[Grog]

Originally Posted by Remy

Will make it possible to have some alliances, (not mentioning any names :P) to avoid the alliance limit and have secundary alliances. If you hardcode defense, then there should be no escape, ever.

While it's true that it'd make it possible to avoid the ally limit by running two tags, they avoid the ally limit as it is anyway.
By making NAP's, Alliances, Wars public for all to see, I think it'd offset the benefit of running two tags simply by making it transparent for everyone to see what it is they're doing.
I'm not suggesting there be an ETA benefit to allied tags, simply the ability to
defend each other.

Originally Posted by Benneh

letting allied alliances defend works quite well for little bgs right? I mean we can have 3 30 man tags who can all defend each other!

:|

It may benefit smaller tags at times, it'd almost certainly be of more benefit to the larger tags with quality external tools already available to them.
If I was trying to suggest this purely because I think it'd benefit my current situation I'd of suggested a shared defense page too. (which I think would be a bad idea)

My main reasoning for wanting allied tags able to defend each other, is to keep situations like the attempted fleetcatch on lizardking last round possible.
With members of 3 alliances attacking & members of 3 different alliances defending. Those are entertaining & exciting situations that make planetarion fun. I wouldn't want PA to lose that.

Originally Posted by Mzyxptlk

.2 While it discourages keeping oot planets, it also discourages recruiting new players (as opposed to shipjumpers). How do you propose to counter this?

I don't see that at all, the alliance limit is set up so that the bottom members never contribute to the ally score anyway.
If you think a candidate will be active & useful to your alliance then why wouldn't you accept him. Even if he's going to be starting at 0 & join the bottom part of the tag that isn't counted.
I think most alliances are hoping that recruits will be long time members, so if its a quality applicant who may not contribute score to the tag that round but probably will in the future, then why wouldn't he be accepted.

Originally Posted by JonnyBGood

(although I wouldn't use the time expiry thing, if someone wants to backstab I'm pro that).

Well the expiry thing could certainly be optional, perhaps a choice of 0-48 ticks to be determined beforehand & agreed upon by both sides before the agreement can be implemented.
:-) I just think that the entire universe being able to watch the ticker counting down in situations like the CT/Asc NAP ending last round could be entertaining.

Originally Posted by JonnyBGood

The war thing is a bit different. Wouldn't you just declare war on everyone bar the alliances you're napped to?

Yeah I've been trying to think of some way to balance that.
How about a war tax? Say a 1% resource tax on every planet in the tag for every war you have declared.
So you'd have to balance the benefit of the extra XPs against the resource costs in declaring war.

Originally Posted by JonnyBGood

We have that now really. I know quite a few people would just check our ingame intel if they were picking targets and needed to avoid NAPed planets last round.

Well the political situations are often secretive & nothing more then rumor to a big part of planetarion.
I'm thinking of grps like OPA (Old Pharts Alliance) who returned to planetarion with little fanfare & struggled to play PA without using IRC.
With NAPs/Alliances/Wars all open for everyone to see, they'd know what was going on in the political arena without having to know the right people.

With NAPs/Alliances/Wars all being hardcoded into the game it would actually be possible for tags like that to communicate in game with each other, propose alliances, declare wars & setup joint attacks with other allies & never have to join IRC to do so.

For PA to hope to attract more members it really needs to have all parts of the game accessible to new people without them being forced to download & install anything.
It needs the flexibility to have new grps of people getting involved in all aspects of the game & being able to play it on there own terms.
If a grp of gamers who use MSN, facebook or anything else to communicate with each other, decide to try PA, they shouldn't be handicapped in what they can be involved in because they don't use IRC.
Hardcoding politics into the game would be a big step towards that.