two small families teams up to fight a bigger family is fun and entertaining. 3 biggest families team up to hit one small family leaving small family no chance to fight back sucks.

I thought the whole point of the new galaxy was to get rid of AI's. Why is it allowed again?

And i thought we already went over all the reasons why AI's don't work.

We are looking for a "fair" game.  And right now with the morale as it is now, it is impossible to fight unless both sides are fighting with the same number of players.  Also not only limited to morale, we dont have time to check back who is attacking us in 3 different time zones. 

Also AI's only help out those who have played this game a long time and have friends in other fams.  This doesn't help any newer player at all. And yes there are a lot of vet players in this game who will benefit from having AI's but I would bet half the galaxy cant effectively even use AI's because they cant get anyone to ally with.  Is that fair? Not in my book. 

You wouldnt have any sport that has different number of players on each team.  Its like playing football 15 vs 5. Allowing AI's just fundamentally doesnt make any sense, which is why they were "illegal" in the first place.

This is exactly correct. There's a reason the game tries to make families have an even number of members in each. And the morale system has heavy weights associated with FAMILY NW and/or size, not alliance NW/size. It balances inter-family fighting, not inter-alliance fighting.

Some good points everybody, thanks.  Responses below:

The trouble with something like this is that there's no way to enforce it.  This is the problem with the IA rule in general: it's practically impossible to prove when people are circumventing the rules.  All it takes is coordinating outside of the game (facebook, whatsapp, etc) and people can do whatever they like.

IAs definitely have been happening for awhile.  Once in awhile we were able to take action, but often times the result is a matter of "well... this looks fishy, but we can't prove anything".

This means that every single IA investigation had the potential to take up a ton of mod/admin time, only to turn up nothing.  When I took over I witnessed a ridiculous amount of effort that went into investigating IA claims, and decided that if we have limited mod/admin time (which we do) that I don't want us spending it on a rule that is barely enforceable and that I don't see as a good restriction to begin with.

Morale is rolled back to the old formula, which will be the new default going forward.  It still isn't perfect though, and we'll need to keep adjusting it so that it isn't such a hindrance to attacks/retaliations.

I don't see this as a problem.  If a group of players are able to organize themselves into a group that has wider time zone coverage, then they deserve to be rewarded for their efforts.  This argument is not much different than saying it's unfair that certain players have stronger empires because they're more active.

IAs do make the game more difficult for some, but I think that's where the difference between "fair" and "challenging" is.  IC has a history of forcing a false equilibrium with good intentions but bad results, and it's dumbed down the game in a very bad way.

This is somewhat of a tangent, but the galaxy's system and family distribution used to be far more random.  Round openings used to be more exciting because you got to see if you were lucky and landed close to other fams, or were not lucky and were isolated.

Or was it the other way around?  Maybe some people thought being close to other fams was bad because it meant enemies and not allies?  Indeed, some people also preferred the isolation because it meant a space buffer.

This was an interesting experience and make each round feel unique.  Unfortunately, IC gave this up so that all systems and families could be relatively equidistant every single round.  It was done in the name of fairness and the game is now more boring as a result.

Fairness is a reasonable goal, but absolute equilibrium isn't necessarily the best thing for IC.  Some games do this by design (Chess) but others introduce a bit of random advantage/disadvantage (Risk).

How this relates to IA is similar to the matter of physical space: allowing IA introduces a new challenge that players have to work around.  Not everybody will start on 100% equal ground, and that does mean some players will have to try harder than others.  However, it also means that players will have more unique experiences every round, and those who overcome the challenges will over time become more skilled than those who didn't have to.

Part of this problem feels worse than it is because the website is still badly designed in many ways.  Making it easier for new players and solo-types to coordinate would balance out their disadvantage when they don't belong to a larger alliance.  It's a valid concern that this change strongly favors vets with groups of friends, but that is something we can fix by adding/improving our coordination features, which we should be doing anyway.

The push here is largely acknowledging the short term pain for the long term gain.  We can't begin to understand how to fix what is needed if we forever "hide" behind the IA rule.

IC isn't football though.  That'd be as true as saying Monopoly's dice rolls are unfair because you aren't impacted by luck when you play Checkers.  They're different types of games.

IC is a war strategy game, and alliances are a form of naturally occurring factions.  Our decision is whether or not we want to allow players to do what comes naturally or tell them that they have to play a certain way because everybody should have an equal/fair experience.  We've been doing the latter for far too long.

This is true but it's a mis-design in my opinion.  We're overlooking more interesting experiences that can be had by allowing and even encouraging people to play together.  The way it's been until now is that you *can* team up on a bigger family but they can't utilize the idea that "the enemy of my enemy is my friend" and worse, you had to be *extremely* careful to operate in a way that doesn't suggest you're coordinating, for fear of being banned.  That's ridiculously restrictive.

In practice this isn't sustainable.  If it keeps going this way everybody would end up in a single giant alliance.  In reality, there will eventually be in-fighting, alliance splits, alliance merges, alliance groups, etc.  There's a whole world of possibilities we've never even touched because we've been so strict about forbidding coordination.

The idea is not to say "go as many allies as you want!" but rather to say "we won't tell you how to play".   The players should ultimately determine what this means for them.

Thanks for the feedback everybody.  Remember, disagreement isn't a bad thing.  Although I still have my preferences on the matter I am considering everything you guys are saying, so keep em coming.

I agree 100%.  The "1 Giant Alliance" was more of a logical extreme of the chain reaction you described.  What I mean overall is that the players will eventually find balance on their own instead of the game forcing it upon them, which is a good thing.

What you're saying about the framework is well stated and the overall end-goal.  IC has great potential to be better than it ever was, but we have to expose our issues so we can fix them.  Allowing IA has been a way for us to to stare the game in the face and really understand its problems.

It hurts a bit in the short term, but we'll be much better off in the end.

First off, if you are trying to compare this game to risk, IA's is like having 3 friends playing teaming up against 1 new player every game.  Thats what people are doing. I get it, its a war game and you are not trying to control how people play WITHIN a round. But most of the alliance already happens before the round even starts.  That's the problem with allowing IAs.

From what i can tell the main reason why you want to allow IA's is because there is no way for you to actually control IAs from happening.   But letting people openly make IA's (not to mention a full fam of drafts) just lets the same people play together over and over again.  There is no variety and its not even close to "fair".  I'm also not trying to play this game to make as many ingame friends as possible (which is required to get an ally).   I dont try to get an ally before the round starts and after that it's already too late.

Ive been reading what you are saying and trying really hard to figure out why you think AI's are okay because it absolutely ruins the game for me.  I said i wouldn't join the starburst round, but i did anyways to "test" and its not playable.  Right now the problem isn't IA's attacking our fam.  Its because people know there is no point to even complete unless they are in the top fam/alliances so everyone just deletes if they dont end up in one of the top fams.

To me the real problem is that people are happy to settle to just be part of the winning alliance, even if it means coming last. This is the problem, a atmosphere of medicoracy and lack of desire and competition. Family 2 & 3 should always be looking to take down family 1, but family 1 can be looking at 4 & 5 to hit 2 & 3 at the same time. Lower Fama could team up for mutual protection, but it is counter to the concept of competition and the game for the top fans to work together.

As the saying goes, this is Imperial Conflict not Imperial Care Bears

The alternative is not worse. Right now my fam in SB has 3 bankers and no attackers.  Everyone else that has joined my fam has either gone afk or deleted.  Most fams dont even have 5 people in their fams because unless you are in a top fam its not even worth playing (And id say less than half the galaxy is even trying)  Cant even get a nap not to mention an illegal alliance at this point.

We just played a SB round before this without AI's and it was far better than what we have going on right now.  I think the biggest complainer was Cell who expoed into 4 different fams and ended up getting attacked by all of them, but his fam ended up doing fine.  And people were just about to adapt to the morale rules learning NOT to nw jump for war, losing pop bankers, etc. and there wasnt really an illegal alliance as far as i can tell.  (sure people get hit by different fams at the same time but thats not really an IA.  Anyone notice any IA's or possible IA's that round? because i didnt see anything way out of the ordinary that round)

What we had before with no IAs is much better than what we are experiencing right now. 

Im saying I'd rather let people "cheat" in the round secretly than having these predetermined 6-7 fams at BOR making the rest of the fams irrelevant.  I am part of the non-main 6-7 fams and it is unplayable.  IA's is a big "screw you" to over half the galaxy, not a band-aid.

This is a good observation, and there's a bigger question of of why people play and what winning mins to people.  IC has long been overdue on making winnings more meaningful.  We barely have a functioning HoF now, and for years even that was broken.

Players need stronger incentive to perform, and there are many factors that play into that.  Everything from recognition (profile badges, forum tags, even round prizes) to simply combatting boredom (more balanced round length, galaxy sizes, faster ticks).

As with everything else, this won't be an easy fix but it's important to address the core problems if we hope to sustain a larger playerbase.  New players won't care one way or another if IA exists if the core game doesn't offer enough incentive to compete.  The game has lost thousands of players in the last 10 years regardless of the IA situation.  The real problems are more significant than whether or not we choose to stifle coordination.

It's a matter of opinion, and you're certainly entitled to yours, but I am talking long term.  I accept that there will be growing pains while people adapt to a new playing environment, and for many people that makes the game worse.

However, as stated above, we've lost thousands of players over the years because the game's core mechanics are not balanced.  Continuing to forbid IA prevents me from understanding and fixing the deeper game, which is a much worse alternative than losing players in the short term.

It's important to remember that for every person who will delete now because of the IA change, there are 1000x more who we don't hear from because they already deleted before any of this.  IA did not matter to them; the core game simply wasn't fun/balanced enough, and that's where I need to focus my attention.  In order to do that effectively, the IA rule has to go so I can see what's really wrong.

I believe you, but what we had before is not good enough.  When I bought the game it wasn't so I could continue to run it as it was (clearly), it was so that I can help us reverse the downward trend and regrow the playerbase and bring life back into the game.  I have no expectation that it will be easy, and what you're experiencing now was anticipated.  The mods warned me against this and disagreed with the decision specifically because of the backlash.  I didn't go in blind.

But I stand by the decision because the long term game will benefit from this experience.  There is a future in the game where the problems you describe will have proper counterbalances that don't require staff to manually intervene.  That is where I am heading; for as much as I appreciate Squirrel keeping the game around, I am not content to take over just to keep things the same.

I understand why you would feel this way, but I strongly disagree.  People were deleting before all of this specifically because we could not do anything about IA reports.  The mods were supposedly lazy, Squirrel (and then I) were supposedly playing favorites, etc.  Some even accused me of being paid behind the scenes to let IAs slide.

Being forced to let people get away with cheating means there is something wrong with the rule.

Keeping the IA rule (the old way) was the band-aid, not what we have now.

Some people are going to hate the system no matter what we do.  That's just how it goes.  I don't expect the players to have the long term plan in mind because they shouldn't have to.  People want to have fun *now* and if they don't, they will leave.  I understand that, and I'm willing to accept that so that we can have a better game *later* that continually improves.  It's long overdue tough love for the game's design.

This is exactly the problem we need to solve, and your observations here are keen and very important.  IC needs to be equally enjoyable even for people who play solo either out of necessity or choice.  As I keep saying, real solutions are needed for this, not the IA rule.

For the new round, yes, IAs will again be allowed.  I've told others this as well: if you guys don't like the game in its new direction I can't force you to play it.  I've accepted that people will leave; it sucks but the discontent is part of the sacrifice in exposing and addressing the game's larger problems.  It's not fun but the game needs a ton of work, and not all of that work is enjoyable.

Your guys' time is valuable; you're here to play, not to be unwilling game testers.  My role as a developer puts me in a situation where I have to treat you as both.  This is true for any modern game, but if the playing part no longer suits your taste I understand if you call it quits.

For what it's worth, there's a better version of the game in the future that may satisfy both sides of this.  Of course, no single player is ever guaranteed to stay, let alone come back if they quit.  That's part of the risk in changing the game, but it's also a risk in not changing the game.

Your guys' experiences and posts here are all part of why this process is important.  We would not be having this conversation if things were business as usual, and as a result I am able to see the game's shortcomings through your eyes.  It may sound stupid, but in a way this is the best case scenario.  As a player, I sympathize that the game is less fun for some of you.  However, as a developer, receiving this feedback is critical and very much validates the decision.

Ultimately, the burden is on me to make good on what I am saying here.  If everybody ends up deleting, I'll have a dead game on my hands.  That risk is acceptable to me because of the confidence I have in your guys' experience and insight.  I may not agree with your interpretation of my dev strategy, but your guys' feedback is more valuable than you know.

We're in a rough patch right now, but it will eventually pass as more changes are made to balance the shortcomings that made the IA rule feel necessary.  Until then, I will continue to say what I've always thought about this, even before I took over: the IA rule is an unfair, easily circumvented, short-sighted, and most of all *symptomatic* solution.  It does nothing to fix the game's real issues.  It never has and never will.

The faster we can improve the game so that we don't feel like we need it, the better.

I have no time to read this or give detailed feedback. But I do want to give my opinion:

It sucks and takes away all the fun imo. In both SN and SB.