News: Ikariam wins "Best Strategy Game" at the "Browsergame of the year 2011 Award" - Chosen by voters (22.02.2011)

And yes, our favourite browser based real-time strategy game has been awarded with this special title!
Ikariam Administrators (team members) proud for their game's achievment, gave us a 3-day Ikariam-PLUS so we can celebrate it.

Here is a copy from the in-game message that was sent to all players:
"Dear Players,

Ikariam won the player voting for "Best Strategy Game" at the "Browsergame of the year 2011 Award".

To celebrate this, we are giving out 3 days of "Ikariam Plus" account to every player. Those of you who already had the "Ikariam Plus" Account activated got it for 3 days longer for free.

Thanks again for the vote and enjoy the game!

Your Ikariam Team"

Good job Ikariam, I believe you worthed it :)

Ikariam: Winter "Version"

Guys here we are, a December "patch has come  to Ikariam... Brrr It seems it is cold... Still our villagers go swimming in the iced sea :D
Anyway here is what the Administrators write for this "white" look:
Dear Ikariam Players,
Winter has finally arrived in Ikariam. From the 1st of December to the 10th of January your islands and towns will be covered in white snow.
Even your advisers are shivering in the cold and have taken their warm winter clothing out of the wardrobe to nip Jack Frost in the bud.
However, if you get fed up of the magnificent white wonderland you can switch the town overview on and off with the click of a button.
Good luck in the wintry world of Ikariam.

Well talking is not worth as much as two screenshots:
Town full of snow:

The Island is in white as well:                                                                                                                     

Now the only thing we wait to see is Christmas trees in our towns :D Let's see if they will create such a look...

IKARIAM: [Browser Based Game] Inactivity and lack of players?

  Hello folks, I am going to tell some things about Ikariam... I have written a review about it (In greek) a couple of months ago... If you don't know the game, you can view its login site here. I  am not going to post a review about it -for now at least- but express my dissapointment about the fact that it is getting more and more inactive players (<< Players that either have quited playing or play very rarely).

  At least, in the world -server- I do play are very few active people and alliances (clans, guilds). The main cause for that, Is -in my oppinion- that the game itself is geting boring. Ikariam used to be a war - strategy game. You could attack, make fights, free of restrictions like the wall pillage or being unable to pillage gold.. Now It is only a game of development and research. You must log in at least 4 times a week only to send wine to your cities, so your citizents don't starve and leave, which is rather boring and takes time.

  All the new versions -from version 3.0.0v and after- had no great possitive changes, and caused the leaving of many players, strong or not. And this continues until today. Now let me show you what I mean with some photos:

Here is the world map. As you can see by the island numbers (numbers under the islands) are too low (the maximum capacity of cities in one island is 16)

And Here is my Island... 9 citites. 2 of them are mine. 2 are inactive, and the other 2 banned. so, only 3 players are active. 3 of 9, like we say 1 of the 3 people playing are active, and 2/3 inactive or banned.

And that's all about it. Probably, I will post more about it, but that's it for now, and Ikariam is getting inactivity... Am i wrong?