Alliance leader leaving... etiquette?

[General_Confusion]

So I have been on the member side of it when a leader just stopped playing…worst thing a leader can do is just stop without passing the baton.

I have also been a leader that needed a break. I passed leadership to a co-leader and said I would be back in a month or two and said if alliance wanted to elect a new leader go ahead, I would be back in any case as a member or the leader their choice.

As it ends up they passed the leadership around between the co-leaders to spread the pain, and when I came back were all but too happy to hand me back the leadership - because it is a lot of work.

Long story, but one thought out of this is could leadership be shared in your alliance so it doesn’t sit too heavily on any one person?

[Gryphonknight]

There can be only one

@princess1

I’m a leader who doesn’t “own” our alliance.

According to Devs, you do own it. This is why MMOs never allow two players with leader rank. This is why only the current leader can demote themselves and elevate another player to leader.

Happy Family

@princess1

Perhaps one of them wouldn’t want to volunteer but if they were chosen, I know they’d either step up to the plate, or have the option of passing the bat(on).

I am happy for you that this is true in your alliance’s situation. A happy family is a pleasant family.

Silence

Having been a chat mod/ forum mod for many years in other MMOs, your case of happy volunteers remaining silent is unusual. If a player is happy to be the leader, they speak up. If a player is happy to be the leader, the opposite problem is usually too many teammates want to be the leader.

Responsibility to my teammates

When I repeatedly ask for a volunteer, and no one volunteers, that is usually because they do not wants to volunteer. If I select an unhappy teammate, then I have just passed them the same decisions. If there are no volunteers, I feel it is my responsibility as a teammate to make the decision instead of forcing another teammate to make it in my place.

Significant other

I am not even close enough to my significant other of 20+ years to make this kind of decision for her without consulting her first.

We have run an family of alliances in Book of Heroes. But I just do not know how she currently feels about Empires. Since we are close, and both play Empires, I would be concerned that the reasons I have decided to step down, also apply to her. Before the new owners bought Book of Heroes ( crosses fingers for update ), the game was dying. Slowly dealing with the closing down of each individual alliance in our alliance family as less and less players signed in was emotionally exhausting. I do not feel I could pass a possible burden of this magnitude to someone I cared about.

Dying alliances and burned out leaders

Especially since Empires has several mechanisms in place to deal with new alliances of high level players and one or more alliance merging.

Players may not agree with these mechanisms ( I am looking at you war matchmaking. and you war matchmaking. any you hiding in the corner - war matchmaking. Sorry Petri. No. Not sorry. Petri’s boss. Petri deserves a Pizza Party next Friday. Or whatever his schedule’s version of Friday ). But based on my past experience in MMOs, Small Giant Games has made the correct decision when it comes to dying alliance, burned out leaders, hacked accounts, and lost accounts.

[Fedupboss]

Thanks for the input everyone. I gave my co-leads notice and neither are interested. We’ve put it out to the group that the option to step forward is there but no one has so we will be disbanding.

[Starryeyedgryph]

@Garanwyn

I think you’ve been through a similar situation of deciding it was time to pass the torch. Any thoughts on how best to handle the transition?

The way i did it was i had communicated that i was ready to move on. Since i felt i had out grown my small alliance. I asked if anyone was willing to take the torch.
When the time was right, since no one stepped up, i passed it to who i thought would best be able to take on the responsibility and then left.
It was a hard decision. I had spent many months growing my small alliance from the bottom up. But, in me finding a new home, i also offered to find new homes for everyone else. Since i had communication with a few in line, when the person i chose to lead left suddenly, i ended up finding a home for all the remaining members to move to.
Now, that may not be the easiest way to do it, i still cared for those who stuck by my side for so long, but i was not mentally in a position to continue to lead.
I also wanted to move on from the casualness that many wanted to maintain in my alliance to one that was more competitive and fighting higher star titans. I was struggling to get people to use all of their flags, even with threats of kicking them and it being obvious we were going to lose the war.
I’ll read the rest of this thread. Not sure if you’ve made a decision yet on how to best handle it.
Not to make this a recruiting thread, but, if you’d like help trying to find a new home or homes for those that are wanting to leave or merge into a new alliance as a whole. It’s possible i can help. Obviously a new alliance will want some for of communication from new members and many require the use of line or such.