How to start a new alliance

[Clash]

Dunno if anyone ever made one of these threads, and I ain't lookin.

I've not played SE for all that long, but it seems like nearly every day some new alliance pops up. Literally it happens all the time, and like new restaurants, there seems to be fairly low long-term success rate. The quality of these new alliances varies greatly; while some have a good plan, others don't always seem to have thought the idea completely through - and have NO plan. You can see it by the quality of their DoE thread alone.

Some people don't like all these new micro-alliances, feeling they clutter CN up. Others feel, hey, do whatever you want. Some we cheer for, others we cheer against; often based entirely upon the first impression they make in their DoE. However, either way, both camps probably agree on this: If you're going to do it, at least do it right. I started my own alliance in TE, and trust me, it's not as easy as it looks - assuming you want your alliance to do WELL, that is. There's a lot of different elements involved in making a new alliance.

So, in the interest of helping the little fellows follow their dreams, this thread is made with the intent of guiding them down the path to the best extent we can. They can at least get things off to a good start. Plus! Help them pick a good name and theme.

[u]Stuff you're gonna need before your DoE:[/u]
In no particular order, and FAR from complete.

[b]1. A flag(s).[/b] Yepp, flags. You gotta have a flag of your own, and it's gotta be original. They need to be at the top of every CN forums alliance announcement you ever make - ESPECIALLY your DoE. If you don't have the skills to make one of your own, ask someone else to do it. There's a lot of talent out there. Someone will do it just for funzies. PLUS! Unless you won the flag in TE recently and had your own alliance flag submitted in-game, you should pick out a flag solely for all your nations to fly in-game. It just looks cooler when everyone's on the same page like that.

[b]2. Forums.[/b] You need your own forums. You gotta have a place to stash all your alliance's sekrit stuffs! A place for new nations to apply, for diplomats from other alliances to come visit, and a bootyload of other obvious reasons. A home you can call your very own.

[b]3. IRC channel.[/b] A lot of people hang out on IRC. It's where the real shiznit happens. If you wanna do it extra right, you can have as many as three channels (or more): A public channel, a members-only channel and a special gov-only channel. Know your IRC stuff! If someone stole your room by registering it before you bothered too, well, you messed up there eh?

[b]4. Active government.[/b] This doesn't mean just YOU. Everyone goes inactive from time to time, assuming you have any sort of social life at all. You're going to need help, and you've got to have people doing a variety of things. You have to keep working on stuff all the time. No slacking off, or your nations lose interest, then they lose YOU. Some basic gov positions:

Foreign Affairs - Hangs out of IRC and registers at other alliance forums.
Internal Affairs - Keeps an active list of your alliance nations, and any information your need for them. Messages your nations with alliance news crap, too.
Defense - The one that makes sure you can defend yourselves. Organizes raid defenses, monitors possible/potential enemy attacks, trains your nations to fight, all the stuff that pertains to war.
Recruiting/training - In bigger alliances these are sometimes completely different things, but in a smaller newer one, one person can do them both. Unless you don't want to ever get any bigger, or you have a bunch of people joining from outside the game, you're going to need to attract new nations to your alliance. Try to tart yourselves up and look teh sexsay.
Finance - Verryyy important in CN. Helps your nations grow by making sure your alliance economy is ticking, movin' n groovin'. Also might be the guy who made your building guide and helps your nations follow it - and you probably need one of those, even if you just borrow/steal someone elses'.

[b]5. Alliance Charter.[/b] What are your goals, how will you conduct your business? Your rules? Your guidelines? Your laws, and more stuff along these lines? Spell it out in anal-retentive detail. Or, you know, steal someone else's and adopt/edit it for your own. But have one!

[b]6. Protectorate agreement.[/b] People are going to raid the crap out of you if you don't have someone keeping you safe until you get big enough to completely protect yourself. There are exceptions of course, especially if you've magically got 100 nations joining your alliance on opening day. But usually, you need one. Know someone who can protect you, and WANTS to protect you, and will publicly SAY they want to protect you. This might not be so easy to get. You have to prove yourself worthy - and stay that way.

[b]7. Alliance theme.[/b] Something teh sexsay n cool. Or, you know, don't. Up to you.
But I think it helps. See below.

[b]8. DoE[/b] Declaration of Existence. Post a big thread, as well constructed as you can possibly make it, on the Alliance Forums. It needs to explain all the basics about your alliance, including most of what's been listed here already. You don't really count until this happens.

I'm sure there's more, but I'll leave them up to others to point out so I can go off to sleep for now.

--

[u]Some alliance themes I don't think anyone is using these days[/u]
Not that I checked of course. Ideas n stuff. Or, you know, do what you want.

The Wolves.
Alliances named after cool critters are always acceptable. Also, the Dragons, Lions, Raptors, maybe the Gators for you Florida U. fans out there, blah blah etcetera etcetera.

Bastille.
Though at times the French themselves are white flag surrender monkeys, stuff said in French is sometimes kinda cool. It basically means small fortress, or maybe a prison. Either way it works. This is an example of a theme with a wide amount of latitude; you could also use names like Stronghold. The alliance Air Castle and the deceased bloc called The Citadel are good examples of other concepts along this same vein.

The Ghosts.
The ultimate low-maintenance alliance. The alliance for people who barely play the game and only check their nations once a week, tops. Forums? Flag? Government? Plan? They need none of it. Wanna join? Just change your alliance to "Ghosts." There you go! You're in.

The ELawyers.
I always thought SE needed these guys. An alliance so completely neutral in all ways possible that they are trusted to negotiate agreements between other alliances. Paid off in tech and cash for their services. They negotiate the ends to wars, the starts of treaties, and anything else where there's a profit. Heck, they should even have no alliance team, to help ensure impartiality. Must have an impeccable reputation! Maybe The Grey Council would be the best alliance to fill this bill if no one ever starts up a specific alliance with this kind of theme.

The Rogues.
Guess what they do? They just like to fight. They pick out individual wars and challenges, just for the sake of making them. Not so much on alliance wars maybe, just individual 1-1 ones, or small skirmishes for grins and giggles.

Please don't just complain about mine.
Have anything of your own to contribute?

--

SO! Please post other things a new alliance might need, and/or possible alliance themes/names for them to use. [b]NOTE: Any suggestion made in this thread is up for grabs![/b] So no whining if someone uses your idea. Well hey, YOU weren't using it, someone else might as well use it.

[Schad]

Protective Order of Majestic Entities Growing Rapidly, Accepting Nothing Aside Total Earthly Supremacy, abbreviated POMEGRANATES. For people so beholden to the idea of having an acronym that means something that they are willing to spend 20 minutes typing out that debacle of an alliance name for all major announcements.

[ktarthan]

I suggest you remove point 6. Quite unnecessary. Other than that, good job. I'm sure this could be useful to a number of prospective new leaders.

[Clash]

[quote name='Schad' date='14 July 2010 - 02:42 PM' timestamp='1279140150' post='2371477']
Protective Order of Majestic Entities Growing Rapidly, Accepting Nothing Aside Total Earthly Supremacy, abbreviated POMEGRANATES. For people so beholden to the idea of having an acronym that means something that they are willing to spend 20 minutes typing out that debacle of an alliance name for all major announcements.[/quote]
Good example! Of something people do NOT want to do.

Pay attention, people.
Important safety tip from Schad saving you from early carpal tunnel.

[Biazt]

[quote name='ktarthan' date='14 July 2010 - 04:49 PM' timestamp='1279140559' post='2371492']
I suggest you remove point 6. Quite unnecessary. Other than that, good job. I'm sure this could be useful to a number of prospective new leaders.
[/quote]
A fine suggestion indeed.

[Mayzie]

http://forums.cybernations.net/index.php?showtopic=42130&st=0

Been one in the Player Created Alliances section for a while now but decent guide anyway.

[xenon]

[quote name='ktarthan' date='14 July 2010 - 04:49 PM' timestamp='1279140559' post='2371492']
I suggest you remove point 6.
[/quote]

Agreed, but only if the people in the alliance are a bit smaller than me XD.

[supercoolyellow]

[quote name='ktarthan' date='14 July 2010 - 03:49 PM' timestamp='1279140559' post='2371492']
I suggest you remove point 6. Quite unnecessary. Other than that, good job. I'm sure this could be useful to a number of prospective new leaders.
[/quote]

Well played, I laughed.

[Banksy]

I disagree with point 4. Too many small alliances have more government members than regular members. A small alliance doesn't need a IA [i]and[/i] recruitment [i]and[/i] and an econ guy. It probably doesn't need an FA person either, maintaining relations with one treaty partner isn't too difficult.

For a successful micro you just need a few people who are happy to put in some real work with IA, organise tech deals and grow the membership base. Everything else is superfluous and exists only to stoke people's egos.

[BlkAK47_002]

It also pays to be well connected. Whether it be to you're former alliance, or Leaders in major power Blocs. You're alliance will grow alot faster and successfully if you know who to talk to.

For example, when NUF split from it's former alliance the only thing we were trying to do is get as far away from said alliance as much as possible.

Yet a good chunk of it's members still followed to our new AA just because they knew who we were and what we were capable if we were the ones pulling the strings.

It always pay to know people.

[Max Cristof]

Say no to protectorates, please GOONS.

In all seriousness they are necessary and this is very well written. However like Banksy I disagree with having so much government. The founders need to have the incentive to do most of the work and get their alliance to a certain point of membership and organization. At that point you can consider changes in structure when the work load becomes too much for the people that started it out.

[Believland]

[quote name='Schad' date='14 July 2010 - 04:42 PM' timestamp='1279140150' post='2371477']
Protective Order of Majestic Entities Growing Rapidly, Accepting Nothing Aside Total Earthly Supremacy, abbreviated POMEGRANATES. For people so beholden to the idea of having an acronym that means something that they are willing to spend 20 minutes typing out that debacle of an alliance name for all major announcements.
[/quote]
Federated Allies for Cultural Exchange was a great name. We were so great even Vox made their topic about us

Would you like to exchange from culture?

[Banksy]

I missed this bit before.
[quote name='Clash' date='15 July 2010 - 09:32 AM' timestamp='1279139523' post='2371452']
The Wolves.
Alliances named after cool critters are always acceptable. Also, the Dragons, Lions, Raptors, maybe the Gators for you Florida U. fans out there, blah blah etcetera etcetera.[/quote]
Wolfpack, Argent and DRAGON. Probably FOK on the Lions too :s

[quote name='Clash' date='15 July 2010 - 09:32 AM' timestamp='1279139523' post='2371452']
Bastille.
Though at times the French themselves are white flag surrender monkeys, stuff said in French is sometimes kinda cool. It basically means small fortress, or maybe a prison. Either way it works. This is an example of a theme with a wide amount of latitude; you could also use names like Stronghold. The alliance Air Castle and the deceased bloc called The Citadel are good examples of other concepts along this same vein.[/quote]
GPA

[quote name='Clash' date='15 July 2010 - 09:32 AM' timestamp='1279139523' post='2371452']
The Ghosts.
The ultimate low-maintenance alliance. The alliance for people who barely play the game and only check their nations once a week, tops. Forums? Flag? Government? Plan? They need none of it. Wanna join? Just change your alliance to "Ghosts." There you go! You're in. [/quote]
Sparta :pacman:

[quote name='Clash' date='15 July 2010 - 09:32 AM' timestamp='1279139523' post='2371452']
The ELawyers.
I always thought SE needed these guys. An alliance so completely neutral in all ways possible that they are trusted to negotiate agreements between other alliances. Paid off in tech and cash for their services. They negotiate the ends to wars, the starts of treaties, and anything else where there's a profit. Heck, they should even have no alliance team, to help ensure impartiality. Must have an impeccable reputation! Maybe The Grey Council would be the best alliance to fill this bill if no one ever starts up a specific alliance with this kind of theme.[/quote]
ODN's got this.

[quote name='Clash' date='15 July 2010 - 09:32 AM' timestamp='1279139523' post='2371452']
The Rogues.
Guess what they do? They just like to fight. They pick out individual wars and challenges, just for the sake of making them. Not so much on alliance wars maybe, just individual 1-1 ones, or small skirmishes for grins and giggles.[/quote]
Kronos.

[Tamurin]

This is a very weird list. I have created two alliances myself and I'd like to comment on those points.

1.) Flag: Flag? That's your number 1 point? A flag is a JPEG-thing used for internal and external propaganda. It's a picture. It's packaging. Definitely not the number 1 thing to do. An alliance can exist for months without having a perfect marketing machine.

2.) Forums: Good. However, your forums should be unique in some way. Nobody will want to log on to some boring standard forums. You need a forum developer and someone who really knows about themes. [i]This[/i] is where you put your effort into marketing first.
Second, much more important, you need to work out an application system, user masks and a good sub-forum structure.

3.) IRC: Optional. Only power-users use IRC and in the beginning you'll hang out there alone most of the time.

4.) Active government: On the contrary. In the beginning, that is just YOU. If you are lucky and you are co-founder of an alliance with 2+ founders, then YOU is in fact you 2+ people. If you are alone, then it's just you. Prepare yourself to do all jobs simultaneously. Too much work for you? Then don't found an alliance, join one.
Also, I wouldn't start with six (!) ministries to begin with. In the beginning you can work with two ministries (Internal / External) with sub-divisions. External can include Defense and Foreign Affairs, Internal everything from Recruitment, Immigration to Finance. With just a few members in your alliance, there isn't much to manage, so you shouldn't start with a bloated structure. Remember, you don't write your charter for the new 1000 years. A small alliance should have a small-alliance-charter and adapt over time.

5.) Charter: That's your number 5 point? It should be number 1. The charter defines what your alliance is and how it works. Dictatorship? Oligarchy? Democracy? Communism? And most importantly: What makes your alliance unique? There are hundreds of alliances out there - what makes yours different from all others? What is your point, why did you found this place? Just because you could finally rule or do you have a point beyond that?

6.) Protectorate agreement: Probably necessary nowadays. There was a time when it wasn't necessary (and yes, GOONS existed back then as well).

7.) Just like Flag. Can be done later.

8.) Really, a DoE? Today? I recommend not to do that. It's just an invitation for raider-alliances to attack you and test if your Protectorate-agreement works. There is no rule that says you must write a DoE, so just skip that until you are someone who can really reach out (like a 20-member-alliance with at least one nation with nuclear weapons).

[Haflinger]

[quote name='ktarthan' date='14 July 2010 - 04:49 PM' timestamp='1279140559' post='2371492']
I suggest you remove point 6. Quite unnecessary. Other than that, good job. I'm sure this could be useful to a number of prospective new leaders.
[/quote]
You guys had one

[Clash]

Most of the time, it seems that DoEs and protectorate agreements happen at the same time.
Either in separate threads or the same one, but pretty much simultaneously.

On the gov stuff, usually the government positions are included in the charter. What powers they have, what they do, how to get rid of those people and replace them when you need to. Surrreeeee most of those positions might be empty at the very start - but you will still eventually need them, and they usually need to be defined in your charter. Which you need for your DoE.

[quote name='Tamurin' date='15 July 2010 - 02:54 AM' timestamp='1279184032' post='2372619']Stuff
[/quote]
Yeah I kind of expected posts like this.

In your rush to criticize, did you see this part:

[quote name='Clash' date='14 July 2010 - 02:32 PM' timestamp='1279139523' post='2371452'][u]Stuff you're gonna need before your DoE:[/u]
In no particular order, and FAR from complete.[/quote]

I was just kind of winging it, I was late to sleep before work. Seemed like fun to do at the time. Did you have anything constructive to actually - add? Or do you only subtract from topics when you post? I've already thought of stuff I'll add later, like picking a color team. Sorta important.

Why didn't you think of that?

[quote name='Mayzie' date='14 July 2010 - 03:04 PM' timestamp='1279141446' post='2371527']
http://forums.cybernations.net/index.php?showtopic=42130&st=0[/quote]
Ohhhhh cool. Here's the list for that one:

[quote name='Duncan King' date='10 December 2008 - 01:38 PM' timestamp='1228937908' post='1098996'][b][i]Things to Make Sure of Before Founding an Alliance.[/i][/b]

Before you post your declaration of existence on the Big Board, make sure you have the following:

- experience
- a charter
- a flag
- active members
- forums
- an IRC channel
- a protectorate treaty[/quote]

Now I feel better, I included almost all of that

[ktarthan]

[quote name='Haflinger' date='15 July 2010 - 05:47 AM' timestamp='1279198034' post='2372749']
You guys had one
[/quote]
That's entirely different.

[Believland]

I'd remove 6 and just say to have a defensive treaty.

[abdur]

Sorry Clash, DRAGON is taken

All good points, I find this guide as the basic one, and Duncan's as the more in-depth one.

[Clash]

[quote name='abdur' date='15 July 2010 - 06:18 PM' timestamp='1279239483' post='2373807']
Sorry Clash, DRAGON is taken [/quote]
Well, you guys MUST be cool then

[Max Power]

Honest question: is there any other use for IRC anymore besides Planet Bob stuff?

[SoADarthCyfe6]

I believe that was a very good and wise guide Clash wrote, the only thing I will disagree with is Government Members, I am currently in a small alliance building it up and we have not had more then 3 government members at one time working together. It seems to work for us, you will just have to have other people pick up other work while in the Government until you can get more people to fill those positions. You really only need about 3 Government members that can spread some of the work around. Not the full slate.

[Tamurin]

[quote name='Clash' date='15 July 2010 - 06:26 PM' timestamp='1279211197' post='2372996']

Yeah I kind of expected posts like this.

In your rush to criticize, did you see this part:

[/quote]

Weird that you would quote me with "Stuff" although I never used that word in my post.

Well, if you had read it, you would have seen a lot of constructive criticism there. Maybe not written in the nicest way, I'll give you that, but still useful.

[Caleb279]

[quote name='Tamurin' date='21 July 2010 - 02:57 AM' timestamp='1279706235' post='2382343']
Weird that you would quote me with "Stuff" although I never used that word in my post.

Well, if you had read it, you would have seen a lot of constructive criticism there. Maybe not written in the nicest way, I'll give you that, but still useful.
[/quote]
Not really...his guide is just fine. You NEED a flag. Its what everybody thinks of when they think of your alliance. And you do need a DoE. Thats how everyone knows who you are, comments on how sexy you look, and tech raiders won't even bother if you have a good starting crew and a halfway decent protectorate.

If you start an alliance with 2 or less people, its almost a guaranteed fail. Id say 10 at least. We had 15 in The Global Order and got up to 55 before having to disband. The more the merrier. And as far as your government suggestions, I agree. However 4 should be good, assuming you found people to start with you. IA, FA, Recruitment, War. Those would be my 4 starting.

[Lennox]

We don't need any more alliances Too many micros.