Introduction:
When we started the process of moving our entire player population from one alliance to another we consulted the forum. Although we got some good advice from individual respondents, there certainly wasn’t an abundance of threads to draw on.
For that reason I have written a report on our experience. I hope it’s useful to anyone in a similar situation; I appreciate that every alliance is different but perhaps you will find some inspiration here. If you have any questions or comments, @annieb and I would love to hear from you…
Guardians of Terra was a busy, mid-tier alliance with a wide range of players ranging from level 30 to level four.
We were hitting 5-6 titans, had a small but active Line group and weathered a run of awful war results to put together three wins on the spin.*
And then we all left.
This is our account of how to successfully manage an alliance migration.
- The Status Quo
I joined Guardians of Terra around six weeks ago and found the following:
- the leader was absent
- there were two co-leaders still actively managing the alliance
- a small handful of players, including the co-leaders Annie and Zoey used Line
- non-active players were kicked after fair warning
- new members were being actively recruited
So why change anything if the co-leaders were managing all the day-to-day business?
- Absent Leaders
There are a number of problems with having an absent leader. These are obviously much more acute if there are no co-leaders:
- the leader cannot be kicked and so occupies a slot
- the leaders heroes are still used for war matching (as it currently stands) and typically, the leader tends to have one of the strongest teams in the alliance.
- no new co-leaders can be promoted
- no co-leaders can be demoted or kicked
It may be that an alliance can cope with these restrictions, however for an alliance that wants to grow and be victorious, the zombie leader becomes a millstone.
For one of our co-leaders, @Annieb, this became unacceptable.
- The Catalyst
Following a successful recruitment campaign, the Line chat group became increasingly popular.
New members asked about the history of the alliance and it became clear that there was an appetite for a new alliance which would jettison the current leader, unless he became active again.
Annie formed a closed group of senior players to discuss a plan and also explored the forum for advice. The senior players agreed that the absence of a leader was not conducive to success and that @Annieb was the clear heir-apparent . The following plan was agreed upon
4: An Exodus is Planned
The senior player group agreed the following plan:
- the alliance description would be changed to attempt to engage the leader, who, surprisingly, had logged on briefly.
- there would be a chat message to the leader posted regularly in-game with a follow-up paragraph saved on Line that could be pasted in to explain the situation were he to respond.
- after 10 days, a message would be posted regularly to the group chat suggesting a new alliance and asking for opinions.
We used the following message, tailored to balance the desire to show decisive leadership without demanding obedience, encouraging debate and being reasonably accessible to players with English as a second language:
No doubt you have noticed our leader xxx is mostly absent which limits our alliance in several ways, and as co-leaders we are keen to continue to grow. We have left him a message asking to pass on the leadership, but with no response as yet. So with reluctance we are considering starting a new alliance.
We are not going to rush this and would like to hear your thoughts before we commit, as this needs to be a team effort. We hope most of you would come with us, and any co-leader or elder will maintain that position in the new alliance.
We will repeat this message regularly to allow debate before starting the transfer, should the majority of players agree.
Annie B and Zoey
- Following a 7 day consultation, a decision would be made to go or stay
- The practical details could then be arranged
5 - Crossing the Rubicon - the decision
Following an overwhelmingly positive response to the plan, Annie truncated the consultation period with the backing of the players using Line.
The move was structured as follows:
- Annie would leave to setup the new alliance
- Zoey, the other co-leader, would stay to manage the original alliance along with Annie’s alt account.
- Annie would then announce the opening of the new alliance via Line and her alt account.
- players then began migrating across
- after a further two days of attempting to communicate with all the players Zoey also migrated.
- the alliance was left on ‘invite only’ to prevent new players joining by accident
- directions to the new alliance, Guardians Reborn, were left in the description panel.
Over the next 48 hours 23 of our 26 members migrated to Guardians Reborn.
- Casualties
This transition wasn’t entirely painless
-
two players other than the leader appear to have become inactive, including a third co-leader. This may be a co-incidence as neither were communicators, we will probably never know
-
our Titans have been reset to 1*. We do not feel like this is a major issue and anticipate accelerating moving back to 6* briskly. Indeed, the newer players are enjoying not being wiped out!
- Conclusions
When Annie and I discussed the move with the forum we were warned of the possible consequences, that the alliance may fracture and two weak alliances would be left in the vortex.
We heeded the advice and maximised opportunities to communicate and demonstrate a thorough and decisive leadership. I believe that this has helped Annie navigate the move with great poise (apologies if I go full fan-boy here)
I know this is just a game, but we invest time and finances in it and build relationships with our allies so it was important to us as a project.
Here are a few further tips and conclusions:
- an external communications app was invaluable for us to build strong relationships and make robust plans
- we were very fortunate to have a popular and respected leader-in-waiting. There was no war of succession and Zoey has been extremely selfless in playing the role of lieutenant.
- bringing leadership and communication skills from real life was another positive
Thanks for reading. We will take a day or two to settle, but if you enjoyed our tale please consider joining the adventure. Contact us on the forum or annie_br on line.
Thanks for reading
JB ‘Lesley-Annia’
(C) Guardians Reborn - join us