View source for Guide:Alliance guide

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Alliances are arguably one of the most important parts of Ogame. An alliance constitutes a bond between players, usually with a common goal, or a multitude of other reasons (nationality, protection, crashing, domination, toplists, ACS...etc) or simply because they are all from the same college or workplace, and have real life friendship. Alliances are also a great place to meet new friends, and new enemies!

A strong alliance is not always necessary to become a strong player, top ranked players may be without an alliance. This is fairly unusual, but demonstrates than an alliance is not necessary to get to the top!

==I want to start an alliance==
Before starting an alliance, you need several things in order to be successful. Remember, starting an alliance is hard and you will need a certain flair for what's in to get yourself noticed among the multitude of other alliances out there.

===Experience===
Experience not only as a leader, but as a player, is important. People are unlikely to follow you without you showing that you are worth being followed. Having a good rank while avoiding a reputation as a flamer, sore loser or farm will definitely help.

===An alliance core===
People will often refer to this. This will usually be a tight*knit group of friends that will stick together no matter what. These people give you a jump*start in several ways, but more importantly, nobody wants to join an alliance with just 1 person in it except for noobs. Frankly, you do want to avoid having noobs in your alliance if you wish to be a top*ranked, competitive alliance. Of course, having these people ready to hop into the alliance as soon as it's started will obviously also give you a good start in the rankings too.

Forming alliances with people you know in life is a great way to get an alliance going. Mates from work, school, neighborhood and etc, these are all great ways to form an alliance. It adds a certain level of trust, interoperability and friendliness. I personally can't think of any top 20 alliances which are formed of RL friends, however I'm sure they must exist somewhere.

===Image===
A cool logo, a decent name and a good Tag for your alliance will all help in your recruiting. Some call this 'marketing.' More people will be willing to join an alliance in which the leader expresses him/herself well, spells properly, and the alliance has a decent name (hint: anything with 'death' 'kill' or 'pwn' in the alliance name is usually a mark of a newbie. 
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==Recruiting==
* Ingame: You can send message to players ingame. Note that some players wont like it and you could be blocked if you are sending too many messages. Remember that alliance should be trusted.
* Board: You can advertise your alliance in special section and your signature. Note that you are not allow to spam advertise where its not allowed.

Make sure that you recruit people that you can trust, that will have same/similar goal. Alliance mates usually help each other with resources, knowledge, moonshots, information, support.
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==Diplomacy==
OK, so you've started an alliance and have a few members. You've pushed your way into the top 100. You look around and you see all these other alliance that have Allies, NAPs and Trade Agreements... even wars.

===Friendly Diplomacy===
There is nothing binding in having Allies, NAPs or agreeements, at least as far as the rules/code is concerned. This means that you can make and break them at will. However, your alliance's reputation may be tarnished if you fail to uphold any and all of these or you if you have too many.

* NAPs are the most basic of these. They are properly called 'Non*Attack Pacts.' A NAP is two alliances agreeing not to target each other, affording both some small degree of safety.
* Trade Agreements are the next step up. They can have some restrictions, sometimes in the form of rates that trade are done at or with a built*in NAP.
* Alliance Allies are expected to support each other in war*time and revenge, ninjas and attacks in addition to being peaceful towards each other.

These can often avail to little. The larger an alliance and the more agreements it has, the larger the communication breakdown. This can take the form of not getting help/trade from an ally in another alliance. It can also take the form of accidental attacks on someone in another, allied alliance.

You will find that generally, the top 10 alliances in any universe have very few or none agreements. Five agreements is beginning to push it. Generally, the more elite an alliance, the fewer diplomatic agreements they will have. This is typically because of the fact that these reduce the number of targets available for raiding/crashing for all members of the alliance.

When announcing the dropping or accepting of agreements, alliances will sometimes post in the diplomacy section of their universe's board to announce it.
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==War==
When declaring war, you MUST post in the diplomacy section for your universe. An official war posted will allow bashing to be done between the alliances listed in the war thread.

There are two types of wars:
* Standard Wars * When the thread has been posted, 12 hours later, the bashing rule is lifted. The other side need not accept the war. Sometimes, in the war declaration, an alliance will state intentions (ex: We will continue this war until we have done 100kk total damage), but they are not binding.
* Conditional Wars * These are often some form a contest. Both alliances involved in the war must agree on what conditions will end the war. Total damage of X amount? The first alliance to have a hit of X damage? Anything is possible. These can also take the form of restricted wars. Are IPMs not allowed? How about a minimum damage for any war hit to count towards the total damage condition? Again, conditions can be just about anything. These conditions are binding. If a condition ends the war, the war is over. If one side breaks a restriction condition, the war is over and a standard war can be opened to replace the conditional war.
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==How to?==
===How to start an alliance===
Go to Alliance > Form your own alliance. Then enter the alliance name and tag desired followed by clicking Go button.

===How to create ranks===
Go to Alliance > manage alliance > Configure rights. Then simply type in the name of the rank you would like to create followed by clicking the Create button.

===How to assign rights to ranks===
Go to Alliance > manage alliance > Configure rights. Next to a rank's name there are several check boxes. Click the box for each right you would assign to a rank and then press the Save button.

List of rights:
* disband alliance: Permission to delete the alliance. Simple as that.
* Kick user: Permission to kick others out of the alliance.
* Show applications: When a non*ally wants to enter the alliance, he sends an application. The ones with this permission can see who is applying.
* Show member list: Obvious isn't it? Members with this permission can see and click the members list link from the alliance page.
* Process applications: Remember the 'show applications' right? Well, for those that apply, the ones with this permission can accept/deny them.
* Manage Alliance: Not only the creator can do all of these administrative tasks. Anyone with this right can help out and do some of these things. This gives someone as much power as the founder over their fellow members. Give this right/permission carefully only.
* Show online status in member list: This is pretty simple too. For those that can see the members list, this also shows if they are online or how long it has been since the last activity for that alliance member.
* Write circular message: Those with this permission can send messages to everyone in the alliance or can choose to send to only members of a certain rank.
* 'Right hand' (needed to transfer founder rank): This would be given only to the person/persons that will take over the alliance if you were to step down or leave for whatever reason.

===How to assign a rank to a member===
Go to Alliance > manage alliance > manage members. There will be a list of all the members, the final column of which is labeled 'Function.' There are two buttons for each member in that column, for those that have the rights to see both. One is kick user and the other is assign rank. If you hover over the buttons, a tool*tip will show up telling you which is which. If you click on the assign rank button, beneath that person will appear a dropdown box. In that, select the rank you would like to assign followed by pressing the save button.
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==Useful hints==
Common things to have on your alliance external text:
* Contacts in the alliance, sometimes categorized (diplomacy, recruitment).
* Alliances, NAPs and Wars.
* Some sort of 'mission statement.' Basically, some blurb to give your alliance character.
* Boasts of how awesome you are and how you'll pwn anyone that so much as looks at your alliance strange.

Common things to have on your alliance internal text:
* Links to useful websites for the game like simulators, CR converters, calculators.
* Responsibilities of particular members.
* Contact for members.
* Rules for the alliance that are not publicly broadcast.
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