Aquazine 2020 | 30 - Tama Lizandra

Please enable JavaScript to view the full PDF

AQUAZINE 2020 | 30 Free weekly magazine by the Aquarion tribe. IT’S FINALLY HERE Contents Polytopia News 3 – July gameplay challenge The last opportunity to get steam key? 3 – New goal with Trine Investing in charity again 10 – Server changes New things to get used to Fun pages 6 – Vexil Wonders Fante Asafo flags 7 – Astrology How many predictions per turn? 9 – Weekly fact file Humboldt squid 11 – YouTube channel Oversimplified 11 – Otlaxuv’s Urban Legends Ever heard of Toleekï? 12 – Tūrzu Volcanic paradise tribe Aquarion News 4 – International Aquarion Day Finally 8 – 2nd Underclass Representative Elections For no real reason Aquazine 2020 | 30 | Page 2 Tamarissz Organ grinder challenge There is an art contest and a gameplay challenge every month with Steam keys for the winners, and this month is no exception. However, this month the gameplay challenge for Zebasi didn’t start immediately after the art contest ended, as usual. Instead, they waited for the Aquarion tribe day to happen and only started afterwards. Now it can be confusing whether the challenge is connected to Zebasi Moon or Aquarion Day. The challenge itself is called „Organ grinder” and the task is to win a domination match against 3 bots by only researching techs in the Organisation branch of the tech tree. The top 3 scores will get a Steam key when the challenge ends on 31th July, right before Oumaji Moon starts. This is likely the last chance to get a free steam key before release and we can only guess what the reward for future contests is going to be. Probably new tribes? Tamarissz More Zebasi solar grid The money from all Zebasi purchases goes to charity to build solar energy projects in Africa to serve people with electricity. They met the previously set goal to facilitate energy for 10000 people in Kenya, Uganda, Rwanda and Pakistan, as well as reduce CO2 emissions. Now they are signing a second contract of $100000 investment from tribe income. This is not the only charity Midjiwan participated in, there was also an Elyrion tree planting event that also reached its goal not long ago. Aquazine 2020 | 30 | Page 3 Tamarissz Tunicorner International Aquarion Day Special tribes don’t and won’t get Tribe Moon celebrations, which is very sad and unfair for Aquarion and the other special tribes because we deserve it. The awesome posters and lore development, as well as because of the fanart contest that generates art for the tribe. Zoythrus promised us to have a little event for all 3 special tribes this year, a not a month, just a day. Elyrion month happened already in April and we assumed that Aquarion will be sometime in the summer. Our prediction turned out to be true and here, the International Aquarion Tribe Day happened! A wonderful piece of artwork by Midjify and a lore blurb by Zoythrus accompanied it, but no art or gameplay contest, which is okay. We also got a discussion chat that stole the spotlight from Zebasi a little bit. The lore blurb is as follows: „The Aquarion empire is vigilantly defended by the mighty behemoths, the Crabs. It was a pact long ago that brought the Crabs and the Aquarion together, and this pact will remain until peace is brought to the Square once again.” The #aquarion-discussion is full of talk about Aquarion lore and history and it’s all very overwhelming since we never got insights about Aquarion life before. First of all, people wanted to know why the pact will end in the future, and the answer is that Aquarion won’t need them anymore and the Crabs will live on their own too. Zoy also gave info about the philosophy of the Aquarion: "I like to imagine that the Aquarion are misguided guardians. They knew the horrors of war from the Ancient Polytopian Civil War, and they went into isolation to escape the fighting. Eventually, they decided to watch over the Square, monitoring events and swearing to make sure no large-scale war ever breaks out again. So, the tribes all start fighting, and the Aquarion are like „OH NO IT'S HAPPENING AGAIN!!!!!!", come out of isolation....and only contribute to the war they said they wanted to prevent.”„I like the idea of the Aquarion forces showing up in a city, slaughtering everyone, and telling themselves that "We're doing them a favor, this war will be over in no time!„ "Aren't you glad we're saving our kin from extinction?" Fictic says as they pull their trident from a slain Kickoo” „I’d like everyone to know that Crabs tell the best bedtime stories”. Aquazine 2020 | 30 | Page 4 Tunicorner „But yeah, the war breaks out, the Aquarion "come to save everyone from the horrors of war", and only make matters worse, as they're just one more combatant in this world war. So, unlike the others, I see Aquarion as kinda Lawful Good, but like, in a misguided manner. Genuinely trying to help, but their version of help is pretty much just killing everyone (well, not "everyone," but all the "troublesome folk," which is most of them) Does that make sense?” We could also learn about how the picture was made: „So, funny thing about this picture is that I asked for a picture of Turmelons, and had a blurb written up all about them. Then our artist forgets and makes the artwork you see now, so I had to write a new blurb to match the picture. She also originally made the Crabs the same size as the Turmelons, and both Midjiwan and I are like "nah, the Crabs are kaiju, they need to be HUGE„. Other than that, we already knew that Aquarion was isolated for eons. It still is relatively isolated; according to official canon, we have no allies or enemies, of course in the actual community it’s different. It is expected that there will be another Aquarion day in 2021 too, but it is uncertain if it will be on the same day as this year. Aquazine 2020 | 30 | Page 5 Tamarissz Vexil Wonders Asafo flags of the Fante Britain colonised Ghana in the 17th century and brought with them European cloth and military practices. The Fanti tribes in the south of Ghana didn’t have a standing army at the time, so they organised themselves into asafo groups. The name comes from the words „sa” meaning war and „fa” meaning people. There were 7 original groups and there are 10 of them today. They also made flags for them, seeing how the British make flags for everything too, and followed their habit of putting a union jack in the upper corner, not knowing what its meaning was. The flags were painted on raffia cloth, but most of them today are made of appliquéd trade cloth, and since the liberation of Ghana, we can see flags with the Ghana flag in the corner too. The images on the flags symbolise proverbs, for example the Cactus tree flag narrates the proverb how “only a brave chicken will approach a cactus tree”, implying tht the owners of the flag are brave. New flags are still being made on every special occasion and because there is a huge demand for them among wealthy people. Even though not being rare at all, they can sell for $800 dollars a piece! Flag of asafo No.7, arguably „The cactus tree” „Reaching home” the most powerful one. Flag of Ghana, horizontal tricolour of pan-African colours with a black star in the middle, symbolising African emancipation. „Sun and crab” (I only put Sources: Wikipedia, Aquazine 2020 | 30 | Page 6 itsnicethat.com, this in because crab.) asafoflags.com T Shadow Astrology Zebasi Yădakk Take care of your farm, some You can always change the road. geroffys will try to eat it. Ai-Mo Oumaji You’ll fall asleep while You will find a Sajaa when you meditating. are almost dead of thirst. Imperius Hoodrick The next giant you create will The next arrow you’ll shoot have to be sacrificed. won’t hit the target. Xin-Xi Quetzali Stop painting eggs! Your favorite musician will It brings bad luck. make a concert at your city. Luxidoor Vengir You’ll drop a jewel through the Vengeance will only give you window of your house. a sensation of victory. Kickoo Bardur You will spawn on a 1 tile island Wild Bærians will appear close In your next game as Kickoo. to your house at night, remember to lock the doors! Aquazine 2020 | 30 | Page 7 We take no responsibility if any of the predictions turn out to be untrue. This is for entertainment purposes only. Tamarissz Tunicorner 2nd Underclass representative Elections During this week in the Aquarion server, we celebrated the Tribe Day with a series of events. One of them being an election of representatives for the four underclasses. 2 classes, Crustaceans (Enry) and Shrimpeons (gamesRme) only had one runners, so they won automatically. But the other two, Turmelon Tamers and Coral Miners had two candidates each and there was a chance that both of them wins, as we tried to follow the way the next Tribe Leader elections are going to be held on main server. At Turmelon tamers, both T Shadow and Matthew won because there were many voters and an active underclass like them deserves two representatives. However at Coral miners, Hell’s Kitchen emerged as the only winner, by just one vote. What the job of representatives will be in the future, is up to question. Roleplay opens The construction of the roleplay section is finally finished, so the game can begin. To participate, submit one (or more) characters. Aquazine survey Suggestions about how we should do things with the Aquazine are always welcome, but we thought about making a Google survey to ask readers what they like and what they don’t and what should change. The survey is anonymous and you can get the link from editors or copypaste this link in our browser: https://forms.gle/WD4t98Cdwsi6s97p9 The answers can be submitted and edited anytime, however, we will make a conclusion from the data in next Aquazine. Aquazine 2020 | 30 | Page 8 gamesRme123 Humboldt Squid Dosidicus gigas, the humboldt squid, is a large predatory squid found from California to South Africa. They usually live between 200m and 700m below the sea. They possess bioluminescent photophores and are capable of quickly changing body coloration. For example they flash red when hunting. These squids meet unknown objects aggressivly. They are known to attack divers and submersibles. They use rings of sharp teeth to pull prey into their sharp beak.​ They have been greatly covered in the media by a range of TV programs including Blue Planet 2 and Fishing Impossible. Aquazine 2020 | 30 | Page 9 Tamarissz Server preparations As the Steam release is drawing near, everyone is making preparations. So is the main Polytopia server. A huge and sudden influx in members, or at least a bigger trend in the long term is expected because of the additional platform. The server needs to be prepared to accomodate the new members and players. Even if no noticable change in members happens, it’s better to be prepared than not. The server changes are to make things more understandable and simple, which is good either way. The server is close to reaching 25000 members and we can expect a special celebration. The exact changes are: rewriting the rules to be more understandable, creating a new category named Tribe Spotlight where the channels celebrating the current tribe moon or tribe day are placed, moving the #bot-commands channel to Chill out corner, adding the #hall-of-tribe-leaders channel that lists all current Tribe leaders, creation of the Steam category for channels about matchmaking, updates and questions about the Steam version. And last but not least, the deletion of Tribe voice chats because of non-use. This is bittersweet for the Aquarion because we were one of the 2 tribes who actually used it, with Kickoo, so this is a loss. On the other hand, it’s a glorious victory because we hade the most active tribe voice chat of all the tribes, with over 13000 minutes of activity, and now this victory is set in stone in the Statsbot dashboard page. Aquazine 2020 | 30 | Page 10 Lost Comet Oversimplified Oversimplified is a Youtube channel launched in 2016 and run by one person. The videos are humourous animated explanations of various historical events, such as World Wars, the American and French revolutions, or older history like Three Kingdoms, Battle of Hastings, and more. Despite the videos being released in large time intervals, the quality is excellent and each video is met with praise. Furthermore, videos keep getting more detailed as time goes by. As the name of the videos suggest, the history topics are simplified and encourage watchers to delve into the topics more deeply by themselves. Oversimplified was what raised many peoples’ interest in history. Of course, the humour in the videos have sparked numerous memes that are not only widespread in the Oversimplified community, but outside it as well. Do note that two videos, Hitler Part 1 & 2 are censored in various parts of the world due to their themes. One might have to use a VPN in order to watch them. Otlaxuv Poly Urban Legends The enlightened capital also known as Toleekï has not always belonged to Ai-Mo. It was first a city that many bandits called home until a monk from the neighboring village came to open a shop there where he sold luck charms. The bandits who had seen many miracles being performed in the neighboring village was ready to believe in anything as long as it came from the monks. The bandits were really skilled and could therefore believe that the luck charms worked, but the charms served another purpose. The charms had a special smell taken from a rock in a nearby mountain which was rumored to make people go insane. And the bandits eventually did go insane, the charms was very popular among the bandits since they had a green shiny colour, the bandits wanted more and eventually the neighboring village was no longer a village. It was now a city with a self proclaimed queen with large ambitions. But instead of invading Toleekï, she sent a request for them to join peacefully in exchange for riches described as the shiniest of the shiny. The bandit princess who now ruled the city saw a chance to gain more power and agreed. Unfortunately the Ai-Mo would not accept a bandit with that much power and exiled her to the lands of Xin-xi. Aquazine 2020 | 30 | Page 11 Polluted Kickoo Tūrzu Description: What seems like a bright sunny paradise actually has a history of massive earthquakes and extreme volcanic activity, but when the Tūrzu settled here, they managed to appease the angry earth spirits. They are a hardy and loyal culture with a passion for improving their combat skills through both physical and spiritual means, but their deeply rooted superstitions prevent them from accepting other cultures. Starts with unique tech: immolation. Unique techs: Immolation (free spirit): unlocks plains shrine, unlocks plains temple, unlocks ability to immolate, and blessings. Devotion (meditation): unlocks mountain shrine, unlocks mountain temple, unlocks new task (faith), unlocks defense boost in mountains. Vulcanology (philosophy): unlocks flame priest, new task (genius), hearth, and literacy. Unique units: Veterans: all of their veteran units have a new special skill; burning heart Fire priest: replaces mind bender, cannot convert enemy units but has a weak ranged attack and some new skills. Skills; fire charge, dash, burning heart, auto-immolate. It also has different stats, it has 15 health and the same attack as an archer. It costs 5 stars to produce. Hearth spirit: super unit, has 30 health and less damage than a giant, but has 2 movement speed and new abilities; embrace, auto-immolate, burning heart. Aquazine 2020 | 30 | Page 12 Unique mechanics: Blessing: spend 2 stars to bring a unit 1 step closer to becoming a veteran, (can only be done once for every unit). Immolate: like disbanding except the unit’s don’t die immediately, instead they become volatile and have a chance to execute one last MELEE (not ranged, even if it’s an archer) attack, the damage of this last attack is equal to their damage at full health, multiplied by 1.2x, if there are no enemies left you can choose to disband them normally. This action costs 0 stars just like disbanding with a normal tribe and returns some stars like normal. If the unit has already attacked that turn they cannot immolate in the same turn. Auto-immolate: only fire priests and Hearth spirits have this skill, it’s the same as immolate but doesn’t need to be activated, the damage is done automatically to the unit that defeats them. Burning heart: fire priests, Hearth spirits and veteran units have this skill, nearby allied units heal 2 health whenever this unit uses their own passive healing. Fire charge: only fire priests have this skill, it allows them to target an allied unit and give them a chance to immolate, but unlike normal immolation they can use it even if they already attacked that turn. Embrace: only Hearth spirits have this ability, it allows them to heal a single unit within a 2 tile radius for 10 health, can be used after moving. Shrines: must be built on mountains, provides one star per turn for every veteran unit you have created during that game (including the ones that were lost), but it caps out at 16 stars per turn and you can only make one shrine for each terrain type (one mountains shrine, one plains shrine, one ocean/water shrine, and one forest shrine). Hearth: all units gain an attack buff of 1.2x when standing on mountains, in addition to the normal defense boost from devotion. Earth attunement: this tribe can see every mountain on the map including units that walk on them and buildings built on them. New task (faith): this task replaces the pacifist task, to complete it you must promote 5 units to veteran. I changed the task because this tech is important for this tribe but the pacifist task contradicts the play- style they are meant to have. I also thought it would be cool for a tribe to have a unique task. Aquazine 2020 | 30 | Page 13 Credits Editor-in-chief: tamarissz Lectors: sophiacastle, T Shadow, gamesRme123 The Aquazine team: ftag15, gamesRme123, MatthePyro, T Shadow, tamarissz, sophiacastle Cover art by Midjify Game sprites by Midjiwan, Midjitree and Midjify Tūrzu art by Polluted Kickoo Join The Crab Cult to participate in creation of the Aquazine. Next week on Aquazine! Oumaji Tribe Moon Cover will be the blurb image Summer Skirmish Finals Moonrise last preparations Aquazine 2020 | 30 | Page 14