Popular Post Sketchy Posted January 30 Popular Post Share Posted January 30 (edited) So I have been mulling over this thought for some time now, and I figured why not shit my thoughts out on the forums for people to argue. My IA department might slap me around a bit for encouraging competitors to jump into the recruiting pool, but I honestly don't expect any current elite alliances to take this on board and adapt their strategy, so it's more a discussion topic than anything. Elite Alliances, from a pragmatic, efficiency perspective, are obsolete. I am someone who historically helped lead an elite alliance with the original TGH, and Rose was at it's smallest and leanest version under my leadership. I historically have always gravitated towards Elite alliances as a preferred playstyle, so I have some experience with them. The three primary reasons Elite alliances existed historically were: Being lean was more effective politically: It used to be that, numbers mattered a lot more in politics. More specifically, the numbers in your sphere would determine your threat level, and there was a significant advantage to having smaller, leaner, and more competitive spheres. Quality mattered more than quantity, because having a sphere that was too large would result in significant political consequences. Now, that's not really true anymore. There isn't a significant pressure against consolidation, meaning trimming down your numbers isn't as effective as it once was in minimizing the risk of you being hit. Additionally, the game is far more consolidated now in general. The top 8 alliances all have over 125 members. There is far less room to hide for most majors, the chasm between the top 8 and the rest is deep. Smaller alliances beneath the majors who have less members, inevitably have less power by comparison. It's difficult to compete with alliances that have 50-100 more members than you. The more members you have, the higher your score, and the higher your score, the more you recruit. It's a feedback loop that benefits those who consolidate more people into their alliance. Being smaller in member count was more logistically feasible: Now, it's true, that having less members, is in general, a much easier experience. A single person could today, with the current tools available, very easily manage a single alliance of say 50 people, entirely on their own, with enough effort. But generally speaking, if your goal is to be as competitive as possible, than less work is likely not going to be a priority for you. But, what has changed, is the aforementioned tools. When elite alliances were in their infancy, the tech level of this game was prehistoric by comparison to it's current standard. The API was used rarely by a select few of people, many people used web scrapers or other tools. Not only were discord bots not a thing, but discord itself wasn't a thing. People used slack, an insulated program that makes recruitment a more difficult, forums, or IRC, as their primary communication methods, not only for recruitment, but for the logistics of managing their alliance. Bots to manage banking were rare, and most banking was done by hand, using the games incredibly shit interface. Wars were micromanaged by literally looking at the war pages on the website, most tracking wasn't automated alerts, or war rooms, but individuals directing other individuals to do things in normal chats. Now, most alliances have access to banking bots that can be run via discord to easily micromanage their banking. Tech is as accessible as it has ever been, largely thanks to open source bots like Locotus, but many majors have their own inhouse coders that create bots for them as well. It's far simpler logistically, for a small group of people, to manage 150+ people, with the current tech levels, without being overwhelmed and suffering issues due to a skill/talent shortage in their government. What would have once taken a robust low government to manage can now be managed by a smaller group of people. Someone who is motivated to be a competitor in this game, and has no issue with working for it, has no incentive not to compete in the recruitment game. Trickle down has become trickle up: The most significant reason that Elite alliances existed in the past, and the part of their purpose that has become the most redundant of all, is related to the change in the economic meta. Historically, growing your alliance was a grind. New players were a pretty big drain on resources. The way this games economy scales, is that before a certain point, usually around c20 or so, players are basically dependent on governments to grow competitively. A big challenge in the early game, was moving new nations over that hurdle, to where they could self sustain. The model to do this was typically grants, to partial grants, to eventually loans. What this meant, is typically alliances would tax their largest nations, a portion of their income, and trickle it down towards their smallest members, in order to feasibly grow them. This all changed with the rise of the raid meta. Now, a new player can join the game, raid themselves to c20, and immediately propel themselves past all the initial growth hurdles. This makes new players not only not a resource drain, but in many cases, a resource gain, taking a smaller percentage and trickling up to the top tier, the reverse of what happened historically. New players don't impact the growth of whales at all, and as such, alliances can only gain by taking them on. Even in cases where funding them happens, the games inflated economy makes the ROI on new nation investment fairly short, meaning it many cases it's in the interest of larger nations to put some growth towards them, see a return, and then grow even faster. Because of this, there is no economic advantage to being an elite alliance. As we've seen over the past 2 years, all of the mass recruitment aas have begun to close the distance and in many cases over take the traditional elite alliances. While politics has certainly played a role in that in some cases, this is a trend for ALL mass member aas, not just the typical winners. The two best and obvious examples of this are Grumpy and Guardian, whom historically were the natural #1 and #2 in tiering. Today, Grumpy has lost their competitive edge in the upper tier completely to Eclipse and Syndicate. Rose is a little further behind, but their numbers more than make up for that, and regardless if Rose loses 3 more times this year, that gap is likely to close over time. Not only that, but EVH and Singularity both now have low 40s, and at the current rate of growth, by the end of the year will be right below Grumpy. As for Guardian, they've already fallen behind. They have a tiering disadvantage against every single major alliance, including TFP. A tiering disadvantage, paired with a numbers disadvantage means they'll only continue to fall behind the curve as things accelerate. Final Remarks I'll end this by saying that obviously, there are still reasons why someone would prefer to run an elite alliance. There are some, minor, pragmatic benefits, that can be useful. Being leaner in general, is always reputationally better than being bloated. In fact, in general, as much as mass member AAs are encouraged to take more people in, and not to have extremely high standards, having too much bloat can still be a downside, as we are seeing in this war with Rose right now. In general, it just looks bad if your alliance is too bloated, and looks very good, if it isn't. That can help with prospects when it comes to treaties, and is great for alliances who perhaps would rather play a supporting role in the political landscape. But for alliances that want to compete, at the highest level, these relatively small reputational boosts are not worth the trade off. Still, even then, major alliances can still be reasonably lean. The more you recruit, the more diamonds in the rough you find, and they'll add up over time. Most major alliances, even the ones that are more bloated, have more "good players" than the typical alliances below them. An alliance with 200 members only needs a third of those members to be good, for them to still be better than 95% of the alliances in the game. TLDR: All the historical reasons Elite alliances were competitively useful are gone, and it makes no sense to be one anymore. Edited January 30 by Sketchy 1 18 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Itus Caesar Posted January 30 Share Posted January 30 Interesting rant with a sort-of clickbaity title 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Popular Post Kastor Posted January 30 Popular Post Share Posted January 30 I agree, merging with Guardian, KT, WAP, and THT to form the new power that will contend in the game. 7 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Popular Post JtTeE Posted January 30 Popular Post Share Posted January 30 I am glad that, aside from being a dead alliance, we're now finally obsolete. Time to disband our (almost) 18 year history I guess... 1 6 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mayor Posted January 30 Share Posted January 30 It is more fun to be in elite alliances, being in alliances like Rose are boring because you are just a tiny nation in an alliance over 200. I feel like in elite or smaller alliances I have more say on what goes on (even if not in gov), and am listened to. Also they are way more unique, more challenges and opportunities for shenanigans. Large alliances usually don't want to rock to boat too much. This is actually why I left Paradise because I thought we were losing our small alliance charm. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Arthur Wellington Posted January 30 Share Posted January 30 If the alternative would be either micros or large alliances I guess elite alliance would be better. Large alliances indeed are boring. The elite small high govs don't have the time nor interest to really engage with the lower 75% and wars are extremely well planned, followed by long NAPs. Micros on the other hand seems to enjoy the best parts of the game, better cb's, relative quicker growth or decline, exiting wars with lasting impacts. Elite alliances could atleast in part better fit the micro playstyle than the large alliances. But the benefits for large alliances are better than the other sides apparently and many people who play pnw for a long time feel comfortable having a minimum of input without loosing all the effort already made. On another note, very nice to see the forums a bit more active! 5 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Danzek Posted January 30 Share Posted January 30 and to think @Sri Lanka 001 wanted to kick all my farms from E404 /s Anywho, there's always going to be a place for playstyle specific alliances, because there's an attraction to a playstyle that can't be as well met by mass member alliances. But they would have to compete in aggregate (i.e. with allies) as opposed to rivaling the majors 1 to 1. You also see a lot of "democratic" micros pop up with a lot of members, because whilst being dysfunctional, offer less barriers to gov participation to inexperienced players. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Totally Hatebi Posted January 31 Share Posted January 31 6 hours ago, Arthur Wellington said: Micros on the other hand seems to enjoy the best parts of the game, better cb's, relative quicker growth or decline, exiting wars with lasting impacts. Elite alliances could atleast in part better fit the micro playstyle than the large alliances. I like this point a lot, the comparison is especially obvious and is more in align with 2016-2018 CB’s. Here are some notable examples that I liked a lot: - Micro Management [2018] CB: Bricks wanted 50 million. - Antarctic Expedition/Aqua War [2023] CB: Classic color bloc purge - Strategic Arms Limitation Talks [2018] CB: Bloc Politics Also not to mention civil wars (which are always fun) and those rare moments where micros gang up against macros. Anyways, I never seem to see any of those war reasons anymore (also where did extortion wars go?) it always seems to be “Backroom Dealings” for some reason… 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Popular Post Alastor Posted January 31 Popular Post Share Posted January 31 I agree on all points but I actually think you're missing the wider scope and implications behind your thought: PnW is dying. I don't think alliances have to be big to succeed, in fact I think most of the largest alliances in this game are objectively some of the worst at this game: Rose, TI, TFP (no offense Shwin), SIN (god I hate them), etc. People are migrating in larger numbers to mass members due to logistical capacity increasing, but only for the most high-effort and well-connected players: Locutus is not a substitute for the bots that most majors have access to. TSC has been using Locutus since inception and have been extremely grateful that we have any bot at all, but it's an esoteric mess that if I hadn't been using it for years I'd have no idea what I'm looking at for even basic commands. I also believe that as PnW dies, people seek out community more than they seek out anything gameplay-related. A strikingly small number of players care about winning or losing and most just want to barely pay attention to PnW while chatting on discord. Another point worth noting too: The culture shift of the game has moved away from big personalities starting new alliances, and more into joining established groups to try and take leadership roles there. Again this is yet another bad cultural phenomena we can blame on Rose for popularizing. I'd actually say for quite awhile it's been considered taboo to not poach for talent instead of growing it, but realistically this is a game and "growing" talent is probably 1 in 10,000 players. The real "homegrown talents" are just new players who already had IRL skillsets and personality matches ready to step into leadership roles like Canbec for TKR. Finally the most important point that pushes all of this: The game mechanics have stagnated significantly without major content updates and years of the Admin denying late-game content in favor of new player catch-up mechanics, which haven't even worked to catch new people up. New people are further behind that ever, old players are more bored than ever. Large alliances that offer exclusive communities are basically the only content left in the game, and I think most "elite" alliances have inactivity issues that pushes their members/new members away. 5 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
naTia Posted January 31 Share Posted January 31 Shamelessly co-opting an Aba analysis I see. In all seriousness though I more or less agree. I think a numerical advantage provides a major strategic benefit, even in spite of the potential for uneven skill or activity distribution. A player that seems relatively inactive but is max milled is still a potential liability to not target in a global. And to an elite AA facing off against a mass AA, that means at best excess losses and at worst the makings of a losing war. But importantly when you recruit you’re often not just getting numbers to pad your stats or distract your enemy. Encouraging new players to raid and thus propel themselves drives self-sufficiency, mechanics competency, and general responsiveness. Granted, the type of player who can follow through on the play-style involved comes through maybe 1 in 5 applicants, and results may vary based on IA competency. But overall that’s often good enough to build a pool of relatively reliable new players. But I can’t say I don’t understand why everyone isn’t hopping on this train. While not in-game resource intensive, it can be time intensive. And frankly you could put all your effort into trying to get someone to follow a play-style and be engaged, but if they’re not having fun they’re going to just leave and that time investment is lost. As well, the game has changed so much that I think it can be difficult for veteran players to even comprehend what the new player experience is like. Playing the game efficiently in this era is a lot different than in the past, and is pretty divorced from the “build and customize your own nation!” type messaging that the game markets itself on (though perhaps this has been true for a while). Not to mention that raiding was once a pretty niche play-style. A lot of veterans don’t know the first thing about maximizing raid profit. And the meta has even shifted since raiding became standard practice. Overall I think new players are a very overlooked part of the game. From what I’ve seen, the idea of “low tier MA”, for example, more or less just has the makings of a bad joke to many players. But I think there is a difference to be made if not an opportunity to be capitalized on by focusing on and shaping the new player experience in a way that both makes an impact in the game while being meaningful and engaging for the new players. Frankly, to Roberts’ point, it can be difficult given the state of the game, but I think there is more potential than many might presently realize. 3 Quote Resident DJ @ Club Orbis Founder of The Warehouse Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sketchy Posted January 31 Author Share Posted January 31 4 hours ago, Alastor said: People are migrating in larger numbers to mass members due to logistical capacity increasing, but only for the most high-effort and well-connected players: Locutus is not a substitute for the bots that most majors have access to. TSC has been using Locutus since inception and have been extremely grateful that we have any bot at all, but it's an esoteric mess that if I hadn't been using it for years I'd have no idea what I'm looking at for even basic commands. I mean I agree it's not user friendly but it has probably more functionality than any inhouse bot I've seen, and it's open source. 4 hours ago, Alastor said: Another point worth noting too: The culture shift of the game has moved away from big personalities starting new alliances, and more into joining established groups to try and take leadership roles there. Again this is yet another bad cultural phenomena we can blame on Rose for popularizing. I'd actually say for quite awhile it's been considered taboo to not poach for talent instead of growing it, but realistically this is a game and "growing" talent is probably 1 in 10,000 players. The real "homegrown talents" are just new players who already had IRL skillsets and personality matches ready to step into leadership roles like Canbec for TKR. I half agree. The game hasn't moved away from big personalities starting new alliances specifically though, it's moved away from big personalities in general. Big personalities form when things happen, drama etc. There isn't much drama in the game, people are focused on playing it lowkey/avoiding conflict. Rest of your post isn't really disagreeing with me, just adding more reasons why my premise is correct. I don't necessarily disagree the game is in decline, but I think you've weaved a little far from the primary claim being made. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Krampus Posted January 31 Share Posted January 31 1 hour ago, Sketchy said: I mean I agree it's not user friendly but it has probably more functionality than any inhouse bot I've seen That's Roberts' point, yes. functionality alone means little to a new user who can’t grasp the commands. Advanced users might value more features, but for beginners, ease of use is often more important That said, I agree with both your points, that Locutus is a boon for people without tech skills wanting to manage an alliance. and that, the barrier to entry to it is quite high (in terms of time and effort needed to learn the commands) Quote Inform Zigbir I have forgotten how to edit the signature field Please remind me how to do it post haste! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sketchy Posted January 31 Author Share Posted January 31 (edited) 22 minutes ago, Krampus said: That's Roberts' point, yes. functionality alone means little to a new user who can’t grasp the commands. Advanced users might value more features, but for beginners, ease of use is often more important That said, I agree with both your points, that Locutus is a boon for people without tech skills wanting to manage an alliance. and that, the barrier to entry to it is quite high (in terms of time and effort needed to learn the commands) That's fair. My point was the tech level of the game has massively improved and has made managing larger alliances easier for smaller groups of people. The barrier for entry to use Locotus might be high, but the existence of it and other alternatives/knowledge in the game is still better than it was. Still I'm not making the case it's easy to make a mass member alliance. I'm making the case it's the most competitive way to play. Edit: Also, I had no idea how to use Locotus when I first came back. I find Borg to be pretty helpful/able to answer questions. Edited January 31 by Sketchy Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hidude45454 Posted Monday at 06:42 PM Share Posted Monday at 06:42 PM As someone in an elite alliance, I think the experience we bring to the table is still very valuable, but because the stupid ass meta of the game is completely optimized for tiering and high tier cities now, it is very correct by definition that mass member alliances will achieve this growth far easier than small alliances given sufficient econ gov. Is it killing the game because everyone optimizes toward the same lame meta? Yes. Is anything ever going to be done about it? No. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Coolossus Posted Monday at 07:18 PM Share Posted Monday at 07:18 PM 36 minutes ago, hidude45454 said: As someone in an elite alliance, I think the experience we bring to the table is still very valuable, but because the stupid ass meta of the game is completely optimized for tiering and high tier cities now, it is very correct by definition that mass member alliances will achieve this growth far easier than small alliances given sufficient econ gov. Is it killing the game because everyone optimizes toward the same lame meta? Yes. Is anything ever going to be done about it? No. And yet you can't be bothered to obey your MDP with Guardian but to farm and spy @Buck Turgidson, Sad times indeed. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Conald Petersen Posted Monday at 07:30 PM Share Posted Monday at 07:30 PM PnW is a game based around the idea of Rock, Paper, Scissors as its most basic balancing mechanic. The problem is that this balancing no longer applies to the games most important feature: alliances. Currently micros and nanos (the ones that last more than a week or two) raid for growth (Rock) and the major and macro alliances (top 25 or even 50 depending on where you draw the line) generally farm for growth (Paper) at their mid and high tiers. The elite alliances could fulfill the scissors role but there is no such thing at this point (at least that I can think of). They are less efficient at raiding for growth because there are fewer and more risky raid targets at the mid to high tier level and cannot compete with the larger alliances in farming because it is purely a numbers game. The game needs an incentive (mechanics wise) to create and join smaller elite alliances. Am I smart enough to think of any? Absolutely not. (also the commenter above me is an idiot who sniffs sharpies for fun) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sir Scarfalot Posted Tuesday at 01:02 AM Share Posted Tuesday at 01:02 AM 5 hours ago, Conald Petersen said: PnW is a game based around the idea of Rock, Paper, Scissors as its most basic balancing mechanic. The problem is that this balancing no longer applies to the games most important feature: alliances. Currently micros and nanos (the ones that last more than a week or two) raid for growth (Rock) and the major and macro alliances (top 25 or even 50 depending on where you draw the line) generally farm for growth (Paper) at their mid and high tiers. The elite alliances could fulfill the scissors role but there is no such thing at this point (at least that I can think of). They are less efficient at raiding for growth because there are fewer and more risky raid targets at the mid to high tier level and cannot compete with the larger alliances in farming because it is purely a numbers game. The game needs an incentive (mechanics wise) to create and join smaller elite alliances. Am I smart enough to think of any? Absolutely not. (also the commenter above me is an idiot who sniffs sharpies for fun) Scissors in your metaphor would be turreting/dogpiling, waging war with the objective of causing damage and thus slowing farming growth. Which elite alliances are good at, so I agree with your point. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Keegoz Posted Wednesday at 11:45 AM Share Posted Wednesday at 11:45 AM On 2/4/2025 at 2:42 AM, hidude45454 said: As someone in an elite alliance, I think the experience we bring to the table is still very valuable, but because the stupid ass meta of the game is completely optimized for tiering and high tier cities now, it is very correct by definition that mass member alliances will achieve this growth far easier than small alliances given sufficient econ gov. Is it killing the game because everyone optimizes toward the same lame meta? Yes. Is anything ever going to be done about it? No. I'm getting to it, dw Quote [11:52 PM] Prefontaine: But Keegoz is actually bad. [11:52 PM] Prefontaine: He's my favorite bad leader though. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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