[lokken]

The whole idea that Ascendancy favours any alliance is nonsense. Zhil may like Black Flag, but he also has the good sense to rein it in, and work for the benefit of Ascendancy. Ultores don't like him, which is why mz/rasputin dealt with ultores. As someone who just walked into this round, I quite like Black Flag and Ultores - they're both pretty solid, committed to trying to win, and didn't cause us nearly as much as bullshit as other alliances when we talked to them. I'd add p3nguins as while they seem to not like us, they were generally pretty clear about it, but still napped us for mutual benefit.

We first played as an alliance messing around and then decided to get value as we had the crap kicked out of us by every man and his dog. After that we had a punt (and that's all it was) on the win, because when you have a chance (even if it's less than 20%), you have a go. It failed, but it wasn't unexpected either, because we weren't committed enough and our way of playing was pretty ambitious. The fact that Ult got taken out the game was just a byproduct of what we were trying to do. If people in Ultores are stupid enough to take it personally, then that is their problem.

The only thing I'd really criticise is alliances pretty much playing with the sole reason to stop X or Y, or deciding that they want to play a part in the outcome, even if it doesn't benefit them. Utterly self-defeating, and just lets other alliances get away with bad behaviour without consequences.