Jul 1st 2010, 16:26:15
One major issue I have with these sorts of rankings is that they normally tend to rank the overall political strength (past or present) of the alliances while leaving out the actual performances of the members of the alliances. Also, the problem with basing rankings on an alliance's warring capabilities is that neither Earth:2025 nor Earth:Empires has in-game alliance rankings of military statistics (yet). There are only 3 in-game alliance rankings: Total Networth, Average Networth, and Total Membership. There's nothing in those rankings about how many countries each alliance killed, nothing about hits per kill, nothing about civilians destroyed, etc. Just TNW, ANW, and members. Everything else is just third-party statistics tacked on by third-party alliance hosting sites.
The object of both Earth:2025 and Earth:Empires is to end up with the most powerful country in the world, and pretty much everyone agrees that a country's networth is the best indicator of such. So, while SOL and SOF may have 'dominated' politically in the glory days, not too many people can remember them putting up many top 10 finishes, nor have they consistently dominated TNW, ANW, or membership stats. Rage may have had the most members that one reset, but that was more or less a fluke, brought about by bad recruiting practices and possible multi-running. Again, while these alliances may have been politically-dominant, none of these alliances used their political dominance to translate their political success into worthwhile achievements in the game itself.
Also, ranking alliances because of what they were in the distant past isn't a really good method of ranking, IMO. Let's take a look at PDM, TIE, and, again, Rage. All three of these alliances at some point or another became, arguably, the most powerful alliances on the server. But that was over half a decade ago, and, again, none of these alliances consistently dominated TNW, ANW, or membership. Every single one of these alliances were only dominant because of the way they worked together with other alliances. If a new player were to begin playing on the Alliance server right now, and look at the current standing of these three alliances, he/she would have serious doubts that these alliances were once powerhouses of Earth. Most of this is due to the current state of the game, mind you, but the current state of these alliances is vastly disproportional to what they used to be, when the game was thriving. Whenever I take a glance at the current PDM, TIE, or RAGE, I think "small, underachieving, mostly netting, has-beens".
Some people will argue that there's really no competition in the game anymore, due to all the real talent leaving, so therefore, all these rankings are mostly pointless. I believe this is merely a result of the overall problems that are present in the game (and we all can waste more time listing those problems and arguing about which one has been the most effective, but I won't).
There are only three alliances in current existence that I can think of, off the top of my head, that actually deserve to be ranked at this time, based only off their consistent dominance of either TNW, ANW, membership, or a combination of the three.
1) LaFamiglia
As Detmer said, and everyone else knows, one of the oldest alliances in the game, but also very consistent at putting up top 10s, and being near or at the top of the TNW and ANW rankings. They have used their political influence and longevity to consistently and indisputably become the best overall alliance in the server. AFAIK, they have put up more double crowns than any other alliance that has ever existed (and probably more triple crowns as well, but I'm not sure). And, while I, personally, may not like some of their policies, or the way they do some things, I can still say that they're very good at what they do without any doubt.
They're already the best; there's no doubt about that. If they want to put out more triple crowns, all they need is to have their newer members (or those that consistently pull LaF's ANW down every set) bone up on their netting a bit. Assuming membership levels and political stability stay the same all around, that should be all they really need to do.
2) Netters Anonymous
Purely for the consistent top membership rankings and the fact they usually put up at least one top 10. Not nearly as old as LaF, this alliance came over to EC when FFA was shut down by Mehul, and the rest of the EC community welcomed them with open arms, right? Right????
Despite recent misfortune with ES going down, and taking about half their membership with it; and, also due to recent game changes that just about nullify the methods that NA normally uses to get countries in the top 10, NA can still be regarded as one of the more bloated alliances. Now, they just have to find all those extra members they lost a few sets ago.
3) Evolution
It's not that I'm biased or anything, but it seems that just about everytime this alliance nets, they end up winning ANW. Not nearly as old as LaF, this alliance came from several mergers between several different alliances over the years. The general modus operandi is to get into a war, either win or lose, offer their enemies a pact, then net for a year or so. Rinse and repeat. This is Evolution's method of translating political events to in-game ranking success. Winning ANW non-stop for a straight year is nothing to sneeze at. They also normally put up multiple top 10 finishes everytime they net.
Recent wars have taken a toll on Evolution's membership, but that hasn't stopped them from putting up top ANW finishes. With the best alliance site and training program at their disposal, Evolution looks to be putting up more top ANW finishes for sets to come. Well, whenever they net, that is...
That concludes my rankings, as pretty much every other alliance can only hope to be put on someone else's rankings by their empty political victories won in the distant past. Once again, these other alliances have failed to translate their political standings into top in-game rankings, mostly due to the fact these alliances simply didn't know how to keep their dominance without going to war with someone else. Had most of these alliances not been overly-concerned with tracking pacts, back-room political deals, and getting other alliances angry at them, perhaps there would be many more alliances worthy of being ranked by me.