Accepting powerblocks and still keeping the round fun

[Salomo]

I. Introduction

Over the past rounds there have been endless debates against powerblocks, initiatives from players and creators to stop powerblocking, and yet this round again massive blocks are developing. Since it seems we can't stop powerblocking itself, perhaps it is time to accept the fact that there will allways be powerblocks and find ways to keep the round fun despite those blocks.

I think t is very well possible to have a very fun and relatively open round despite powerblocks. In round 6 e.g. there have been very large, massive powerblocks, and yet many people enjoyed that round and like to look back to it. Hence I will use this round as evidence for this paragraphs initial statement and try to analyse based on that round how to keep the round fun anyway.


II. Analysis of r6

Initially in round 6, as in fact seems to have been the case in most rounds, there were two main blocks lead by the strong, established (dominant) alliances (Xeta and Furgion). What was different from most previous rounds however was, that the weaker and less established alliances did not run to the side of those large blocks to try to join them, but instead opened their own block (FoS). This turned out to be an essential decision for the fun in the round: Through not more or less equally dividing themselves upon the two blocks and hence not further balancing the scale between the two main blocks they were able to tip the balance in favour for xeta. Through teaming together and building their own fairly large block they were able to maintain enough political independence to later leave Xeta united, again changing the balance of power.

I believe it is this possibility of changes in the balance of power that provided fun in r6. Through this change in the powerbalance the members of every block were on the winning side at one point or another, and hence hardly anyone was continously bashed without chance for recovering and very few people were bored to death by attacking completely bashed targets in the second half of the round.

Another important factor in my opinion was the internal division within FoS, although that in the end didn't effect the round too much. FoS in reality was not one united block of alliances, but actually a "block of blocks". NoS, Cell and WP essentially were one block, hirr, ND, and Deus essentially were another block, and within that block hirr/ND probably were even closer to each other than to deus, yet all blocks united themselves together into one block (but without loosing their individual blocks). Through this fact it was theoretically possible to split up FoS block, as the alliances weren't overly mixed in the FoS galaxies.

I believe it was this possibility of splitting that again increased the fun in the round, as it allowed Xeta to maintain hope. If they would have been able to break FoS block up the balance of power would have again been tipped in their favour.
This fact made all members of the block dependant on each other, as that was their only chance of keeping their power.

Based on above it seems the best way to keep the round fun despite powerblocks is to strive for easily changeable balances of power. But how is it possibly to achieve this?


III. Transfering r6 conclusions to the game in general

The most obvious solution of course would be to make sure that there are several aproximately equally strong blocks that ally with each other according to their needs with the goal of continuously tipping the balance of power to their favour. Due to shared galaxies and the resulting strong binding between powerblock members that share galaxies this however would basically be very similar to having no powerblocks at all but individual alliances with different rather autonomous wings fighting (with the difference that it is possible to switch powerblocks/"quasi-alliances"). In the past we have seen that this concept of indiidual alliances fighting doesn't work out as strongly united blocks are stronger and hence strong alliances strive for ever bigger and more united blocks in order to emerge as winner at the end of the round. Alliances would most likely strive to get heir basic block bigger and stronger than the rest, and/or ally with weaker blocks in order to maintain a dominant position within their superblock. So eventhough the alliance-> block -> superblock situation would give alliances the advantage of being able to switch blocks in between rounds (an advantage compared to all alliances fighting on their own) it would be ilusionary that quasi-alliance fighting would work out any better than individual alliance fighting. Hence we need a different aproach to achieve this.

The main factor preventing alliances/quasi-alliances from working out is the individual desires of alliances to be the strongest force and win the round. Therefore the best way to find a solution seems to be to use these individual desires to construct something better.

The easiest way for the strongest and well established alliances to win the round seems to be constructing a block around themselves which they dominate. In return for their dominant position and victory, they offer smaller and less established alliances the hope for a small share of that victory and the possibility to establish themselves. But do these small alliances really gain from this?

When talking about r6 does anyone recall the round by saying "remember how TFD kicked Furgions arse?" "Remember how ToT payed Xeta back in the end?" - At least i haven't seen that so far. Instead the victory is usually atributed to the dominant alliance(s) within the block. Yes, of course sometimes people also talk about Xeta owning FLTVT, but less dominant alliances more or less drown within those abreviations and hardly get any credit for their blocks victory.

Has any smaller and less established alliance ever gotten stronger and more established through being in a block? Yes, Virus has. Through their alliance with Fury they moved up in the hierarchy from an alliance being proud of winning against SL together with TFD, to an alliance strongly integrated into one of next rounds stronger blocks, fighting more prestigeous enemies. But do you know how many rounds of arse-fking Virus had to suffer in order to achieve this? Putting it a bit extremely, they were the rubbish Fury stood on to get bigger. Fury in the end did help Virus establish itself as an alliance, but for the price of their dignity.

To sumarise: The dominant alliances in a block strongly profit from their position, gaining in prestige, political weight, and hence ultimately power, while the small alliances gain relatively little and are hardly able to improve.

The logical consequence seems to be that it is best for smaller alliances to rather block with each other instead of joining the blocks or dominant alliances. However, looking of the irrelevance (on a larger scale) of blocks like damien in r4 or auld/core, this has not granted the desired results so far. The only block that has so far led the "lesser" alliances to victory has been FoS.

So what did FoS do differently than damien and the other similar attempts? The answer is quite simple imo: It used its political weight.

To use your political weight you need to have some first though. Political weight imo consists of 3 main aspects: The power to change the outcome of the round, political connections, and propagandistic power over the masses. Ultimately it is your political connections that are the deciding factor, as they are your medium for using your weight. The power to change the outcome of the round imo is the most important factor of these though, as through this power political relation can easily be created as other blocks will want you to fight on their side and will hence establish connections. It is the lever you need to move the other alliance with your weight. Controlling the masses helps both aspects, as on one hand an alliance is likelier to negotiate positively with an alliance/block they like, and since if you can create the impression that you have power over the outcome of the round you can compensate actual lacks in that power.

So how can the "lesser" alliances (lesser is in no way meant negatively btw, but it is the best fitting term as those alliances i mean in fact usually have less members, less firepower, less political weight, etc.) obtain more political weight? Imo there are two main possibilities for that:

First of all the block or Blocks of "lesser" alliances need to have some seriousness about themselves. For this it is important to carefully select who you allow into the block. Usually 4 alliances with 300 members each simply wont be taken seriously if they form a block. 5 alliances with around 100 members, i.e. 5 alliances that know their own limits, will most likely be taken more seriously.

The simplest solution to gain political weight seems to be to simply create a situation where the blocks of the dominant alliances are so evenly matched that in fact both sides need the "lesser" block to make sure they win. This situation however is hard to create, since of course the dominant alliances will do their best to avoid this. Hence we need an alternative.

This is the point where the more dominant, more prestigeous alliances join the game again. By adopting a more dominant or more prestigeous alliance that can bring along some political weight into the block, the "lesser" block can easily gain more political weight. Since this alliance will not be part of the dominant blocks not only does it bring it's political relations and influence on the comunity with it, it also weakens the dominant blocks and increase possibilities of tipping the political balance.

How would that be different from the conventional blocks though? Through internally blocking up with the other lesser alliances in the "lesser" block an equilibrium of power can be created where the more dominant alliance is just as dependant on the sub-blocks of "lesser" alliances as the "lesser" alliances are dependant on the more dominant alliance.
I dare say in FoS Deus was such a dominant alliance that brought along political weight. Due to the internal structure of the block though Deus depended on all the other alliances in the block: hirr/ND were absolutely essential to maintain a balance towards NoS/Cell/WP, and eventhough Deus command would have often loved to kick NoS out that was impossible as that would have meant loosing Cell and WP as well, which FoS could not afford without becomming slaves to the "dominant" blocks, Xeta and Furgion.

Why should a more dominant alliance, that has a safe place in a more dominant block give up that place in return for a place in a weaker block though? Again the answer is simple: Power and prestige (which come hand in hand most often).

If Deus had joined Xeta or Furgion who would remember Deus? How much power would it have had on the doing of Furgion or Xeta? Hardly any, in both cases it would have had more dominant alliances in the block deciding the action, Xanadu in the case of Xeta, Fury/Legion in the Furgion case. The same pretty much applies to NoS, the imo dominant part in the NCW sub-block.

Through joining the "lesser" blocks Deus gained immense power though. It became the dominant alliance in the block, able to get more of it's ideas done than would have been possible if it had gone wth furgion or xeta. On the other hand the fate of Deus was directly linked with hirr/nd and WCN, making each of the blocks able to take away Deus' power. Through that Deus, or the more dominant alliance in general, could be prevented from totally dominating the block and hence giving ND/hirr and WCN more comparative power than they would have had if they had joined one of the dominant blocks.

So in effect the solution seems to be a symbiosis between "lesser" alliances and more-dominant-but-not-quite-dominant alliances, giving both an increase of power and in effect giving the entire block the power that is needed to keep the round open. All alliances in the "lesser" block profit from this, and in fact all of PA profits from the increased fun this provides.

However, the more dominant blocks loose power this way, power which they will of course try to regain. The easiest way to regain this power seems to be to simply destroy the "lesser" block at the beginning of the round so that both blocks can fight the war on their own without the third block possibly profiting from it. The problem with this though is on one hand, that both blocks need to be comparatively equal as otherwise the weaker block would aid its own destruction, and on the other hand, if they are of equal strength they will need the extra influence of the "lesser" block at some point to increase their chances for victory.

Hence the safest way for the more dominant alliances is to try to get the lesser block on its side and try to weaken it as long as it is on their side or try to prevent the switch of sides of the lesser block to the other dominant block untill it is big enough to be able to take on both the remainders of the other dominant block and the lesser block. As in such a situation the powers are divided fairly equally though the round should still remain fairly open.



IV. Concluson



To keep the round fun despite powerblocks we need to create a situation where the balance of power is easy to tip and hence the game remains open for a longer time.

The easiest way to create this is to create a powerblock that, due to consisting of mainly less strong alliances, has less firepower than the main powerblocks of the dominant alliances and hence is no drect threat to the other blocks, but has enough power to help one of the main blocks to victory.

The "lesser" alliances in this "lesser" block obtain this power through building their own block instead of joining the dominant blocks, and through integrating more dominant alliances into their block that despite their relative dominance have relatively little power in the dominant blocks. The "lesser" alliances gain political weight this way, while the adopted more dominant alliance gains more power than it could have within the dominant block. The adopted dominant alliance is kept "under controll" by internal sub-blocks of the less dominant alliances.

This scenario is possible, as in fact it is the most profitable thing for all the involved alliances to do.


It is not the powerblocks that ruin PA, it is the politics surrounding them and the inability or unwillingness of the less dominant alliances to free themselves of their self-imposed servitude.

[Ultramar]

May get round to reading it some time in the next few months

Aint finished my other book yet!

[THE GREAT ONE]

/me kinda thinks salomo has a bias view on rnd 6

it wasn't any more fun than rnd 5 or 7

what makes a fun round is when it is competitive.

1st half of rnd 6 fos + xeta vs furgion was not competitive...

2nd half fos + furgion vs xeta wasn't competitve.

/me suspects fos peeps prob liked rnd 6 since they were on the top side 99-100% of the round

[THE GREAT ONE]

hehe i based that on the fact i don't think i know anyone outside fos who liked rnd 6 btw

and rnd 6 is when a bigger majority than before seemed to quit the game.

(although to be fair in rnd 5 nocex had a bit of an exodus:P)

[Bashar]

I read the whole post, and I am impressed with the sheer length. I thought there were some good points in there too, and it was well thought-out, though I don't agree with some bits of it.

I am not gonna refer to specific bits that I disagree with, cos t would take an eternity to find the quotes, so simply pu:

Powerblocks come about not because they are inevitable, but because most the HC's of most current major alliances are a bunch of pansies who can't stand the thought of standing alone. They like to hide behind a block just so they have an excuse when they themselves underperform (my controversial view).

If these HC asked their alliance members what they thought of blocking, I reckon 90%+ would say "WE WOULD RATHER STAND ALONE"

If they would just grow some guts, powerblocks may come to an end - however, I can't see them growing anything, other than the carefully coloured yellow streak they have.

The whole point of powerblocking is trying to outsize your enemy, and give you the biggest advantage over them that you can get before the round starts.

Dishonourable and cowardly in my opinion.

Anyway, I will now sit back, and await the flames from aforementioned HC's

[Salomo]

Originally posted by Bashar

Powerblocks come about not because they are inevitable, but because most the HC's of most current major alliances are a bunch of pansies who can't stand the thought of standing alone. They like to hide behind a block just so they have an excuse when they themselves underperform (my controversial view).

If these HC asked their alliance members what they thought of blocking, I reckon 90%+ would say "WE WOULD RATHER STAND ALONE"

If they would just grow some guts, powerblocks may come to an end - however, I can't see them growing anything, other than the carefully coloured yellow streak they have.

But since the HCs decide their alliances politics, doesn't exactly this make powerblocks de facto inevitable?

[hAl]

This solution was availalbe in r7 when CAT was created.
It failed.
Nuff said.

hAl

[Salomo]

Originally posted by THE GREAT ONE
hehe i based that on the fact i don't think i know anyone outside fos who liked rnd 6 btw

and rnd 6 is when a bigger majority than before seemed to quit the game.

(although to be fair in rnd 5 nocex had a bit of an exodus:P)

Perhaps my view is indeed biased, but so far i allways had the impression Furgion liked the way that they had the chance of a comeback more than they would have liked the traditional fate of the looser (NoSex r5, the whole universe r3, WaC/Sedition r2) and that Xeta at least enjoyed the first half of the round.

[Salomo]

Originally posted by hAl
This solution was availalbe in r7 when CAT was created.
It failed.
Nuff said.

hAl

How much political weight did CAT have and how did they use it?

[Storebo]

Originally posted by THE GREAT ONE
/me kinda thinks salomo has a bias view on rnd 6

it wasn't any more fun than rnd 5 or 7

what makes a fun round is when it is competitive.

1st half of rnd 6 fos + xeta vs furgion was not competitive...

2nd half fos + furgion vs xeta wasn't competitve.

/me suspects fos peeps prob liked rnd 6 since they were on the top side 99-100% of the round

Well... Before the end of furgion in round 6.. sertain top gals from xeta/fos ran over to furgion side. Furgion was pulling down all main xeta/fos gals in top20 etc.. So the war seemed a bit unsertain for many right before the fall of furgion was for sertain.

And FoS vs XeTa... most people here seem to agree with the fact that XeTa would win. So the war outcome would depend on how beaten down Furgion was, and if XeTa could get NoS/WP over to their side.

Both fights where good fights... and top gals on both sides was brought down. And loyalty was put to the test.

[Bashar]

Originally posted by Salomo
But since the HCs decide their alliances politics, doesn't exactly this make powerblocks de facto inevitable?

It means that as things stand they are I suppose, but it says how I think they could be avoided.

[THE GREAT ONE]

Originally posted by Salomo
Perhaps my view is indeed biased, but so far i allways had the impression Furgion liked the way that they had the chance of a comeback more than they would have liked the traditional fate of the looser (NoSex r5, the whole universe r3, WaC/Sedition r2) and that Xeta at least enjoyed the first half of the round.

hehe who wouldn't like the chance to come back more than getting whooped 100% of round

however i guess that may constitue enjoyment for some.

a lot of xeta probably did enjoy first half of round

and a lot those players mostly joined fos after/just before the split cos they were pussies:P

i don't personally think that enjoying half a round constitutes as a good round, but depends how u gauge it.

/me thinks a round that goes to the end or atleast close to it, in a competitive way = good/enjoyable etc.

when the majority have fun rather than the minority then we have a good round:-)

perhaps if furbies and fos and the traitors from xeta enjoyed it:P

u are right:P

[THE GREAT ONE]

Originally posted by Storebo
Well... Before the end of furgion in round 6.. sertain top gals from xeta/fos ran over to furgion side. Furgion was pulling down all main xeta/fos gals in top20 etc.. So the war seemed a bit unsertain for many right before the fall of furgion was for sertain.

And FoS vs XeTa... most people here seem to agree with the fact that XeTa would win. So the war outcome would depend on how beaten down Furgion was, and if XeTa could get NoS/WP over to their side.

Both fights where good fights... and top gals on both sides was brought down. And loyalty was put to the test.

hehe the prob with this is.... he top xeta and fos gals were pulled down...to be replaced only by more top fos gals. My friends gal and ex sister gal ended up rank 5 with only 5 active players and still were above anything furgion had and i think anything xeta had also.

fair enuf, maybe that still made furgion enjoy the round, killing and not winning was the furby way after all.

but i disagree that they were both good fights..

first half was total dominance from fos+xeta, which doesn't constitue a good fight....though furgion didn't give up as much as nocex previous round, so credit for fighting on atleast.

2nd half most xetas either jumped ship or gave up, which left us with a small core.....who fought hard but at the end of the day, it still aint a good fight, we were dominated by the opposition.

[Teh_Necro]

i seem to recall a certain furgion exec in the begining of round 6 saying: -

"The reason we have not been hitting XeTa top 10 gals is because they have none ".

This was said to their members after the first initial weeks on confrontation between XeTa and Furgion, although for about a few days b4 attacks this was the case, shows quite clearly which block was farming the most . Once attacks started flying things were quite balanced, however the tide most certainly did not turn untill FoS started military operations.

And to the fella who said only FoS ppl had fun in r6, i loved r6, not as much as r4 admitedly, but it was most certainly an interesting round, certianly the best P2P round so far.

-Necro

[THE GREAT ONE]

/me didn't say only fos peeps

/me just implied that generally fos peeps would enjoy it where others wouldn't

[Hardin]

I agree with most of what u say Salomo.

Imo it is only when a particular block gets an unassailable advantage over the rest of the universe that we end up with stagnation. It is not blocks in themselves that evil.

As you have pointed R6 featured some nicely fought battles and R8 did also (and there was blocks in both)!

[Colt]

Originally posted by Hardin
I agree with most of what u say Salomo.
Imo it is only when a particular block gets an unassailable advantage over the rest of the universe that we end up with stagnation. It is not blocks in themselves that evil.

[Faberius]

Originally posted by Salomo
How much political weight did CAT have and how did they use it?

This seems to be a little known fact, but CAT broke up about a week or 2 into the round.

The chance to use any political weight(which was fairly large for our size) was irretrievably lost.

[Waku]

r6 was fun

[Provider]

Originally posted by Teh_Necro

And to the fella who said only FoS ppl had fun in r6, i loved r6, not as much as r4 admitedly, but it was most certainly an interesting round, certianly the best P2P round so far.

-Necro

I'll kick your ugly butt from england to the states and back if you say that round 4 didn't own all

Round 4 was the best.. Galaxy and paralel wise.
Even tho the outcome from round 6 was offcourse alliancewise the best ever for me.

And about FoS..

FoS in reality was not one united block of alliances, but actually a "block of blocks". NoS, Cell and WP essentially were one block, hirr, ND, and Deus essentially were another block, and within that block hirr/ND probably were even closer to each other than to deus, yet all blocks united themselves together into one block (but without loosing their individual blocks). Through this fact it was theoretically possible to split up FoS block, as the alliances weren't overly mixed in the FoS galaxies.

It wasn't even essentially.. Nos, Cell, WP were one block from the start.. And so were ND, Hirr, Deus. However due to XeTa and Furgion we decided that these two blocks would be allied together as being FoS. [Fusion of Six] (later we included Guild into the deal, which made it Fusion of Seven even).

However during the round, altho it might have looked different from the outside there was no reason to split FoS up. And if XeTa had hope in doing this.. Don't know.. XeTa hc's.. answer this one plz ?

[Scouse]

A long post to mostly express common sense, but some good points.

[hook]

Originally posted by Faberius
This seems to be a little known fact, but CAT broke up about a week or 2 into the round.

The chance to use any political weight(which was fairly large for our size) was irretrievably lost.

Exactly.

It's no use to start digging up that old stuff again as to why we split up etc, for various reasons it simply happened.

We were very well aware of the fact we'd be less powerfull and would have less 'political weight' as you like to call it, but some other things were more important at the time being.

What would've happened if CAT exsisted during R6 and would've cooperated nicely? Who knows. We can all go and make up our own little fairy tales about that, but it won't change a thing.

Nevertheless: Very nice post Salomo

[Norseman]

Originally posted by Teh_Necro

And to the fella who said only FoS ppl had fun in r6, i loved r6, not as much as r4 admitedly, but it was most certainly an interesting round, certianly the best P2P round so far.

-Necro

[Nitros]

i havent read it yet...but it 'looks' nice..
ill reply later what i think of it

[Salomo]

Originally posted by Scouse
A long post to mostly express common sense, but some good points.

When common sense isn't applied sometimes people need to be reminded of it



So in that context, anyone disgareeing with the points or will alliances simply adapt it ;-)

[Storebo]

Originally posted by Provider
However during the round, altho it might have looked different from the outside there was no reason to split FoS up. And if XeTa had hope in doing this.. Don't know.. XeTa hc's.. answer this one plz ?

NoS/WP demanded Silver and ldk on a silver plate in order to stay out of the fight.

[gzambo]

well rd 6 was my favourite rd so far and i wasn't in FOS


fun can be had attacking and defending mind u its even more fun when both work for u all the time

[Provider]

Originally posted by Storebo
NoS/WP demanded Silver and ldk on a silver plate in order to stay out of the fight.

Demanded ? Or was offered by Xan/Ely .. Guess that answer depends on who you ask.

[AlbinoSquirrel]

Originally posted by Provider
Demanded ? Or was offered by Xan/Ely .. Guess that answer depends on who you ask.

That's ridiculous - Xan/Ely was NOT that stupid - LDK was worth far, far more than NoS/WP by itself. For Xan/Ely to offer that would be the height of stupidity. It would have eliminated a major attack force on their side, while NoS/WP began to attack them. Without LDK, Xanadu attack skill would take a sharp dive (still admittedly high, but it's commonly held that LDK was the executioner's axe of Xan). Without that edge, Deus/hirr/ND would have had a fighting chance - especially with FLVT assistance, as that was already in place when the war began to break.

Then we would have had reason to kick NoS/WP ass after Xe(ta) had been cut down a few notches.

Dammit, why didn't it happen :P

[Provider]

grin it didn't happen because we aint crazy

and from ldk I agree.. They would have been stupid to do that.. silver was already mostly eaten by xan/ely

[Salomo]

fs, i should have known that using r6 as an example would lead to pure off-topic discussion dominating the thread :-/

[Provider]

okay to return to topic then.. Round 6 has showed us that it aint needed to form a big third powerblock.. Allying two smaller blocks into one powerblock is enough.. less struggle and maybe more fun (because in that powerblock itself it's kinda hard sometimes).

what's the difference? that two "enemies" can decide to work together as long as needed.. Makes forming that "third powerblock" easier.. (it's more a nap between two smaller blocks then an alliance, powerblocking with shared gals etc)

[aza1]

A great post Salomono, the most quality thread i have read on ad in a while.

I like your points on smaller alliances and prestige they gain from their positioning in blocks.

Very true, yet something i had never really considered or realised tbh till you pointed it out.

[RooKie]

I totally agree with your thread, Salomo. HCs should take responsabillity to get a good fight, its in all ppls intrest as a ever shrinking uni is the death of PA. Its a win-win situation.

Originally posted by Bashar
Powerblocks come about not because they are inevitable, but because most the HC's of most current major alliances are a bunch of pansies who can't stand the thought of standing alone. They like to hide behind a block just so they have an excuse when they themselves underperform (my controversial view).

We all know there will be blocks, unless we all come together one time and agreed to not do it. That didnt happen pre round to r9, so question was the compositions of groups and to make as many intresting groups to make it a fun round for most.

Will we get it this time...?

[Silva baby]

how bout this then to haev powerblocks rite? to have around 4 similar in size and skill type power blocks and get them to consider everyone hostile i mean everyone. Imagine if say in rd 6 Deus Nd and Hirr was allied with ToT and Titans , and that Nos Wp Cell got Silver from its peak at the beginnin of rd 6 would it hypotheticalli lead to a 2 way war with these two blocks ( note i kno the no and skill level are not rite but just consider them balanced at thsi point in time) is it at all possible? and will fun still happen?

[Teh_Necro]

I think in round 6 FoS were always comfortable with the fact that the two large entities would not work together simply through hate. I know many of the silver members had been goated in r5 or had been backstabbed by Furgion.

Elysium and Xanadu were both on the look out for revenge and TFD were always loyal to Xan at that point. So there was no risk in that. Is that the case this round? I know theres a lot of political tension between the blocks this rnd on the forums, but can the same not be said for the Deus and Fury members who argued on these very same boards in round 6 and then allied up in order to win. A third block is a nice idea, one that i would welcome and have indeed been promoting, however i think paranoia will be 1 of the largest factors to it not working succesfully and most of the third block being inter-laced into the WEE gals (seeing as their welcoming neutral entities into their galaxies).

BtW Silver was barley an alliance once the FoS attacks started so i can see why WP/NoS would of wanted to hit us, joke is it would of been pretty much impossible as many of us were in xan/ely gals.

If we had still been at our full strength as we were at the start of the round i'd of gladly taken on NoS/WP with LDK as my ally .

-Necro

[AlbinoSquirrel]

Originally posted by RooKie
I totally agree with your thread, Salomo. HCs should take responsabillity to get a good fight, its in all ppls intrest as a ever shrinking uni is the death of PA. Its a win-win situation.

So then I take it that you were against the Virus/Oly/Madcows alliance agreement?

[Hurragutten]

Originally posted by Silva baby
Hirr

Hey, I was the first to comment the spelling: hirr

\o/

Originally posted by Salomo
the weaker and less established alliances did not run to the side of those large blocks to try to join them, but instead opened their own block (FoS).

Any comments WP/NoS?

Respect for a very good thread Salomo

[Hala]

Some good points Salmo, unfortunatly the problem is exactly the same reason we get powerblocks in the first place, the fact that the majority of players want to win, and as such, alliance HC's go out and get allies to increase the prospects of victory, because that is their obligation as HC. And this has a mirror effect in that their enemy sees they're outgunned so they go and get alliances to ally to them, and naturally one of them is able to lure more to their side.

Two blocks would work fine if in numbers and skill both sides were roughly even, unfortunatly it seems like every round, one side is overly dominate in either department.

Round 5, Furgion was quite a bit larger than Nocex, plus had some handy intel ;p
Round 6, XETA-FoS was far larger than Furgion, then FoS-Furgion was much larger than XETA.
Round 7, Furgion was much larger than NEWX
Round 8 is perhaps the closest we've come to an even round, helped by the fact it was random, hence why we saw the war lasting so long, and some interesting political manovering just before the round ended which would have probably extended the war until the orund end.

Its human nature to want to win, and as such most alliances are going to do what their members want and attempt to firstly get allies, and if their opponents do the same, get an overwhelming majority, and naturally those on the side are going to be more inclined to join on the side which initially looks superior because they want to win as well, and as such we get unbalanced sides.

Is their a solution? The only obvious one is to change human nature, and change the whole purpose of the game, as long as their is competition their is going to be things like powerblocks, whatever guise they take, and I don't know what can be done apart from trying to get a balance on each side, but thats very difficult to achieve.

That said, not everyone plays to win, and not everyone who plays to win agrees in powerblocks, as we saw with RaH last round who stayed neutral, and I think others such as ND and Hirr probably believe the same, but on the whole most alliances want to win and will gravitate towards powerblocks.

[Salomo]

Originally posted by Silva baby
how bout this then to haev powerblocks rite? to have around 4 similar in size and skill type power blocks and get them to consider everyone hostile i mean everyone.

The problem with that imo is that it is rather artificial. Why would a powerblock that can get bigger and stronger than other or that can team up with another block keep the powerblocks equal when not doing that seems more profitable?

I think the important point in my "scenario"/"suggestion" is that all alliances do what is best for themselves, do what gains them most direct power and prestige, and through that automatically do whats best for the game (at least as long as no one prooves my idea wrontg in that regard).

The most dominant alliances optimise their chances for power and prestige by building strong blocks around them. In those dominant blocks the less dominant alliances gain hardly anything, hence it is better for most of them to build their own block that has power over the others by being able to tip the balance, so this way all involved alliances can still do what is best for them to gain power and prestige and the possibilitiy to win the round.

[Salomo]

Originally posted by Hala
Its human nature to want to win, and as such most alliances are going to do what their members want and attempt to firstly get allies, and if their opponents do the same, get an overwhelming majority, and naturally those on the side are going to be more inclined to join on the side which initially looks superior because they want to win as well, and as such we get unbalanced sides.

Is their a solution? The only obvious one is to change human nature, and change the whole purpose of the game, as long as their is competition their is going to be things like powerblocks, whatever guise they take, and I don't know what can be done apart from trying to get a balance on each side, but thats very difficult to achieve.

Maybe you didn't read attentively enough, maybe i didn't explain it well enough...

I understand that it is human nature to want to win, especially in competitive games. This desire obviously can't be fought by "moral"-claims (like "You're ruining the round with powerblocks so don't do it"), so instead of fighting it we need to use it to make the rounds better.

Using human behaviour to the benefit of the game is what my idea is attempting, exactly due to this fact that human behaviour can hardly be changed.

[Salomo]

Originally posted by Provider
okay to return to topic then.. Round 6 has showed us that it aint needed to form a big third powerblock.. Allying two smaller blocks into one powerblock is enough.. less struggle and maybe more fun (because in that powerblock itself it's kinda hard sometimes).

what's the difference? that two "enemies" can decide to work together as long as needed.. Makes forming that "third powerblock" easier.. (it's more a nap between two smaller blocks then an alliance, powerblocking with shared gals etc)

I agree with you, as long as the smaller powerblocks realise that it is in their interest to rather form a third block with considerable power on the outcome of the round itself (power through flexibility and hence through using the situation to its benefit) and do not simply join the lead of the dominant blocks that may be even better, as that can add even more flexibility and hence even more power to the smaller blocks.

The problems i see with this though are that there is a certain danger of the "third" block loosing political weight if it splits up, and that this way it is harder for them to integrate a more dominant alliance into their block that can bring along political weight (see my original post for further details on why the dominant alliances may be needed and might join) unless it is clear that the "third" block will not simply divide the first chance it gets.

As long as everybody knows where their power lies and thinks about the end-results of the round before doing anything it shouldn't be much of a problem though, and in fact helps controll an integrated more dominant alliance.

[Ferox]

Originally posted by AlbinoSquirrel
That's ridiculous - Xan/Ely was NOT that stupid - LDK was worth far, far more than NoS/WP by itself. For Xan/Ely to offer that would be the height of stupidity. It would have eliminated a major attack force on their side, while NoS/WP began to attack them. Without LDK, Xanadu attack skill would take a sharp dive (still admittedly high, but it's commonly held that LDK was the executioner's axe of Xan). Without that edge, Deus/hirr/ND would have had a fighting chance - especially with FLVT assistance, as that was already in place when the war began to break.

Then we would have had reason to kick NoS/WP ass after Xe(ta) had been cut down a few notches.

Dammit, why didn't it happen :P

Sentiments, nostalgy and proudness. I almost weeped.

[Teh_Necro]

It didn't happen b/c wp/nos did not appreciate how close knit XeTa had become. Although silver was on the rocks the rest of XeTa made plans to save it by absorbing it into Elysium (which it finally did) as opposed to chucking us to a pack of lions .

Also it was WP/NoS asking for them, not XeTa offering them, and to be honest WP/NoS were not in the same leauge as Xanadu and Elysium at the time. So it should of been the other way around in regards to offering allies as payment to join a block.

I was personally against NoS comming to the XeTa block as it would of meant Deus/ND/Hirr + a batterd Fugrion block. Totally unfair.


Although after the war this was not the case

-Necro

[RooKie]

Originally posted by AlbinoSquirrel
So then I take it that you were against the Virus/Oly/Madcows alliance agreement?

Nope. We wanted 2 allies. We got what we wanted and thought others would keep it at 2-3 allies. That didnt happen.

[Haarken]

I don't hear many people insisting that people should send smaller fleets than necessary to gain max roids, or too few ships to cover incoming, do you?

No, I don't think you do, because no alliance would willingly put themselves at a tactical disadvantage yet most people wish for alliances to accept strategic disadvantages "to make the game fun". If an alliance could be sure that no one else would block/nap/ally, they would still go out and find some way to get an advantage, because this is war (well a war game), and being number #1 is the goal.

[AlbinoSquirrel]

Originally posted by RooKie
Nope. We wanted 2 allies. We got what we wanted and thought others would keep it at 2-3 allies. That didnt happen.

Then I don't see you as having any point - your actions deny your words. Hypocrisy.

Most alliances would have stuck to one ally, perhaps two in the case of the smaller and weaker alliances. To ally an established and old alliance, an alliance that contains a large percentage of the "winners" of last round, and a filler alliance into one group is what has forced other alliances to form against you.

Deny all you want. Omega intelligence is far more effective than you can possibly comprehend.

[Not_RIT]

:/

[Teh_Necro]

The major disapointing fact above all is that b/c VoM did it it was ok for WEE to do it?

No instead no larger block should of been formed, instead two blocks consisting of two alliances each should of allied but kept apart to prevent stagnation if or when VoM was defated, this is not the case so ne WEE having a go at VoM can read a nice little piece of the pot calling the kettle black.

-Nercro

[Zh|l]

Originally posted by Teh_Necro
The major disapointing fact above all is that b/c VoM did it it was ok for WEE to do it?

No instead no larger block should of been formed, instead two blocks consisting of two alliances each should of allied but kept apart to prevent stagnation if or when VoM was defated, this is not the case so ne WEE having a go at VoM can read a nice little piece of the pot calling the kettle black.

-Nercro

You are being rather thick here Necro.

VoM have made no real efforts to seperate alliances within their block. If nothing was done VoM would roll over the universe - you have to remember Oly consists of many of the remaining top players within the game, and ViruS is a top alliance nowadays - both are battle hardened, wheres Elysium/Wolfpack arent as used to war as VoM are. Unless you are implying something different than WEE shouldnt have been set up in response - because if you its terribly niave and would have resulted in a highly boring round. If you however imply that WEE is 'bigger' then try not to think numbers mean as much as you think - they have to be really massive and coordinated to some degree to work (Like the entire of the FoS block for example working with Xeta - Furgion was overwhelmed at that point). Nothing of the sort has happened so far.