[JonnyBGood]

Originally Posted by Light

I dont agree with your point about fenced BP's having loyalty to there BP instead of the alliance. Im sure there are afew of these galaxys around (1:2?) but i'd argue that the majority of fenced BP's do it to avoid incomings but still maintain the loyalty to whichever alliance they're in.

That was sort of my point about people who don't really know/care about what they're doing.

Every BP ive been in has been fenced (although, only once when i BP'd wishmaster/reese/eksero/venox was it intentional and affected which alliances we joined) infact.. I think the most incomings ive ever had in a round has been 5 nights? but my loyalty is always to whichever alliance im in. Its just the best of both worlds, a galaxy with your friends backed up by an alliance with other friends.

I'm not really blaming anyone for doing it. It's just that there are problems because of it.

I do agree with the amount of stagnation in the rounds though. Alliance wars are futile at best now, most of the top alliances wont act unless theres a block behind them.. even if they have a huge value lead. Something needs to change with PA to reforce the competition and make fighting a necessity to finish top rather than fencing or nap'ing. You know you've got a huge problem in a s'pposed war game, when nap'ing everyone is alot more profitable than war.

The game has always been this way really. Why you see it a lot more now is that rounds are a lot shorter than they used to be and the advantages which you gain through a quality memberbase are only really seen late on in the round. Look at this round though. Realistically ND, Subh, Apprime and Ascendancy are all contenders, the first two on their score/position and the latter two on the quality everyone knows they can bring. None of them can afford to fall behind the others, even if all they're saying is that they hope to do well and don't care about winning or whatever.

The point is that war games like PA are this way. If anything the membercap affects this even more. Most people just aren't going to believe, say, a Subh versus an Ascendancy with both possessing roughly similar numbers will result in anything but an Ascendancy victory. So, almost immediately, you've got a contest which won't be picked up on. Most wars nowadays are a matter of numbers and the game itself is more about putting off the wars until you can win them (trust me on this, I was pretty good at it!) than it is about doing anything particularly exciting during the actual war itself.

What most people fail to realise is that this is the essence of war. Not to sound overly pretentious but as sun tzu said “victorious warriors win first and then go to war, while defeated warriors go to war first and then seek to win.” It's all about timing. Planetarion manages to make this boring by virtue of the limitations it imposes. I mean seriously, I can't even imagine, within the confines of the rules this game now has, what could possibly happen to make this round genuinely compelling.

I highly doubt the PA Team will ever implement anything drastic now, as they're more afraid of community leaving.. they'd rather keep the game stagnate and maintain roughly the same numbers (although, how long people will put up with playing the same game over and over is arguable). So what i'd suggest is a simple revamp of the capping formula, to include instead of 'value', alliances and the alliances rank. It would maintain the principle of 'protecting the newbies' as they'll be allianceless or in a lowbie alliance, giving there attackers the minimum cap as usual.. while also forcing the bigger alliances to attack other big alliances to get decent caps.

I tried to argue awhile ago, that XP and capping should include galaxy value as well (or instead of) individual planet score but the PA Team flat out said no

I don't believe fiddling with the numbers will help at all. It'll just be harder to win and still boring. You need to change something fundamental in the way we play the game for people to actually become interested again.