Difference between Round 30 Alliances
 

There're undoubtable differences between the alliances playing the current round of planetarion. Some player actively, some play inactively. And some would believe some have, 'better', players than others. All alliances have one mutual goal it would seem, to do well. While for some alliances this means to be ranked #1 such as Omen for an example, other alliances have goals such as top avg score, such as Dark Lords Rising.

The planetarion community fails to see the differences between each alliance and many threads on the forums discuss, indetail why such alliance A, beats alliance B, and why C did this, etc etc. But the results through most rounds are not unexpected and the alliance with the best attributes generally wins.

Firstly, Lets take F-Crew for example, this alliance has been around since the start of planetarion or near enough (afaik they have played alot of rounds). F-Crew has never won a round but are currently playing Round 30. Now lets compare this alliance to NewDawn who have played alot of rounds.

Current standings:

F-Crew: Score Rank = 14th
NewDawn: Score Rank = 2nd

So why is this. F-Crew have alot less members but looking at their avg score, this cannot be hold truely accountable because of this

Avg Score rankings:

F-Crew: 15th
NewDawn: 4th

Meaning NewDawn avg score is much, much better then F-Crew, So generally the individual player is better at newdawn then the current playerbase at f-crew.

NewDawn are different to F-Crew in their whole gaming approach. F-Crew dont emthasis activity on their members like NewDawn, NewDawn require some degree of commitment, A fleet a day will keep a kick away? Something medicore like that, Although ND dont have many active DC's (it would seem), compared to F-Crew they have alot more willing defends and the competance to run defence of their planets.

For arguments sake I will put NewDawn in the same category of VGN/Conspiracy (CT to a certain degree, will explain why later), I will put F-crew in the same category as Factory,HR,HA,HF,Red and ASS, although some maybe a tad better then others etc, all try to gain defence in there own little ways, but all of these alliances are fairly useless when it comes down to it. In this round I would say F-Crew is at the lowest of these categorys.

Basically these lower tier alliances lack commitment, are too friendly to the "newbie" player, will allow inactives into their alliances. There're also other problems with these alliances such as inactive HCs, HCs willing to accept change and so on. Also the members dont seem as active, dont login to IRC twice a day and such.

Ok so now lets compare Vengeance(VGN) and 5th element(xVx). Both of these alliances seem capable of playing, with both alliances have decent roid gains at certain periods of time during the round and both alliances showing(if little) attempts at defending their planets. Scores have been fairly close throughout the round - http://www.sandmans.co.uk/?p=compare...k=&type=values

So thats fair enough. However I would like this moment in time to state that from my own experiences VGN are by far the better alliance this round.. Both have a mentaliity to do well, Refer to my "alliance aims" at start of post. However xVx dont have very active planets, coverage is weak, and people dont wake up in night to defend there planets. VGN has better def capabilities, but simply people are not active enough and just dont do that well generally because of HC holding planets back by their "newbish ways" and also the HC's also have a tendancy to decide to flagship a couple of planets to decent ranks, i.e. Stuhlman (generally). This round a couple more added to the list. But this is why i would rank VGN in a higher category to xVx because of individual player commitment...

Conspiracy so far have done, again in my opinion, very well politically. Avoiding any degree of incommings for LONG periouds of time this round and maintained a massive roid lead all round, up until today where they dont have the roid lead! (pretty much). Now why am I putting CT below the top of my categorys listing? Basically Conspiracy have some good planets. Thats true, high ranking, active, decent players running big CT planets. However the problem with the majority of these players are, they like to leech def and dont play FOR conspiracy, there alliance, respectively. The HC cannot do politics to save there lives, heh. The HC do silly things which let Conspiracy decent players down and morale drops because of this. Morale is high when CT sit on fence but being forced to come off fence this round and not be as fencing as usual has not helped in recent weeks! I just dont think CT have the DCs or members to actively, and willingly want to win this round. And the commitment are not quite as good as a couple other alliances. I'm sure Conspiracy players will flame me for this but at the end of the day, the alliance AS A WHOLE are not as good as other alliances, simple.

Now to Omen, Omen this round seem to have alot of good aspects, firstly they went into the round with more members then any other alliance, and went in with a freash and decent officer group willing to do what it takes to win the round with ease., or attempt to. Omen have ALOT of talented players and alot of activity, Omen have good tools and a fairly decent BC/DC team. However the Omen players seemed to have lacking morale at times and get "sick" of the big teamups, "sick" being a word I've heard alot when Omen players talk about their attacks etc. Something which you dont get from an opposing alliance, but I'll save that for now. Omen have some of the most experiences, decent HC team around, mactanzu/kaifux and so forth, however members seem to not care about the round win as much as they should and are simply not as active or as decent as previously thought. Defence is also too concentrated from the way i look at it. Some planets def leech too much, although this is no where near a big of a problem as seen at Conspiracy camp, aka Ronin, Its still a problem at Omen HQ, aka Light :) . Some planets gain alot of defence ofcourse but excessive amounts where other players could of been covered saving more roids and more morale should of been advisedly coordinated first, again, in my opinion.

Other interesting alliances this round, are the following:

Hirr: Funny alliance, crazy attacking plans which ends up in big fleet losses and alot of value loss, but some good XPs gains noticable I have seen. Simply dont have the capacticy/skill or willingness to defend well etc, I dont think they aim for defence, more for the attacking :) Which is fair enough. But will never achieve a top rank.

DLR: Dark Lords Rising, are a decent alliance playing for value with a small playerbase, 23 members. Taken out and will be taking out alot of big planets and defence seems quite good, although because of the limited number of def fleets, against a bigger alliance, DLR could simply be bullied :) But DLR are known to take all hostiles fairly seriously. Not enough members to win!(just)

Orbit: Have shown decent willingness to aim for rank #7 as i have spoke to alot of HC there, I know there're aims and rank 7 is what they want and they quite easily whipped ASS into shape when those alliance went to war, which was very fun watching that war via sandmands. well done orbit. Orbit have a very much zero tolerance attitude when it comes to politics as well.. /me waves at Crowly. Dont have the defence capabilitys to win, DCs not active enough, calling not used etc.

So the alliance which has the most difference to suit gaining a top rank at planetarion in round 30 are, in my opinion Ascendancy. Although Ascendancy have had a few emo quitters on the way and other alliances using the "phone system" as efficently as Ascendancy, such as Omen, it just seems Ascendancy have a better approach to the game. Firstly there're politics seem alot better. Wish/Omen seem to be too sly and dodgey which results in alot of backfiring, short term morale boosts is more of the 'Omen way', whereas Ascendancy prefer longterm strategys of success which is the +1 out of 3 things I would say make them alot better then the other alliances this round. Most of the alliance going Zik makes hellova difference with fleet dynamics comparing to all the other alliances approach. The activity the lata parts of the round are also majorly noticeble. Due to Zik being the "slow" race and such, +2 on my list will be the activity in #ascendancy due to latesignups, late recruiters is boosted dramatically whereas other alliances tend to suffer and indeed lose alot of members, just look at number of planets in the tags of the top 5 alliances. Only in lata periods of time have Ascendancy gained the most members. Internal fleet organisation would be my +3 aspect as well. Members are alot more forward in organising fleets, getting missions together, setting up retals, although clear happenings of this went on at Omen when Kaifux entered with big retal list being empathsised and pushed though, it seems Ascendancy have the most activity and also with the constant Asc activity and skill, it helps morale boosting for the whole alliance. There are also other aspects which make Ascendancy and Omen stand out, Like the intel teams, scanners, tools on both parts(both using munin kinda, soz newt). Which puts these two alliance at the top. But in my opinion the main difference is in Ascendancy each player puts more commitment in then other alliances and uses their fleets more often and with better coordination, with some great dcing from a few individuals who know as you are. Also without rabbiting on too much, watch how politics is played.. the ones who dont make "silly descisions" will normally prosper.

In conclusion I would say, people need to stop whinning and moaning on forums about there're alliances doing this, this and this, and actually think about the bigger picture, Why there're alliance is not as good as others, or why their alliance are better then others and so on.

Thoughts please?

Re: Difference between Round 30 Alliances
 

Where the **** did that post come from.

Re: Difference between Round 30 Alliances
 

I agree that Ascendancy seem the best alliance.

We have a lot to thank Omen for though: without them, the round would almost certainly be dead and have been decided in Asc's favour. They're the only ally that look like they can seriously take on Asc (although I think they'd lose 1 on 1)

Re: Difference between Round 30 Alliances
 

Woah - you are clearly bored CBA. I thought you went to Plymouth on a Friday night?

I disagree with what you say about CT. The HC have done the best they can do with a (sometimes) self indulgent group of people. Had CT HC followed Omen's or Asc's path this round they would undoubtedly not be in the t3.

It is a sad state of affairs with alliances in general - there are not enough people willing to be team players. The exception maybe Asc and ND teamups in attack, and Asc's defence this round. But there is little else around. Small player base does not help, but an attitude of planet > gal > alliance has increased every round imo.

Re: Difference between Round 30 Alliances
 

I have no problem with being referred to as having "newbish ways" (especially by you, CBA) but I have to point out that VGN has never, does not now and never will flagship anyone. VGN members are defended in direct proportion to the defence they contribute to others - and Stuhlman's consistent good performances are the result of his own efforts as much as the support he gets from us.

Re: Difference between Round 30 Alliances
 

There is no caps in hirr!

We dont play to win because it wouldnt be fun for the rest of the universe, that simple.

Re: Difference between Round 30 Alliances
 

Post of the round. Truth be told, I am a little bit scared that it came from CBA.



One small correction:

Re: Difference between Round 30 Alliances
 

Wasn't CT's purpose last round to prepare for this round where they could actually challenge? surely they should have addressed their problems then instead of flagshipping and just attracting these selfish players.

I especially love his planet this round. The dubious solo lands for roids at max bravery factor in particular.

Re: Difference between Round 30 Alliances
 

Lokken: I dunno really, just felt like posting as usual. Just wanted to express how I see things.

Gate: You're Right, and I wasn't disputing the fact Omen have done a great job this round preventing Ascendancy from winning from the start.

GJN/Gary: I'm at University, right? Derby. You should know that, and I'm not out tonight.. As for the Conspiracy part, lets just give an example here. When Conspiracy were expecting Incomings off Ascendancy over the next few days a while back now, with DLR cooperating with them to take down Ascendancy full force with other alliances as well, CT hit a DLR core galaxy's, meaning, we ended up hitting fat CT planets rarther then fat Ascendancy planets, hence giving less incomings to Asc, More to CT... Which even gm admits was a mistake on his part.

ArcChas: You obviously do not know too much about VGN def, every round players get flagshpped, Stuhlman because he is online all the time when Incomings appear and other people to mention would be green_cat who just moans etc... and it happens a lot more honestly.

Dabult: Heh, I was not trying to say you were playing to win, just that you played to do well :) nice attack etc.

mz: Zik is the dominant force in you're fleet composition for Ascendancy and holds the most roids as you have shown :) But you do have a lot more races then I previously thought.

Re: Difference between Round 30 Alliances
 

Yes. They failed. See Ronin.

Re: Difference between Round 30 Alliances
 

Heh, Its not only Ronin by a long way.. CT even waste def on VGN soaking planets!!

Re: Difference between Round 30 Alliances
 

I'm very impressed :)

Re: Difference between Round 30 Alliances
 

PM newt for naked pictures

Re: Difference between Round 30 Alliances
 

hey guys im being like super serial here :|

Re: Difference between Round 30 Alliances
 

HA tried to stop DLR taking over there position so hit 7 2 DLR guys.. full force.. Didn't cap at all :( What can i say, maybe HA are ATLEAST trying!

Re: Difference between Round 30 Alliances
 

"full force" O.o okay

Re: Difference between Round 30 Alliances
 

Ok fine.. You came and you decided not to send full force against the biggest galaxy.. that would really make sense!

Re: Difference between Round 30 Alliances
 

Not wanting to blow my own horn (or our collective horn) too much here, but in Ascendancy I know that there are a multitude of people who have a rather laid back approach to their own planet rank.
Alliance > planet > galaxy. Is how they approach it. That laidback approach combined with a lot of social (politically incorrect) banter helps a lot.
People willing to chip in their fleet in a team up and then you reply in pm 'yo, dude, you know you will get like 10 roids if we cap right?' ... and they are like 'as long as Asc caps, I am fine.'.

Ofcourse higher up the planet rankings people do tend to roidrace within Ascendancy, which happened too much last round and which is one of the things that created 'the great purge'. What I personally am trying to do is keep an eye on it that that doesn't happen until we are or out of the race for an alliance win or clearly owning it. So far, it should not yet happen.

Just to clarify a bit more on our so appraised 'teamwork'.

Re: Difference between Round 30 Alliances
 

Theese players are your bread and butter, the ones that you roid for *easy* roids, steal their members when the newbies look to your opinion too good for them ... and you probably mean *HC's unwilling to accept change* rather than willing :P, with limited player numbers, and limited *hardcore* players in those numbers this is how they will remain, but remain they do, plodding along happily, without them you game would be a damned sight smaller and a damned sight harder consequently.
The others wouldnt be in top 5 places quite so easily if they didnt exist !


We have allways been willing to give someone a chance, out of 10 chances your lucky if you get 1 natural talent, about 4 average players, but without those chances the universe would probably never know they existed, so from your high hardcore chair looking down on us we lift a single finger salute, and will remain unbroken.

posted on behalf of all the *lower tier* alliances !

Re: Difference between Round 30 Alliances
 

I don't think CBA was criticising lower tier alliances. There are a few ways to play this game, and while yours is definitely not the same as Omen's or Ascendancy's (who between them differ about as much as either differs from you), it is not somehow any worse or better.

Re: Difference between Round 30 Alliances
 

ROTFLMAO - nice one CBA.

As "Main HC" of VGN for several rounds, Defence HC for several rounds before that and DC for ....... (you should be getting the picture around now) there's very little about VGN def that I don't know.

There's a big difference between "flagshipping" and receiving more defence than others due to being online at the "right" times and having more def points.

Re: Difference between Round 30 Alliances
 

whats all the issue with Light recieving alot of defence?

I ve heard that before also, but I dont get it, at all. she has been roided, and when roided, actually not whined, but kept playing.

Overall been a good and loyal member all round, and probably deserved more def than she got. Deffing roids in a fence gal like 7:3 MAKES SENSE!.

Re: Difference between Round 30 Alliances
 

good point. In omen we also got players like that, our problem is that they are TOO laid back! :p And dont generate score / crash. Asc got a nice proportion of players playing fairly decent and without crashing, not careing too much about their own planet. Imo I m a perfect example of such a player this round :( if we had 100 Wishmasters we would win yo! :p

Re: Difference between Round 30 Alliances
 

In my experience its very hard for DCs to see flagshipping from the inside, as it all seems quite easily justified, and once you have defended roids with alot of effort on one wave you need to do it for the next, and the next etc. so that the previous defence is not wasted.
Audentes threw lots of Defence at Foxman and Dreamz last round and never thought we were flagshipping, the rest of the universe certainly thought we were tho!

Re: Difference between Round 30 Alliances
 

If Omen had 100 Wishmasters you'd have kicked each other after pt 72.

Re: Difference between Round 30 Alliances
 

Any alliance with 100 of me would end with double the score of #2 ally!

Re: Difference between Round 30 Alliances
 

Sometimes an outside perspective is more valid then an inside account. Read what Londo wrote.

Re: Difference between Round 30 Alliances
 

Mistwraith: mz is correct, I wasn't trying to criticise you're alliance or others I categorised around you're skill level, I was just mentioning the differences between you're alliance and between other alliances that perhaps play at a higher level of pa.

Re: Difference between Round 30 Alliances
 

nah.

only problem would be saturday nights :(

100% drunktards

Re: Difference between Round 30 Alliances
 

I have - and you're both wrong.

Having said that, my praise of Stuhlman has suddenly become rather ironic - he's just been deleted "for cheating".

Re: Difference between Round 30 Alliances
 

That may be the way that you do things, but in VGN a planet with insufficient def points gets no defence - whether it has 300 rocks or 3,000.

Re: Difference between Round 30 Alliances
 

Well from what I have seen of VGN over the last 10 rounds or so, is they have a tendancy to over-defend some key planets on a regular basis.. Thats how i see it, nothing nasty come from me. Just how I see how def is ran in VGN..

If you disagree then thats fine, Just how I see things...

by the way, why was stuhlman closed and whats his coords?

Re: Difference between Round 30 Alliances
 

I don't know any more than I posted - and he's not closed he's deleted. So he has no co-ords now. :(

Re: Difference between Round 30 Alliances
 

I would think asc's tools are quite considerably better than omen's! Except, of course, omen's scan system > *!

I'd say one big difference between the two alliances is that, like or hate them (preferrably the latter), asc's core is pretty awesome pa-wise and commands a lot of irc/pa-respect - omen's core is pretty shit, and its mostly non-omen-core doing all the work, bar wish.. and add though I must confess, dunno what he does really :o Now I'm sat here wondering if that really makes a difference or not. Probably not!

Anyway nice post cba! and you can rejoin that channel now, I've stopped pasting sensitive stuff that you might leak out.

Re: Difference between Round 30 Alliances
 

Pardon?

Re: Difference between Round 30 Alliances
 

scapegoat, sorry

Re: Difference between Round 30 Alliances
 

tbh your scan req function doesn't even support nick changes while pending requests, unlike Lambda/ROCKs bot. Yes i know this from my own experience as requester (hi MortalP)

Re: Difference between Round 30 Alliances
 

lol ty <3

Re: Difference between Round 30 Alliances
 

He was 7:3:14
He got away with a couple of dubious xp lands with 3+ bravery factor which nobody picked up on, but when he managed to get 2 solo waves through on Maulder before Asc wave him (he was on 2.2k roids at the time), despite the defending fleet easily EMPing him but then being sent out to attack AFTER Stuhlman's incs appear, letting the first wave of pure pods land, they were reported and both were closed. They've been closed for 10 days or so and now deleted.

This then caused Omen HC to accuse Ascendancy of having the Multihunters in their pockets.
Admittedly, when presented with the facts said HC apologised as they were mislead, it still caused a few chuckles though.

Re: Difference between Round 30 Alliances
 

Thanks Kila, thats quite interesting indeed :)

And now stuhlman dissapears heh.

should we just declare 7 3 cheats?

Re: Difference between Round 30 Alliances
 

cuz 1 person got closed for farming?

Re: Difference between Round 30 Alliances
 

I can pretty much confirm 7:3 cheats.

I have cybered mutliple times with Light now, but although she pledged loyalty. She is cheating on me.

I suspect Gayme.

Re: Difference between Round 30 Alliances
 

Do they have automatic scan answering shit? So scanners just click a link, nothing else. Or if your nick is devlin, you don't even click a link :(

Anyway **** you hk, we are over!

Re: Difference between Round 30 Alliances
 

Even my good old mIRC scan bot kept track of nick changes. :(

This Omen bot is endangering your honour Newt!

Re: Difference between Round 30 Alliances
 

What you guys need is an integrated webby/IRC request system, that's where the future's at! :cool:

Talking of, I ought to finish that Merlin code...

Re: Difference between Round 30 Alliances
 

I've never said I won't engage in politics full stop, I've never been given a decent offer. I am not interested in 'we'll help you get sixth' or 'we'll protect you from x, y or z'

I want to hear 'in return for orbit's help in this war, we are going to let your 10 smallest planets max cap on our 10 biggest as a score-bribe.'

Show me the money, we'll show you the fleets.

Re: Difference between Round 30 Alliances
 

That's ****ing retarded. An alliance asks you for help in a war and you want to be given permission to farm them?? Ignoring the fact YOU'LL GET CLOSED, why the **** would anyone agree to that?
There are numerous benefits for smaller alliances joining in on these wars, other people have explained it already better than I can, but one significant thing is that you'll stand a chance at capping on the 10 biggest enemy planets. No you won't get a free ride, you'll have to earn it, but for sure you'll stand a good chance.

Re: Difference between Round 30 Alliances
 

Haha thats great Crowly, you got me laughing :)

Re: Difference between Round 30 Alliances
 

In all fairness, I think he was joking.

Re: Difference between Round 30 Alliances
 

tbh Lokken, I think Crowly is darn serious. :D