players, but Fury is led by just one guy - a British fellow who goes by the IRC handle of Synthetic Sid.

I've talked with Sid on a number of occasions and I've been impressed with how smart he was and how deep his strategy was. Almost every time I've talked with him I've learned something new and important about the game.

So Fury was a monarchy while the other alliances were oligarchies. I've always felt that a monarchy run by a wise king is the best form of government. However the main problem with monarchies is that having a wise king is a very much hit-or-miss affair.

Fury began to suffer, mainly because Sid was nowhere to be found. One person said he was taking a well-deserved vacation, another said that he was having serious computer problems. Occasionally Sid would pop up in various Fury chat rooms, but only for a few minutes. He was not seen running Fury on a day to day basis for weeks on end.

The problem with Sid taking this leave of absence, for whatever reasons, is that he didn’t really leave anyone in charge. The various officers had very limited power to do anything, and none of them seemed to have a view of the big picture. In fact, only Sid seemed to know where all the Fury players were.

So we see that a monarchy is not ruled very well by a warm spot on the throne.

Fury began to get attacked far more than it was attacking. This caused some less-dedicated Fury players to flake off, posting notices that they were leaving Fury, for whatever reason.

NoS, smelling which way the wind was blowing, severed its ties with Fury and entered into a low-level agreement with VeX. The people that run NoS, a cowardly and opportunistic lot, seem to be playing Planetarion using the Eva-Peron-sleep-your-way-to-the-top strategy. Sad to say, they seem to be doing quite well, playing both ends against the middle.

NoS is not a small alliance either: currently the top-ranked galaxy is wearing the NoS tag.

Now technically, NoS changing sides again leaves Fury in the place that it was at the start of the round, but it sure doesn't feel that way.

However, it should be remembered that Fury is at war, and during wartime losses happen. There are occasions where Fury has hurt VeX, so it is not all one sided.

And Synthetic Sid has been more in evidence recently, so perhaps things are turning around. Hope springs eternal, here in the trenches.