Random alliances - Can they work, and how?

[Azzer]

The way recruitment works in Age 5 is very different, and should make it much easier for "randoms" to get in to alliances, or for people to run their own "random alliances" if they like. Here's a copy & paste from the announcement-in-progress for Age 5 changes, these are all the alliance related changes;

* Communications & Military officers are no more. They have been replaced with an advanced "Permissions" system, whereby the leader can specify the exact options available to any and every member - eg you could have an alliance where only the leader can do anything. You could have 5 members all capable of viewing military outgoings. You could have everybody able to do everything. You can also limit members a bit more than default settings normally allow - you can prevent members from seeing alliance incomings, or from viewing "Officer Only" threads - if you are recruiting new members whom you don't fully trust, you may find this useful. Almost every option related to "abilities" in an alliance are configurable for every member.
* As part of the new permissions system, members can have an optional "Priority level" attached (any number between 1 and 255). This is used for cases where one member tries to kick another member for example - they can only kick people of lower priority (not equal or higher). Likewise for the "Can become leader" option incase of leader absence/deletion - the highest priority member with this permission will become leader if they are available (or selected at random if multiple members have the same level and are set to be able to become leaders).
* All members can have a "Title" set (either by the leader, or anyone with appropriate title permissions). These titles are visible only to other alliance members, and you can use them for any purpose you wish - to mark "ranks" in your alliance (eg Captain, Sergeant, whatever...), or for silly/fun things, to mark people who need to attack more or who are perhaps on temporary "probation" as a new member etc.
* Alliance incoming fleets can have "notes" set next to them (by anyone with note permissions), this could be for example something like "Fake incoming, ignore", "Send more hippys here", "Last tick defend this" etc. Note editing uses new Azzjax implementation, so no page reloading every time you edit one.
* Recruitment is now done through a process of members "applying" to join your alliance, and a member with appropriate recruit permissions either accepting, or declining, the member application. If the alliance reaches maximum capacity, people can still request to join, but you will be unable to accept any. A player can only be requesting to join a single alliance at a time, and must cancel one request before requesting to join another. All old "recruit permissions" stuff has been removed - it's up to you to filter out who you do or do not want to join from the applications. Alliance password has been removed as it is not needed for the new system.
* Alliances no longer need HQ buildings, or the "minimum member limit" (5 by default on world 1), for most features - eg all alliances are now visible in the alliance list even with only 1 member, all alliances can use alliance mail/news, all alliances can set banners and flags. The only exception to this removal of most limits is sending units to a HQ - an alliance still needs to construct "Empty Land" alliance development to be able to be targetable by mobs, and the HQ and/or member limit is still needed for war declarations to be possible.
* An "Alliance Logs" page has been added, this will be used similar to alliance news, but is not visible to anybody outside of the alliance. It is to be used to log things such as member joins, member parts, permission changes, fund donations, tax rate changes, and similar things that relate to the management of the alliance but do not need to (and should not) be viewable to anyone else through spies.
* You can join one alliance directly from another, without having to go solo first. If you're in an alliance, and apply to join another direct - and they accept - you will instantly transfer from one to the other, without any requirement to go solo first. Going solo does not reset the timer which limits how frequently you can join alliances - only actually joining an alliance (changing tags) resets this timer (which is now 6 hours for the frequency with which you can join a 2nd alliance from joining your previous alliance, and 24 hours to re-join an alliance you were already a part of within the last 24 hours - reduced to 1 hour/6 hours respectively for private worlds).
* Tax rate can now go up to 25%.
* You can now kick players who have had their ID's/accounts admin-locked.

Because of the change in recruitment system, I don't think random alliances are needed anymore. I bolded three key points to this.

[BlackWolf]

Originally Posted by Azzer

You can join one alliance directly from another, without having to go solo first.

Dont like this idea. In a way it is good, yet I do think this game is way too small has too small alliances and as such it is making spys work to be way too easy and harmfull towards alliances. The one and only good thing for alliances that got spied on was the ability to rape that ******* down without AR mod. Now with insta join we will see a lot more dissapointed people and a lot more very angry alliance leaders abandoning their allys mid round.

People jumping from mid allys to top ally and after one gets zeroed top ally can just recruit another big guy etc. I simply have hard times to find so much good things it would balance the bad things of the system.

(This is what I am afraid of, I wish it will not come to be reality)

[Azzer]

Originally Posted by BlackWolf

Dont like this idea. In a way it is good, yet I do think this game is way too small has too small alliances and as such it is making spys work to be way too easy and harmfull towards alliances. The one and only good thing for alliances that got spied on was the ability to rape that ******* down without AR mod. Now with insta join we will see a lot more dissapointed people and a lot more very angry alliance leaders abandoning mid round.

It was to prevent the fact that without this, any time you wanted to join a new ally you'd be forced to go solo first, thus giving out your "solo status" to any alliance you applied for... I wanted to make the alliance joining system more simple, fast, encourage more people to use it, and not make people avoid trying to apply to new alliances because they were afraid to give out their solo status/afraid to be forced to go solo first. I hope that on the whole the benefits far outweigh any cons. Spy hunting will always be a problem and responsibility of the leaders/recruiters of an alliance.

[Alcibiades]

delete post. useless

[Mattheus]

Some nifty features there Azzer. Nice work.
I'm undecided on the whole issue of being able to go from one alliance to another straight away. Like BW I have my concerns about making it too easy for spies, but I see your point too. Guess we'll see how it pans out.

[BlackWolf]

Thank you Mattheus from understanding my point instead of turning it to flame fest.

I must say I am very pleased with what Azzer has posted the whole idea is awesome!

Azzer could you consider some kind of cooldown in that joining thing? Like if player joins alliance he doesnt need to go solo, but he goes to "waiting" state. Even that alliance could see he is joining and when he is joining yet he wouldnt be in alliance untill certain time has run out.

I see it would fix all my problems with this idea and in other hand it would make joining to work same way as your initial idea is about.

[pinpower]

not entirely on topic but i am loving all the ideas the azzman posted!
xxx

[Dark_Angel]

It's an idea thats been around for a while but that few people have dared put forward

I don't think it'd work. Bushtarion is a game that relies heavily on it's community. Remove the community and you remove what is probably one of the most fundamental aspects of the game.

However. That said it would be interesting to offer all new-players the option (upon first entering the overview) to enter a "new player alliance".

Don't ask me how this would work. Perhaps a more experienced player could be elected to lead one of one/two "training" alliances (with a larger capacity than normal alliances), in which new players could choose to be automatically placed in.

This would effectively remove the need for them to hunt for an alliance via the forums/through friends, something that can be a fairly big task for a new player. Essentially, this would place them with likeminded players of a similar ability, lead by someone willing to guide them. (I know you can apply to join any alliance through the alliances page, however I don't know if this is the first thing on the mind of a new player. Much more likely they're trying to learn the very basics.)

Good effort though, it's an interesting concept.

DA

[BlackWolf]

I would be much more up for off round alliance system to maintain alliances and recruitment than pure new players alliance thing.

With such system people could find alliances page from non game area and easily find alliances that are recruiting, pick one of those and then contact them.

This all would be very easy to code on top of existing profile system where people already can send account mail, see profiles etc. Using same setup could be added pages for alliances so alliances could make small info plate of themselves, past round etc. like in current ingame system players can be clicked and seen as public with awards, nicks, locations etc, so could alliances be tracked throught same system.

This would at least easen the recruiting when all new players could be forwarded to one section where they could clearly find, contact and join alliances no matter if it is on the round or pre round.

[Dark_Angel]

Originally Posted by BlackWolf

I would be much more up for off round alliance system to maintain alliances and recruitment than pure new players alliance thing.

With such system people could find alliances page from non game area and easily find alliances that are recruiting, pick one of those and then contact them.

This all would be very easy to code on top of existing profile system where people already can send account mail, see profiles etc. Using same setup could be added pages for alliances so alliances could make small info plate of themselves, past round etc. like in current ingame system players can be clicked and seen as public with awards, nicks, locations etc, so could alliances be tracked throught same system.

This would at least easen the recruiting when all new players could be forwarded to one section where they could clearly find, contact and join alliances no matter if it is on the round or pre round.

Very interesting idea BW, one that probably deserves it's own thread.

I like the idea of supporting established and long-standing alliances, making it easier for them to recruit new players etc, strengthening their ability to stay together.

Interesting!

[BlackWolf]

Originally Posted by Dark_Angel

Very interesting idea BW, one that probably deserves it's own thread.

I like the idea of supporting established and long-standing alliances, making it easier for them to recruit new players etc, strengthening their ability to stay together.

Interesting!

Suggested before was pretty much turned down so wont bother to post it again. So lets just go with your noob ally idea it is 2nd best option.

[Cyrus]

as ive always said with this, how can you give bonus's to allis that stay together, who carries the 'flag' onto the next round? the leader? back-up leaders? people you allow to? i think it would be hard to do this, ill have to leave the answering to that one for azzer

[BlackWolf]

Originally Posted by Cyrus

as ive always said with this, how can you give bonus's to allis that stay together, who carries the 'flag' onto the next round? the leader? back-up leaders? people you allow to? i think it would be hard to do this, ill have to leave the answering to that one for azzer

You just register alliance like player with passwords and such, then you add members to it like to some forum community group, game keeps track of people in alliances and for x amount of rounds listed in one alliance you get a flag.

If thats what you mean.

[Polo]

Originally Posted by BlackWolf

Suggested before was pretty much turned down so wont bother to post it again. So lets just go with your noob ally idea it is 2nd best option.

Iirc, I suggested this before in my "What would you do?" thread on the old forums. I would link to it but the old forums appear to have disappeared, unfortunately.

Anyway, from what I remember, Azzer liked the idea but wasn't sure how to implement it - that's all. It wasn't turned down.

[BlackWolf]

Originally Posted by Polo

Iirc, I suggested this before in my "What would you do?" thread on the old forums. I would link to it but the old forums appear to have disappeared, unfortunately.

Anyway, from what I remember, Azzer liked the idea but wasn't sure how to implement it - that's all. It wasn't turned down.

When I suggested it way way back it was pretty much turned down. Didnt even remember that you have suggested it too. (or was it another way around... I will not try to take credit of what is yours.)

Well I think I replied to that "how to do it part" already