Top 12 Top 12 Sink or Swim

ErikWijmeersch

Strategos
Smokin': My alliance, cannot say much about. controls 34 after a merge of LEM, Just War (RnR) and the remnants of Nocturne Centurion.

They are part of shadies Shadies don't do WW... HOAX
SHADIES don't do two team, true is no Hoax they have 3 LOL
Shadies are awesome fighters .. True turtles bite hard hihi.
 

G-Fight

Chiliarch
Smokin': My alliance, cannot say much about. controls 34 after a merge of LEM, Just War (RnR) and the remnants of Nocturne Centurion.

They are part of shadies Shadies don't do WW... HOAX
SHADIES don't do two team, true is no Hoax they have 3 LOL
Shadies are awesome fighters .. True turtles bite hard hihi.
I really tried my best, but I could not understand half of what you tried to say.

WW? Who's talking about world wonders? That's at least 8 months from now...

To add on this, you call shadies awesome fighters, good because they are what you are not. It's quite an accomplishment to spent 80+ euros on gold to take 1 city of us that's 2 oceans away from the rest of the alliance lol.

But yeah, old habits die hard I guess?
 
I really tried my best, but I could not understand half of what you tried to say.

WW? Who's talking about world wonders? That's at least 8 months from now...

To add on this, you call shadies awesome fighters, good because they are what you are not. It's quite an accomplishment to spent 80+ euros on gold to take 1 city of us that's 2 oceans away from the rest of the alliance lol.

But yeah, old habits die hard I guess?


Look, no disrespect to Shady. I like most of you guys, but come on, you seriously gonna howl about golding? I knocked a wall down yesterday or day before and it was level 23 again less than an hour later.
 

G-Fight

Chiliarch
Look, no disrespect to Shady. I like most of you guys, but come on, you seriously gonna howl about golding? I knocked a wall down yesterday or day before and it was level 23 again less than an hour later.
Well, I was just calling out Erik on his unfounded assumptions on shadies. I am not part of them, just sayin'.
But yeah, that wall bit is stupid as well, I never liked the instant buy things, or should at least be disabled during BR and RR for a fairer fight. But Inno is greedy.
 

Ranga1

Strategos
Well french bunnies chickened out of a fight and will dissolve after two ops from Chrome Angels. Pretty dissapointing really their leader left first
 

ErikWijmeersch

Strategos
Well, I was just calling out Erik on his unfounded assumptions on shadies. I am not part of them, just sayin'.
But yeah, that wall bit is stupid as well, I never liked the instant buy things, or should at least be disabled during BR and RR for a fairer fight. But Inno is greedy.
If is me who calls the shots I would make some adjustments. Wall gold max to level 20. I have hundreds thoughts such as this example.
Yeah what was it 18 months for me not playing seriously,, saved some mountings of gold hihi.
 

DeletedUser54339

Guest
Well, if nobody else does it, I'll give it a try, don't execute me if it's bad :(

1. The Shady Bunch: They have firm control of 44 and 54, taking and losing some cities to SS, notable: Received 1 million ABP in the last week and nearly 2 million DBP in the last week. Top Contenders. SWIM

2. Skulls: firm control of 55, more spread than Shadies, most notably in 64,64 and 56 Not to be underestimated. Received 1,5 million ABP with only 200k DBP. Aggressive. SWIM

3. AA: firm control of 36 and 46. Rim alliance spreading to the core oceans, and with succes. Same as skulls, very attacking-minded, not so much defense needed. Real threat to TF in 35 and 45 which they are getting big control of in the south. SWIM

4. True Fear: Mostly in 35 and 45. Lost huge amount of cities in 55 and South 45. Took in a lot of member lately from the fallen The Apocalypse (now known as Centurions Legacy), controls most of 35, not that firm tho. Looks like an internal reorganization took place lately, as lots of TF DNA members went to TF and vice-versa. Taken huge beatings of Skulls, Shadies and AA. Matter of time until they fall imo. FLOAT-SINK

5. Epidemic: Mostly in 43 and 53. Don't know a lot about them, took some cities of shadies in the last few days without losing a lot. I see them staying on the rim, maybe going into 33 or 63 but the x4 oceans are a big step for these guys. FLOAT

6. Smokin': My alliance, cannot say much about. controls 34 after a merge of LEM, Just War (RnR) and the remnants of Nocturne Centurion.

7. French Bunnies: Don't really know these guys, in east 64 and 65. Not really a good core. They'll have to keep skulls in the mind. I assume they're the remnants of the fallen Spartanic Overlords (correct me if I'm wrong) FLOAT-SINK

8. Chrome Angels: SW 63 and parts of 53, same as bunnies, unknown to me. Gotta keep Epidemic in mind (unless they're pacted) Kind of spread out as well. FLOAT-SINK

9. WE BE PIRATES: 33 and North 34: Lost lots of cities to NS in north 34, leadership seems inactive, or at least irregular. Will probably get picked up by EPIDEMIC. SINK

10. Centurions Legacy: Formerly known as "The Apocalypse" and even as "Mad Pugs" for a short time. Most of their members fled to True Fear, leftovers are getting eaten by TF, NS from the north and AA from the south. Lot's of inactives. Only a matter of time. SINK


World map:
spayH7v.png

IL0MYTd.png


Sources:
Game knowledge, nf-oracle.com , grepolife.com (grepointel didn't work)

I vote this 'Top 12 with the least foresight of the entire server' :p
 

DeletedUser54339

Guest
I vote this "easiest comment made" on the whole forum.

If you can do it better, do it yourself m8
Someone's salty that there aren't any boots to lick any more. At least for the time being...
 

G-Fight

Chiliarch
Someone's salty that there aren't any boots to lick any more. At least for the time being...
tbh only thing I'm salty about is Skulls imbalancing the whole world atm

Erik be like: "hey the alliance that I have been talking trash to just fell apart, lets take in the big players so we're already more unstoppable than we already are and ignoring the fact that I've been trashtalking them for the last few months"

Its still 8 months to WW and the world is on the edge of dying as well cuz of the imbalance
 

DeletedUser31852

Guest
Let’s hope everybody in positions of responsibility will make decisions pushing epidamnos towards an interesting future.

I mean as much as yes skullz are very strong, but they basically just won a big war. When shady became the super shady everybody, including me, yelled that the server was being unbalanced but look what happened...
I see a possibility of a much more fragmented world with many more wars, or again two big coalitions. We‘ll see, worst case there is always istros
 

G-Fight

Chiliarch
Now that the world is reorganized, I thought it might be good to make another one. I know my last one was kind of controversial and turned out wrong on some parts, but I'm gonna try it at least for one more time, a bit more in depth as I've been watching very closely on the world changes for a while.

I'm gonna try to be as objective as possible, so to my friends at TF I say, try not to make this in an ad hominem argument ;)

Changes:
Traditionally not a part of TOP 12's but I'm gonna include this part to reflect a bit on the difference of this TOP 12 and my last one a month ago.

The Shady Bunch: From my pov the least expected change as I think, most people did not expect it, it looked like they were going down after they went from 2 top alliances, to only 1. The fact that that lots of players were from former Plunder and Pillage and, most importantly a lot were from former The Priory. So in the end, only a minority of "oldschool Shadies" remained.

Where did they go?
- Most of the players went to the newly formed alliance "Work in Progress", which most members are now from former "The Priory". More on WiP later.
- Quite a few players went to Skull SkeletonS, including former Shadies leader SlothTzu, who came back out of VM right after Shadies fell. Quite an unpleasant return for him. More on Skulls later.
- A small group of players which were the ex-PnP players, joined their former friends of ex-RnR in "The Hive" (= No Smoking)
- An even smaller amount of players (I counted 3) from north 54 joined EPIDEMIC
- Last but not least, a big amount, which a few are in VM either for a while, or just yet, are quitting the world.

Conclusion:
After the big merger in 44/54 Shadies held it firm, but now 44/54 is quite divided and mixed up due to players choosing other directions. Big part of 54 has been occupied by skulls now. 44 looks like it's going to be a heavily contested ocean between "SkullS, EPI, TH, WiP and even TF".

French Bunnies: I'm not quite sure what happened to these guys, but looking from the stats I had to dig deep for, they got OP'ed by Chrome Angels at the end, lost not that much cities, but dissolved anyway at the start of the month. They had a Win/loss ratio of 0-74, 1-50 and 0-13 to Shadies, Skulls and CA respectively. Those are some numbers to not be proud of.

Where did they go?
- Hard to tell but most of them either went to "THE VANGUARD 2.0", to Skulls, to "Spartans" or quit

Centurions Legacy: Gonna keep it short, players either quit, or joined TF

TOP "12":
That intro was longer than expected, but here we go to the top 12, well actually it's just gonna be a top 8 :/

Skull SkeletonS & Skulls 'n BoneS: Led some ops against TSB that Erik definitely will take credit for that caused the their fall. It may or not be the case. Well anyway, now after the fall of TSB they are the absolutely number 1 alliance in the world with nearly 50 million points together. Thats nearly a third of all points of the TOP 50 alliances (=161 mil). I'd say top contenders, but looks like those words didn't do TSB well last time I said that to them but they're undoubtly the favorites for WW in ~7 months. I'm starting to feel bad for their members in 66 and 67, more than an ocean between them and the action. I'm not sure who they'll be fighting now, probably cleaning up 54 and then going for the 4x oceans. With now SluthTzu in their ranks as well, looking like plain cheating now as they have 5 of the top 6 players. I hope they're not gearing up much more as otherwise WW might be a long wait for them ... SWIM

Angry Apples:
Silently going upwards, gaining more terrain in both south 35 and 45, where TF is losing it more and more, the stand between both alliances are currently 141-26 in favour of AA and 174-43 if you include the stats for DNA Mixed (TF DNA) and =AA= as well. They are biting and not letting loose. Only time will tell if they can hold this pace against TF SWIM

True Fear
They have been written off a lot of times, but they are still standing, gratz to them for holding it out. They got rid of TF DNA and narrowed down to 1 full alliance. Took in the all leftovers of "Centurions Legcay" (TA) to pump up their numbers up. Lots of inactives in VM got booted and I had a suspicion it would happen again with Dead Eyed Suburbanite, Throm Laudani, Geoge9 and Clowncrowned, 4 very big players all going into VM, but the first 3 are all back and looks like most of TF are active again. Nevertheless they are still losing by a bit against TH and AA with 9-35 and 43-173 respectively. But after the fall of TSB, they have some breathing room from the northeast. Time will tell how long the breathing room there will stay. FLOAT

The Hive
aka No Smoking, only a name change went through. Still my alliance, so I'm still not really gonna say anything about it. Gonna leave this one to you. (but don't make this an ad hominem argument please) 35-9 against TF and 42-1 against WBP.

Work in Progress
Could've named this "The Priory 2" as well, lots of folks from there. Well, all members just joined from TSB with most notable Deathstrike, zeuse and SlivasLegendZ. (The latter had an excellent paper on this world, pls make more) Anyway, they're clustered around SW 44 with some cities here and there in 54 and all around 44. I'm curious what they're up to, choosing for diplomatic ways or just fighting everyone. Time will tell. The only alliance with 10+ mill points that's only half full. As they're just founded, I'm not gonna give a swim/sink rating

EPIDEMIC
Last time I called 44 and 54 a big step for them, now I feel the step is becoming smaller for them. I'm excited to see what they're gonna do, I suppose they're going into 44/54 to put up a fight there, against who the fight will, I'm not sure. Going 30-1 against "Avenged Sevenfold and they were going 30-11 against TSB II before they disbanded. SWIM

Chrome Angels
As I said last time, I don't know much about them, they're in 53 and 63 mostly, they kicked French Bunnies' ***'es but don't have much left around them with only EPI and Skulls. I don't know their diplomacy, but those aren't small boys to fight against. FLOAT

WE BE PIRATES
They're kind of stuck in 33 between TH and EPI, with lots of inactives in there, I see only direction where the pirates are going. 1-41 against TH ain't something to be proud of. SINK

WORLD MAP:
PBgiIkX.png

JqqN1aq.png
 
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DeletedUser54339

Guest
Interesting top 12. As an aside, I think any alliance that changes its name more than once should have to pay a levy of 50 gold per player :p

Re: Apples. Have to disagree on this one. I don't know if you're familiar with what happens when someone drowns, but unlike the standard portrayal of flailing limbs and cries of distress, the process is actually eerily quiet and not apparent to the untrained eye. Watch this space...
 

G-Fight

Chiliarch
Interesting top 12. As an aside, I think any alliance that changes its name more than once should have to pay a levy of 50 gold per player :p

Re: Apples. Have to disagree on this one. I don't know if you're familiar with what happens when someone drowns, but unlike the standard portrayal of flailing limbs and cries of distress, the process is actually eerily quiet and not apparent to the untrained eye. Watch this space...
I was just going from the numbers, sadly it doesn't show the recent weeks but for the whole time, and i'm not gonna bother with counting it all. So yes, my conclusion of it could be skewed, or it could not. ;)

Namechange sounds stupid to me lol, Inno could just list the previous names of the alliance on the profile or something idk
 

DeletedUser31852

Guest
Lets hope we can bring some life into this forum and some discussion. Maybe now that some egos have gone or been humbled, we could bring back a nice polite forum that is a nice read for everyone, where everyone is respectful and respected (you may say I'm a dreamer, but I'm not the only one).

Never seriously done a top 12 I think, so yeah. Am just going to consider top 9 alliances because its the only ones I know stuff about.
I always wanted to help Slivas with his newspaper, but didn't dare to write one alone, he always seems busy. So am gonna do an unconventional top 9.
Of course there will be bias from my position, deal with it.


a bit of context for those who will read this in a few months:

After running a global coalition to bring down Shady (renamed Leaving on a Jet Plane), SkullS won. Shady had taken in The Priory and Plunder and Pillage (who had had too many inactives and some leadership quitting to keep going independently). Their fall started with the breaking off of "Work In Progress", who are now "The Grey Company" I believe. Most of ocean 54 Shady (who's main alliance all but disbanded on 14/15 of June) went into SkullS. Most of the old Priory (south east 44 mainly) with a few additions are in Grey Company. Most of the original Plunder went over to join The Hive. Four ex Shady came over to my home, Epidemic.


1+3) SkullS

Founded 8th of March - third oldest alliance still standing I believe

Great Victory over Shady, now they have become what they wanted to prevent: the big guy who seems to be marching towards an easy crown.
When this was Shady's case, a group of alliances decided to avoid this happening. Other than this most likely outcome happening, one could fathom them splitting up to fight themselves to bring some entertainment and excitement. But maybe that would underestimate the desire for a crown. Maybe despite me finding this unlikely, some coalition will manage to topple them... but that's just too many cities to take. Anyways, coalitions taking down a big alliance seem to just bring another big unbeatable beast anyways. The ultimate hope of other contenders is death from boredom? Hope keeps some awake, but can't eternally.
Geography: Massive presence in 55, clearly dominating 54, 64, 65 and 56 (the entire South Eastern quarter of the world, as well as more than half of the North Eastern quarter).


Towards more recent news, they just had their first OP on The Grey Company, taking across both alliances 39 cities and loosing 3. But most of these cities were isolated in 54, whereas most of Grey Company is in 44. So this doesn't really mean much.


2+10) Apples

Founded on 4th of March, second oldest alliance still standing

The major player of the South Western quarter of this world. They border SkullS but don't fight. The main question is when this will change. SkullS need something to do after all. I'm interested to see how the apples will fare when this fight does start.

So far though they have undoubtedly been winning the war against True Fear, with whom they share a long border that stretches for almost two oceans across 45 and 35. Current score is 178 to 38 in favor of apples. But almost all of the heavy lifting is done by the main alliance. Maybe the sister arm is just to avoid another alliance springing up in their behinds? At rank 10 in points and 14 in fight points the secondary apples seem to be more of the rotten than the angry type.

Other what is intended to be friendly banter, this bunch is clearly the second force to be reckoned with for WW. Let's see how that works out with the clear favorites neighboring them.


4) The Hive

So just because I remember the names of some of the names Nislija has flown his flag under, I'm gonna put down here what I got.
The oldest I can remember was Raid and Ravage, maybe an hommage to plunder and pillage, or maybe they were an official second branch. It never became clear. Then came their association with some other alliance that was at that time called Mad Pugs, so Raid and Ravage became Raiding Pugs. But turns out being called Pugs didn't work out, so they became Smoke Free and/or No Smoking. But as we all know with addictions, they come back. And so their abstention from lung destruction didn't last long either... At some point they were also called Just war... not sure when. Anyway, either they decided to stick to the line of saving our health and environment, and are now fighting for the plight of disappearing bees around the world, which is causing pollination issues and endangers parts of the food chain. So they built a Hive for these insects. Other possibility is that they just felt like they were a metaphorical hive, because they were so full of energy and well organized behind their queen. Who knows? I prefer the first version.

Anyway, these guys also took in/merged with Legion I think to be the clear masters of ocean 34. After the fall of Shady, some old plunder members decided to join what had evolved from their prior academy, giving the Hive a decent position in the upper diagonal going from south west to north east in ocean 44.

Fighting: despite multiple appearances of the Pirate captain from 33 on the externals reassuring they would be back, The Hive has an impressive lead of 49 to 1 in their war against We Be Pirates. They also have a score of 37 to 5 beating True Fear. Don't know much about that, but seems to continue going on well for them. Last week they got opped by us, Epidemic, and lost over a dozen cities. Which makes this the only ongoing fight they are loosing, 1 to 19.

5) Epidemic

My home after getting almost rimmed down in the core after coming out of an early VM. Has been faring much better these past months than initially, used to be called Immortals, name under which Plunder and Pillage gave us a good pounding.

Nowadays we are clearly the number on in ocean 43 and to a lesser extent also in 53. After helping SkullS against Shady, from what one can find on grepolife and the oracle of zancle, it seems like we are now focusing on the Hive and northern 44 as well as occasionally going cherry picking for pre-made cities in the north from Avenged Sevenfold. Quite promising alliance with great team spirit, became second and first in the initial and following matches of the current event after good teamwork on our most popular forum thread. (spot the chiasmus?) Who wants a resource buff anyways? SkullS can take that one.

6) The Grey Company

Quite a few familiar faces here from the Priory. Luckily for the world they didn't want to join SkullS it seems and still want to fight. Let's see how they fare. These initial stats don't mean a thing as it hasn't come to established borders yet. But if the whole weight of shady couldn't withstand skulls, how could this faction withstand a SkullS that has swallowed almost half of shady? I love underdogs though and they definitely will have loads of fun for them! Question is what will they be able to do with all the bp and slots they will gain?

Geographically, these guys have a beautiful stronghold in the south west of ocean 44. Let's see how they can use this to their advantage.

7) True Fear

Founded on January 25th according to grepolife, but I'm pretty sure these guys were here the minutes Epidamnos came out of the womb of those servers over in Germany. So the oldest alliance and only premade and only alliance that existed when bp ended that has made it this far and been a serious alliance.

I must say, the admiration I had for Shadies when they seemed to be a small bunch, fighting the world, and being good at it, has migrated to these guys. They were unusually loud on externals, and seem to have some very boisterous personalities. But despite any criticism one may say regarding this, they are an alliance that keeps Epidamnos turning. I mean if you think of it, they have fought every single alliance near them, lost more cities than some big alliances have in their secondary ocean (if you count the 165 lost to apples, 65 to twisted, 53 to TSB, and 37 to The Hive... its over 300). Yet despite everybody being annoyed at some of the arrogance, despite all the prophecies that they would ghost and move on to another world, despite many things. They are still here, and seem to be going nowhere. I believe their leitmotiv is that they don't pact people when they can avoid it. And they must have a very good bunch of players with loads of motivation and perseverance to still be here. I know that whoever wins the world wonder aspect of this world, this group has been the most impressive to me. (which is my opinion, that I am entitled to, so don't even bother to criticize, and instead propose someone that impressed you more instead of saying why they didn't impress you).

Yes, their war stats don't look that great, I'm not going to bother posting any, because I can't say much to any of them that I haven't already.
 
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