By Espark on Thu 11 Mar, 2021.

Ai-Mo Times

“The only literate tribe deserves the best in information and entertainment” July 26th, 2020 - Today, our host, 1Chill, packed together all the information gathered by our reporters: Joxteoz, Espark, Artemis, CoolNotFoolGuy, ArcticFox, and myself. After gathering the information and finishing writing he put the text into the hands of our editors, Druid, Espark and Peaceful. Once they finished their work, Espark posted this beautiful newspaper and copied it to ArcticFox’s website.

The Stone of Time

Every month of the year is dedicated to celebrating a specific tribe. The picture on the next page is of the Stone of Time, also known as the Tribe Moon Calendar, which shows what tribe gets to be celebrated in what month. To read it, start at Yădakk for January and go clockwise until you get to your month. As you can see, the current tribe moon is for Zebasi and the next tribe moon is for Oumaji. Currently, according to an Oumaji member, for their tribe moon, everyone will “eat sand”. While this appears to be a joke, we won’t know for sure for another week. Normally, there is a blurb with some lore, an art contest, and a gameplay challenge, with some sort of song posted later in the month. Also, for three of the fifteen tribes, they get to be celebrated at other occasions. For example, Aquarion also was celebrated.

The Stone of Time, also known as the tribe moon calendar.

Polytopia News

This week on the Polytopia server, the Zebasi art contest finished. The rankings are as follows: P.Mark (from Kickoo) Timi07 (from Ai-Mo) flightlessbird (from Oumaji) The prize was a steam key for the Polytopia Moonrise Edition. Aquarion Tribe Day (continued from “Stone of Time”) Aquarion Tribe Day occurred on July 20, 2020. The 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." -Zoythrus

Also, #aquarion-discussion was opened for users to talk about Aquarion and the gameplay challenge was released later so that both tribes could be celebrated.

Ai-Mo News

This week on Ai-Moya, we are proud to have Timi07, an ai-moyan, be one on the leaderboard for the Zebasi art contest. Also, a lot of people have joined our server. This is mainly because of the D&D sessions, and probably also because of the popularity the tribe gained after Ai-Mo won a lot of contests, including last year's Tribe Duels. We are still spreading peace, serenity and knowledge throughout the server as our highest priority mission. Polytopia Discord Server Technical Changes A few days ago, Zoythrus announced that the server will experience a minor change. This change will be a little upgrade that will make the server a more beautiful place. The Announcement As many of you know, the Moonrise will be released on Steam on August 4th, and that means that we're going to need to straighten up if we're going to properly accommodate it. So, we've decided this would be the best time to do a restructuring of the server, with some adjustments to both our layout and our server rules, and we hope these changes will make our little server a much nicer place to a be. These changes were brought about due to complaints about convolutedness of our channels, and we figured a restructuring would be the best way to make things more intuitive for everyone.

Of course, like in the past, changes will take some time to get used to, we welcome your feedback on our new layout in #server-feedback, but we suggest you give it some time before suggesting any grand changes.

Over the next hour or so, expect to see channels moving, categories changing, things being added or deleted, and so forth. Also expect changes afterwards, as we make small adjustments as needed.

In short, here's a broad overview of our changes: Our server #rules have been simplified. The new Tribe Spotlight channel is for everything relating to a tribe moon or other tribe-based event. A new Steam category for all Steam-related questions, matchmaking, and discussion. A new Tournament category, which is temporary and will be used for big events. Right now, it's being used for the Summer Skirmish, and later the Tribe Duels Strategy and Advice have been changed to be more accessible and more focused, as well as put into their own category Tribe voice chats have been removed due to non-use, and emoji-suggestions and weekly-questions will be archived until further notice.

Thank you for your cooperation and understanding. -Zoythrus The New Rules: 1. No NSFW content, as that belongs outside of this server 2. Any type of hate speech will not be tolerated on this server 3. Keep discussions of real-world politics or religion outside of this server 4. Use the channels for their appropriate purpose 5. Don’t send invites to unrelated servers without prior permission from a mod 6. No intentionally disruptive behavior 7. Do not leak any beta or alpha Polytopia content without permission 8. This server complies with Discord ToS, and all their rules (which can be found at https://discordapp.com/terms) apply as well Small infractions will incur a warning. Continued breaking of the rules will be either muted or fully banned.

Disregard of rules 1, 2, 6, and 8 may result in an immediate perma-ban.

All administrative staff, including Admins and Mods, reserve the right to determine and dole out punishments as we see fit.

If you have any questions about what is acceptable behavior, feel free to DM a Mod. Of course, use common sense, otherwise. -Zoythrus

The Summer Skirmish

The 2020 Polytopia Summer Skirmish is the largest Polytopia event in the history of the game. Over 1100 participants signed up to compete, although only 700 are actively participating in the event.

As we previously suspected, hosting a match in the tournament gave a significant advantage, as shown in the pie chart below.

Initially, the tournament rules stated that the first nine players to reach level 9 were the semi-finalists. Recently, a tenth runner-up prize slot was announced. All of the nine semi-finalists will still receive a cool role on the server and pre-release access to Polytopia Moonrise. The winner will also receive a piece of merchandise. In addition the 10th-18th players to reach level 9 will be playing in three lower level semi-finals (similar to the upper level semi-finals) and the three winners will battle it out for the tenth place runner up prize. Currently, there are 19 players who can qualify for level 9 with their current games. All they have to do is win the games they have in progress now. So it could be any day now that we have the first semi-finalist. Leaderboard (as of 7/23/2020) Thebosss#9885 (8W/2L/2IP) Cereal Killer#4334 (7W/0L/3IP) sgtsub (Plague)#0321 (7W/0L/3IP) zorken#9362 (7W/0L/3IP) LiNoKami#1234 (7W/1L/2IP) KTKA#9962 (7W/3L/1IP) soccawalka5#3631 (7W/3L/2IP) Poisonshadows#3042 (6W/0L/3IP) Wonder2in 2#9850 (6W/0L/3IP) Jonc#0245 (6W/1L/2IP) Zambara#6730 (6W/1L/3IP) Dziumbas#4462 (6W/1L/3IP) Kunegetes#5965 (6W/1L/3IP) Finite#5208 (6W/2L/3IP) iankicksass#3879 (6W/2L/2IP) Bakalol#1256 (6W/2L/2IP) Imakesyougoboom#1845 (6W/2L/3IP) essuRRed#1775 (6W/2L/3IP) Callmesusanifyoulike#2334 (6W/2L/3IP)

Update 7/25 We have the first semi-finalist, it’s zorken#9362!

This player managed to win 9 out of 9 games, an amazing achievement.

There are 25 players who can reach level 9 by winning their current (or to be assigned) ‘in-progress’ games. Please check out the leaderboard for the details.

It is still far from decided though, as these players are mostly playing each other. For some, losing a match now means losing a level too. If level 9 becomes out of reach, they will have to wait until July 27th, when the maximum number of cumulative games will be increased from 12 to 15.

As soon as a player, like zorken, reaches level 9: - They will not get any new games assigned until the semi-finals. - They should continue playing their other in-progress games, as these will count for the seeding of the semi-finals. - They can’t drop levels by losing a 4th game and will stay qualified for the semi-finals

The speed at which results are reported in the #summer-skirmish-results may determine which players reach level 9 first.

As soon as 18 players reach level 9: - The registration for new players will be closed. - No new games will be assigned (besides semi-finals and finals). - The first nine will be playing in three semi-finals and a final between the three winners for 1st place. - The second nine will be playing in three semi-finals and a final between the three winners for 10th place runner up.

So keep on playing. Either make it to that top 18, or get a good final ranking position out of the 700 players that were active (by posting a result) in this tourney!

Fan Made Tribe

A few weeks ago, we found an archive of fan-made tribes. Today we will be presenting the Saywaden, made by THomez: The Saywaden simply love their home soil. But they soon realise that if they want to stay on their home sand ground, they will need to use their earth abilities to crush anyone who would dare to set foot on their rocks.

The Saywaden have a modified tech tree and begin with a Granusander.

New units: Granusander (r. defender), unlocked with granuding (r. shields) Psammoterra unlocked with terraism (r. meditation)

Granusander Cost: 6 Health: 20 Attack: 1 Defense: 3 Range: 1 Movement: 1 Skills: Granulate, Fortify Granulate: If an opponent unit is next to the granusander for more than 2 turns, the unit is turned to sand. There is a sand residue on the tile and no other tribe’s unit can go onto that tile. The sand disappears after a turn. Note* A frozen unit cannot be turned to sand If the ganusander is frozen, it will not turn units to sand The granusander can turn multiple units to sand at once If either is frozen, if they are still (for more than 2 turns) next to each other after they are unfrozen, then the unit(s) around the Granusander will be immediately turned to sand

Psammoterra Cost: 5 Health: 10 Attack: 2 Defense: 3 Range: 1 Movement: 1 Skills: Fortify, Wall Creation (Aegis? Bulwark? Garrison? or pr Fabricate? help me think of a name) It creates a rock wall on the tile(s) next to him for 2 stars per tile, you choose which tiles you want the walls on. The walls have a health of 30 and defense of 4, but will not retaliate damage and will disappear after 3 turns. The maximum number of walls that can be made at one time is twice the number of total Psammoterras around.

Super Unit: Gerrapsater Health: 40 Attack: 3 Defense: 5 Range: 1 Movement: 1 Skills: Granulate, Wall Creation

The new ability will be the landslideland slide, it will cost 5 stars and can be used 5 times per turn when used, all opponentsopponentsstoponent units in one direction of a mountain will take damage of calculation 3 attack and 20 health. if any unit is on the mountain, it will go into one of the three spaces where the landslide hits if at least one is free anyone on the landslide takes damage of 1 attack for 10 health only your own units will not get hurt or moved by the landslide

The new building is the sand temple, it has to be built on sand before it disappears and is worth to population. Any Saywaden unit on it get +1 health and +1 defense, usual temple score, costs 20 stars to build.

Also, a Saywaden unit on a mountain temple will get a x2 defense bonus

The spawn rate: Field, nothing: 20% Field, fruit: 10% Field, crop: 15% Forest, nothing: 5% Forest, game: 5% Mountain, nothing: 20% Mountain, ore: 25%

The parts forming their cities names: Pan Ja Min Ti En Keb Cru Ser Ez Dil Ar We Sho Nup Hra Bes

Saywaden warrior:

So for edited techs Terrasism(r. meditation) unlocks Mountain temple, sand temple, defense bonus, peace task, psammoterra Granuding(r. shield) unlocks Granusander(r. deffender)

The sand temple nust be built in the sand remains of other units and costs 15 stars, can grow till level 5, and gives any synokna unit a(unknown, the author stopped writing there) (Thanks THomez)

As always, thanks to everyone who helped make this newspaper possible. Keep up Ai-Mo!