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Originally Posted by Sun_Tzu
Valid point, alliances back then were bigger and faced more planets. However, the average planet was also weaker, and the favoured tactics were less about war and more about simply hitting people who were quite weak comparatively. Let's not forget, the original powerhouses were all known for being extremely political creatures with round-stagnating blocks (rnd2 Concordium, Legion and Fury rnd3, VeX, nd4/5/7 Furgion etc.). The level of organisation in Fury or Legion with 300 members and the average level of skill/commitment was most likely lower than that of later strong alliances.
It's not at all a foregone conclusion that a bigger uni was harder to play in than a smaller one is, nor that bigger alliances were inherently better run. The human mind simply sees the past in a more favourable light than the present, hence why every generation complains about how things were better before, even as great advances are made within every area of life.
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I'd argue that alliances have probably got better (in terms of a trend in top alliances), but the game has got less hard. The logistics (and thus managing an alliance and co-ordinating everything) were a lot harder when the player and alliance base was bigger, as there was just far more to manage. Basically, being an HC was a shit job if you were doing your job properly because it would consume far too much of your time, as it required a lot more work.
Running an alliance of 250 men plus because you need to is very very difficult. Once the player base gets above a certain level, Planetarion becomes a complete different ball game in terms of the number of people you need to run an alliance effectively, the amount of time you need to put in and quite frankly, the stress levels being so stratospheric because you have so much to deal with. The most organised outfit I've been in is Ascendancy r30, but that's 50% JBG being great and 50% everyone being so hilariously competent that people started doing things autonomously. Then again had JBG been given Ascendancy in a game where the player base was 50k+ and Ascendancy needed to be larger, he would have almost certainly burned out playing as he was because no one can lead as he does for the distance. Although that's not to say he wouldn't be a brilliant leader in that era because he almost certainly would be and there's few players who you can say that about.
Legion were never really that organised, but had some supremely talented (albeit extremely selfish in some cases) players who when motivated could work together to pull them out of the fire, although their quality declined after r4. After r4 Sid built up Fury to be more or less like a machine and from my experience of being Wrath in r7, it all ran like clockwork, in a 250 man alliance. Xanadu from memory had some extremely tight knit groups who worked extremely well but I know little about their internal workings. From my own experience, Deus was a bit of a mess simply because our player base was so varied and had a command team who were working so hard we pretty much hated everything (including each other) but were saved by the fact that we able to look past that and remain committed. Even then it pretty much destroyed all of us by the end of the round. Planetarion used to be a relentless, crushing, almost debilitating experience if you were actively running an alliance. People used to quit mid-round because of burnout for goodness sake. If you're considering anything beyond say, r7 as 'harder' I'd like to see your definition.
Fury are easily the best alliance this game has seen, they played phenomenal Planetarion even when they lost in the most difficult rounds and I'm not sure why anyone is even vaguely interested in opening a debate about it. The challenge of logistics is far more difficult than any kind of military organisation and they managed to do both. Fury had a clear leadership, clear chain of command and members who while they sometimes weren't the smartest were at least regimented enough to know that they obeyed instructions or they were out the door. And that's easier said than done.
Give players a chance to play at that level of playerbase again they will do it better but until that happens I'd suggest you rethink your position. Quite simply in this day and age there is far less to manage for it to be considered anywhere near as difficult.