Here is a rough outline of a few suggestions alliance leaders can discuss( edited from the mm sent to a couple players) , no offence intended by any info here it is for the good of the server , i stand open to correction if any info on alliances is wrong, not my intention to mislead, just trying to give a rough idea of the situation.
What i suggest you do is come up with a plan between you, as players leave and city are not conquered as you know the total points threshold goes down and the further wonders appear, this happened most famously in EN52 and seems to be a feature of speed 1's- i often thought grep should bring the total points down on speed 1's because of this.
so my idea is pretty simple, talk to mike, jon,taco and whoever else and set a date for ceasing hostilities .encoursage more colonisations at this point as thats the only way the server grows,even small thins like encouraging player to max their cites works wonder,i for example in war rarely have a city over 10k, if i have 30 cites boosted up to 13k thats 90k extra points for nothing,if you spread that over an active server of 300 odd players it could be a saving grace.
as for ideas to keep the server interesting its a tricky one but if you get to ww with all players contributing in a final push you know you can build them very fast indeed, if your at war it can drag and drag and drag.
maybe you can split into teams away from the wonders islands and have private one on one wars or 5 players v 5 players , I'm sure you can find something to keep it interesting(theres enough hate here to make that work lol!)
Now whether or not you can sell it to everyone I'm not sure but the sheer fact that the server s red flag will be brought down may well be motivation enough.
the real problem as i see it is not just the points but the 300..it has gotten so petty here and with others playing Sinope i can see players into ghosting just to spite apoca then it will be a struggle maintaining numbers points and interest with no one left to fight.It really is something in my experience that will happen tho, unless you all find a solution.
eg - in OL- there are 10 players proper, 5 part timers, the rest are vm or simming or in and out of red/yellow
TD- (although i haven't been inside) seem to have a pool of about 50 players that play the game and i imagine a lot of yellows
ZT- have a lot on vm still plus big players who are vm and not returning, i would estimate they have around 20 active members proper.
Apoca -well you know the situ best, out of all you have the most players but still a level of simmers
then you get to immortals,tesla etc, big numbers but there is barely a player amongst them
you also have to consider that 534 number i quoted encompasses a lot of dummy accounts -little orange 1k's spread everywhere who no one is going to take into their alliance thru fear of spying and they will all probably ghost.perhaps having a raffle style comp were the smaller players can 'win' place in the alliance if someone drops out might keep them motivated and fighting each other, i don't know.En52 is a case i point a server that went limp with ghosts.
its a hard one but it would be a shame to see it happen-make sure there is none on the alliance if you form it that can throw a huff and dissolve it, same with ww islands.i hope you find a solution between you sincerely-im sending out cs to colonise all ove to do my wee bit with my slots and will log in when i can to grow it up even a little .
anyway i hope you find a solution, its going to mean admitting hard truths and a lot of players swallowing their pride so good luck
should this all go ahead and a super alliance be formed you could have some real fun settling old scores in 1 on 1 wars thinking about it ..of course tt is a factor but who would nt like to see
Sir cod v's GGN
AIT v's Taco dave
jamovic v's anybody (seriously I'm getting bored)
Dj v's moshey
KKW v's cra300
The fight i'd love to see is eXo v's guinea pig ,but its all just for laugh to keep it interesting
i mean if you set it up properly in an thread you could actually have a hell of a lot of fun with it, even make it like a cup competition with knockout stages and a grand final or pair players up to fight another pair( no outside defense)
).I did message all alliance leaders on this subject(only arch and sir cod responded - bu that may be due to personal issue with me td/OL/ZT..JONNY IWAS ONLY KIDDING!!!!) so i've done my best eugene. i see your in en81 so at least being a speed 2 theres a chance you'll be crowned by xmas anyway.. shame your not in TUS tho..