Fort Gals
 

I'm not much of a forum poster, but I do often read them. I've been playing the game for years and have seen many phases of PA come and go.

Lets face it, fort gals have been around forever, but their size and severity have certainly increased the past few rounds.

Now I've read tons of people asking to somehow combat the growing trend of fort gals, but I've also read people saying that they aren't the problem and they should be left alone.

So to all you guys for it: Why are you for it? How does it help the game?


IMO, Fort gals are hurting the game in a number of ways. I will list a few:

1. It makes it much harder for new players to get rolling. I've had many newbie gal members join the game, then almost a week later leave it realizing they were at GREAT disadvantage on top of being new to the game.

2. The meta game has turned into attack recall, attack recall... this is so ****ing boring it nearly makes my nose bleed thinking about it. I know other factors contribute to this dilemma, but this is certainly one of them.

3. More fleets. The past few rounds i've seen fort gals have 3 to 5 more planets than most galaxies. Considering that most fort gals are extremely active... 9 to 15 more fleets is an incredible advantage over say the 10 planet quasi-fort gal. Late joins shouldn't be allowed IMO, it only makes overpowered gals, even more overpowered.

This is all I can really think of at the moment and my pizza is about done. Don't come in here saying "this is dumb, delete thread plox." Discuss the topic, show me why fort gals shouldn't be prevented.

Sorry if this topic is already a beaten dead horse, but I think it's noteworthy and an issue worth discussion.

Re: Fort Gals
 

It is a shame we are only blessed with your posting wisdom once every 6 months.

Re: Fort Gals
 

Thinking about it I'm probably more responsible for the development of fortress gals than anyone. When Ascendancy originally started doing them, in r19 first of all and then from r25 onwards on a wider scale most people used to tell me that they were a poor idea because it just made it easier to target your alliance and meant you couldn't call on ingal def. These two issues still actually exist. So why do people go for fortress gals and why do they seem to work?

Well, first of all they don't actually work anywhere near as well as people think they do. The winning alliance of the round rarely has one of its core gals as the #1 gal. I think r29 is realistically the only time you could actually claim that that happened. You do get lots of t10/20 gals out of it though. This is due to the fact that it's difficult to keep down a gal of active players. There's no "trick" to it or anything. By centralising yourselves you also focus your alliance. You're declaring who, what and where you are and telling everyone else to either bring it or **** off. Largely they work because they make it easier to see what's happening, raising your overall efficiency and because it's simpler to keep someone in your gal and alliance active, reducing the inevitable decline in activity that afflicts all planetarion alliances. They appear to work a lot better than they actually do due to the nature of galaxies. Anyone who thinks apprime wouldn't have won last round, or somehow been significantly worse, with the new proposed system is, well, a bit of an idiot. The primary factor is that they're ****ing better at planetarion than the other alliances.

Responding to a few points in particular

To be honest I think you're completely full of shit here. I have severe doubts this has happened "many" times, or even once to be honest. Someone entirely new signs up and decides to quit a week later because they see that the big alliances control a lot of the top galaxies? ****ing hell I'd be surprised if they'd found the universe rankings page by that point. On top of that what on earth difference is it going to make to them if the big alliances control the big galaxies as long as they aren't in them. Furthermore, and I've been in a lot of fortress gals, I always tried to integrate new players if possible. Usually what happens is that most of them don't really care too much about pa and it'll make more sense for me to exile them and hope for better exiles. This is going to be true regardless of whether or not I'm in a fortress gal or not.

This is being addressed this round with the introduction of single targeting. Either way this isn't really a "problem". It's a design choice, some people prefer games in which defending your planet/roids is easier, some don't.

This isn't even vaguely true. Fortress gals occasionally have 1 more planet than the average gal. You can even check this up on www.sandmans.co.uk (although it's slightly into havoc now so it might be a bit off). The issue here is that a) people exile out of shit gals and b) shit gals rarely have late starters. It's nothing intrinsically related to fortress gals at all.


The main problems with the game are that it's been the same for quite a while now, no significant changes have occurred since r24 and the introduction of multi-targeting. Because it's been the same for so long winning strategies become well known. As well as this the playerbase has been roughly the same for a long time and the active players know the alliances they need to join if they want to play with other active players. Some choose not to for various reasons but they're in the minority. Because of this you have the same group of players winning the same game over and over utilising the same strategies. If this sounds boring to you it's because it is. It's nothing to do with fortress gals. Getting rid of fortress gals will just make a few mediocre alliances forget they suck as much as they do for a couple of rounds. Unfortunately they'll still suck and the game will still be basically the same.

Re: Fort Gals
 

I like playing with my friends, and I like playing with people I know I can rely on not only in that they won't **** up, but that they will help me when I need it. I don't have the time or energy to want to meet new people any more.

What has this got to do with fortress galaxies? Explain your point better. Ultimately, I don't think random galaxies or smaller buddypacks will affect this. The top players will help out those newbies that are active, but why should they bother helping those that can't be bothered to play? Removing or reducing fortress galaxies won't change this.

This has very little to do with fortress galaxies, and will hopefully be changed with the switch to more offensive single targetting stats. Also, most people mean politics when they talk about the meta game, what you're talking about is most definitely the game proper.

These numbers are just plain wrong. The exile mechanics just won't let this happen. Regarding late joins, I don't think they were used in the way originally intended, but I don't think that's a bad thing. Personally I have exams for the first two weeks of the round, so the opportunity to late join is a real appeal to me, I'm sure you can imagine plenty of other similar situations. Yes late joins will be a more significant boost for the top galaxies, but it's only speeding up what would have happened inevitably through the exile mechanics to be honest.

Re: Fort Gals
 

I will be interested to see what the genius' who came up with the anti fortress round we are about to begin come up with after the same alliances win anyway. I actually believe if asc or app are active they will find it even easier to win as they wont constantly be getting the incomings that they recieved when they were in fortress gals.. Maybe just ban them from playing?? Thats an idea..

Re: Fort Gals
 

Considering that the reasons given for other alliances not making their own fortress gals are that they aren't good/active enough it's fairly obvious that they believe they aren't close to apprime or ascendancy in quality.

Re: Fort Gals
 

In fairness, around tick 336 fortress galaxies tend to get 2 extra planets, which is a luxury most other galaxies don't have. Then again, this is largely due to a lack of organisation in the "normal" galaxies, not due to some intrinsic property of fortress galaxies. 3 to 5 is total bollocks though.

Agreeing with the rest if your post.

Re: Fort Gals
 

You forget the true luxoury of fortress galaxies: You control the players in there, they are in your high profile alliance and will play fully, so by the time you get your late signups your gal will be filled with active/good players.

This is not the case in none fortress galaxies. As soon as you get 2 late-signups you can pretty much forget about getting good exiles as you won't be able to get back into the exile bracket.

Basicly this means all the exiles you'll need to do have to be done before tick 336. Every noob that lands in your galaxy takes 48 ticks to kick out. This is not taking into account players that just stop appearing after tick 400 (we had two of those last round, I'd have kicked them but we'd still be miles away of the exile bracket).

The big difference isn't the number of planets in the galaxies, it's the number of played planets.

Now, I'm not pro/against fortress galaxies. It's not that hard to get a fortress gal, but I've just not decided to play in fortress galaxies.

Just wanted to bring in a view from a none-fortress T10 - galaxy last round.

Re: Fort Gals
 

if you aren't the best, if you aren't as organised or lack the initiative or motivation to win, then why should the game be changed to accomodate your failures? It's well known on here that I don't get on well with Asc, but kudos to them, if you complain about them you simply aren't as good as them

Fortress gals are a wicked addition to the game, instead of the game being adapted to remove them, the game should be developed to encourage alliances to come up with some way of competing. That doesnt mean granting them an unfair advantage by nerfing the top alliances, it means developing and encoruaging existing players, and structuring a development process for new and emerging players.

Put it this way Abort. Fortress gals can easily be nerfed by the creators (as apparently is scheduled to happen?), but its a short term fix and the players that are better than you will jsut develop a new strategy to dominate you. If you are continually recalling attacks, then ask yourself the question, is your alliances offensive strategy adequate? Get thinking like them, the game will only carry you so far before you have those nose bleeds ;)

Re: Fort Gals
 

I am not anti fort gal. (I wouldnt even object to private gals)

If you can get a fort gal going it is fair game (and well played) only thing I disagree with is the late starter gal code... as that encourages some players to be lazy.

Re: Fort Gals
 

Doing well as a late starter requires a lot of effort, you have two weeks worth of score to catch up!

Re: Fort Gals
 

last round i had a guy delete his planet (he was doing quite well at the time) so that he could join as a late starter in a different galaxy. We never got a replacement as good as the planet he deleted. We were by no means a low ranked galaxy at the time (rank 21 or so) and we had the scope to progress further up the ranks had he stayed with us

We were basically left high and dry because of the late starter code :/

Re: Fort Gals
 

Without the late starter system he probably would have just carried on exiling...

Re: Fort Gals
 

Bunch of good responses here, really surprised me tbh...

I would go through and chat about what each of you said but it would only be me saying "yea, i didn't think about it like this. you're right" and "damn i guess it sounded right on paper, but i didn't really think the numbers through."

So kudos to you guys, you convinced me.

Re: Fort Gals
 

Its not nerfing the top alliances really, its denying them the option to play the way they like the most. Only apprime and asc have ever built a "successfull" fortress gal but it has a lot more to do with the fact it keeps your alliance closer together, a community thing. The defence pool is very small as it only comes from 1 alliance and you need to be on your toes and assure activity and effort in the metagame often every night.
With "successfull" i meant that they rarely win but it creates good average score between the gals.

Basically we are being denied to build up our community as the fortress gals are the best way by far to help new players into the game and our alliance. Every round we have taken people in and put them in a fortress gal under supervision of other members, but now the idea of having new players out in the universe in less active gals is for me out of the question if we want to have a good working alliance.

All you achieve by denying fortress gals the chance to live is making us think 3 times before recruiting new players. Same players will still win this game so this is just a witch-hunt based on a few individuals who dislikes us and just wants to deny us to have fun.

Re: Fort Gals
 

When it comes to latestarting i can tell you what apprime did this round. We did not recruit "top" people that was going to farm the universe for fame. We let everyone who was already in the alliance and couldnt play from tickstart to latesignup into one of the 4 gals we had, and in addition those who were unlucky with their random gals could reset their account.
Its a myth that you try getting into a fortress gal no matter what and reset your account tick 300. We only had 1 planet resetting to take a spot, a planet which was in a horrible galaxy and couldnt exile anywhere half-decent. People in ok gals, like top30 stayed. Obviously most apprimes members were inside those 4 gals but we still had 10+ planets outside.

Latestarting is allowing people the chance to play the last 5 weeks with friends instead of getting pissed on and quit the round. It also allows those who cant play the first weeks a chance to latesignup. Removing it will make a lot of players just wait until the next round start instead of actually keeping them in the game. Keeping the gameplay and playerbase consistent is extremely important to keep this game running.

Re: Fort Gals
 

In round 30 (30 right?) DLR had a fortress galaxy too which was pretty much untouched for most of the round because Ascendancy was still killing of others, but since the round lasted 10 weeks instead of 7 they still died pretty hard in the end if I am not mistaken. (if the round lasted another week 12:5 would've been killed too). So: Not only Ascendancy and Apprime have done fortress gals.

Re: Fort Gals
 

PA is too much centered around alliances anyway.
Alliances should be outside the game without any kind of tools or advantage ingame (no tags, no rankings, no eta bonus, no nothing). PA should return to being a game for galaxies, where people get to know each other and find a way to work together.

Re: Fort Gals
 

My guts agree with you. Haven't put much thought in it though! But yeah, you are right.

Re: Fort Gals
 

I think it's also worth mentioning that the mentality these fortress gals provide is very positive. People are far more willing to DC in a gal full of their alliance members, and you don't get silly little conflicts/situations where you can't defend each other. It's much more of a unit than a regular gal, you go through the same shit, if one of you has incomings it's likely that the rest of you also have incomings.
It also makes DCing easier IMO. In round 30 we had one or two people DCing for each gal and then JBG/Golan picking up the pieces with planets that weren't in fortress gals. It made the nights where all our gals were hit by that massive block so much easier to manage.

As people have explained, it's a strategy that also has drawbacks and making fortress gals is a risk as they can fail quite hard if the alliance/players in the gal can't cope with it, as such I don't think it's a tactic that should be nerfed.

Re: Fort Gals
 

A lot of good arguments, valid points about late starts, reset due to poor galaxies, reasons for exiling etc.

The bottom line is an alliance wins not because they have the best players, it's because they have very good players who are extremely active and want to win. Many other players are here to have fun and enjoy the company of friends and of course try to do well, just not have bragging rights to the top 100. It is a game people, and Real Life is more important than winning, although there sure is a lot of satisfaction in having wiped the universe and won. You have to admire the alliances that work so hard to win.

I'm not really opposed to fortress galaxies, but I wish they would just go back to private galaxies, and charge for them. You'd get the people you wanted, the race mix you wanted, the active players you wanted and no new players that don't play after the first few days or weeks. A lot of old players quit paying because there is almost no penalty anymore for not paying. The bonus for payment isn't worth the cost( even though the cost is laughable it's so low). Make them pay and get their private galaxies if they want them and do away with exiling. The rest of us will just meet the new people and try and help some of them stay in a game that has trouble keeping new players for much more than a round or two.

Let's face it, the people who are active win because they want to. They join the big successful alliances because that's where they will be happy. No one wants to play with in actives. They create fortress galaxies for the community spirit and their activity is the key.

This opinion and about 20 euro will buy you a cup of coffee almost anywhere, otherwise it's a worthless babble of words.

Have a great round guys

Re: Fort Gals
 

The late starter system was introduced to bring more players, not to be abused by alliances cramming galaxys full of there own.

Re: Fort Gals
 

Fort gals are private gals. People are exiling to specific gals for a few rounds now and new players will be exiled from those gals anyway, so you might as well bring back private gals and require every planet in there to be paid. Enabling players to form elite groups will only make this game more interesting.

Re: Fort Gals
 

New players don't get exiled if they actually try to learn the game properly and put in effort, instead of logging in once and never coming on irc.

Re: Fort Gals
 

The problem obviously is "never coming on IRC". Unlike 10 years ago, most people do not know about this communication method called "IRC". They are all using twitter / facebook / skype some other instant messaging stuff; the role of IRC has drastically decreased over the past years.

So what the game really needs is to supply proper in-game communication. The methods are actually there, but the presentation is shit. If the game is about playing with other people then add a friendlist, or a galaxy "shout box" (or "tweed" as they call it nowadays).

Re: Fort Gals
 

That's fair enough. But that comes under putting in effort, i'd happily teach someone who is willing to learn about irc and the game. But if a person isn't willing to put in that effort then whats the point in keeping him/her?

Re: Fort Gals
 

Well, i got exiled 2 ticks after prot was over last round and guess what, i have been on irc all the time. It was like:
-Whats your ally? Hi! (Yes, in that order)
-i got none
*Protection over*
*exiled*

Re: Fort Gals
 

both of us know thats wrong if the gal is a possible top10 gal.
then he/she needs to convince the gal that he/she will be very active.
and even then he/she is prolly exiled.

Re: Fort Gals
 

Heh, that's not right at all, at least not in my experience.

Re: Fort Gals
 

1) active people especially in the minor alliances will most likely be offered a spot in the dominating galaxy
2) active people without an alliance and who are 'new' are added quickly too

its the semi active middle tier players that get ****ed.

Re: Fort Gals
 

Some fortress galaxies will kick everyone who isn't in the right alliance, some will keep people if they're active. This is a fairly pointless discussion.

Re: Fort Gals
 

This hasn't happened in my experience either, if the new player says that they will be active (not "get up every night" active, but attack every day and, real life permitting, be around to send def once in a while) they generally get kept. I (vaguely) remember one gal in R31 getting a lot of shit for exiling someone just because they were new.

That's not fort gals, that's just retards. In fact many fort gals would probably try to get you into their ally.

Re: Fort Gals
 

Seriously? Have you payed attention to the fort gal late starters?

The one's I have seen have just spent everything on roids and built pods, then started to attacking the bots.

It isn't hard to catch up with 1-3,5k roids and noone is attacking you...

Re: Fort Gals
 

Ok, you are right. But its still a common behavior that new/alot of players face when joining this game. And i dont like that :-(

Re: Fort Gals
 

And it's certainly the late starter's mistake that he is not getting attacked, right? The only solution to deal with "fort galaxies" is to actually hit them. But nobody wants to do that because that directly means war with a whole alliance. Clearly that is the only real advantage, it makes a lot of alliances avoid your galaxy because they prefer to pussy-foot through a round instead of actually fighting for their stuff.

EDIT: I guess this whole discussion is pointless now, though, considering that PA Team is once again following the road of making the game more boring by removing choice.

Re: Fort Gals
 

Just wanted to add my 2c here.

R34 was my second round in PA. I was actiive (pretty much 24/7ing), on IRC, had an alliance and was picking up the game very quickly. I exiled into an extremely active gal - full of guys who were obviously experienced and friends with each other. I wasn't the weakest planet in the gal - so I thought, shit, if I keep my score up and keep active they'll accept me.

Wrong. Despite ticking all the boxes (imvho) for being someone who would be useful to have in a gal, I got booted to make way for some of their friends who they were hoping would exile in. I ended up in an inactive gal and quit playing - although starting a new job did have something to do with that. But my main thought was: what's the point when the game is divided into fort gals full of excellent players that only want their friends ingal and weak gals full of other newbs/inactives?

I see you guys talking about the problem with getting new players into PA.

Here are the biggest issues that I encountered, being a new PA player:

- horribly outdated wiki (after this website, it's your first source of info)
- if you don't have an alliance, you feel absolutely powerless (you have no intel as to what planets/gals are legit targets and which will have def and counter attack you - attacking is a real stab in the dark)
- lack of community spirit in many 'normal' gal forums due to the concentration of good players/alliances into these fort gals
- the demanding nature of the game.


My perception of the game, as a newbie, was that the game was a lot more fun in an alliance than without one. Now I know that there are a lot of experienced players who play without an alliance - but, imho, for a newbie the game can be a very cold and lonely experience.

Benefits of being in an alliance: You get a lot of advice from other players, you have a sense of community (polar opposite of being a lone allianceless planet in a galaxy that is ruled by big alliances) and you see that your actions can make a huge difference. Sending def/attacking becomes fun.

Would it be possible to, after a certain point in the game, force any non-allied players into special alliances run (voluntarily) by some experienced players? It'd give newbies, who don't necessarily browse these forums and see the recruitment threads, a glimpse of the more fun (imho) and engaging aspect of the game. It'd make the 'farming' of inactive planets/gals less of an issue. It'd encourage newbies to play for more than a round - 'I wonder how a REAL alliance runs things?'. It'd help create more alliances. Y'ask me, all these things would enrich the game in both the short and long term.

Sorry for going OT :)

Re: Fort Gals
 

As I have said in previous post that the late starter gal code encourages lazy play. Some of the late starters didn't even bother with adequate security.... saying that I did have some good fun amp blowing and havoc on the late starters in 3:1 and 3:2 :devil:

Edit ... Let me guess a causualty of the Fort gal Cuture? It is certainly a shame :(
One of the reasons why I believe there is a problem getting in and retaining new blood.

Re: Fort Gals
 

The problem with people being exiled despite being active has nothing to do with fortress gals at all. A fortress gal will most likely ask you to join their alliance, or in any case keep an active player.

Re: Fort Gals
 

Fortress gals aren't the problem, alliances not having the skills\balls to attack huge fenced gals is.

Re: Fort Gals
 

1. The support team and zPeti was meant to be working on updating it but i guess they got busy with all the questions being asked in #support [/sarcasm]
2. Yeah, thats a major design flaw which should be fixed as soon as possible.
3. The problem is, Experienced players dont really use the forums to communicate, they use IRC so the forums are redundant. I'd be much happier with a galaxy shoutbox on every page.
4. Yeah its an extremly demaning game and at the moment there's no way around that, as there simply isnt any fun in being casual/small. As the only real development you can do to your planet, is get roids.


The problem is finding these experienced players to run it, its not as simple as getting the support team to help out.. as they wont.

Re: Fort Gals
 

i might be interested in doing something like that if a few others were able to help out

though i dont plan on being hugely active anymore im sure i could lend enough time and advice to help people find their way in the game

Re: Fort Gals
 

Re: Fort Gals
 

Few additional thoughts: I'm honestly not too sure how dedicated the players of most alliances are - but i'd presume that the base requirement is higher than 'log on once a day'. This leads you to think that unless you're able to log frequently, you're not going to last long in (or even be accepted into) an alliance.

Bam, like that, the majority of people who are picking up the game for the first time (who probably don't realize the timesink that it can be) are missing out on the best part of the game. You could probably make the argument that the base requirement to enjoy the game as part of an alliance is too high - but I'd not know if that's true or not (although I am aware of people making recruitment posts on gal forums etc - do they get much response from newbies?).


A 'public' alliance for planets would make the best part of the game (co-ordinating attacks/def - watching them fail/succeed, community, sense of purpose) accessible to more people. Those things would be there to experience for newbs - even if they don't have enough time to dedicate themselves to a 'real' alliance. Following that through, it might even spur new players to spend more time with the game. Being in an ally did that to me.

Could you envision something along the lines of public alliance(s) working?

Re: Fort Gals
 

I like the public alliance part. If you like that alliance and gain skill, you'll join one of the private alliances eventually. Pick three or four of the current training alliances and make everybody join those with the alliance quest.

Re: Fort Gals
 

Me too. I think the public alliance idea is solid.

Re: Fort Gals
 

Its not really a case of just finding afew people to help out, as then all the alliance would be is the #support channel.

********** didnt have a #support channel as RR was way too inactive, so Jimbo created WNA (Warrior Noob Alliance) which is exactly whats being suggested but it takes alot of effort, i'd go as far as to say you need a HC/BC team which is as if not more active/dedicated than proper alliances HC/BC's. I was a helper in WNA and lead HC/BC for a couple of rounds and it really does burn you out.

It generally works out like this:
You need a group of people willing to help out and idle in the alliance channel to answer any questions anyone might have.
You need a HC who is constantly trying to recruit new helpers and BC's, while also trying to sort out politics as much as possible to avoid incomings on the noobie planets. Also, who will step in and BC on any nights required.
And this is the hardest part, you need a BC team who will not only arrange attacks but help all your new members to find a target in the attack with there fleet and explaining how you figure out what you can attack.. This part requires so much work, as you basically end up doing full-scale target assignments every night.
As far as defence and DC's go, you can pretty much slack there.. as you'll only really get afew people willing to send defence at night.

Re: Fort Gals
 

I agree with you Light, it's enough to run your own planet and alliance duties never mind running a bunch of noobs who need to be told what to do and when to do it 5 times.

The quests help loads for those who are not used to the game so maybe an expansion of that would be enough.

Alliance wise it comes down to how many noobs do you let in and when do you get to the point of 'doing to much for them'. It's a big read to get started but if they read the manual then ask questions on the bits they don't understand rather than getting questions like 'how do i attack?' it would make life easier.

Unless the alliances take a few of these people each they will be left to their own devices untill they are alliance worth.

Re: Fort Gals
 

As a long-time (but rather quiet) PA player, I dislike fortress galaxies. However, I think the problem is more with the fact that no one will attack them because they don't want to risk a war with that alliance. I'm not sure if there's a really good solution to that. There needs to be some kind of incentive to hit these galaxies earlier. Also, with landing being rather difficult mid-late round, that makes them that much stronger. It sucks to have to send 5-10 fleets to land one wave on one planet in a fortress galaxy, assuming you're also doing the same for other waves and on other planets, in late-game.

I think the larger problem is alliance sizes. I think alliances should be approximately cut in half, down to around 30 players. I know this has been tried in the past and didn't last long (at least as far as I recall), but I think it would help the game in general.

Re: Fort Gals
 

If you had been in a war the last 10 rounds you would know that making waves with 5-10 fleets to land has nothing to do with fortress gals at all. Thats just how it is in a war when targetting a specific alliance. granted its a fair fight not 6 vs 1

Fortress gals also have their share of the early incs, sometimes even more. The fact everyone is in the same alliance makes it even harder to cover. Good fortress gals survive only because of active and dedicated people inside that has the iron will needed to be the most targetted gal in the universe and still be top 5. Put the same activity into any other gal and that gal will win.

Re: Fort Gals
 

Oh comeone, get over it allready R34 is so 2009