Do we need a second alliance?

[Dena4]

During war seasons we are facing opponents with 40+ members at the moment and this means we are outnumbered in wars due to the attack limitation. Reason is hat we have too many fiefdoms.

Last season I tried to deliberately lose all fiefdoms to get a better chance next time. Due to a twist (another team that had great chances to become second just gave up) my intention failed, we won't lose all fiefdoms and are without boosts. it feels like a wasted season, because it brings us nowhere. If I would have known before that the other team would give up, I would have taken actions to win some wars that we just lost with a few K difference.

But even if we became second, fact is that we would have too many fiefdoms and would risk meeting teams 50+ members. So we are now in a position where it is decision time.

We can say, we go for growth and hope we can get new members. We already know that most players out there are looking for (war) boosts and are only loyal as long as thse boosts are active. So that will be difficult.

Edward and I discussed about other options. And one very interesting one came to discussion. I need everyones honest opinion, since I will only do this if all members agree.

What if we create a 2nd alliance? We could win seasons in one alliance, while the other one is dropping fiefdoms at the same time. Players have fun (winning is fun, losing is frustrating), get war boosts and enjoy the game. It's very complicated though. Creating spots for members cost gold, but... First 20 spots are relatively cheap, for less than 12M we can accomplish that. Only... 35 spots cost over 200M, so it will take time to create a sister alliance that can give places for all members.

Here is the idea, we create a sister alliance, for example Edward can do that during cooldown. all donated gold will be used for making more spots available, so there are no boosts there. As soon as there are more spots available, some of our players can make short visits and do their daily donation there to speed up the process of creating spots. To be clear, it's not needed to do this every day. During cooldown, we should be able to create spots for 17-20 members.

A day before war season starts, some members move to the new alliance and fight a relative easy war season, while others face a nightmare and will fight with a few members to lose fiefdoms. Eight members are minimum to be part of a war season, and since in the beginning not enough spots are available, some need to stay behind anyway.  Because it's not going to be pleasant for players staying behind, unless they don't care for war boosts and trophies. To make things clear, I will stay in the main alliance, since I don't care for war boosts and trophies mean nothing to me.

I suggest to reward the players who stayed behind to have fun during cooldown in the new alliance with those boosts, while others return to main alliance. We keep this process going for a few seasons to lose fiefdoms in main alliance untill enough fiefdoms are dropped.

When we make a good chance, we fill up all spots of main team again and leave 8 players in other alliance. When war starts, remaining members except the leader will stay behind in the new alliance, which will mean that alliance will drop fiefdoms. Players who joined main alliance later, can only not fight in wars that already started, so we wait with declaring war. It must be members that are online at moment of war season start, so it will cost us some good teamwork to do this. To make it clear, some members need to go back during cooldown for making the other team grow again. As soon as both teams are equal size we can start to win wars in one alliance (for example three seasons in a row) while the other team drops fiefdoms. It makes us constantly win boosts, plus... both teams can grow in members.

two alliances has also advantages, if for some private life reason, you can't fight during a war season, just go to the alliance that drops fiefdoms and stay there. If you really feel you need war boosts, stay in the alliance that is going to drop fiefdoms, because we said players need to be rewarded for their courage and get those boosts from team mates. We want a fair roulation system for that, unless some players say I volunteer to stay in main alliance, no matter what.

What is the opinion of other members? It's just an idea and I will need all members to support this idea. If someone says nope, I don't like it, let's fight the way we do now and do our best to get more members it's also fine with me. Fact is we need to make sure we aren't outnumbered, equal teams we usually stand a good chance against. So we need more members or two alliances.

[Dena4]

I forgot to tell you to respond to it, because your opinion is important.

[Alysea]

Hey Jack,
this seems to be a good idea to me, especially with the current matchmaking system.
It will be hard to find loyal members (loyal for the alliance and the social part of it, and not the boosts), so except if we are lucky with this...

This is quite a tricky way of doing things, but it's well thought and I think it can help keeping up the fun for most of people

[Karman]

It seems to be very well thought, but it doesn't finish to convince me...
I feel like on some way we might end up divided because we'll always need to leave behind at least 8 players so both alliances keep getting wars, I think that we all win and lose together as a whole, everyone deserves boosts when victory is ours and also we stay together when we couldn't make it.
Also I don't see how this could make us get more members, even when this plan isn't supposed to help on it, I think we should find new friends, because otherwise we'll end with two incomplete alliances, that way we'll only get boosts, are we that hungry for war boosts?

[Dena4]

I understand the concerns Karman and also what Anthony (ateam4) means. Fact is that for players like Aether and my daughter wars ain't funny.

Why do you think Kooterville became inactive? Wars were very hard for him, war after war. I do know it's not fun to stay behind in an alliance without the team.
We could however use second dummy accounts and leave them behind if this concerns you. Only... we don't have enough spots in the second one as quick a required. But it's a safe spot then for members who can't help and are beaten up like hell during war seasons. Also lower gods like fresh can reside there during war seasons and fight easy wars if we get enough lower players. During cooldown most of us need to be in main alliance. As soon as we have enough spots in both, we can use the dummy/double account trick. We indeed are a team and need to act like one. Even Aether likes the idea and for a good reason. But let others do their sayings.

[ateam4]

I refuse to believe in this idea! WE FIGHT AS ONE! WE FIGHT FOR G&M! WE FIGHT TILL THE END! And like krman said ARE WE REALLY THAT HUNFRY FOR WAR BOOSTS?

[Alysea]

Fact is that for players like Aether and my daughter wars ain't funny.

Don't count me in this, focus on your daughter and the other players, I am not able to play enough during the war to have a significant position about it
I can understand why some think it is better staying in only one alliance.
It is true that people may end divided, but I want to believe members of this alliance know better than this, and will prioritize friendship and the alliance.

Getting more members would be great, as long as the current spirit of the alliance is not lost, so if it goes well, sure!

One thing if this two alliances idea is set up, it should never be always the same players in one alliance, and the same in the others, it would be good having some rotation too, so it is "fair".

[Dena4]

Thanks for the input Aether, Anthony, Karman and others. I striked your name in players who profit from easier fights in previous comment. I will hold reckon with your comments and I will certainly not decide on my own what we do. If we risk losing members, then that is no option for me.

I will give my personnal opinion. I don't need war boosts and don't care for trophies at all. Trophies are for showing off, "look how good I am", I don't need to boost my ego. Those ego trippers should realise they only look that good, because they need war boosts. Without them they would be nowhere.

For me it is important to enjoy the game, without the stress of needing to be online all the time and constantly improve myself. My family is more important to me and that's why I chose to create this alliance with Edward. One or two hours a day max should be more than enough. Like I always say, we decide as a team what we do and so I respect that now.

Only... having relative easy war seasons would make things a lot of easier for me personnally. If I wouldn't be the leader of this fantastic team and had no special connection with it, then there would be no doubt for me. I definitely would start all over again, create a new alliance and enjoy the time of playing and relax. But reality is that I am the leader of a great team and I carry the responsibility to make sure the members stick together as one, even in bad times.

Do we care about war boosts? I don't know, but fact is that players with war boosts, during cooldown start to raid players without boosts. Is it nice to be under a lot of attacks during cooldown? I don't care, but I don't know how other members feel about it. I notice only that players are more active when we won boosts during cooldown than if we didn't win any. It doesn't have to be a problem, but it could become one if it happens too often.

Since war seasons are getting very hard and we definitely having problems getting enough loyal members to fill all open spots, there is no easy solution to improve our current situation. It's a problem most alliances face now, it's not easy to find loyal members. When all players say we don't care for war boosts, but also don't give up wars, also fine with me.

But I only ask you to look at it from both perspectives, your own one and from the perspective of the team. For the team it would be great to be able to win wars, lower players who now struggle in wars aren't even able to compete in wars. Think on the poor Kooterville, bleeding skulls heavily all the time, while he wasn't able to win a single raid, unless I activated storm canon. That's why his nickname was storm canon. Sadly enough he is now inactive.

Fact is that if we decide not to give up seasons, we will risk even to meet teams with even more and even stronger members, just think back on old times when we even met teams like royal Brasil in the previous alliance. A maxed alliance full with players that were able to beat any base of us even without boosts while we even had war boosts. And most of us even had problems to get 100% raids against their average players. They locked us up in the corner and we couldn't even lose fiefdoms, because they didn't attack us. Is that a pleasant thought? That's the risk we take when we decide to continue like we do now. Realise it means it's possible that we don't get any war boosts for multiple seasons in a row. If you say we don't care for war boosts, fine with me and we forget the second alliance. Only... If we chose for this option, we can't spend alliance gold like we do now to get a chance to win one, we simply can't afford to keep season boosts alive plus make room for new members (if we can find them!). Plus... when I do upgrade the alliance, boosts get more expensive, so upgrading without members for the extra spots has a downside!

Like I said, when the team decides to keep one alliance, I will respect that decision. Only remember what I said, seasons will get harder and we need more members. We already are doing our best to get new members, but most of them out there seem to be boost seekers, who leave when boosts go inactive.

Sure, a second alliance would also be risky and costs a lot of management, but that's main problem for me and the ones that are going to manage it. We split the team in two parts and it could make or break us, but... we know each other for a very long time and can look each other straight in the eyes, so I don't believe it will break us apart.

The second alliance is just an idea now and certainly a lot needs to be worked out for making it work like we intent to do. We can even say we don't break the team in two parts, we start to invest in that second one and don't go to fight there untill we have enough spots for all members to join. You know what that means, we fight on like now, only with in our mind that we have a solution in a nearby future to escape the difficult seasons. Plus... we have a safe spot for members on a holiday (Next august I will be away for 4 weeks, but that is still far away now!) or who have private reasons to relax and a place to protect players who get beaten up during season, without being able to help. During cooldown they need to be with us, we are a team and we don't need a split.

I realize it won't be easy that second team and we need help of members to make it grow, if that's our choice. That's why I told we need to visit it once per cooldown period to speed up the process because we need some daily donations there to make it grow faster.  

As soon as it is a full grown alliance where all of us can go to win the easy wars is also ok with me. But then we need some second accounts of players to run the other alliance and guard it for the time being we are fighting in the other one.  

That's why I like the idea more to start to create one (if we want two alliances) and let some of us go first there, win that easy war season and let others who stayed behind profit from that win during a few days to recover. Fun for both, the ones that won the season had fun to win, the others get rewarded for their sacrifice to take the blow. Both alliances will grow much faster. We must only make sure that not always the same players suffer and others only profit.

Like I said, I respect also Anthony his decision and appreciate his input, it's the brave choice to go on as a team and do our best to change the tide. But we definitely need new members for that to escape the negative spiral.

To be realistic and give you an indication, to win wars and stand a chance against 40+ teams, we need to be able to score 100-120k skulls minimum per war without champions. Without loser bonus, we score less than 90k. So if we chose for only one team, we have a long way to go to make any progress. It means at least 5 extra players.

[Dena4]

I realise my post contains a lot of info. Just read the story and make a wise decision. Don't let your opinion be influenced by what I said.

[momo_cito]

This is just my opinion but I feel that if we can try to get a second alliance then that would a step to keep people with G&M.  When people go on vacation and we need to have a spot filled, then they can stay in the alliance that is going to drop feifdoms.  I am not against this because I know that other teams have the same setup.  You won't know how it is unless you try it.  If it doesn't work then we do something else.  I am a dedicated member and will always help where I can.  You have my word.

[LS59]

Though I have shared my views on chat I will like to share the thought process with everyone in more detail. I like the idea that Jack and Ed have proposed.

I'm very emotional about us sticking together and beating our opponents. Infact some of my best memories of this game are when we have stuck together like a family in difficult times. And it has been proved time and again when our opponents have come back and said that we are a tough alliance and we have commanded respect from our opponents.

I think the biggest challenge that we face right now is number of members. We have heard from our leader and generals how tough it is to recruit. From my experience of being general in previous alliance it is not tough but extremely tough to recruit and that too a loyal member.
I did a small analysis to find out why is that so. Below are two ways of looking at this.

Way 1:
I know this is time consuming but give it a try. Look at top 50 (even top 100) alliances and the number of empty slots they have. Then at each of these alliances quickly look at the lowest 5 (or even 10) members of these alliances. You will notice two things
a) 60% - 70% (or close to that) alliance have an open slot/s.
b) the lowest 5 (or 10) members will not be as strong (in terms of king level) as the remaining ones.
This to me means they have lowered there entry conditions to attract new members so they can get whatever extra skulls possible in wars.

Way 2
I think it would be safe to say that at current levels we rank 200+. Lets do a quick back of the envelope calculations (these are very conservative numbers):
a) Lets say top 30 alliance have space for 60 members i.e. total of 30x60 = 1800 members
b) Lets say next 50 alliance from 31 to 80 have say space for 50 members i.e. total of 50x50 = 2500 members
c) Lets say next 70 alliance from 81 to 150 have say space for 40 members i.e. total of 70x40 = 2800 members
d) Lets say next 50 alliance from 151 to 200 have say space for 35 members i.e. total of 50x35 = 1750 members
So total members that top 200 alliance can absorb/recruit is 1800+2500+2800+1750 = 9000 (approx). That means the top 9000 players can join top 200 alliances. In short all players with ranking 3400+ can join one of top 200 alliance. I know the reality could be slightly different (i.e. no correlation between rank and king level etc. etc.) but I hope the numbers give us some idea why it is so hard to even recruit (forget loyal members).
In fact this ecosystem where we have more slots then number of players could be one of reason for having jumpers or boost seekers or whatever else you want to call them.

So how do we solve this challenge of getting stronger as an alliance. I like Jack & Ed's idea as it is innovative. I don't know for sure that it will work but its worth a try.
Another option is to find a struggling alliance and merge it with us but that would require many more slots and there is a risk of struggle to keep our identity intact. Still it is an option.
If there is any other option that can help us solve this issue please do share here.

Other option is to continue trying to recruit new members as we are currently doing. After all we have found many loyal members in the past (I would like to include myself in that list). Here is my take on why it was easier earlier to find such members as compared to today. Earlier we were a growing alliance and were winning the wars and getting war boosts. So I think we were able to get many not so strong kings who benefited from both guidance and active boosts and have grown stronger over past few months and are able to take down gates of many higher level kings. Yes we may not care for having or not having war boosts but it is important for newly joining not so strong kings to improve and become stronger in coming months. I will be honest though I have joined at later stage these war boosts (and occasional non war day when canon was activated) have helped me to clear many dungeon levels and accumulate gold for upgrades. Without this and the guidance I have received here I may or may not have been as strong as I'm today. So I think today I'm fine whether we have or not these war boosts but these are still important for new members or not so strong kings to grow stronger. Therefore it is important to win wars.

This has been a long post but I hope I have shared a different perspective. So whether we go ahead with this idea or not we would still need to do something about this challenge.

In the end thanks to every member of this alliance to make it feel like family here.

[Dena4]

I think ls59 nailed it as well as bubba did this morning. Edward and I founded this alliance with a special reason. A place to have fun, relax and enjoy the game, cash free. We didn't want stress and easy wars fit perfectly in that picture, thank you Bubba for telling me that.

The story that LS59 better known as Luv is a strong argument. For new loyal members those boosts are needed to grow and become members like we are, helped by us to improve with the support of war boosts.

[Karman]

I simply loved Luv's analysis, it's very well done. That confirms something I've been believing since I was still a leader on my previous alliance: There must be way too many alliances for the amount of players, so there always will be open spots, even if every player gets an alliance. So the fight is between alliances to get the most members, for that they must offer something good to players, and I think we have the best we can offer: A virtual family. The problem is that not many players want that, they just wanna grow stronger, advance in the game and maybe become a top player, so they only want boosts, win wars and get trophies, that's why it's difficult to find great loyal members. Alliances prefer loyal members, but most of them go for the "give as many boosts as we can so we get members" strategy to fill their spots, even players who look for an alliance for friends fall for all of those boosts (Equinox is the perfect example, he liked us, but he got invited by a higher alliance with lots of boosts). Growing stronger is for sure very important for all players, but we know the most important thing is friendship, that's what we offer and it's sad how there are players who don't appreciate that, and there might also be some of them who actually are only looking for friendship but they don't know we exist...
When I first joined Genie and Master I was stuck at 2700 trophies, and yesterday I finally reached 4000, and I know it's all thanks to this alliance, you know I was about to quit the game when I was a leader, but then decided to give this a try and there are no regrets at all. Tracy is the one who remembers the most the names of those relatively new members who are loyal, so we have found for sure great players we were looking for, and we're what they were looking for too.

[Karman]

Well, it seems you have strong arguments, we need to help our new members grow and then get more, so I'm fine with whatever decision we take

[Edward the 7th]

Hi,

The idea of a double alliance is not new. It is used for a long time by The Ark clan.
They fight easy seasons in The Ark, then leave this alliance to lose fiefdoms and go to The Ark II, which has very low fief count. All in rotation of changing main alliance once in a month or two. This way their members are in minimal stress, easy seasons. Always max boosted to raid easier and grow faster.

One very important aspect and concern raised here is our unity and friendship. This will still stay, cause we only need to start the season in the abandoned alliance with 8 members. Immediately after the season starts, all of the players there, except the temporary leader, will leave and join all the others in the fighting alliance. The only thing they will lose is the ability to participate in the first war.

There will be one player left in the losing fiefs alliance, as we need a leader there, for the whole season. He can even be shielded, so he will not loose too much trophies. Anyway, me for example. I don't care for trophies or losing them. Sometimes even open my base on purpose. So, no problem to be there. We can even do shifts, changing the leaders there every time

Cheers,

Edward

[LS59]

I came across this on forum that if during a war an alliance loses members and goes below 4 members then all its fief are divided among remaining alliances on board.
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If this is indeed true then the temporary leader won't encounter lot of attacks and 3 fiefs will be lost easily.

[Dena4]

After the discussions yesterday on the alliance chat, we decided not to go for this option any longer. Some of our members don't like it and we always said we decide as a team.

We don't want to lose loyal members, so we don't do it now. Maybe as some kind of boot-camp later.

[Edward the 7th]

The alliance will loose anyway, cause 8 players can't beat 30-40. So, no worry. But many chests - yes...

[ann12]

I think the decision was a nice one. It's more relaxing in the sister concern and actually helps you to grow with all the boosts. If we need chests then we can go in the main alliance.

So, it's a matter of choice growth versus chests.

[Edward the 7th]

Ann, you said it exactly. Better to grow constantly boosted and happy

[Dena4]

It has proved that we made the correct decision. We make progression and still win wars. This way we can grow to a 40+ team, something we would never achieved without second team.

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