Planetarion

Planetarion is a online text based strategy game. When you sign on you recive a planet and some resources. At first you have to build a planetary mining station, something which takes 8 hours to build. That's 8 real time hours. Later you can begin mining at local asteroides. When you're out of asteroides and have enough ships, you can capture other asteroides belonging to other players. Sounds simple, dosn't it? Of course in between you have to do some research, maybe mingle in some politics and of course build your own personal defence system.

Most structures or vessels takes 2 hours or more to build, so this isn't exactly a heavy packed action game. Still it manages to be heavily addictive. I recomend this game to everybody who like to play games like Master of Orion, Civilization or any other Empire building game. Best of all, it's free.

URL = http://www.planetarion.com

One of the best things about Planetarion is that it encourages team playing - all the people in your galaxy have to work together if they want to get anywhere in the game.

It requires communication and an understanding of tactics. The 1337-types who claim to have huge fleets or lots of 'alliance buddies' don't get very far, because they can't bluff when there's ten thousand ships attacking.

There's an IRC server, including a web interface, which, although an out-of-game communication tool, is essential to maintaining a good galaxy.

Planetarion (or 'PA') is a pretty nifty game, overall.

Planetarion is no longer a free game.

After a period where the game reset and The Triad (a powerful group of enemy alliances) teamed up to stack galaxies, the Creators got fed up and changed it. They had their members create multitudes of accounts and kept only the ones that were strategically beneficial. The Creators shuffled the locations around, which angered a lot of people who were in good positions and got that way without cheating. The game reset again later, and the Creaters charged money, because they had to try and keep their game out of the toilet. Many users were lost.

Planetarion is most likely no longer a game at all.

The servers have gone offline. Recently it was announced that the game was to close on December 23rd. There was an auction of sorts to sell on the game and allow it to continue under the stewardship of someone else. This is now not looking likely at all as the investors have decided to take control and stop paying for the servers and internet connection.

Ask any planetarion player and they will tell you just how addictive this game was. For some it changed their lives; it was not unheard of for lifelong friends (and even the odd marriage) to emerge from the community (irc mainly).

I wish the game, and especially its community, the best and I hope that it finds a home somewhere. I, and thousands of others, would hate to see it die.

edit: Planetarion has been purchased by jolt.co.uk.. A flame war between the merged communities ensues.