Sunday, June 16, 2013

Ingress: State Of The Game: New York City (2)


It is fair to say the green team right now dominates Manhattan. Only a few week back they were at 50% of the territory. Now they are past 50 and still have momentum. Columbia University is solid blue, it is home territory to the top blue agent in the city. Upper West Side is also solid blue. It is home territory to the top attack agent on the blue side. But blue is shaky everywhere else on the island. I believe the green team is approaching 60% of the island by now. That is not worrying. What is worrying is they still have momentum.

When that happens there is the spillover effect. They start pouring out into Queens, Brooklyn, New Jersey perhaps. Already Kogent is talking about New Jersey on the All COMM. Manhattan is not enough territory. They are still hungry. I don't see a slowdown on their side.

West Village has become the green Bayonne. It is home to a permanent L7 farm for the green team. Only Bayonne has many fewer agents harvesting the goodies.

Queens used to be solid blue. By now it is 50-50. Downtown Brooklyn was always fiercely contested, as it is now. But southern Brooklyn is solid blue. Staten Island continues to be JPNasty1 territory: solid blue, the most unchanged part of the city for the game.

When I had a fallout with the current organized team in the city the blue team owned 66% of the city. As long as that team will focus their energies on faction chat in engaging in personal attacks on me, the other side will keep their momentum. If they still have momentum at owning 60% of Manhattan, they still have ground to cover in Queens and Brooklyn, and New Jersey is all open to crack. Arbitrage wants to buy a subway pass, Kogent wants a pass for PATH. The East Village and West Village are no longer enough for them and they are still hungry.

New Jersey's strength came from the numerous L8 farm events that NYC agents organized there. But by now New Jersey is self sufficient. It does not need NYC agents to stay strong. But I would still worry about Kogent.

Derp by now has his own private farm. It is the most efficient farm in the city right now: small and tight.

Forest Hills in Queens is one green 30 portal L8 farm in Jackson Heights taken to burnout away from being wiped out. Astoria, Flushing and Forest Hills all depend on Jackson Heights, the top Ingress destination in the borough by now.

Bronx is 50-50 like it was months ago. Not much change there.

rmazzara has done a good job of turning Long Island over 50% blue, it used to be almost 70% green, and he is not from Long Island. That change goes unnoticed. He might be the top blue agent in the city in terms of the sheer number of hours he puts into the game. Frankly, the number of hours he puts is scary to me. Maybe he is on Niantic's payroll.

What could the blue team do? What are the options?

(1) Make a team decision to stop personal attacks on me and my new, small team.
(2) The idea of me building a team is not alarming. And it is not at cross purposes. And the credit does not go to me. There are only two global teams possible. That is just the way the game has been designed.
(3) My team - The Squad - could sit on top of the organized team that exists already. The existing team was able to go to 66% of the territory in the city. Together perhaps we can go past 70% if we do it right.

Otherwise the green team could carry this current momentum for two more months at least.
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Thursday, June 13, 2013

Ingress: Linking And Fielding Types

Linking and fielding has got to be my favorite part of the game. The geometry of it all gets me.

(1) One school of thought that dominates the thinking in the city (and was even more severe before links started acting as shields) is that you should not create links and fields at all, because if you do you are only creating opportunities for enemy agents to get points. I always thought that was the stupidest thing. The thinking was and is that if you want to hold your territory just do not create links and fields. You are less likely to get attacked. As if you earn points for holding onto portals. I think you should, but right now you don't.

(2) Another way is to create as many links and fields as you can. And there a simple formula is, link to whichever portal is the closest to you. That way you will not mess it up. If you link far away portals you are depriving yourself and others of link opportunities, since links can't cross each other.

(3) The most efficient linking and fielding might be the spokes to a wheel method. You pick one portal as the hub and make it deliberately weak. And you link to that one portal from all the neighboring portals. This works best for home territories where you are likely to hack the same portals again and again and are likely to have many keys to each portal. This might also be the fastest way to gain points. The hub gets captured. You capture it again and build all those links all over again. In less than 10 minutes you might end up with 50,000 points. This spokes of a wheel method of fielding also might be the most efficient use of your portal keys. And the best way to cultivate your home territory. Say you manage to build a home territory with about 100 portals, and so when the fielding is done you earn 100,000 points. And you have a local team of agents on your side. Granted all of you do a great job of hacking the portals and always having plentiful keys, you could end up with the fastest way to level up your agents. The game does not care if you are a L1 or L8. You still get the same keys when you hack portals and you still get the same points when you create fields.

Where is your hub? Do you even have one?


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Wednesday, June 12, 2013

Ingress: Jackson Heights Mysteries


This past weekend the Enlightened in Queens organized a L8 farm event in Jackson Heights which has emerged as the top Ingress destination in the borough, both in terms of its central geographical location and, more important, its growing cluster of portals (mostly, thank me).

I know exussum has a car, I know chicory has a car, I know Avumede has a car. I don't understand why they chose to walk. Pi and Huze disrupted them after just two hacks. In a car they could have burnt out the whole thing in 20 minutes flat. Pi and Huze showed up an hour after the green gang got started.
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Sunday, June 09, 2013

Ingress: The Squad: Racially Coded Language



You can see fatasses on both sides engaging in racially coded language. They act like they are but on the same team.

Ingress (27)
Ingress (28)
Ingress: Portal Building, Field Building, Farm Building, Team Building

This reaching across the team dividing line (there are only two global teams possible) with racially coded language is not exactly a new observation on my part. But Ingress in its purity is supposed to help you cut across social barriers. But it is a knife. You can cut vegetables with it, or you can cause harm. Some people use the game to express their prejudices. It's their choice.

G+ socializing is mostly a waste of time. COMM socializing is mostly a waste of time. This game is played outdoors where you actively interact with portals. But faction chat verbal wars are I guess part and parcel of the game. Once in a while you just have to engage.

As I build The Squad I am going to keep chat verbal action and racially coded language in mind.
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Friday, June 07, 2013

Ingress: Pendulum Swings In Team Momentum



Portal flips are inevitable. We all know that. Portals flip. There are blue regions and there are green regions. There are blue clusters and there are green clusters. But even in strong zones portals flip.

Similarly teams have momentum. A few weeks back the blue team in NYC had about 66% of the territory. That might be down to 50%. A full swing of the pendulum means the blue team could get relegated to 33%. I am not privy to the green team's internal stuff. So I don't know how they see the big picture.

But the swing does not have to go all the way to 66. Two very competitive teams could go back and forth at 60-40 to 40-60, or possibly even 55-45 to 45-55. I do think the green team locally might be headed to 66%. They do have that momentum right now.

You have to be driven by AP. You have to be driven by the idea of getting to know a neighborhood like a local. You have to be driven by the idea of getting to know people. Then the back and forth does not feel meaningless. Then it does not feel mindless.

There are people who have given up playing because they feel Ingress is meant to teach you the futility of war. I get it, I get it, I quit, they seem to think.
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Thursday, June 06, 2013

Ingress: The Squad

Induction happens only in person, at the Squad events.
  • You have to own an External Battery. 
  • You have to be playing Ingress at least 10 hours a week. Staring at the Intel map does not count. This is 10 hours of actively interacting with portals. 
  • You have to personally know someone who is already a member of The Squad. 
  • You may not be a member of any other Resistance/Ingress team. 





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