Fencesitter

A fencesitter is someone who belongs to an alliance, but will not attack hostile planets belonging to certain alliances (usually bigger ones), or defend against more powerful alliances, because he or she is afraid that the bigger alliance will attack him or her. Usually, the fencesitter has some accord with the alliance whom he or she will not enter with hostilities against. Fencesitters are generally regarded as spineless lamers. Some consider it a valid tactic for maintaining an (inflated) high position on the rankings.

Allowing ostensibly hostile planets a NAP is a powerful tactic for overrated alliances. Not only does it remove one potential (usually large) attacker, it also artificially increases their enemy's size and score, thereby making them more valid political targets.

Fencesitting can also occur on larger scales, and many alliances, battlegroups and galaxies in the past have been accused for being fencesitters. Generally when referring to such larger groups, fencesitting means that they avoid battles and wars which could potentially damage their rankings. A usual tactic in the past was to have battlegroups which consisted of members from several different alliances, often with influential people in them - for instance officers and longtime members. This made it a lot harder for the alliances which had members in the battlegroups to effectively attack other members of the group. The same works for galaxies.

In modern day planetarion, fencesitting galaxies are groups of players who play more for their galaxyranks and planets than for their alliance, with galaxies being semi-random, this means they receive protection from alliances that have members in the galaxy, and sometimes patch up with planetnaps.

When an alliance fencesits, this generally means that they are napped to several sides, and refuse to take part in the decisive wars of a round, instead concentrating on galaxyraids and protecting their own members.