From my point of view Relic Wars had several stages by now. First, it started by alliances getting them as fast as they could. Then System Lords betrayed all their allies and fought for the relics, getting to 8 relics at a time. After that, System Lords were attacked by several alliances, the most notorious one being Death Squadron. The DS won the last stage… they became the most powerful alliance. They are big, they have lots of resources and members, and are well organized. And they managed to force System Lords into hiding in the shadows.

A couple of days ago the DS started to attack the last relics that they are missing. The major target are ALPHA, the other alliance with relics. This is a major threat against the free world, and we could face a scenario where DS have all the relics and win the major prize.  This will mean that DS will become the supreme force on the universe, making the game completely unbalanced.

A rebellion against the DS is forming. The best independent players are joining forces against this threat and I’m guessing that this current stage will last for a long time. I hope that this stage will significantly weaken the DS, but it will be a very hard battle.  Even so it’s very interesting to see how things are forming up… New tactics will emerge from this situation, and I’m very curious to see how things will proceed.

Historically speaking, I don’t know of any empire that lasted for ever. There are always the rich times, filled with richness and glory, and down times, with less resources and defeats. On Orion’s Belt this also happens. Those familiarized with Orion’s Belt History already know that. Even on this new version we can see that. At one time or another there were an alliance that ruled the universe. We can remember CUS and Cosa Nostra from the old days. And on this version Prophets of the Revolution, ALPHA and System Lords have been on front and quite powerful, and have fallen to lesser positions.

This weekend, while the System Lords admirals were not at the command of their fleets, two of the System Lords officers turned against them and joined the Death Squadron and attacked the only System Lords relic left. This is specially interesting because these two traitors were an important rebel force against the Death Squadron. I dare to say that at this moment the Death Squadron alliance is the most powerful ever seen on this version of Orion’s Belt. System Lords can’t really complaint about their members, seen that the alliance has a history of betraying its allies. And now, an alliance that once had 8 relics, now fights for the last one…

The balance of power may seam on Death Squadron’s side. They are a lot, very well organized, and with great zone control. But every time that one alliance becomes two strong, it has to deal with several problems:

• Internal problems: many members means a lot of stuff to handle; it’s hard to keep all the members happy, specially when there’s bounty to share
• Being the first means that all the alliances focus on that one alliance

It may be difficult to reach number one. But it’s even more difficult to stay there for a long time.

The war for relics is becoming very interesting. The big war started when System Lords betrayed ALPHA and attacked 5 ALPHA relics. ALPHA were already in war with Death Squadron and conceived heavy losses. They are now hidden on their private zones, maybe gathering combat units and preparing for revenge.

On another unexpected move, System Lords betray Prophets of the Revolution and target two relics from them. Meanwhile, System Lord’s enemies Death Squadron, offer a cease fire and a treaty is formed between them, on the war for the Prophets relics.

Prophets and ALPHA have been allies for a long time. Are we watching now the start of two major confederations on the fight for relics? Will there be any more betrayals? On thing’s for sure, this war is far from the end!

News flash: unknown underground sources say that Morf, the  finalist for the first tournament, has transferred from YakuzaAIR to Death Squadron, bringing even more fire power and talent to their alliance.

A couple of weeks ago we had the first player to reach level 10. Ashis did it and the following is an interview with him.

OB: What’s it like to be the first player to reach level 10?

Ashis: I feel very proud! It was a personal goal of mine, and I was playing with that objective. Every day I played Orion’s Belt for a couple of hours.

OB: Can you introduce yourself? Who are you, what do you do, and how did you find Orion’s Belt?

Ashis: My name is Alexandre, I’m from Cascavel - Brasil. I’m a web developer and I found the game while traveling on the web. At that time I played another game from Brasil and I found Orion’s Belt on its first version.

OB: What was your strategy to reach level 10?

Ashis: Well, I always use premium services to get cost reduction and  and production speed increased. I had two management strategies: one week I’d focus on combat unit creation, and on the other week I’d focus on facility upgrades. And I always pillaged to get rare resources, that’s the best way to get rare resources.

OB: So you main rare resource income was from pillage?

Ashis: Yes. The planet income is very low, on one planet pillage I’d get as much resources as a full day’s income!

OB: But you need  a huge quantity of rare resources… can pillage achieve that?

Ashis: If you’re lucky… but it took a long time to reach level 10. I had to store resources for a full week for each main facility.

OB: And what about the orions you needed for the premium services. How did you get them?

Ashis: I sold resources and combat units at the Auction House. There are several resources that my race doesn’t use much, so I sold all the extra income on the auction house. I never bought orions, I don’t even know if I can do that from Brasil.

OB: Now that you’ve reached level 10, what are your goals?

Ashis: Now I want to focus on military and build a lot of combat units. I’ll also play on my two other accounts. And I’ll rule the universe! Hehehe

OB: What about your alliance? You left System Lords to form your own alliance. Do you have any plans at the alliance level? Maybe regarding relics or war against other alliances?

Ashis: Yes. I’ll help my alliance members to grow stronger. When we’re ready, we’ll go after the relics.

OB: Thank you for your time! Any last words for the new players of the game?

Ashis: Yes, you should be objective and don’t be afraid to attack other planets! Heheheh

Almost since the beginning of the game that players have began forming alliances.

But in the old days it was all much different than it is now. In the first rounds there was no alliance interface like now. It all came down to a group off players that said that they were from the same alliance. They changed their name so they included an alliance tag, but that was all.

Like Tiago already said earlier it all began with the ACSK alliance (an alliance dedicated to overthrown Shadow Knight from the top of the ranking). In response to that the CUS alliance was created. CUS stands for Shadow United Club, and as you can guess their objective was to protect Shadow Knight and help him.

But that was not all. Some players decided that this war was not for them. So a third alliance appeared: Independent Universe Conquers or IUC for short.

The powerful System Lord also appeared around this time. This alliance formed by the game programmers was most known by their diplomatic abilities and their capacity to make the several alliance go into war.

In the third round the AIR alliance was created. AIR stands for Independent Ruler Alliance and was created by me and Miguel18. It all started in the office where I worked back then but rapidly other players joined. Around this time some of the IUC players started joining other alliances, as the IUC leaders stopped playing.

With the end of the ACSK and CUS alliances two other were formed: GOAL (Game Over Alliance) and ORE (Orions Renegades).

GOAL was maybe one of the biggest alliances that ever existed, with more than 40 members. They became so powerful that now the alliances have a member quantity limit. They won that round individually and by alliances.

Still in the first version of the game the Cosa Nostra alliance was created. With only 2 members their superiority was amazing. It was one of the most successful alliances ever although some times the two member attacked witch other. But it was all in a good spirit and those episodes were very funny to watch in the game forum as the discussions toked place.

Although many other alliances were created just one more got some notoriety: the ST’s (the Star Trek alliance). A small group of friends but all very god players. It must have been one of the most hated alliances ever in the game, but that didn’t stopped then from some success.

Nowadays the alliances work in a very different way that back in the first version. There is a cool alliance interface and even game messages. Some of the players from back then don’t play the game anymore, others changed team and new people got into the game.

And if those times were very nice and fun the future seems even brighter. The game is growing and the players are becoming better and better.