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History of Eressea

According to Wikipedia, Eressea launched on August 27, 1996. It was developed as a spin-off of Atlantis. The popularity was subject to relatively strong fluctuations. The record was over 2 000 factions at the beginning of 2002. At the end of 2005, there were fewer than 1 000 factions for the first time. At the end of 2008, new registration was temporarily closed. At this point there were under 700 factions. But the game still goes on.

Developer

  • Russel Wallace Developer of Atlantis 1.0
  • Alex Schröder Developer of German Atlantis. The Atlantis 1.0 and German Atlantis code is freely available, in contrast to the Eressea code based on it.
  • Christian Schlittchen (Corwin) Developed Eressea and ran the game for a long time (until round 289, around mid-2002).
  • Katja Zedel (Katze (Designerin)) was the developer and game director of Eressea together with Corwin. Katja's biggest project was the development of new magic.
  • Enno Rehling has been there since round 39 and took over development and game management after the other two game managers left.
  • Henning Peters (Faroul) Developer, among others, of the train checker ECheck.
  • Benjamin Bärmann, Ingo Wilken Co-developer in the first years, including alchemy

Rule changes

There have been many minor and major rule changes over time, usually to improve game balance.
Here is a list that is far from complete.

First Age

Sometime

  • The breeds are introduced in the game
  • Only humans can now receive migrants, migrants of other races are converted into the owner's race, while retaining their skill level
  • Elves lose their +1 bonuses in entertainment and lumbering

27.08.1996

  • The first evaluation

04.12.1998

  • The FIND order falls away (what did he do?)
  • The option ADDRESSES is introduced

05.12.1998

  • Submitting partial orders is now possible without deleting previously received orders for other units

13.12.1998

  • Ships adrift at sea without sufficient crew have a 33% chance of sinking
  • Unmanned monuments are slowly crumbling

18.12.1998

  • Fighters receive 10 days of learning in Stamina in addition to the learning days in their respective weapon skill, and 10 days of Riding if they are mounted and involved in combat

08.01.1999

  • The SCHIFFSBAU skill is renamed to SCHIFFBAU (in german language)

14.01.1999

  • The format of the computer report (CR) is changed

23.02.1999

  • Units can now be contacted directly, even if they are disguised as a faction and therefore the address cannot be seen

28.02.1999

  • The ADDRESS order is abolished and will be then replaced by the EMAIL and BANNER orders

08.04.1999

  • The OPINION order is introduced to be able to enter surveys and opinions directly as an order

27.04.1999

  • Enno creates the basis for much despair 9 years later. Faction disguised units that get involved in battles are now displayed as a separate army. When troubleshooting large battles, including those involving groups (that don't yet exist at the time of the change), this change makes it almost impossible to understand.

09.04.1999

  • If a unit has a higher skill value than its opponent, the damage it deals with a hit increases by the skill difference

30.04.1999

  • A unit limit is introduced; starting at 2000, it will be reduced by 200 every month until it reaches 1000. At the time of launch, 9 factions are over the limit

09.05.1999

  • Entering buildings required HELP GUARD or CONTACT no more HELP GIVE

17.05.1999

  • Creativity Potion doubles the capacity of alchemists

31.05.1999

  • DELIVER and GIVE can now use the parameter EVERYTHING

06.06.1999

  • The previously existing square fields are being replaced by hex fields, although in a survey among players the majority were against it. This change is causing a lot of anger among the players. Today, however, hardly anyone doubts the correctness of this change, which meant that each region has 6 neighboring regions instead of 4. The paths also become shorter because you can now walk diagonally. This means that a lot is happening in terms of range.
  • Horses no longer double movement, but instead give a +1 to range. This means that a rider on roads no longer travels 4 regions, but only 3 regions.
  • All ships lose one point of range
  • The Aquarian bonus to ship speed is halved to +1
  • Ships can only leave in the direction from which they came and the two neighboring directions, unless there is an allied port in the region
  • Ships can now take damage and will no longer simply sink if they are undermanned
  • Damaged ships lose capacity and possibly speed
  • The wages for non-orcs are reduced to the current level ("current today" is so imprecise, I would write farmer's wage -1 if I were sure about it)

06.06.1999

  • The ROUTE order is modified and the parameter BREAK enriched

12.09.1999

  • The unit numbers are converted to four-digit Base36 numbers
  • The NUMBER [wish ID] order is introduced
  • The parameter PEASANTS is eliminated and replaced by 0 because GIB BAUERN could be confused with the Base36 number baue

19.12.1999

  • Santa Claus gives out presents for the first time

16.01.2000

  • All human migrants with expensive skills become humans, this change is actually just a bug fix

13.01.2000

  • OPTION BZIP2 is introduced to make the reports sent smaller

01.02.2000

  • The Merian map (an ASCII map representation of the known world as part of the report) is omitted because it is rarely used

20.2.2000

  • FOLLOW is only a long order if the unit actually moves

28.02.2000

  • You no longer gain experience in combat. This change is the result of massive abuse

12.03.2000

  • Only armed units that can handle the weapon can guard

Second Age

“We write The First Week of the Month of Field Blessings, in the First Year of the Second Age.” (lap 184)

With these words begins on April 8th. 2000 the Second Age.
This is accompanied by a large number of revolutionary rule changes, which are summarized under the umbrella term magic reform.
However, these are not just changes that affect magic.
The vast majority includes races and combat rules.

Start of the 6th World

  • The starting unit of each race now receives a starting gift
  • Elves get fairy boots
  • Dwarves receive an axe, chain mail, and 30 days of learning cutting weapons
  • Orcs get T4 in all weapon skills
  • Cats get an RdU
  • Goblins get a starting unit that is 10 and not just one person, as well as an RdU
  • Insects receive nine nest warming potions, enough to recruit for a winter
  • Aquarians get a boat and 30 days of learning how to sail
  • Humans get a fortification (at that time it only consisted of 2 stones)
  • Halflings get a chariot, two horses, five luxury goods of each type and T1 riding
  • Trolls get 10 stones and Perception T3
  • Demons get T15 stamina
  • Firewalls are introduced as new region types

The "Magician Reform" 08.04.2000 (Round 184)

  • The hitherto universal magic area Lirpa (The name originally comes from an April Fool's joke announcement, but after the introduction of the new magic areas it quickly became a common name for 'the old magic') is replaced by Draig, Illaun, Tybied, Gwyrrd and Cerddor.
    The reform means a drastic weakening of magic, especially by eliminating the spell Sunfire, whose effect cannot be compared to any combat spell known today.
  • RESEARCH according to sayings is omitted. A magician can cast all spells in his magic area with a level less than or equal to his magic talent
  • Learning magic becomes significantly more expensive (50+50*(1+level)*Level/2), especially at high levels. Previously it always cost 200 silver
  • Instead of one spell per round, Aura is introduced. This means that it is now possible to cast several spells in a week, with a significant increase in aura costs
  • Only magicians of the same magic area can teach each other
  • When learning magic for the first time you have to choose an area with LEARN MAGIC "<Magic School>"
  • The hit points of all units are doubled
  • The weapon damage of normal weapons is increased by approximately 25%. Multi-component weapons and those made from rare raw materials increase their damage more
  • Armor effects are also increased by approximately 25%
  • Ranged fighters have a 33% probability of finding a target from the first and second rows, and a 67% probability of only finding a target from the first row. In the past, only the first row was attacked
  • Monsters can have multiple attacks per round, i.e. they can cast spells several times or attack conventionally several times
  • In addition to spells, monsters can also have other special attacks
  • Dragon Breath can no longer be stopped by antimagic spells, as dragons otherwise pose little threat
  • Recruitment costs for elves, demons and insects are increased to 130, 150 and 80
  • Starving units no longer die with a ⅔ chance but instead take starvation damage; The same applies to demons who don't get to eat farmers
  • Only one herb grows per region, which has to grow back and is no longer available indefinitely
  • The command GROW HERBS is introduced, alternatively the command also works GROW FLOWERS
  • The university is renamed the academy
  • Der Kalender wird verändert. Statt in Monaten wird nun in Wochen gerechnet. Ein Jahr besteht aus 9 Monaten mit je 3 Wochen. Die Monate sind: Eiswind, Schneebann, Blütenregen, Mond der milden Winde, Sonnenfeuer, Feldsegen, Nebeltage, Sturmmond und Herdfeuer. Als Winter (für die Insektenrekrutierung wichtig) gelten Herdfeuer, Eiswind und Schneebann. In den Monaten Schneebann, Nebeltage und Sturmmond toben die Stürme auf See besonders heftig. Die Auswirkung von Stürmen wird verändert: ein Schiff, welches in einen Sturm gerät, steht jetzt vor größeren Problemen als bisher.
  • The orders DELIVER , RESERVE and // are now carried out until contrary orders are received for a unit. For example, if the player has an NMR, these commands will still be executed
  • Farmer's Blood affects 100 demons in a region, no longer just one unit
  • Familiars and the astral space are introduced

"Raw material reform" Date and turn unknown

The raw material reform, certainly the largest collection of far-reaching changes after the magic reform, came after the publicly announced development stop of Eressea. Announced as the very last (If you're thinking about cheese, you really know the history of Eressea 😃) rule change. However, many other larger and smaller changes afterwards proved the opposite.

  • Farmer smoothing is an attempt to distribute the important raw material farmers more fairly. Regions with many farmers were taken away and regions that had few farmers were filled up. The number of farmers in Eressea remained the same. Not only the farmers but also the players in the region were important for the distribution. So people who had collected 10,000 soldiers in a central region had, after smoothing, a region empty of farmers, as well as alliances on whose island an invading army had just landed. On the other hand, if you had your army on the ocean you were fine. The pawn smoothing was announced at short notice, but the exact formula was not. This change also causes a lot of turmoil among the players, as many (all the pawns lost) feel treated unfairly.
  • Along with the pawn smoothing, orcs lost their reproduction rate of 5%. All existing Orc units have been converted into Snootlings; they can only learn combat-relevant talents up to t7. Since the change, orcs are only subtracted 1 to 2 from the farmers when recruiting and handed over to the farmers 2 to 1, Snootlings do not bring any pawns when handed over to 0 (is that right?). The handover of the old orcs to the farmers took place in the order of command BEFORE the pawn smoothing in order to prevent orcs from cheating their way into an advantage. Of course, many players overlooked this announcement and there was a lot of controversy here too. The players' ongoing complaints about rule changes are generally considered to be the reason for Corwin's exit from Eressea and for the announcement of the development freeze, which was never adhered to. In order to maintain a small degree of the skill dilution that was the case with the orc increase, from this point onwards orcs simply do not learn a non-combat talent with a 5% probability. The tactics bonus of +1 for orcs remains despite the lack of dilution (In my opinion, a major oversight on the part of the game management, but no one asked me back then Xolgrim)
  • Learning days are replaced by learning probabilities, watering down skills now has a drastically worse effect on the skills of the units (this part needs to be written in much more detail, but I don't have time for Xolgrim right now)
  • The wood growth is completely overturned and drastically reduced. Instead of a weekly tree increase of 5% (that was at least 30 wood in a 600-meter forest, with a sawmill 60 wood per week that could be cut down all year round), trees are divided into seeds, saplings and trees. Trees throw seeds in the spring and summer, these grow into saplings in the spring of the next year and then become trees the following spring.
  • Stone, iron and laen can now appear in all types of regions, no longer just in mountains and glaciers
  • Stones must be extracted in layers; the height of the layer that can be extracted corresponds to the skill of the quarrrying unit. The first layer always starts at level 1 in mountains and glaciers, but in other regions it can be higher. Stones used to not accumulate, you could mine 100 per level in a mountain (with a quarry 200, trolls more) per level, if you didn't do this the stones were lost. So it was more worthwhile to produce without a quarry than to wait until one was built.
  • Iron must be mined in layers; the height of the layer that can be mined corresponds to the talent of the mining unit. In mountains the first layer always starts at level 1, in other regions this can be higher. Iron didn't accumulate in the past, you could mine 50 per level in a mountain (with mines 100, dwarves more). If you didn't do this, the iron accumulated in the mountain and you could mine it later.
  • Laen must be mined in 'layers', the level of the layer that can be mined corresponds to the talent of the mining unit. The first layer always starts at level 7 in Bergen, but in other regions it can be higher. Laen did not accumulate in the past, a small amount that was subject to strong fluctuations could be mined in mountains. If this was not done, the laen accumulated and could be mined later.
  • GUARD prevents the mining of all raw materials by visible units

Other changes

March 2002 - BRAVO Screenfun

The BRAVO Screenfun has a two-page article, which temporarily caused a rush of very young players.
In the first and third weeks after the release, 100 additional players register, and 200 in the second week.
This brings the number of players to its record high of over 2,000.
However, most of the new players, disparagingly referred to as BRAVO kiddies by the experienced players, only stay in the 10th world for a few weeks.

05.05.2002

  • Guarding units prevent recruitment and the extraction of all limited resources from the region. In this context there is a small additional change: In the future, GUARD will no longer work if the person guarding does not see the producer. As a special case, for an empty TEMP unit, the creating unit is used as the visibility reference. In other words: What is crucial in this case is whether the unit that created the TEMP unit is seen.
  • The available amount of resources is initially halved. This is an adjustment to the lower number of farmers and the expected significantly smaller faction sizes. For renewable resources, the growth rate has simply been reduced; for non-renewable resources, such as iron, fewer new resources are now added when a new 'mining stage' is reached.
  • The proportion of farmers that can be recruited per turn is reduced from 20% to 5% of the farmer population. This makes the driver ant strategy less attractive.
  • Catapults now only have 6 attacks instead of the previous 10. In addition, her skill penalty is now 4 instead of 1. Its weight is reduced from 120 to 100 lbs.
  • Catapult ammunition can be produced (the change on June 2nd, 2002). Until the evaluation on June 2nd, all catapults still fire without ammunition, with the evaluation on June 2nd, catapults must be supplied with ammunition!
  • Crossbows and bows have so far been little differentiated; their effect is mathematically almost identical.
    For this reason, there is a change in crossbows: reloading will now take two rounds, but the opponent's armor protection will be halved and rounded down when a crossbow hit. The only exception to this is magical armor protection.

02.06.2002

  • Catapult ammunition is introduced. This can be produced from stones using MAKE CATAPULT AMMUNITION by a stone builder with talent 3 and weighs 10 weight units. One ammunition unit corresponds to a volley of six shots
  • Units in the astral plane cost normal maintenance (previously there was no maintenance in the astral space)

Date unknown.

  • The coordinates are no longer absolute but relative to the player's starting region. Each player now starts at the coordinates (0,0)
  • Fights no longer last 10 rounds, but only 5 rounds or 6 with the tactician round
  • Migrants can no longer learn expensive skill Units with existing expensive skills cannot be transferred
  • After a while, undead turn into super undead at a rate of 10 to 1. A little later the conversion ratio is set to 2 to 1
  • Tacticians now receive a random bonus to their skill
  • Dwarven recruitment costs increased from 90 to 110
  • Volcanoes are introduced as new region types
  • The maximum talent level will be increased from 32 to 64 as units from the old world break this mark for the first time. The programmers had not expected that a unit would ever reach such a high level.
  • The glacial barriers of the old worlds (first 1-3 then 4+5) are starting to melt. Icebergs break free from the glacier barriers and float around until they melt
  • The amount of undead rising will be adjusted based on the region age
  • Units that are in the astral space again consume 10 silver/week for maintenance

October 2003 - Registration closed

  • New registration for Eressea is initially no longer possible for German-speaking players.
    Enno's reason for this is that he has less fun with the community and more and more work with new players. A short time later, registration will be possible again in return for a donation (for a good cause).

11.07.2004 - Combat rule reform (from around round 390)

  • The effects of skill differences are halved (hit chance +-5% instead of +-10%, +1 damage point instead of +2)
  • The cost of some powerful weapons will be increased. Elven bows now cost 2 mallorn instead of 1, halberds 2 wood and 1 iron instead of 1 wood and 1 iron
  • Demons now starve like other races (talent reduction and life points)
  • The 1st row becomes easier to overrun in combat. This now happens at a ratio of 3:1 (instead of the previous 10:1)
  • The regeneration of life points is slowed down
  • Swimming Aquarians can no longer transport other races
  • Heroes are introduced. A unit can use the TRANSPORTATION order be made into a hero unit. Heroes deal ten times more blows in combat, but otherwise behave normally and are indistinguishable from normal units to the enemy. The number of heroes a party can have is severely limited and follows the same formula as migrants (log10(party size÷50)×20).

17.04.2005 - RESTART, weights, etc.

04.05.2005 - The Xontormia Express appears again after a break under a new editor

05.06.2005 - Astral space reform (from round 430) etc.

  • Units passing through a chaos vortex lose ¾ of their health
  • Stones, horses, chariots and catapults crumble to dust in the Astral Space
  • Monsters become more aggressive (actually more of a bug fix)
  • Ships can be overloaded again

27.07.2005 - Movement after fight

  • Units can only execute a long order after combat if each unit in their army is allowed to do that

10.09.2005 - Double play, handover of the faction

  • Players from factions that are at least 150 rounds old are allowed to start a second faction
  • Faction handovers are prohibited. This is a reaction to the fact that after faction surrenders there was often trouble (due to multiple play or the enemy taking over parties in an alliance), which meant work and frustration for the game management
  • Dying factions hand over their items to friendly factions (HELP ALL)

13.09.2005 - Movement after fight

  • Long orders possible after short fights; MOVE, ROUTE etc. only if none of the units from the faction had a long fight.

31.1.2007/14.2.2007 - Combat Rules (Round 513)

  • Battles on oceans are always short
  • Battles in other regions are short if a friendly unit is guarding the region
  • Ships receive damage from the 2nd round of combat if at least one person on the ship takes damage
  • Fleeing units remain in the region and do not lose any items
  • Units with COMBAT FLEE can still move
  • Before, the rule was: a fight was long if it lasted more than one round. Fleeing units threw away almost all items and fled to a random neighboring region

15.11.2007 - Unicode

  • Reports are converted to UTF-8 encoding (previously ISO-8895-15)

11.02.2008 - Material und Silberpool

  • Material and silver pool are active for all parties (previously they were optional)

02.03.2008 - After articles have only been published very irregularly in recent months, the last issue of Xontormia Express is being published.

28.04.2008 - Regions receive IDs

15.05.2008 - Magic and monsters

  • The spells “Veil of Confusion” and “Fog of Confusion” will be removed without replacement
  • The monster faction gets number (ii)

03.06.2008 - World portals, adamantium, Astral space

  • Islands with world portals suddenly appear
  • Adamantium is introduced
  • Movement rate in Astral Space is now only 1 (actually a bug fix)

December 2008 - Registration (finally) closed

  • Due to some serious server issues, registration will be closed for everyone

10.05.2009

  • The development of Eressea 1.5 is postponed. In its place comes the E3A project. The aim is to quickly develop a playable version that includes major changes that can be implemented with as little coding as possible

02.12.2017 - Waiting list is being processed again for the first time

  • New players will be suspended starting December 24, 2017 (last week of the month of Storm moon in Year 33 of the Second Age -1056)
  • The 18th world emerges

Eressea the Third Age

Eressea 2 has been planned for years, but Enno is now sure that this version of Eressea will be a web game.
However, this requires fundamental changes to the code and gameplay, which should be tested in Eressea 1.5 beforehand.

In order to finally bring something new to the table for the players and to gain initial experience with a simplified version of Eressea, the development of Eressea 1.1 working title E2K9 will start on May 10, 2009.
Version number 1.5 is not chosen because E1.1 is supposed to get by without a lot of programming effort by deleting a number of orders and changing existing parameters.
It was originally intended as a smaller intermediate step to E1.5.

Due to the massive rule changes, E1.1 will start in a new world.
In order to counteract the problems of the endless game and to keep the workload for the current game as low as possible, it will not be possible to start the game later.

The programmer for this project is Enno the design team at this point only consists of Xolgrim.
Just a few days later, it was expanded to its current size with Eon, who had noticed Enno via a mailing list, and Phygon, who, like Xolgrim, had already worked on various unfinished Eressea projects.

The working title, which stands as an abbreviation for "Eressea 2009", illustrates the small time window that remains for development, design, programming and testing.
June 24, 2009 is the first planned start date, but this cannot be met for several reasons.
Above all other, mostly private, reasons, the number of new registrations is crucial.
The hope was for more than 50 players, the dream was around 100.
However, three days before the registration deadline, almost 400 players had already registered.
At least the basic features of the suspension algorithm were completed in time for June 24th. World building can begin.

No one believes that Eressea The Third Age, E3 for short, can do without a lot of reprogramming.
The list of small and large changes is long, and the to-do list of things that urgently need to be done after the launch is even longer.
For example, many spells, some of which are already level 2, have not yet been completely revised.
Since these can only be conjured up in the second round of the game at the earliest, there is still plenty of time for these and other little things...