Alliance of the Year: N/A. It's really hard to say which alliance really highlighted this year. I know plenty of people voted TKR, and they have indeed played an integral role in winning against IQ during the Trail of Tiers, but the rest of the year has just been relatively uneventful.
Most Powerful Alliance: NPO/TKR. It's not just because they're both the top alliances of the game – they're also seen as the leaders of their own blocs, and NPO has grown from a sort of shared leadership position with other alliances like BK and Zodiac to one that basically dominates the bloc. NPO clearly isn't an alliance to mess with, either; they would be a difficult opponent in the next war, if it even happens this year.
Best Military: Guardian. They've always performed consistently in wars, but not that active to be really relevant in current politics. They're kind of just the muscle in EMC. I'm sure most people (some of them ex-Mensans) don't really care about the game at all. Arrgh actually comes close due to their pure pirating skills; they've shown they can do plenty of damage in their multiple conflicts.
Best Rookie Alliance: N/A. I want to say it's KT but I can't vote for my alliance lol.
Best Flag: Arrgh. Arrgh!
Best War Flag: Same as above.
Most Active Alliance: Same as above.
Most Honorable Alliance: KT TKR. Only because they like to play as the honorable ally. It's not a good or bad thing.
Most Improved Alliance: Rose. Markedly improved over the years and in the Trail of Tiers has shown that they can give a good fight.
Best Diplomatic Team: Rose. Not much to say.
Best Alliance Growth: Arrgh. They've made a greater presence in recent days and have given us some action when there was none for months after waiting for a war.
Best Forums: BK. Not that many alliances really use them anyway, but at least BK has a pretty good looking one.
Alliance Most Likely to Succeed in 2018: N/A. RIP self votes.
Most Controversial Alliance: BK. Completely switched sides from Syndisphere (now EMC) and got a lot of flak afterwards for their FA mishaps.
Best Alliance for New Players: GotG. A little bit of everything; a fairly active community, fairly large size, solid IQ alliance so you may potentially get to see some fighting. For the EMC side it'll have to be TKR, mostly because they're more of a mass recruiting alliance compared to its other allies.
Most Missed Alliance for 2017: TEst. May you live on in our hearts forever.
Player of the Year: Ripper. Generally likable and a very influential member to Arrgh and to the P&W community in general with all the projects he undertakes, namely Orbis Oracle and the P&WBall Comics.
Most Powerful Player: Roquentin. Basically the leader of IQ, the largest bloc in the game in terms of sheer quantity.
Best Alliance Leader: Apeman. Doesn't give a crap about other's opinions and actually tries to make moves. Points to Partisan for trying to change things, too.
Most Controversial Player: Dubayoo. The guy that revived baseball, and also the guy that gets a lot of like and hate for his opinions.
Best Player Avatar: Insert Name Here. Equines > basically everything else
Nicest Player: Ameyuri. Anime-lover, cool and likable, she's basically Zeebrus 2.0 but she's extremely underrated. I feel like more people should get to know her. I won't really consider Aris to be as nice (he's a lot more straightforward), but he deserves an honorable mention, at least to the people from the Pantheon discord channel.
Funniest Player: Zeebrus. Almost as likable as Ame and writes a lot of hilarious random stories.
Most Active Player: Ameyuri. Ripper is close but she's basically in every alliance chatroom and active as hell. Some people like Kezan, Dubayoo, Ryleh, or even Hydraik and Cuppy deserve honorable mentions.
Player Most Likely to Achieve Greatness in 2018: Dayne. Former GotG gov, now in AIM. He's relatively new compared to some other people, but he's come a long way and I've known him very well. I hope he makes a greater presence in this game. Ameyuri should also deserve a mention but I don't want to nominate too much of the same person lol.
Best New Addition to the Community: Squiddy/Megumin. Enjoyable Panth member and has a really cool nation theme.
Most Entertaining Discord Channel: Pantheon.
Biggest Meme: Catsby. Though he has made a turn for the better in recent days.
Most Hated Poster: ComradeMilton. He unfortunately isn't very well liked outside of BK whether it's in the Debate sections or outside of it.
Most Missed Player: Prefontaine. The end of a legend.
Worst Alliance of the Year: The Communist International. Just because I hate communism and they kind of suck as an alliance. If it wasn't for NPO they would be in the dumps, kind of like a North Korea-China relationship. Getting couped just shows how bad it is.
Worst Military of the Year: UPN. They're not particularly impressive and did lackluster in the Trail of Tiers, though to be fair getting flak from their own allies doesn't help them.
Worst Diplomatic Move: BK's cancellation with R&R. Not really a bad move but how it was executed just really hurt their PR.
Most Inactive Large Alliance: Guardian. Again, they're just kind of...there. Basically just the muscle of EMC. Doesn't really do much diplomatically.
Alliance Most Likely to Fail in 2018: Lordran. It's just switched too many hands and is starting to become a former shell of itself, sadly. Was way better when Kastor or Chidz was leading it.
Worst Player of the Year: Killzbob. When couping one alliance isn't enough...
Worst Nation Setup: Whale setups. Don't need to explain why.