Ancient history

[Kjeldoran]

Originally Posted by lokken

In terms of winning rounds, Apprime are a dead force politically. Far too many about turns, trying to turn allies against each other and getting caught out. I mean, Ascendancy has won far more over time and arguably, I'd say we're perceived as more trustworthy than Apprime.

I can't speak nor judge of anything past round 16, but in the first 15 rounds of PA I haven't known a single top alliance (or alliance with the intention to win the round) that hasn't at one point or another betrayed, deceived or manipulated his/her allies, NAP's etc ...

Yes, including my own alliances.

[_Kila_]

Originally Posted by Kjeldoran

I can't speak nor judge of anything past round 16, but in the first 15 rounds of PA I haven't known a single top alliance (or alliance with the intention to win the round) that hasn't at one point or another betrayed, deceived or manipulated his/her allies, NAP's etc ...

Yes, including my own alliances.

eXilition never backstabbed anyone (dropping a NAP within the terms of your agreement is not backstabbing/betraying), neither did 1up, and I can't say I can remember ND ever doing it (they've won back to back rounds so as hilarious as it is they've kinda gotta be classed a "top alliance")

[Sun_Tzu]

Originally Posted by _Kila_

eXilition never backstabbed anyone (dropping a NAP within the terms of your agreement is not backstabbing/betraying), neither did 1up, and I can't say I can remember ND ever doing it (they've won back to back rounds so as hilarious as it is they've kinda gotta be classed a "top alliance")

Dragons was also fairly honorable, perhaps the one thing that could be held against them would have been the r9.5(?) attempt to break the WEET block (When Dragons were still a BG), however that move was sanctioned by WP HC, who later denied any involvement.

[JonnyBGood]

Comparing a group that was a middling BG for a few rounds and an alliance for one to alliances that were always right at the top of the game is really pointless. People only "betray" when they need to or when there's nothing else to do. At that point it's just a natural evolution due to boredom.

[Sun_Tzu]

Originally Posted by JonnyBGood

Comparing a group that was a middling BG for a few rounds and an alliance for one to alliances that were always right at the top of the game is really pointless. People only "betray" when they need to or when there's nothing else to do. At that point it's just a natural evolution due to boredom.

Ignoring the fact that most of the active playerbase from this game left for PIA and that the following rounds did form a part of the oldschool PA legacy is rather silly tbh. Just because you didn't play it, doesn't mean it didn't happen, as much as you'd like to think the world revolves around you.

After all, you do still acknowledge the existence of Ministry as a group, which is wholly a result of PIA, not the small wing of Xanadu that existed in PA.

[JonnyBGood]

Originally Posted by Sun_Tzu

Ignoring the fact that most of the active playerbase from this game left for PIA and that the following rounds did form a part of the oldschool PA legacy is rather silly tbh. Just because you didn't play it, doesn't mean it didn't happen, as much as you'd like to think the world revolves around you.

After all, you do still acknowledge the existence of Ministry as a group, which is wholly a result of PIA, not the small wing of Xanadu that existed in PA.

We're talking pre-pax alliances man. You can't start randomly integrating other games just because they played pa beforehand and you think they were still active for god's sake. Look at me, I'll start talking about how my corporation in eve was great or something equally zzzz...

[Kjeldoran]

Originally Posted by JonnyBGood

Comparing a group that was a middling BG for a few rounds and an alliance for one to alliances that were always right at the top of the game is really pointless. People only "betray" when they need to or when there's nothing else to do. At that point it's just a natural evolution due to boredom.

Depends what you define as betraying. They can be very subtle or they can be outrageously obvious. Also most rounds back then, some alliances had some backdoor deals with neutral or even hostile alliances really.

[Zirikk]

It was r9.

[Kjeldoran]

I was more speaking in terms of pre PAX alliances such as Legion, Fury, Virus, ...

[Sun_Tzu]

Originally Posted by Kjeldoran

I was more speaking in terms of pre PAX alliances such as Legion, Fury, Virus, ...

Dragons were a pre-PAX alliance. And if you count ViruS, you have to count Elysium and WolfPack, both of whom were by and large honest. I can't really think of any true betrayals perpetrated by Xanadu, TitanS or the original FAnG either. Or Concordium for that matter. Actually, if you boil it down, most of the questionable actions were taken by Legion and Fury, and these were more so committed during their early existence. Perhaps in response to this and as a realization of the perception of their questionable moral fiber they later started the "Strength & Honor" campaign, in an attempt to salvage their reputations, if not always in action then at least in word.

I reckon most of the late oldschool alliances were quite influenced by the actions of Furgion, and wanted to set themselves apart from the shady nature of these two giants. Perhaps you don't feel this way, but where I spent my years after the fall of FAnG, respectability, honor and loyalty were extremely valued.

[Kjeldoran]

Originally Posted by Sun_Tzu

Dragons were a pre-PAX alliance. And if you count ViruS, you have to count Elysium and WolfPack, both of whom were by and large honest. I can't really think of any true betrayals perpetrated by Xanadu, TitanS or the original FAnG either. Or Concordium for that matter. Actually, if you boil it down, most of the questionable actions were taken by Legion and Fury, and these were more so committed during their early existence. Perhaps in response to this and as a realization of the perception of their questionable moral fiber they later started the "Strength & Honor" campaign, in an attempt to salvage their reputations, if not always in action then at least in word.

I reckon most of the late oldschool alliances were quite influenced by the actions of Furgion, and wanted to set themselves apart from the shady nature of these two giants. Perhaps you don't feel this way, but where I spent my years after the fall of FAnG, respectability, honor and loyalty were extremely valued.

Lol, so taking in entire FAnG to screw over your allies (Eclipse) just to secure a round win you find an "honourable" action? It's all legit etc, but sure isn't honourable.

And I know as FAnG we didn't always uphold our promises. In round 7 we played it fair and honourable, perhaps abit to much tbh.

You know aswell that attack "by accident" were a common used tactic to make sure your allies do not outgrow you, as an example.

[Sun_Tzu]

It becomes a bit blurry, as PIA was played at twice the tickspeed and rounds were ended when stagnation had set in, and were not of a set length. I'd say for about r10, 10.5 and 12 of PA the focus was largely on PIA, perhaps r11 could also be counted as such, I don't quite remember if skaut/carnis etc. also played PIA with us while they were playing in 1up!, thus can't gauge how intense the corresponding time in PIA was.

Anyway, your point is that you wish to limit the discussion to only the politics of PA, Kj's point was to limit them to oldschool PA. Both of these are artificial limitations, and as you've just admitted the playerbases and alliances are indeed intertwined, there seems to be no real justification for making the distinction between what alliances did in PA and what they did in PIA. As such, I'll continue to dispute the premise of your argument, because to be quite honest, you have none.

[JonnyBGood]

The argument is not mine. The original statement was thus

Originally Posted by Kjeldoran

I can't speak nor judge of anything past round 16, but in the first 15 rounds of PA I haven't known a single top alliance (or alliance with the intention to win the round) that hasn't at one point or another betrayed, deceived or manipulated his/her allies, NAP's etc ...

Yes, including my own alliances.

I've stressed the part most relevant to this argument. If you still fail to understand I'd recommend getting someone to translate it into finnish for you and seeing if that helps.

[Sun_Tzu]

Originally Posted by JonnyBGood

The argument is not mine. The original statement was thus

I've stressed the part most relevant to this argument. If you still fail to understand I'd recommend getting someone to translate it into finnish for you and seeing if that helps.

Just because the original argument wasn't yours doesn't make it any less arbitrary, unless we hold the person who said it to have some kind of legitimacy in setting what the boundaries of any comparison should be. Further more, that wasn't his original statement, but a second-hand qualification of his statement, more of an admission of ignorance of anything which happened beyond the limits of his active playing career rather than trying to proclaim nothing else was valid fodder for discussion.

I'm at a loss as to what to advice you to do, as clearly I'm already communicating with you in your own language. Perhaps get someone to translate it into drunken Irish mumblings?

[JonnyBGood]

Originally Posted by Sun_Tzu

Just because the original argument wasn't yours doesn't make it any less arbitrary, unless we hold the person who said it to have some kind of legitimacy in setting what the boundaries of any comparison should be.

I think it's fairly safe to say that most of the sane members of this forum who aren't on bile-spewing rants against me right now because I almost managed to get them some incoming worthy of the name this round would recognise that the first sixteen rounds of planetarion are a pretty contiguous group. Of course it's arbitrary in the sense that any dividing line is arbitrary. It's quite clear he's saying that in his experience of planetarion rounds every winning alliance indulged in some betrayal. No, whether or not that is true is obviously up for debate, but alliances did in games which weren't planetarion is not relevant*.

Further more, that wasn't his original statement, but a second-hand qualification of his statement,

No, it wasn't. The only other vaguely related post he has in the thread talks about blocking and divide and conquer (actually lok says this bit) in pre-pax rounds. Which isn't anything to do with "betrayal".

more of an admission of ignorance of anything which happened beyond the limits of his active playing career rather than trying to proclaim nothing else was valid fodder for discussion.

Of course it's not the be all and end all. I'm sure there are plenty of irrelevant and totally uninteresting things you could tell me about ********. Maybe even someone would enjoy reading them. But randomly interjecting about ******** into a line of discussion that's explicitly not about ********. Not exactly on the ball.

I'm at a loss as to what to advice you to do, as clearly I'm already communicating with you in your own language. Perhaps get someone to translate it into drunken Irish mumblings?

Swallowing your pride and accepting the fact you're wrong and probably hadn't even remembered kjeldoran's initial post until I pointed it out again would be a start. But don't worry. I'm not holding my breath here.

[Sun_Tzu]

This is going nowhere. I don't agree with you, not because of any personal feud, but because I honestly do not agree with you. If you can't believe this, then that's not my problem. End of the line, I don't agree that it makes any sense to limit the discussion to just the rounds Kj is knowledgeable of, especially when he did not aim to start a discussion about anything particular, but it was born spontaneously from his one-liner comment.

And fyi I was perfectly aware of kj's first/second post on the subject. It's only one page back, and I don't have the memory of a goldfish, after all.

[Kjeldoran]

Originally Posted by Sun_Tzu

This is going nowhere. I don't agree with you, not because of any personal feud, but because I honestly do not agree with you. If you can't believe this, then that's not my problem. End of the line, I don't agree that it makes any sense to limit the discussion to just the rounds Kj is knowledgeable of, especially when he did not aim to start a discussion about anything particular, but it was born spontaneously from his one-liner comment.

And fyi I was perfectly aware of kj's first/second post on the subject. It's only one page back, and I don't have the memory of a goldfish, after all.

I have (the memory of a goldfish that is) :-)

I didn't know my little post had so much impact. I merely described how I perceived politics in PA. Ofcourse that's limited to the first 15 rounds, as I didn't play the rounds after that.

Now, on topic of what I posted: Deceiving and manipulating your allies, NAP's or even enemies are common practices in politics. They can be very subtle (attack on wrong coords and player offline to recall, talk things over and smooth things up and no retribution as a result) or rather obvious (full frontal attack which you were supposedly napped etc) ... Even little things like telling your allies you'll attack alliance X and want their help but then rather limit the actual hits on alliance X, so they'd focus on your allies and not on you ...

That and many more are examples of common practices amongst allies throughout the rounds that I played. You could ask any alliance HC back then and they'll be able to give you examples.

[Judge]

Originally Posted by lokken

..................... it, but do we have to have hysterical posts like this?

Yes

[Kjeldoran]

Prior to the start of Round 10.5 both Eclipse and ToT announced that they would be disbanding. Despite the catastrophic events at the end of Round 10 FAnG reorganised themselves and gathering allies in MISTU, a former BG within Eclipse, and Phraktos, newly formed, primarily from the Dragons memberbase after they decided not to continue into r10.5 as a full alliance, formed FPM and prepared to fight the EET block going into this round.

This is from the PA Wiki. I was correct after all. Some of you guys played on as Phraktos and were allied to us together with Mistu.

[lizardking]

Originally Posted by Kjeldoran

This is from the PA Wiki. I was correct after all. Some of you guys played on as Phraktos and were allied to us together with Mistu.

R0fl!

That's as much being correct as if one claimed Fury hugged the trophy r11 when in fact it was 1up. Maybe with this logic we've won every round since "some of us" have played throughout the entire course of the game and even possibly being in a winning alliance each time.

Whoknows, or better yet who cares.

[Sun_Tzu]

Originally Posted by lizardking

R0fl!

That's as much being correct as if one claimed Fury hugged the trophy r11 when in fact it was 1up. Maybe with this logic we've won every round since "some of us" have played throughout the entire course of the game and even possibly being in a winning alliance each time.

Whoknows, or better yet who cares.

Err...yeah, Prahktos had nothing to do with Dragons afaik. I have a vague recollection such an alliance existed, but I doubt it had any HC's or major portions of the membership in common with Dragons, as we were fully focused on PIA at the time.

[Kjeldoran]

Originally Posted by Sun_Tzu

Err...yeah, Prahktos had nothing to do with Dragons afaik. I have a vague recollection such an alliance existed, but I doubt it had any HC's or major portions of the membership in common with Dragons, as we were fully focused on PIA at the time.

I'm merely quoting the wiki link content, I didn't make that up you know.

[Sun_Tzu]

Originally Posted by Kjeldoran

I'm merely quoting the wiki link content, I didn't make that up you know.

Well, as a member of dragons from rnd8 BG onwards, it's the first I've heard of it. I'd suggest that wiki isn't exactly accurate.

[Alki]

Phraktos had quite a few dragons players iirc, also kaifux was phraktos, unsure if he was hc, but anyway dragons can clearly then be the direct reason for the existence of exi, but not phraktos. Wait a minute...

Also Dragons as 'good' as they were will always be cheaters(section) as opposed to a powerhouse(lol).

[lizardking]

Originally Posted by Alki

Phraktos had quite a few dragons players iirc, also kaifux was phraktos, unsure if he was hc, but anyway dragons can clearly then be the direct reason for the existence of exi, but not phraktos. Wait a minute...

Also Dragons as 'good' as they were will always be cheaters(section) as opposed to a powerhouse(lol).

An eXcellent flamebate alki. Bravo and well done!

The thread (whoever made it) doesn't belong to PA forums so suppose I go watch some footie.....

[Mzyxptlk]

Originally Posted by lizardking

The thread (whoever made it) doesn't belong to PA forums so suppose I go watch some footie.....

It's on AD, which is a forum to discuss alliances in PA. If you don't think a thread about Dragons belongs here, then you're proving JBG & co's point right.

[Sun_Tzu]

Originally Posted by Alki

Phraktos had quite a few dragons players iirc, also kaifux was phraktos, unsure if he was hc, but anyway dragons can clearly then be the direct reason for the existence of exi, but not phraktos. Wait a minute...

Also Dragons as 'good' as they were will always be cheaters(section) as opposed to a powerhouse(lol).

Kaifux was LDK.

Dragons HC's were primarily Jurgen, lizardking, Gorgoroth, Biusa, LordN, MacTanzu, Titus, Tuhoaja and BaSSe. A few others also did short stints including me/Rhythm/WuMing/safe(?)/Berten(?).

[Alki]

Originally Posted by Sun_Tzu

Kaifux was LDK.

Dragons HC's were primarily Jurgen, lizardking, Gorgoroth, Biusa, LordN, MacTanzu, Titus, Tuhoaja and BaSSe. A few others also did short stints including me/Rhythm/WuMing/safe(?)/Berten(?).

I see, my dragons/ldk history isnt good at all, afterall i was always on the opposing side

[snoops^]

i'd have to agree with JBG, tho i didnt play many rounds against Dragons i cant hold them in the same league as Fury or Legion.

[Mzyxptlk]

Or I could just sit here and do nothing while you boys fight over who has the biggest e-peen.

[Jumo]

While Dragons was indeed indeed a formidable force on PIA, maybe even a superpower; their image was tarnished when the mass botting was exposed (forget which round #, was the one when Deuce and Omen were founded). And because of this I don't place them on the pantheon of superpower.

[Sun_Tzu]

Originally Posted by Jumo

While Dragons was indeed indeed a formidable force on PIA, maybe even a superpower; their image was tarnished when the mass botting was exposed (forget which round #, was the one when Deuce and Omen were founded). And because of this I don't place them on the pantheon of superpower.

There was a small minority who ever really used the bot. Meanwhile, former Ministry players have admitted since that they used VNC, meaning both sides did some accountsharing. Not that the same didn't happen in Legion, Fury, Xanadu(MrJ was one of the HC of Xanadu) and so on.

Largely the bot was rejected and discarded, and by the time the so called mass usage was exposed there were maybe half a dozen people still using Jedi, a portion of them LDK. Eventually it was just MrJ running it for his own amusement.

[Jumo]

Originally Posted by Sun_Tzu

There was a small minority who ever really used the bot. Meanwhile, former Ministry players have admitted since that they used VNC, meaning both sides did some accountsharing. Not that the same didn't happen in Legion, Fury, Xanadu(MrJ was one of the HC of Xanadu) and so on.

Largely the bot was rejected and discarded, and by the time the so called mass usage was exposed there were maybe half a dozen people still using Jedi, a portion of them LDK. Eventually it was just MrJ running it for his own amusement.

While Ministry may have cheated, I don't consider Ministry a superpower either for different reasons altogether.

And botting is different than simple account sharing, signing up 100 planets (iirc this is a low ball figure) and using a bot to run them is very different than having a mate check in on your account, scan, launch whatever.

I will not deny that both VNC and botting is definitely cheating, and both Ministry and Dragons, if not all allies in PIA cheated, it's the fact that the scale of cheating was greater than most top tier alliance have had. And I don't doubt great HCs like BaSSe and Mac disagreed with the cheating, and they certainly distanced themselves from it (they weren't even HCs of Dragons at the time iirc).

[Sun_Tzu]

Originally Posted by Jumo

While Ministry may have cheated, I don't consider Ministry a superpower either for different reasons altogether.

And botting is different than simple account sharing, signing up 100 planets (iirc this is a low ball figure) and using a bot to run them is very different than having a mate check in on your account, scan, launch whatever.

I will not deny that both VNC and botting is definitely cheating, and both Ministry and Dragons, if not all allies in PIA cheated, it's the fact that the scale of cheating was greater than most top tier alliance have had. And I don't doubt great HCs like BaSSe and Mac disagreed with the cheating, and they certainly distanced themselves from it (they weren't even HCs of Dragons at the time iirc).

And who pray tell signed up 100 planets? I think you're confusing this with Killmark. Jedi required that each planet be run through a proxy on someones computer, effectively meaning every account in there corresponded to a real person. Glorified accountsharing, basically. There were other features to the bot, but none of them were ever used afaik.

Ps. I knew people who played in Legion back in the day who had 10-20 planets. There's never been a clean alliance in this game, although granted the advantages of accountsharing with pl's and such are far lesser now than they were before, which accounts for the marked decline in any such activities.

[Jumo]

Originally Posted by Sun_Tzu

And who pray tell signed up 100 planets? I think you're confusing this with Killmark. Jedi required that each planet be run through a proxy on someones computer, effectively meaning every account in there corresponded to a real person. Glorified accountsharing, basically. There were other features to the bot, but none of them were ever used afaik.

Ps. I knew people who played in Legion back in the day who had 10-20 planets. There's never been a clean alliance in this game, although granted the advantages of accountsharing with pl's and such are far lesser now than they were before, which accounts for the marked decline in any such activities.

In fairness the extent of the Dragons shananigans may have been exagerated, Ministry do have a penchant from dramatics. And this is digressing from the superpower question.

I guess for me it boils down to this: eXi (a true superpower) was initially comprised of the best/most active hand picked players from Dragons, LDK and Omen (others yes, but mostly those 3 alliances) - my point is that it took the best players from 3 seperate PIA alliances to make a true PAX superpower.

Also, in addition to PL'ing, I believe widespread inet access from cellphones is another factor which lead to the decline in account sharing. The necessity to log into someone else's account to launch def has been practically eliminated as you can launch from a cell phone from virtually anywhere.

[Wishmaster]

There was quite alot of cheating in dragons. Account sharing doesnt REALLY count as cheating imo. Bot usage does. Sending eta 0 defence kinda makes it a bit easier to win!

[Sun_Tzu]

Originally Posted by Wishmaster

There was quite alot of cheating in dragons. Account sharing doesnt REALLY count as cheating imo. Bot usage does. Sending eta 0 defence kinda makes it a bit easier to win!

Heh, nice of you to bring that up. Again, the same few Sectioners. Although MrJ did show PIA developers how it was done pre-round (as he did with all weaknesses he found), and as nothing was done about them, he used them for his own gain. Again, this behaviour didn't really go over well within Dragons either, so it was marginalized quite quickly.

[Tietäjä]

Originally Posted by Sun_Tzu

Heh, nice of you to bring that up. Again, the same few Sectioners. Although MrJ did show PIA developers how it was done pre-round (as he did with all weaknesses he found), and as nothing was done about them, he used them for his own gain. Again, this behaviour didn't really go over well within Dragons either, so it was marginalized quite quickly.

I played one round of that game, or half a round or so to be exact (I can't remember which one: but it was the one before round 13 in Planetarion), and the amount of ETA0 defences that were sent on dragons planets from across the universe was so massive (literally tens of planets each night would have been covered by defence fleets that weren't there on ETA4 but appeared later) that one could hardly ever justify calling a winner of such a game a power of anything else but just accessing the game database files.

While we (Hydra per se at that time, Omen in the other game, and Omen to be in Planetarion essentially) had a lot of friends at the eXilition side of the block, I believe the kind of animosity and sheer despise towards this kind of play (along with SilverBullet's lack of respect towards Section) and the expected Section relationships probably lead us to go with Wolfpack instead of eXilition that round (13. and yes, wolfpack was a mistake. it was a disaster of a misorganisation, really). Probably the vast majority of what was Omen core has been later on in eXilition, as stated by Wish. And speaking of respectable and honourable alliances by politics, Omen as an alliance (for when I was there) experienced a very comfortable mutually respectful relationship with eXilition.

That, added with the fact that the biggest stab of a knife in the back we ever dealt with came when dealing with 1up, so.

[JonnyBGood]

Get off the internet.

[lizardking]

Originally Posted by JonnyBGood

Get off the internet.

You've found organisms outside for real?

[HaNzI]

For the love of god and his pets, this is PLANETARION, NOT THAT GAY PIA. Achievements in PIA means squat nothing and if someone think its so important to talk about PIA then use PIA forums. What is that? PIA is dead? OH!

[Buddah]

Originally Posted by HaNzI

For the love of god and his pets, this is PLANETARION, NOT THAT GAY PIA. Achievements in PIA means squat nothing and if someone think its so important to talk about PIA then use PIA forums. What is that? PIA is dead? OH!

pia still had more planets than what pa have now!
oh so that means apprimes achievements mean squat shit?:P

[JonnyBGood]

Originally Posted by Buddah

pia still had more planets than what pa have now!
oh so that means apprimes achievements mean squat shit?:P

While the level of "professionalism" in pa (and I assume pia as well) certainly didn't drop off in direct proportion to the decline of the playerbase, it's laughable to try and compare any alliance (including my own yes!) that does well in a 1-2000 sized game with one which dominated in a game 10 or 20 times the size. The bottom line in this case is that there just isn't a solid basis for comparison and until someone invents a time machine there won't be.

[Sun_Tzu]

Originally Posted by JonnyBGood

While the level of "professionalism" in pa (and I assume pia as well) certainly didn't drop off in direct proportion to the decline of the playerbase, it's laughable to try and compare any alliance (including my own yes!) that does well in a 1-2000 sized game with one which dominated in a game 10 or 20 times the size. The bottom line in this case is that there just isn't a solid basis for comparison and until someone invents a time machine there won't be.

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.

[JonnyBGood]

Originally Posted by Sun_Tzu

The human mind simply sees the past in a more favourable light than the present

This is in no way ironic whatsoever given the amount of furious mental masturbation you've indulged in over what an alliance that hasn't played in years accomplished in a game which nobody even plays anymore

[lokken]

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.

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.

[Mzyxptlk]

If you don't care about the thread, don't read it and certainly don't reply to it.

[HaNzI]

I try to, but they instantly gets ruined when people start mixing a different game into Planetarion. Its happening often aswell.

[[B5]Londo]

I'll admit my memory of r9-10.5 is faint, and i was very noobish pre-pax but i hardly remember dragons at all, i dont see they can be considered great if they failed to make a mark on the conciseness of the wider player base.
Not that I can claim to more knowledge of that than just myself ofc.

[qebab]

I feel the standard of the (few) top alliances in ******** from rounds 7 to 10.5 was higher than that of most alliances I played in or against from round 13 to 21 of PA.

That being said, the game was bug-riddled, and there was a suspicion of botting from the day I started playing it. One thing I do think people who didn't play it underestimate is just how taxing it is to lead a good alliance under the conditions of 30 minute ticks. I can not emphasize enough just how hard it was to play with such an intensity at times. There was a round where my galaxy of 6 people were forced to be awake pretty much for 40 hours straight cross-defending ingal. Now bearing in mind that we were the biggest galaxy in the universe by some margin and that the (At the time) losing block were the ones throwing 30 odd planets* at us every 1hr30 minutes... I have great respect for those who managed good alliances in that game, in that day.

However wars in ******** were generally a lot shorter (Amount of ticks, time) than in PA so we're really comparing apples and oranges by bringing in achievements in that game. Basically, if you had an alliance of people who could go a week without sleeping more than 3-4 hours a day (Daytime, yes) in ******** you were golden. 1 hour ticks has always been about a different kind of stamina.

One thing that takes away some credit from Dragons, is the constant rumours and suspicion of widespread cheating. I consider myself a friend of a lot of people who played there and was several times told it was all lies but it was later admitted to be partially true, which disappointed me hugely. There's really no way for me to tell which of the rounds that I went sleep deprived for weeks only to be stopped by the seeming machine of dragons that could have been different were it not for that, and I'm disappointed to not ever having known the truth before I was done with the game.

That being said other alliances that have been and are considered greats have also been plagued by accusations of cheating in the past so it wouldn't be the reason why Dragons weren't. And I still refuse to believe that people like BaSSe and ricka ever had anything to do with it. I definitely do think that the dragons I fought in rounds 7-10 of ******** would've had a massive impact on early PAX and shat all over a lot of the alliances I played with and against then.

I'm sure this post shows my confusion over what we're actually discussing here, so I'm going to pull out here.