I was always very against the continued permittance of players like Churchill and LP (and a few others) to stay with us, when they never contributed. They wasted nobles and resources on barbs when they should have been faking and nuking and nobling.
I actually emailed Church asking why he was like this a few months ago towards the end of my playing time - and he came back with the cliched and ultimately flawed 'I am a defensive player, I support my tribesmates but I don't have any nukes', to which I replied:
- Full Turtles are almost always useless
- I have never seen you [Churchill] reply to any support request on the forum by anyone
- You can't waste off on SPAM but can on barb troops?
Then he got nasty and the rest is History. I would disagree that the problem with ??? is member motivation and communication. I found in A.I that Fisher kept this at a reasonably good level. I would however concur that: The desertion of players crippled ???, also that mistrust bred like bacteria in the West, and also that there was never enough discipline there. I would accept that sometimes I was too hard on players when I was part of the leadership - however to continously turn a blind eye to barb noblers and the cowards in the tribe, so obvious because of poor stats, was such a devastatingly weak move.
Fisher once said of me that if I was left in control of A.I that after a few days there would be 'less than ten players left'. Yes, this is true, but those ten players would not necessarily be the biggest, but the ones who always replied to support requests and nuke counts - who cleared enemy villages and helped snipe trains, who had the most ODA vs SPAM and just who were the most bothered to help their own tribe - I had no time for the others.