Paladin

Fair points. INQ was supposed to be the winners competing among themselves as 3 of the 4 alliances in it intentionally broke away from Syndi so the game could be more interesting. We are still left with the conundrum that these changes Alex pushed have made the gap wider between perpetual winners and those on the outside of that winner circle; especially given the game didn't need any more widening of that gap as it was.

The latest changes to improvement mechanics have further solidified one side of Orbis' treaty web hold on power even more securely and the formula for how is pretty simple: The losing side of the latest conflict is INQ. Tomorrow it will be another side, but they serve as a good example for right now. Perfect example, in fact. INQ lost arguably the most infrastructure in this last conflict and their upper tier was absolutely destroyed, creating months of work for their upper tier nations to get back on their feet. The main reason INQ is at the disadvantage and Syndisphere/TKR and friends win again is simple: Syndi/TKR and friends' upper tier have the slots to mitigate the damage caused by the latest update, INQ and friends upper and mid-tier do not. It's that simple. Lost a bunch of infra last war and you're now trying to get back to 115% commerce after these latest changes? Too bad, you still haven't even gotten back to your old slot allotment and you'll have to destroy even more improvements to accomplish that. Can't get 115% commerce, which is vital in rebuilding? Too bad, now the multi-month journey to rebuilding is going to take even longer. Did you not take a lot of infra damage last war? Good, rebuilding will be even easier than it was before for you. Essentially the gap of power has just widened deeper, and the timing of this rollout, whether intended to or not, definitely favors one side. (Everyone is hurt by it, but some far more than others). EDIT: Just to clarify before some people start getting defensive, I don't hold anything against one side or another, really, it's just a game. It's tough to call it a fun game or even a fair game, regardless of side one is on, when the ultimate referee to the game decides to change rules and move goalposts shortly after or even sometimes during conflicts (nod to the old Arrgh, who admittedly needed to be nerfed back in those days, but who so happened to get their nerf in the middle of a war).

Thanks -- Amended. Also, GPA removed.

Of the top alliances, which would you want most as your ally during a conflict?

Things are quiet. Too quiet...

Yeah, Pepsi is better in a non-diet competition. When it comes to diet that's a whole different story, but diet is disgusting anyway.

You're... You're a monster!

And it's only the plain flavor too! Aaaaaaaah

Confirmed. Ilikepie and gang leaving was a huge factor in my own leaving. Leadership like those guys is to be valued. Without them I knew it would fail and also left.

They certainly didn't help us at all, and going into the future we will have policies addressing how we interact on these forums in a more professional manner.

So it appears there is some trash posting from some of our members. Let me be clear: Storm Division as an alliance does not approve of derogatory posts from our members towards other alliances, even if we are currently undergoing lots of hostility in the form of mutual raiding (bordering on all out war). We do indeed desire for a peaceful end state to this current conflict, and Rose's leaders have been contacted by me personally in order to restart peace talks on a more positive note.

We have invited Enclave to the merge, but there is no certainty any of them will join it. As for Shuriken, they will likely go the way of VarEn when their merge is complete. We started migrating before they did and I finished off VarEn earlier today. We haven't DoE'd until Shuriken is complete on their part of the merge, and we also may discuss a new name prior to such a DoE, too. We are bigtime excited to be joining our oldest ally Shuriken, though, and also very excited to be making a new ally with Valyria!

Congrats to our friends in Shuriken!

o/ The Syndicate

We are now at 20 members and continuing to grow and are also launching an economic growth program (but military readiness still comes first).