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style="font-style: italic;">Recognition of an impending

cascade is the first step to survival.



While a target="_blank">detailed theory of how alliances

in style="font-style: italic;">EVE disintegrate

may provide some academic amusement, it doesn't offer any practical

guidance, except for the rare few who find themselves in a position of

leadership. Yet all alliances die; if a pilot is going to get involved

in 0.0 (and why not, since Empire is a criminally boring place) he will

be faced with the eventual decline and fall of his organization. If

handled with naivete, alliance death wreaks untold personal destruction. Asset stockpiles become trapped in stations with no hope

of retrieval and personal wallets are emptied to fund a hopeless war

effort. Far too many pilots find themselves fighting and dying for a

lost cause, and when the war is over they are penniless and without the

means to recover. Yet this worst case can be easily avoided if a few

common sense steps are taken, and some foresight applied. You have to

learn how to recognize when your alliance is in trouble, and then know

what to do about it.

Recognizing an alliance in trouble is made simple by the fact

that most alliances are structured in roughly the same way, and face

nearly identical issues over the course of their life cycle. When bad

things happen, spaceship nerds react in a predictable fashion, even

across cultural boundaries. Just as a running nose and a fever

indicates a cold, these symptoms reflect organizational distress for an

alliance. These occur in no particular order, meaning that you could

find an alliance which begins howling about 'wolfpacks' at the first

sign of trouble, when for others 'wolfpacks' are mentioned only after a

complete breakdown.

Indicators of an Alliance

Under Stress

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style="font-style: italic;">If you detect forum censorship,

it might be time to jump out of your alliance.



Wolfpacks:

Warfare in 0.0 is about accomplishing strategic objectives: seizing

space, blowing up control towers, capturing R64 moons, and blowing up

capital ships. If you are an aggressor, there's something to be said

for sending small gang raiding parties into your target's territory to

disrupt member operations such as ratting or mining. But if your

alliance is on the defensive and losing ground, nothing sets off the

warning alarms quite like calling for small gangs of fast ships to

harass the invader. These gangs are almost always cast in terms of

'wolfpacks', as if invoking submarine warfare from World War II is a

good model for success. Hint: Submarine warfare didn't prevent Berlin

from being sacked, and wolfpacks won't prevent hostile capital fleets

from ravaging your control towers. Wolfpacks are a sign of desperation

from an alliance who cannot defend themselves at the strategic level,

but feel compelled to 'do something'.

Forum Censorship

(Lotka.org): Lotka Volterra cornered the market on overt

forum censorship in EVE.

Since their downfall, their name has been 'verbed' and now describes

heavy handed moderation of dissenting views. Example: "Oldma lotka'd

the Intrepid Crossing forums, they've been scrubbed clean." Some

alliances will censor dissent only when under extreme duress, others

are so sensitive to criticism that anything not pro-leadership will be

nuked immediately. This sort of behavior is something that a wise pilot

will be very suspicious of, as it indicates an inability to confront

problems directly.

"We Didn't Want

That Anyway": Certain types of excuses crop up over and

over again in EVE. "We didn't want that anyway" goes in the same bucket

as "It was just holding us back," "Now we're really mad," and any

reference to wounded tigers. These feeble rationalizations have become

such stereotypes that they are often used as jokes. If you see any of

these deployed unironically with regards to a significant strategic

asset, that's a problem. If your leadership is saying that they didn't

want that chromium mining tower anyway, it's probably a fair statement.

When they start talking about R64s and stations, run; it's only a

matter of time before they start announcing that losing everything has

"freed [them] from the shackles of pos warfare."

Red Pen:

This category covers any kind of op announcement or "Call to Arms"

which includes negative reinforcement as a motivator, demanding that

pilots show up and fight "or else." Threatening people to play a

voluntary and sometimes tedious spaceship game is not a winning

strategy when your alliance is on the defensive, and it inevitably

reduces participation and defensive capability - even if in the short

term it seems like things perk up. Red Pen announcements are a good

indicator that your alliance is being run by mongoloids. Note that

alliances will frequently make use of threats when going on the

offensive, and that this isn't necessarily a sign of weakness; an

offensive Red Pen is used as an excuse to purge corporations or

individuals who aren't pulling their weight.

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style="font-style: italic;">Blaming CCP for your problems is

fun, but it doesn't solve anything.



Denial, a la

Waagaa: In the midst of BoB's downfall in the Querious

campaign, one of their members href="https://www.kugutsumen.com/mirrors/bob-20090620/www.bandofbrothers.org.uk/threads/thread-117043-.html"

target="_blank">penned a thread outlining some of

their problems in hopes of finding some solutions to their predicament.

While the leadership didn't go so far as to Lotka the entire thing,

they href="https://www.kugutsumen.com/mirrors/bob-20090620/www.bandofbrothers.org.uk/threads/thread-117043-5.html"

target="_blank">vehemently denied that anything

was wrong, doubling down much like the Republican Party on their core

principles - it wasn't that BoB was doing something wrong, it was that

they weren't doing the wrong things hard enough. When Yaay, one of

their primary fleet commanders, pointed out that this was idiocy, he

was href="https://www.kugutsumen.com/mirrors/bob-20090620/www.bandofbrothers.org.uk/threads/thread-117043-7.html"

target="_blank">castigated and then kicked out of

the alliance for his temerity. If your alliance leadership is in a

similar state of denial, things are bad. If the response of the other

low-level members of the alliance to this state of denial is fawning

sycophancy, things are even worse.

Blaming

CCP/GMs/Exploits/Hacks: It is undeniable that EVE can be a

catastrophically buggy piece of software, particularly after a patch

deployment. CCP screws up, the servers are occasionally plagued with

ghost towers, GMs can be unreliable if not outright incompetent, and

there are even target="_blank">hackers out there who may be

trying to ruin your day. But when confronted with these issues, some

alliances keep moving, while others fold up. If your alliance is on the

defensive, whining about how you've been screwed over by a bug, a GM,

or a hacker doesn't change the strategic situation. If the alliance

stops whatever it's doing and waits for a fix from the GMs to solve

their problems, odds are they'll be waiting for a long time; this isn't

a good idea.

Absentee Fleet

Commanders: This kind of problem is impossible to hide. If

fleet commanders don't show up for ops scheduled in advance, things are

bad. Not only does it kill future participation by the membership, but

a FC probably has a better idea of how good or bad things are than you

do; if he's given up, you should consider securing your assets. If you

somehow fail to notice FCs going missing, look for forum posts from the

leadership of the "Don't wait for a FC to start an op guys, start one

yourselves," variety. FCing is a difficult task and fleets in EVE have

a chain of command, so if the alliance leadership seriously expects the

line membership to step in and lead when a FC vanishes, they're deluded.

Separate Corp

Meetings: A sure sign of late-stage cascade is when

corporations begin having meetings separate from the alliance. Meetings

are pain in the ass and usually are only done to enable a CEO to take

the pulse of the membership or to announce a change of plans. If your

alliance is on the defensive and you notice that several of the main

corporations are having meetings by themselves, odds are good that

they're planning to escape the situation.

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Sadly,

even the blindingly obvious can be obcure to the blind.

Fire Sales:

Keep a watchful eye on the market and on the contracts in your region.

If you notice items popping up for sale at prices significantly under

Jita value, odds are good that your fellow alliance-mates are busy

firesaleing their assets as a precursor to a full evacuation.

The Blindingly

Obvious: A catchall for things which I shouldn't need to

point out. Keep an eye on your alliance's membership numbers on href="http://evemaps.dotlan.net/" target="_blank">Evemaps;

down is bad. Are your key leaders announcing that they're going away on

vacation just when things get really awful? Bad. Are line members or

the leadership posting ranting threads in which they lash out at

scapegoats, dissenters, or enemy spies? Bad. Are ops not being posted

as frequently as they once were, or are ops being cancelled outright?

Is there a sudden spike in theft from within the alliance, or an 'every

man for himself' attitude spreading? Keep an eye on all these factors.

How to Survive a Failure

Cascade:

Common sense isn't common, if the ever-increasing flow of

iskless refugees from collapsed alliances vowing to quit style="font-style: italic;">EVE is any

indication. If you wish to come out of a failure cascade with your

dignity, assets and wallet intact, here are a few simple guidelines.

Trust No One:

One of the most dangerous mistakes pilots make is having an excess of

credulity; pay attention to the signals and prepare, don't believe

everything that your leadership or fellow corp-mates are telling you.

No one wants to admit that their alliance is in trouble, but if you

hope to come out of this unscathed, you must be able to see clearly.

When things begin going horribly wrong, don't assume that your corp

mates are trustworthy; they could be spies, or simply decide to steal

whatever they can as everything goes to hell.

Only Fly What

You Can Afford to Lose: This should be plastered on the

login screen, if you ask me. Defensive war means losing ships

repeatedly. You need to moderate your losses and take future attrition

into account. Make sure that your warships are of a hull class which

you can afford to lose. Flying one HAC, losing it, then going broke

isn't going to save your alliance, but flying five battlecruisers and

maintaining your balance might. If you have a particular ship that

you're an expert at flying, make sure the fit is standardized such that

you don't waste time dithering after you get blown up. Expect to die

and don't be upset when it happens.

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Installing

Jump Clones is just smart. Get over that "preparing for defeat" BS.

Don't Hoard:

The natural tendency of players appears to be to have one station as a

home base where assets and ships accumulate. In a conquerable station,

this is a terrible habit. If your 'base' station is captured, you lose

everything you've stashed in it. Keep a few (2-3 tops) combat ships

which you've selected for affordability and efficiency in different

stations in your space such that you can never be denied a combat

vessel by a hostile camp. Keep clutter to a minimum; your extra loot

should be regularly sold or ferried out to Empire or NPC 0.0.

Jump Clones:

You should have Infomorph Psychology trained to four. Install a jump

clone in each of the stations where you have a stash of combat ships.

This will allow you to access your assets if the station is captured

before you can evacuate, just in case.

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Research

everythign about your foe, from the ships it uses to its sources of

income.

Cultivate

Untouchable Income: Empire is a boring, terrible place,

but having your income stream entirely dependent on 0.0 isn't wise if

your alliance collapses. There are a number of ways which you can use

your 0.0 earnings to set up backup income streams in Empire while times

are good. Popular options: A PvE-fit battleship parked at a

mission-running hub, an invention bpo/decryptor set, or a rack of four

R&D agents constantly providing passive income from datacores.

Make sure that you have one of these set up long before your alliance

comes under stress, such that you can use your Empire income to fund

your ship losses in defense of your space.

Anticipate the

Enemy: As soon as your alliance comes under attack, you

should commence researching your foe. Who are they, and more

importantly, what do they normally do while on the offensive? Being

surprised by the predictable is an act of criminal stupidity. As an

example, Goonswarm recently got a hold of an account on Scorched

Earth's forums and 'rushed' it, with many members logging in and

posting offensive images (goatse.cx, etc). Scorched Earth members

loudly expressed shock and horror, even though the exact same thing

occurred to Scorched Earth's neighbor, Aggression, less than a week

previously! Red.Overlord is infamous for camping jump beacons with

battleship gangs or suicide capitals, so no one fighting them should be

surprised when these tactics are deployed against them. Do your

homework.

Chart the War

Yourself: If something is going horribly wrong in your

alliance, you can't trust your leaders to tell you; they'd probably

prefer you not to know. You also can't trust the line members to tell

you; odds are a lot of them don't keep track of things at the strategic

level, and even if they do they might have been cowed into sycophancy.

Charting the progress of a war isn't difficult, and the best way to

judge if you need to make a quick exit is to figure it out yourself.

Use Evemaps

to chart sovereignty changes and keep a close eye on your alliance and

corporate forums. Focus on strategic necessities like R64 moons,

stations, and jump bridge networks. Come to your own conclusions, then

compare those conclusions against the 'official line' being promulgated

by the alliance leadership. In EVE,

thinking for yourself is always the best defense.

If you keep your wits about you and keep an eye on the warning

signs, even a total alliance collapse won't make much of a personal

impact on you. The enemy is trying to destroy your assets to the point

where you give up and quit EVE

entirely; with a modicum of intelligence, you don't have to give him

that satisfaction.