No intro again
1. Triad
Still number one and outpacing everyone across the board on points, bp, and conquests and leading the pack on average growth for most stats as well, Triad are out in front with what seems to be no real threat of taking them down other than possibly IO. The Triad IO war went on ice for a while as Triad put focus on ST1 and IO turned towards Hydra but now the two seem back at it, city count at 38:27 Triad's favor. This war will likely continue for months on and I expect there will be a decent amount of involvement from surrounding alliances as well such as Rhinovirus, Hydra, ST1 and possibly even Drunken Farmers.
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Swim
2. Imperial Order
IO have put a sizeable dent on Hydra with the current city count at 68:10, I feel that the alliance missed out on a huge opportunity though when ST1 merged with THE APOSTLES as ST1 have and will continue to bleed cities to Triad a ST1 merger into IO would have of much greater benefit to both sides. Instead IO have now picked up the shattered remains of Noble Intentions which puts their alliance geography in a very vulnerable state, the players may all be under one flag now but realistically those NI players are going to have to do a lot of fending for themselves (check out the map). I also wanted to point out the political ramifications that taking in those NI players could have on IO, Drunken Farmers after merging with Impervious Busters has become a formidable alliance in the southwest region and have a history of not being too friendly with Triad which would be a good starting point of discussion for an IO/DF tag team against Triad now that ST1 are basically out of the picture. However, IO have now taken in the players that Drunken Farmers were feeding off of, an action like that usually dictates a declaration of war so by taking in those NI players will IO lose out on a potential ally against Triad? In retrospect taking in the NI refugees seems an all around bad move by IO but I'll have to wait and see if they can prove me wrong on that.
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Swim
3. Hydra
Most alliances at this point have moved past the waves of inactive players, but that's not the case for Hydra. Internals continue to spring up for the alliance and it's starting to take a heavy toll and hurt their growth. It doesn't take an genius to know that when units are being used on inactive alliance member cities and not on enemy cities that its not good. However, internals alone wont bring down an alliance as long as there are still players to take those inactive cities and Hydra is doing ... okay I guess on the war fronts 32:22 up on ST1, 39:21 down to Prometheus, 28:9 up on Slaughter House and of course the big one 68:10 down to IO. Right now I would say Hydra is far from being in the danger zone (lawl Kenny Logins reference :3) but I can't exactly say that an alliance with issues secure its own internals is swimming either so float seems to be an appropriate assessment at this time.
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Float
4. Drunken Farmers
Before the merger with Impervious Busters, DF was hardly an alliance hardly worth talking about, but now the with their new battle tested players the alliance has taken down Noble Intentions (previous 4th ranked) and did so with what would seem to be relative ease and quickness at a city count of 40:12. Just the addition of those players turned the war form what was previously a slight NI edge to a total a complete slaughter of NI. If DF continue to dominate alliances in the southwest rim then they should do very well and continue on a steep steady growth. However I did bring up the previously mentioned possibilty of an IO/Prom/ST1/DF alliance against Triad/Hydra as it currently is the main attraction for Zancle, and as said before players in DF do have a history with Triad but in my opinion its an unnecessary risk for DF to get involved with other alliances wars, but that's for DF to decide.
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Swim
5. Prometheus
After going through IO boot camp, Prometheus have stopped being the laughing stock of Zancle, well for the most part anyway, old habits die hard you know. (P.S. I'm not getting info of your planned attacks on me Strudybeard). Doing pretty well vs Hydra now at a 39:21 city count, we will have to see if Prom can keep their momentum going now that their units can come out and stretch their legs after months of being up in the northern oceans with no wars to speak of.
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Float
6. Seal Team One
ST1 merged with THE APOSTELS to get a fresh batch of troops for the front lines, cannon fodder anyone? When duck taping two sinking ships together, it doesn't make for a sea worthy vessel. Lets just call this what it is, raym didn't want to call it quits on his swiss cheese ship so he got some extra fingers to plug the holes with, but now with his recent vacation mode it looks as though he may have thrown in the towel himself.
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Sink
7. Avernus
Honestly at this point I'm tired of even talking about Avernus, all I can say is that hopefully these guys do something, or more likely hopefully someone attacks them, so I have something new to write about on them as now I have gotten to the point where I just roll my eyes when I get to them on my list.
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Float
8. Nameless Faction
Happy to say that NF have done the smart thing so far and have gone after the easy target Slaughter House with great success as the city count is at 30:8. NF should stay the course and continue on until the Slaughter House honey hole is dried up and then move on to the next target which would likely be Avernus.
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Float
9. Rhinovirus
The Rhinos have now risen from their previous 12th ranking to now 9, last time I gave them a sink and regardless of their rise in the rankings I have to stick with my guns on this one. Apparently packing with everyone other than ST1 whom they have taken a few cities off of, current count at 13:4, realistically its only a matter of time before IO or Triad decied they want Rhinovirus's cities and drop their pack for the easy bp and cities. Ultimately I don't see this paradise of flying under the radar lasting forever and predict that they either disband or possibly merge.
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Sink
10. Dont Panic
First things first, it REALLY bugs me that these guys don't have an apostrophe in don't ... moving on, I really don't know much about this group. They are located north of Prometheus even which means fight Prometheus or fight nobody, there numbers in bp and points are tiny but have put up a respectable 32 conquests in the last week which is more than every alliance in the top 12 other than Triad, Hydra, and Drunken Farmers. Currently I don't know of any wars these guys are involved in, all that being said it makes it difficult to put an assessment on them so I guess I'll be on the generous side for now until they can show otherwise.
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Float
11. Slaughter House
They seem to be living up to the MRA name of being a punching bag for everyone around them, currently down in city count 28:9 to Hydra and 30:8 to Nameless Faction. Right now they are at -3 conquests for the last week and I don't see things improving for this alliance any time soon. Its a sure sink for Slaughter House one that I say will be coming sooner rather than later.
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Sink
12. Elements of Destruction
Planted firmly on the northeast rim EOD are basically in the same boat as Dont Panic with similar numbers and geographic location, though one difference is that they are involved in a few little battles, down 5:2 in cities to Slaughter House and down 9:1 to Prom, I was nice to Dont Panic and said I would give them a float while I waited for them to show us what they have so its only fair I do the same for EOD. If one thing can be said about EOD they seem to be at least more active than what Dont Panic currently have been.
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Float