[K-W]

Something important to remeber is that as long as there are reasonably even sized opposition blocks, even a block low in power can have alot of importance and hold political power. THe problems of the past have come when one block was much stronger than the other, or after one competing block has won a war versus another. Smaller blocks and even just smaller alliances can both get involved and probably do a world of good before one of those two conditions occurs.

In the past smaller alliances have taken 1 of 3 courses. First many opt to stay out of block issues. In this case they tend to have alot of freedom early in a round, but once a situation where the blocks are no longer competitive occurs they tend to get crushed under the weight of a stagnation also these alliances have very little effect on how things go. The second common choice of the past was to join a block and be used by it and be totally loyal to it. In this case the smaller alliance becomes a deputy of sorts to a larger alliance, and basically just adds numbers to one side having no other influence on the overall politics. In some cases this results in a smaller alliance in a winning block being able to grow and look good, or it results in being in the losing side and usually being the first casualty of a war. Its a gamble many alliances opt to take. The third option commonly persued by smaller alliancs in the past was to form a smaller neutral block. In this scenario the alliance has alot of freedom over thier fate, and more influence that going it alone, but neutral blocks in the past, other than the notable exception in rd 6, tend to not have the power to be very effective on the large scale politics, though they do tend to be the top of the lower level of things. Also, neutral blocks are often maneuvered by larger blocks into positions to be used to boost a side in a block war.

The best political situation for a round is to have more than two powerful blocks with everyone looking out for themselves and a good fluidity of alliances and block goals. This way things can shift back and forth, there can be more interesting political options and things are much more fun. The problem in the past has been block polarization, two sides, grudges, no one is willing to move sides because of propaganda and historical mistrust.

In a universe with fluid politics, a smaller block can be very influential. And hopefully that is what we are looking at for the next round. THere is nothing wrong with block politics, there is just somehting wrong with boring block politics.