Sanctuary of Absalom (15:15) (henceforth known as Sanctuary) began preparing for the inevitable top conflict by converting their bank into an attacker setup. When they believed they were well off enough to enroll in battle, Sanctuary took arms and began sending armies at the then untagged Playboys (2:35) hoping to gain some acres on their cow. While their wave began April 7th of Year 1, the majority of their forces arrived for battle on April 10th of Year 1 and took an overall estimate of 4,700 acres of land, of which included nearly 350 acres of land in a conquest against Playboys bank AttackingWithArchers. Unfortunately, mid-entry into their wave, Sanctuary did not foresee that Playboys had recently built some forts, making it harder for them to find appropriate targets. Unprepared to return battle with full forces, Playboys made arrangements with the untagged Sinners (4:39) and entered into a fake war starting April 12th of Year 1.

Shortly after entering fake war, Playboys launched a return wave taking an estimated 4,800 acres. Continued hostilities throughout the fake war resulted in and additionally estimated 200 acres from AttackingWithArchers and the exchange of over 140 attacks and 12,000 by the start of June of Year 1 where Sanctuary discontinued their hits. Playboys made an additional 18 hits taking an estimated 900 acres with only a single retal; an ambush from Sanctuary. These final actions pushed the meter in Sanctuary's favor, granting them the war button. June 24th of Year 1, Playboys MP'd their fake war with Sinners, and true war with Sanctuary was only a matter of time. The only action seen during the next 48 hours came from a lone province in playboys, making one traditional march per day, and the funding of a Ruby Dragon from Sanctuary. Upon final exit of the war, the same lone province was the only one to make a hit prior to sanctuary's declaration, which came on February 6th of Year 2, seven hours after Playboys was released from their fake war.

Immediately upon declaring, Sanctuary sent their Dragon and set out with Traditional Marches to begin their chaining. Playboys made haste in returning action, sending their own Ruby Dragon; but neither dragons lasted longer than an hour. Playboys combated Sanctuary's heavy chaining by ambushing as many of the armies as their generals would allow, for the highest possible return. To ensure their enemy could not do the same, Playboys chose a target whose army was already out and quickly began chaining. What started with Traditional Marches soon became razes in the never ending goal to render enemies useless.

Sanctuary attempted to Land Lust some acres from Playboys cow, but with little luck, no real cow on cow action was seen through the war. Playboys, on the other hand, had a small stroke of luck stumbling into a province with a severe lack of thieves and lost no time Night Striking him heavily. Both kingdoms sent a second Dragon, Sanctuary's arriving at Playboys on February 21st of Year 2 and Playboys landing March 3rd of Year 2. Sanctuary acted against their Dragon, slaying it March 22nd of Year 2, while Playboys left the Dragon for the remainder of the active war.

Playboys luck did not run short here, as one of Sanctuary's large gnomes sent out his army, believing he was still unbreakable with just over 30,000 defense higher than Playboys highest offense orc. This did not stop Playboys from breaking the gnome; quick with aid to their highest offense orc, Playboys managed nearly 400 acres from a single hit.

Sanctuary noted that at their current sizes, Playboys warrior advantage was tough to handle and although they had an economic advantage with their big elves, MS, and their rogues, they believed it would not be beneficial to remain in war. Throughout the last hours of war, Sanctuary's provinces max gained upon army home until their withdrawal, April 7th of Year 2.

Sanctuary had no comment.

Playboys Leadership comments:
Thanks for the war!

If you recall our previous article, Aces and Sinners, you'll know that a war has brought two kingdoms together. 48 hours have passed through this moment; 48 hours of intense slashing. More than 15 attacks every hour. 50 of some of the oldest and most experienced players in Utopia collide on the same battlefield. 50 painfully active troopers who hardly caught even a few hours of sleep. An epic war with a few captures of 25 stars lighting up the kingdoms pages.

This is only a short description of the war between Sinners (4:39) and BAWWD (15:9). Both having similar configurations, based on elves and orcs, the difference could only be made by whoever organized better chains and had a better view on the war. Although Sinners presented the advantage of more orcs than elves, BAWWD's advantage seemed to be the 10 elites per acre on each orc along with a nice percentage of guard stations.

While we presented the awakening conflict the moment of the wave and war declaration, in that very first hour, it is now time for a full review of this magnificent war.

In order to get the war, Sinners only hit twice and saved the rest of the hits for the war time. Moments after a prompt declaration, a full wave was unleashed on the all-gone armies of BAWWD. Starting with the first wave, Sinners decided to concentrate first on BAWWD's full elite orcs and stuck to this tactic for the entire war, because as UG from Sinners mentioned, "elves could easily land lust back." This brutal chaining left bloody remains of the victim, right down to 200 acres for some of the enemy orcs. Meanwhile, BAWWD's elves kept growing while their mates carried the hard part of the war which soon became their tactic, warring with the orcs and growing their elves.

First day of the war, Sinners slayed the dragon they obtained in the hostile period, but received another the same hour. They also decided to send one, which BAWWD slayed after only a few hours.

Soon before min time, Sinners realized the war was going nowhere and that BAWWD's tactic to sacrifice the orcs and save the elves worked as they managed some unbreakables, and decided to withdraw.

Both kingdoms' extreme activity helped at changing monarchy almost everytime a new chain started, but this didn't help against the heavy damage the chains created.

Both kingdoms ended with barons and knights, chained provinces and grown. Shortly, no kingdom won anything, except for the tons of fun and experience. And this is all that matters; how all the wars should be taken, with this amount of respect and fun. Congratulations to both parts.




UG from Sinners commented:
"Congrats on the war win. You guys more than impressed us. Enjoy the rest of the age."

Leadership of BAWWD commented:
"We are the best kingdom in the game. Run away when you see us."

A few days of silence passed after Drunken Legions (7:37) (henceforth known as DL) exited their war with the untagged Dragons of Absalom (9:30), seen here. Using this silent time to recover, DL had no intention of a quick return to war. Intentions aside, De Notenkraker (7:27) (henceforth known as DN) had plans of their own and waved DL whom chose to rebuild for war and declare on March 15th of Year 2.

DL opened the war with semi-chains, placing three to six hits on enemy provinces. Shortly after their opening wave, prior to the bulk of DN's first in-war wave, DL sent a Dragon against their enemies, preparing another that would not see flight. DN took first to a heavier chaining strategy, focusing on two main targets, and later spreading some multi-taps against a mix of targets.

Hitting some bad luck, DN sent their Dragon on April 19th of Year 2 only to meet its end that very same hour. Focusing more on max gains now, DN made only one further semi-chain, placing 5 hits on Snugglepuff before carrying on a max gains throughout the remainder of the war. DL did not stray much from their semi-chaining strategy until later war where they too began max gains until the wars end with DN's withdrawal at minimum time, May 15th of Year 2.

DN declined to comment.

DL declined to comment.

** Summary from Drunken Legions **
Total Attacks Made: 111 (11,662 acres)
-- Traditional March: 109 (11,611 acres)
-- Ambush: 1 (51 acres)
-- Failed Attacks: 1 (0.9% failure)
Total Attacks Suffered: 83 (6,287 acres)
-- Traditional March: 73 (6,187 acres)
-- Ambush: 1 (100 acres)
-- Raze: 3 (150 acres)
-- Failed Attacks: 6 (7.2% failure)
Aid packets sent: 79

As previously noted in the article Rage Against This Kid, The kingdoms of Rage of Absalom (11:5) (henceforth known as Rage) and Rise of the Machines (3:21) (henceforth known as Machines) entered into war after Rage laid claim to territory marked by Machines. Refusing to give up free land, the conflict swiftly spiraled into war.

With Rage's hostile wave completely composed of anonymous attacks, it was impossible to say how many provinces were actually involved in the assault, and how many were left with an army awaiting combat. Since war took off within only an hour of the initial wave, both kingdoms came prepared. Shortly after declaration, Machines started an Emerald Dragon while receiving the Ruby Dragon started during Rage's initial wave. Both Kingdoms immediately took to a chaining strategy, with Rage taking down Legatus Mensae and Machines focusing on Solar powered torch. After roughly half their wave placed against Solar powered torch, Machines decided that rather than fight for the win, they would fight a short-term war for the keepsake of their acres, and changed plans to a max gaining strategy.

Rage continued chaining, tackling the highest offensive threats with the assistance of their gnomes, preparing their targets for heavy chaining. With a high offensive range and the use of focused ops, most of Rage's provinces were able to multi-tap, and even quad-tap, their targets. Machines were also able to make use of some multi-taps, but unfortunately it was not nearly as frequent and they lacked adequate thieves to return the heavy barrage they faced. Machines Sent their Dragon on February 17th of Year 2 and with the potential troops lost to overpopulation of their chained provs, they killed Rage's Ruby Dragon on February 22nd of Year 2. This victory was short lived, as Rage's second dragon took flight on February 24th of Year 2 which would remain a part of the kingdom for the remainder of the war. Rage also slain the Emerald Dragon on March 1st of Year 2, giving it only an eight hour life span.

With the end of the war soon coming, Rage also took to max gaining, spreading their hits through multiple targets to make best use of their offense. Machines took their last effort of hits before withdrawing at minimum time on March 22nd of Year 2.

Throughout the conflict, Rage has managed to maintain their number one position and is the first kingdom on the server this age to achieve a networth of over ten million. Machines have lost their foothold as the number two kingdom for land and networth and currently reside just outside the top ten.

Jackson, current Monarch of Rage of Absalom, comments:
I'd like to thank Reunion for taking up the challenge and for a well fought war. We wish them the best of luck in the future.

Leadership of Rise of the Machines comments:
Hope we can meet again on even terms

Armies out, fresh from a wave against ChuckNorrisd (14:4), Dragons of Absalom (9:30) (henceforth known as DoA) received an offer of ceasefire, to which they accepted on January 1st of Year 2. Seven hours later, with their armies still out, DoA spotted enemy troops from S E A S O N S (8:3) (previously untagged and known as Uncharted) marching against them. Seasons started the funding of a Ruby Dragon, claiming roughly 2,000 acres of land in 17 hits spread from January 8th to January 18th of Year 2.

Having noted the hits, DoA considered their options. Having already lost important ground in the top in the assumed short age, DoA believed their only chance to get back up would be to defeat another top kingdom. Suspecting the untagged kingdom to be one of the more cunning and insanely active warring kingdoms on the server, DoA carefully crafted a plan for how they would defeat Seasons. Placing two return hits on January 18th of Year 2, DoA obtained unfriendly status with the hostile Seasons and declared war.

Quick to notice the declaration, Seasons immediately sent their first Ruby Dragon, instantly preparing another for a later journey, while DoA started funding their first Ruby Dragon. DoA immediately put their plan into action, heavily fireballing Seasons cow, MVing fog and MP off of their chain targets and kicking the war off with focus. DoA held the armies of their biggest hitters in an attempt to freeze Seasons killers advantage and planned to have their gnomes work down Seasons killers one by one with concentrated Night Strikes.

Seasons focused their hits back, chaining a few provinces in return, and as predicted, held their killers armies. Only having four Killers, with DoA holding seven of their largest armies, Seasons already felt they outnumbered DoA, and made use of any multi-taps they could to assist their chaining.

With a Mystic Vortex cast upon enemy killers, stripping them of the powerful Clear Sight, DoA's gnomes kicked in the planned Night Strikes in an attempt to overpower Seasons larger provinces. Astonishingly, the gnomes had little success despite Seasons killers having around 1 raw tpa and clear sight down. This horrible success rate did not allow for enough damage for DoA to progress their actions, so they began to look for an alternative route. Having already killed nearly 70,000 peasants on Seasons cow, they were sure its economy was hurting and decided to move on, Assassinating Wizards and Land Lusting enemy acres. Realizing they'd have no chance in a long-term war, DoA discontinued their work on Seasons cow, and claim to gain between 800 to 900 acres through land lusting.

After moving onward with a new short-term plan, DoA withdrew at minimum time, March 18th of Year 2. The first Dragon sent against them was never slain, nor was their first Dragon ever sent.

dev, co-monarch of Dragons, comments:
We might have lost some acres but we are still huge in Japan!

koti00 of Seasons comments:
Thanks DoA for the War. Much love to all seasoners and especially Amaz and Dirty for the support.

Many of us mourn his absence while others are still celebrating his retreat. We thought it was time to approach and interview the father of Utopia and former owner of Swirve, Mehul Patel. While no longer involved with Swirve, he managed to tiptoe around the more controversial questions; mainly how he felt for us and our politics during his leadership. However, we will let you read the interview and take a conclusion yourself.

How are you? How is your life lately?

Things are good. It took a while to complete all my Swirve responsibilities and shut down the business on this end, but that’s all finally complete. I had been running an online business of one sort or another since about 1992, so it’s been a nice break to be away from all of that.

Are you only dealing the coffee shop, or do you have something else too that keeps you busy?

Right now, my priority is growing the coffee shop and making that a successful venture. I want to take some time getting that right and committing the time needed to it before even considering starting anything else.

Do you miss Utopia at all? The deletions, flaming etc.?

Yes and no. Swirve was a major part of my life for 12 years, and there were a lot of fun things about it. It was sort of an experimental world for us – where I could see my ideas and theories come to life, so I really enjoyed having that. But that said, it had gotten to the point where I was enjoying it less and less and simply losing interest.

There are players in Utopia who miss you. You can see provinces like "OMAC Leave Us Pls" or "OMAC LicksMehul Feet". How do you feel about this?

That’s to be expected anytime ownership changes, I think. When I ran it, there were plenty of people that really liked the way I did things, and plenty more that hated our style just as much and wanted me gone. OMAC will have the same issues. I don’t think there’s much that should be read into it.

What were the reasons that made you decide to sell Swirve?

Mostly, I felt it was just time. I had grown out of it and wanted to move on to different things. I wasn’t going to be able to put in the dedication that was needed to really make it grow. Originally, the plan was to just keep running it as long as it could survive, but then OMAC came into the picture and it made much more sense for them to take it over and work to build it instead of letting it just slowly go.

How much did you sell it for?

That’s confidential.

Are you tempted at all to get back to the games you created? Maybe not as a manager, but at least as a helper and maintainer.

I’d be happy to provide advice and the like if OMAC were to ask, but they also need the space to really come it from a fresh perspective and do their own thing. The worst thing you can have is different visions trying to mix ideas – the end result will probably be the worst of all worlds. They need the time and space to really take it in the direction they want without having me look over their shoulders or anything like that.

Have you ever considered starting a new gaming company? Maybe another bounce that will shake the Internet world, like Utopia did.

Part of any sale of this sort is a limited non-compete agreement for a period of time, so I certainly won’t be doing that anytime soon. Right now, I don’t have any new ideas that I want to focus on, so I can’t see it – but on the flipside, Earth went from initial idea to being online in about 4-6 weeks, so it’s hard to say. If inspiration strikes, I have nothing against the idea of getting back into gaming or something of that sort.

What do you think your biggest mistake in Utopia was? How about your smartest move?

There were two major mistakes with Utopia – one that I regret, and one that was simply unfortunate. The regret is launching Utopia Genesis. While it seemed like a good idea (and is now), I think Utopia was at its best when there was only one server. It let people focus more on a single account and really encouraging the tight-knit community within kingdoms. Once you had a new round starting twice as often and with new kingdoms each time in Genesis, I think we lost a little of that community aspect and people got more focused on simply “winning now” and getting into better kingdoms rather than building kingdoms over time.

The other was simply going to Grad School. It wasn’t a mistake for me personally, but it did push Swirve to the background for a few years, and that was the beginning of when I put less and less focus into it. I think had I continued focusing on it full-time back in 2002, both Utopia and Earth would have been much better off.

I think the smartest move was staying true to our principles from day 1. I really wanted the game to be about interacting with new people and developing new relationships across borders and really being a sort of subtle teaching tool. There were a lot of opportunities to really streamline the game in ways that players wanted, but that I felt would take away from that type of stuff. I’m glad we never went that route.

Do you keep in touch with OMAC? For advice or whatever.

Initially, I provided a lot of assistance and tried to help wherever I could, but I haven’t been in contact with them recently. I think they are comfortable with the game and the coding, so they can now go in their own direction with the games. They know how to reach me if they need anything, though.

They legalised trading, choosing your kingdom, they even offer credits for sitting, you can pay for them. Plus, the pages are full of noobish Google ads. Is it good, or is it bad? Some people get banned in the forums for telling the truth. Basically, they turned the game at 180 degrees. What do you think of that?

I can’t comment too much because I haven’t really followed any of the details. I’ve never been a believer in legalized trading, but that’s certainly OMAC’s choice. The ad market has gotten much more complex with the global economic problems, so I imagine OMAC has new challenges to deal with there to properly fund the game. In terms of the forums, when we ran the site, we found that there was often much more to the story than what posters claimed – without knowing any details, I would withhold judgement - bans are often are not nearly as crazy or unreasonable as they may appear.

A new game was recently launched by OMAC - Utopia Kingdoms. It is a graphics Utopia. However, one player checked the source page and discovered tags and leads to the Khan Wars game. Basically, they copied a script, but forgot to remove all the proof. What do you think of that?

I’d rather not comment here without knowing the details from OMAC’s perspective. If they own Khan Wars, it’s a common idea to rebrand a game with a different interface and genre to expand an audience. I don’t know if the name would be ideal, but that’s primarily a marketing decision.

OMAC performed a few unexpected actions in their first age. For instance, a top kingdom had 2 newbies in which had names like "X KD hides here". OMAC moved the rest of the players to a "virgin" kingdom. They also joined IRC to check a kingdom's activity after being mass deleted, then they decided to put them back together. Have you ever done such things? How do you comment them?

We generally stayed away from interfering with kingdom politics, but there were certainly times were we moved kingdoms around or disassembled or reassembled them as needed if we had made mistakes or needed to correct problems.

Now that you are not involved in Swirve at all, any idea how much longer Utopia will last? It is losing more players with every new age. When do you estimate it will die?

That’s hard to say without seeing what OMAC has in store for it. My understanding is that they’ve been re-writing the code to a language that they can more easily manage. That leads to delays in improvements in the short-term, but it hopefully suggests that they will be able to better improve things in the long-run. So it’s sort of a waiting game right now to see what direction they take the game.

How many Utopians have you met in real life? Any conflicts? Any strange questions?

I’ve only met a Utopians in real life, and never any of the truly dedicated players – just people who had played the game at one point. Nothing really strange in that I met them unconnected to Utopia. I’ve never had a player approach me specifically in regards to the games.

Have you ever had preferences for certain kingdoms, alliances or players in Utopia? Like "protect" some of them from deletions etc.

Never. We never cared about the standings within the game. To us, the Utopian Experience was about playing the game – not winning or anything like that. We didn’t involve ourselves in in-game politics and really never knew who the alliances were or anything like that beyond the names necessary to track in-game cheating.

How about disgraces? Anyone that constantly bothered you with cheating maybe?

No – I think with any kind of game like this, you simply can’t take things personally. We treated players as any business would treat customers. However, we also had strict rules and ethical standards personally. If we knew a player had cheated, we would consider that when dealing with them – less benefit of the doubt, etc. Since I wasn’t primarily dealing with in-game cheating, that affected me mostly in the forums and choosing when to ban people or things like that. I didn’t have a high tolerance for repeat offenders.

Can you tell us the biggest events you recall the best? The most important moments in Utopia for you?

The coolest things for me were the stories people wrote about how our games impacted their lives. It gave us a sense of doing something beyond simply running an online game. We posted some of them on the Utopia website, but over the years we got many more that were extremely rewarding on a personal level.

As an overall idea, did this 10-year management meet your expectations?

The whole Swirve concept went well beyond expectations. When we first started it, I knew little to nothing about web-programming and there was barely any type of online advertising industry. So I had no idea if we could create the game, or if we could find a way to fund it. At best, we hoped it might last for a few years. I never would have guessed that it would still be around 12 years later.

If a big part of the IRC users (The active part of Utopia.) (~1500 people) would donate 1$ each monthly, would you get back to the game and manage it again?

I don’t think that’s really up to me. OMAC has all rights to the games.

How is Blake? Do you still keep in touch with him? What does he do in real life?

Yeah, I’m still in touch with him. He’s a good friend of mine, and I knew him long before he joined Swirve.

Do you regret leaving Utopia?

Not at all – as mentioned earlier, I think the time was right. I will, of course, miss things about running the site, but I think it was the right move to make to give someone else the chance to carry on and grow the game.

What are your future plans?

At this point, I’m not really sure. I’m going to focus on the coffee shop for a while, and then go from there. I really enjoy taking on new projects when the opportunities present themselves, so I have no idea where I’ll be 2 or 3 years from now.

Create a question for yourself and answer it. Something I missed and you might like the people to know.

I really have no ideas of what to put here.

Let's see some of your preferences.
- Absalom or CSB?
- KLA or HaLL?
- Brute Force or War Cry?
- Heretics or Edge?
- Fratzia or Junkies?
- Trading or cross logging?
- Asians or Romanians?
- Utopia Temple or Alliance Rankings?
- Outside tools calculators or pen and paper?
- Experienced, active and arrogant, or active noob willing to learn?

On the first 5, I had no real interest in the internal politics of alliances and things like that, so I have no preferences there. If I had to pick between trading and cross-logging, I would take the latter because it was less damaging to the underlying concept of the game. I didn’t really pay much attention to the outside 3rd party websites, so I can’t comment there. The math part of the game was always a challenge for me – I wanted to encourage people’s thinking, but I didn’t want it to be a simple matter of playing with a calculator. I would have preferred instinct and intuition, but that was unrealistic. As for the last, I always preferred the player willing to learn.

Anything else you may like to add? Perhaps a message for all the community, for the Utopians who miss you and for those who are happy you left.

I haven’t paid too much attention to Swirve since I left, but I encourage everyone to give OMAC some time and space to lead the games in a new direction. There will be some change, but after many years of relative stability, change can be a very good thing if done properly.

That's all, folks.

Soon after protection ended, Force of Nature (3:38)'s undeads started to look for some decent targets in order to begin the ghouls conversion. They eyed their island neighbors, Cocktails and Dreams (16:38), and sent a few hits and a message offering war. Considering the kingdoms had the same number of provinces, they were hoping for a possible fight back.

Cocktails and Dreams accepted the war offer and after a few hits back, they pushed the button. Neither kingdom had their hybridity in, lacking both TPA and WPA, which kicked the war off on an entirely offensive front. Force of Nature, as they like to say, play Utopia to war and they could not be happier.


Both kingdoms started with a suiciding strat, so hits flew crazily in both directions. Cocktails and Dreams decided to take advantage of the new raze attack and started chains with a few traditionals and mainly razes. They sent a ruby dragon with the purpose of minimizing the Undeads' high offense as it was continuously growing. Meanwhile, Force of Nature stuck to heavy traditional chaining, making use of their multi-tap capability. Coming to the same conclusion as many other kingdoms that warred right out of protection, Cocktails and Dreams realized razing was not doing too much, so they decided to switch to mainly traditionals.

The war carried on for a few days as a dead even slug fest, as due to high offense, even the chained provinces were able to multi-tap each other and double their size after each round of hits.

Force of Nature claims their opponent started to concentrate on defense only, which was hard to do due to the Undeads' immortal offense. On the other side, Cocktails and Dreams noticed some of their enemies exploring and mass training trying to get a size advantage to be able to start conquesting their bank killer, which was massively aiding the smaller provinces.

After a few days, the first dragon flew away, so Cocktails and Dreams served another one, which was highly enjoyed and finished in just a few hours while Force of Nature decided to create one themselves.

Keeping a heavy blanket of economy ops on each other (greed, meteor showers, storms and riots in one direction with drought and riots in the other), along with some effective nightstrike runs during more than a week of hard warring, Cocktails and Dreams decided continuing the war would not be of much benefit and decided to withdraw.

Unable to achieve victory, our Kingdom has withdrawn from war with Force of Nature (3:38). Our failed war has finally ended!

Just in time, too, as the dragon created by Force of Nature was claimed to shortly pay its visit. Both kingdoms gained honor due to the hundreds of hits exchanged and honor generation in war.

Unfortunately, only one side submitted summaries and here they are, from Cocktails and Dreams.




The leadership of Cocktails and Dreams commented:
"We dedicate this war to Beer for my Horses. Our should've been kingdom mate whom landed in the wrong location! <3
And to Hi I'm New, who has <3 from our In-game Monarch :P"

Ewaem of Force of Nature commented:
"<<Courage is to feel the daily daggers of relentless steel and keep on living.>> - Douglas Malloch
<3 our relentless fighters"