We had a great week reinforcing systems we liked, giving up systems we didn't, and generally doing a fair bit of diplomacy. Some folks don't like diplomacy and the compromises you have to make. In the new decentralized era of PowerPlay 2.0, you'd be a fool not to organize at least some sort of understanding with your allies and frenemies; all powers have to reinforce, acquire, and undermine AND do diplomacy, and for that, you need a bit of organization. Individual Cmdrs in the new PP 2.0 era just don't have the impact of a major group of players working towards the same objectives. Diplomacy can make wars very short, systems suddenly easy to manage, and give folks who want a bit more PvP more of that instead of doing stuff they don't find fun.
So with all that said, we had an interesting set of visitors from the GANC squadron, including UncleSam, a notorious explorer killer, who had pledged with his squadron to a particular power. We had to decide on our values, and we decided against ganking. Now we've probably made some interesting enemies, but I thank the Grom team over at TEOL for taking the lead on this and banning these folks from their server before we came to the same decision. Being decentralized, there's little we can do if the GANC squadron decides to make our lives miserable, but it helps us immeasurably to know that other nearby player groups have our back in this matter.
Every week we are pleasantly surprised by the system we acquire. Powers need to work with their local PMFs to understand if they want to be acquired, and honestly, PMFs need to understand the end state of PowerPlay 2.0 - all systems will be occupied, it's just a matter of whom. Then the fight becomes who owns the best systems, who has the most stable frontlines, etc. We are in the ancient era of Civilization VI where borders are very fluid, everyone has a few cities and castles, and everyone is acquiring everything in sight, and building systems that will either help or hinder them whilst we still all learn the game's strategies. The best laid plans never survive first contact with the enemy, and nothing is truer than in PowerPlay 2.0.
So my message for fiercely independent role playing PMFs is ... I'm sorry, but that's not how the game now works. You can put it off for a while, but eventually, you must pick a side, any side, and go for it. PP 2.0 is in the nascent stages at the moment, it's better to be inside the tent, shaping your future with future friends and enemies, than stay outside of the tent and letting whatever happen to you, happen to you. If you're independent, you want to shape your future, not react to it. You'll actually do less work in the long run. This advice is good for at least three PMFs in our area this week, and it'll be good advice for all PMFs in all current and future power play territory.
We have a fair idea of what we acquired, lost, and reinforced, but we can't be sure until the game gets going again. I wish the game had better internal tools to help those who don't want to use external tooling. It should be possible to see the systems you own by acquisition date and filter by system fortification state (unoccupied, expansion, exploited, fortified, etc).. It should be possible to see the control point margin between where they are now - without using the main menu bug/cheese - and the next state up and sort by that. Like all powers, we are doing spreadsheets with the best of them, but if we don't have in game tools, we need journal entries and we need them now.
So with all that said, we had an interesting set of visitors from the GANC squadron, including UncleSam, a notorious explorer killer, who had pledged with his squadron to a particular power. We had to decide on our values, and we decided against ganking. Now we've probably made some interesting enemies, but I thank the Grom team over at TEOL for taking the lead on this and banning these folks from their server before we came to the same decision. Being decentralized, there's little we can do if the GANC squadron decides to make our lives miserable, but it helps us immeasurably to know that other nearby player groups have our back in this matter.
Every week we are pleasantly surprised by the system we acquire. Powers need to work with their local PMFs to understand if they want to be acquired, and honestly, PMFs need to understand the end state of PowerPlay 2.0 - all systems will be occupied, it's just a matter of whom. Then the fight becomes who owns the best systems, who has the most stable frontlines, etc. We are in the ancient era of Civilization VI where borders are very fluid, everyone has a few cities and castles, and everyone is acquiring everything in sight, and building systems that will either help or hinder them whilst we still all learn the game's strategies. The best laid plans never survive first contact with the enemy, and nothing is truer than in PowerPlay 2.0.
So my message for fiercely independent role playing PMFs is ... I'm sorry, but that's not how the game now works. You can put it off for a while, but eventually, you must pick a side, any side, and go for it. PP 2.0 is in the nascent stages at the moment, it's better to be inside the tent, shaping your future with future friends and enemies, than stay outside of the tent and letting whatever happen to you, happen to you. If you're independent, you want to shape your future, not react to it. You'll actually do less work in the long run. This advice is good for at least three PMFs in our area this week, and it'll be good advice for all PMFs in all current and future power play territory.
We have a fair idea of what we acquired, lost, and reinforced, but we can't be sure until the game gets going again. I wish the game had better internal tools to help those who don't want to use external tooling. It should be possible to see the systems you own by acquisition date and filter by system fortification state (unoccupied, expansion, exploited, fortified, etc).. It should be possible to see the control point margin between where they are now - without using the main menu bug/cheese - and the next state up and sort by that. Like all powers, we are doing spreadsheets with the best of them, but if we don't have in game tools, we need journal entries and we need them now.
