Alliance's

Hi Julian,

We are putting a guide to alliances together, however to answer your questions:

1. Obligations.  Entirely up to your alliance to set out their policy for mutual attack and mutual defence.  There are no game-enforced obligations except that Alliances in NAPs (Non-Agression Pacts) and Confederations (Powerblocs) are unable to send hostile military missions against each other's members.  Diplomatic missions are, of course, exempt.

If you pursue military action on your own it does not obligate your alliance in any "enforced game mechanic" way - but you might drag your Alliance into a war they don't want anyway; it all depends on how your target player responds and what his or her capabilities are.

Most alliances set policies regarding military actions in place that they expect members to adhere to, but - again - it's entirely up to the Alliance.

2. Alliance Roles
The Alliance Role Names & Heirarchies of importance are set up by the Alliance leadership. 

So one alliance might call the leader role "General" and another alliance might call it "Evil Dictator".  We will shortly be displaying the Role Names, as chosen by the Alliance leadership, next to each player on the Alliance Summary page, so you will see how other alliances organise and name themselves.

Many Alliances name the Roles by function.  So you'll have an 'Alliance Leader', a 'Diplomat' responsible for NAPs etc, a 'Recruitment Officer', a 'Defence Minister' etc.  Some sensible naming convention makes it easier for anyone to get in touch with the right person when they have something to discuss.

It is, however, entirely up to the Alliance how they name their Roles, and - indeed - how many Roles they have.

3. Alliance Tax Rate
If an Alliance has a tax rate set (ie non zero), then Alliance Tax Collectors leave the Alliance Capital City and collect taxes from the members at 1 week intervals after the player joined the Alliance.  These tax collectors colelct Gold from Alliance members and bring it back to the Capital.

Don't worry, though - when you join an Alliance the Alliance taxation is deducted at source from everything you earn, so it's not as if your gold coffer will suddenly drop when the tax collectors come round - the taxes were already set aside from your gold generated.

What your Alliance leadership decides to spend the Gold on is entirely up to them!

4. Trade Benefits
No.  Excepting, of course, that internal alliance trade helps everyone in the alliance rather than helping potential competitors / enemies. 

We do have a task on the Development List somewhere to allow players in an Alliance to offer trades on the Marketplace that are flagged as "Alliance only" which means the only people who can see and accept these trades are in the Alliance.  This should make it easier for players to organise alliance internal trade offers.

5. Vault
It's a total for each commodity.  1,000 resources protected of each type. So 1,000 Wood; 1,000 Clay; 1,000 Iron etc.

Best wishes,

GM Stormcrow