Many a time have I seen legions expand into sister legions, only to have the sister legions fail or never reach significance. The examples that currently springs to mind are "The Gobots" and "Sons of Talon". What makes the fail varies, from lack of support, to just general bad luck, and many of the members sent over there never end up returning to the legion they originally came from - often opting to go elsewhere when things go to the dogs, or even end up staying in a weakling legion for too long and ending up quitting.

In our discussions between my own legion's officers regarding further growth, the prospect of a sister legion is one that often gets brought up, but one I regularly shut down. I normally say that "We're not strong enough." or "It's too much effort to do until we hit level 6.", but in reality many legions start sister legions when they're far younger than ourselves. I return to the example of "The Gobots", who's main legion is still in it's infancy, and has an average strength far inferior to our own (5.4k vs. 3.5k).

Yet, many legions strive to build powerful "empires". Chain legions, hoping to spread out like a bad case of chicken pox and overcome the entire galaxy with sheer numbers, and I'm just sitting there like "WTF?! Do you really need 5 legions?" Of course, many of those legions, such as Dragon Empire, Deep Space, either end up folding or severely weakened. There are currently 9 Deep Space Legions, 3 of which are entirely dead, and only 2 above 40 members.

My question has always been "Why?". From my own experience, sister legions are no more useful than normal allies, but are often more of a burden - particularly with so-called "Feeder Legions", or "Training Legions" that require higher ranked members from the original legion to go from the "good" legion to the "weak" legion, and end up weakening the "good" legion that they're trying to strengthen in the first place. I kind of understand why one might want to have 2 legions - one research, one artifact, but surely those players and resources could have been better spent at home?

I guess ultimately I have a case of the "Nocifer" philosophy. Build one, powerful legion and don't expand into a swarm of crap, but I want to hear from the "franchise legions" if they actually get any benefit from being one. What benefits do you get from having a "sister legion" that you wouldn't normally get from a standard ally? What are the actual strategic advantages of having a bunch of crappy legions taint your name? Don't get me wrong, you can see from what was the "Infinity" group, that sister legions can be strong, but they're the exception - not the rule.

TL;DR:
What're the strategic advantages of "chain legions"?

PS: Wasn't sure if it should go here or legions. Move it if you wish.

Infinity/Imminent, and Stormkyn, we did a good job with it, so everyone wanted to be like us

Y'know, that could be all there really is to it, but still doesn't answer the question. Seriously, to me it just seems more of a trend than an actual progression.

I'm sorry but who said TG is doing bad or isn't getting any support? I realize they have a low membership count atm but that doesn't necessarily mean they are "failing." We got the base recently and after some organizing have finally gotten them slowly growing in membership.

As to your question why get a sister legion? TT membership has friends in TG who came to us with the offer. At the time TT had members asking for a research base and others opposing the production type change so it was and still is an appealing option for TRA membership.

As far as I can tell the additional legion hasn't affected TRA in a negative way and the members are satisfied with the addition.

Going to your comment about the average strength difference personally I really don't see what average strength has to do with the making of a sister legion. You either have the people willing to run it or you don't.

True, also, the Sith Acolytes are successful at they're purpose, and there's always a few TSL folks hangin out around there providing the support. Don't forget the Toxicfish incident, thus derailing the member count

Definitely fair to say you got their base recently considering you got your own base recently. To an outside onlooker, you have to your name a weakling legion which you have to support. I never said they weren't getting support either, but merely mentioned that that can be a reason for a sister legion to fail.


Mm. Picking up an already established (if struggling - that's fair to say, right?) kinda makes it a bad example for what I'm saying.


That'd be because you have nothing really to compare it to.


Strength is an indication of power - certainly more accurate than rank, certainly not quite accurate. If a legion has a low strength, in all likelyhood they can't really afford to be building sister legions and vice versa. Whether or not you have people willing to run it is an irrelevancy if they're unable to actually help their legion like a leader is supposed to.

I'm aware of the Toxicfish incident, which is one reason I did not use TSA as an example, but this:
>"always a few TSL folks hangin out"
is exactly what I was talking about. You have to send people over to said other legion to help out. Meanwhile, they can't help any of the members of the "main" legion, making said "main" legion weaker as a whole.

'sides. As I previously mentioned (somewhere) in the OP, I understand kind of the want to have 2 legions one for each of AP/RP, but I'm kinda thinking more of the 3/4/5 legion alliances.

Its true that SoT is pretty much a non factor at this point but dont forget Steel Talons and Rift Fleet Talon Brigade are both up and running just fine. Their purpose it to help people learn the game and grow and get better and its working. True we dont have 3 legions in the top 50 but there are good ships in all 3.

TC is pure arti, RFTB is arti/research split and ST is almost all research. We have a legion for every level of player with every type of need. There are a few guys in TC currently that came up from our other legions and are good contributors with bases and npcs

Three things:
1) That colour was horrible.
2) I still regard TIS as being too weak to survive splitting in order to form a sister legion. If weaker than "too weak", one still considers the other as "too weak" or even "much too weak". Both TIS and TT are low-rank legions, and I'm quite sure that both legions have the ability to support two legions - I'm just not sure it is wise.
3) The average strength (and rank) gives a solid depiction of where players are in a game. Players with a high strength are likely to have more planets scanned and higher AP production (and so more purgers), allowing them to much better support their members. They're also likely to have a higher MP and therefore more credits. Whilst directly, the two stats (ability to help and strength) are unrelated, one is indicative of the other, and so should be considered when thinking about these things. Of course, like most things there will be exceptions, and I'm not accounting for "willingness to help" - just ability. The players are even likely to have been playing for longer, and to therefore have more experience from which to give advice.

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Sons of Talon came about of a Annexation, its original name was called Space so by your third post your intital post about SOT is invalid. Also Steel Talons was made from scratch when TC was merely 30 strong. How we managed to get ST working is through team work. Each of the officers spent two weeks tutoring the new players. New players that caught on quick were promoted to Officer in ST, and if they continued to show promise and were getting the hang of being a officer we gave them chances to take a leadership role and if they liked it and did a good job after all the training I gave them the spot. Leadership wise we ran through about 6 players till we got a solid leaders in Jager05 and Tannara but we did still check up on them and keep in contact case any issues arose. ST is four months shy of 2yrs, and Talon Company is 2yrs and 2 months. Meaning when Tc was 6 months old we were able to establish a working sub-legion that trained new players on how to play the game. Now ofc we had our plethora of failures like: Talon Company 2, Falcon Company, TDK, Eagle Company, A Murder of Crows, and Order of Talonus. But eventually we got it correct, granted we did have quite a few more fisher legions but all were disbanded cept OoT.

trial and error my friend, we learned that a core group of active players willing to train and recruit will make a solid basis for a new legion. How ever it would be to painful for a legion like TIS to create a sublegion because of lack of resources and man power, us Talons eventually just got the right mixture.

@dixie Galpal and friends, Stormkyn is close

@billik Only stormkyn, Infinty got all its sublegions ripped from it by your new Empire Imminent, which is still a baby and has yet to prove that it works as a whole. Also no one is trying to be like them at all most games on facebook your supposed to build a empire so its just natural to do so.

@ thunder's 2nd post most ppl think its just a numbers game, if you have alot of player ppl who mess with you or just have so many players that a few will be able to do the work load of many.

@ thunders 3rd post

1. true
2. kinda
3. I do
4. not at all, a organized group of low rankers can defeat a much larger group of higher ranked ships. You can Use TC as a example, all our wars we were atleast outnumbered 3-1, and debuffs work well.

Ok it does look like a lot of sisterlegion groups are doing badly atm but The x group and the cove are doing pretty well.

The way I see it providing benifit is when players join a training legion oncce getting trained in a normal non sister legion they'll go to a completely different legion that odds are you dont have pacts with so the training legion doesn't get any fruits of training the player. But with sister legions they are likely to move to one of your sister legions which you have battle pacts with and therefor provide muscle on base takedowns ect.
And when you have a large group that has research bases as well then players can move about quickly and provide benifit to the legion they left as well as the one they joined eg they move from a arti base to the research base the arti base still gets them on base takedowns.

Galaxy and Galaxy Wombats are both daughter legions to Galaxy Desperados and sister legions to one-another.

8. Galaxy Desperados 41608
8. Galaxy Desperados 1645448

43. Galaxy Wombats 18669
38. Galaxy Wombats 582169

Galaxy do not currently sit on the leaderboards but they do pop up often. When I first joined Wombats I believe Galaxy sat at around position 35. Galaxy Wombats currently has a visitor from Galaxy Desperados (Voltron) however we'll still be on the leaderboards when he leaves as we were before Ironman4do returned to us within the last day or so.

Galaxy and Galaxy Wombats are treated as training legions, basically. As for Galaxy Wombats, anybody above rank 50 can join and stay as long as they abide by 1. Legion rules and 2. Game ToS. After rank 500, or when leaders deem them ready, people are often offered to move up to Galaxy Desperados (Except officers, it seems. I never got the offer). By this point they should have a strong ship which has been aided in growth by the higher ranking and more knowledgeable members of Galaxy Wombats.

*Cough* The Fremen/Home One *Cough Cough*

I actually am working to help support my legions as a whole. If someone it TT needs an arti and I have it Ill send it to var and he distributes it and vice versa. Thing about leading a legion is you need to know what your doing. You need to make the right decisions when it happens.

Ill agree with you on the fact of pulling a sister legion when we are still new but we knew we can handle it and we will continue to do so. Im pretty sure that TRA is staying as a 2 legion alliance for a few months we want to make sure we get current legion affairs delt with as they come and maybe complete some plans that we will make to make ourselves and legions stronger. Im hopping to TG to help one of my fellow officers in training the new players and help them along their way to a powerful ship.

Ditto.

A feeder/training legion can be a working, productive thing; but it's tricky.

The primary reasons for it (afaik) are:
1) the primary legion is full to bursting and still wants more members, and/or
2) the primary legion is trying to maintain a rank requirement but doesn't want to completely shut out players below the requirement
The theory in both cases being that when the primary legion has space available, members from the secondary legion get priority or are promoted to fill the gaps.

My experience with Delta's training legion (which is currently closed) has been this: As long as you have the right person/people running the secondary legion, both will thrive; but when you don't have a suitable leader at the secondary legion it begins to drag down the parent legion. In the case of a training legion (i.e. designed for very low ranks), the people running it need to have a really good handle on the game and be really proactive about recruiting. We had that, for a while, and during that period we had two near-full legions. But when you don't have people who can both recruit and mentor and who can/will lead the secondary legion, the secondary legion slowly fades. In the end we closed Delta Destroyers because we did not have someone to lead the legion who both wanted to be there and was suited to the job (it's a different job to a standard officer or leader role).

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Sister legions are (should be) different. To my mind, a sister legion relationship grows out of an ally relationship. You are allied, you work together, you are in each other's pockets and on each other's comms, your members maybe even get to know each other... there comes a point where this relationship is closer and more valuable than other allies. Sometimes you formalize the close-knit relationship by naming the other legion "sister" instead of "ally".

Of course, lots of "sister" legions don't work that way. Sometimes it's one legion propping up another that was struggling; sometimes it's a former member who has gone and created a new legion and wants a close relationship with former legionmates; sometimes it's a whim. IMHO if it's not built on a relationship between the legions, it's unlikely to last.

But if that relationship is there, you have (in theory) twice the core of members when numbers are needed. You can specialize your legions if that's your thing (different base productions, different in-game emphasis, etc). Your members have easy trading partners, a potential alternate CT lab to use, more people to make friends with. Lots of good things can happen with that. But it requires that close-knit relationship for it to work and last.

Well I'm glad we of the Navarone empire are considered mighty ...I guess the big bug eyes smiley was an expression of how we have created such an empire.

All I can say is its lots of work . Is it a trend ? Not for us over 2 years in the making. I think our tactics and thoughts are different to other legions. We actually have six legions as one base was for sale. We have put some of the best together in a main legion for strength and is very well run by the leaders of battleships of Navarone. Does this mean our other legions are less important. Far from it they are vital. Every player in Navarone is as important as the next regardless of rank or strength. Their are factors here beyond numbers. Our group has very talented players along with lots of other skills that when it is a brought together makes a very nice flexible functioning empire. Not only are we helping new players constantly which is good for the game we try to offer all advice available so players can achieve a ship design of their choosing. And at the nod of the day have some fun doing it and some satisfaction that ...yeah....we have achieved something special . It's special to us regardless of anything else .