If you are like me, you started the game by chasing portals. You walked long blocks. You took the train to portals an hour away. You jumped into a car with someone to go hack portals hours away. That is called chasing portals. And that is fine. You got to go where the portals are.
But you should also make the portals come to you. And you do that by submitting portals. And it is never too early to start. I think you should start making portal submissions as early as Level 1. Do not wait.
Sculptures and churches are a good bet. Close clusters are better than one portal per block. Start building your home territory right away. You want at least 20 portals that you can walk over to any time.
I remember the excitement when my first portal went live. I had submitted it when I was a mere Level 1. I would not have made that particular submission if I knew better. But it went through. I was in a slow phase of the game when, boom, 20 of my portals went live on a single day. And I was back in the game like crazy. Then started a new phase of the game for me: the phase of submitting portals. Why spend most of your time fighting over portals that already are? Why not submit more?
I don't know about you but I get a kick out of creating fields. And you have to be able to own a cluster of portals for at least a few hours for you to be able to create anything meaningful. And so I have not only submitted portals with me and my team in mind, but also for enemy agents nearby who I think are a major nuisance to my field creation attempts! Here's 10 for you, now go buzz off!
In about two months I expect to have all the portals I need in my local area. And my definition of local area is kind of large. It involves at least four different neighborhoods in NYC. I think I am pretty much done submitting portals. Once my local portals go live I will be ready for some team building.
Right now it is my reading of the Ingress intel map and the COMM that the green team in the city has momentum. They pushed the blue team from owning 66% of the city to 50%. I happen to think they will go all the way to owning 66% of the city. They have wind in their sails.
It is a mathematical proposition. 66% is the point where arrogance sets in. But if they play it right they might even be able to take it up to 70%. I have seen new green L8 agent names pop up left and right. But then the pendulum will swing again. Just like portals flip, that's a given, the teams have pendulum swings. As your territory expands, your team members get less and less hungry. The enthusiasm level goes down. Infighting might start. And, boom, next thing you know the other team is steamrolling all over you.
Just when most of my local portals go live is when I expect the pendulum to swing again. And hopefully Niantic will have done at least one more round of allowing each agent a few invites, and there are more agents in the field. I look forward to team building.
Starting to play the game was fun. Hitting L8 was fun. Being able to do L8 farms was fun. Making portal submissions was fun. I think team building will be the most fun.
