As of late we’ve been getting these “wandering” players join our alliance. They start making small talk and the such and then they hit you with it: “Come join our alliance”. I find this very disrespectful and annoying as we have an active leader. Has anyone else been plagued by these guys?
I haven’t seen any in my alliances. I thought about doing this myself, for recruiting purposes, with so-called "dead’ alliances, but never got around to it.
But to do it to an alliance with active leadership is kinda shady in my book. How did you guys respond to their requests, lol?
2 Likes
We actually have someone to go out into the “field” and search for smaller alliances, say 10-15 people and ask if they’d be interested in joining ours. But we’ve never gone into a nearly full alliance and tried to poach people.
Besides if your alliance has happy people they wouldn’t leave right? You would only be concerned if you have a weird mix of competitive and super casual. If the competitive players leave, it was probably going to happen anyway whether or not that headhunter decided to drop in.
How active is active?
I considered going back to my starter alliance to post something, but I didn’t because the leader(s) were still technically active. I say technically, as they were logging in and flapping a wet noodle at the titans every once in awhile, but no account or hero leveling. No chat presence, no actual leadership.
In the months since I have snuck a peek and seen that the active and semi-active players I knew at the time have moved on on their own.
It’s listed as a casual alliance, no requirements. it’s a trap for new players and littered with zombie accounts. It probably would have been a kindness for someone to go and try to recruit there 
1 Like
If anyone goes into any sort of active (at any level) alliance and asks members to leave, that is most certainly poaching a severely frowned upon. Since SG doesn’t do any sort of policing of their game as far as recruiting is concerned (they basically have an anything goes policy to recruiting), there is a Line group that tracks poachers and keeps other alliance leaders aware of them.
However…if you send member into an smaller alliance or one where most members haven’t played in weeks or months, and invite the entire membership of that alliance to join you, that is looked at as a merger and can help everyone involved.
EDIT - another way to make sure you are not poaching, is to make sure you state your intentions right away. Say “I’m here to propose a merger” and do not tell them the name of your alliance unless asked. If they are not interested, then leave. Do not casually drop your alliance name when leaving in hopes of luring just a few people away.
8 Likes
I disagree, if Joe the recruiter comes into a alliance and is able to recruit members then your leadership is not doing their job and you should be mad at your leadership not the recruiter who is probably breathing new life into the game for someone.
I know the leadership is lacking in the alliance im in at the moment but stupid loyalty keeps me around for the moment, but that is slowly wavering day by day. Just tired of losing AW we should easily win cause of flags left on the board and titans flying away cause of the same reason. I know i could insert myself in pretty much any alliance i desire but for now i remain loyal. 
3 Likes
As I said, I considered it but ultimately didn’t do it. I have never poached in my life. I was involved in recruitment many many moons ago in two completely different game arenas, and I would never ever ever ever go back to it. Not even if I was paid, lol.
But as a long-retired recruiter, I think it’s seriously shady to be a leader and be misleading about your intentions/commitment to the group 
1 Like
This is really elegant way, with both side benefits.
I see your point and makes sense @Ninjanico. Stating your intention right away when going out recruiting makes the situation less… irritable.
2 Likes
If your players are happy where they are at then you have no concern. Game is and should be a competition. This is just another competitive tactic. I don’t see anything wrong with it.
3 Likes
We have about 300 alliance leaders in a Line group that would strongly disagree with this. It has been debated quite a lot.
2 Likes
We haven’t done the roving merger recruitment (yet), but I personally think we would only go to those with dead (inactive 30? 60 days?) Leadership and recruit ALL the members.
This is not poaching imho, it is opening a door to those stuck in a dead alliance.
I agree however a recruiter should be up front with their intentions and not mislead folks.
Lastly: to prevent just anyone from walking through your door, set the door to “invite only”, and/or the cups to something insanely high, or both. This will prevent most casual poachers.
4 Likes
It’s easy to see if there’s an active leader. If he/she hasn’t logged in, let’s say, a couple of weeks, I can totally see where you can go in and give those players a home. But we have a pretty active leader ourselves so that’s why it’s disrespectful.
2 Likes
Now that we’re aware of the situation, we just tell them that we left the last alliance that was trying to recruit us. We also add that there’s a lot of unhappy players ready to leave.
There are three different possible situations:
- Trying to poach members from an active alliance
…bad form; if you try it, don’t be surprised if you get kicked and/or blacklisted. - Looking for a merger between two alliances to make one of 30 players
…may not work, but seems reasonable to try, if you are honest with what you are doing. - Trying to save new but active members from dead/zombie alliances whose leaders aren’t playing anymore.
…doing a public service to the game, assuming you don’t mistake a casual alliance for a dead one.
I agree on where the responsibility lies–it is leadership’s job to deal with new members, supporting good ones, and dealing with or removing problem ones.
Last time I was in alliance leadership, I would have seen it as a problem in my alliance…
4 Likes
If you lose players to another alliance, then it wasnt a good fit in the first place regardless of a recruiter’s tactics.
If I’m on a team, and a player leaves to join another team, they simply think that team better suits them. And if they hadn’t left to a recruiter’s “shady tactics”, they would have just left at some point to a different team anyways. At the end of the day players go where they want. If a player leaves, they were already considering it before that recruiter even showed up.
Just another case of raising red flags where/when they’re not needed. Always thought it was overreactive to raise alarm about “poachers”.
3 Likes
Rigs, I agree that if members get poached, the members had a lot more to do with it than the recruiter who poached them.
But it still is bad form / disrespectful, and if you try it, you’re gonna get people pissed at you.
7 Likes
It might be disrespectful, but honestly, if the alliance is solid enough your players will be all “lol no, happy here thanks” [kick]
If people leave, they were going to leave anyway.
What I find disrespectful, or at least insulting is people who give BS reasons to leave an alliance instead of just saying they want to leave. I’d rather they just bail with no explanation than to give bull****
3 Likes
I have been blessed with a long line of honest (leaving) players.
I’d still be miffed if a stranger came into my alliance under false pretenses, then tried to stage an artificial mutiny. 
5 Likes