I agree with Crioz; fewer and larger families would be a good idea. Mostly due to the lack of good leaders.

I think it has been suggested, but I would love to see a round in SB where the families are formed when a potential leader applies to the mods to start a family. Let's say we get 6 people that want to lead, then 6 families are started with each leader placed, then everyone else must enter at random. Would be a good test of who is the best leader, and make for more competition.

you really think its only leadership that counts ?
you can be great leader but if you have inactive fam, do you think you can follow up with a fully active fam without any good leadership ?
i can see you sitting as great leader in a inactive fam: you write tactics and orders in forums and pm's, do this do that and day2 after it has been written nothing has happend, cause they didn't came online or didn't have time.. must be frustrating then no?

I might be wrong with this so its just as an example   :
give me a fam with all actives and even i might lead us to top 3 now... ( [i say NOW not many years ago], cause all the rest of the fams out of  top 5 are inactive and just can't follow with a complete active fam)

just my thoughts

No of course not. A leader can only LEAD not do everything. But a family with semi-actives with no leader will be awful. That same family with a strong leader will be a contender for top 3-5 at worst.

I'm not sure a fully active family won't have a decent or at least good leader. Such a thing as you mention doesn't exist.

surgery?   no no please! don't you change the tits, we love them as they are 

No its just the hands Tits will remain as they are lol

I remember a time when wars where fun we had our allies which helped give us spread and help protect our and there core I remember having expo naps with cores then wars when naps counted down and we would jumped so fleet would come at nap end time , I remember we would more  then not have matching fleets and it came down to skill speed and internet connection ....I remember when I made my mark in a war against pp fam the borg kagar at the time was I would say the best attacker in the game we lost the war but we as a fam and me as an attacker proved we could hold our own....
 
it was a true test for attackers and fams ...but there was a lot of good players and there where lots of active players  there was very little whining  so I think we can talk and talk and we can come up with ideas to improve the game but what the game really needs is active players ppl and I think as a community we need to get out there and promote the game fine new players grow it and everything else will fix its self just my thoughts >>>>>

Even a good leader can carry an inactive fam. I remember quite a few rounds back, I was our fams only attacker, I had 1 active banker (WhiteLightning), and a no-name pax resourcer. We had a hell of a good time fending off our center position on the map, and I spent the entire round hitting any family that got within 20 ticks of our HS. Ask Devilz and Lee about that round, I'm sure their ass are still sore from the pain I was causing for them.

lol you  can ask me about it, but you never fight me, i was only a spectator that round of your great attacking skills(i was your neighbour lol and napped the whole time) , i remeber you pissing lee off lots lol

anyways, looks like bunch of the bottom teams are having fun right now,

68 vs 66

infra whoring continues, lol this will most likly be the biggest fail war ever, and waste of the top 2 teams entire round

Topfams fight now. Ur in safemode anyway so go.. I like round to be decided as others start to fArm us

I agree with Asher it needs a larger player base unfortunately

as you will always have good average and bad players   active and inactive

the key is having enough players to have enough good/average  so the "bad" can learn how to be good

now gold tried some advertising so to speak but for it to be effective it unfortunately needs more mass advertising on something depressing like FB  or some other area where web games might click on it

Nope not untill we fought the war for top spot

It's true we didn't fight devilz, but ate any attempts of any dams who wanted to get close to you by way of my core. I don't know how many accusations I got of IA while all I was doing was keeping my own core clean and safe. I have 2 shits about your fam, and protected mine. I know you messages me a few times about clearing people from your core when they were planets you lost in your own war lol.