First, I want to preface this by saying with or without changes its a fun and addicting game and that I appreciate everything Johnny does here and understand that this is a side project for him.

That said I have a couple of fresh ideas to tackle some 'game breakers' (I use the term loosely)

--- Problem 1 - Cycle Timer -----------------------------

The first is an old, tired and beaten to death issue. Invisible units and the 5am EST cycle time. 5am is a ridiculous time to be playing GT, but the advantages of playing shortly before a cycle can be significant. Assuming that most of the player base is in the United States the East Coasters are at a disadvantage while the Euros are playing in the late morning to early afternoon and the West Coasters are playing at 2am (inconvienent but, doable for a few days when stakes get high).

I propose putting the cycle timer on a 22 hour clock, this way the cycle time will migrate through the day giving and taking the cycle time advantage several times over the course of a map. However, this may not work if Johnny doesn't want to bog down the server in the middle of the day when it might be used for various other more productive and lucrative things.

The second alternative (not as good, but perhaps more practical) is to push the cycle time back to 1am EST, thus keeping the cycle time out of US internet prime time but making the cycle more accessible to the larger US player base (the Euros suffer)

---- Problem 2 - Alliance Swapping------------------------------

The second issue is the ease and lack of penalty for alliance jumping. Some players may consider this a feature that promotes a desirable and dynamic social engineering strategy. I'm not one of them, and would argue that overly easy alliance swapping encourages weaker players to pander to the front running alliance resulting in a snowball effect. Moreover, it encourages a strategy of reckless expansion in the early game that's necessary to attract panderers.

However, I realize that my preferences may not appeal to all players so rather than abolish the current system, I recommend adding a new alliance type, the 'Binding Alliance'. The new 'Binding Alliance' would work as a treaty/alliance hybrid. Joining would remain the same. However, leaving an alliance could only happen after a player has been eliminated from the map OR gone through the two step proposal and acceptance process required to join in the first place.

If you would really like to make it elaborate and build upon the 'Binding Alliance' idea, later versions could add a penalty system that imposes a predetermined fine and/or treaty like time out to skip the acceptance phase

In the end it's about letting the players choose the level of commitment they want to make and give to their alliance rather than just writing them in the sand... As it stands now, treaties are more binding and absolute than the alliances that determine a maps winners. It seems backwards.

---------------------------------

Suggestions and comments are welcome, save the flaming for another thread please.

I believe I've supported the moving 23- or 25-hour cycle in the past, so 22 would be fine with me. I hadn't thought about it as much from a "bogging down the server" perspective, though. That's a good point. I had more considered it's fixed 24-hour length to be imposed by whatever mechanism Johnny used for kicking the cycle off in the first place (probably a daily cron job or something). While you could use an hourly cron job that checked if it was actually time to run, it's more difficult to try to set up a self-modifying cron job that would change the cron table on the fly each day to move itself forward or backward.

I was also a fan of the "random" cycle where it could kick off anytime between, say, +2 and -2 hours from the time of the previous cycle (or from a fixed 5am EST), which would give a greater incentive to make earlier moves so as not to potentially miss the cycle altogether.

As someone who has broken from his alliance and joined a new alliance in the past, completely skewing a map to the point that it really wasn't worth playing anymore, I may or may not have a unique perspective on this issue. When I did it, however, I was completely open with my alliance members, discussed it with them, and polled them as to what they believed I should do. Our alliance was teamed with another alliance at the time, both fighting against a third alliance who was almost assured to win the map anyway. Each of our alliances was falling apart as some of the newer players to the game realized that there was actually a bit of a time commitment as their countries became larger and they started having to fight on the front lines, and I was offered a position by both my "friendly" alliance and the opposing alliance. After much discussion with my own alliance, I decided to go with the opposing alliance in hopes that it would put an end to the map as quickly as possible and allow the rest of them to move onto the new map.

Being the kind of person who appreciates honesty with others, I try to be as open and honest as I can be with them and, therefore, believe that the idea of a Binding Alliance is unnecessary. In my experience with my Salta alliance, I feel as though even if I had been in such an alliance as you described below, I still would have been allowed by my members to leave and join the other alliance. After all, we had talked it over. Moreover, at least one of the five members of my alliance was MIA at that time. If I had been in a binding agreement with them, there would have been no way for me to get their permission to leave the alliance. On the other hand, I was the leader of the alliance, so if you say that the method of leaving the alliance would be the same proposal/acceptance process that I used to join, then perhaps I could have just let myself right out of the alliance without talking to anybody.

Nevertheless, I do recognize that the relationship between the treaty and the alliance seems a bit off. That is why, rather than making the alliance harder to break, I would propose making the treaty easier to break in a peaceful situation. For instance, if I had a treaty with you with a 7 day expiration and I asked to break the treaty, it would begin the 7 day expiration period as usual. However, you could, at your discretion, wave the expiration period in order to end the alliance immediately. This would have a twofold effect in that, if you were truly peacefully breaking your treaty, you could both agree to do it and get out of it immediately. On the other hand, if an aggressor breaks his treaty, the other nation could choose to end the treaty early in order to get a jump on the would-be attacker.

Another reason for keeping the "weak alliance" model is that it encourages alliance members to prove themselves to be assets and not liabilities to the alliance. If a weak player isn't pulling his weight, or if he does not follow the orders of his alliance leader or breaks an alliance rule, then I feel the alliance has every right to boot the player at its discretion. This encourages players to prove themselves to their alliances rather than to sit back and expect their alliances to take care of them.

As far as the time I dont think your going to persuade a lot of people to change it. As Far as binding alliances doesnt work and WML gave a few good reasons why.
However one must expect alliances to shift they do every game. In the real world today we are watching alliances shift look at Turkey and Egypt and Israel. That happens. What you have to understand that this is a game of power of Force with your units and understand Diplomacy as well. I have seen Alliances Join forces to wipe out other alliances to (that sucked since my alliance was the odd man out, and yes I cried like a girl for a bit), as well as traitors leave and jump ship. So Binding alliance will not work in making someone not feel cheated.
In regards to why you came up with this idea, There are how many active players most of us dont really know one another some do. Each is going to control their nation as to how they see fit. Thats the trick in understanding when you play this game for a while that as a new player it is hard to understand, You cant control or move any of the other players stuff and they have there own ideas. As a new player you see what time you put into it and maybe you fought maybe even you didnt, you just saved and then the game ends by Domination and you feel cheated. You werent. you just lost that world and move on to the next and develop your strategy something most of us me including is still doing. This is a very long game and a lot can change. Someone might just Mass vacate decide hes done, seen it happen, no ryhme or reason and then months of playing is dead. that sucks. It happens. Just remember its a game.

Thanks for the input.

I've been through the boards a bit and have seen many posts on 'invisible units' but didn't realize the floating cycle time had been proposed before.

I like the idea of allowing an early exit from treaties if both parties agree.

I understand and agree that the current alliance system has advantages
1) It allows a dynamic field of combat (another layer of strategy)
2) It allows MIA players to get booted
3) It allows weak players to be booted

So, I support keeping the current system in game... but it also comes with disadvantages, the greatest of which I see as being a disconnect between the influence that alliances may have on a map and the lack of investment they require to create or disband.

The short comings of binding alliances that WML mentions may be overcome by making the strategic decision to delay joining a binding alliance until somewhat informed decisions can be made. Too soon and you get MIA noobs, too slow and your left in the cold. It's a counter to the current rush to join the largest players as quickly as possible, it adds gravity and consequences to what should IMO be a very important decision... "These are the people that I plan to spend the next several months with conquering the world"

Leaving both systems in game allows each player to select their own level of commitment and to likewise get a sense of the commitment of those they're playing with. Non-binding early in the game with the mutual understanding that people may move and shift, binding later in the game to lock in commitment. Otherwise when my alliance mate asks me to spend my war chest implementing a group strategy I won't be thinking to myself "yea okay no problem, you go in first I'll meet you there (wink, wink)"

@Supreme_Ruler - I proposed the ideas in 'general topic' because I think they have merit in of themselves. Regarding the other thing. This isn't my first strategy game, It's okay, I'm not but hurt, just wary. Lets keep the thread on topic and if you really want my honest in depth analysis of Tecova PM me.

Yeah Yeah sure, thought I was on Topic explaining in depth of what you may expect in an alliance, and how you and others may be effected in an alliance Cause thats what I try and do for the new guys as there may be some that dont understand

That way a new guy comes in here and reads that and gets an understanding

I never said you were hurt I already spoke to you on the other thread [/dry] remember

If you thought I was off Topic you coulda PM'd me on the right board yourself

That not with-standing I wish there was an Air Rights Treaty or you could on request , grant permission to fly over your alliance members when you join up and you may have the option to grant requests to people outside your alliance who you both share an enemy with. Then you would not have to do a land deal if you didnt want to. you could still have that option for those who want to set on Perpetual and just bump into each other or who just like that That way you could not have to wait to break your treaty w/ an ally and you could move through your ally without vacating. then your ally could be one step behind and just close up allowing armies to pass through one another for reinforcements, would make it interesting to say the least.

Air rights could be cool, I'm generally for anything that expands upon the hard coded treaty/alliance options. FFA has it's merits but alliance relations are a core game feature and I feel that some more structure would benefit the game.

I'd also support the flyover rights. There have been many times where I only made a treaty with someone because I needed to fly over them without having my missiles shot down and would have preferred not to have been locked into a treaty.

I can also see how that might get scary. You give a guy permission to fly over you and then he launches a massive land attack on you with full aerial support and your troops don't fight back during the initial attack. Sucks to be you! :-P

Thats why i would like shorter treaty breaking periods

well if you had an air right treaty and your men and turrets cant shoot I dont think you would be allowed to attack with air, but yes you could still attack by land.