An Anouncement And a Proposal
An Anouncement And a Proposal, by Synthetic_Sid
ANNOUNCEMENT
A new alliance will be entering the fray next round - with myself at the helm. This is NOT Fury reforming, although some of the faces in the alliance will be very familiar to ex-Fury members. Fury's success was forged to a large extent by political means: with this new alliance I intend us to be succeeding far more by more conventional (and sometimes unconventional) military methods.
Other than as detailed in my proposal below we will in no way participate in anything which could be considered "Blocking". We have no NAPs or Allies (either official or unofficial), nor do we seek any. Our members will be free to attack any target they wish in galaxies with none of our members in and will be free to defend their galaxy-mates against any attackers other than us (our members will always have the right to retaliate any attacker).
We will also enter next round with no enemies (at least none of our own making). Our member base will be drawn from both sides of this round's war - as well as from players who haven't played recently. The carrying over of "grudges" from one round to the next is one reason for the seemingly endless cycle of two sides having been drawn up before each round even begins. We want no part of that.
I've no doubt many of you will claim that I am adopting this "go it alone" stance out of some hidden (or obvious) agenda and not out of altruism. You would be entirely correct. I believe we have the quality to do well in a more free-for-all round - and I believe that our membership will have far more fun in such circumstances. I also believe that the game would be much more enjoyable for the vast majority of players - but I make no claim to that being my sole (or even main) reason.
So, here's a big hello from 1Up to the rest of you playing next round. I expect we'll be seeing all of you on the battle-field next round - but hopefully not all at the same time
Our public channel is #public on NG - smarter readers may be able to guess what our private channel is as well.
PROPOSAL
As described above, 1Up intend to enter Round 11 with no naps or allies. I appreciate that many alliances lack the ability or confidence to do that - and no politics at all would take a chunk of the fun out of Planetarion.
At the same time it is also my belief that the overwhelming majority of Planetarion players and alliances do not want every round to be a two-sided war that is over in a few weeks followed by stagnation. What I propose is that all alliances who DON'T want a round where the two sides are drawn up before the round starts make an agreement: namely that should anyone attempt to form a block then everyone else will immediately form a much bigger block - with the sole intention of smashing the other block then immediately disbanding. One of the main motivations behind making blocks is fear: the fear that if you don't block, you'll lose to someone who does form a block. Make it apparent that if you DO block you'll lose - and that particular motivation to block ceases to be a factor.
For such an agreement to work, a few issues would need to be addressed - starting off with a definition of what constitutes a block. My understanding is that the limit of members per alliance next round is most likely going to be 75. With that in mind, I'd tend to view any pair of alliances working together as a partnership - and any group of 3 or more alliances with a combined membership of more than 100 as a block. What constitutes working together? As soon as your members are forbidden to attack members of another alliance then I'd consider you as part of the same block. If your alliances all share target lists and insist on members only attacking those targets then that would make you part of a block.
Another issue which would need to be resolved is when the anti-block block would dissolve. Some simple criteria such as when no members of the block that is being targetted remain in the top 50 should suffice - something which is unambiguous and which guarantees that the block can no longer participate competetively in the round. Is this unfair on the block being targetted? I'd say no: for them to be defeated would mean that more people DIDN'T want a 2-block war than did (or we wouldn't be able to defeat them). If despite that, they insist on forming blocks, then we'd just be playing the round the way THEY wanted - and then, having dealt with them, revert to playing the round the way WE wanted.
Of course, it may be that nearly everyone DOES want blocks - and the public protestations against them are more inspired by being in the losing block. If so, then consider my proposal moot - and, albeit reluctantly, 1up will also have to consider one of two pre-formed sides.
By all means discuss here the detail of what constitutes a block, how badly one would need to be beaten before it could be considered dead etc. Ultimately however, should my proposal be taken seriously, then such details will be defined by those alliances party to it - irrespective of any input from pro-block alliances.
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Synthetic Sid
[1up]
