the nature of the crows

to abstract's point, what cannot be established is not the number of incidents dealt with, but the number of incidents not brought to the alliance leaders.  part of my effort to demystify here is to encourage players who have experienced issues with the crows to bring them to the alliances involved.  not all will be satisfied with the results, but that is the nature of disagreements.

i have encountered one concerning situation that fits the profile.  eCrow encouraged a player to go to another alliance because we felt, after several weeks, that he was a poor fit for the organisation.  upon his transfer, i received igm from an unaffiliated player inquiring if he had been dismissed because he'd been repeatedly attacking him.  of course we made that right and passed the word to the other crow wings, but there is no way to know how many other such incidents there may have been.  the argument from silence is a weak one.

so, acknowledged, but i don't see the problem as being confined to a large confed.  rogue players happen even in small alliances, and while one's chances of going undetected may be better in a larger organisation, the resources and mechanisms to deal with the problem are also greater, and the rogue runs a corresponding risk of running afoul of his former allies--which, if they are intimidating to outsiders, ought to be intimidating also to him.

the real issue, it seems, is not the size or military competency of the organisation, but its reputation for and willingness to take and consider evidence from aggrieved parties, and to deal with them fairly.

abstractdream wrote: Interesting point, Kumomoto. I think I did not understand your reservations before. The problem, as you see it (if I read your post right) is that some players will perpetrate unsavory actions under cover of the confederation, basically abusing the relationship. The "victims" of said actions will be unable to get justice. The reason they won't receive justice is that the confederation's size makes it resemble a massive bureaucracy in which "the left hand doesn't know what the right hand is doing".

There's indeed a perception that this is true. When a belligerent player from the Crows, Harmless, Consone starts stomping around in GC, people just assume that they are speaking with the full force of several million troops. Fortunately (or unfortunately) that's an Illyriad urban myth. In 90% of the conflicts I have seen, a courteous e-mail to that player's alliance leadership has resolved the problem quickly and fairly.

Where people have failed to get problems resolved, it's usually one of two things. Many send rude or confrontational IGMs to alliance leaders. Taking the dispute to GC or the forums will just cause a confusing pile-on that aggravates everyone, making the situation extra hard to resolve. That's painting your cause in the worst possible light. The other common mistake is demanding an immediate response. Even if the alliance leader reads your IGM (and their inboxes are quite full), a good leader will still take the time to get the full story from their own team. Illyriad is a slow game. Conflict resolution can take several days. Being impatient just frustrates everyone.

Prares wrote: I'm glad you put in the apostrophes as that's a gross distortion of the situation.

No - the quote was there to indicate that that exact word was used by the leader of CK.

KillerPoodle wrote: So uCrow are now supporting the actions of an alliance who by their own admission are trying to "eliminate" RE.  Would that be a Rook sanctioned declaration or an independent action?

abstractdream wrote: Interesting point, Kumomoto. I think I did not understand your reservations before. The problem, as you see it (if I read your post right) is that some players will perpetrate unsavory actions under cover of the confederation, basically abusing the relationship. The "victims" of said actions will be unable to get justice. The reason they won't receive justice is that the confederation's size makes it resemble a massive bureaucracy in which "the left hand doesn't know what the right hand is doing". This is happening right now. It isn't even a Crow alliance that kicked it off but rather an alliance confederated to a Crow alliance. In this case, there seems to be a blatant lack of the diplomacy Crows so often tout. We will see just how far the Crowfed is willing and able to go to uphold the ideology expressed in the original post.