Among some improvements brought by emporia :

- If I undesrstood well, risks to lose resources are reduced. Supposing you get attacked and your defense gets reduced to the point their carrying capacity is full, your troops will come back immediately with all they have collected and are currently able to carry.

With classical colonies, you just lost all.

- Players chosing to send reduced defense will collect more often. This will also free the emporium, so it's made available again.

While it can be a drawback for the owner, it's still his choice (he could as well have stored more defense, lengthen the collection time, and collected more), it also allows more turnover for other players to take a chance on it.

- Actually, we should stop considering them as properties as soon as your troops leave them. They're legitimately yours as long as you hold them, but you must consider them as new spots once you leave them, so anybody (including you, as you're free to send back another party immediately, with the advantage you know exactly when it's been freed) can race for them again.

- The drawback is clashes are more frequent as well, but i've noticed a way to avoid losing tons of troops out of accidental clashes : instead of sending a strong offense, just send a few heroes (or even just one).

It's enough to take the emporium over if it's still unclaimed on arrival, but it shouldn't even harm the new owner's defense if he reached it first.

With the huge advantage to avoid anger and useless losses. The hero will be lost, but it's free.

I've noticed the newcomer's defense units play no role at all in the skirmish, so don't hesitate to send what's needed to collect your share, in case you get there first, as it will be left 100% unharmed in case you don't get there the first.

- Collection is automated. Rather than having to stay awake and click on colonies every hour, you just program your collection time by sending the relevant defense.

- You can now hold 4 emporia, from 3 colonies.

To those who will certainly yell I'm subservient, I'll answer I'm only not prone to fight windmills and I prefer to adapt to the new situation.

Emporia are there, so you'd better learn to use them to advantage.

I gave a few tips above to allow smooth swapping without losing troops at every attempt.

You're free to follow them or not, but if you want to play in aggressive mode, you'll reap what you sowed.

Maybe the simple idea to swap might ruffle some of you, but yes, I do appreciate to be able to check the Oracle every now and then and find some free emporia, instead of having to stay awake up to 4 AM for the new colonies to appear. At least now I can sleep !

It does give more people more frequent possibiliies to collect some resources, and you're free to adapt the defense to the time you want to keep it. All in all, it's not such a bad addition.

Let's just say I agree both could have been kept, so you could have a choice. I don't think it would have harmed. in additon, it's the case in other Plarium games, such as Stormfall.

Just lose the habit to consider emporia to be your sole property until the end, as you used to do with colonies. They're yours s long as you hold them, period.Just learn to share, and leave some chances to others, for a change.

I'm also quite upset by the fact some people seem to be considering them as just PvP baits. Sane people will just consider them as most needed resources providers. Please try to be a bit more courteous and stop being aggressive.

If it was only for me, you would have to officially declare war to be able to fight another player. After all, ancient Greeks should have at least some basic sense of honor...

Now I'd still like to point the fact that drachmas ones are becoming excessively rare, as it has been reported by other players on this topic.

In my area, it often happened there was NO drachmas vault at all, and most of the time there would be only ONE. In the better cases, there were 3 or 4 of them, and traders emporia seem to be currently following the same "rule".

Knowing in addition they produce very small amounts, and considering the huge number of players, I think it's a bit exaggerated.

It would be nice if some efforts would be made to offer a bit more of them, please. :)

Well, from my own experience since they were added, the main risk is when the emporium is freed by a player whose defense carring capcity has been filled up.

The emporium then shows as "unclaimed" in everybody's oracle, so people race for them an clash the first to be there.

After having messaged people when it happens, they all agreed to use the "one hero + defense" method to reduce casualties.

The owner loses nothing and the late players lose only a free hero... Their defense takes no part in the combat.

The problem is some people still think they should send some serious offense... And lose it all, as of course, the first owner will have stored enough defense there to carry enough resources. That's why late parties are wowed to lose 100% of their offense, unless of course they send an overwhelming one, but they'll still sustain serious losses anyway.

So the "one hero" method is definitely the best solution between civilized and courteous players !

Then you still have the perpetual same damn freaks who confuse vital resources gathering and bullying "for PvP".

Well, what can be said ? Those unpleasant people receive a retaliation raid to start with, then if it's ot enough, their hegemon, polemarches and all their members if the message is still unclear.

People acting like that engage their coalition into a war. It's every hegemon's duty to have their members respect people who are peaceful with them, or accept to face a real war with a coalition that may be much stronger than them.

Our own hegemon will not allow the least hit on any pantheon, colony or city unless we're officially at war. Especially for Pantheons : whoever hits any other coalition's pantheon will be immediately fired from the coalition and raided to death. Starting a war is NOT a pun.

It's not difficult to ask your members to behave... But we can see everyday, and especially during PvP tournaments or those useless pantheons tournaments that it's still not done. Well, people behaving like that would better not owning a pantheon, as they won't keep it for long. :p

Anyway, spying on an emporium or attacking it (apart from clashes when everybody sees it as unclaimed) is just a casus belli.

You're talking about level 60+ players, so they're supposed to be experimented enough to behave.

I explained a simple trick to avoid any unwanted losses, so race clashes should never be an issue.

Only delibarate aggressions will be, and aggressors will have to face the consequences, but it has always been the case already with colonies : nothing has changed there, except you can at least save some resources.

And low level players are not clashing anymore with higher levels ones, so now they can't complain anymore about bullying.

So I think that, correctly used, emporia are mostly an improvement.

Now I agree they could have been added without removing classical colonies, as it is done in other Plarium games (you have 3 tabs in your "protectorates" section then).

Having both kinds, with different exploitation strategies, could have been interesting, especially the ability to hold them with minimalistic garrisons, but with the risk to lose all that has been collected in case of an attack... Different kinds, different advantages and drawbacks : leaving some choice to players would have been nice. :)

Oh, are there points as well for attacking opponents ?

I may just stay off the mess until it ends, then. ^^

just an idea:

Well, I think you have actually put your finger on why it's not possible.

Adding troops to an emporium means increasing the resources collection and carrying capacity, and having to sort them among different players, one of them being the actual owner, was apparently too complicated, so thy chosed to simplify the problem... :p

Victory said:

How do i get moderator status so i can leave positive feedback or smiley face?

Lol, and how can I get the administrator status to have a bit more control over the game ? ;) 

Still an interesting question though, how did you guys become moderators ? 

The forum is a players' community. Leonidas is administrator, moderators are only ordinary players volunteering to help you.

You can apply whenever you want. I was asked to do so, I didnt apply.

Victory said:

How do i get moderator status so i can leave positive feedback or smiley face?

Lol, and how can I get the administrator status to have a bit more control over the game ? ;) 

Still an interesting question though, how did you guys become moderators ? 

yes that was another positive side of emporias.

Well, that's part of the good features. Now more players can share them with more frequent turnovers.

If only they could just use them to collect resources instead of attacking like dummies... :/

I'm also upset with people attacking emporias just for PVP points, but it seems quite normal to me to attack random other people's cities (as long as you don't harass them). Thatbloke, do you actually fight people only when at war ? If so, life must be a bed of roses...  

@ Lefeubleu :

LOL

Well, attacking unknown people, either their cities or emporia, is something I refuse to do anyway. But if you want to upset people and face their wrath, then it's up to you. ^^

Of course, I sometimes attack other members of a coalition when I'm attacked by one of them. It's to teach them to make rules about not attacking friendly or neutral people... It's up to them of course, but I have some striking arguments. :p

@ Shaguarcb :

OK, so when you get this message, just read it it carefully, as it's all explained in the text. ;)

Either one of your allies has taken it before your troops arrive, or the emporium got emptied and was removed from the map.

You are not allowed to attack an ally, and you can't attack an emporium that doesn't exist anymore... ;)

Your trops are returned directly into your acropolis.

I don't want to upset anyone, I just attack my neighbour cities from time to time, as everyone does... or, don't we ? So you say you attack only people who attacked you first ? Then you must wish for people to attack you, otherwise you would have no one to fight...

To come back to the topic, there are apparently 4 different "classes" in emporias, not 3. It goes roughly like 30-, 30-50, 50-70, 70+, doesn't it ? It's a shame I had to discover it when getting at level 70