Call for writers

The Emperor has sent out a notice to the empire which reads as follows:

Dear Terra Aureans,

Are you feeling creative? I am requesting proposals for new Gold Windfall notices.

If I accept your proposal to be part of the game, you will receive five acres of land and have your entry be a part of Tiny Empires.
The format is 7 lines of text, with no line being too much longer than 32 letters, including spaces. The notice must include the amount of gold received.

One well-known example:

A fortuitous event has occurred.
A messenger's cart overturned
on the road near your land.
Some gold fell out of the
back, unnoticed by the driver.
Nobody claimed it after 30 days,
so you kept the $$$$$$$$ gold.

Please submit your entries to me via notecard in the format above, and put "Gold Windfall proposal from " in the title of the notecard. You may submit as many as you like in the same notecard or different notecards.

Contest ends at 11:59pm SLT Wednesday December 10. Thank you and good luck!

Sincerely,
Ultralite Soleil

Yes, of course I will be sending in submissions, and I encourage everyone to do so. When you are searching for ideas, I would point out one thing. The current group of gold windfall messages have many humorous ones. The idea is not just to construct a plausible scenario for gaining gold, but if you can, add a twist that makes it funny. Regular players who are acquainted with the stereotypes generated by the game may have a treasure trove of inside knowledge to use. For example, who buys anything valuable from a short, fat trader?? And the list could go on...

Disappearing Kingdoms?

Abdication! The winds of change are swirling even more fiercely through the empire than usual. Rumors fly about Kings and Queens giving up their thrones.... whole kingdoms disappearing....

Could it happen? Perhaps! Keep an eye on that kingdom list, people, because you never know....

My second set of eyes

Situation: You're offered a chance to bribe 'Count Procurator Gladius Ceaser'. You have no idea if Gladius is really a Count, or perhaps another Prince. Solution:

/2 Gladius Ceaser

You instantly have Gladius' actual rank, approximate number of people below him, and even his lineage from the Emperor down to himself.

Situation: Someone becomes a Prince in the announcements. You wonder if they are a fast growing Prince, with lots of subjects, or a slower one with few or none. Solution:

(click) display button
(click) new Prince's name

Again, the number of subjects and lineage is yours for the asking.

Situation: The new Prince has been demoted to Duke in the next turn. You wonder if he was automatically disowned of a knight. Solution:

(click) display button
(click) new Duke's name

Now you can compare the number of subjects, and- more importantly- the list of direct subjects for the once-again Duke. Did one of his direct subjects disappear? Then it's a good chance that is what happened. A fast way to confirm it is to look for them and see if they have a liege!

Situation: You notice news about a kingdom that sounds interesting. You wonder if they are a major or minor kingdom, and how big they are. Solution:

/2 /k KingdomName
/2 Monarch Name

You now know what the kingdom's rank is, and the size of the monarch's downline.

Situation: A subject has disappeared from your line. Who did they go to? Or were they disowned and are now floating in limbo? Solution:

/2 Subject Name

You now know who they went to... if anyone.

For those of you who are wondering how all of this is done, it is courtesy of my second set of eyes, more commonly known as the Tiny Empires Companion. Experienced Tiny Empires players will note that much of this can be done through the Standings Page.

One thing the standings page can't do is find players who are not connected to a kingdom- but this one does. If the line is only partial, you get the partial line, up to the point where it ends with a liegeless player.

Another thing the standings page might have trouble with is giving you the size of the downline. A small downline is easily counted- given time. A larger downline may be difficult to impossible. This gives you good estimates on the larger downlines instantly.

It's quicker than the standings page. You don't have to open another window. And if you're acquainted with the ways of Tiny Empires lines and how they work, you can glean a surprising amount of information in a short amount of time.

However, this is not free. In fact, it's the first item for sale that is more than just a single one-time buy: it's a service, and you pay continually. The current charge is 250L per month. Is it worth it to you? Let's put it this way. In the You might be a TE addict if... post, a couple of the items were:

• You spend more time looking at your TE standings page than your friends list.


• Your ninth and newest alt just made Count.

If either of these apply to you, it's a good chance you'll find the Companion quicker and easier. Plus, let's admit it... it's fun to be able to type in a name and instantly see who, what, where, and how many!

TE Companion Available

From the Emperor:


Introducing the indispensable accessory for players of Tiny Empires...

TINY EMPIRES COMPANION

Are you never quite sure who is bribing you?
Not sure if those sabotage targets are worth the risk?
Do you keep forgetting which monarch rules over which kingdom?

Then you might find the Tiny Empires Companion VERY useful.

By the way, you can try it for FREE for two weeks, to see if the cost of L$250/month is worth it to you.
Read on. There is a landmark to the free trial down below.

--== What is this thing? ==--

The Tiny Empires Companion is a HUD object that you wear while playing Tiny Empires. It helps you keep track of other players in the game and in your vicinity. It also allows quick lookups of players and kingdoms without having to visit the TE standings web page. In short, it acts as a companion HUD to the main Tiny Empires HUD.

--== What does it do? ==--

o Looks up Tiny Empires player names to see their rank, liege, and kingdom without going to the Standings page
o Scans your immediate area to find other Tiny Empires players (and shows their rank, liege, and kingdom)
o Shows rank, liege, and kingdom information about about any other players mentioned on your game hud this turn
o This includes any bribe makers or potential bribe takers, the list of sabotage targets, promotions, special titles, etc.
o If you see a name in your offers this turn, it will be clickable on the Companion.
o Looks up a kingdom name to find out the name of its King or Queen, and its rank in the empire
o Shows the latest gossip among the people of the realm

--== What kind of information does it give? ==--

For any nearby players, or names shown in your current set of offers, simply click the name to see the person's name, rank, special title if they have one, kingdom name, and monarch name. Here is a example of the information:

"Tiny Empires Companion: Squire Tanner Larson, subject of Prime Suspect Harriet Nightfire (Viscountess), under the rule of Queen Mary Aberdeen of the Kingdom of Froth"

You can get the same information for ANY player in the game by typing their name (or partial name) into your local chat window.

You can also get information about Kingdoms by typing the name (or partial name) of the Kingdom. It will show the name of its King or Queen as well as that Kingdom's ranking in the empire. Here is an example of Kingdom information:

"Tiny Empires Companion: The Kingdom of Froth, Queen Mary Aberdeen, currently ranked 17"

The Companion will also show the most recent Gossip among the nobility of the empire.

--== HOW CAN I GET IT? ==--

Come to Ultralite Soleil's shop at this landmark:
Look for the Tiny Empires Companion vendor.
You will be able to get a free, fully functional trial of the Companion that lasts for two weeks.
After that, the cost to continue using it is L$250 per month.
You can pre-pay for as many months as you'd like -- every L$250 adds another 30 days of usage to your Companion.

Check it out!



Here is a screenshot of it on my hud:



A couple of brief usage notes... to get information on a kingdom, you use the '/k' switch, e.g.:

/2 /k Caledon

(just for fun, try 'Aurea')

And to get gossip, you just type:

/2 Gossip

..more details and a considered review will be held until I get some experience with this... say in a week or so.

And on a side note, the upgrade station has been remodeled. The Emperor declared that blue glass was just "so 1100", and it has been replaced with a stone structure. The single vendor with the arrows to choose between different products has been replaced with multiple vendors, one for each product, grouped by type.

Check it out! (wait, didn't someone just say that?)

New TE Titler Available

From the Emperor:

Greetings all,

I have created a Tiny Empires titler attachment that shows your Tiny Empires kingdom, rank or title, liege, and more.
It connects to the game and automatically retrieves your latest status, so it never gets out of date.

It's completely configurable by clicking buttons on a menu. You can decide how much or how little information
to display. You can show or hide your rank (your special title is used if you have one), your name, your kingdom,
your liege's name, and your King or Queen's name. There are also buttons to fine tune the position and color of the text.

The cost is L$149 at my shop -- landmark included below



Enjoy!
Sincerely,
Ultralite Soleil

The landmark is the normal upgrade station in Kitster. So, now that I've gotten one, here's the details. You simply wear it and you bring up its menu at any point by saying /1 titlemenu or by touching it. (Of course it's by default invisible, which makes that a bit complicated. It's no mod/no transfer, so you can't change that.)

Here is the menu:


To take the items in order...

Turn Off/On Self-explanatory. Poof no text, poof back on.

Position Brings up a sub menu that lets you move the wording up, down, left, right a bit with each click of the button.

Colors Brings up a sub menu with a list of colors to make your text. The choices are White, Gold, Purple, Red, Blue, Green, Orange, Pink.

The other choices hide/show the various parts. With everything on (which is what I had for that screenshot), mine says:

--Tiny Empires--
La Reina Zorra Vulpine Eldrich of Caledon
Ruled by Queen Ellie Bearcat
Subject of Princess Happe Hax

It shouldn't be hard to see which parts are hidden when you click the hide/show button for that part.

And that's the fun! The only quibble I found with it is that the default attachment point is the right ear. When you wear jewelry, that doesn't play nicely with your right earring. But I'm used to playing these sorts of "find the empty attachment point" games. (For me, the most likely choices are mouth or chin.)

Another fun part would be for those of us who have custom title to have the choice to either use our rank, or show our rank in addition to our custom title. Say:

(Princess)La Reina Zorra Vulpine Eldrich of Caledon

...but since there's an empty button on the main menu, it wouldn't surprise me if that isn't planned for the next revision. (v1.2, judging by the name of the Titler!)

So let the fun begin at all of those TE parties... or even other parties! "What's this Tiny Empires thing you're wearing?....."

The Impossible Riddle

Well, this one takes the cake. Anyone who plays Tiny Empires very long knows about the riddles- and has probably cursed them for how hard they are. I've even heard comments about "it makes no sense!" Well, talk about make no sense! Try this one that I got a few minutes ago:



A friend that was with me reported a similar wording: " Bethany Frankle sprained her ankle while asking a riddle. What is the answer?"

No clue, of course, as to what the question is... much less the answer. I can say that the answer to the Impossible Riddle isn't four- he and I both tried that, and were both wrong. For me, it said:



...and his message was the same, except that he was called Archimedes.

Erzsabet, call your office, and if you can add the solution for this one to your page, you can also add a new term to that title of 'Puzzel Princess'.... namely-- Psychic!

(Ok, everyone, what did YOU get? And does anyone know the answer? Please tell me it isn't 42!)

HUD Prices

So what's up with the new Tiny Empires HUD prices? And up is certainly the word for it! Last weekend, the Emperor had a one-year anniversary sale going on. Traditionally, the HUD was at 499L .... last weekend, it was 250L.

Those who didn't take advantage of the offer are likely regretting it now, because when the sale was over it didn't go back up to the long-time 499L rate- it continued up to 799L! The Federation HUD is now 599L.

No one seems to know the reasoning behind this sharp upward move. The monarchs are as clueless as are we lower nobility. There's no word on the Tiny Empires site about it (the same site which advertised the sale now has no mention about the price increase.)

Is demand so high that it won't be diminished by raising the price? Are the Emperor's expenses growing? (the upgrade station is on a 480 square meter mainland plot, but the main expense would be the database servers, I suspect.)

Another reason people raise rates is when sales fall, and they decide that they need to raise the price to maintain the same amount of income from fewer people. In my opinion, that's a way to make a bad situation worse, but it's often done. And there's no way of knowing if that is the case here.

Perhaps the Emperor has realized that many new players have their HUDS partly, or totally, paid for by the existing players who are recruiting them. That may be the case- he IS offering a ten-pack of gift HUDS. (It's the best deal in the vendor right now- buy 10, get 1 free.) If that's the case, then he's decided the current players will gladly pay more in order to make sure of their new subjects, or perhaps he's decided that it's the only way to guarantee that the new players pay something too.

Who knows? Only the Emperor does. The rest of us are speculating wildly, including myself!