United we stand, divided we fall...

[Kinslayer]

Has anyone considered merging small alliances together?
I would like to hear from anyone who is interested in forging a new alliance from several less powerful ones.

[Kjeldoran]

tbh I think merging is something very delicate. You bring 2 different alliances, styles, proabably goals, additudes together. To succesfully merge you have to have a more then good relationship and both sides willing to give and take.
Also, bringing 2 smaller alliances together to 1 big alliance doesn't always mean the alliance will perform better. I think it's even harder to run when everything is bigger and especially when 2 groups get placed together.

just my 2 cents

[Kinslayer]

Thanks for that, it's good to have a genuine, positive criticism. You have a very good point there, but so near to the end of the round would it be worth rounding ppl up for 'a last stand'?

[General1]

Uhm it worked out quite ok with FA and NG

[Kjeldoran]

Originally Posted by General1

Uhm it worked out quite ok with FA and NG

well, FAnG isn't really a merger but yes, it worked out quite nice cause we prepared half r6 and had alot of time to be rdy for r7. It's delicate, not impossible

[Kjeldoran]

Originally Posted by Kinslayer

Thanks for that, it's good to have a genuine, positive criticism. You have a very good point there, but so near to the end of the round would it be worth rounding ppl up for 'a last stand'?

If you merge, I'm sure you're not doin it just to have a better score this round? A merger isn't something you do to achieve short term improvements imo (ofc you'll have a boost in score but that's just cause you have more members).

[Kinslayer]

I'm actually quite new to PA, and was wondering if an alliance merge was feasible. I did honestly think that uniting alliances was a good way to improve chances of survival - the more allies, the ppl to help defend you, help you attack, etc.

[Kjeldoran]

Originally Posted by Kinslayer

I'm actually quite new to PA, and was wondering if an alliance merge was feasible. I did honestly think that uniting alliances was a good way to improve chances of survival - the more allies, the ppl to help defend you, help you attack, etc.

sure it's a good thing, if it happens correctly. It can also lead to members leaving and having a bigger yet less efficient alliance. Then again, if you never try you never know

[TheACE]

look at FAnG and u c the result: it is posible.
then listen to what KJ says: it is delicate

there u got all your awnsers, so now u can move on to pic 1/2/3 other alliances that think mostly like yours, play with mostly same goals etc

after that u can start and set up organisation, here u can choose between 2 thinks: stay n00b alliance and dont do so much about organisation, or become a real alliance and appoint DC's, BC's and a real HC, get IRC channels, maby eaven an own server. OR give all your work up and join an eaven bigger alliance as a wing (u can only do that if your alliance is organised). The + in that is that u get a server and help from ppl who already know how it works to run an big alliance

this r just my 0.02 cents (EURO cents that is, Dollar sucks)

[wakey]

Merging small alliances into each other is very hard to pull off. Its not just a case of getting a bunch of alliance together and deciding to merge, its a careful process of finding alliances who are fully compatable. Its no good for example merging an alliances whos all for playing fair and then one with a win at all cost attitude. The communities also have to be compatable otherwise arguments will just rip it apart (probally one of the main reasons for mergers failing, friction between the communities will bring the walls crashing down). You then have to look at the HC situation, if we say that an average small alliance has 4 HC's by the time you have merged 4 together you have a ruling council of 16, your simply never going to get anything done with that many HC but reducing them can be difficult and result in alot of problems.

TBH its alot easier if theres one 'larger' alliance involved. If you have one alliances whos significantly more powerful they can use this to force the changes through that are needed as they hold more infulence than the smaller alliances which can make getting things sorted much easier than when you have simerlar sized alliances merging where none of them has the power to froce things through

[General Martok]

In PaX (last round) TFD and ROCK practically fused too. But because they are (were) two small alliances, with quite simular goals (have fun, kill some ships and take some roids occasionally, no NEED to win) it worked out quite well, even though they were of simular size. Ofc there was some friendly rivalry, but that was in no way bad for the community, it only raised the activity even. Some guys roided their arse off the last 2 weeks of the round to get more 'Rock' or 'TFD' players in the top10 score/roid ranks of the group

[Kal]

in game alliance merging is possible if both parties ask karmulian nicly - but make sure its really what you want to do first.

[DukePaul]

BlackDeath and Ultra Violence merged in round 8. The original merger was more like a very close allie (the tag VD, for those who remember), but when the servers crashed and game went down, our members started leaving. Separated, neither of us had the numbers to really do anything, and as we did like each other, we decided to merge permanently, and got Vengeance.

[Barrow|Pony]

ND's two merges worked out quite nicely.

[Rumad]

Mergers are not just about merging similar organisations with similar goals. You have to be able to work with the HC you are merging with.

FA and nG wasn't so hard, me and leff and kj were all in the same cluster the round we merged so friendships formed the bonds. Base any merger on HC's being able to gel.

[wakey]

All these people saying "mergers worked good for x" shouldnt be taken too seriously by the original poster imho. While theres no doubt those mentioned have worked I do think they are a bit removed from what the poster had in mind because all of them have basically been with alliances in a fairly good position before hand with the merger of the two being enough to put them in a position to put some kind of challenge in. He seems more focused merging truly small alliances (and not the big players idea of small, ie like Kal who has tried to argue that he knows what small players go through cos he was NoS iin PaX who started the round small) and as such its a little differnt as we arent looking at resonable alliances, with resonable number of ships, resonable activity and resonable membership numbers instead we are looking at alliances which no doubt have pooe command structures, low number of ships, low membership numbers and low activity and which they require more than two of them to merge to even make the resonable alliance level and as such its not something thats going to be pulled off with just two alliances and for each alliance you add the problems pointed out here grow exponetially.

Basically Kinslayer dont put too much faith in peoples success stories here, it has been pulled off but in differnt circumstances to your own.Only undertake such a project on its own merits and certainly dont try and force it because a failed merger can really set your progress back

[Rumad]

Originally Posted by wakey

All these people saying "mergers worked good for x" shouldnt be taken too seriously by the original poster imho. While theres no doubt those mentioned have worked I do think they are a bit removed from what the poster had in mind because all of them have basically been with alliances in a fairly good position before hand with the merger of the two being enough to put them in a position to put some kind of challenge in. He seems more focused merging truly small alliances (and not the big players idea of small, ie like Kal who has tried to argue that he knows what small players go through cos he was NoS iin PaX who started the round small) and as such its a little differnt as we arent looking at resonable alliances, with resonable number of ships, resonable activity and resonable membership numbers instead we are looking at alliances which no doubt have pooe command structures, low number of ships, low membership numbers and low activity and which they require more than two of them to merge to even make the resonable alliance level and as such its not something thats going to be pulled off with just two alliances and for each alliance you add the problems pointed out here grow exponetially.

Basically Kinslayer dont put too much faith in peoples success stories here, it has been pulled off but in differnt circumstances to your own.Only undertake such a project on its own merits and certainly dont try and force it because a failed merger can really set your progress back

Actually I have experiences of both types of mergers.

I was BD hc in round 2 and 3 befre moving to legiona nd then setting up Titans and FAnG with my cohorts.

Small mergers are easier to maintain than big ones imho. As long as one alliance has a decent infrastructure and community.

BD at the end of round 2 had like 10 members. Me with some irc friends who left from an ingame alliance we set up and played round 2 (ARK).

We set up bards and we amde te fundamentals work (defence, attacks, if you dont send defence we don't give defence etc etc).

In round 3 BD must have merge in 4 or 5 different alliances. They worked beause a conditin of each merger was limiting the contol the mering alliance had - we might agree 2 1 hc and a few officers to have a restructure a few months later and remove them if they werent wrking out.

It took BD from the pint of collapse to a flourishing middle alliance with a good core (Most of the memebrs ended up in the "bigger" alliance round 3 and beyond).

I also had the FAnG merger which was also done in fair and cohesive way.

The simple fact is you have to have peopl willing to drive people in teh right direction and you have to know that you have the right infrastructure in place.

[newt]

I would assume kinslayer is talking about merging small alliances - as in, proper small alliances - not big name alliances that you people are obsessed with. I haven't read some of the posts, but its as if you're all thinking kinslayer is about to start a merge between ND and mistu or something.

So most, if not all, of your points are null and void as usual

[Remy]

LCH has a history of merging/cooperation

we have been the internaitonal wing of tot for some time, worked great. This round we merged ingame with HR. Altho this was not a merger in the sense of one new alliance, this is still a good indication of how 2 alliances can work together. FYTFO, being LCH and HR is cooperating nicely, even if we have our seperate command structures still intact. We do defend each other completely, attack together, in fact we operate as one.

So, my piece is: merging or at least cooperating in the same ingame alliance is very fruitfull. You have of course to consider who to merge with.

Wether this is smart 2 weeks before ticks end i dont know, i think the effect is very limited at this point.

[Rumad]

Originally Posted by Newt

I would assume kinslayer is talking about merging small alliances - as in, proper small alliances - not big name alliances that you people are obsessed with. I haven't read some of the posts, but its as if you're all thinking kinslayer is about to start a merge between ND and mistu or something.

So most, if not all, of your points are null and void as usual

i would presume a alliance starting with 10 ppl to be rater small

[Kjeldoran]

Originally Posted by Newt

I would assume kinslayer is talking about merging small alliances - as in, proper small alliances - not big name alliances that you people are obsessed with. I haven't read some of the posts, but its as if you're all thinking kinslayer is about to start a merge between ND and mistu or something.

So most, if not all, of your points are null and void as usual

maybe you should stop being an *** and read the posts before you reply. Most pple here have told THEIR opinion on merging. Kingslayer asked for OPINIONS, he didn't specify what type of merger or anything. We just answer his thread the way we think we could give him a decent answer.
But then, as always, someone like you have to run by and has to simply ruin a thread.

If you read my post, I was takling about FA and nG, both small alliances, as in proper small alliances - not big name alliances that we pple are obsessed with....

read the thread, then reply

[JC]

Originally Posted by Kjeldoran

***

Cant remember a 3 letter word being on the censor list.

Git
Dog
Cat
Mat
Hat
Pat
Tit
Tat

P.S. Most mergers tend to fail, you just never hear about them because they are failures. The number of successful mergers could problem me counted on 1 hand.

[Seth Mace]

The size of the alliance should have no real implication towards the eventual success of a merger imo. If the leadership undertaking the main control of the merger is good enough, then there shouldnt be a problem.

I make that comment based on various scenarios, from HR joining Nos/ Sedition/ GII as a wing (which could be considered as some kind of merger, due to HR handing over military & political direction) and also HR having smaller alliances (such as TOA & SH) merge into us and also larger mergers scenarios, such as ICD (many will say ICD didnt merge but from my pov it was a merger) who joined our ranks. Even more recently was the merger of Ety into HR and ofc, as has been mentioned by remy, HRs relationship with LCH this round is certainly "closer" then usual alliances.

I suppose the defining quality in regards to success, is if both parties are aiming for the same thing. From my experiance, smaller allies merge because they want to experience a greater sense of scale and to improve their chances of game achievement.

I dont agree with your comment about most mergers failing JC, although its possible these types are less likely to be known about, the core ideal of mergers is to improve membership & firepower and most mergers usually succeed at this. (unless the merger causes masses of members to leave in protest and results in the alliance having a smaller memberbase)

So Kinslayer, in response, yes, many alliances have merged and probably considered it. There has also been cases of "known" players leaving their alliance and trying to form a new alliance, consisting of the many small allies in the universe. There has also been people attempting what you are trying to do, although i'm unsure how this worked out. Anyway, good luck in your attempts at this and if you want any advise then feel free to pop in #hr and i'll try my best to help you

Test: ass, nob

[JC]

Originally Posted by Seth Mace

.
I dont agree with your comment about most mergers failing JC, although its possible these types are less likely to be known about,

I cant think of too many high profile failures apart from Guild, but then again i cant think of too many successes apart from FAnG and erm BD and someone else, my memory is awful . Anyways, back in r4/5 when i was a n00b in small alliances i heard of and was involved with quite a few mergers, only one of which was successful creating eXcessum which i'm sure nobody apart from myself and Newt have heard of.

[Seth Mace]

Well i suppose u need to define what you mean by success m8, as i've had first hand experience of successful mergers (as i mentioned b4) from a point of view of increased membership, extended community and a more powerful military.

[Kjeldoran]

a s s

[Seth Mace]

Hmm, it didnt censor it for me? Unless you censored it?

[General Martok]

The forums have teh ability to learn stuff I guess. It's a matter of time before all Kjel's posts consist of solely stars ^_^.

But back on topic: From the mergers I can recall, most succeeded indeed. Fusion has a disadvantage too though, it weakens the identity of the orniginal alliance(s). After I read Seth Mace's post (geez sooo many fusions with HR?) I get the impression that HR has no real identity of its own, members all coming from different small alliances, fusion after fusion....

[Seth Mace]

Thats an interesting thing you comment on but then what is identity? How does an alliance obtain one? Alliances are a community of people and are a community because they share common beliefs and cultural norms. I can say that the foundations of HR have evolved over the rounds and that all those mergers took place over different periods after HRs formation end of Round 2. So while it may seem chaotic and wild, the mergers were a progression to enforce the core ideals and membership of HR and imo, only strengthen the identity of it.

I'm sure if you speak with ex-HRers they will have a good idea of what HR was about and I would hope that deep down inside, they have that wolfy spirit howling loud

HRs identity has always been fiercely protected (just take the arrangment with NoS as an example of that), the mergers were infact made to protect the identity, mainly due to sustain the life through expanded membership. I would like to think the main reason we have so many instances of ex-members returning, is because they enjoyed the community (and inturn identity) or HR so much.

I'm sure this applies to a lot of alliances and that the identity you may attach to an alliance, would probably be of a different flavour if you had first had experience within its doors.

[newt]

god you're a retard kjeldoran.

[Sevrok]

Originally Posted by Kinslayer

Has anyone considered merging small alliances together?
I would like to hear from anyone who is interested in forging a new alliance from several less powerful ones.

i would be interested in such a merger but i would need to ensure the identiy of my alliance remaind as we are a small but close knit alliance at the moment looking to expand, but there are few alliance who value the concept of honour as highly as we do, we have been known to eject members for carrying our dishonourable acts!

[Kjeldoran]

another little yet overly important issue when merging is the name. I know itt sounds dull and pple probably think a name is just that, a name ...

But often it is a point where the alliances that wanna merge argue about alot. Do we invent a new name? do we put the abbreviation of the names together (like FA+nG) or do we keep one of the names of the alliances involved?

During r5, phnx and FA wanted to merge and it didn't work cause Hinch insisted on keeping the name FA, while phnx didn't wanna play under a different name, which ofc is understandable.


Newt, ask anyone who read this post, then realize that everyone here will agree you're the bigger ****** (I muted that myself)

[Barrow|Pony]

"you're a retard!"

"No, you're a retard!!"

"oh yeah? well you're a retard!!"

"oh yeah? well my daddy can beat up your daddy!"

[Seth Mace]

No i totally agree with that Kjeldoran, the little superficial details can destroy such merger plans, another common one usually revolves around the CEO position. If both allies have a leader/CEO, whose position obviously becomes threatened and they may not want to compramise with the formation of a council.

[newt]

My own experience having been a HC of various "small" alliances that got involved in mergers, is that theyre generally very easy to do between 2 alliances. Difficulties arise if its 4 or 5 that are merging.

Oh, and kj: the biggest difference between me and you (apart from the obvious lack of wit and brain power on your part) is that I try my hardest to be a twat on these all important forums - to you it just comes naturally.

[wakey]

Originally Posted by Newt

My own experience having been a HC of various "small" alliances that got involved in mergers, is that theyre generally very easy to do between 2 alliances. Difficulties arise if its 4 or 5 that are merging..

As much as you lot are slagging Newt off he is simply correct, the numbers involved especially at the kind of low level we are talking about is a major issue. As Newt says merging 2 maybe 3 alliances at once has enough potential problems, merging 4, 5, 6 + alliances is a total nightmare thats almost impossible. As i've already said the only way to really pull this off with true small alliances is if you have an alliance involved who is either at or close to reaching the stage of being a meduim alliance (ie and alliance with a resonable amount of members, a resonable score and solid if not spectular command structure in place) who can imposs themselves as kind of 'dictators' at the start to force things through, otherwise if they are all at roughly the same level your dealing with pitfall after pitfall where theres simply no way to resolve the issues because you have no obvious dominate force keeping things on track.

And most people here are still using the "big alliance" definition of small which lets be honest is differnt to the. Just go look at posts by people in big alliances such as Kal , you will see their definition of small is basically any alliance between ranks 10-20 with pretty much everyone outside that not even counting as an alliance in their eyes. YET its these 'none' alliances which are the true small alliances and the alliances that Kinslayer himself runs and the alliances hes looking to bring together and theres really not that many success stories with these kind of alliances even though theres been hundreds of such mergers.

The success stories on here are simply all involving at least one party whom is at the next level up.

FAnG - Dont know much about nG but FA certainly had resonable numbers and a resonable command (if not a little suicidal when hinch was in charge, he really would have fitted right in at hirr )
HR - Certainly not small recently, and many of the mergers from earlier on were into resonable alliances
ICD - there was small fry involved (such as Souses alliance) but some involved, -=42=- stand out as the obvious ones here were fairly resonable alliances. Also it spent much of its time, certainl;y at the start as more of a block than a merger as those involved kept their own command.
ND - Not small
BD/UV - Were both resonable sized alliances and as youve pointed out they took their time merging and hence it became nataural for members when it happened. With smaller alliances this is harder to pull off, you need the power of one there and then else by the time you do merge some of them have been forced to disband and most of their member will have gone by the time it goes through
TFD/Rock - beither really small alliances

The mergers that truely work and we hear about are ones where one or both parties had something going for them already, not where both parties were struggling and had nothing going for them. And how many of the mergers above actually involved more than one alliance at once, very few of them and those who have have generally taken the "allies' route first while the alliances slowly intergrate into each other. True small alliance dont have time, they need to do the merger because they need the security of having enough members to be basically be self sufficient, this isnt really acheiveable working as allies yet merging the many alliances needed to get the desired numbers has the "too many cooks" problem

[Gerbie]

Originally Posted by wakey

TFD/Rock - beither really small alliances

I think TFD had around 10 members. Rock around 40. I think that still qualifies as small.

[JC]

40 members is not small.

[General Martok]

Originally Posted by wakey

TFD/Rock - beither really small alliances

could you say what you mean? either or neither?

[JC]

Either would make no sense. B is next to N. Wakey is well known for having fat fingers . So i think its pretty obviously 'neither'.

[General Martok]

Oh I missed Gerbie's and your reply.

Anyways, at the start of Pax TFD had 20 and Rock 30 members, including several inactives. Effectively we had 16 and 25 members or so... We didn't kick the inactives ingame, because the lower you sink on the alliance rank list, the harder it is to recruit....

So we WERE both small alliances. Without ROCK, we would have disbanded TFD a round earlier...

[Seth Mace]

I think one factor that has been overlooked so far (i think), is that i doubt there are lots of new players who are keen to develope their alliance, as there were in the earlier rounds. I know thats not such a big statement to make (as its pretty obvious?) but what i'm trying to get at is the current climate would probably make small mergers that more difficult.

In R3, HR had SH and TOA merge into it and this happened the same week, HR itself was only about 15 members (although highly active). We had been scouting around pa for such small alliances that had level headed leaders and a decent core of members. There were lots and lots of small alliances back then and every1 seemed to have some kind of hunger to progress in the game.

I just can't imagine smaller alliances finding like-minded people to merge with, so many of the current community members consider PA dead and far too many look back to previous rounds like they were gods gift to gamers. Going slightly off topic, is it just me who thinks the game is just as it has always been, except with a smaller and more bitter community? All the current talk of cheaters, bashers, dis-honourable players & blocks that floats about, like this hasn't been going on since day1 in some form or another? The only difference is that you hear about it more often and the "bad" players dont get away with their nasty deeds as much.

To sum up the ramblings, i can't help but feel empathy towards players like kinslayer, who seem to show a genuine desire to make more out of the game and i seriously hope you pull it off too.

[wakey]

Originally Posted by General Martok

Oh I missed Gerbie's and your reply.

Anyways, at the start of Pax TFD had 20 and Rock 30 members, including several inactives. Effectively we had 16 and 25 members or so... We didn't kick the inactives ingame, because the lower you sink on the alliance rank list, the harder it is to recruit....

So we WERE both small alliances. Without ROCK, we would have disbanded TFD a round earlier...

30 members isnt really small, even 20 with the Infrostrcuture that TFD had behind them pushes them above the normal small alliance.

[General Martok]

Originally Posted by wakey

30 members isnt really small, even 20 with the Infrostrcuture that TFD had behind them pushes them above the normal small alliance.

A good website and a decent irc-network doesn't get your members defence, and doesn't cover attacks. Not to forget the VERY bad nightcoverage.. What alliances do YOU consider small then? PA-team?

I don't know your standards of small alliances, but it seems you confuse them with bad-organised alliances.

[Kjeldoran]

Originally Posted by wakey

30 members isnt really small, even 20 with the Infrostrcuture that TFD had behind them pushes them above the normal small alliance.

FA nor nG had any structure, infrastructure or anything. FA didn't even play r6 and nG was just a group of friends. Then again it wasn't what you'd call a merger but still ...

[§pa¢e¢ook¦e]

merging or helping eachother as 1 ingame alliance is a big difference, from my experiences a merger can be very hard to accomplisch compared to sharing def/att fleets and maybe even an easier/better solution then merging with another alliance and you can always try out this round to see with whom you might wanna merge with if you are thinking bout merging.

[Rumad]

Originally Posted by Kjeldoran

maybe you should stop being an *** and read the posts before you reply. Most pple here have told THEIR opinion on merging. Kingslayer asked for OPINIONS, he didn't specify what type of merger or anything. We just answer his thread the way we think we could give him a decent answer.
But then, as always, someone like you have to run by and has to simply ruin a thread.

If you read my post, I was takling about FA and nG, both small alliances, as in proper small alliances - not big name alliances that we pple are obsessed with....

read the thread, then reply

I do blieve our starting playerabse after merger was 48!

[hinchles]

OI i am not suicidal !!

[Jonas]

Originally Posted by Kinslayer

I'm actually quite new to PA, and was wondering if an alliance merge was feasible. I did honestly think that uniting alliances was a good way to improve chances of survival - the more allies, the ppl to help defend you, help you attack, etc.

The bigger you get, the bigger your enemies get. A merge can be done, but it would take you to a new level of organised incomming etc. Im a fan of merging tho, but it needs planning.

[Axis_WLF]

Talk to forest about how to get a last stand going. He died like custer but gathered peeps together in a whiny save the planet and whales kinda way. "remembers nazi posters with Legion/Fury in them etc"