I love the idea, but would’t that just become a tribal shitshow as well?
All you need to do is have the majority and whatever you say goes.
The game needs to regulate this.
Something indeed needs figuring out for sure.
I dont think saying UA is allowed should ever have been mentioned and I’m sure Pie would love to have taken it back. UA was frowned upon like Nap breaks and if done hung drawn and quartered in forums for it. Players then know to be wary of certain individuals
A congress like AW and now Hydro suggesting. Agreement from everyone that we limit to 1 fam alliance . Get it ingame signed, tag on fam names so its obviouse who is with who
Any suspicious inter fam helpings we deal with it as a galaxy
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No.
Pie does not have fucking time to enforce some rule he has no way to enforce anyway.
He said UA is here to stay, because he has bigger fish to fry than have to deal with this bullshit every round.
A congress cannot work either - majority rules will win every round.
Because UA is here to stay,
The game needs fixed.
@Lord_Pickle Is perfectly correct
The very reason @Airwing 's idea didn’t work is because it was player driven.
You all want to keep playing, you need to get over your tribalism - and give @I_like_pie some real - codeable solutions.
No you got wrong end of stick. I dont mean making UA legal. But announcing it so
We would have gone on playing as normal until somebody realised they was getting away with it. Could have been MW87 by then.
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I agree!!!
Also, if PA would have allied another fam Honor would have been enforced by sheer might.
However those are masks to hide the problem, it would have simply kicked this can further down the road.
@Dukey that’s a tricky one. We had an issue before where we kind of took that approach, and it ended up undermining player trust in all of our rules, and grumblings that I would “let friends get away with it” which isn’t a healthy perception for anybody.
As painful as this all is right now, full transparency is the best approach, even to the point where I will flat out admit that if we ever were to bring it back, it will be 100% unenforced. It probably sound strange that way, but I’d rather be honest and transparent about the situation.
I like the ideas that @SunTzu and @HydroP are getting at, and your own suggestion about alliance tags is a great one too. 
Of course people can still lie about their associations, but even small things like that can go a long way to influence behavior.
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I am not horrendous, but definitely ‘guilty as charged’ when someone irritates me by farming much smaller players or being a vulture during wars.
@Darrk and @I_like_pie
to try answer and contribute to the issue:
i have 100% same feeling as @Lord_Pickle. Aslong as one fam can coordinate with other fams legaly i truly dont think there is a codable solution to this as many keep saying, this is player related. All i know i dont like the game with this being alowed and will spend my time on other stuff. we dont have enough players to make unoffical or official allainces good imo 
i hope more people than darrk like it, would be sad to see IC loose the last 99 players it has.
The only work around i see to maybe tackle this:
1: 2-4 big fams to make alliances kinda not a thing
2: ALOT of 2-3 man fams and cap the allainces part to max 1-2 per fam.
Anyway i have seen this shitstorm with UA once before i supernova and now again in MW, not giving it a second chanse unless its small 2-3 man fams that is somthing i been campaigning for the last years.
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Interesting take there @Darrk. Best of luck ‘breaking’ the game by playing within the rules. Should be a lot of fun for you. Maybe not for everyone else.
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That would be a new take IMO. 100x100 grid. Four families equally spaced. Each fighting for control of the galaxy.
I like this for variety sakes as well. Of course a cap on alliances is unenforceable, but still might be fun. Basically this idea was the first round of Infinitum (by mistake) but with a lot less players than MW has.
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I get what you mean, but I do think there are code-related things that will impact this, they just aren’t obvious or technically related to game-balance. Rather, they affect the players themselves and therefore directly address the “player related” issues that people are rightfully identifying as the problem. For example:
- Better communication tools (as already mentioned)
- A player profile page with history, comments, even the ability to be rated by other players
- Alliance tags (as @Dukey mentioned)
There’s a lot that can be coded against to affect how players perceive each other, and that has a very direct effect on how players interact with each other.
The different fam size suggestions are interesting too, though I hesitate to replace one band-aid (UA) with another (requiring 4 big fams). Will definitely give it consideration though. 
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@I_like_pie Correct me if I am wrong on my interpretation of this, but the potential alliance drama everyone is crying about happening in UA was already going on in IA regardless of the ‘rules’ set in place.
UA being a “thing” now is because you don’t have the time to investigate rule breaking during an IA round anymore. The people “cheating” in IA rounds don’t like that now it’s no longer “cheating” to have unofficial alliances and whatnot.
Why? Because now the people who were willing to follow the rules and not cheat no longer have those restrictions placed on them and it will level the playing field potentially? I personally am looking forward to playing this way and seeing what happens.
If it turns into a shit show due to players deliberately doing stuff to ruin it for everyone else in order to prove their point (which would be completely asinine) then maybe they’re right to leave the game. And those who actually have an open mindset about the possibilities this will create for the game will be able to have a truly enjoyable gameplay experience.
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Best damn quote in this thread imho.
This is like a completely new player too.
Just awesome.
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none of these things will stop 2-3-4 fams from coordinating together which is the core issue that takes the fun away from this fantastic game.
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Then what is the solution @Airwing?
Give us one.
UA not alowed is the solution, but thats not an option so i truly dont know.
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In a No Alliance round I’d like to see the following
1 Galactic Congress are created to oversee rules.
2 All Market trades are published or if not possible market closed.
If the gc finds you guilty of market aiding or any other actions that can be deemed against the round rules punishments could include bring marked rogue, losing expo’s, losing race bonuses like income bonus or attack bonus. if possible or any combination of things. If the punishment could fit the crime all the better.
If found guilty you should also have the round number and Cheated in your permanently in your empire history.
On the flip side if we want to encourage honourable behaviour then this could be noted in empire history as decided by the GC
The GC would need to be policed or punished for abusing privileges as well and should probably be judged by stricter limits
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I saw a few problems with UA this round.
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Half the galaxy is draw into the fight and then half the galaxy is napped
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During wars families are targeted and destroyed to take them out of the fight.
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After the wars and naps are in place, families outside the alliances have been farmed to nothing. I haven’t seen farming this bad before, but its largely because there are no other targets.
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Secret out of alliance assistance , mostly market aiding, making fights even less fair.
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Round feel very unfair to everyone outside of a large alliance and not a satisfying to win by just getting most families/make most deals etc.
I don’t have any good solutions to these issues, but here are the few ideas. None of them are good, just maybe better than current state.
They all can be abused worked around, but could be refined.
In game ideas.
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Remove ability to market aid (remove market is the simple way todo this)
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Limiting attacking, you can only declare war on two other families and can only attack those targets. War declarations are public.
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Automatic in game naps after % of planets/networth lost
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Wars limited to families in certain networth/planet count range.
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Pmode kicks in sooner lasts longer
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Some new mechanic making attacking same target more and more costly the smaller they get relative to your family.
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Full draft to let friend play together, reduce natural UAs. Alliance feature may achieve this.
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Restrict to 2 large families.
Out of game solutions.
- Ban UA - unenforced, players all agree it’s better for the game, galaxy council or group of players to enforce.
- Ban UA - enforced with a new better structure that doesn’t require pies time.
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The GC would simply be majority rules.
It would be inherently tribal.
How is that any different then what we have now, other than one side flipping starts with an advantage?
I agree that is a danger but without someone to watch over everything i cant see an alternative. As it would be for the non alliance rounds the GC could be allocated to 10 -15 random people who have put themselves forward. Abuse your position and you get made to play with a punishment race or something. -30% everything and the only op Check allies.
There will have to be very strict rules about the GC and decisions would need to be clinical and without emotion. If it starts getting tribal then that will have to be dealt with
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