Jump to content

What I've learned


Joseph Black

Recommended Posts

And now my response...

[quote name='Muddog' timestamp='1310356700' post='2754196']
Alliances are seen as united entities against foreign nations/alliances. The pure and simple purpose for starting an alliance is to avoid the natural order which is to be raided relentlessly.
But just starting an alliance does not exempt individuals from this natural order. They sign treaties to avoid being the next head on the chopping block. This moves the world forward from being a unit nation, to a unit alliance.[/quote]

Actually the natural order of things more specifically is that there are three kinds of players starting out: those who come in and choose to ignore the wiki for this game--they become frustrated and quit because they are constantly harassed by bored players; those who figure out either because they read the wiki for the game or through painful personal experience they really should join an alliance; the third kind are those who create nations and are gone in 25 days...reasons vary as to why, but its Admin's responsibility to make sure that is kept to a minimum--if this game doesn't hook you into staying quickly then that's not a player issue.

Organizationally, more specifically it's nation -> alliance -> bloc -> megabloc/faction in CN would be more or less analogous to city/region (e.g. Bavaria) -> nation (e.g. Germany) -> coalition/alliance (e.g. NATO) -> "Free World" vs. "Communist World" during the Cold War, etc. (the real world almost never gets to this level, actually)

[quote]Now we all know what comes next, the inevitable bloc, alliances join blocs so they can gain political clot they could not have gained on their own. Example of this, nobody would care about Non Grata if it were not for them being part of Pandora's Box. There are countless other alliances that are like this.

So now you have the world divided into five classes of people; unit nations, unit alliances, blocs, and meat shields. For the purpose of this discussion lets say that any alliance that only has one treaty or is a protectorate of a larger alliances fall into the last category. (I know they don't, but its easier with an odd number)[/quote]

I think what you are trying to say here is that there is synergy that takes place and magnifies the power of a single alliance. MK as another example lacked sufficient clout in 2008 and was crushed during the War of the Coalition and given very crappy terms for surrender. MK a year later as part of Karma does the same to NPO--MK had gain sufficient clout as part of a larger coalition to make this happen and gain some revenge.

"Meat shield" implies an alliance that is medium to large in size, capable of absorbing a lot of damage during war, but is lacking in military prowess and/or leadership willing to take a leading role within a larger bloc. Indeed "meatshield" is almost always used when describing bloc members, not relatively independent alliances or protectorates--just the opposite in fact. You would have been better served to come up with a better category name.

[quote]The biggest issue is that most 89% of all alliances are a carbon copy of each other. Strip away the creative names (for titles, forum sections, and/or avatar) and you end up with about 3 types of alliances.

~The leader driven- where the leadership does most of the work, the members are semi to not active.

~The member driven- where the members do most of the work, and the leadership pretty much does nothing, but pretends to have some reason for still being in charge.

~The Corps- a dead alliance with the illusion of the above, the only thing still keeping the alliance together is simply the fact that the vultures are to scared it might come back to life, or even the flies find the idea of eating it revolting.[/quote]

The biggest problem with the percentage you just grabbed out of thin air is that it is 98.4% bovine scatology. :)

But let's keep going...

Actually you are over simplify here because you are in a hurry to get to your main point. Some alliances are absolutely cults of personality in which the supreme dictator always has the final word, but rely on trusted lieutenants and subordinate members to keep things running day to day (NpO under Electron Sponge). Some are meritocracies in which members rise through the ranks and have hope of becoming part of the elite (NPO to an extent, though obviously the elite play politics with each other constantly). But really there's a whole group dynamics/leadership dynamics piece here you're not addressing but should. Keep in mind, in every alliance, there are going to be active people, inactive people, people who are natural leaders, people who are natural followers, and all manner leadership styles and personal relationships that affect how people behave toward one another. Also keep in mind that in just about every alliance/bloc, etc. it is at the level of small group dynamics. Even in the biggest alliances, you are talking about perhaps a couple dozen people at any one time that are moving things forward.

[quote]Alright so I think that's enough flushing out detail, I'll get onto what this whole topic is about. A negative regression within the alliance its self. They say organization is the key to alliance success. Let me be the first to tell you it isn't, you can be as organized as you want to be, right down to where to post that up collected taxes for that day.

Organization is a tool to build a solid alliance, but by no means is it the material that makes the alliance. A forum, flag, members, community, communication channels, and stats. These are what make an alliance an alliance. Don't let anyone fool you stats are probably the 3rd most important fact in having a successful alliance. I'll go into this in order of importance.[/quote]

Organization is the skeleton that you hang everything else on. If you do not have it, the rest...with all due respect...falls apart or at least isn't moving forward in an efficient manner. If I had a dollar for every time I've heard a person in leadership say, "if we could just get organized we could..." I would be putting together a very generous offer sheet to Kevin to buy his game.

All the things really you are suggesting below, in addition to organization, are integral though really. The best alliances excel at all of them.

[quote]~Members, without these you don't have an alliance. You have a club, your forum is a club house, and at best you are a political party within your protectors alliance. This is the foundation of your alliance.[/quote]

Agreed this is the most important piece without question. However, many would argue that an alliance of 250 members that has 6 people on IRC every night trying to figure out what the heck to do next is pretty much worthless, while an alliance of 100 members that has 20-25 members on IRC meeting in several different interest channels and actively working on some aspect of the alliance is far superior.

[quote]~Community, without this you doomed, once you have the members you need a reason for the members to even be there. If you can't come up with one (that doesn't include; I want to lead, I want to make a difference, We are doing something together, I like these people) than you have no supporting walls. Yes, I just said all of those reasons are crap and you WILL FAIL.[/quote]

Community is to an alliance what nationalism or cultural identity is to a country in real life. I have compared the saga of \m/ to that of Israel at various times. Both had a period of expansion, world recognition, collaboration with "the powers that be" of their time, and collapse in war (you could also say they both had a prophet foretelling doom unless things changed, but I'm not that arrogant...). Both had a diaspora during which their people scattered to other alliances/nations. Both saw its members to varying degrees persecuted (no, I'm not saying that what happened to former members of \m/ was the equivalent of the persecution of the Jews over the centuries, just that there is something on an analogy...). Both had movements arise that wished to see the original state re-founded. In both cases it was an very, very long time before that happened. In both cases, the community and sense of cultural identity belonging continued during the diaspora and even now former \m/ members still give deference to one another do each other favors based upon the bonds that were formed in 2007.

Yes, community matters...and goes well beyond the limits of alliances. I just wish sometimes that there was more recognition of the CN community as being part of something larger that needs preserving. I see far too many players who not only don't care if they discourage someone into quitting the game, they actively seek to do it. Yes alliances that still allow wanton raiding of n00bs, I'm looking at you.

[quote]~Goals, you must have a realistic goal and a set amount of time to reach the goal. Meaning we will have X number of NS, nukes, ANS, members, score, treaty with this alliance, ect within the next 1-3 months. This is your stats, and these are very important. These are the windows and doors, without them your in a cell and will eventual resent being there.[/quote]

It is helpful to have achievements that can be pointed out to members and for the purpose of getting people all pulling in the same direction. Will an alliance die if they don't? No. Goals too should have a larger purpose. More important though is the recognition of individual achievement. Many alliances have medals they give out and even awards announcements/ceremonies. If your alliance isn't calling out people for doing a good job, being a solid member, or making sacrifices for the alliance, you should be.

[quote]~Forums/Flag/ect, alright now we get to vanity. Depending on what kind of alliance you want to build depends on how much detail you should go into with these. If you want lots of organization great, this is the place to add a trashcan, smoke detector, and coat rack in corner of the house.[/quote]

Oh and porn. <_<

Actually a well organized forums is an essential tool to player recruitment and retention. First impression are critical and I've actually had players looking to switch alliances (to Valhalla) because they felt neglected and couldn't find anything on their alliance's forums.

[quote]~Charter, simply put this is the operation of the house you have now built, whether your the man/woman of the house and what you say goes or everyone gets to vote, or you hold candles and dance. This is the last thing you should worry about when starting an alliance because this has nothing to do with the alliance. This is the fancy TV, the big couch, the hot tub out back. Even without these things the house is still a house and the alliance is still an alliance.[/quote]

[size="4"][color="#FF0000"][b]*BUZZ!*[/b][/color][/size]

Oh I'm sorry, thanks for playing. True, you don't need a complex charter, but you need one and it better be clearly written and well organized, with no misspellings, no bad grammar, and no holes that a cat can be thrown through. You see, players have been actually known to [b]READ[/b] the thing. They have also been known to launch coups, rage quit and go rogue over interpretation, engage in hours of online debate that creates bitter factions where none should exist, and in general bray like damn donkeys in front of impressionable new members because of a poorly written charter. If you care at all about whether your alliance will exist in 6 months to a year, if you don't want your membership to have to form a committee to fix it down the road when it turns out your alliance is becoming successful, or if you just generally want to give a good impression to potential recruits (yes, the smarter of the new players actually read the alliance charter and make decisions on whether or not to apply based on your charter), take the time to do a bit of research (reading other people's well written charters) and get your charter right up front.

[quote]Alright I'm starting to fell a little bit better and I my piña colada just got here so I'll wrap this up. Most people want to find/make/merge/co-found an alliance that fits their stuff. They want to pick the color, put posters up, a big TV, and call it good. Most people are also Idiots who will watch a ball falling from the sky until it smacks them in the face too.[/quote]

Most people have little practical leadership experience, no theoretical leadership training, and yet they feel the need to get together some friends and try to make a go of an alliance. Most fail miserably, some even spectacularly. A few go on to found Valhalla. Ragnarok. ODN. Mushroom Kingdom. Umbrella. Point is, you never know unless you try, but be smart.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

What I learned when I was leading an alliance and especially when I was in a few government spots of a couple of other sanctioned ones is that an alliance functions and is actually worth something when it has active (and not excessively dumb) members.

Active, non-dumb members are a strange entity which I never really understood, as I would have thought that smart people don't have/want to throw away hundreds of hours of their life in an online game with "relatively few" entertaining hard-coded features and an entangled mess of mostly imaginary and short-lived pseudo-personal relationships between strangers which almost never have really to do one with the other in "Real Life".

Then I am obviously wrong and that means that I am fundamentally inadequate to discover by myself what the heck works in CN. Oh well, I guess it's just that we all have really too much time at our hands and a lonely/alienating enough life - and there's nothing to really understand about the topic. What successful alliances are good for, anyway?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

[quote name='jerdge' timestamp='1310552004' post='2755408']
What I learned when I was leading an alliance and especially when I was in a few government spots of a couple of other sanctioned ones is that an alliance functions and is actually worth something when it has active (and not excessively dumb) members.

Active, non-dumb members are a strange entity which I never really understood, as I would have thought that smart people don't have/want to throw away hundreds of hours of their life in an online game with "relatively few" entertaining hard-coded features and an entangled mess of mostly imaginary and short-lived pseudo-personal relationships between strangers which almost never have really to do one with the other in "Real Life".

Then I am obviously wrong and that means that I am fundamentally inadequate to discover by myself what the heck works in CN. Oh well, I guess it's just that we all have really too much time at our hands and a lonely/alienating enough life - and there's nothing to really understand about the topic. What successful alliances are good for, anyway?[/quote]

The cold, unvarnished truth is that many of the better parts of what's left of this game (just under 18k nations now...those of you still playing "pop the n00bs" your strategy of not caring about player retention continues to pay dividends in the form of dwindling nation numbers, nice job) are found in personal relationships that get created out of character. Those of us who plan to be here when the servers shut down will likely continue on as communities in another game or games down the line if it comes to that--we'd prefer it didn't.

Also, if you haven't figured out that this is essentially a leadership lab for teenagers, young adults, and mild introverts, teaching them skills they'll need in real life--including how to deal with unmotivated employees and control and direct the self starters...exactly wtf have you been doing all this time? Trying to win? :v:

Link to comment
Share on other sites

[quote name='ChairmanHal' timestamp='1310566782' post='2755446']
Also, if you haven't figured out that this is essentially a leadership lab for teenagers, young adults, and mild introverts, teaching them skills they'll need in real life--including how to deal with unmotivated employees and control and direct the self starters...exactly wtf have you been doing all this time? Trying to win? :v:
[/quote]

^actually this. I have learned a crap ton about leadership, work ethic, time managment, etc from my jobs in IRON and my time in CN. it has actually helped me in School and in RL.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

[quote name='sir pwnage' timestamp='1310469644' post='2754868']
If eco is lumped into IA, then you're right. But lining up tech deals and trade circles is a lot more mind numbing than running an academy and recruiting.
[/quote]

In GATO the internal affairs minister (Domestic Affairs) handles trades and so the MoF only handles tech. Fun fact ♥

Link to comment
Share on other sites

[quote name='sir pwnage' timestamp='1310469644' post='2754868']
If eco is lumped into IA, then you're right. But lining up tech deals and trade circles is a lot more mind numbing than running an academy and recruiting.
[/quote]

Which is why having a program integrated into your forum that lines up tech deals for you, and a division of your Economics Ministry specifically dedicated to lining up trades is a wonderful thing. And something that can only be accomplished at a larger alliance. :P

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

×
×
  • Create New...