It Will All Be Mine
Guest
So I logged into something today that I was overwhelming pleased with...
Delirium just eeked out JEDI to become the 2nd tribe, after OBEY, to pointwhore its way to 1 million points. A goal our leadership had set, but was never entirely certain was possible. Yet, we are the first "grass roots" tribe to do so. And I fully expect JEDI and WET to join us in the millionaires club by the end of the week,( warning signs of another great conflict to come ) and SBD and legion to eventually follow shortly after.
As Escape now only contains 6 members of our original premade roster, I no longer consider us one. There are currently 30+ new faces I have never have had the honor of playing a world with before, let alone had the privilege of leading. We have lost, and re-earned the respect of our own rivals who once thought our tribe was doomed for failure, but now see us a beacon of stability to the turmoil of k54. This past month has been one of constant turmoil and tribulation as we have worked through dozens of players to build a roster that while remains unproven in war, has shown that it works in communication, support and all share the same global ambition. We have strived to stay forward of the constant scheming of our rivals, the scheming of Legion that we knew would all but end triforce being our greatest shame to contain. The loss of TiP as a united force is a dark spot on the politics of this world. Yet, we remain, continuing to grow and overcome the challenges of everyday, with a mixture of players who this is their first world and have proven themselves against all odds earning their place among our ranks, and veterans and legends of worlds of old whose experience and consistency speak for themselves.
But how does a "grass roots tribe" succeed and maintain its position in the top 5? How can any tribe forge a story of success in a world of madness?
1) Owning responsibility. Establish Respect
The single biggest factor many tribes struggle with is the nature of responsibility. Choosing to argue, bicker, blame or simply refuse to help others in the tribe. This comes in every form, from the duke to the individual player. "Owning up" is a concept many struggle with.
"Why should it be my responsibility to cover player X when he got back timed?"
"Why do I have to snipe this train against his village and lose my troops?"
"Why do I have to night sit this fucker?"
"Why can't [Tribemate] clear this village themselves?"
"Why can't we just ignore them and hope they go away? We can't beat them.".
These are all very real things that I have seen so many times in so many failed tribes. They struggle to accept responsibility as tribemates to one another, struggle to rely on another as brothers in arms. The desire to work as individuals drowns their ability to work as comrades. At the end of the day, many just don't get the fact that they are not individuals, but a unit [tribe] and that their villages are not just a responsibility of themselves, but everyone else in the tribe. They are extension of everyone's resources Failure to be active, failure to support, failure to resist against every challenge, failure to be fair and honest in tribal affairs, these are all the corner stones of owning responsibility. It is such a fundamental block of any tribe of any caliber that the tribes that fail to achieve it
A great example of what not to do is Seby1, the former duke of ~WD~, who's leaving of ~WD~ obliterated any and all chance of the tribe ever becoming anything of significance. He built a tribe, mass recruited for it, internalized a large number of players, and use underhanded tactics (such as rumors that he would send troops to far off continents after sitting them) to build a dysfunctional, and ultimately failed tribe. He failed to garner the respect needed to lead a successful tribe by owning responsibility and building a tribal culture that relied on one another.
Meanwhile in Escape & JEDI you have seen the foundations of tight and integrated relationships between tribe members as they continue to forge bonds and play chase the goose with OBEY. Bonds that OBEY themselves established long before this world even began. Go ahead, ask a few players how much they worship those megalomaniacs in OBEY and JEDI. You'll see the respect and trust for their leadership is very high. This creates the bonds of loyalty that will ultimately see your tribe through its finest hours.
2) Establishing culture, creating the global vision
This can be somewhat nuanced, but its an extension of above. Culture is what loops people in, gets them addicted to PnP (both internal and external) and establishes what expectations are for the tribe. If your tribe has no expectations, its culture is dead because its vision is dead. A tribe will not succeed without goals, it will be crippled with inactivity, lack of engagement and ultimately boredom. No goal is more important then the global vision, and ultimately winning the world, but it requires a plan and path of success. It means selling that vision to your own tribe, and being consistent in establishing those expectations and whats expected internally. Once a tribe respects one another, it can march together to victory.
And in this world of madness, where lies, deceit and hallucinations swirl like leaves on the wind, Delirium has established it's culture.
3a) The importance of communication
This is a funny joke that my old duke on w16 once told me.
"It's not tribal wars, it's tribal mails."
It is an amusingly accurate observation of the importance of communication of any successful tribe. The communication between players and its internal leadership, and ultimately the communication between the tribal leadership and its rivals. It is critical for a leader to continue to share what is going on within the tribe, the global vision as mentioned above has many steps to its ultimate implementation. Tribemates must communicate their needs for support and clears, and diplomacy is the only sense of stability between the top 20. Ask finalbarrage how much we bitch at each other. Sometimes it seems daily.
NOBLE's leadership failed to grasp this when they began their conflict vs JEDI, and ultimately faltered as their unprepared tribe brought in unprepared allies in a false bid of one man's foolish ambition.
Crayola's unsteady hand in guiding TiP slowly lost him the respect of his greatest players, and allowed the meddling of Legion & Jedi into their internal affairs, that resulted in their ultimate collapse.
With out communication, there is no foundation to build on. There can be no culture, or respect. Allies can not rely on you, and rivals will exploit your lack of coordination.
With it, every village has the ability to snipe every train and block every nuke, and victory is just 1 war away.
3b) Building the right leadership, recognizing what is missing
Communication of course, is nothing without the figure heads who run it. It is almost impossible for 1 individual to run an entire tribe. Ops, recruitment, diplomacy, internal affairs, it is simply too many tasks for one account to reasonably account for long term and still grow and participate in the world.
Escape is no exception to this, as we transferred from our first Duke, the Red Hot Chili Pepper, to myself as I was more engaged and active in the world. Willing to make the sacrifices of time to continue building the tribe.Trading the responsibilities of things such as ops and recruitment (possibly my greatest decision, if anyone has paid attention to what happened with ARE) we have seen the quality and steadiness of our leadership grow and develop, and our story continue. It is important to recognize when errors have been made, redact, address and ultimately build a better tribe. The responsibility of leadership is not for everyone, and it is the hardest challenge to find those that are willing and capable of shouldering the burden.
4) From every failure, an opportunity to improve
A life lesson in itself, but no grass roots tribe will ever get it right the first time. You will go through countless members as you try to find the gold in the sand. Ops will be messy until cohesion is formed, diplomacy can be a wreck while you find tribes worthy of your time, and may not even matter tomorrow.
But from each step back, you must learn from the mistakes and improve. Keep your world, change, adapt and over come set backs, given enough work and time, it will all fall into place. This will earn you the respect of all those around you, even your rivals, in the most grudging of ways.
5) And eventually...make iron sharpen iron
But no tribe can claim success without war in this game. Challenging, intense and insufferably stressful conflict. Ultimately it is iron vs iron that proves weather your tribe deserves to belong in the grand scheme of the world. JEDI has already proven it deserves to be here, in the weeks to come, Escape, and others, will have their opportunity too.
I thank every member Escape for joining me on this journey so far. I congratulate Jedi and Wet as they continue to build their own stories of success and hope more tribes will continue to succeed and build quality, functional tribes. The world is far from dead, and there are many challenges yet to overcome. Good luck to everyone.
Sincerely,
-It Will All Be Mine, Duke of Delirium
Delirium just eeked out JEDI to become the 2nd tribe, after OBEY, to pointwhore its way to 1 million points. A goal our leadership had set, but was never entirely certain was possible. Yet, we are the first "grass roots" tribe to do so. And I fully expect JEDI and WET to join us in the millionaires club by the end of the week,( warning signs of another great conflict to come ) and SBD and legion to eventually follow shortly after.
As Escape now only contains 6 members of our original premade roster, I no longer consider us one. There are currently 30+ new faces I have never have had the honor of playing a world with before, let alone had the privilege of leading. We have lost, and re-earned the respect of our own rivals who once thought our tribe was doomed for failure, but now see us a beacon of stability to the turmoil of k54. This past month has been one of constant turmoil and tribulation as we have worked through dozens of players to build a roster that while remains unproven in war, has shown that it works in communication, support and all share the same global ambition. We have strived to stay forward of the constant scheming of our rivals, the scheming of Legion that we knew would all but end triforce being our greatest shame to contain. The loss of TiP as a united force is a dark spot on the politics of this world. Yet, we remain, continuing to grow and overcome the challenges of everyday, with a mixture of players who this is their first world and have proven themselves against all odds earning their place among our ranks, and veterans and legends of worlds of old whose experience and consistency speak for themselves.
But how does a "grass roots tribe" succeed and maintain its position in the top 5? How can any tribe forge a story of success in a world of madness?
1) Owning responsibility. Establish Respect
The single biggest factor many tribes struggle with is the nature of responsibility. Choosing to argue, bicker, blame or simply refuse to help others in the tribe. This comes in every form, from the duke to the individual player. "Owning up" is a concept many struggle with.
"Why should it be my responsibility to cover player X when he got back timed?"
"Why do I have to snipe this train against his village and lose my troops?"
"Why do I have to night sit this fucker?"
"Why can't [Tribemate] clear this village themselves?"
"Why can't we just ignore them and hope they go away? We can't beat them.".
These are all very real things that I have seen so many times in so many failed tribes. They struggle to accept responsibility as tribemates to one another, struggle to rely on another as brothers in arms. The desire to work as individuals drowns their ability to work as comrades. At the end of the day, many just don't get the fact that they are not individuals, but a unit [tribe] and that their villages are not just a responsibility of themselves, but everyone else in the tribe. They are extension of everyone's resources Failure to be active, failure to support, failure to resist against every challenge, failure to be fair and honest in tribal affairs, these are all the corner stones of owning responsibility. It is such a fundamental block of any tribe of any caliber that the tribes that fail to achieve it
A great example of what not to do is Seby1, the former duke of ~WD~, who's leaving of ~WD~ obliterated any and all chance of the tribe ever becoming anything of significance. He built a tribe, mass recruited for it, internalized a large number of players, and use underhanded tactics (such as rumors that he would send troops to far off continents after sitting them) to build a dysfunctional, and ultimately failed tribe. He failed to garner the respect needed to lead a successful tribe by owning responsibility and building a tribal culture that relied on one another.
Meanwhile in Escape & JEDI you have seen the foundations of tight and integrated relationships between tribe members as they continue to forge bonds and play chase the goose with OBEY. Bonds that OBEY themselves established long before this world even began. Go ahead, ask a few players how much they worship those megalomaniacs in OBEY and JEDI. You'll see the respect and trust for their leadership is very high. This creates the bonds of loyalty that will ultimately see your tribe through its finest hours.
2) Establishing culture, creating the global vision
This can be somewhat nuanced, but its an extension of above. Culture is what loops people in, gets them addicted to PnP (both internal and external) and establishes what expectations are for the tribe. If your tribe has no expectations, its culture is dead because its vision is dead. A tribe will not succeed without goals, it will be crippled with inactivity, lack of engagement and ultimately boredom. No goal is more important then the global vision, and ultimately winning the world, but it requires a plan and path of success. It means selling that vision to your own tribe, and being consistent in establishing those expectations and whats expected internally. Once a tribe respects one another, it can march together to victory.
And in this world of madness, where lies, deceit and hallucinations swirl like leaves on the wind, Delirium has established it's culture.
3a) The importance of communication
This is a funny joke that my old duke on w16 once told me.
"It's not tribal wars, it's tribal mails."
It is an amusingly accurate observation of the importance of communication of any successful tribe. The communication between players and its internal leadership, and ultimately the communication between the tribal leadership and its rivals. It is critical for a leader to continue to share what is going on within the tribe, the global vision as mentioned above has many steps to its ultimate implementation. Tribemates must communicate their needs for support and clears, and diplomacy is the only sense of stability between the top 20. Ask finalbarrage how much we bitch at each other. Sometimes it seems daily.
NOBLE's leadership failed to grasp this when they began their conflict vs JEDI, and ultimately faltered as their unprepared tribe brought in unprepared allies in a false bid of one man's foolish ambition.
Crayola's unsteady hand in guiding TiP slowly lost him the respect of his greatest players, and allowed the meddling of Legion & Jedi into their internal affairs, that resulted in their ultimate collapse.
With out communication, there is no foundation to build on. There can be no culture, or respect. Allies can not rely on you, and rivals will exploit your lack of coordination.
With it, every village has the ability to snipe every train and block every nuke, and victory is just 1 war away.
3b) Building the right leadership, recognizing what is missing
Communication of course, is nothing without the figure heads who run it. It is almost impossible for 1 individual to run an entire tribe. Ops, recruitment, diplomacy, internal affairs, it is simply too many tasks for one account to reasonably account for long term and still grow and participate in the world.
Escape is no exception to this, as we transferred from our first Duke, the Red Hot Chili Pepper, to myself as I was more engaged and active in the world. Willing to make the sacrifices of time to continue building the tribe.Trading the responsibilities of things such as ops and recruitment (possibly my greatest decision, if anyone has paid attention to what happened with ARE) we have seen the quality and steadiness of our leadership grow and develop, and our story continue. It is important to recognize when errors have been made, redact, address and ultimately build a better tribe. The responsibility of leadership is not for everyone, and it is the hardest challenge to find those that are willing and capable of shouldering the burden.
4) From every failure, an opportunity to improve
A life lesson in itself, but no grass roots tribe will ever get it right the first time. You will go through countless members as you try to find the gold in the sand. Ops will be messy until cohesion is formed, diplomacy can be a wreck while you find tribes worthy of your time, and may not even matter tomorrow.
But from each step back, you must learn from the mistakes and improve. Keep your world, change, adapt and over come set backs, given enough work and time, it will all fall into place. This will earn you the respect of all those around you, even your rivals, in the most grudging of ways.
5) And eventually...make iron sharpen iron
But no tribe can claim success without war in this game. Challenging, intense and insufferably stressful conflict. Ultimately it is iron vs iron that proves weather your tribe deserves to belong in the grand scheme of the world. JEDI has already proven it deserves to be here, in the weeks to come, Escape, and others, will have their opportunity too.
I thank every member Escape for joining me on this journey so far. I congratulate Jedi and Wet as they continue to build their own stories of success and hope more tribes will continue to succeed and build quality, functional tribes. The world is far from dead, and there are many challenges yet to overcome. Good luck to everyone.
Sincerely,
-It Will All Be Mine, Duke of Delirium
