Alliance Structure: What Works, and What Doesn't

[Grim]

I'm part of an alliance that is new to nullsec, and is still evolving how to make an alliance work in 0.0. A big part of this is how you structure your alliance, laying out responsibilities and management of finances, ship replacment, logistics, infrastructure, military stuff, etc.

So the question for this thread is how do you setup an effective nullsec alliance? Do you go authoritarian (mittani) with a lot of people to do all the actual work? Do you put the FCs in charge of everything, or do they just FC, and leave the rest to internet politicians? Can a female be trusted to run things, or will she destroy the alliance once a month?

Basically, what works and what doesn't for nullsec alliance structure. Humoruous anectotes and Banlish posts are welcome.

[StevieTopSiders]

Don't put FC's in charge (especially not gay ones).

1. Select one person as "leader." That job can be rotated every few months, but make sure there is one person who can break stalemates amongst the different factions.

2. Create a "council" of corp CEO's to hurfblurf about stuff in a special CEO section on the forum.

3. Give FC's a forum to hurf-blurf and plan ops.

4. Don't give too many people leadership roles/permissions. Keep it to corp CEO's and maybe one trusted person per corp. In the FC forum, make sure it's only available to the people who can FC effectively. "But this guy is good at PVP, and I think he should comment on our fits" is not a reason to spread permissions around.

5. Encourage everyone to FC, and try to keep away from titles like "Official FC" and "CTA Level One Capable." If you have a strategic op, make sure that you have a list of people who won't welp the fleet terribly. If you have capitals, make sure someone with capital experience is FC'ing. Otherwise, make it clear that anyone who takes out a roam is an FC and has the support of leadership to grow their skills.

[Rer]

If you want more communication on CEO discussion topics then allow the addition of "right hand man"/directors. This can also however have the adverse effect of having "too many spaceship captains in the forum" as it were. And for god's sake have a centralized forum that people actually use.

[Grim]

If you want more communication on CEO discussion topics then allow the addition of "right hand man"/directors. This can also however have the adverse effect of having "too many spaceship captains in the forum" as it were. And for god's sake have a centralized forum that people actually use.

Historically we have had piss poor communication. The current structure is the 3 orginal corp CEOs have a triumvirate and they make all decisions (I think they have to be unanimous, but not sure). There is a group of all CEOs and corp officers that provide feedback to this illustrious group that is taken into consideration. Obviously as the alliance grows I can see this system breaking down. It worked fine for a highsec alliance, but with sov management, towers, logistics, etc. the lack of a division of labor will soon cause issues (in my opinion).

[ihaveahelmet]

Don't do anything that Majesta Empire and RAGE were doing, that's for sure.

[Some Market Dude]

Fuck corp CEOs, the source of 9 years of alliance failures in nullsec.

One man in charge at the top. Your only job is to make big decisions, solve spats, and shuffle people around as they get burntout, jobs, girlfriends, etc. Depending on how advanced your alliance is and your timezone coverage, I would have as many deputies as needed who can make decisions in my stead when I`m not around. I doubt youd ever need or want more than 2 or 3.

Below that I would have teams in charge of the areas that need constant day to day work. At first this would likely just be military, but as you advance you will add logistics, finance, intelligence, and so on. I would have one "head" of each team, whose job it is to make big decisions, solve spats and shuffle people around within his department.

The one exception would be military, where I would spend almost all of my time promoting FCs as they gain experience and prove themselves, and fostering a sense of community and teamwork. Your FC team IS your alliance. Everyone else is a dime a dozen and easily replaceable. Even a really talented and hard-working logistics guy can just be replaced with more logistics guys; even if it`s five more, just keep adding people until the workload is bearable. FCs don`t work that way, and are a resource that you develop over time. I would go as far as to say that the entire purpose of the alliance structure should be to develop and maintain a constantly-improving military team, everything else is comparably peanuts.

Corporations are basically your HR department. They recruit members, make sure they have income generation and logistics support, and keep them logging in and fleeting up. Other than that, all organization is done at an alliance level. Not only should corporations be expected to feed active members into alliance fleets, but they should also be feeding junior FCs and alliance level functionaries at a reasonable rate.

I could go into detail about some of my ideas about developing your military organization, which, as mentioned, is the core of your alliance, but this is enough for one post.

[JimFromIT]

I will roll over and tickle the balls of anyone willing to FC anything in my tiny excuse for a corp. You can be poor as fuck, with no space and horribly shit at eve provided your members are having fun - and your FC's are the people that make that happen. You cherish these guys, you reimburse their losses, tell them how special they are and let them fiddle with your mum, because without them nothing else matters.

[Richter Belmont]

Promote initiative, creativity, pragmatism. Don't give people with massive egos the keys to anything.

Democratic stuff doesn't work, so don't waste your time. A strong leader with good people to advise him works.

[jeffraider]

Whoever is the most active FC at the time is in charge, also any nerd that really fights to get some sort of space job is most likely the wrong duder for the job and will be super buttmad at some point when he isn't respected.

[Aurora148]

Fuck corp CEOs, the source of 9 years of alliance failures in nullsec.

One man in charge at the top. Your only job is to make big decisions, solve spats, and shuffle people around as they get burntout, jobs, girlfriends, etc. Depending on how advanced your alliance is and your timezone coverage, I would have as many deputies as needed who can make decisions in my stead when I`m not around. I doubt youd ever need or want more than 2 or 3.

Below that I would have teams in charge of the areas that need constant day to day work. At first this would likely just be military, but as you advance you will add logistics, finance, intelligence, and so on. I would have one "head" of each team, whose job it is to make big decisions, solve spats and shuffle people around within his department.

The one exception would be military, where I would spend almost all of my time promoting FCs as they gain experience and prove themselves, and fostering a sense of community and teamwork. Your FC team IS your alliance. Everyone else is a dime a dozen and easily replaceable. Even a really talented and hard-working logistics guy can just be replaced with more logistics guys; even if it`s five more, just keep adding people until the workload is bearable. FCs don`t work that way, and are a resource that you develop over time. I would go as far as to say that the entire purpose of the alliance structure should be to develop and maintain a constantly-improving military team, everything else is comparably peanuts.

Corporations are basically your HR department. They recruit members, make sure they have income generation and logistics support, and keep them logging in and fleeting up. Other than that, all organization is done at an alliance level. Not only should corporations be expected to feed active members into alliance fleets, but they should also be feeding junior FCs and alliance level functionaries at a reasonable rate.

I could go into detail about some of my ideas about developing your military organization, which, as mentioned, is the core of your alliance, but this is enough for one post.

This pretty much. A strong figurehead with lots of delegation. The only problem is that you need an equally strong backup to take over if the first person burns out.

Atlas worked very effectively like that for a long time, Bobby would delegate shit and it would get done. But when Bobby burned out there was nobody who had the same presence that he did, so the delegation of roles got a bit sloppy and more and more people started burning out and then the rest is history.

[Equium Duo]

I can only echo the alliance leader is there to put people in charge of differnet thing's and resolve issues. When I helped a small alliance with a leadership issue we introduced the following:

Alliance Head - One man, in charge. Final say on any issues.

Military Guy - Basically this person was in charge of taking care and development of the FC's and to a lesser role development of fleet doctrine (snipe HAC's at the time)

Logistic Guy - As it said on the tin, organised the transportation of alliance goods around the universe

Financial Guy - This guy kept on top of what money the alliance had, where to spend, how much we could reimburse etc.

Corp Rep's - There was one guy responsible for maintaining a presence on behalf of their corp (typically a CEO or director). A central point for the resolution of issues between corps.

Each person in these roles had to nominate a deputy who was then officially capable of making decisions on behalf of the actual department head when they were not contactable. (POS was attacked, or alliance CTA called)

Worked fairly well for a good few months whilst I was there, also allowed the alliance to grow and get new talent in without alienating the new corp's from the alliance leadership.

[Marivauder]

Democracy's don't work, councils are bad and cause arguments, one guy who lays the law, don't like what he says then leave

[Marivauder]

Also something i heard somewhere but i forgot where it was when you praise something for what they did, instead of just saying good job or you done well, try to throw something "you worked hard and you got what you deserved" this should stop people from getting lazy and stop putting the work in

[Checkbox Poll]

No democracy. Only deal with people you trust.

[Don Peyote]

There's a few roads you can go down - just look at any of the CFC alliances for an idea of how to do it moderately successfully, notably GSF and PL (and TEST, which adopts a quasi-GSF model). Jeff's model seems pretty baller for a :black101: Viking Alliance, but if you're putting down roots (I happen to know your alliance is), you want a more permanent model than letting whoever is most active at the time run the show.


A single, authoritarian figurehead of a leader (ideally with a personality cult) has always worked out well - while a leadership team should exist, and they should be allowed to inform your decisions (before they are made, this is important), ultimate power should fall to a single, incorruptible figurehead - ideally someone with severe investment in your little project so as to avoid any :fkyouralliance: moments. That said, they are the "leader", not the "leader/other role".

They're a figurehead, the guy who ultimately gives the orders to attack somewhere or blue someone etc., not one of the guys that gets most of the shit done. Delegation is the keyword here - Bobby Atlas and Molle, and Vuk Lau (to a lesser extent) are good examples of leaders that you shouldn't follow the example of - Molle's alliance fell apart when he wasn't investing much time in it, Bobby Atlas' abscence led to the downfall of Atlas (okay, they would probably have lost anyway, but they would've lasted longer), and Vuk Lau's abscence, coupled with allowing Traitorjohn anywhere near any power, led to the NC's collapse. The Leader is not the Head Diplo, nor is he the Head FC, Head PoS guy, Head Spy, Head caterer, or anything else. Delegate all these roles to others, those who have shown an aptitude for that line of work, and let them appoint subordinates and run their shop with minimal intrusion. Point them where to go, and let them get on with it. If they fuck up, replace them. If they do well, give them more challenging work - but make sure you get along with them well. These first two points seem conflicting and I've no idea how people manage to resolve that I'm afraid - a deft touch is required here. Just make sure that the leader has someone to cover him when he burns out (or even just "invent" a character to lead the alliance and have it actually be several people or something heh).

Corp CEOs only control their corp - as someone said a few posts up, they have no business making executive decisions. If some dude who would make a good head Diplo just happens to be the CEO of one of your corps, then fine, but rampant nepotism has no place in this kind of operation. Likewise, FCs tell your dudes what to do only in combat - They're fleet commanders, they shouldn't be making political decisions at all. Leader points, they shoot.

Be open and honest to your members, but don't brook any complaints from them. Let them believe that what you're doing is what they want too, and they'll gladly do it. EVE is a fucking game, so try to make it fun for your members, and they'll log in, and the alliance will be that much stronger for having active members. No one wants to follow a preening narcissist and his sycophantic retainers around space (actually, it seems that a lot of people do that in EVE :iiam

Let one dude lead you, someone with a proven track record, not the CEO of the largest corporation, and you might just end up something more than a footnote in EVE's history



I should point out I have next to zero experience leading anything in EVE, asides from a short stint as a director in a hisec corp (lol), and this is mostly just stuff I've observed from other alliances, so take it with a grain of salt

[Dengen Krastinov]

You need to find a balance that allows FC's to make tactical (and sometimes strategic) decisions on the fly without a bitter vet CEO telling them to fuck off on the forums (forget logging in to do so). CEO's completely out of touch with reality making judgements about what to do (for the most part what not to do) on a tactical level helped kill IT.

That said you need a leadership structure separate from the FC's that provide a counter balance to ego trippers.

[Mfume]

main FC leads alliance, makes all decisions, spends da money and ignores what everyone else says.

[Warband]

Being exec is really more about being the ultimate delegator and people person- dealing with disputes, ego management, making sure people don't slack off, noticing competence and rewarding it. Its actually less "raw work" then many of other positions- there's several people who do more than me in Nulli.

Another good position to have is "skymarshal" or "campaign commander" or whatever. Somebody in charge of a current campaign and strategy. It doesn't actually need to be an FC, just somebody who understands fleet warfare, knows the FC's, and can organize them and allies if allies are involved in the war effort.

Having a dedicated logistics/POS team is also pro, but its a fucking thankless task if you can't pay them.

[Some Market Dude]

main FC leads alliance, makes all decisions, spends da money and ignores what everyone else says.

and doesn't have any tech

jus sayin, brah

[ihaveahelmet]

main FC leads alliance, makes all decisions, spends da money and ignores what everyone else says.

what do you know about money

[ThemePending]

what do you know about money

that elo's pockets are bottomless

[Mfume]

and doesn't have any tech

jus sayin, brah

virak was my prime example of a non-FC leading an alliance.

rage also held tech.

i'm pretty sure you'd agree that rage was not a successful pvp alliance.

[Dsan]

Having a dedicated logistics/POS team is also pro, but its a fucking thankless task if you can't pay them.

I think a lot would do this happily if they were allowed to and it was appreciated with some respect and gratitude.

[Hilmar Keller]

There's also the question of sov.

Living in NPC space has the obvious benefit of making your alliance virtually invulnerable to attack. Unless you piss off the wrong people (i.e., -A- vs. PL/CFC), you're not going to get hellcamped into a station or have cloaky campers in your systems 23/7. NPC stations also provide a valuable resource in the form of pirate faction missions, which are worth quite a lot (though I've never done them since my standings with pirate factions are permafucked) even compared to anoms and belt ratting.

However, it's also hard to get a fight unless you reinforce POSes and/or stations. Roams are fun, but when your fleet participation gets to a certain level, you want to guarantee that you're forming up for a fight. Here's where SOV comes in: Enemies can't play docking games at your station; cyno jammers close to home means you can dictate where caps will and won't be dropped; jump bridges enable your fleets to move more quickly; cyno beacons are a tremendous boon to your JF and Carrier logistics, as moving cyno alts can be an expensive PITA. All of these enable an alliance to move from 'let's roam and find shit to kill' to 'form up at 0200, we're killing shit.'

Of course, this is all great until you either 1) run up against a bigger fish or 2) end up with too much sov. Being a name on the sov map is one thing, but being a large blip on the sov map (and not having Dotlan numbers to justify the blip) spells doom. This is when a lot of inexperienced alliances end up becoming part of a NAPfest with their neighbors, deploying with them in massive sov grinds, getting comfortable in the lull of easy ratting, not logging in for fleets and playing too much League of Legends. This is how alliances die.

TL;DR NPC space best space.

[Magere]

A major point everyone has failed to hit on here is the importance of good diplomacy and good intelligence, you cannot be part of the Great Game in nullsec without allies and you cannot win a war when you don't even know what your enemies strengths and weaknesses are. Cultivating good diplomats and a strong diplomatic machine is the single most important thing you can do to ensure long term success as an alliance in 0.0. Without an effective approach to diplomacy you will simply end up roadkill or forever live in the purgatory that is NPC 0.0.

[Wusti]

virak was my prime example of a non-FC leading an alliance.

rage also held tech.

i'm pretty sure you'd agree that rage was not a successful pvp alliance.

Virak was also a cunt of hilarious proportions surround by other cunts like Mojohal that were so full of themselves it was ridiculous. Don't use him as your example - its a bad one.

[Phey Onat]

The point of using him is precisely because he is a bad example

[Atticus]

Enlightened Despotism.

[Night]

It is essential that your leadership positions be filled with people who are able to clearly articulate their ideas and speak the language of your alliance at a college level, so that you don't look like a bunch of complete idiots to your members and people outside your alliance.

In other words, if you only have one Endie, let him do all the talking because the rest of you will just fuck things up like Blaster Worm.

[Checkbox Poll]

Enlightened Despotism.

Benevolent dictatorship

[Wusti]

Consultative Dictatorship

[Grim]

These have been some very reasonable responses. Most of you have repeated the same thing in different words, which is great. Now I just need to show this to my alliance (and probably 99% if we merge with them) and try to not reinvent the wheel.

[Phalanx III]

Learning when to be flexible for some policy's, and when not to be is a big one.

[The Mittani]

Autocrat with a team structure. Teams are based on merit. Abhor single person dependencies. Corp CEOs have no power (I have never seen an alliance that listens to corp CEOs turn out well). Communist structure of resources so corps don't fight over who gets what. Chief of Staff to allow autocrat to focus on stuff beyond HR issues. If you don't have a finance and a diplo team on top of logi/fc/caps, you're fucked.

Fire those who don't perform regularly.

That's about six years of experience + watching others try and fail from the inside. You're welcome!

[Checkbox Poll]

Learning when to be flexible for some policy's, and when not to be is a big one.

This here game is more than the rep you carry, the corner you hold. You gotta be fierce, I know that, but more than that, you gotta show some flex, give and take on both sides. -Stringer Bell

[General Cartman Lee]

Dictatorships work pretty well.

[Kevin]

This here game is more than the rep you carry, the corner you hold. You gotta be fierce, I know that, but more than that, you gotta show some flex, give and take on both sides. -Stringer Bell

Don't take this advice.

Seriously this shouldn't needed to be spoilered but Stringer Bell was a dog and rightly got commisarred by his own crew by being flexible with shit.

STONEWALL JACKSON

[Seymore Graves]

2. Create a "council" of corp CEO's.

Don't do this, it has no advantages over a merit based dictatorship structure and many huge failings.

[Propagandas]

Don't put FC's in charge (especially not gay ones).

1. Select one person as "leader." That job can be rotated every few months, but make sure there is one person who can break stalemates amongst the different factions.

2. Create a "council" of corp CEO's to hurfblurf about stuff in a special CEO section on the forum.

3. Give FC's a forum to hurf-blurf and plan ops.

4. Don't give too many people leadership roles/permissions. Keep it to corp CEO's and maybe one trusted person per corp. In the FC forum, make sure it's only available to the people who can FC effectively. "But this guy is good at PVP, and I think he should comment on our fits" is not a reason to spread permissions around.

5. Encourage everyone to FC, and try to keep away from titles like "Official FC" and "CTA Level One Capable." If you have a strategic op, make sure that you have a list of people who won't welp the fleet terribly. If you have capitals, make sure someone with capital experience is FC'ing. Otherwise, make it clear that anyone who takes out a roam is an FC and has the support of leadership to grow their skills.

Lol.

FCs is the life and blood of an alliance, give them free reign to do exactly what they want. Alas when they get tired or burned out make sure they step aside to let newbloods step up.

Make sure everyone else realise that they are either a leader or a follower, if you are a CEO or a director or a JF hauler doesnt matter shit. Councils kills alliances. Lack of FCs kills alliances. Alliance leaders who cares more about jabber/status/sov/income then fun for the membership is what kills alliances or turns them into random pleb/pet allaince.


Opsec is useless, you will have spies in your alliance who will learn all your shit anyways if you are relevant, letting your members know whats up makes them more involved in the alliance, the game and your fleets.

Layers of leadership is useless, if a dude wants to haul, talk about fittings, scout, whatever, let him, but dont have some kind of retarded command structure that will only cause friction and shit between the members.

CEO > FCS > plebs

nothing else is needed v0v

[Propagandas]

Whoever is the most active FC at the time is in charge, also any nerd that really fights to get some sort of space job is most likely the wrong duder for the job and will be super buttmad at some point when he isn't respected.

I see that you are coming @ theadj there ))))

[Phineas Freak]

Seconding jeffraider here (i do post a lot at work but i'd never want to actually be responsible for anything v0v).

edit: holy shitposting wall of text, removed.

[Mira Z]

any nerd that really fights to get some sort of space job is most likely the wrong duder for the job and will be super buttmad at some point when he isn't respected.

This.

Unfortunately, a huge number of alliances and corps fill leadership posts in this way.

[Mira Z]

How else would you explain rmfHorus?

[Iseeyouseemeseeyou]

Don't do anything that Majesta Empire and RAGE were doing, that's for sure.

More so the RAGE part.

[The Mittani]

More realtalk: the PL system of FCs > all is great when you're sovless, sov makes stuff a lot more complicated.

Jeffraider is also correct; you usually want to promote people to directorate slots out of the blue without letting anyone know (besides your chief of staff) that you're in hiring mode. I don't think I've openly had a hiring call for directors, ever. It's more of 'who is currently doing their non-director job in this area well and without drama' followed by abrupt promotion and 'fuck you, you're in illum now lol'.

[Grath]

Don't put FC's in charge (especially not gay ones).

It depends, if you're a sov holding guy you probably might not want FC's in charge on the day to day, because they're looking for brawls and that can create political issues, but should your space come under attack, you should probably shut the fuck up and give control over to the fcs, assuming you have a few or one thats worth a fuck and mind your business while he/she/they do their thing and keep you holding space.

1. Select one person as "leader." That job can be rotated every few months, but make sure there is one person who can break stalemates amongst the different factions.

Fuck taking turns. Get a decider, people get along or get the fuck on. When the old decider gets tired of playing he grooms a new decider or just picks one and things move on. If he doesn't pick a replacement then you put the wrong guy in charge to begin with because he's a fucking putz.

2. Create a "council" of corp CEO's to hurfblurf about stuff in a special CEO section on the forum.

The first time anybody mentions council, senate, or anything like this, have them drug out in the street and publicly shot. A council is the death knell of a hundred buried alliances.

4. Don't give too many people leadership roles/permissions. Keep it to corp CEO's and maybe one trusted person per corp. In the FC forum, make sure it's only available to the people who can FC effectively. "But this guy is good at PVP, and I think he should comment on our fits" is not a reason to spread permissions around.

1 CEO and 1 Director for each corp should be a sufficient voice and or coverage rate, and your FC's will be shit if you don't keep them in contact with your logistics, an FC is fucking useless if he goes "I need an SBU" and the only people that can hear him are other FC's who also would like an SBU, so put your logistics heads in the channels with your FCs, your recon heads in the channel with your FCs, and your CEO's in a channel with your FC's so that when its time to online/offline things they are in contact with the people, but make sure that your CEO's are aware that in the channel with your FC's they are less than shit on the evolutionary scale of whats important. Decider > FC's with the will to do > CEO > Self Important Director > Logistics guys > Joe Faggot.


EDIT: Also theres nothing wrong with chicks in leadership positions, some act fine, others get drunk with the power that comes from 3-400 nerds jerking off to the fact that she's a girl, talking to them, AND playing space ships and turn into a fruit bat bitch

[jimmychrist]

So the question for this thread is how do you setup an effective nullsec alliance?

Only the boy holding the conch may speak

[Don Peyote]

Only the boy holding the conch may speak

Sucks to your ass-mar, I'm the chapel chorister and can sing a high F#


Happy 5500th post to me (god damn I post a lot)

[Agathor]

I will roll over and tickle the balls of anyone willing to FC anything in my tiny excuse for a corp. You can be poor as fuck, with no space and horribly shit at eve provided your members are having fun - and your FC's are the people that make that happen. You cherish these guys, you reimburse their losses, tell them how special they are and let them fiddle with your mum, because without them nothing else matters.

You had me at tickling balls.

[Mira Z]

The first time anybody mentions council, senate, or anything like this, have them drug out in the street and publicly shot. A council is the death knell of a hundred buried alliances.

Is it more humane to drug them before you shoot them?

I don't think there's anything wrong with a council provided you keep it as an impotent talking shop, and you don't have to attend it. It keeps those self important CEOs happy and if they come up with something actually useful they can email it to you. You can always claim your spam filter caught it...