Ikariam
Ikariam Tips & Info
Make Easy Money
[ 4 Comments ] Posted on 03.28.08 under Tips
Hope you all liked the guide on how to find and pillage towns in Ikariam. The technique worked to its full potential before yesterday’s update which introduced action points. It still works now, but you can’t repeat it as often.
Anyway, here’s a technique that is not limited to Ikariam and is used to make easy money in-game without too much effort. For example, take a look at the screenshots below:
Buy Crystal Screen:
Sell Crystal Screen:
So basically, you can buy 1,500 crystal from those two people in the first screen for 20g each = 30,000. You can then sell these to the people in the second screenshots who are buying them for 30-35g each to get 51,500 gold for 1400 of them! That’s a net profit of 21,500 gold from this single transaction!
Why does it work?
It works because a lot of people don’t realize the potential, don’t fully understand how the game trade mechanics work, can’t be bothered to search for the resource they want/ sell.
This was just an example of how you can use this but almost all of the time you can take advantage of this technique to make a profit. Sometimes you won’t make 21,000 gold from a single transaction as such opportunities are rare but even if you make 5,000 it still is something in Ikariam!
Also remember that this technique works for every game that has a market/ auction house. World of Warcraft is another perfect example 
when I used to play the game I made 90% of my money from this technique.
Anyways, this is the tip for today - now open your market window and see what real bargains you can find 
.
Ikariam Defense
[ 34 Comments ] Posted on 03.23.08 under Tips
So you might have angried a few other Ikariam players by pillaging their villages/ towns/ cities and now you might think they’re coming after you. In this guide I am only going to cover the low level defensive units e.g. Ballista ship, Ram ship, Phalanx and.. spies! Therefore, it’s more aimed at new people to the Ikariam.
These three units are the basis of your defense at the start of the game. Later on, the phalanx can get replaced by steamgiants and the ballista ships by catapult ships but if you’ve only started Ikariam 3 or 4 days ago you wouldn’t have gotten to that stage yet as it can take weeks if not months.
The prime mistake new people do is they expand their port like crazy seeing how little resources they use, thinking it might help them in the long run or simply because they can’t build anything else. Well, the first trick to being supreme in defense is keeping the level of your trading port to 1. If you’ve already upgraded it, downgrade it by selecting demolish.
Secondly, build two or even three Balista ships and keep them constantly in your Ikariam town’s port. If someone sends over a trading ship they will get turned back by these ships. This means they will then have to blockade your port and send over at least the same number of ships you have and of a higher level. For example, 2 flameships per 2 Balista ships. This is costly, requires high level of research and time consuming (3h+ at least). If you haven’t been spied on and the player saw that pillaging you would totally be worth it, he would just give up after his trading ships returned.
Okay, so we have a level 1 port, three Balista ships and now we need soldiers - Phalanxes! This is the second line of defense. At this level 15 phalanx continuously on defense ’stance’ in your town will render all attacks worthless.
The phalanx is the best unit for defense in Ikariam assuming the upkeep costs and defence bonus. Steamgiants are the next step up from phalanx but they are months away in the research time line!
The third unit that will help you keep the enemies away are the spies! An expanded hideout of 4+ and the same number of spies on defense status will provide more than adequate protection against most spies and players who would want to attack you at this level (remember, I’m talking about 3-8 with medium scores).
Remember it is also important that your town wall is at least the same level as your town hall to provide the best defense bonus in Ikariam it can offer.
How To Guarantee Pillage 100% Without Any Losses
[ 47 Comments ] Posted on 03.23.08 under Tips
I’ve been using this technique in Ikariam over the past couple of days and I got thousands of crystal glass, marble, wine, sulphur and possibly about 10K+ of wood in three days alone.
I have a small army - 5 phalanx constantly in defense, 20 slingers, 4 swordsman and 14 trade ships
So how did I win all my battles? Well, the tool I’m loving at the moment and I use constantly is the Ikariam Score Search Tool. This tool displays the total score, military score, gold score and it also tells you whether the selected town has any allies.
It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out that a town with a military score of 0 has no army whatsoever, that including war ships so you needn’t worry about having to blockade the port first - you can send in 2 slingers and they will pillage it without any problems.
So what I did was pick an island with the resource I want and preferably one that has the wonder that increases the resource gained as this way I know the towns will have a lot of the resource stored. Then check each town between level 3 and 7 to see its army and total score. A town with a total score of 300+ and military score of 0 is what you should aim for. The total score may mean that the port level is higher than 1 (most people new to the game just upgrade their port thinking it will help them and only later realize their mistake), therefore the higher the score the better the target. This means you can just send in 2 or 3 slingers and return with a full shipment of goods!
Sometimes you will only get 200 wood and maybe 10-20 of the Ikariam luxury resource but other times you might get 1k+ wood and 300-400 of the resource depending on how many trade ships you have available at home which is another important part. A little investment into 10+ ships will pay off in a matter of hours if this technique is used correctly. However, it is important to remember that I have not once been in loss - sending 2-3 slingers will cost 400 gold at most. Therefore, even if you only get 40 wood back which is very unlikely you still won’t loose money. On the other hand, if you would have to blockade the port first then launch your own army you could very well be into thousands of gold spent which is risky unless you’ve used a spy beforehand.
Okay so those are the steps to getting your first pillages if you are new to the game and don’t have huge amounts of resources. Nonetheless after you’ve raised 3 colonies, got a town level of 12+ and a larger army you may want to move and attack larger cities so you get more resources per pillage if this method begins to bore you. But by that time you will have the combat experience in Ikariam!
Now that you got the resources at home, learn how to build the ultimate defense in Ikariam so players you pillaged can’t revenge on you!