More alliances is a good or a bad thing?

[hormones74]

I have never been a fan of mass member alliances. I like the feel of small to medium sized alliances.
I would rather have 10 active members than 200 inactives. Its easy to get lost and/or confused in a large group. Staying small makes for a better community if you have active members, it also gives the avg player the chance to move up the ladder faster if he/she wants to lend a hand.

[Zacharias]

It removes active members from the larger alliances that are in desperate need of them to be able to properly contribute, or even just maintain a stable population. As such, I see small alliances as a bad thing for cybernations. 

 

Most alliances aren't new player friendly. Generally alliances just cycle through old membership every election. Active members get turned away (or fade away) from large alliances out of shear boredom. I know this from personal experience.

 

What would REALLY be productive is to have old, politically inactive and intransigent alliances die off and be replaced and their memberships recycled into new alliances, unbound by the old ways.

 

Even politically active alliances could use a fresh membership in government. For example, most of the wars happen because of grudges lasting between members of government of opposing alliances. If some one else was leading NPO or Umbrella pre-Equilibrium war chances are the war may have not happened. If the political aspect of the game was near constantly changing, people would become more interested in the game

Edited April 16, 2013 by Zacharias

[Maelstrom Vortex]

The number of AAs is irrelevant, the quality of those AAs that exist is everything.

[Azaghul]

For the current number of active players, there are too many alliances.  Most people would be better off in an alliance with enough active members, and I mean forum active and involved in the alliance on a regular basis, not just in-game active, to make a solid, very active community.  Probably in the neighboorhood of 20-30+.  Including at least 5 people willing to take an active and committed role in government to keep it going on a CN level.  Many alliances fail that test these days, and very few new alliances ever grow to meet it.

 

Too many alliances are falling into relative inactivity and stagnancy.  It's hard though, when you have an attachment to an alliance you've been in for years, to let that identity go and merge it into something else.

Edited April 17, 2013 by Azaghul

[the rebel]

For the current number of active players, there are too many alliances.

 

Maybe the original alliances should offer more roles within the alliance or have a viable promotion system, there is obviously an issue on slow to none existant career progression otherwise there wouldn't be "too many" alliances.

[D34th]

Maybe the original alliances should offer more roles within the alliance or have a viable promotion system, there is obviously an issue on slow to none existant career progression otherwise there wouldn't be "too many" alliances.

 

I don't think the problem is the career progression, I think the problem is that people want to be leaders of their own alliances without hard work. Being a extremely active player I know that isn't that hard to get a power position if you want to.

[OverlordShinnra]

I'd rather have 10 alliances of 30 people then 2 of 150. Consolidation leads to stagnation and boring politics.  

[potato]

Maybe the original alliances should offer more roles within the alliance or have a viable promotion system, there is obviously an issue on slow to none existant career progression otherwise there wouldn't be "too many" alliances.

You have to be extremely dumb to not be able to get into gov if you really want to.

Edited April 18, 2013 by potato

[Icewolf]

I don't think the problem is the career progression, I think the problem is that people want to be leaders of their own alliances without hard work. Being a extremely active player I know that isn't that hard to get a power position if you want to.

Maybe its an issue of meritocracy vs democracy. I have heard of alliances where there are democratic elections that always return the same candidates which may put off the new comers. Whereas an alliance with a meritocracy can perhaps offer a more hopeful chance of promotion. Although I suppose in both cases it depends on if the old guard are conscious of having created an old boys club or not and if they are willing to deal with it if they have. 

[the rebel]

You have to be extremely dumb to not be able to get into gov if you really want to.

 

Been there done that and got the badges, though it depends on the alliances some are easier to progress than others and some are next to impossible.

[potato]

Been there done that and got the badges, though it depends on the alliances some are easier to progress than others and some are next to impossible.

I didn't mean "you" as in "you personally". And I'll give you that some alliances' gov are easier to get into but being active and not being a complete moron will get you into gov no matter which alliance you're in.

[D34th]

I didn't mean "you" as in "you personally". And I'll give you that some alliances' gov are easier to get into but being active and not being a complete moron will get you into gov no matter which alliance you're in.

 

I'm so happy that we can agree on something :P Best friends forever?

[Krzyzewskiville]

For the current number of active players, there are too many alliances.  Most people would be better off in an alliance with enough active members, and I mean forum active and involved in the alliance on a regular basis, not just in-game active, to make a solid, very active community.  Probably in the neighboorhood of 20-30+.  Including at least 5 people willing to take an active and committed role in government to keep it going on a CN level.  Many alliances fail that test these days, and very few new alliances ever grow to meet it.

 

Too many alliances are falling into relative inactivity and stagnancy.  It's hard though, when you have an attachment to an alliance you've been in for years, to let that identity go and merge it into something else.

 

I have to agree with Azaghul here.  More alliances aren't a bad thing per se, but there are far too many alliances without enough members to sustain themselves, with inactive or incompetent leadership, that sort of thing.  Nobody wants to give up their alliance's history and identity, but more alliances just complicates the already-complicated treaty web and divides up human resources that are necessary to make alliances work well.  To add to that: everyone wants to be the leader, but nobody wants to be the follower or behind-the-scenes guy or whatever else, and that hurts us, too.  Some people (certainly myself included) are not fit to be alliance leaders, it's just how it is.  We need people to realize that sometimes, they are better off in the background doing their work rather than trying to be the big man starting their own failed alliance.

 

Inactivity is something that breeds more inactivity and problems.  Alliances lose members so much so that they can't function on their own, but they refuse to merge (or disband), meaning that even more people end up leaving the game out of boredom/attachment, and it just kills off the alliance.  That's what happened to OMFG, in large part - there was an attempt to merge, it failed, and things just got out of control until disbandment was the only option.

[potato]

I'm so happy that we can agree on something :P Best friends forever?

Agreeing with me is a step in the direction for your redemption but let's get ahead of ourselves.

[Mandrivia_2]

I personally think that having less alliances with more members would be beneficial to CN.  Why?  Politics become much more interesting when you have less alliances, with more power jockeying against each other.  Not as much when you have lot of much smaller alliances with a buttload of treaties tying everyone together.

 

Besides, there are too many alliances out there these days. :v:

[vom53]

It all depends on the type of alliances. The more established the alliance is, the more that alliance would play a better role for the Cybernations community.

The less established the alliance is, the less influential that alliance would be to other alliances.

 

Like the saying goes, "United we stand, divided we fall".

Combining alliances to bigger alliances is a good thing and should be recommended, but you must always remember that less is more.

 

Less alliances and CN will continue to thrive

[Caladin]

The trouble with having so many small alliances are that each individual one has little influence, because individually they have little military power too bring to the table, and thus they have little ability to enforce their own agenda.
As such, less alliances, with more members, would result in more conflicts of interest, I believe.

[Minilla Island]

The problem is that we have too few players for too many Alliances. When I first came here in late October, 2007, we had over 34,000 nations. Today, we are under 12,000. There are many reasons for this happening: New games popping up, RL issues, the crazy rules between TE and SE, the crazy politics, it has become a lot to handle. Can you have a realistic 50-person Alliance? Sure, it is doable. However, people need to be active. 

[BloodFury]

Just get rid of all the neutrals, and let their membership go form more alliances that actually take part of the greater world.

 

More smaller alliances means that there is more drama in the world and more things going on.

[D34th]

All your base belong to the neutrals, resistance is futile.

[Drai]

I think it's a bad thing because there's more hesitant parties to start a war and it just complicates things with treaty conflicts.

[Zacharias]

As long as treaties are in existence there will be treaty conflicts. Micros don't cause the problem. Alliances who strategically make treaties with the opposing side to lessen their predicted damage are the cause.

Edited April 25, 2013 by Zacharias

[D34th]

When I and MK members agree on something, it's like universal seal of approval. 

[BarbulaM1]

Overall bad, they rarely add anything new to the game. Usually end up drawing a few active members from major alliances in order to start. Generally they are unstable, ending up being a liability for their protector as they are unable to fend for themselves while very rarely being able to grow to a stage where they are no longer simply a pawn of a major alliance. They add too much complexity to the treaty web for their worth in an actual war. (except bickering, they are good at that).

[niteyknight]

I believe new alliances are good. all are not gonna become big but there will be a few. As some old alliances run there course and slowly wither away,  new ones need to take their place.