Quote:
Originally Posted by BloodyButcher
Be assured that the least favourable alliance to allie up with is usualy Ultores
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It depends on your goals. If you want to win, and you get close to achieving that, at Ultores' expense, then yeah, you're going to have to assume your relation with them will turn to hostility at some point, no matter how good it is
now. But it's no different with any other alliance. A HC worth their salt will be prepared for that possibility. Ultores tends to prefer working with alliances further down the rankings, exactly for that reason (among others, I'm sure).
When a block of alliances like CT and BF takes Ultores out of the running for #1, their agreements become unstable. They both want to win, and to resolve this conflict, they must start targetting each other sooner or later. This then gives Ultores a chance to stage a comeback.
When a block of Ultores + small fry takes the opposing block out of the running, those smaller alliances still won't be in a position to compete with Ultores for #1. An alliance like ND or Bows is never going to threaten Ultores' victory, and since realistically, that was never a serious goal for them in the first place, that doesn't bother them. What smaller alliances get out of working with Ultores (and all they
want to get out of it) is raid saturation and a pretty good land raid on planets that are usually outside of their reach, while Ultores bears most (though not all) of the burden of retals. What Ultores gets out of it is a bunch of extra fleets to raid with, and above all the stability that their competition's blocks so sorely lack. Salvage donations are now all but impossible, so even if they crash at twice or more the rate of Ultores, that still doesn't cost Ultores anything.
In short, when Ultores loses, they may still win, but when BF/CT/etc wins, they may still lose.
Additionally, when the small alliances keep getting hovered up by Ultores, that keeps driving Ultores' competition into the above unstable relationship with each other. That long-term multi-round strategy depends on maintaining good relations with those alliances, though. And therefore, if you're ND, or HR, or Rogues, you can be reasonably sure Ultores won't turn around and backstab you once they've won. They have no reason to, and to do so would only come back to haunt them in the round to come.
Basically what I'm saying is that you're full of shit.