The Age of Super-Alliances

[Feuersturm]

PreKarma: We need to stop NPO from suppressing the creation of smaller alliances. More alliances, more wars! They are ruining the game!
PostKarma: We need to stop all these small alliances from forming, they are ruining the game!

Really? Which is it now? Smaller alliances ruin the game, or make it better?

Edited June 19, 2011 by Feuersturm

[Jaiar]

The age of super alliances can't return when you have people in here talking about how much it would be great to see and then those same people are putting their signatures on protectorate agreements. Stop protecting new 1-10 nation AAs and you may see a return to somewhat larger alliances. If your friends want to have an alliance and ask for protection tell them to get 20+ members and then protect it. Unfortunately, start up alliances are a thing of the past because this world is too old to tolerate new alliances and spheres of influence.

[Vol Navy]

[quote name='Heft' timestamp='1308444267' post='2734287']

The modern age is dominated by blocs, but the number and diversity of blocs that actually wield significant influence is greater and the blocs themselves are smaller and more distinct. This allows a greater mobility for individual alliances and allows individual alliances to have a more pronounced influence. There are a few blocs that overlap with others in terms of alliances being part of multiple blocs (R&R in SF and XX, GOONS in PB and DH), but there is not a single bloc out there that truly subsumes others.

[/quote]

Due to 4 of the top 5 blocs in the game (plus MK&TOP) working as one coalition, Bob is just as controlled by that grouping as it ever was at the height of tC. Those blocs possibly have an even higher % of non neutral NS relative to total NS of all the planet than tC had at it's height.

Edited June 19, 2011 by Vol Navy

[Ryan Greenberg]

[quote name='Feuersturm' timestamp='1308461959' post='2734501']
PreKarma: We need to stop NPO from suppressing the creation of smaller alliances. More alliances, more wars! They are ruining the game!
PostKarma: We need to stop all these small alliances from forming, they are ruining the game!

Really? Which is it now? Smaller alliances ruin the game, or make it better?
[/quote]
People hated micros back then too. This isn't anything new. Btw, no one was saying "more alliances".

[janax]

[quote name='Schattenmann' timestamp='1308459748' post='2734414']
I love it when the alliances who've made political diversity and simple war impossible with their unending mess of treaties blame the situation in CyberNations on the smallest, most marginal groups. Vast moralist conspiracies, game-halting micros. It's a who's-who of hand-wringing leaders of the most influential alliances on the planet in here claiming little ol' CoJ and Avalon and 64Digits and Grämlins and Ronin and [s]Argent[/s]--oooooooh, [i]that's right[/i] I nearly forgot. It's never [i]their[/i] pet micros that need to disband or merge or get raided into oblivion. Team Rocket, Alpha Omega, Europa, Darkfall, The Prolific Empire, Alchemy--they're all golden, let's sign MDoAPs with all those micros, it's these [i]other[/i] micros's treaties that are messing up the game.

[/quote]

meow meow buttercup.

Also, you won't hear me advocating everyone merge. Some alliances it makes sense. Some it doesn't. This wouldn't be based on size, but activity, goals, compatibility, etc.

[Azaghul]

[quote name='Jaiar' timestamp='1308462669' post='2734508']
The age of super alliances can't return when you have people in here talking about how much it would be great to see and then those same people are putting their signatures on protectorate agreements. Stop protecting new 1-10 nation AAs and you may see a return to somewhat larger alliances. If your friends want to have an alliance and ask for protection tell them to get 20+ members and then protect it. Unfortunately, start up alliances are a thing of the past because this world is too old to tolerate new alliances and spheres of influence.
[/quote]
The problem is that most people put friendship above what they want to see happen on a world scale. And there often is a strategic purpose to having protectorates: they often provide tech sellers. It's a tragedy of the commons in a way. If they don't get you, they are likely to just go to someone else.

[Azaghul]

[quote name='Ryan Greenberg' timestamp='1308463980' post='2734532']
People hated micros back then too. This isn't anything new. Btw, no one was saying "more alliances".
[/quote]
I was wondering where he got that from as well. I don't remember there being a lot of people that wanted more alliances at any point.

[Feuersturm]

[quote name='Ryan Greenberg' timestamp='1308463980' post='2734532']
People hated micros back then too. This isn't anything new. Btw, no one was saying "more alliances".
[/quote]

[quote]I personally like the new crop of alliances. It gives us a break from the 3 million threads devoted to NPO terms[/quote]

[quote]I quite like the explosion of alliances, too. I just hope that one is founded on red that actually succeeds, and that, unlike FIRE, it isn't founded solely to flick off NPO. [/quote]

[quote]
In short, make an alliance with balls.
[snip]
You want to start having fun again? Well, all you got to do is start following their example. You getting any of this? [/quote]

[quote]
People used the "Pax (lol) Pacifica" to pursue their alliance ideas while things were quiet, and people are using the "new" world to pursue their dreams.[/quote]
That last one had been referring to alliances based on their dreams.

I saved these when I came across them because I had an odd feeling I'd be pulling them out one day.

[Ryan Greenberg]

[quote name='Feuersturm' timestamp='1308504780' post='2734766']
That last one had been referring to alliances based on their dreams.

I saved these when I came across them because I had an odd feeling I'd be pulling them out one day.
[/quote]
In a game of 30,000 people(in 2009), your bound to find some different opinions. I remember dislike for micros back then either way.

[Hyperion321]

[quote name='Schattenmann' timestamp='1308459748' post='2734414']
<@Crymson|AWAY> OK, so the long and short of it is that GOONS signed that treaty in order to help ensure that there won't be a war anytime soon.
<@Crymson|AWAY> That's their avowed reason.
<@Crymson|AWAY> 1) GOONS wants to secure SF support.
<@Crymson|AWAY> 2) There's a new bloc forming that could alter the current order.
<@Crymson|AWAY> 3) That new bloc would never be involved in a war with SF.
<@Crymson|AWAY> 4) This treaty will thus help to ensure that there won't be a war anywhere in the near future.
<@Crymson|AWAY> Yay.
<@Crymson|AWAY> And apparently it was all GOONS, not PB. Some in PB didn't want it.
[/quote]

[IMG]http://i62.photobucket.com/albums/h116/Whiteguy321/certaindefeat.png[/IMG]

In other news, Rage comics take a lot longer to make than I thought.

[IYIyTh]

lol, surprisingly hard. too much time for the minimal lulz.

[eyriq]

[quote name='Schattenmann' timestamp='1308459748' post='2734414']
...snip...

There's some good stuff in the rest of your post but we can stop right here. Yeah, because MHA is the most active alliance out there with all its condensed NS. IRON is really hoppin, you can't walk two feet without running into some guy from IRON. Can you believe this swarm of activity from GATO lately? Do you really contend that merging [i]multiplies[/i] activity instead of just adding it all under one AA?[/quote]

Instead of activity I'll say freedom of movement, as one implies current action while the other implies potential action. I base the observation that condensed NS correlates to freedom of movement on how the web operates. The movers and shakers are the huge multilateral organizations. Whether you look at the early World Wars, Unjust War, War of the Coalition, Karma war, 6 million dollar war, Bi-Polar war, PB/NpO war, all of them were effected at the multilateral level, a shared identity around which to condense NS. So, what I'm implying regarding merging is that the condensed NS at the alliance level will lead to more value at the coalition level and hence greater freedom of movement. Of course your ultimate point is correct, we shouldn't need to create such gross masses of NS to find some freedom of movement, and the current web culture is the main problem in limiting movement at lower levels of NS groupings. I would say though that the web is breaking up more and more.


[quote name='Schattenmann' timestamp='1308459748' post='2734414']Also completely contradictory to all present reality. If mergers were going to happen because of the [i][b]culture[/b][/i] of the bloc, they would have happened over a year ago. The merger is happening because Athens, LOST, and GR (particularly GR) are three alliances that lost steam a year ago or more. [/quote]

No doubt they lost some steam, but I don't like the decline perspective for our environment and instead favor a refining narrative. A bloc culture does allow a backdrop around which alliances can increase their trust and communication towards an eventual merger, whether or not it is the result of the wheat separating from the chaff.

[Sephiroth]

I prefer The Age of Nexus, where individuals free to make their own choices become more organized in their military efforts and are able to make a "Super-Alliance" hurt pretty bad, while being able to continue fighting for as long as the larger alliances wants. Individuals choosing to do what they think is right, rather than be a puppet for an already overly established alliance where they'll never have any meaningful input in the decisions made sounds like a more worthwhile purpose for continuing to exist in this world. If enough alliances are interested, PM me and maybe I'll write up a bloc type treaty for micro alliances to easily coordinate their power and have stronger political sway due to the amount of alliances involved regardless of how small.

Edited June 20, 2011 by Methrage

[Heft]

[quote name='Merlinus' timestamp='1308458989' post='2734395']-cut for length-
[/quote]
Micros are unfairly targeted and blamed for the inadequacies of larger alliances, true, but there isn't any inherent value in a small alliance. True micros tend to offer limited opportunity to their members anyway because they lack resources.

Historically, a lot of the leadership of the mass-member alliances has been fairly useless, irrelevant, and inept. MHA still hasn't done anything of any note and probably won't even though they easily could. That's sure slowing the game down more than a bunch of irrelevant micros. But, hey, I'm sure MHA has some internal community that they're all enjoying so they don't see any need to do anything worthwhile on the world stage. A lot of the larger alliances tend towards that as they get large enough to have their own internal community completely walled off from the rest of the world and they no longer need to interact with the rest of the world to be entertained. In some cases, this excuse is actually true (IRON has always been insular like this, and NPO has tended that direction at least since Karma), and in some cases it's just a line offered by useless "leaders" who can't be bothered to accomplish anything.

[quote name='Vol Navy' timestamp='1308462744' post='2734509']
Due to 4 of the top 5 blocs in the game (plus MK&TOP) working as one coalition, Bob is just as controlled by that grouping as it ever was at the height of tC. Those blocs possibly have an even higher % of non neutral NS relative to total NS of all the planet than tC had at it's height.
[/quote]
I don't really buy that a proper coalition exists at this point, but then again I never quite bought into "SuperGrievances" either so opinions differ obviously. In this case, though, working as a coalition would imply that a bloc like, say, XX is actually working towards anything proactively, which, given the history of those involved, seems like a dubious claim at best (feel free to prove me wrong here). Some of the others in there are almost certainly working to keep some semblance of a coalition intact, just as some did with SuperGrievances, because even today there are plenty of people at the top of the pile who can't apparently conceive of any other vision than just "security." Guys, we already did that, and trust me it's not so interesting to lead a "secure" alliance. Save your sanity from the inanities and constant nonsense that accompanies maintaining a peaceful hegemony and just let it all burn down. You'll be much happier.

And if you can't do that, then at least stop complaining about it or blaming others for your own inaction.

[quote name='Azaghul' timestamp='1308500574' post='2734730']
The problem is that most people put friendship above what they want to see happen on a world scale.
[/quote]
Yes, this is true, and one reason I grew to absolutely hate and loathe skype. When "politics" and relationships between alliances consist of late-night phone calls and assgrabbing OOC !@#$%^&* then suddenly everyone is afraid to do anything in-game because it might upset a friend.

Who cares? It's a game.

[quote name='eyriq' timestamp='1308524721' post='2735060']
Instead of activity I'll say freedom of movement, as one implies current action while the other implies potential action. I base the observation that condensed NS correlates to freedom of movement on how the web operates. The movers and shakers are the huge multilateral organizations. Whether you look at the early World Wars, Unjust War, War of the Coalition, Karma war, 6 million dollar war, Bi-Polar war, PB/NpO war, all of them were effected at the multilateral level, a shared identity around which to condense NS. So, what I'm implying regarding merging is that the condensed NS at the alliance level will lead to more value at the coalition level and hence greater freedom of movement. Of course your ultimate point is correct, we shouldn't need to create such gross masses of NS to find some freedom of movement, and the current web culture is the main problem in limiting movement at lower levels of NS groupings. I would say though that the web is breaking up more and more.[/quote]
Larger alliances do not equal a greater freedom of movement. In many cases it's the opposite, as with a larger alliance there is a lot more that has to be done internally to get everyone on board and moving in the same direction, so changing direction becomes more difficult.

[Feanor Noldorin]

[quote name='Heft' timestamp='1308543535' post='2735484']
Yes, this is true, and one reason I grew to absolutely hate and loathe skype. When "politics" and relationships between alliances consist of late-night phone calls and assgrabbing OOC !@#$%^&* then suddenly everyone is afraid to do anything in-game because it might upset a friend.

Who cares? It's a game.
[/quote]
Absolutely agree. Hell, you could throw IRC in there aswell since most of the time it isn't used for politics.

[Franz Ferdinand]

[quote name='Schattenmann' timestamp='1308459748' post='2734414']
I love it when the alliances who've made political diversity and simple war impossible with their unending mess of treaties blame the situation in CyberNations on the smallest, most marginal groups. Vast moralist conspiracies, game-halting micros. It's a who's-who of hand-wringing leaders of the most influential alliances on the planet in here claiming little ol' CoJ and Avalon and 64Digits and Grämlins and Ronin and [s]Argent[/s]--oooooooh, [i]that's right[/i] I nearly forgot. It's never [i]their[/i] pet micros that need to disband or merge or get raided into oblivion. Team Rocket, Alpha Omega, Europa, Darkfall, The Prolific Empire, Alchemy--they're all golden, let's sign MDoAPs with all those micros, it's these [i]other[/i] micros's treaties that are messing up the game.
[/quote]
Good to see that you are speaking so positively about Team Rocket, it's almost refreshing to see such kind words.

[WarriorConcept]

[quote name='Heft' timestamp='1308543535' post='2735484']

Yes, this is true, and one reason I grew to absolutely hate and loathe skype. When "politics" and relationships between alliances consist of late-night phone calls and assgrabbing OOC !@#$%^&* then suddenly everyone is afraid to do anything in-game because it might upset a friend.

Who cares? It's a game.
[/quote]

Agree with this completely. Also more mergers would be nice, at least in my opinion.

[AAAAAAAAAAGGGG]

I like how everyone points at an arbitrary idea and state "That's it! This is what's killing the game" be it that there are too many treaties, too many micros, tech-raiding, crippling reps, not enough wars, not enough changes to the game, etc etc., but the reality is, no one can really provide evidence that these are "game-killers" in any sort of sense. Think about it, do you know for 100% certainty that thousands of people have left the game because they got tech-raided? You might be able to point to some examples of a friend leaving (vivid examples that touch close to home is how stereotypes are made, despite them being an incredibly small sample size), or something, but you can't back up your statement with actual proof. No one here can honestly say that any one of these ideas or some of the other thoughts are exactly why the game is supposedly "dying."

This leads to my next point: as xiphosis said, this game isn't really dying. Declining membership? Sure. If you think about it, the majority of membership tends to stay off OWF (as well as some alliances having policies of OWF radio silence in general), so they're missing the drama aspect of it. If they leave, would anyone really notice? There's still an active and vibrant community.

Everyone has choices, when you play a game, you play it until you're bored. CN is really no different. I played the crap out of Unreal Tournament 2004 back in the day, but got bored of it and moved on. A lot of games have declining memberships, people move on, that's life. Nothing is really going to change that. Admin is probably hesitant to make too many changes because he could very well jump the shark on the game, driving out the members that still play the game.

So lastly, I highly doubt merging alliances is really "good for the game." It's good for the alliances involved (if everything goes well), but not for the rest of CN.

So a tl;dr would be: stop complaining about the supposed "decline" of the game, you dolts. It's life, these things happen.

[white majik]

How about people just raise what Planet Bob sees as a requirment to be an alliance? Raiding by most is allowed for sub 20 member alliancse. Why not move it up to 30? 40? Dont protect useless alliances that are inactive and will never do anything useful, Merge or raid them until they join an alliance. If they have the fire power to protect themselves let them sit on a raidable AA

[Vladisvok Destino]

[quote name='white majik' timestamp='1308723739' post='2738277']
How about people just raise what Planet Bob sees as a requirment to be an alliance? Raiding by most is allowed for sub 20 member alliancse. Why not move it up to 30? 40? Dont protect useless alliances that are inactive and will never do anything useful, Merge or raid them until they join an alliance. If they have the fire power to protect themselves let them sit on a raidable AA
[/quote]

Yes obviously this is the solution. Small alliances minding their own business is what is ruining CN for everyone, not alliances like Umbrella choosing to start wars for no reason then keep their opponents under terms for months afterwards paying billions to ensure they stay down.

[ImperialCubanacan]

Nothing has changed. Cyber Nations is still bleeding players as much as it was last week. This is merely a consolidation of power by selective alliances; essentially, pretty soon everyone will begin seeing alliances positioning themselves to 'win' the game -- once they notice it has maybe 2 years left in its life.

As for The Legion, they were around 1600, yes. Actual members? Probably around 1100, maybe as few as 1000. Ghosting large alliances is real easy because they have too many members to notice anything out of the ordinary.

[Ardus]

[quote name='ImperialCubanacan' timestamp='1308757855' post='2738417']
Nothing has changed. Cyber Nations is still bleeding players as much as it was last week. This is merely a consolidation of power by selective alliances; essentially, pretty soon everyone will begin seeing alliances positioning themselves to 'win' the game -- once they notice it has maybe 2 years left in its life.

As for The Legion, they were around 1600, yes. Actual members? Probably around 1100, maybe as few as 1000. Ghosting large alliances is real easy because they have too many members to notice anything out of the ordinary.
[/quote]
Well, especially back then. People forget we didn't have all the alliance stats laid out for us back then like we do now.

Also we're talking about Legion. Do you really think they could take on a hundred ghosts? I'm pretty sure they'd have lost.

[HisK Owns You]

[quote name='white majik' timestamp='1308723739' post='2738277']
How about people just raise what Planet Bob sees as a requirment to be an alliance? Raiding by most is allowed for sub 20 member alliancse. Why not move it up to 30? 40? Dont protect useless alliances that are inactive and will never do anything useful, Merge or raid them until they join an alliance. If they have the fire power to protect themselves let them sit on a raidable AA
[/quote]

I agree! You should start with Ronin.

[Lord Velox]

[quote name='Vladisvok Destino' timestamp='1308735274' post='2738316']
Yes obviously this is the solution. Small alliances minding their own business is what is ruining CN for everyone, not alliances like Umbrella choosing to start wars for no reason then keep their opponents under terms for months afterwards paying billions to ensure they stay down.
[/quote]
So what you're saying is Umbrella doing what an Alliance should do is ruining the game?

[erikz]

Well, merging is a good thing, but not to save two already inactive alliances. Merging between two very active alliances is the way to go. Look at NG, we have 190 members and over 5000 posts on our forums in just the first week. We might hit 200 within the next few days. The activity and likely-minded state of people helps this merger to become successful (I'm sure about that).