[Beck]

Virtually all the major alliances were involved in a war. One side was The Initiative (the winners) and the other was known as the Aegis(the losers)(though that was not an official name, it was a loose collection of alliances tied together by MDPs and MADPs). At its height, over 69 different alliances were involved with around 10,000+ nations. It's why for a period of two weeks, if you tried to log on the hour before and hour after update, the site lagged terribly if you could even get on. It's why registrations were taken offline as was donations. It was largest war the game has ever seen and one of the longest (as far as Great Wars go, at three weeks). At its height there were over 15,000 wars going on. There are still some minor skirmishes going on even now.

It rather immaterial whether a nation you want to target is at war or whether his alliance is at war with any other alliance. You keep mentioning the number of clicks to find this out, when what is relevant is whether the target is in an alliance or not and that is on the nation display screen you have to pull up to declare war on him. Alliances protect their members, it's their primary purpose for being, and they do not take kindly to attacks on those members, whether they are a hour from being deleted for inactivity or not. What you see as a valid target in attacking a member of an alliance is actually much like walking through a minefield. You seem to understand there may be repercussions to your actions and weight the risk and go ahead feeling the rewards outwiegh that risk. But alliances see nations making these types of attacks as rogues. The normal reaction is to fill his war slots and either get reparations for the attack, or ZI the nation in question. If you're in an alliance and the alliance doesn't kick you out for making such an attack, the alliance itself could be considered rogue and subject to attack. That's why PE is so concerned, your actions have consequences for not only you, but the other members of your alliance. Many nations that like to raid in your fashion, remove their aa before declaring, so their alliance isn't listed in the DoW. Your alliance isn't set up to handle any diplomacy or interaction with another alliance beyond someone sending an in game message. That in of itself can create problems. The alliance I'm in has had nations declare on nations in alliances with the result being they were dogpiled (all war slots filled), it didn't spread to the rest of the alliance because we have a forum and a diplomatic means of at least talking with the affected alliances. I don't see that here and it could mean trouble down the line. I mean PE is talking for the Legion, but if he weren't here doing that, would anyone know how to get in contact with them? And if you were attacked, other members not really knowing what was going on but seeing you attacked would support you and that could doom the entire alliance. The Legion suffered badly in the war, but they are still one of the largest alliances in the game and have a collective NS over 3 million (you guys are what, just over 40,000). They're probably even touchier over this sort of attack since the war since so many of their nations are weak from the fighting. Not only that, but as terms of the surrender, FAN/TOP are charged with protecting the Legion and they could just as easily jump into this at anytime. FAN doesn't ask questions, they would just ZI everyone and settle it after. I can think of at least two alliance being pounded right now over the actions of one or two of their members. You say staying away from alliance targets limits your opportunites, then you better learn the lay of the land as regards alliances then otherwise you're playing in waters you know nothing about. I believe one of the few rules CW had was not to attack nations in alliances, it was for a good reason.