An interview with: Bolism / Justic Badstone [SYWTH]

Bolism [SYWTH], also known through his dwarf account Justic Badstone, is one of Illyriad’s most prominent slaughterers of fauna, and has long been my personal hero. 

I was a month or two into Illyriad with a few new towns under my belt, not knowing whether the game was for me or not. Someone linked me to the SYWTH profile to understand hunting a bit more, and the depth and complexity of game mechanics became immediately obvious, and I was hooked. Anyway...

Many players will know Bolism from his GC personality, and the useful reference material on the SYWTH alliance profile (linked further below). He is one of those players who has gathered a lot of practical knowledge and data over many years, then shared it back with the community.

We talked about a lot, includings, old alliances, terrible advice, legendary players, and his new battle calculator.

Let’s start with the basics. Where in the world are you based, and how long have you played Illyriad?

So I'm going to start by saying I'm French, and that can explain the ego and the so-so English :)

The short version: I'm an engineer, and during my career I had the opportunity to either open an office in Palo Alto, California, where our designer was based, or go to China to follow up the production of one of our products. It was a couple of weeks mission. That was 20 years ago ;)

So for the answer, I'm currently living in China, in a beautiful coastal city in the south west.

I discovered Illyriad at the end of 2017, and never looked back. I just took a couple of breaks, but never long enough for this account to vanish.

How did you first discover Illyriad, and what attracted you to it?

I was looking for a background game with enough mechanics to keep me entertained, but that didn't require a full time investment. I tried several games in parallel, but Illy was the only one that stuck around.

I had the chance to land in an active alliance at that time with an interesting take, the Republic of Free Cities [RoFC]. We had light conversation both in AC and GC, and I started to take a liking in drawing some basic things about what was happening in game. Some of the images can still be found in my current alliance.

I also met buck1, who was a hunter and taught me the basic mechanics. Even if he didn't understand the maths of the attack and defence mechanisms, he still figured out the optimal setup for some armies. From that point, I tried to understand those mechanics, and met several other influential people like Lupia from ITG and Sene from Marauders.

The hunting, the general mechanics, and the people in the game kept me playing until now.

What was your route to setting up SYWTH as your own alliance and going solo?

The route was that I didn't know if I wanted to play anymore, so I set up the alliance and combined both Bolism and Justic profiles, as a legacy in case I wasn't coming back :)

After setting the alliance, I decided that if I ever played again full time I was going to push for more towns. So I clustered both accounts' towns to prepare for that.

Also, alliance profiles do not have a portrait image, so you get more HTML space to put larger tables!

What do you think other players know you for? What would your reputation be if I asked around?

I think after repeating the heroic elite setup for hunting a lot of times, people might recognize me for being "that" annoying guy...

Apart from that, I try to help people if they have questions in GC. I'm always learning from the community, so it's just sharing and giving back some of that knowledge.

How would you describe your playstyle, and what do you most enjoy doing when you log in?

I love the hunting part, even if right now I'm not doing that much of it. I still have in the back of my head to grow more towns, especially on my dwarf alt, before sending them to some better hunting grounds.

The score, even if not the primary focus, is still something that happens because of the implications on the basic mechanics of the game.

What is something people might be surprised to learn about you?

I'm not sure there is anything surprising. I just enjoy the game and try to talk and help when I can. I'm often an open book and can chat for hours if I have the time, hence why some call me "chatty dwarf".

For relatives, I have an uncle in Ireland who was the main cook for the national rugby team, so we had a lot of "spare" smoked salmon.

I do speak a bit of Mandarin, but not enough to be considered a speaker of that language. French and English are still the main languages I communicate with. I'm just a boring dad of two young kids.

Do you play other games? What would you recommend to people who enjoy Illyriad?

I play a variety of games, depending on mood. Most likely solo PC games. I'm currently playing again Borderlands 1 and 2. Before that I had some time with Mass Effect, Banished, and Civilization 3 and 5. That's about what I played on my computer in the past two years.

One game I keep coming back to is Sacred. It's an old school hack'n'slash from the same period as Diablo 2, but with a real map and some cities. I always preferred that one, even if it was published after the Blizzard game, because the world is like another character, not some random corridor map.

I played a lot of Diablo, Diablo 2 and Diablo 3, but never ran for the ladders. Battle.net is separated by region, and Asia is famous for the bots.

What is the origin of the names Bolism and Justic Badstone?

We talked about Diablo, the first game I played online. I was a teenager and wanted a sassy name, but MetsTaBoucheSurLaMienne was too long, so I stuck with Meta.

A couple of years later on World of Warcraft, Meta the rogue was born, and I needed alts. So I started playing around with Meta-Bolism: Bolism for my beloved warlock, Lic for my warrior, Staz for my mage, and so on. Meta being a commonly used tag, I kept the Bolism one. Voilà.

For the dwarf, it is a much shorter story. I ran a name generator for 100 dwarf names. On the list there was Justice Gildwing, but I wanted a male name so I removed the e, and another one was something Badstone. I combined both, and voilà.

On top of that, the initials are JB, like James Bond, Jack Bauer, Jason Bourne. Not Justin Bieber, merci beaucoup...

What advice have you received in game that really helped you, or that you now pass on to others?

Always check by yourself the info. So many people have guides, or link to guides, or a mess of links to things they don't even comprehend about game mechanics. And it's often hidden under the "make your own path" idea.

I had a terrible leader. Very nice to talk to, but with barely any knowledge about the functioning of the game. Receiving some "advice" from those people and following it can set you up in a bad way for a start. Nothing is fixed though. You can correct that trajectory later, but it can lead to months of frustration.

My advice for that: don't follow profiles with a list of more than 10 links to forum posts. In general, the people that have more than that never read them ;)

It is even more true when you ask a question in GC and get several answers, sometimes contradicting each other.

Are there players or alliances you admire?

I admire Sene for the dedication to hunting. Not only did he make guides, internal to ITG and Marauders, but also on the forums. He always had just five well-set cities, and is still in the top three attack score. That demands a lot of dedication, and on top of that he is a really nice guy to talk to.

Do you know if Sene still plays actively? And how do you get such a high score with only five towns?

Seeing that he or his alt are often in the daily attack ranks, I would say he is still around. Maybe not as much as he used to be, but still quietly there.

For a high score in attack, you have to set up your hunting town correctly. The best is a biome for the college bonus, being a dwarf for the stalwarts, which can kill everything on every terrain. On top of that, you have to be in the regions with the most hosts, legions, myriads and seas of NPCs.

The best place is Puchuallpa for the poisonous crawlers. You can kill up to 8.5k of them with the correct heroic elite setup. After that, you can hunt everything far away or focus on the Underworlders. They give the best XP, but you need faster units since they move more often, and there are only a few regions that spawn them in big groups often.

Anyone else you would highlight?

There are a lot of nice people I could talk about, but it's not necessarily as easy as pointing to a difficult score or ranking. Most people have a goal, and that is enough for them to play with.

Among the most influential people, I would say Lupia, leader of ITG for a long time. She kept the balance of a training alliance and tried to stay neutral in the conflicts around, on top of being a good hunter and reaching high in the Underworlders event.

If you could change one thing about Illyriad or its community, what would it be?

Stop the small talk in GC about war and just get on with it!

But the smack talk is part of the fun though right? Would we ever see you go to war?

The smack talk, when backed up by something, why not. But Illy is slow, and the effect of something today is not going to be seen for a long time. People might forget, or not care anymore when that arrives ;)

Would we ever see you go to war?

I highly doubt I will ever be at war. I don't see a reason for it.

Do you have any current goals or ambitions you are working towards in game?

I'm storing resources in case I ever push for more towns, but no, I don't have many goals apart from finally passing the dwarf on score.

What message would you like to put out there to the Illyriad community?

Be nice, even when sometimes it's difficult to keep your calm with all the fake traders that just flip items for their own personal gains without bringing any value to it.

And also yes, yes, yes, yes, the calculator v3 in HTML and JS is nearly done. But since I play mostly on phones, and I don't need it for killing the poor NPCs around my towns, I didn't finish the testing. Soon™

Finally, who would you like to read an interview with, and what would you ask them?

I would like to read an interview with Sene of course, Thorfinn to know more about the guy behind the scary orc, Thirion to know what he drank to become a fat elf, and IKnights on how he manages to have so many resource beggars in my neighbourhood.

Huge thanks to Bolism [SYWTH] for taking part in Voices of Illyriad.

You can find Bolism in-game here: Bolism’s Illyriad profile.

You can also find the SYWTH alliance profile here: SYWTH alliance profile, which is well worth reading for hunting reference material.

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