Popular Post Raphael Posted April 5, 2021 Popular Post Share Posted April 5, 2021 It's a slow news day for PnW so instead of trolling #theBalkans on RON, I'm here to at least try to provide some service to the community. This may turn into a multi-part series of threads but we'll see how this first one goes. Firstly, hi. I've been government in many alliances across multiple games at this point. I'm young irl but old in nationsims. This genre of game is, masochistically, one of my favorite things to spend my bored-time on. To that end, I see a lot of "veteran" governments - even in some major alliances - make some odd choices with their alliance(s). So while it's slow I thought we could do a seminar of sorts - have people weigh in their thoughts, members and leaders alike, regarding various arbitrary categories that I'm going to make up on the fly. I'm going to break things down in a traditional sense to make this a little more organized and a little less rambling. I. Alliances Overview: Culture, fluff, and governance. Let's start from the beginning. I'm sure any person active and bored enough has thought about forming their own alliance at one point or another. "I can do it better" we've all thought. In many cases this has proven true - PnW is a lush landscape of new-born alliances in their first or second year of life playing with the veteran teams in the Big Game. In many cases this turns into a bit odd. There is no winning formula for how to run your alliance, but there is a place to begin. A. Alliance Culture is the keystone which holds everything together. It's a nebulous term but it's probably the most important factor in a given alliance when determining success or failure - and again, there is no superior form. Some alliances are mass-recruiting academies which foster the newbies and tend to them like a careful garden. Some alliances throw you to the wolves and have you sink or swim on your own. Some alliances expect a minimum level of game knowledge and nation growth in order to get your foot in the door. Each way has its own drawbacks and benefits - each one feeds into the ecosystem of alliances in the game. However, culture isn't simply how your alliance is set up. It manifests itself in many ways such as how members interact with each other, how the alliance interacts with other alliances, and how the alliance ultimately survives. Every successful alliance has a few core pieces to their culture which separate the "here for a year" alliances and the veteran groups. Things like resilience in the face of hardships like losing a war, a healthy separation of IC/OOC, and a mutual respect for each other both between members and between government and base members. Things like these prevent common problems we see in a lot of failed micros, but also quite a few failed majors over the years. B. Fluff is what I'm going to call "everything else in your alliance." It's not technically necessary to have fluff - not everyone cares about a .jpeg medal after a war, for example. Not every alliance wants to codify a charter. However, it is the combination of all these fluff items that often give character and content to an alliance. Medals, personalized flags, changing your discord server into a holiday theme, polls for proles, raiding leaderboards, graphs and statistics, etc. Basically fluff is what most would call additional content within an alliance. If you've ever been in a place that lacks fluff, you can tell. It's boring, uninteresting, and often you find yourself logging in once every few days just to check the #announcements channel and then check out again. The fluff may seem unimportant when viewed as individual random additions, but when you have a good core of additional content for members it really makes that difference between a community and just an alliance in that one nationsim I kind of play. C. Governance is the last item I list here, as it might be arguably the least important or the most important depending where you're sitting. For many, and I mean many, I'm not sure if the alliance would be different without any government at all. You know the ones I'm talking about. To be fair, being a leader isn't easy. Even in a nationsim game. The more members you have, the more likely that someone will disagree with your choices. The onus falls on you oftentimes to make up for a member's mistake(s), to moderate in uncomfortable situations, and to make hard decisions - or sometimes take your hands off something entirely. A lot of alliances out there hold a different philosophy on leadership and what being in an alliance means. Some would rather members mostly take care of themselves, some would prefer to run the entire alliance through one person, and plenty of in-between. The choice often comes from who you think would do the job better - each person with their own nation or you as their communist overseer. The only real advice any leader can give is that it depends on the situation, the people, and how well you listen to the people you're responsible for. It's a cliché but communication really is key. Another piece I see is the common mistake of the leader that feels they have to do it all and then burn out after a couple months. One of the most important jobs in any government position, leader or minister, is to groom your replacement and surround yourself with a competent team that can share the workload. I'm slowing down a bit and this is already a lot of text. I'll leave it here and if people seem interested I'll do other parts where I'll cover more specifically into different departments of running alliances and how to nurture a second generation even from sub-par recruits (or try to). 6 3 12 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Merky Mo Posted April 5, 2021 Share Posted April 5, 2021 This was quite an interesting read. Please do more. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Polar Bear ArcticExplorer Posted April 5, 2021 Share Posted April 5, 2021 Would be nice to see more rants like these 🌚 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Firwof Kromwell Posted April 5, 2021 Share Posted April 5, 2021 57 minutes ago, Polar Bear ArcticExplorer said: Would be nice to see more rants like these 🌚 You know how a decent chunk of the community is with reading & taking stuff like this. Quote I personally voice my own thought processes based on own desires of informational curiosity as well love for discussion based on questions & statements I made rather just trusting info like a collective hivemind Onlookers whom hop aboard the brainless bandwagon refusing inter-articulation based on assumed feelings, go give yo balls a tug ya tit fugger Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sweeeeet Ronny D Posted April 5, 2021 Share Posted April 5, 2021 You need to rule your people with an IRON FIST! The trick tho is not to make it look like you are ruling with an iron fist. 1 1 1 2 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Raphael Posted April 6, 2021 Author Share Posted April 6, 2021 I appreciate the upvotes and support, but I was hoping this would spark a discussion and dialogue as well as a good read Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kyubnyan Posted April 6, 2021 Share Posted April 6, 2021 I would personally say that fluff and alliance culture/community are one and the same. Definitely an amazing post 1 Quote Humans cannot create anything out of nothingness. Humans cannot accomplish anything without holding onto something. After all, humans are not gods. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dorian Grey Posted April 7, 2021 Share Posted April 7, 2021 I think that fluff is super important, maybe the most important, otherwise your members will get bored and won't interact with each other, neither would they follow your instruction ln time. I for sure know it's very hard to have said fluff, but once you do, you're good to go, and ready to improve your alliance governance Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ripper Posted April 7, 2021 Share Posted April 7, 2021 16 hours ago, Kyubnyan said: I would personally say that fluff and alliance culture/community are one and the same. Definitely an amazing post Ι disagree. In corporate terms, you make a distinction between the brand (fluff) and the mission/vision/culture of a company. It's the same here. @Rockefeller since you want a discussion, I would add a fourth element which may make you roll your eyes: infrastructure & operations. Manuals, bots, clear-cut documents describing operations (I am not talking just about "guides", but also about logistics related documentation) is of great importance. In some cases, a strong baseline in that field may cover constant changes (or lack of) leadership. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mayor Posted April 7, 2021 Share Posted April 7, 2021 (edited) 26 minutes ago, Ripper said: since you want a discussion, I would add a fourth element which may make you roll your eyes: infrastructure & operations. Manuals, bots, clear-cut documents describing operations (I am not talking just about "guides", but also about logistics related documentation) is of great importance. In some cases, a strong baseline in that field may cover constant changes (or lack of) leadership. Yeah, my job as Econ in Arrgh was a nightmare when we had no bots and ran everything on the forums/announcements. Rose Econ was a lot more efficient and easier to manage, where in Arrgh (before Ripper ofc) everything was done manually I believe depending on who the person was in charge. So I agree that infrastructure is important; but maybe that would also fall into guides etc. as well. Since Arrgh also used to have like 100 outdated guides in the announcements and new ones were added regularly. Edited April 7, 2021 by Mayor Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sweeeeet Ronny D Posted April 7, 2021 Share Posted April 7, 2021 Arrgh has econ? Even Grumpy doesn't really have an econ department besides poor Pres (or rich Pres depending how you look at it) who runs our bank. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Raphael Posted April 7, 2021 Author Share Posted April 7, 2021 4 hours ago, Ripper said: since you want a discussion, I would add a fourth element which may make you roll your eyes: infrastructure & operations. Manuals, bots, clear-cut documents describing operations (I am not talking just about "guides", but also about logistics related documentation) is of great importance. Definitely not rolling my eyes at all! I'm a firm believer in the bots. The manuals and, to the degree you'd like, documentation I think falls under culture. I think some groups thrive without it, I think some groups absolutely need it. Arrgh deals with a lot of new people so we definitely need things like a simple raiding guide. TKR probably experiences a similar influx of newbies. To cite a shared experience - Church of Spaceology was really more of a communal alliance where it didn't have a lot (any?) codified guides or structure but ran relatively smoothly just via mutual collaboration. Understanding of, and time spent playing, PnW are certainly key elements when considering how to best treat your membership. A lot of veterans probably wouldn't be arsed to read a guide or doc even if you linked them one, for instance. The newbies kinda need to. But everyone needs to definitely be on the same page or strain can result lol. Another big factor, other than documentation, which I kind of covered already is communication. Active, daily discord discussions. Reaching out via DM's if there's some issue or disagreement. Not only does it help prevent strain by catching problems as they happen or before they happen, it opens the door for other people to talk to you about things that you might have never thought were a problem. 3 hours ago, Sweeeeet Ronny D said: Arrgh has econ? Even Grumpy doesn't really have an econ department besides poor Pres (or rich Pres depending how you look at it) who runs our bank. In the sense you're thinking - no. But our econ work was 95% of the workload for Arrgh at one point. There are some bots now which significantly alleviate that workload. You have to remember Arrgh is constantly at war so the bank is constantly under threat but people still need to store, withdraw, and transfer their contents. It's quite a bit of logistics comparatively to other alliances. 21 hours ago, Kyubnyan said: I would personally say that fluff and alliance culture/community are one and the same. Definitely an amazing post Sorry I missed this reply. I'd say yes and no. Certain alliance's culture lends itself away from fluff - but I think that kind of culture is a little problematic. We all need to keep in mind that this is entertainment at its core. So if your alliance has no fluff... You're really relying on either other communities to hold the interest of your members (in which case it's likely they'll eventually migrate to those communities) or you're relying purely on PnW's appeal to hold your member's attention (which will likely lead to inactivity, no offense to Alex). 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sweeeeet Ronny D Posted April 7, 2021 Share Posted April 7, 2021 2 minutes ago, Rockefeller said: In the sense you're thinking - no. But our econ work was 95% of the workload for Arrgh at one point. There are some bots now which significantly alleviate that workload. You have to remember Arrgh is constantly at war so the bank is constantly under threat but people still need to store, withdraw, and transfer their contents. It's quite a bit of logistics comparatively to other alliances. That sounds like entirely too much work to me. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Raphael Posted April 7, 2021 Author Share Posted April 7, 2021 1 minute ago, Sweeeeet Ronny D said: That sounds like entirely too much work to me. There's a reason almost all of Arrgh's older members end up retiring. Raiding is a lot of work, managing and facilitating raiding is even more. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mars Posted April 8, 2021 Share Posted April 8, 2021 yea but you suck lol Quote Throw me to the wolves and I’ll return leading the pack. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheRealMichaelJordan Posted April 8, 2021 Share Posted April 8, 2021 This rant actually gives tips and insight for Micros looking to develop (like me). I know you didn't really mean it to help, but it it did imo. Quote too sick Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Indger Posted April 24, 2021 Share Posted April 24, 2021 💯👍👌👏 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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