A 'super-alliance'

[Drai]

Having been in something like 10 alliances during my first 3 years of CN, I've finally been able to really settle into one that fits more or less anything I want from a CN community. In 2006-mid 2009 I went through a series of alliances that now no longer exist due to merging or disbandment (VE you are literally the only one ruining the pattern here, I think I'm 9-for-10 on past alliances that don't exist anymore). With the exception of NAAC (8 months) I was never on the same AA for more than half a year. But MK has been entertaining, active, and shows the drive to remain a fun and interesting alliance.

I was recently thinking if there was any situation where I might even consider leaving MK. Nothing very tempting came to mind until this evening.

What if there was an alliance forming that consisted of active and driven members who, to put it simply, actually gave a !@#$ about CN? Everybody (100% of the members) in the alliance would aim to grow their nation efficiently, and play a role in IA, FA, or any other aspect of the alliance. They were IRC active, and generally recognized on the OWF.

Is this something that would appeal to you? Meaning, if you knew that there were 20-30 people involved for the DoE and you met the previously-mentioned criteria, would you join?


Note: This is just out of curiousity, or hypothetical. I don't have any plans to actually attempt this. I'm simply trying to think of scenarios where I would be tempted to leave an alliance I've been in for so long, and can't really see myself elsewhere.

Edited August 8, 2011 by Drai

[Rebel Virginia]

[color="#0000FF"]I think such an alliance would be doomed to fail. Too many goats, not enough sheep.[/color]

[Mogar]

Kinda agree with RV to an extent, however I would find the idea of an alliance with that level of activity and participation to be appealing.

[Ardus]

[quote name='Drai' timestamp='1312781900' post='2774671']
Having been in something like 10 alliances during my first 3 years of CN, I've finally been able to really settle into one that fits more or less anything I want from a CN community. in 2006-mid 2009 I went through a series of alliances that now no longer exist due to merging or disbandment (VE you are literally the only one ruining the pattern here, I think I'm 9-for-10 on past alliances that don't exist anymore). With the exception of NAAC (8 months) and Atlantis (6 months), I was never on the same AA for more even half a year. But MK has been entertaining, active, and shows the drive to remain a fun and interesting alliance.

I was recently thinking if there was any situation where I might even consider leaving MK. Nothing very tempting came to mind until this evening.

What if there was an alliance forming that consisted of active and driven members who, to put it simply, actually gave a !@#$ about CN? Everybody (100% of the members) in the alliance would aim to grow their nation efficiently, and play a role in IA, FA, or any other aspect of the alliance. They were IRC active, and generally recognized on the OWF.

Is this something that would appeal to you? Meaning, if you knew that there were 20-30 people involved for the DoE and you met the previously-mentioned criteria, would you join?


Note: This is just out of curiousity, or hypothetical. I don't have any plans to actually attempt this. I'm simply trying to think of scenarios where I would be tempted to leave an alliance I've been in for so long, and can't really see myself elsewhere.
[/quote]
I'm fairly sure this is what most new alliances have in mind when they form. Then reality strikes and they either swap to standard models, or putter on in a slow fade, or get disillusioned and check out quickly.

[Drai]

[quote name='Ardus' timestamp='1312782323' post='2774675']
I'm fairly sure this is what most new alliances have in mind when they form. Then reality strikes and they either swap to standard models, or putter on in a slow fade, or get disillusioned and check out quickly.
[/quote]
Which is why I was going to suggest a strict policy of kicking people out if the remaining active members feel somebody's not up-to-par.

But the problem of too many 'leaders' still comes into play.

Edit: And I haven't seen a single new alliance that legitimately has 20+ people (as well as 100% compliance) that meet the criteria in the OP. If this is going to be hypothetical then I'm going to make sure the alliance is indeed what I'm selling it to be

Edited August 8, 2011 by Drai

[Gibsonator21]

It would be awesome in theory, but yeah, I'd have to agree that too many people have their own ideas.

[blueski]

That was what Kronos was founded on. Its worked for quite a while but not being needed to keep activity up creates lethargy in otherwise active people.

[commander thrawn]

Sounds like Umbrella and BN to me.

[Lord Fingolfin]

Thrawn beat me to it, cross out the well known OWF persona requirement and you're basically looking at Umbrella. It would certainly be entertaining.

[Banksy]

Nemesis turned out really well iirc.

[Great Lord Moth]

Sounds like the Temple of Moth.

The plans still stew in the back of my mind. >_>

[King Wally]

[quote name='Drai' timestamp='1312782486' post='2774678']
Which is why I was going to suggest a strict policy of kicking people out if the remaining active members feel somebody's not up-to-par.

But the problem of too many 'leaders' still comes into play.

Edit: And I haven't seen a single new alliance that legitimately has 20+ people (as well as 100% compliance) that meet the criteria in the OP. If this is going to be hypothetical then I'm going to make sure the alliance is indeed what I'm selling it to be
[/quote]

You can do it this way it will just mean you stay permenantly stunted... recruiting people of this nature is hard and slow and hey at best you may end up a 30 man alliance after a lot of work. That may apeal to you so good luck! Not everyone wants to be a huge sanctioned AA and you would be surprised Ive seen a number of people join the NPL quoting the fact they wanted to get into a "smaller" AA for the different atmosphere and culture. Being a huge titan with 200+ nations seams to actually turn some people off.

We DoE'd with 20 people but only a third were what I would call this level of quality. Generally these type of people expect gov positions etc and its often hard to keep them all happy as they expect to head a department and have authority to reflect their activity/dedication and thats just not posible all the time.

Anyway the motto here is give it a try... I'd genuinly wish you luck. Create an IRC chan and a discussion forum and start getting interested numbers.

[white majik]

[quote name='blueski' timestamp='1312782808' post='2774680']
That was what Kronos was founded on. Its worked for quite a while but not being needed to keep activity up creates lethargy in otherwise active people.
[/quote]

Yeah. This post hits the nail on the head. We had at DoE 15 active members (as in on the forums damn near 24/7 and on IRC for several hours a day) and peaked at about 25 members that were about the same level of active. I would say it lasted almost 4 months. After the war, we were still pretty high on activity but without alot of member growth there werent enough jobs. Which led to 20+ page discussions over changing a flag LOL its hard because active people tend to want to be involved and without number growth it will diminish.

Drai you still should have joined when we recruited you non stop

[Natan]

Hey Drai, wanna found an alliance?

In all seriousness, what you're basically doing with this is taking a very good alliance's government and adding a few other members who in all honesty are ex government types.

There would be a lot of conflicting opinions as everyone's prior experience and dealings would be very different. This wouldn't be a problem though if in the end everyone would go with whatever the top leader(s) would want, though I'd assume an alliance like this would have to be democratic.

The real problem, and RV touched on this, would that there would be no "sheep". Sheep make up a lot of NS for the alliance and in the end the more NS you have the more influence you have in the world. No one is going to listen to some small 20 man alliance when making decisions wrt war or coalition structure, because even if your nations are huge (lets say 125K NS), between you you're still only 2.5M NS. You're not exactly a game changer.

And then there is real life. What do you do when someone's grandad dies and they have to take two weeks off? Boot him for being inactive? Stuff happens. That example was a bit extreme but its the classic, "well he used to be active but then he something about school/job/etc" and that poses a huge problem for me within Umbrella, and I can only imagine it'd be even more of a problem for an activity utopia.

[kriekfreak]

This pains me a great deal to state but Nate is right.

[Drai]

[quote name='Natan' timestamp='1312789367' post='2774734']
Hey Drai, wanna found an alliance?

In all seriousness, what you're basically doing with this is taking a very good alliance's government and adding a few other members who in all honesty are ex government types.

There would be a lot of conflicting opinions as everyone's prior experience and dealings would be very different. This wouldn't be a problem though if in the end everyone would go with whatever the top leader(s) would want, though I'd assume an alliance like this would have to be democratic.

The real problem, and RV touched on this, would that there would be no "sheep". Sheep make up a lot of NS for the alliance and in the end the more NS you have the more influence you have in the world. No one is going to listen to some small 20 man alliance when making decisions wrt war or coalition structure, because even if your nations are huge (lets say 125K NS), between you you're still only 2.5M NS. You're not exactly a game changer.

And then there is real life. What do you do when someone's grandad dies and they have to take two weeks off? Boot him for being inactive? Stuff happens. That example was a bit extreme but its the classic, "well he used to be active but then he something about school/job/etc" and that poses a huge problem for me within Umbrella, and I can only imagine it'd be even more of a problem for an activity utopia.
[/quote]
In generaly yes I agree. But this would be 2.5M NS that you could fully rely on. I mean, look at a lot of middle-ranked alliances and you'd be hardpressed to find 2.5M NS that you know will be on IRC to coordinate and damage the enemy with full potential.

The ultimate factor here would be how many people actually took the risk and joined. Because it does have the potential for 50+ people who drop their egos and try to make it work, but it also has (and probably leans towards) crashing because it doesn't get enough full-support from the beginning and people lose interest.

Edited August 8, 2011 by Drai

[Zoomzoomzoom]

This is basically what Nemesis was (for its first 4ish months of existence). That obviously didn't last because !@#$ happens and people lose interest or have RL in the way.

Nemesis did draw me though. The good leadership and the hordes of active members made it to be a very enticing alliance, but that's only because I wasn't satisfied where I was at 2 years ago. (was it that long ago, idk)

At this point in time I wouldn't leave NG just to experience something smallish and active. As far as I'm concerned the current leadership of my alliance is great and the activity is also great and is comparable to what you're suggesting in the OP, but instead of only having 30 active IRC users EVER, I have that every day, with 60 or so people that come and go and keep it at that level. There's much more variety where I'm at in this current time.

[Systemfailure]

too many cooks spoil the broth

That seems to be the resounding answer to this, i think the idea is good in theory but thats as far as it goes putting something like that into action just isnt feasible. Also it was mentioned before but if you merged 2 or 3 mirco AA's at the beginning of their DoE then you'd would have the closest thing to the original idea, that is if the founding members were well know OWF posters.

Still its an interesting idea,love to see it happen at some point, maybe after the next big war since that generally shakes up the membership and has alot of people looking for new AA's or starting them up themselves.

Edited August 8, 2011 by Systemfailure

[Rebel Virginia]

[quote name='Drai' timestamp='1312808096' post='2774803']
In generaly yes I agree. But this would be 2.5M NS that you could fully rely on. I mean, look at a lot of middle-ranked alliances and you'd be hardpressed to find 2.5M NS that you know will be on IRC to coordinate and damage the enemy with full potential.
[/quote]
[color="#0000FF"]The vast majority of NSO's 2.5 mil NS I can assure you will be available whenever it is needed. We have very few stranglers when war comes (we've been rolled so many times you see that they've all left for alliances like MHA or deleted altogether, leaving us with a reliable core). While by no means elite, most are active enough and have a decent amount of preparation, which we've been taking an even greater focus on as of late.

It doesn't hurt that a lot of us are also recognizable on the OWF or otherwise known. Varianz, Rayvon, KainIIIC, Dilber, Ivan, Doppelganger/Corinan/Viktor, Cody Haner, WorldConqueror, and Heft (to name only a few). We've got a large proportion of well known individuals for an alliance our size. I can even add my humble self to that list, even though I may be no Krunk.

We are not bad nation builders either. The vast majority of us are constantly building. It does not show though, mostly because our accumulated strength does not last. When it comes to keeping our NS, I am afraid NSO is no Mostly Useless Alliance.

Of course NSO is still wanting in some areas. I never said we were perfect, but were as close to as an alliance can get. Perhaps it can be said that NSO is the only true "super-alliance." I'd dare even say NSO invented the "super-alliance."

We invented white peace too, you know.[/color]

Edited August 8, 2011 by Rebel Virginia

[Solaris]

[quote name='Rebel Virginia' timestamp='1312782193' post='2774673']
[color="#0000FF"]I think such an alliance would be doomed to fail. Too many goats, not enough sheep.[/color]
[/quote]
Those goats should procure their lust for sheep from other alliance's stocks, if such an alliance were to work. Other goats might get jealous.

[Delta1212]

You'd need at least one person, or a very small handful of people that agree with one another not to argue too terribly, that everyone respects enough to listen to and who would be competent enough not to abuse that position. You also need people who care more about seeing work get done than they do about personal titles and ranks.

Those are all extremely rare qualities to find in people, especially when you toss in the required activity levels. It's a nice idea to contemplate, but where do you pull the membership from?

[Artigo]

I think it's an interesting idea at least. And even a small alliance NS wise with many large nations, but with political savvy you describe could definitely make waves. Make enough of them and you'd probably attract even more active nations, then you'd have a power house. Probably like Umbrella.

[Yevgeni Luchenkov]

Welcome to The Order of the Paradox.

We are taking applications there: http://ordoparadox.com/top/index.php?showforum=9

Thank you for your time,

[Deimos27]

Another point I believe is worth mentioning is as numbers grow and individual activity remains, there will be a point (and I don't think it would take too long actually) the alliance has no need for new members to do relevant work or positions to be filled - I mean the IA and FA affairs would be operating at almost maximum efficiency. Of course you could send diplos to Grey Council or something, but the essential jobs and workload won't require new manpower, creating idle active members.

Edited August 8, 2011 by Deimos27

[White Chocolate]

[quote name='commander thrawn' timestamp='1312782966' post='2774681']
Sounds like Umbrella and BN to me.
[/quote]

Agreed. It's possible, but from the successful one's that I've seen thus far you need two things at least:

1. Some interest or "cause" or a combination of both that binds the members together and something they can fall back on when there is internal tension about other stuff. Basketball Ninjas have basketball (and some other sports) for instance.

2. A VERY VERY good (from knowing the game to being good dealing with people)leader or combination of leaders. If you want to have only "the best" (meaning active, loyal and educated) - than the leadership needs to be recognized as the best of the best (by the same standards)- by everyone else.

Speaking as an active, loyal and educated nation leader myself - only a few people are worth "following" IMO, because from what I know, only a few meet MY standards. I'm sure there are more out there, but it isn't an automatic thing. I'm not going to believe someone just because they say "oh yeah, I'm all those things." Prove it - and the only way to do that is through my getting to know him/her (whoever the leader would be) and that takes time.

Edited August 8, 2011 by White Chocolate