Well guys - here's my story.
A story of starting on the far rim and growing into the top 40 players - into the tribe that has a good chance at winning this world.
The beggining
In spring (March), this year, I had just finished the exams for first year of university and was drinking, wasting time, and screwing around as it was. Amongst that I was also looking for a new MMO or something to play (besides LoL). I somehow stumbled upon TW. Now I had played this way back ago and realised that as a university student I have a lot of free time and constant access to internet. Sounds perfect!
First world after 2 years
The last world I had played was w34, where, after managing into top 30-50ish early I was rimmed about 2 months into the game (tribe limit 100?, we had 3? 'family tribes'). Before that I had been doing alright on w10 (K25 centered, Nomads, 2kk+ account).
So I started up. North east as my favourite.
The start
I got lucky. Noone good near me. I had been reading up on the 'newer' strategies. I rushed a noble by 3k points [200ish spear, maybe 300ish LC (I know I skipped axes) by then]. Capped another 3k near me by luck (he built O?, scouts?, I got lucky). The second cap I attempted had a friend nearby. They were both 3k while I had 2 villages 3k. Luckily I was more active. I nobled the closer to me (2 hours) and a week later got the second one.
I was getting to the good part. Farming non-stop and gaining dominance. I applied to Söze (I think this was actually when I was on my 1st or 2nd village). I spoke alright english and had some knowledge of TW. I was somehow accepted (FAR rim player into a top #1 K tribe). I was the lowest or second lowest player in Söze. Luckily our leader (Alexander.) had great ties with players of a neighbouring tribe .Exc - Tiger, Fredynishh, KingSavaman, apolwnas. I am not up to this day certain if they were premade or not.
I grew rapidly. Mostly due to my activeness. I farmed a lot and nobled a lot. And then a merge into .Exc came. I was lucky to get in, as I was one of the lowest players. Noone knew me, noone put in a word for me.
On the way to learning
I've mostly forgot this part. Everyone mostly remembers where they are now and where they began, right? I just know that I grew very fast. I was a rim player, keep in mind. I was lucky to be surrounded by the less-experienced. At this time I also learnt methods of opera, mass faking, t-trains, you name it. None of this stuff had been around when I played earlier worlds. Also here is where I made my first contact with Dylan. He also provided me with a handful of scripts. What could have stopped me now?
At this time - some of our highest players had left for SPAM - Fredynishh and King Savaman, others soon to follow. This was also the start of the Smexc. war. But had we any idea of that? Hell no.
.Exc was in its own peril. With our best players leaving we were vulnerable, not to mention (we were #1 in K27) a new tribe creeping up from the south. This was where my first war in the world was held. A tribe bigger than us - ~TT~. Somehow - mostly thanks to activity we aced this war, forcing them to surrender and lose a bunch of villages(by 500-1kk tribe standards). (During all this time we were on kind of good terms with SPAM thanks to some of our members going there, and us having good ties).
As Smexc war progressed while .Exc's ended, we had conquered ~TT~. At this time, however, while .Exc had sent a load of support to smexc frontlines they turned and joined =C=. This would be the downfall of .Exc. =C= turned and attacked .Exc who coincidentally had >50% of its support going to ex-~TT~ on Smexc frontlines (50+ hour trip). Had a 5h away =C= promptly declare war. By this time we had no real leader left (after KS left) and choices had to be made. Most people voted to merge with =C= (eventually, I'd like to imagine we fought bravely - look below paragraph). We had little options left, especially with SPAM glooming behind our backs. We had been scared of SPAM for a couple of months, as we could not fathom how they grew so fast (and recruited our biggest players). Only Valai466, who was the top 1 account in .Exc at the time, chose to not join =C= for reasons unknown to me. I myself ran a
very rim account at the time and was only hoping to last a while longer.
Saviour
About a couple of months earlier a new player had started a bit southeast on the rim - he was named TruffleShuffleorDie. A real wizard when it came to TW. As we later learned he was a previous winner of very early worlds and had plenty of experience of defending an account against multiple thousands of attacks even without any scripts. He had played the first worlds that came on and knew almost(?) everything about TW. I had the luck of defending a 200k (aaros1) account with him against =C= (4-6ish KK tribe back then) while they were mauling .Exc (2ish KK tribe) (day and night shift swapping - aaros1 consumed about 70%+ nukes of a tribe that was ~300% bigger with almost no help). This was around 5k average incomings for 2 weeks in a row - on a 200k account. This was my first learning stone in a new world and damn, did I learn tons from him. I also believe him to be one of the greatest players to play this world thus far (I'm probably biased).
Entering SPAM
As I'm sure I mentioned before - for a long time a lot of .Exc had wet dreams of getting into SPAM - very long before SPAM got into 'power mode' status. Me included. I had joined =C= after .Exc disabandonment (mostly to read their forums), but I had been discussing with Valai466 and Truffle to merge into Valai466 and apply to SPAM for quite a while. By this time I was playing a far-rim (27-28k border by then) 1kk account with more ODT than any of the top 20 of =C= players (top 1 was ~300%+ my size at the time, I would have placed something like 30ish) and I liked to point it out to them often. I still do
. Cure was planning to op and get rid of me and Valai from k28 for good. We were playing a very dangerous game by teasing them with us joining and whileas attempting to get into SPAM which we hoped would have given us breathing room. Somehow we were approved (Thank you Dan).
In SPAM
Me and Valai decided to merge before we were accepted by SPAM. It would have made it safer for us either way. While I was on my holiday during the summer I learnt that we were deemed worthy. Calm. war soon erupted a month or so later and we've been stacking and sending D around since then.
