Games - Inselkampf

Home > Listing Index > Games > Inselkampf

	Games - Inselkampf

Inselkampf is a browser based online game, which originated from Germany. "Inselkampf" means Island War in German. It was created by Sven Schramm and is played in an internet browser window. Players control an island where they may use resources to create buildings, armies, and ships. Players may then trade with other players, attack foreign islands, and establish colonies.

The structure of Inselkampf demands that it be played with occasional input over days, weeks, and months. Buildings often take hours to be built and voyages between islands sometimes take days.

Game Fundamentals

After registering, which is free, a player is assigned a random island within a sea and a limited amount of resources with which to build key buildings. There can be up to 25 isles in each sea and there are 100 seas within each ocean; there are at least 20 inhabited oceans.

The game is ‘open ended,' there is no set goal and the player may play as he or she wishes. Essentially though the aim of the game is to build your island and army up and eventually colonise other islands to increase your score and power. If he or she is disposed to, the player may attack other players and forcefully take their colonies off of them, however in the UK version of the game, a player's starter island cannot be colonised, only attacked and damaged.

Players can send messages to each other, trade resources and form personal pacts. Players can also start wars with each other although there is no official way to go to war other than to announce it through the game or to attack the opponent(s). The only competition in the game is therefore from real people rather than an artificial intelligence or computer program.

A beta version of a has recently been released.

Advanced Play

All players start with a main house and 250 units of each of the three resources; Gold, Stone and Lumber. The new player is very strongly advised to build up their Gold Mine, Stone Quarry and Lumber Mill before anything else. These key buildings acquire new resources and so are essential to development.

Once resource levels have risen and the player has built up their ‘Main House’ new buildings are available for construction such as the Harbour, Barracks, and Laboratory.

It usually takes a good deal of time before the player can even consider colonising an isle. All isles except the primary isles of players can be colonised. Colonisation ships are extremely expensive in game terms and are destroyed if the attempt is successful. It should also be noted that keeping control over more than just a handful of isles is quite difficult, as successfully defending them against the biggest players requires luck and diplomacy.

A Fansite has been created which outlines a successful starting strategy.

Community

There is a constantly shifting number of players, although there are usually around 9000 registered players at any one time. Many of these sign up and decide not to play, leaving their accounts inactive; many others go inactive after being effectively destroyed (although a player's first, or "main" isle cannot be colonized, its buildings can be razed). However, the isles belonging to inactive accounts are regularly replaced by new users or ownership is revoked, leaving the isle up for colonization (this usually happens in events nicknamed Tsunamis.) The number of active players is therefore fairly static at around 5000. Of these, usually only 600-700 players are online at any one time. The German Inselkampf servers are much more popular: finding 5000 players online, spread across the six servers, at any given time is not uncommon.

It is usually necessary to talk to other players and so a strong community surrounds the game. This is held together by alliances (see below) and personal friendships or animosities. Many alliances have web discussion forums and some have web pages. Several FAQs have been written and in game, people generally know their neighbours and the key players in their waters. A site dedicated solely to reporting the in-game news is also maintained.

‘cmccann' has recently become the top player in the game with over 450 isles, other players are dominant within their specific oceans. The 'Sea Wolves', previously known as 'Firefox' were by far the largest federation of alliances with 10 alliances and 300 players until recently disbanding. 'Wraith' are the most militarily aggressive alliance in the game, with some individual players being stronger than whole alliances, for example 'Empire'.

Interestingly enough, the English-speaking Inselkampf community has recently become strong enough to give weight to in-game currencies and military units. An Ebay search will quickly reveal dozens of players selling anything from lumber to catapults to entire accounts!

Multi-Hunting

As the game is played by and against real people and requires a good deal of time commitment before a player can colonise or build certain units, generally speaking players think long and hard before starting wars. Not only are offensive units expensive but counter attacks can prove disastrous, especially if the victim employs the help of his alliance and allies. Therefore the activity of ‘Multi-Hunting’ is common.

[ Visit the complete Wikipedia entry for Inselkampf ]

Searches on eBay