Possible blocking idea

[ComradeRob]

Make it possible for alliances to declare their blocks in-game. Make a 'block ranking' page, showing number of members, score and roid count per block. This should make the current landscape very clear - everyone will know which block is winning, and no block can remain united indefinitely claiming that their enemies are still a threat when the ranking will prove otherwise.

There are probably several reasons why this wouldn't work, but I'm interested to see what people think anyway.

[Cayl]

This would be redundant I think unless there is some reason to keep their block underground.
In which case they wouldn't use your system,
unless there was some kind of substantial in-game advantage,
which blocks don't really need.

Its not too hard to look at the alliance page, do a little math and see that Ranks 1+2+3 equals domination for a block.

[ComradeRob]

Hmm.

I should probably stop posting stupid ideas at 5am.

Nevertheless, I will attempt to rescue a bad idea with some follow-up thoughts.

Blocks exist largely because of fear. Alliances maintain blocks because they are afraid that they will be defeated without them. My original post was based on the assumption that if it could be demonstrated that one block had clearly won, then there would be no possibility of that block overestimating its opposition. It would be clear to all that the block was winning and could thus split up. Whilst the logic was correct, the implementation of the idea as I outlined was lacking.

I do think that information is the key to solving this problem. When alliance leaders make decisions, they are often aware of many pieces of information. Much of this information is completely unreliable, based on hearsay or just paranoia. The WEET/NAR deal of round 9 is a perfect example. It was completely unnecessary, yet driven by the fear that VoM were much stronger than they actually were.

Perhaps the solution is to make alliance deals part of the game - allow official in-game NAPs between alliances (perhaps complete with -1 ETA for defending each other). These would be time-limited, lasting for up to a week. At the end of the week, they are automatically dissolved, and the deal would have to be manually renewed by both sides. All details of such deals would be posted on an alliance news page, allowing everyone to see who is dealing with whom. Any alliance who began cooperation with an alliance that they did not have an official deal with would quickly be seen as dishonest and would become pariahs - it's highly likely that they'd become top priority targets for everyone else. This would encourage all sides to play honestly, without sacrificing the ability to form blocks when necessary. The weekly renewal of deals forces alliances to regularly reconsider their politics, and should make it easier for alliances to break off deals - instead of breaking an existing agreement they are merely opting not to renew an expired one.

I am doubtful that even this would work, but I'm still curious to see what others think.

[Cayl]

Thats getting more realistic. A really irritated PA team could even put in a limit, such as only 6 NAPs in a row before there's a 1 week waiting period between reupping, though I would personally not find that desirable in your framework.

Part of your idea rests on people within PA seeing agreements outside the game as being dishonest. I think its been shown over and over again that PA-Team can't really manipulate attitudes like that without outright making something cheating, and I don't think thats where you want to go with it.

[Gerbie]

We have seen that blocks won't split even after they were clearly stronger. It might give a good psychological effect if there was some kind of mechanism that would outdate a block.

For alliances to use such a thing there would have to be advantages to such a system, which in turn might just promote the formation of blocks. As they already do it, however nothing might be lost if they now do it officially.

Now how would you promote use of such a system? Even a joined arbiter would give away coords and people don't like that if their block is temporarily.

[Banned]

Consider the block ABC, which has dominated the game completely and now reigns supreme*. Given that A is currently leading, they have no insentive to risk their position to fight B and C. They've just come out of a heavy war, they're weary, they want rest and a difficult war against an ex-ally (whom they share many galaxies with) is on the bottom of their wants list. Now, B and C could probably band together and take on A, but since A is the primary alliance in the block, they don't actually have that close a relationship; They both joined the block by leeching onto A.

Now, this is a familiar position (I dare say it is the most common endround blocking structure in PA). The problem here is that 'fear' of the underlings is completely irrelevant. B and C fear A. A doesn't give a shit because they're going to win. Of course, they'll share the victory, but they have top gal and top3 planets, so who cares? Since A is significantly stronger (as an alliance and score/roidwise) than both B and C, the latter fear/respect A and won't attack.

* is bored shitless waiting for a new round.

[Cayl]

Banned has pretty much nailed it... by the time that block ABC is the clear winner, alliances D-Z are all defeated. nobody in ABC cares what they think, especially because BC didn't bail out on A early enough to try and ally up with DEF in time to try and salvage a win.

[Kal]

having blocks aka allying built into the game is possible via my war idea read thread "game dynamics and alliances"

[Banned]

Lazy link?

[Kal]

http://pirate.planetarion.com/showthread.php?t=176291 <-- its not the current version of the idea, as I haven;t been thinking for a while due to exams - so for a start defintly ignore all numbers in it.

[Banned]

Your idea isn't really about blocking, it's about restructuring alliance relations through ingame actions. As it stands, your idea is no better or worse than Rob's or Cayl's.

[Kal]

the idea is about blocking - as u can limit the number of people who can affectivly attack one alliance - hence sotp blocks bashing people into the ground.