Anti Asc Allstars?
 

Just wondering, do u guys think PA could come up with enough players outside Asc, to form an ally capable of rivalling them in the near future?

Im pretty sure with a strict class policy, the rest of the community could come up with 100 +/- top notch players more than capable of rivalling Asc.

Thoughts?

Re: Anti Asc Allstars?
 

I'd be interested!

Re: Anti Asc Allstars?
 

It's not just about the players, but about forming a community that can work together efficiently aswell.

Re: Anti Asc Allstars?
 

I like how CBA doomed it to fail with the 2nd post.

ok doomed it even more.

Re: Anti Asc Allstars?
 

Yes.

Take the top 50 or so players from ND, CT, xVx & Rock and another 40 from DLR/Evolution and you've got a memberbase that could go toe-to-toe with asc.

Good luck pulling that off! Maybe with CBA as military and politics HC.

Re: Anti Asc Allstars?
 

It's not just about the players, it's much more about the system you play them in. Who would lead your mighty alliance of PA Superstars JM?

Re: Anti Asc Allstars?
 

I think "the best of the rest" would be more than capable of running it themselves. As long as you dont have the SK power whores like u get in most places, im reasonably sure that these players would be more than capable of running their planet/share of an alliance.

Success/common goals will help with the teamwork aspect for the most part, then when u get down to the nitty gritty of group dynamics, you always have your alphas and betas. As long as the big boys can pull their heads in enough, i see no reason why there couldnt be ample cooperation to allow a cohesive team/community to form.

Edit: I think ultimately any group of people has natural leaders and followers, i think the only issue would be getting the quality of players to commit firstly, some sense of loyalty to be formed, and given enough time for the egos/dust to settle, a personality heirachy would take care of itself for the most part.

Re: Anti Asc Allstars?
 

I personally volunteer to lead the Anti-Ascendancy Allstars if JM promises never to post again. What is more I will also donate the proceedings to a charity of the public's choice :up:

Re: Anti Asc Allstars?
 

For me the best and most notable point made on this thread so far, there is the quality of players just not the ability to use teamwork and have the desire to put the ally over their own planet and work towards the same goal.

Re: Anti Asc Allstars?
 

Then there's the ascendancy spies (or friends) that would relay all the attacks straight back to #ascendancy.

It's possible to beat asc but not like this. People think asc can be beaten in one round, which is a ridiculous concept - you want to topple PAs greatest alliance with an alliance that essentially has no core, no understanding/experience of their tools and no concrete foundations of leadership.

If I started an alliance next round with 30-40 members, built some awesome tools and had a solid round to a top 10 position. Then proceeded to a second round building on my memberbase, with a core who now understand the tools, the strategy and the inner workings of our alliance we'd maybe end in a top 5 position perhaps.

I'd say by then the alliance is noticed, I can recruit some more decent players with a reasonable core already established for a third round, probably able to now fill out the tag. Basically, maybe and only maybe after 2-3 (or even more rounds) would my alliance be ready to take on ascendancy and win. Although I imagine we'd lose at least once or twice first.

My point is it would take time, organisation and teamwork over more a lot more than 1 round. If Omen had survived R30 maybe they'd have stood more of a chance R31 with the quitters gone and most spies sussed out. An alliance cannot just get 90 members in a single round and work. You need to build up, establish things correctly and not run in blindly at PT72 declaring war on ascendancy.

Re: Anti Asc Allstars?
 

I think the concept of what i am proposing is slightly different than what you are thinking. Im not proposing an alliance, as i believe you are. Im proposing that we get a group of players together who have the same goals, ie bring balance to ze force :D. I think this is inherently different than forming/building an alliance, in that the people involved are generally only interested in themselves. Id intend this to be somwhat different. Somewhat akin to the guys with the masks in V for Vendetta. No me, no I, no my planet, my rank. Just fight Asc.

Re: Anti Asc Allstars?
 

This is why this thread is utter bull. JM wants all alliances to join one alliance and create a game of two alliances!! how boring, similar to the ideas I have on defeating Ascendancy, but this just makes the game worse in my opinion.

Re: Anti Asc Allstars?
 

Essentially, its a game of one alliance atm. I dont see it as a bad thing by increasing it to 2.

Do you?

Re: Anti Asc Allstars?
 

Oh look another "lets band together and take down ascendacy" thread, how original.

Re: Anti Asc Allstars?
 

Oh look, another whiner who cries like shit about Asc, but has no desire at all to do anything about it.

FYI douchebag, you dont meet the requirements.

Now foad.

Edit: Also, its not just an Asc bash thread. Its assessing a target market for its interest in, and the viability of, a new concept.

Re: Anti Asc Allstars?
 

Don't take criticism well do you?

Re: Anti Asc Allstars?
 

It wasnt criticism. More like cretinism. Its losers like you, who drag winners like us, down.

Re: Anti Asc Allstars?
 

Do winners often set up threads asking other people what to do? Because they don't really have much of a clue? Best of luck with your campaign, I'm just saying creating an alliance to take down Ascendancy is a bit of a lost cause, because after Asc has been defeated (thats assuming this idea of yours succeeded) you'll have a bigger aliance in its place. Then after that alliance has won a couple of times someone else would be setting up a thread asking how best to take down "anti asc allstars".

Re: Anti Asc Allstars?
 

Sometimes, dear idiot of a JM, it is best to do nothing. Sometimes, patience > Action.
Now go drill that in your pragmatic brains. :salute:

Re: Anti Asc Allstars?
 

I like how some people (you for instance) enjoy pointing out the flaws of others (JM for instance), while posting shit yourself.

"SOMETIMES ITS BEST DO NOTHING"

Im sure that has won many a war...(hasn't it CT?)

Re: Anti Asc Allstars?
 

You don't have to win all wars to become the victor.

If you don't understand it, Tesla, it doesn't mean it can be termed "shit".

And I agree, I am not flawless, nor would I contend that. But, again, I just think not all matters are solved by action.

Re: Anti Asc Allstars?
 

..and again I am yet to hear about a situation where the leading alliance lost by "choking" on your roids. (although I hoped that to be the case several times with Dragons :\)

Re: Anti Asc Allstars?
 

Mem, stop being a whimpering faggot.

@JM

What are your actual goals/aims, I dont see this idea as it is being benefical or helpful at all, the proposal is all wrong. If you're suggesting that at the end of the round, If Ascendancy win this round, numerous people come together to form some sort of coalition to beat a dominating alliance, by actually playing together untill Ascendancy are beaton, then I would be interesting in asking people, talking about the idea, promotoing it, the idea of "anti asc allstarts" is one I like, but the way you put it forward is quite weak. You would need someone to do tools and some decent people sorting out recruiting, encouraging others, no complete hierachy sorted, but obviously some people that could edge others out perhaps if they were deemed spies, not fighting for the alliance. It's pretty obvious that alot of quality players would be up for this and interesting, if it was done correctly and only the people who actually want to defeat ascendancy play, not just the ones that want higher ranks each round.

Re: Anti Asc Allstars?
 

CBA, go **** yourself, you self-absorbed soab :)

@Tesla: It is not about making Asc lose, it is about making them feel like they haven't won. That is a whole different approach, isn't it?

Re: Anti Asc Allstars?
 

I think out of everyone who's posted so far in this thread, Zeyi is the only one to have made any real sense.

The idea of bringing a large group of people together is entirely unworkable. There'll always be divided loyalties/power struggles and anonimity in such a 'team' of players hampering performance.

Without the same sense of unity that Ascendancy have, you'd get a bunch of people only really concentrating on their own planet and not paying much regard to people who they dont know/care about. This would be especially true if you abandoned the traditional heirarchy system, as without leadership there'd be no concerted direction.

Asc claim not to have HC's, but tbh that doesn't mean they don't have figureheads. jester owns munin, aka Ascendancy. Countless times people have 'dedicated their round' to JBG, who's an absolute beast of a def machine. Game used to do politics (now in ND?) and there are a handful of other predominantly influential figures floating around their ranks.

The only difference between Asc and say CT/ND in terms of structure is the fact that Asc are more community based and every voice is heard... for the most part, and the 'leaders' in Asc aren't there for the power and the position, they lead because they do what's neccessary to get the job done for the alliance.

There's been very few alliances of recent times with effective HCs and not one of those alliances are playing this round. You don't need an anti-asc allstars alliance (oh wait, that's 4 A's lol), what you need is a group of capable players active enough and loyal enough to their alliance/leaders/friends doing whatever's neccessary to beat Ascendancy.

Most of the time people's attitude is "if we can't get 1st, we don't care if Asc does", and THAT is what is killing the game. Not Ascendancy, not tag sizes or gal sizes, but people's linear and unrefined understanding of what would constitute a victory.

"1st or bust" ftl.

Re: Anti Asc Allstars?
 

Just like Asc is having trouble now JBG has stepped down :p

Re: Anti Asc Allstars?
 

Boring your opponent into submission is pathetic, and certainly not what this game needs.

Re: Anti Asc Allstars?
 

I do believe that if someone sat out to simply win. Not beat one ally, but to win the game, they would.

No alliance or group is unbeatable. It is just about who will sacrifice (not by crashing like CT thinks) the most in order to obtain their goal.

Re: Anti Asc Allstars?
 

There is a huge variable you're neglecting. As long as the common goal remains to beat Ascendancy, there should not be all of this petty hassles as you state, young Kenny.

Re: Anti Asc Allstars?
 

but people want to beat Asc for different reasons, some want to beat Asc to allow themselves to win.. Which means they wont be very happy if they get bashed :p

Re: Anti Asc Allstars?
 

Well still.. technically beating Ascendancy would mean there planets > Ascendancy's, so heh.

But valid point.

Wish you always didn't put a downer on everything!!

Re: Anti Asc Allstars?
 

What does it need, according to you?

Re: Anti Asc Allstars?
 

Quoted for truth.

Also if the majority of the community want to take down asc, they can easily do so. I do however feel the approach quite a few people has taken this round, admiting fail before the ticker started, isnt quite the right approach... I for one hope someone grows a pair. Asc can't be that hard to bring down, i'm there ffs.

Re: Anti Asc Allstars?
 

When ally limit goes down to 50.. and summer is over, prolly then something rises but this summer no chance in hell.

You don't even need bloody tools to do an alliance, only thing what you need is a attack bot, everything else is just luxury. + a PERSON who can actually run the show not one of these ego crazed people who think they know something and then aren't online 16h's a day atleast on IRC monitoring status, you don't even need outstanding players so long as you got players who can and do understand to ask what's wrong with their fleet compositions before they paint themselfs to a corner by obvious fail choices. And they have to be online at TP to get themselfs organised for waves.

And some coordination in race choices... like a simple FRIGGING NO TO CR/BS fleets. Most epic fail in every round is the choice to go cr/bs on a terran or whatever race, only etd can pull it off to certain extent and that's because of their defenders what will support very well your outside defenders vs incoming fi/co.

Forming community.. not needed either, Just put that one person who is over-active and on overdrive to watch over the whole thingy. It's only a bloody 80 man alliance, if he doesn't know after a week aprox ship classes of who's hitting what with what in your attacks and what's the availability of their def fleets he's a fail and can't run the show.

Find one of those, and you got a military HC until then you can't do anything worth mentioning as you lack coordinator to fight an alliance what has it's morale up and know how to build to certain extent their fleets because they get laughed/yelled/mocked if they do bad choices.

Re: Anti Asc Allstars?
 

People talk about JBG being amazing and he is amazing but the ascendancy model is based on the fact that anyone can step up to replace him. We spent last round not using JBG at weekends, meaning he was refreshed (in more than just the rest sense) and we were getting used to the idea of him not being around. The only heart I'd guess our opponents can take from this is that whoever steps up for him is in all probability (given that I rate JBG as one of the top 5 players of all time) not as good.

While JBG is not taking a leading role in Ascendancy this round, we still have the benefit of his opinions and tactical input which are obviously very important. The key point I'd make is that Ascendancy's strength is that it's not reliant on any one man and when people do put in effort, it pretty much runs itself. This round is very much a missed opportunity for our enemies if they don't appear to want to challenge us (I'm assuming from this thread that a lot of you have given up) as obviously we're in a bit of transition and quite honestly these stats are a piece of shit that reward swamping your opponent with FI/CO more than using any genuine strategic insight with different ship classes.

With all due respect, the problems our opponents face are massive, particularly if they rely on a traditional alliance model. When you become reliant on certain people, they become targets and we're more than content to go through the mind numbing activity of wearing down an opponent then overrunning them. We've become very much a slow burner of an alliance in wars, pretty much equivalent to a football team that sits back, hits on the counter attack then goes out to blitz their opponent once their lead is comfortable. One thing that we can guarantee, win or lose for our enemies is that if you war with us, you won't enjoy playing the game. As Wishmaster will testify from last round, attacking Ascendancy is no tea party and long may it remain so. And obviously, we have 20 to 30 players, possibly more who couldn't give a toss if you attacked them and pretty much don't get discouraged. This is simply down to experience.

The other (staggering) barrier is quite simply the level of cooperation in ascendancy. This is not because we are good friends or great players or anything like that (although some of us certainly are). It lies down to the fact that when you join Ascendancy, you sign up to a way of playing and know what is expected of you in addition to the massive benefits and freedoms that Ascendancy membership brings. If you start being shit, you'll be openly called out, but it's that level of honesty that I think helps us quite a lot.

So what is the solution? Zeyi suggested building an alliance over time, which was an interesting suggestion. To suggest that people would be willing to let us rack up say, maybe five or six in a row while building an institution sounds very level headed. But I think it does not work that way. The best alliances in PA have always hit the ground running, established a big reputation and taken it to their opponents. From Fury proper to Xanadu to Deus Ex Machina to Titans (although it took them a round before they won) to 1up to exilition to Ascendancy (for both our first win and the golden period we're having now). The key for me is to fundamentally establish a good alliance with a plan and whatever happens, the person behind it sticks to that plan. On top of that, I'd probably tell that person to be willing to do whatever necessary politically. As without that, most alliances are doomed to fail.

Obviously, all this may be moot: Ascendancy might get tired of playing like this at some stage and go back to low activity showboating like it used to. I am more than happy playing either way, but people did ask for us to play properly and not waste our talent, so that's exactly what we've done over the last five rounds. Obviously, Membrivio has made it clear that getting Ascendancy out of the way in this fashion is exactly what he would like. If he wants to win a lower quality game where winning is far less of an achievement, that's entirely up to him. I probably thought this way in round 3 or 4, but in the end the best solution was to be part of an organisation that went out to better and outfox the incumbents.

Some people might argue that I'm either being very arrogant or very fatalist in the sense of the cliff face I've presented. But not really. Smart HC'ing always reaps rewards - if someone takes the time to think about winning and breaking us (I don't really put too much effort in as I don't have to) they can probably succeed. I think we are beatable, we just have a very good formula that will sustain us for some time and no one's gone away to find a decent one for themselves.

Re: Anti Asc Allstars?
 

Ascendancy isn't even close to best alliances what I have been part... It's just the fact rest alliances suck even more and the lvl of competition has been declining since r7 steadily.. and tbfh it's horrible atm, I see people not running.. I see the ridiculous fleet compositions ever.. I see the stupidest team ups ever what just calc how they beat target not it's possible defenders.. It feels like we'r back in barbarism or something when we once where Rome to barbarians.. now it's just inviduals here and there who do know how to play on all lvl's the game.

Re: Anti Asc Allstars?
 

I think you're looking at the past with rose tinted glasses.

Re: Anti Asc Allstars?
 

Nah, the war tactics and strategies lack so much that the amount of skilled people is less than 100 per round in building right kind of fleets unless they'r exactly told what to build.. tactical players maybe 50 or less per round.. That's how low pa players have gone.

Dunno, if you guys consider current pa on same lvl as old.. I would say you guys never where in the really good battlegroups just in the public att's for normal members in those alliances.

Re: Anti Asc Allstars?
 

Lok's post is good but another huge factor is Munin. Munin is utterly fantastic and allows us to pretty much do our own thing while also being part of a bigger picture.

In other alliances there's lots of secrecy over coords and launching and intel. EVERYTHING is open in Ascendancy so we don't have to be controlled like puppets.

Re: Anti Asc Allstars?
 

True, I like that in asc.

I mean you can't anyways keep the intel hidden and the secrecy rules in some alliances are just retarded and outdated, if you want secrecy u do it.. u don't do it half-way so that it has still leaked out in a week what seems to be IMO of most alliances.

Re: Anti Asc Allstars?
 

I dont think Lok was looking over Munin... I know Munin is a fun friend to have in a round! Also can be an absolute nightmare :(

If Intel is the solution, then why cant ingame intel be used and opened up alliance wise? I agree with intel, it inspirers motivation and better play from members of any alliance, but I dont think you need "munin" to do this.

Re: Anti Asc Allstars?
 

today if you calc to beat defence too you are bashing (I dare say it would have been better in single targeting but it was not in pre-pax, much more bashing went on), and you very quickly get labled with a tag as being a basher and tend to get more moralistic sorts out to bash you back, in a smaller community it is less possible to do such things.

the number of 'skilled' tactical and strategic players is probably pretty much exactly the same in terms of relative numbers, possibly more, you say between 50-100, thats somewhere between 1/15th and 1/30th of the player base. If you take the old playerbase as 30k (I know it would have been more in round 3/4 and less than that by round 8/9) then 1/15th would be 2k players (more than we even have now). The decline is in the total numbers not relative quality.

Re: Anti Asc Allstars?
 

Munin is open source though, anyone can use it.

Re: Anti Asc Allstars?
 

this sounds interesting...

:p

Re: Anti Asc Allstars?
 

Alas, SCREAMING LIKE THIS TO TELL PEOPLE WHAT TO DO DOESNT ALWAYS WORK. Sometimes it helps to whisper in a womans ear.

I dont think that would be the case. Once (not if) this group/alliance/call it what you will, has achieved its goals, i am rather certain that the same people who helped to stop Asc for a round, would in no time at all, manage to tear the same group apart. I see that as a good thing.

Asc may have enough, they may come back for more. Either way, the universe can see that theyre not up against an unbreakable giant, and hopefully have enough confidence to take the power back.

Sorry i havent had time to follow up on this, been busy, will get back with it tomorrow.

Re: Anti Asc Allstars?
 

Re: Anti Asc Allstars?
 

Quite fitting that it was CT's only round win.

Re: Anti Asc Allstars?
 

tjooh the last rounds ascendancy's win was deserved, I give you that. I was the whole round wondering why didn't people take steps to prevent it, it was pretty obvious that either asc or CT would win and definately clear that omen would not, but then CT breaked the nap if I remember right.. what was like.. eh wth are they thinking.

Was personally keeping in reserve the chance that ND would win just by playing underdog and helping omen out in their war but pretty much all but 1-2 in their HC wanted to stay neutral and somehow win by that and omens raids to ND gals didn't help that.. and ND's neutral strategy backfired by reducing them into a roid bank for every alliance who wanted fast and easy roids in between the fighting. Like there hasn't been examples of that in pa before.. you don't play neutral lapdog.. you can play active lapdog in war and win by that as yer allies take the heat, but staying neutral and getting agro from both sides after the war cools down.. Is counter-productive.

Re: Anti Asc Allstars?
 

You obviously have absolutely no clue what happened last round. Stop pretending you know what you are talking about.

Re: Anti Asc Allstars?
 

Oh well, I didn't bother watching it after the first 4-5 weeks as it was over by then already. There was just 2 scenarios at week 3, week 4 it was over already.

If people could not understand that during the round, they should not be HC's.. and if they understood why didn't they do anything about it.

And I pretty well know wth happened as I saw some of the convo's in first 4-5 weeks before I had to goto my work full time. Play neutral between 2 blocks and u get wasted, it's that simple.. if u'r some ND dude trying to protect their reputation.