Marooner's Musings

A lot of the new alliances have formed after the most recent global war - War of the Coalition. I use the term global relatively loosely, but it was the largest war that I have been apart of since starting a nation on Planet Bob.

Some of the reasons I have seen for people starting up these alliances (and some of them you have already touched on) are: disagreement with their decisions made by their original alliance; wanting more fame/infamy; negative feelings towards the treaty web; wanting to try something new/interesting/challenging.

It will be interesting to see what will happen to many of these 'micro-alliances', as I've seen coined somewhere on the BBs. Even if one or two of these new alliances manage to coalesce into something politically significant in Planet Bob terms, it could have the potential to shift some power around.

The exponential growth of small alliances has already had a massive impact on global politics. Where you are, in my opinion, missing the point, is in viewing only direct and conscious actions as worthy of consideration. In fact it is their mere existence that has changed the world in ways far more significant than a few "new emerging powers" ever could.

The proliferation of small alliances has altered the number, movement and strength of forces in the international arena, and as an inevitable result the way in which the major alliances operate has had to adjust. This has been noticed by just about everyone, they have just failed to properly associate the cause with the effect.

http://cybernations.wikia.com/wiki/The_Outwards_Spiral

The exponential growth of small alliances has already had a massive impact on global politics. Where you are, in my opinion, missing the point, is in viewing only direct and conscious actions as worthy of consideration. In fact it is their mere existence that has changed the world in ways far more significant than a few "new emerging powers" ever could.

The proliferation of small alliances has altered the number, movement and strength of forces in the international arena, and as an inevitable result the way in which the major alliances operate has had to adjust. This has been noticed by just about everyone, they have just failed to properly associate the cause with the effect.

http://cybernations.wikia.com/wiki/The_Outwards_Spiral

That is certainly an interesting read, and I agree with pretty much everything you have there. However, I think I pointed out a factor that was not taken into consideration.

A very interesting read, both the main article and Vladimir's response and link. However, there other factors at play here. Mostly, it is a factor of 'increasing decimalism.' Basically, small alliances are a natural human reaction to the sprawling size of the major sanctioned alliances.

As Vladimir's wiki article points out, for 'survival' purposes (which I will take issue with at a later time, maybe in my own blog - but for now I'll accept it as true) the major large alliances have banded together. There is nothing inherently evil about this in any way. Clearly, this has worked for the security of those alliances.

But here's where things get interesting. If you don't join one of the sanctioned alliances, there is a feeling among many that your number will come up eventually. Especially if you are in an alliance of any significant size that could be deemed a threat to the power structure. Frankly, from what I've seen, there is nothing more dangerous than being in a 300 man alliance that does not have significant ties to the MDP web. You're big enough to be perceived as a potential threat, but not nearly big enough to be a realistic threat.

Small alliances are a reaction to this concept. As a commentator noted above, why in the world do I want to get my nation destroyed for the actions of someone I don't even know? Yet this is exactly the paradigm you set up if you're in a larger alliance that isn't part of the power structure.

Plus, on the human level, the community associated with a small alliance is more comfortable. I know each and every member of my alliance. There's a lot to be said for that kind of comradery. In an alliance of 1000 people, how many of those folks could you realistically know in some fashion? 40? 100? 200? Even at 400 you would still know less than half of the members of your alliance.

Most small alliances have no desire to gain fame/infamy or otherwise create a second hegemon and plunge the world into a great war. First of all, under the current climate, it is not feasible to create a second power structure as you will be destroyed long before it would have the potential to be on even footing - which Vladimir so eloquently explained in his article. So being around CN for any amount of time, you figure your choices are fairly limited: join a sanctioned alliance. The upside is security and growth. The downside is your voice is one of a thousand and may get drowned out in the crowd. Join a large unsanctioned alliance. This has the same problems as above, ie, you'll never know half your comrades AND if you're not firmly part of the power structure, there's little security here as at some point, you very well may be perceived as a threat and attacked by much larger forces which undermines the idea of joining a large alliance in the first place.

The third choice is small alliances. Assuming you can find a protector, it's a viable alternative to the power politics of Digiterra. Those of us, like myself, that have no interest in becoming a world power, can find a home in a nice small alliance where we know everyone and can generally enjoy building our nations outside of the power politics. If you're small, you're no threat to anyone. So long as you have a good protector, it is a wonderful balance that makes nation building a lot of fun, you have relative security, and you can let go of worrying about what the current power structure is to a fair degree. And to me, it makes for a lot of fun in deciding where you want to go as an alliance.

Ultimately, many are viewing CV through a 2 year old lens where there was a doubt as to the main power in the world. That doubt has not been present for some time. To attribute the goals of the past to new small alliances is a mistake. Many of us know the world hegemony is not going to change. We have no desire whatsoever to get involved in a futile attempt at trying because that's what folks did two years ago.

In sum, small alliances are CN's way of moving forward. The old days of two giants slugging it out for primacy has long since passed. Too many focus on the old days, wanting to bring them back. Those days are not coming back. So for players to move on, who are not part of that giant, small alliances allow us to explore other facets of the game. Just because you're not the biggest guy in the room doesn't mean you're not successful.

Not everyone wants to rule the world, regardless of what Tears for Fears may tell you.

VI