External BGs: Good or Bad?

Hai.

After a recent discussion I've had I'm curious to think what other people think of external BGs.

Personally, I was in 3 last round. I was scanning though, so it doesn't really count, but I got to see three different views on the matter, so to speak.

Arguments for: they let you attack with friends in other alliances (is this against the support planet rule in any way?), it opens up extra attack possibilities for you when your alliances aren't always enough.

Arguments against: they take fleets away from your alliance, you're liable to hit targets not approved of by an HC (you may even pick a target in the same alliance without realising it), you and your BG mates may be on opposing sides of an alliance war (as was the case with at least 1 BG I was in last round), causing a conflict of interests.

The BGs I was in were Duck, Ameth and Jenova. Duck was fairly successful, to the extent it ended up providing attacks for the few InSomnians that cared last round (until InS died altogether. Duck to blame? You decide). Ameth had a few alliances present, but the main two represented here went to war, meaning the BG couldn't generally attack together. As such, it kinda died a death of inactivity. #Jenova always had about 50 people present. Why they didn't play as an alliance is beyond me, but that's besides the point. They ran attacks for a while, then due to non-participation they stopped after a week or so. They were re-introduced a couple of weeks later, then stopped again, for the same reason.

So how productive are external BGs?

Just curious...

[Veedeejem!]

Originally Posted by Kenny

Duck was fairly successful, to the extent it ended up providing attacks for the few InSomnians that cared last round (until InS died altogether. Duck to blame? You decide).

Duck wasn't to blame for the death of InS. The death of InS can be blamed on non-caring hc's and members not doing what they're supposed to be doing (like attacking and defending).
The Duck members that were in InS (especially VenoX) tried to salvage what was left to make it work but in the end it failed.
As InS member last round I was gratefull that Duck was around and their members seemed to be the only ones that cared...

But on the topic I think BG's that have members in multiple alliances is not a very good thing. Especially now in PA where there aren't that much good alliances left / not that much players left. They might work fine for the first 500 ticks but as soon as alliances go to war they're forced to shut down.

Hmm. I may have made the implication I thought Duck was to blame for the death of InSomnia, this is by no means the case. I merely meant to bring it up as a conversation point. I'm curious to see what people think, so like my custom user title suggests, was playing Devil's advocate. VenoX cannot be faulted for his efforts in Duck, and then his contributions to InSomnia.

[Sun_Tzu]

Who can I sue for stealing my old BG name, Ðucks?

"You think they're cudly but I think they're sinister! Ðucks! Ðucks!
...
Reading pornography smoking cigars! Ðucks! Ðucks!"

[isildurx]

I dont think war is the big ameth problem, more like arc sucking ass

[Turtle]

I've always looked on external BGs with some disdain. I think from an alliance perspective they're one of the worst things, but its getting harder and harder to control individual members and thus things like external BGs will flourish.

Theres no real reason for them to exist imo, if your alliance has such bad attacks that you don't join them then leave the alliance or step up and volunteer to help make them better.

[wakey]

They have always struck me as a somewhat selfish entity, its as if they are there to allow people to not contribute fully to the alliance but still receive defence. Having your members taking part in attacks is just as important as defence as its the numbers that can often make an mission successful. In a galaxy attack too few planets covered or to few waves and the defence mops up easierly and in a targeted attack if you don't cover enough members then they are free to defend more of the incoming.

Also as others have said BG and alliance politics may not be on the same page, the target your BG goes after could include your own alliance mates, your alliances allies ect ect and that can cause issues inside your alliance as your helping others land successfully on your alliance mates and your alliances allies

However I do think a bigger BG problem are the 'mercenary' BG's who join an alliance. They seem to be such a disruptive influence in the alliances they join and seem prone to thinking they are bigger than the alliance they join and should be treated as kings by the alliance. When they dont get that treatment they then send the alliance into turmoil when they quit

[isildurx]

The real positive side about BGs in my opinion is that its easier to coordinate attacks and get members to team up in order to make attacking more effective seeing as its such a 'close entity' people will know whos what race etc.

[Sun_Tzu]

Why do you need BG's? Well they do have some distinct advantages.

In an alliance, the quality of members fluctuates a lot. Your targets have to better reflect this in order to allow smaller players to take part aswell.

In a BG you are more likely to find a very eaven assortment of players. Targets can thus be bigger without consern for catering to smaller players.

In an alliance, you are bound to have leaks. This is devastating if targeting high profile targets, as any forehand knowledge may cause the attack to fail. The BG is a far more secure entity in this respect.

In an alliance, you have a wider mix of races. In a BG you can focus around one or two classes of ships, making covering the attacks nigh on impossible.

In an alliance people are more likely to be more selfish. In a BG people know each other better, work more closely together and are more willing to sacrifice personal gain for the good of the BG. This makes for better attacks with a higher chance of success.

Organizing attacks as an alliance is wasteful and detrimental to the success of an alliance.

[ArcChas]

Every fleet taking part in an external BG attack (or defence) is a fleet that isn't contributing to the alliance. Admittedly there may (sometimes) be a common cause between the BG and the alliance but that tends to be accidental (or incidental) rather than a general rule.

Membership of a BG certainly has benefits for the players concerned - but not (in my opinion) for the alliance(s). That's why we (VGN) don't allow our members to join BGs.

[VenoX]

Can i just defend Duck BG for a start, it was never "created" to run as a BG. I'd recruited around 15 people to fill InSomnia preround, these guys had *little* knowledge about PA so i created a random channel (#duck) to keep them together, help them learn the game and added a few people i knew they'd know and would help too (eksero etc).

Since InSomnia couldnt provide for said members and I'd recruited them to play i felt responsible for keeping their rounds alive without making them leave InSomnia etc. Attacks were highly successful tho and there was only a few cases of people launching on "friendly" planets (hi CT lol).

However, i do not feel external BG's are necessary at all. The alliance should be responsible for providing enough varied targets to satisfy everyone. And as I found in InSomnia last round, a number of members took a strong disliking to Duck, since i guess they figured they were favoured having my attacks EVERY night (like this is special treatment?), which made my job trying to salvage InSomnia near impossible in the end. If you want to avoid animosity or hostile feelings i'd recommend *trying* to keep ur members out of external BG's.

PS Sun_Tzu never heard of those dragfag Ducks BUT as i said, the name wasnt intentional

[Mzyxptlk]

Originally Posted by wakey

However I do think a bigger BG problem are the 'mercenary' BG's who join an alliance. They seem to be such a disruptive influence in the alliances they join and seem prone to thinking they are bigger than the alliance they join and should be treated as kings by the alliance. When they dont get that treatment they then send the alliance into turmoil when they quit

It's only a problem as long as alliances let themselves be used by them (ie, as long as HCs keep making retarded decisions).

Originally Posted by ArcChas

Every fleet taking part in an external BG attack (or defence) is a fleet that isn't contributing to the alliance. Admittedly there may (sometimes) be a common cause between the BG and the alliance but that tends to be accidental (or incidental) rather than a general rule.

Membership of a BG certainly has benefits for the players concerned - but not (in my opinion) for the alliance(s). That's why we (VGN) don't allow our members to join BGs.

Sorry, contributing to what? Galraiding? A good deal of the time alliances are not at war. During these times the only thing they facilitate is roidgains for their players. Why is it a bad thing if members go elsewhere for the same roidgains during this time?

As for defence, I've always thought the difference between BGs and alliances was that BGs didn't do defence. As such, the terrotory is exclusive to alliances, meaning it can't be an argument against BGs. Besides, things that are good for members are good for their alliance, as they contribute score.

I personally have no issues with people joining an alliance and a BG, nor with people joining 2 alliances, and have done so in the past myself, with the prior consent of both.

[Banned]

I don't really have an opinion on BGs anymore. We've had some informal sub-groups in Ascendancy, but rarely anything organized. This is probably in part due to the recruitment system, which prevents anyone (including HC) from bulk accepting members.

Originally Posted by wakey

However I do think a bigger BG problem are the 'mercenary' BG's who join an alliance. They seem to be such a disruptive influence in the alliances they join and seem prone to thinking they are bigger than the alliance they join and should be treated as kings by the alliance. When they dont get that treatment they then send the alliance into turmoil when they quit

Out of curiosity, have you ever had direct experience with having 'external' BGs in F-Crew?

[LordNieminen]

Running offencive with BG:ed alliance as a HC is easy.. if u have the activity and actual power to control it. There's no reason not-to-do-it, unless persons doing it are incompetent and can't pull it off because of lack of whatever qualities a leader needs.


Security of targets > * in BG system
Offencive capacity > *
Counter attacks/Fake attacks > *
Defencive will be as it always is more than likely if u'r HC's are up to the task.

[JonnyBGood]

External bgs are largely a rather strange way of expelling enormous amounts of hot air. If you're going to run some tightly disciplined US marine corps sir type alliance for whatever mentally deficient reasons are running through your head you probably don't want them. Otherwise as long as their membership doesn't fluctuate there's no real problem*.



*If it's a BG that might organise an attack that takes from 10-25% of your members' fleets on a few random nights during the week it's a bad thing as you're not going to be sure how much firepower you can bring to the table that night which could either result in an excess of targets or a deficit depending on which way it goes.


Largely though, hot air.

Originally Posted by Mz

Besides, things that are good for members are good for their alliance, as they contribute score.

LIke planet NAPs!

[KaneED]

My BG is great

[ArcChas]

Originally Posted by Mzyxptlk

Sorry, contributing to what? Galraiding? A good deal of the time alliances are not at war. During these times the only thing they facilitate is roidgains for their players. Why is it a bad thing if members go elsewhere for the same roidgains during this time?

It reduces the chances of success of the organised alliance attacks. It also runs the risk of (inadvertently) attacking friendly or napped targets. (Let's not get into a debate about the advisability of full arbiter access for all members at this point).

Originally Posted by Mzyxptlk

As for defence, I've always thought the difference between BGs and alliances was that BGs didn't do defence. As such, the terrotory is exclusive to alliances, meaning it can't be an argument against BGs.

Many BG members expect defence from their alliance (possibly my experience is with the more selfish types). But if a player doesn't want defence and wants to attack with a BG rather than take part in alliance attacks why bother joining an alliance in the first place? Just to avoid incs?

Originally Posted by Mzyxptlk

Besides, things that are good for members are good for their alliance, as they contribute score.

Contributed score is only one of the facors that make a good alliance member - and I'd argue that it's not the most important one.

[[JungleMuffin]]

i tend to notice a theme here... HCs dislike BG's cos it takes away from the alliance. Players ike BGs as it gives them what they need.

If an alliance fulfilled all a players needs, theyd have no need to join a BG.

[eksero]

Originally Posted by KaneED

My BG is great

can i join your bg? :<

Originally Posted by [JungleMuffin]

i tend to notice a theme here... HCs dislike BG's cos it takes away from the alliance. Players ike BGs as it gives them what they need.

If an alliance fulfilled all a players needs, theyd have no need to join a BG.

Heh, I was wondering when somebody would point this out.

You're right, the main reason for external AGs is a player's desire to expand their potential to do better.

But I've already conceded there are advantages to being in a BG - I'm trying to ascertain the degree to which people think they're counter-productive for an alliance? And from this, are the individual gains worth the level of detrement an alliance 'suffers' because of them?

I just thought it'd be an interesting conversation...

[HeimdallR]

first of all i never really had problems with bg's seeing h-a never had much problems seeing we have few members in a bg and they know where there loyalty lies.
and jenova a bg with 50 members not being an alliance really is dumb, i see this as two reasons, they can't find active commanders, or they pussied out last round.

Originally Posted by Sun_Tzu

Why do you need BG's? Well they do have some distinct advantages.

In an alliance, you are bound to have leaks. This is devastating if targeting high profile targets, as any forehand knowledge may cause the attack to fail. The BG is a far more secure entity in this respect.

and here i thought the whole reason why alliance security is comprimised because of players putting there bg's first.

[HeimdallR]

Originally Posted by Sun_Tzu

In an alliance people are more likely to be more selfish. In a BG people know each other better, work more closely together and are more willing to sacrifice personal gain for the good of the BG. This makes for better attacks with a higher chance of success.

Organizing attacks as an alliance is wasteful and detrimental to the success of an alliance.

here i thought this was all the way around, again this might be cause i've only known hidden agenda, an alliance where the members are loyal to eachother and selfish is a word we don't know. an alliance where we have fun all the time, and nobody ever behaved like an ass cause he lost fleets even if the mistake was made by another member.

i don't understand how an alliance organising attacks can be bad for an alliance or its members. i've been organising attacks for 3 rounds and i never heard many complaints about the targets we pick. We always try to keep them as balanced as possible. and we take into consideration that if members don't have a target one day they'll be sure to get one the next day.
and they can send def out if they don't find a descent target, wich is always in the interest of the alliance.

conclusion for me bg's might work well for the selfish individual that doesn't care about alliance security or prefers to invest its time and fleets to satisfy his bg buddies. then again our bg members of last round never put there bg first so im speaking out of my h-a point of view

[Sun_Tzu]

I can only guess that the problem is your perspective in HA is a bit skewed as nobody bothers trying to get spies in and your members aren't all that hardcore.

What people are saying about BG's being bad for an alliance is all just bullshit. Bad HC's are bad for an alliance. Know what you're doing and BG's work wonders for you. Ðragons ran most of their attacks(at times, all of their attacks) through Ðragons-controlled BG's to great effect. That's probably some of the best organized non-centralized attacking I've seen in PA/Pia.

We're talking about external BGs only though Tzui, nobody's questioning alliance-controlled BGs.

[HeimdallR]

well i know nobody cares much what h-a does and all, but i still believe an alliance doesn't need bg's to win a round or like us try to grow every round and go for a top 10 finish ( i still consider ourselves as a training alliance). just a steady playercore with good commanders is needed, wich im proud to say for our ambitions we have.

we might not have the hardcore players we could use to be a top 5 ally, but we do have 40 decent players that most allies would like to have, even if its to fill up the bottom. And we all manage to combine it with a real life, which some hardcore players that still live at home playing from mommy's basement don't have. but i suppose those are the choices we each make for ourselves.