Top 12 Alliances Sink-or-Swim

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DeletedUser

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Foolishly, we're consistently foolish.

Consistently, we're foolishly consistent.
 

DeletedUser47156

Guest
Foolishly, we're consistently foolish.

Consistently, we're foolishly consistent.

Consistently, your best player name is: jhffjbcftiovsa
Foolishly, it appears like his cat jumped on the keyboard when he was selecting a name.
 

DeletedUser

Guest
New analaysis

Now that things are settling down for me a bit more, I thought I'd do another analysis of the world situation. I don't think my results are terribly surprising, but interesting, nonetheless. (The data were collected over the weekend, so may be a few days old. For the growth/change data, I used one week's worth of data to give a more current rather than a more historical picture.)

I added one new element to what I had done before, and this took a whole lot more time. I checked each ocean to see how much presence (in terms of total points and total cities) each top alliance had in each ocean. This was pretty time-consuming. I need to figure out how to automate this stuff. :)

I counted both DES alliances as one, Atomic and Atomical as one, and both SPARTAN alliances as one. Alliances who are working together, but who, as far as I know, don't have an alliance-academy relationship, were not counted as one, but I also didn't count each other's city conquests. With this, the top 15 alliances were compressed into 12, which seemed a decent number. (I do count conquests of inactive members of enemy alliances, because I think that an alliance should be able to take care of its own inactive members. It's possible that in some of these cases, alliances may be fighting over the inactive city, so the winner should get credit. Also, I don't want to go through the trouble of determining whether or not a city lost was inactive, so I just count it.)

CategoryWorld average (among top 12 alliances)
ABP gained108,245
ABP growth4.79%
DBP gained118,971
DBP growth6.21%
Point change+168,395
Point growth+2.29%
Change in number of cities+16
Growth in number of cities+2.14%

Overall, you can see that the DBP are increasing more than the ABP, which is probably natural at this stage, as top players are dug in, and morale is a problem against smaller players.


1. Atomic
Unsurprisingly, Atomic came up on top on almost all measures. They had the highest ABP change and the third-highest DBP change, although the rate of growth in these two areas was below average. (In their case, they're so far ahead of everybody else in ABP, that it would take an extraordinary amount of ABP to post a significant growth rate.) Their point change was only fourth-highest, and their rate of growth was actually lower than the world average, but this is attributable in part to their large size to begin with. Same with their cities--they had the fifth highest number of cities gained, but a below-average rate of growth.
The only real cause for concern that I find here is in city conquests. Over this week period, Atomic had 0 successful conquests against top alliances (again, I am not counting taking cities from DES, since the two are allied), and 12 losses to other alliances. Half of these losses (6) are ANON Thieves taking cities from jsloan after he switched alliances, but even if you throw them out, Atomic scores 0 cities gained and 6 cities lost. This is a rather troubling statistic, but it could be that I just caught them in a bad week.

2. ANON Thieves
ANON Thieves posted middling numbers for a top alliance. Above average gains, but below average growth rates. (Again, like Atomic, they've got more ABP, so they'll see lower growth rates unless they have an extraordinarily active week.) Still, among the top 6 alliances, only SPARTAN had fewer ABP, and only SPARTAN and DES had fewer DBP, and only SPARTAN gained fewer cities. On the flip side of the jsloan situation, their conquests looked good, taking 13 cities from top alliances (7, if you ignore the jsloan factor) and losing 3. Their war with Illuminati seems to progress well, but the lack of growth, I think, is partially because that's the only fighting they're doing, and being on the rim, they're hard-pressed to find other action.

3. AFC
A Foolish Consistency is new to the rankings since I last did it several months ago, although if I may be permitted to say so, they were as good then as they are now. They had a pretty good week, topping the alliances in DBP gained (and taking the #1 alliance DBP spot from Atomic), and coming in third in ABP gained. Their ABP and DBP growth rate were both second (to VoR). They also topped the alliances in points gained and cities gained (these were partially due to the a few late additions from a recent merger). I think one of the more remarkable statistics they have for the week is 6 conquests won against top alliances, and none lost. Two other alliances lost no cities to enemies, but AFC took the most of all of these.

4. SPARTAN
Like ANON Thieves, SPARTAN had a weak showing among top alliances. Among the top six alliances, they were last in ABP gained, last in DBP gained, last in cities gained, and in the bottom half of points gained. The one bright spot they had was that they conquered seven cities to four losses, a net gain of four cities. I think they're in a situation similar to ANON Thieves--on the rim in the southeast, fighting only one enemy alliance. And, unlike ANON Thieves, who are close to their enemy (because they've been fighting for months, and have invaded Illuminati territory), they don't have a good attacking position yet.

5. Vanguard of Retribution
VoR is also new to the ranking since the last time I've done this. They've been putting up a pretty tough fight in the south to two top alliances, although I think that they're losing ground (they only gained 3 cities and lost 8 over the past week). Because of the ferocity of the fighting, they've put up some good BP numbers in the last week, raking in the second-highest ABP and DBP, and posting the highest growth rate by several percentage points. (This last bit is because they are a newer alliance, so the alliance doesn't have as many points.) Part of this good showing for the week is because they've been pretty actively fighting two alliances, although I think another part is because there have been a couple of inactive players they've had to take over in the last week. Still, a pretty good showing for the alliance.

6. DES
There's a pretty clear break between DES and the next alliance, so I think that DES is the last of the top tier of alliances. The end of DES's war with Atomic has allowed them to recover. Their growth has been middle of the pack among the top six alliances (better in ABP than DBP, and with the second largest number of cities gained). They conquered 7 enemy cities and lost just two, so their net conquest was +5, which is the third largest (after ANON Thieves and AFC). This alliance is in a similar position as ANON Thieves and SPARTAN. They occupy the north rim, and since they're no longer at war with Atomic, they've just got a few smaller alliances around to attack, so there is less opportunity for growth.

The bottom tier of alliances are 7. Arcadians, 8. Lords of Darkness, 9. illuminati, 10. League of Destruction, 11. Ascension and 12. GOA. I'll spend less time on these, and just point out a few things. Other than AFC, the other two alliances that had no cities lost were Darkness (1 conquest, 0 cities lost) and Ascension (3 conquests, 0 cities lost). Three of these alliances had a net loss in points and cities, mostly due to players shifting to another alliance. (Arcadians lost a big player to Ascension, and Illuminati lost jsloan to Atomic.) GOA also had a negative growth, and was the only alliance other than Atomic not to conquer an enemy city. Of these bottom tier of alliances, Ascension is the most impressive. They gained a few strong players from nearby alliances, and it will be interesting to see what they do in the future. (As an aside, Illuminati and Darkness look to me to be heading for a merger. I noticed that Illuminati now have a lot of cities in Darkness territory as ANON Thieves continue to move into their territory.)

The other thing I did was to look at alliance ocean control. For each ocean, I checked to see how many points and cities each alliance had, to see how large an area the alliances controlled. The top 8 alliances each controlled at least 1 ocean with at least 80% of the points. Only the bottom two alliances didn't have an ocean where they had the majority of the points. The most-controlled ocean is O43, which is 98% controlled by DES.
Looking at where alliances had a presence (which I'm defining as 25% of the points in an ocean), I was really surprised to see ANON Thieves stand out here, especially considering they are just one alliance, and don't have a second academy alliance. ANON Thieves have 7 different oceans where they have at least 25% control. DES also do, but they've got an academy. SPARTAN has 25% or better control in 6 oceans, but they also are two alliances. ANON can do this with just one alliance. (It's probably not coincidental that these three also have the fewest BP above. I think that some of these oceans are rim oceans, so they're not generating BP.)

Looking at how big the oceans are, Atomic shines. Atomic has two oceans where they have 3 million points--DES and SPARTAN have one apiece, and nobody else has any oceans that large. (Atomic is the only alliance with a 4 million point ocean. Their largest ocean, O55, is 50% bigger than any other alliance's largest ocean. This is just incredible, and a big reason why they're able to stay so strong.) These three alliances and AFC are also the only ones with oceans with at least 300 cities. (Again, Atomic is the only ocean with more than 400 cities, and their largest ocean has more than 1/3 more cities than the next largest.) Atomic and AFC are the only alliances with 5 oceans with at least a million points. (Even though DES and SPARTAN and ANON Thieves have stronger presence in more oceans, they're more sparsely populated rim oceans, so they don't reach this size.)

Overall, I think that Atomic is still the strongest alliance in the world. I suspect they just had a bit of a lull recently (or maybe they need to find some weaker targets to beat up on to get some mojo back). Their strength comes from their dominating control of the dense central oceans, and they've got the players and leadership to translate that into power.

AFC was probably the second most-impressive alliance over this time, with their defensive showing--the DBP they racked up, and not giving up any cities.

ANON Thieves, SPARTAN and DES seem to be in a similar situation, with some small differences. All of these are based out of less-populated rim alliances, and seem to me to be struggling to stay active and aggressive. (ANON Thieves gets a pass on this because they are in the thick of it with Illuminati and the remnants of DES in their territory, and have been pretty successful there over the past months. But they may do well with opening up a new fight with another alliance.)

VoR is struggling to remain a top alliance. To their credit, they're standing up to two top alliances, but this constant fighting on two fronts (I think that AFC and VoR are the only alliances fighting on two fronts) is starting to have an effect, and they're showing cracks.

If you'd like to talk about this in more detail (and if you ask nicely, I can show you my stats), give me a PM in-game.
 

DeletedUser47156

Guest
First of all, another fantastic post! Thanks Artientus! We all appreciate the time you put into this.

My thoughts: The Atomic analysis was interesting to see. Perhaps they had a lull this week, I know they have been attacking a lot based on the points seen on Grepointel, but who knows what it's doing. Likewise, the jsloane move was a bit of a surprise, though not a great loss. The only thing simmers are good for are building up their cities until they're ready to be taken. I expect when he comes off VM, Atomic will eat him up.

The DES point made seems spot on. They don't seem to have much enemies to fight now that they're allied with Atomic. I'm sure they can find something juicy nearby if they looked though.

As for the supposed Illuminati/LOD merger, you're unfortunately quite wrong. If anything, we're positioning ourselves to merge with Anonymous Thieves. Why else have we been letting them take cities so close to us. The reason we're taking cities close to LOD is that will make it easier to attack the Alliance that is in the middle of nowhere. It's going to require a bit of Doublethink and Newspeak and possibly some deletion of the historical records, but I expect within a month, we'll be able to prove that we were ALWAYS allied with AT and ALWAYS at war with LOD.
 

DeletedUser30038

Guest
You mean to tell me that I read that entire post and it still did not tell me what alliance the HOT women are in......... :Angry:

But beside that being my only complaint. I like the post. Thanks Art.....
 

DeletedUser

Guest
Well done Artientus....Amazing work. We use to be fighting on THREE fronts : DES REBELS (Scopeman) - Illu's (Blizz) and LoD attacking AT2 at 1st some weeks ago...we had to move North and West at the same time...This being said, great analysis.
As for BrownThing comment, he is very funny and i have to say he made me laugh...not an easy task....sorry for the mystakes Brown and please do not write the forum mod'"s like you did last time....
 

DeletedUser

Guest
The data I had were inadequate to determine the hotness of any women or men. To determine this, I will have to be supplied with personal photographs of all users. You can send the photos to Artientus@gmail.com.
 

DeletedUser

Guest
great work, we could use a math expert like you in our team ( atomic) to figure out needed res for the wonders without any res wasting
 

DeletedUser47156

Guest
great work, we could use a math expert like you in our team ( atomic) to figure out needed res for the wonders without any res wasting

Was this just a proposed AFC and Atomic merger? Because that wouldn't be foolish, or consistent; but it might cause some fun in the world.
 

DeletedUser32565

Guest
nicely done ART, but dont leave it so long next time,,,,slacker!!!
 

DeletedUser

Guest
Was this just a proposed AFC and Atomic merger? Because that wouldn't be foolish, or consistent; but it might cause some fun in the world.

We can neither confirm nor deny that we are working towards a merger. We can, however, confirm that it would be a lot more fun for us, and maybe less fun for those left out in the cold.
 

DeletedUser47156

Guest
We can neither confirm nor deny that we are working towards a merger. We can, however, confirm that it would be a lot more fun for us, and maybe less fun for those left out in the cold.


Haha, you wouldn't believe how much drama that particular comment has created. Love the chaos!
 

DeletedUser

Guest
Was this just a proposed AFC and Atomic merger? Because that wouldn't be foolish, or consistent; but it might cause some fun in the world.





Hmm this could be interesting but I doubt it very much. I see martins got a lot of love for brown and blizz.
 

DeletedUser

Guest
great analysis Art, that's some serious work you put in to get that on here.
 

DeletedUser

Guest
9/9 Analysis

This is probably the last one I'll do including GOA. After today, GOA conquests will not count as top conquests.

RankingNet ABPABP GrowthNet DBPDBP GrowthNet PointsPoint GrowthNet citiesCity Growth# top conquests
Average among top 1188,0873.41%110,5024.98%135,6181.65%131.50%
1.ANON Thieves (167,664)VoR (5.85%)VoR (276,484)VoR (14.89%)DES (341,384)AFC (2.63%)DES (36)DES (2.60%)ANON Thieves (14)
2.SPARTAN (156,751)SPARTAN (5.08%)AFC (242,921)SPARTAN (8.90%)ANON Thieves (258,002)ANON Thieves (2.60%)ANON Thieves (23)ANON Thieves (2.24%)AFC (+7)
3.Atomic (136,427)AFC (4.86%)DES (232,584)AFC (7.08%)AFC (256,921)DES (2.55%)AFC (22)Dark Lords (2.15%)SPARTAN (+4)
4. AFC (120,955)ANON Thieves (4.03%)SPARTAN (125,373)DES (6.05%)Dark Lords (185,901)Dark Lords (2.19%)Dark Lords (19)AFC (2.08%)DES (+2)
5. DES (114529)Ascension (3.17%)Dark Lords (118,394)Dark Lords (3.89%)SPARTAN (178,779)Arcadians (1.91%)Atomic (15)Arcadians (1.47%)Ascension (+1)
6.Dark Lords (99,095)DES (3.09%)ANON Thieves (89,677)ANON Thieves (2.94%)Atomic (126,257)SPARTAN (1.46%)SPARTAN (10)Ascension (1.33%)Arcadians (-2)
7.VoR (96,187)Dark Lords (2.85%)Atomic (50,317)Arcadians (2.74%)Arcadians (113,982)Ascension (1.24%)Arcadians (9)League Destr (1.26%)GOA (-2)
8.League Destruction (31,819)Atomic (2.43%)League Destruction (35,461)League Destruction (2.33%)VoR (66,693)VoR (0.86%)VoR (6)Atomic (0.96%)Atomic (-4)
9.Arcadians (20,020)League Destr. (2.30%)Arcadians (24,684)Atomic (1.33%)Ascension (29,781)Atomic (0.81%)League Destr. (4)SPARTAN (0.81%)League Destr (-5)
10.Ascension (14,018)GOA (1.97%)GOA (13,313)Ascension (1.27%)League Destr (8,545)League Destr (0.30%)Ascension (3)VoR (0.71%)VoR (-7)
11.GOA (11,497)Arcadians (1.11%)Ascension (6,310)GOA (1.25%)GOA (-74,448)GOA (-4.20%)GOA (-7)GOA (-3.89%)Dark Lords (-8)

A couple of notes:

  • I retroactively treated Lords of Darkness and Illuminati as one alliance to calculate the net and growth.
  • Despite having lost the most cities to other top alliances, DL still had a decent growth rate in points and cities. They only got one net new player (from GOA), so the increase must have come from taking cities from smaller alliances, unaligned players, ghosts and/or founding cities.
  • VoR is getting hammered. It's one thing to rack up DBP if you're not giving up cities at the same time (see: AFC), but they accrued the most net DBP (and the highest DBP growth by a long shot) and lost 7 cities to the enemy.
  • Atomic is having another quiet week. They did manage to take an enemy city this week, but their DBP and their ABP and DBP growth (which can be seen as a measure of how they're doing now compared to historical performance) are all in the bottom half.
  • ANON Thieves feasted on Dark Lords this past week. It was all ABP and very little DBP, so they didn't see much resistance to their conquests. I think it was mostly inactive players, but ANON Thieves still gets credit for cleaning up their oceans.
  • Only two alliances did not lose a city to the enemy this week: ANON Thieves, who won 14 conquests and lost none, and Ascension (for the second week in a row), who took one city and lost none. Arcadians, League of Destruction and GOA did not take an enemy city this week.
  • DES had good point and city growth, but I think this is due to adding a few new players. Their BP increase was good, but not a top ranking like their point and city increase.

Despite two quiet weeks in a row, Atomic are still the top alliance. I don't know if they're missing some of their leaders to VM or lessened activity, or if they've been focused on internals, or if they're just rebuilding, but I expect them to return to form soon.
For two weeks in a row, ANON Thieves were able to gobble up a lot of cities from an enemy player. I haven't taken a look at the map to see where these cities are to see if they're positioning ANON Thieves in a better place for future operations. If it's just cleaning up cities in their own territories, then it doesn't really help them in the long run.
SPARTAN also had a pretty good showing this week. They racked up ABP and DBP while taking 7 enemy cities (and losing 3, for their net conquest of 4).
Arcadians also had a really quiet week this week. For a bottom-tier alliance, this is not a good sign.

Is there anything else that you'd like to see in my analysis? I don't know if there's anything else that might be a meaningful comparison between alliances.
 

DeletedUser30038

Guest
Wow, great job again Art. I really appreciate the work you put into this.
 

DeletedUser

Guest
Hmm this could be interesting but I doubt it very much. I see martins got a lot of love for brown and blizz.

I love Brownies and Blizz...just like i love my mother in law....can always count on them for the sweet talking....
 

DeletedUser829

Guest
Art, what did you use to get those numbers? That's something that could be scripted, it would be a useful tool on Intel Sites (or for myself mwhahahahah)
 

DeletedUser

Guest
I just used grepostats. (I'm more comfortable with grepostats than grepointel for data like this.) I can share my spreadsheet with you if you're curious. (It's a google doc, so it's easy to share.) I think the formulas and stuff will show up. PM me, and I'll send you a link.

I've got a template set up now so that I can just copy and paste the data from grepostats.

I think it's best to do on like a weekly basis. Daily, and I think you lose sense of the flow of the game--people don't always play every day, or you just catch rebuilding. More than weekly, and it doesn't give an idea of the current state of things.
 
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