Istalris wrote:You make a good point, but then what's to stop other people doing the same to said alliance members?
Alliances can provide protection, but it is limited and defined to a few tactics, not complete protection. There are one or two alliances that if you join, most people will never probe or attack you just because you wear that tag. However, the people it matters to will not care and attack anything that presents a profit or a good hunt. I think you will find out that the community here has a certain sense of ethical behaviour, like an unwritten rule book that everyone tends to follow for the most part. Completely destroying one player because they hit someone in your alliance has quite simply, never happened (not to mention it is extremely difficult to hurt someone's empire to that degree). You are more likely to get a pat on the back and a well done from the more serious alliances, from the less serious ones, who cares?
Points i want to pull up is the ethical behaviour, respect for other gamers and keeping the game going
No doubt many people have been at the bad end of the deal on a hit and feel quite sour that they lost everything through maybe a bad fleetsave or overslept or even tipped off by an outsider (another story) - needless to say you feel bad because you made a mistake in gameplay - plain and simple - after time this is accepted and you move on. Its all part of the learning process.
Now here is a situation where you cannot escape - even if you do everything that is possible in the game to avoid it :
A fleetsave we all know is critical so tell me I'm wrong but moon to moon deploy would be safest as it cannot be phalanxed at either end - then some one breaks a moon after working out roughly (or even exactly) your online times and destroys your moon to phalanx your fleet for its landing time = 'perfect winning strategy'....
How about the same situation but the smaller player recalls a deploy because they get online and see the incoming attack (and even have the courtesy in some instances to message the attacker to inform this is the case) most atackers would pull out as there wouldnt be a worthwhile hit at the end due to the player being online and mutual respect is earned.
now for the way this version of the game lets us down :
every version of this game I have encountered allowed one way out for the player under attack as long as they got online in time (their own fault if they didnt) a recall ! the smarter attackers know a way to calculate recalls but takes a LOT of effort and costs so the target fleet has to be worth the effort.
Now for for the upset bit - the rules here allow a top ranked player to break as many moons as he likes in one go with overkill with deathstars and is also able to phalanx 'any' movement including recalls the smaller player has going to try to avoid being wiped out... and being small is also generally in a small alliance which even all together couldnt dream of defending against such an onslaught...
a couple of questions :
1 : why is there no option for the smaller player to escape if he is online and hasnt made a mistake on his fleetsave ?
2 : why can a top 10 player feel it necessary to totally destroy any player that has 25million points less than himself ?
3 : would the programmers consider removing the ability to phalanx a recalled deployment as this is the only safe way for players to rescue months of work from being taken away through no fault of their own ?
A lot of reading i'm sure but i hope my point comes through - there would be less inactives if the rules were a little 'adjusted' between the big guys and the smaller as the smaller have no opportunity to outwit without getting bashed back to the start
(this is all based on actual event
) luv silver (now scream at me !!!!)
by the way, does this smiley remind you of the "bees" segment in the movie Tommy Boy?