round 9, 10, 10.5 ND's strenght was clearly defending it's members, above all else, and at that time the game dynamics worked with that particular philosophy. things changed in round 11, and the entire universe had issues defending members, so those of you who whine because you get no defense, blow me
there are always certain situations where certain members who do their part and defend end up getting screwed, it happens, and it sucks, but overall alliances are better off being offensive in nature and everyone and their dog knows that.... roids are too easy to cap to get worked up about a lack of defense.
No one can fault Gate for the effort he put into ND. From someone that knows about long hours in ND Officer rooms, believe me, it takes commitment to do what he did, and he should be commended for his effort, and at the end of the day, thats what ND is all about. People caring about their alliance members, genuinly caring. It's one of the things that endears ND to it's Community, and for those of you who have never experienced that in a gaming community, you've truly missed out. Gate ofcourse isn't the only ND Officer to care, and Actually bleed ND, there are others, Marinho, Barrow, to name 2 that come right to mind (please don't feel bad if I didn't mention you, it's not meant as a blow off)
I think ND improved on attack activity this round, possibly because they were not inundated from the start with massive incoming as we had been in previous rounds. (much easier to stay active and motivated when your not getting hammered every night) I also think they learned a valuable lesson politically. (in earlier rounds we would simply pick some asshole alliance and go after them from the start, and I'm not sure this rounds approach was an improvement, but not for me to say any longer)
In my opinion, looking from the outside in, I see places where ND improved (attacks) , and places where they took 2 steps back (politics, recruiting for example) Just wondering where that original 50 members would be right now score/average wise, talented players, good skills, prolly much like ToT last round. I think they did bite off more than they could chew, got a bit seduced by rank (something that in the early days ND cared less about) All in all I think ND made some strides and learned some needed lessons (the kind of lessons you have to learn, not be told)