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10 Aug 2007, 13:47
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#1
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Don't make me declare war
Join Date: Mar 2003
Location: Portsmouth
Posts: 2,913
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Who influences an alliance the most?
Following on from a conversation in which someone stated 'I am not HC so I can't decide what to do', who would you say has the most influence on an alliance, and why?
I feel the HC is there to lead and guide but its the members who influence what it becomes.
For instance, a HC may put a nap in place, but if all members want to attack the napped planets, a hc may be foolish to ignore those wishes.
Do members follow what a hc is (if the hc is inactive then the members are more likely to be), or is it the other way around?
Discuss...
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10 Aug 2007, 13:52
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#2
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Good Son
Join Date: May 2001
Location: Finland
Posts: 3,991
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Re: Who influences an alliance the most?
Nowadays most members, often refered to as mercenaries, have their own agenda and are in pursuit of that over the agenda of the alliance. This makes them little hard to control, and even if a high commander would on surface steer the alliance, a war fought against an enemy a third of your planets is NAPd with is an ackward one.
What comes to lead by example, trash talk, and inspiring speeches, I guess those still have some impact on some members at least. At least when the grammar is good and you can understand, even if mildly drunk, what the high commander is trying to say on the in game mail.
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10 Aug 2007, 14:25
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#3
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mz.
Join Date: Aug 2005
Posts: 8,587
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Re: Who influences an alliance the most?
Power can't be taken, it must be given. The peons in a group have to allow a leader to rise and command them. When the people don't respect the leader, they can choose to disregard his orders, effectively ending his leadership, and possibly replace him or her with someone else.
When the members of an alliance band together, they are easily the most important part of an alliance, and capable of overruling any HC-level decision. However, as always, groups of people are rather useless. They will discuss, disagree, compromise, fight internally, split up, and so forth, leaving them divided and seperated. This gives the leader the chance to forward his own agenda, regardless of how many disagree.
For the same reason, fighting as 1 is much easier than banding together a group of individuals, all with their own goals and ideologies. It's also where the saying "divide and conquer" comes from. If a leader manages to keep his members loyal to him, while slightly distrustful of their fellow peons, he can pretty much do whatever he wants. It works the same way on a higher level. If an alliance can keep its competitors fractured and disagreeing with each other, it can easily take the win.
This works better when people are not too loyal to each other. In the early days, members often stuck together for multiple rounds, allowing for much closer bonding and more intense rounds. Now, people often shift allegiance every single round, in some cases multiple times a round. I am not saying this is necessarily a bad thing, but it does shift the balance of power towards the leaders, be they officers or HCs.
The word 'mercenary' that Keizari used plays a big role as well. People who have no intention of ever helping the alliance, who instead only use their power and protection for their own purposes will greatly weaken an alliance, rendering it next to impossible for them to rally enough manpower to start a war. When this weakness progresses far enough for the alliance to lose it's effectiveness (this is all relative of course: if many alliances experience the same weakness, the scenario doesn't work), the mercenaries will jump ship to another alliance, sometimes taking along some people (more often than not escorters and dedicated defenders), and the cycle starts again.
To summarize, in theory, the members have all the power, and the leaders can only take advantage of that as long as they are granted the respect and loyalty of their peons. In practice, it's hard for any body or group of people to overturn the leader's decision, because they are often in disagreement with each other, which causes them to argue internally, rather than present a unified front.
__________________
The outraged poets threw sticks and rocks over the side of the bridge. They were all missing Mary and he felt a contented smug feeling wash over him. He would have given them a coy little wave if the roof hadn't collapsed just then. Mary then found himself in the middle of an understandably shocked family's kitchen table. So he gave them the coy little wave and realized it probably would have been more effective if he hadn't been lying on their turkey.
Last edited by Mzyxptlk; 10 Aug 2007 at 14:30.
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10 Aug 2007, 20:47
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#4
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;D!
Join Date: Nov 2004
Posts: 1,810
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Re: Who influences an alliance the most?
It's my experience that if strong, skilled leader(s) are available, then they will dominate an alliance. A good leader will generally earn, fluffle or coerce respect into their players and control the alliance.
If the leaders are not good enough, nonexistent, inactive or at loggerheads with each other, then the members may control the alliance.
This is just my own experience, ofc.
__________________
[ND]
Kicked from Ascendancy
Proud to have been a Dark Lord Rising.
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10 Aug 2007, 21:16
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#5
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Retired VGN
Join Date: Nov 2001
Location: In a country without a proper word for "sane"
Posts: 467
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Re: Who influences an alliance the most?
The techie. This is at least true for VGN.
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10 Aug 2007, 21:44
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#6
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Registered User
Join Date: Oct 2003
Location: Norway
Posts: 367
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Re: Who influences an alliance the most?
Then the techie of vgn are the HC
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NewDawn - Soaring where angels fear to fly
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11 Aug 2007, 04:00
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#7
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Bona Fide Jesus Freak
Join Date: Jan 2005
Location: In the Word of the Lord
Posts: 765
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Re: Who influences an alliance the most?
Personally I think an alliance is much better when one or two strong personalities are in charge and make their presence known often. There is an old saying that applies as much to cooking as running an alliance.
"Too many cooks spoil the broth"
__________________
Matthew 24:9 (New International Version) "Then you will be handed over to be persecuted and put to death, and you will be hated by all nations because of me."
Who the hell gave you posrep you christian fundamentalist?
god is bollox, mkay and you are not discussing it
You're not the voice of Christianity di**head.
CT R22-20, [1up] R18-16, TGV R15,
The Illuminati - [NoS] - R14-13
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11 Aug 2007, 07:11
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#8
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h3ll's angels
Join Date: Nov 2006
Location: Chapel Hill, NC
Posts: 273
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Re: Who influences an alliance the most?
uberleet BGs influence alliances the most.
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[18:04] * h3ll has quit IRC (Ping timeout)
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13 Aug 2007, 12:04
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#9
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God
Join Date: May 2001
Posts: 115
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Re: Who influences an alliance the most?
Quote:
Originally Posted by Travler
Personally I think an alliance is much better when one or two strong personalities are in charge and make their presence known often. There is an old saying that applies as much to cooking as running an alliance.
"Too many cooks spoil the broth"
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Spot on imo... Give me a good old Dictatorship any day over a goddam committee where nothing gets decided and nothing gets done.
__________________
We Do Not Exist, so therefore all comments, bitching, misinformation and general sour grapes are irrelevant and treated as such.
/me loves his slaves
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14 Aug 2007, 09:22
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#10
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W00f w00f w00f
Join Date: Jan 2001
Location: Norway
Posts: 319
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Re: Who influences an alliance the most?
I disagree, but mainly based on my own experience. In my opinion the HC is definately the ones who lead and influence, depending on the level of activity of course, but I do not agree that the HC needs a strong personality (at least when decision are to be made). I believe a hc needs the respect from the members to be able to suggest or decide something that most members accept and follow. How you gain the respect is another topic, but I doubt it has anything with being a good player because you need the social (sounds foolish as far as irc goes, i know ) aspect to pull people in your direction. No-one wants to follow a douche, unless they are desperate to win. So i guess after my random ramblings The HC type depends in large on the member base and their type of behavior, and vice versa.
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Woof Woof!
[HR]
Exode
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16 Aug 2007, 19:01
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#11
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Idle Git
Join Date: Aug 2001
Location: Wandering
Posts: 1,550
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Re: Who influences an alliance the most?
Any girls in the alliance, cos all the geeks start drooling and follow them around like loyal puppies. :-)
On a more serious (well, actually not, but potentially more constructive) note, I reckon the officers probably influence it the most. They tend to do most of the grunt work, and if they don't pull their weight then attacks and defence aren't organised (unless HC step in, which they usually don't have the time or inclination to do), and so the alliance turns into a rabble where the members have to do everything for themselves. Ultimately, members are the ones that need things doing, the HC are the ones that decide what gets done and the officers are the ones that actually do it. It's a bit like the population, the politicians and the civil service - the population need the policies, the politicians make the policies and the civil sevants actually implement them.
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Here we go again....
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17 Aug 2007, 05:28
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#12
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mz.
Join Date: Aug 2005
Posts: 8,587
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Re: Who influences an alliance the most?
Poll time!
__________________
The outraged poets threw sticks and rocks over the side of the bridge. They were all missing Mary and he felt a contented smug feeling wash over him. He would have given them a coy little wave if the roof hadn't collapsed just then. Mary then found himself in the middle of an understandably shocked family's kitchen table. So he gave them the coy little wave and realized it probably would have been more effective if he hadn't been lying on their turkey.
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17 Aug 2007, 12:40
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#13
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Guest
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Re: Who influences an alliance the most?
"Other alliances".
You can plan all you want, you can be the best HC or have the best group of members - but (and this is pretty much a given) if other alliances conspire/band against you, the actions of you and everyone in your alliance, regardless of rank, will have to change the style of play/direction of effort - to compensate - based on what other alliances do.
An unsuccessful alliance will ignore what's going on around them and keep their original gameplan and suffer because of this. Yes, you can argue who is largely responsible for this blatant disregard to current affairs - but as argued above it can be down to the HC/Officers/Members to dictate how an alliance performs - but it's other alliances that put them in the position to make that choice.
[/two cents]
Hmm... I take it by saying 'PA Team' would be taking it too far? Or did I cross that line already? :|
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20 Aug 2007, 16:18
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#14
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Registered User
Join Date: Dec 2005
Posts: 936
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Re: Who influences an alliance the most?
The alliances are lead by their command when the alliance is working properly, ofc there can be disagreements by some members on some issues and they need to be heard, but you dont need to follow every wish they make. Members opinions are heard only to re-check your values and the curent situation, it doesnt mean a lot needs to be changed, they just give you suggestions and toughts how they feel.
Sometimes their toughts are good and u develope, tho mostly they aint seeing the bigger picture or your way of thinking behind your acts.
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21 Aug 2007, 12:23
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#15
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Playboy
Join Date: Nov 2001
Location: some bed, in some place, with some girl
Posts: 447
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Re: Who influences an alliance the most?
Quote:
Originally Posted by Dingo
Spot on imo... Give me a good old Dictatorship any day over a goddam committee where nothing gets decided and nothing gets done.
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QFT.
__________________
<Dingo> allies are just temporary friends waiting to become enemies
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21 Aug 2007, 12:25
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#16
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Good Son
Join Date: May 2001
Location: Finland
Posts: 3,991
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Re: Who influences an alliance the most?
Quote:
Originally Posted by Kenny
Hmm... I take it by saying 'PA Team' would be taking it too far? Or did I cross that line already? :|
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No, that's really wrong. It's actually quite the contrarly. Some of the most "legendary" alliance commanders have definately been able to bend the Planetarion team itself (most notoriously, the multihunter squad) into giving them "special permissions".
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