[tbontob]

Originally posted by geoschmo:
Possibly. But a wise player will not advertise his alliances. So you will not really know who has alliances and who doesn't.

Yes...

But the alliance which numbers approach 10 members (50%), has nothing to lose and everything to gain to encourage the few "holdouts" to join. Better to join a 10 member group than a 4 or 6.

In fact a group that has an known alliance could be come targets themselves of the other players as a whole, rather than allow the alliance to pick off all the single players one at a time they will possibly band together and try to break them up.

My point exactly, the single players know they have to join an alliance. So the choice is the larger one. And you end up with an imbalance of alliances with the the smaller one having the greater probability of losing one of its members in combat.

Plus, an alliance may not nessecarily help you. Cause the single player facing an alliance doesn't have to beat everybody, only one person. Or they can survive by beating no one and just surviving long enough that some other poor sap on the other side of the quadrant gets it first.

I disagree...try fighting off a simultaneous attack by 2 or more empires alone... The larger alliance has more empires and all things being equal, can afford to throw more empires into the conflict.

EDIT: Not to mention, you could make an alliance before the game, and when the game starts you aren't anywhere near your allies in the galaxy. That would be an uncomfortable position to be in, especially if your alliance is well known to everyone.

True and that is the risk you take. However, if your alliance is smaller, then the probability escalates that you will find yourself alone and with the consequence of becoming a prime target. Better then to ally yourself with the larger alliance.

What I am trying to say is the "lone" member is likely to be a sure loser. Therefore, if he wants to stay in the game, he needs to join an alliance. If he picks the wrong one (ie a small one), the odds are greater that he will end up dead than if he had selected the larger one.

So, this may well end up to be a battle of alliances. And when an alliance does beats all the competition, it will then have to breakup and new alliances will have to be formed...and the process starts over again.