[Methrage]

I've never understood why the member requirement has been in place, but why should an alliance with a lower membership amount who is able to achieve a high enough score not be allowed a sanction? Its a lot harder for a smaller alliance that is specific about who they accept to reach a score up in the top 12 than alliances with more laid back recruitment standards. I think the membership requirement for sanctions should be removed, and it should be based only on score.

[Lord Sharpe]

I agree, though I am biased. The member amount was necessary when average NS took priority over number of nations, back in the day. It is not really necessary any more.

[Bob Janova]

I agree too, the member requirement was a patch for the fact that the score formula used to be horribly biased towards high average NS (you could create a one man alliance that would be as strong in score as the NPO!). Since the score was fixed the member requirement doesn't really make sense any more. And TOP would look cool with a sanction .

[Terra Extraneus]

Having alliances work to achieve the member requirement to get a sanction helps the game. If there wasn't a nation requirement for a sanction then all the current alliances with a score high enough to acquire a sanction would just sit there growing their nation - helping themselves - and not help expand the game.

Having a nation requirement gives alliances a goal worth achieving. If they want to be sanctioned, they have to do a little work like recruitment (which helps out the game since I am sure many people go to different sites for recruitment if there is a shortage of people playing the game) All recruitment is not all done in-game. If there wasn't a member requirement then a whole lot of people would just go into an independent stance and not get involved in the 'politics' which would most likely insure them a sanction eventually with time.


(meh hard to type what I am trying to say)

[zzzptm]

There is strength in numbers of nations. Without a member number requirement, the game is coldly mathematical: with it, it is heated politics.

I'd like to see it kept.

[alpreb]

Since high member count is a good thing for the game thus being worth valued I'm content with looking nice on UE stats

[Euroslavia]

Without the member requirement, I doubt it would be hard for a smaller alliance to work around things and become sanctioned through mastering the math of doing what it would take to beat out the 12th alliance. The member requirement should stay. It requires alliances to do more than to just strengthen their own current members.

[(DAC)Syzygy]

Euroslavia, on Feb 26 2008, 08:04 PM, said:

...I doubt it would be hard for a smaller alliance to work around things and become sanctioned through mastering the math of doing what it would take to beat out the 12th alliance.

this is quite diffuse. can you elaborate how an alliance can work around the score formla which already is heavily biased towards high membercount alliances?

And "help the game" is depending on your point of view imho: I am pretty sure at least Grämlins and TOP are buying *a LOT* more donations then the 6th-12th placed sanctioned alliances.

Not that I care much for being sanctioned or not, but the "reasons" given to have a fixed limit are pretty weak. See it as you wish, even the "number give strength" argument is pretty much void - fact is, Grämlins and TOP would beat *EVERY* alliance of eqal score *into the ground* with ease.

[Blacky]

What is the score formula?

I would like to see it before making a statement on the matter. (no commentary, just the formula)

[Azaghul]

The 300 barrier is not a significant one for any alliance that is really after a sanction (and isn't looking to be elite), and I doubt it helps with recruitment that much.

I also think the activity requirement is unnecessary.

[Tyrion]

Azaghul, on Feb 27 2008, 08:44 AM, said:

I also think the activity requirement is unnecessary.

Definitely. It comes from before back collections and improvement swapping became common, and really doesn't show that the alliance members are active anymore. Infact, it seems that today the lower the activity rate the more active the members

I also agree that the member limit should be removed. Member count already affects score of an alliance greatly, and the limit is simply left over from the times when Avg. NS had a huge affect on score. I'd say that score as a whole is rather pointless, better to judge based on NS solely. It measures a nations strength, so surely the strength of all the nations in an alliance is a fair standard of the alliance's strength, and should sanctions not go to the 12 strongest alliances?

[Bob Janova]

Quote

I doubt it would be hard for a smaller alliance to work around things and become sanctioned through mastering the math of doing what it would take to beat out the 12th alliance.

With the new score formula, that's not really possible as each new member adds to the score. That is, TOP plus 100 members would always have a higher score than TOP.

Here's the score:

Quote

((alliance nations / total nations * 1,000) + (alliance strength / 100,000)) / 3

If we say that there are 30,000 nations, that means one nation is worth 1/90 of a score point, and 10000 NS is worth 1/30 of a score point. For a small alliance (let's say 100 members, though that's on the limit of 'small') to keep up with an alliance recruiting 1 new nation a day and not doing anything else, they have to grow by 30 NS each. If a large alliance of 300 members (current minimum for a sanction) is growing by an average of 100 NS each per day (30 infra is easy to do in a day with low level nations and minimal aid), the small alliance has to grow 3 times as fast per nation, i.e. 330 NS per day. That's 110 infra ($20m ish) or 60 tech (more than you can import).

[Njord]

I agree with the OP