Global Triumph

i agree with that.

That's an excellent suggestion.  I'll have to get opinions in a poll.

That might work, but I think it's a symptom of other issues:

a)  Too much "free money" - given the $8k players get for free, the number of people in the alliance can be more important than the alliance's actual size.

b)  Treaties.  This is subjective, but the whole "you can't break a treaty for x weeks" dynamic doesn't resemble anything in real life.  I could see allowing people to make "official promises" of arbitrary length, but alliances would be a lot less important if you had to keep a closer eye on your allies.  As it stands today, you can completely trust the countries you have a treaty with, so alliances become very important.

I'm no history major, but it seems to me that (for better or worse) real wars start with sneak attacks, and then the "sneak attacker" has to deal with their new reputation.

Sour grapes??

The thing is, that there are usually two HUGE alliances on each board and if you're not in one of them, then you're dead meat.  Also, if you're in one, but your alliance members don't support you, then you're dead meat.

I've personally been in a case where I had three member join an alliance, then jump out and then into another alliance, leaving me high and dry.

I've mentioned this before, but when alliances 'carry over' from one map to the next, you get a big group that already trusts each other and they just run over everyone they can.  Then they are too large for any group other than a large alliance to be a part of.

One thing that might limit them is a fee charged per alliance player.

Each turn, each player has to pay a fee to the alliance based on the number of the players in the alliance.  If there are 2 players in an alliance, then there is no charge.  If there are three players, then each player has to pay $500 in alliance fees per turn.  If there are four player, then each pays $1000.  For 5 players, each pays $5000.  For 6, then $10,000.  Or something like that.

That would tend to limit giant alliances early in the game.  It would also be an impediment to adding smaller players.

I think what would happen is that "gentlemen's agreements" would become more common, but that would also increase the tendency for a player to pull that 'sneak attack' that dburden talked about.

I am afraid I really do not like this idea. Later in the game, a larger group of smaller players is the ONLY way to overcome a larger opponent. We have already seen how the GT game mechanics encourage size snowballing. Limiting the number of alliance members only means that the alliance with the 1-3 largest players wins, rather than simply the largest alliance.

Also, on a map the size of Cerato or Einio, the $8k capital income is a pittance compared to total resource income. I saw early on that Fulgur, with its much reduced size, would be a different. Yes, EBM has a crazy number of people, but that does not speak to their cooperation or competence (many are newer and have not carried over from other maps like AO and EHJ); I still see EHJ, SWC, and EBM all having a fair chance at winning, and EHJ and SWC probably have the best chances because they are not in the middle (though admittedly the loss of Florida hurt EHJ).

I also do not think that limiting the number of players in an alliance is good because then you discourage or prevent established alliances from allowing any newer smaller players in, which will have the effect of preventing any newer players from joining an existing map since there is NO WAY they can possibly compete after a week or two.

Officially limiting alliance early-game is irrelevant because the alliance can agree to be one when it can eventually be afforded.

Oh yeah, and imagine that, if you aren't with the Communist Bloc or NATO, then you're boned in WWIII... In a wargame like this, unless you forced it to be FFA, it will always be the case that the game rather quickly boils down to 2-3 groups. The only way one of those groups will break apart near the end is if one of the larger members is such a dick he doesn't want anyone else to win with him and backstabs his alliance. Yes, this bones anyone who desperately wants to go it lone-wolf style, but do you really want to play a game that truly permits a player to win vs. all 20 other players working against them?

The carryover alliances are a bit of a problem. Friendliness, trust, and sharing knowledge are good, but mixing teams up a bit would also be good for the community, IMHO.



1) Doing something about carry-over alliances (who are winning a different map) might be interesting, but would also make it harder for IRL friends to play together. It is one thing to play against your friend for a 6-8 hour board game, but something else entirely to have to do it for months online.

2) For all those "Only ME!" people out there, an FFA, last-man-standing (well, maybe stop when one player has 51% of the land mass) map would be interesting; such a map would have NO treaties and NO alliances.

3) Another interesting alternate-rule-set map would be a map with pre-made countries (maybe even pre-made diplomacy -- alliances + treaties?) would be interesting.

I've said before I like the idea of an FFA, Alliances and treaties disabled map.

I know what you're saying about alliances being important to real-world success, it's true.  It just seems to me this is just one more aspect that makes actual strategy less important, like choosing the right alliance, getting a good start location etc.

I've told Johnny before, now that this game is in "Beta" I think it'd be cool to take another look at how individual aspects effect the game as a whole.  For instance, a small test map without alliances or treaties, another without air units.

I've just started to notice that players I played with back on Ankylo have become less and less active on newer maps.  The only way to make money on this game is to keep players coming back.

Alliances are somewhat of an unsolvable problem.  Even if you disable the game mechanics that support alliances.. people are still going to buddy up and not attack each other.. they will coordinate attacks, etc.  I don't really know how much can be done.  It's a people issue.

The main issue is with how the economy of the game works.  Whoever can throw the most money at a battle is gonna win.  You aren't going to solve the "snowball effect" without changing how the game economy works.. and you probably don't want to do that. 

There is no way to quickly cut someone off from their income once they are huge.  It's takes forever.  So the notion that the underdogs pulling off a win is not realistic.  There is no way for an underdog to quickly turn a positional advantage into a financial advantage.  They game mechanics don't support it.


The motivation for players to form alliances is huge.  You win the game by 1)  Being big, 2) being allies with other big countries, and 3) rolling over smaller countries/alliance to get even bigger.  That's it.  Who you ally with (or don't) has way more impact on the game than the actual fighting.

Alliance limits won't change it because people can just work around the system.  You can't make players attack one another.


So, what to do?  On idea I had is to address with victory conditions that are more individual in nature.
- Put a time limit on the games.
- When the game reaches it's conclusion, the top 3, 5, or 10 players get "Victory points" (whatever you want to call it).
- Maintain a "top player" chart displaying each players total victory points sorted in descending order of awesomeness.

While this won't do away with alliances altogether, it might encourage people to go after the big guy instead of allying with him.  It's not foolproof.  Nothing ever will be.  Just something to consider.

Another idea is to have a map where your alliance is assigned to you.  A map could have X number of factions and your goal would be to eliminate all the other factions.

This isn't bad- a map where there is a window of time for people to sign up before the map starts and then everyone is randomly assigned 2-3 other players as their alliance members.

Lets look at what an alliance and treaty provides:

  1) You can't attack land owned by that player or target their troops (the jury is still out on if nuke "splash" has an effect)
  2) You don't get attacked by their fighters
  3) You have your own page where you can post and talk about alliance issues.

Interesting, except for the 3rd one (which could be replaced which agreed on locations on another website) all of these are not really needed.  It would be nice if you you could have 3 levels of hostilities with another player. 

  lvl 1 -- good relations -- can't attack / can't shoot
  lvl 2 -- poor relations -- can't attack / can shoot
  lvl 3 -- war.

Then you could set you level of hostility with every player without having to be in or out of an alliance with them.

This could allow for more subtle negotiation -- I won't attack you, but don't send your planes over my airspace, etc.

Also, the attack and shoot toggles could be independent of each other -- ie I won't shoot at your airships but I can' attack your land.

I think that if you had these kind of controls (with notices when status changes etc) it would make for a richer diplomatic game.

Maybe even have a setup to require a 'declaration of war' with another country.

I like the idea of listing the largest player once the game ends (and only the top player) with perhaps a % of total land captured.  This may encourage more backstabbing and more intra-alliance conflict later in the game.  The problem has always been stated that because the game is so long, people quite because they know the conclusion a month or two before it happens.  If you create incentives to change the status quo (reasons for alliances to break apart), then people may stay in the game longer on the chance that the largest alliance may start to break apart and allow a chance to survive.

A anonymous poll within an alliance to allow for the immediate breaking of alliance and treaty status may also allow for interesting play.  Make is so 51% of the votes cause this ousting.  Add to the chaos and interest of the game.

Also, those with the excuse that players will only circumvent the alliance banning or limiting by teaming up with others miss a couple of points.  One, it would make things harder for the informal alliance to operate without formal tools within the game, although it wouldn't discourage the "hey, lets team up against #1 country."  Two, any informal alliances are more hidden.  This may give players a better sense of security.  Instead of "I might as well quite as I have 4 enemy alliance members around me, I am toast", they might feel they have a fighting chance.  Although, they may still die, they might not feel as "hopeless" and might have a better chance at playing another map.

What about making capitals unconquerable?  It would keep larger nations having to spend time and energy watching their back and give players a chance to come back.  If you add in a game time limit, this may make things interesting until the end and get rid of the snowballing effect.

Those that say that "this is a conquering game and the largest should conquer all" forget that this is an online game whose goal is to keep as many (potentially paying or add clicking) players as possible involved.  A more "king of the hill" play style may keep these people involved longer.

I would rather see cerato continue for good. Large nations vanish all the time. Perhaps divide large nations into several countries after the original player quits. Like a civil war.