New Eve Rules 2010 Part 1 - Having and defending your sov space makes you weak
I plan to do a small miniseries looking inot some after dominion sov/economics/politcs cocnepts in a life of a lliance in 0.0 in New Eden. Why do i bother? Well honestly i like politics/diplomacy/game concepts and i dont mind to write stuff.
New Eve Rules 2010 Part 1 - Having and defending your sov space makes you weak
New Eve Rules 2010 Part 2 - My playtime and how to beat enemy in opposite timezone
New Eve Rules 2010 Part 3 - What is the goal of the alliance and why my alliance sucks or thrives
New Eve Rules 2010 Part 1 - Having and defending your sov space makes you weak
1.Sov and power
2.Dominion shift of rules
3.IT/PL Example
4.TRI coalition /NC Example
5.ATLAS/NC Example
6.Goon/IT Example
7.CVA/AAA Example
8.My space, my home, i have to fight or i am pussy or not
9.End tl:dr
1.Sov and power
If we look around the whole eve history, the end game was always about space, moons, stations, and it were the invasions who brought the most epic battles (lagfests too).
During an invasion, the defenders have the homefield and sov mechanics advantage but also the burden to do, what is expected, while attackers have the logistical problem, but also the mobility and changement of goals/pace advantage.
The system in most games is the beginning very simple, you gain more and more space, more and more resources so you should get more powerfull in order to conquest even more space. With highends bringing 5-10bil per moon and upkeep of system being usually under 0,5 bil monthly it seems that who holds the most moons, is the most powerfull entity.
And so pandemic legion, a small group in comparison to many others, held the most highends in eve for a single alliance for a long time, enabling it to do some crazy and effectivy offensive stuff while killing everything short of a competent and big enemy that would dare to invade its belongings. As they could literaly throw away whole cap fleets and just smile.
2.Dominion shift of rules
With the removal of AOE doomsday, and raising the upkeep for any sov systém while lowering the income per moon to some 2-3 bil monthly, things change a lot. Now many alliances tried to continue to play under the old rules, usually to very bad outcome. Some immidiatly dropped a lot of sov and kept only the skeleton station and brodge systems. Rent to small groups (pets, industrialists, renters, small aliies, whatever you call them) is the new moon gold. Its almost no effort, no investition, income without costs. While moons require the initial investment, upkeep cost, need to defense, emptying of silos and various other risks.
The economics of eve make any investment in non pvp capabilites a wasted resource, and dominion punishes everyone not following some basic new concepts, as will be outlined further.
3.IT/PL Example
– IT – got back, transformed BoB together with some GBC groups, started as a lowsec alliance. Using its ship and pilot resources, which even before the patch due to various economic systems in highsec makes it possible even for a empire based alliance aquire whats necessary to fight without moons, started to hit PL/SOT highends and taking them. The tempo speeded up and the tries to stop them failed, as simply PL/SOT didnt had the manpower to run around all the regions and defend the moons, plus usage of the blueball them till they give up worked very well.
Huge cap fights happened, which were equal in k/d ratio pretty much, but it only made IT go after fountain itself and using huge battleship fleets which were concentrated on just one target at a time. Now thing got even better after DD got removed, where 150-200bs can annihilate in lag pretty everything, and can be countered – surprisingly – by huge bs or snipe hac fleets etc. So numbers game which PL/SOT even with goons support could only magicaly win.
Now i think everyone knows the outcome, all the battle and that PL was very weaken due to missing leadership and fc´s and sot was say filled with many moon goo lickers but not pvpers.
However the biggest reason the failed is, defence alone cannot win anything, as the new sov mechanics should favour the defender, however it favours the attacker. Now you must think iam stupid, as the 4 timers, ihubs, stations, tcus make attacks pretty time failures as 1 lost battle out of 4 means iam at starting point again. Especially with TZ issues – time will be covered in another issue.What could have PL done? Stay in Fountain core or move to a NPC region close by (outer ring/syndicate), wait few weeks and farm IT/pets or force them to try to camp the indifinitly.
Now thats the logic of the past, where stations were the ultimate target, and the jerk off spot. I got your station, you lost, you are fucked, you got raped, we own. Morale drops and people disband, fuck off and go elsewhere.
The new rules however make a station a target, that brings nothing but isk sink and time sink. As the enemy can now attack something i have to defend (else i wouldt take it and else i will loose my morale by loosing it). Isk to maintanence, ihubs, tcus, etc. Simply in Gem, Atlas bypassed all stations and just waited for WI. to failcascade. If only Tri Coalition would think too.
4.TRI coalition /NC Example
Even better example is the TRI/INIT/CO2/ROL/CH coalition vs. NC. Till the former gained the first stations, they were doing an excellent job and entities like MH would have hard time to not break up or loose most of their players. The same happened to WI. vs. Atlas. As forced failcascade is the possible only longstanding victory you can gain in Eve. As players dont die, they will mostly just move to other entity in the same group.
They were fresh, ambitious, dangerous and NC didnt know where to try to damp the fire only to see it to be light up few hours later again.
Now once TRI block had gained these stations, many moons, etcc everything seemed be fine. However NC got the brains together and insted of defending systems they attacked the enemy ones, reinforcing what they could and if TRI tried to defend them, either not engaged and repeated it nxt day again. In a week participation and willingness of pilots plus some serious lag server issues made the Tri coalition originally able to get 700 pilots into p-2 being chased around with 100-150 men at most. Loosing the towers affected morale, and income, and makes any future pushes just unlogical as it seems the same wiil happen again. Plus its human nature than people play for fun, but there is no fun in seeing your towers burn down without a reason for the Tri coalition (yes we have the we came for gf and got them explanation but the drop in participation says other things).
Under the new mechanics, 1200 men can easily live from 6-7 systems, in 1-2 stations. Anything over it is luxury and just burns isk that could be invested in ships and caps. Holding moons makes sense, holding sov doesnt. Holding moons whilst renting out all the space is the best economic scenario and makes you the hardest to be hit enemy and also the most mobile one = which most of the fun kid on the block.What could have TRI done?
Well not try to take stations but concentrate on moons, and live of NPC stations, not trying to kill NC, only to focus on its weak members forcing the pets to die/fail. And be higly mobile to prevent NC cap/bs superior numbers, not trying to superior numbers on its own, as the different entities simply dont share the same mindset for longer timeframe. Plus hate for NC isnt the same drivel as we need to defend home for NC.
5.ATLAS/NC Example
Atlas attack on WI with drone russians was a big success and for weeks every day nonstop fleets of 200-300+ rampaged the whole territory. No doubt, NC was clueless and their gf with RZR/WI only helped to even get more people to x up as slaughters are the fun. WI. moved away, station being taken, moons lost, nxt region but the problems started. NC got some brains and simply backed off the fight. Wi lost income, had to pay 20bil a months just for jammers and spinned ships in stations, waiting wtf will be attacked next. No fun and the failcascade came rather fast.
The were laughed at by pretty everyone. However the funny thing happened. Vale lost some moons, but no station aremt even contested, things cooled off, and the momentum and willingness of pilots to fight goes naturally down. Especially why would you x up for another 100th tower or ihub shooting. Noone even wanted the space and the gf werent to happen. So NC without even bothering killed this front, which is rather funny in retrospective. In few weeks, they can try to reconquest the moons, but why to have the station again, when they can farm the people there and not worry about another region to defend. Cutting down the lines of defense made this strategy effective as nothing could.
Another fun idea is if things go wrong (like for WI.) just move down to curse or gw and start hitting your enemy territory. Yes jumpclones, local allies, but its ton of more fun to attack than defend and everytime someone bothers to defend the tower or briodge or ihub, you won even if you dont show to finish it. Plus they have some chances to fight the weaker reserve usually left at home. Cheap ships, lol drakes fleets, and people will enjoy it more than sitting in a pos or lag out to nodcrash.What could have Atlas done?
Well Atlas did prolly the best decisions, with attack, reaching of goals, and than stop when it stopped making sense. Without having a competent alliance to be put instead of NC members, no point in trying to take the space.
6.Goon/IT Example
Lets look at Goons. Holding the Delve/Q/PB area made them pretty much not make any isk in moons but a big target for all people around them. 49- was defended mostly due to absolute stupidity of the attackers, as instead of spreading over multiple systems, they played the old rule like pnqy lets put into one system and kill it. How it ended...funnily goons won.
IT was preparing to strike Delve, and all people were readying for that, ofc many not so hardcore and veterans were happily enjoying the new space in Fountain (before being in lowsec ratting issues are hardly a problem), cause that was the target wasnt it? But Goons would have lost, after a long twilight struggle, killing all fun for their members and making a reason to play for many IT, stain block, aaa players.
Now everyone thrashes Mittani, but he made the right call. Moving out to NPC space, later maybe some small sov territory will get the swarm chance to become a fun group again, make the isk income flow (moons and little sov = + income) and can start doing griefing offensive campaigns, having fun making life to hell for other groups instead of beiung the target itself.
Bonus effect is taking the fun from IT and its allies, and giving them the greatesst misgift in terms of 40 stations and region which will barely pay for them. IT didnt needed more space, but it will surely need more renters to pay for it. However with groups like atlas and drone russians, having already most of its renters under its command, there arent simply enough people to be willing to pay for that. Especially if small groups can just get 1-2 system in geminate or other shithole region, and make with upgrades the same isk without rent as i delve. No regions are that better anymore. There could be glorious selfmasturbating win over swarm, very deserving, but instead is just we take the sov, moons, station and now what. I call it a sovereignity blueball.
7.CVA/AAA ExampleWhat could have Goons done?
Tbh again dont see anything they could have done better. I think the strategy was the only rational outcome and thus they made the right choice at the right time. Plus the change will make the alliance live again and as such group having a strong culture binding them, i dont doubt they will enjoy wahtever they will do. Not having to worry to fuel/check wallets makes happier people for sure.
What should CVA do now? Make AAA take few more stations and let them enjoy to have them. Wait few weeks and take em back once participation will hit bottom. Make 10-20 nights of blueballs and noone will show up and thats not what people play for. Make them believe they will kill 100 dreads and 200 bs every night, hell i would even alarmclock that.Mostly AAA will do Atlas and not even contest any more stations, as there is no point to make yourself continue. Sure holding 50+ Providence stations is what AAA is after, rather than slaughters.
Give em fights and you only make them x up even more. Fighting a stronger enemy head to head is stupid, boring them to tears and than raping em is delicious. Like Bob did with PL/SOT initially on their R64´s and how CVA could do with AAA/UK.
8.My space, my home, i have to fight or i am pussy or notWhat could have CVA done?
Well once they see 500+ people trying to attack.....do nothing and run roaming nad fun ops, communicate with members and roleplay it like a test by infidels or whatever. Very soon AAA block will see weaker days, where you need to hit and save the stuff and dont bother about some towers or few tcu´s. The we want to settle posts arent post of strength, more a clueless calls for getting the victory without work. As for sure, no AAA/UK/etc player wants to run 128 alarm clocls ops to remove all providence sov or even pay for its upkeep.
Most of the players will say, hey we attack their sov, stations, bridges cause otherwise they wouldnt fight us. Thats right, threatening enemys home will make them bring everything to defend it, under the old logic. However not fighting or fighting and loosing makes the same outcome. If the alliance is strong, people will understand, and they will follow you even if they see your home pixels burn, only to take it back later once dust settles. If you weak, you can burn yourself to defend for 4 months only to failcascade after everyone has enough. However you gave the enemy the gf..lolz. A good fight is when you got raped, owned and shitfaced, and in the end laughed at....thats when your enemy gives you gf in local or in forums.
Every battle is won/lost even before it started, there are no miracles in eve, and fleet commanders rely more on logistics/strategy in whole campaign than on a magic awaking in one battle (ofc fc´s ego doesnt like to see that, as it could ruin their e-fame). Use your forces well, dont spend everything tonight as tomorrow is a complete new day and it might be even shittier than today.
If the attacker isnt ready to take the space he invades, he should not bother with stations and take only relatively easily defendable structures like moons. The defender should not bother to defend furiously from beginning and first let the enemy show its capabilites and wear off the attacker by blueballing and falling to hopefully prepared NPC or friendly alliance back haven in case the line of defense is broken.
The no fun in defense affects as well corps and people mentlity. As most of people arent stupid to log in and be forced to babysit swomehting for multiple hours a day, week, month, years long. They will simply fuck off and come back once they see some epic rapes. Make sure you do it to the enemy in his space, not yours (hey you shouldnt have one as you my reader, are smart
9.End tl:dr
The smartest groups of future will shed most of its sov (maybe keep something for titan build) and just keep moons and renters and live in NPC stations. Thats what the new changes are about and the groups that will adapt will thrive and become stronger in the coming months. Some entities already started adapting, some not yet. The latter can easily become victims of evolution.
Moon income is the past, renter income is the future. No hassle, and no work.
Alliance of future dont bother in defence but rather go on offensive and grief the old logic alliances trying to fight for their home as they will continue to be the weakest immobile targets.
Choose your fights carefully, its fun only if you win, your tries for gf makes your enemy only stronger. Most important - talk with your players, explain why, how and whats next, they will understand. If it already happens and shit hits the fan, again be open to your players, shift your goals and wear the better enemy down by blueballing, and propper week, months ahead strategy and go into campaigns you will win or which are fun. You will last longer than the lets fight for for every inch guy.
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Czech Lion 31.1.2010
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Originally Posted by Alex Clomsaver
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