Shlomzi
Guest
Hello,
I have decided that with me finally deciding to hang up my boots in regards to leading, I may as well post a guide on what I have learned during the course of my experiences.
Any comments, constructive criticism or suggestions are welcome.
I understand some of this may be wrong, but leading is mainly about opinions, but I decided I’d put down, in a guide, what my opinion on leading is.
-Shlomzi
I have decided that with me finally deciding to hang up my boots in regards to leading, I may as well post a guide on what I have learned during the course of my experiences.
Guide to Leading:
This guide is something I have decided I would make because there are a lot of people out there who want to make tribes, and end up making the same mistakes over and over again. There have been a few leadership guides made, but in my opinion none of them are adequate.
This is very long, so I will give contents at the start and I'd suggest you only read the parts you need to read up on. First of all, I believe I should give my leading experience so it is safe to assume I'm not just a fool with no experience.
I will start off with going into not much detail, being very general, and will gradually work towards being very specific.
Contents:
1) About Me
2) The Fundamentals
3) The Member Base
4) Propaganda
5) Delegation
6) Wars
7) Diplomacy
8) Inactivity
9) Image
1) About Me:
My original world was World 10. I led a tribe there in the region of K64. Of course, as it being my first tribe, it sucked. I know how it feels to start a tribe and have no idea what you're doing, which is why I am making this.
I later joined World 11, and made a re-make of the World 10 tribe. Of course, it was obviously slightly better but never top class. We made it into the top 50 before I quit the world.
So, I joined World 12. Speed 2 again, and I was delighted. This was my favourite world, and I led a tribe here. It was rank 9-10 for a long time, and I was pleased with that. I still made some mistakes, but of course, I learnt a lot. The tribe was based in K55 and we were a dominant force, rank 3 there. After people got to about 50,000 points, I decided it was time for a good war. So I declared on rank 2, K55. Rank 1/4/5/6/7 joined in, and we had rank 8 helping us. We eventually forced rank 4/5/6/7 to back off and eventually rank 2 and we fell apart.
I rejoined World 12 late in the game, I was in K97. I started a tribe here called Skittl. We were a tiny tribe, consisting of about 40 members. At rank 250, I decided to declare war on the rank 20 tribe. That was fun. We were winning until I had to quit due to time constraints, at which point the tribe fell apart.
So then my next leading experience was World 17. I am probably most well known for my leading of CHE!!! there. I joined CHE!!! as a forum moderator the day World 17 started. Eventually, I worked my way up and became the diplomat for CHE!!! . Things got better from there; I began to do defense co-ordination, diplomacy, forum moderation, council member and PnP representative. I was later promoted to baron and "second in command."
I have also led tribes in World 24 (Skittl), W29 (Skittl) and been in leading positions in others such as in W19 (VIRUS) and in W15 (VODKA)
World 15 really was a messed up world for me. Joining as part of Empira, I eventually left. It's downfall was blamed on me. Anyway, I joined VODKA (previously R@KI) to help organise it. I was given control of all organisation and spent about 3 weeks organising it.
2) The Fundamentals:
There are a few fundamentals one must know when leading a tribe. They are very basic, and easy to understand. However, surprisingly, a lot of people that make tribes do not know these fundamentals and as such a tribe they start is doomed to fail.
Here are the three most important things, in my opinion.
i) The member base is extremely important. A tribe cannot survive without stability and structure. If there is constant merging and recycling of members, the tribe does not have this stability. Think of your tribe as a baby, a baby needs one main carer or it will not have that stability in their life, someone they can rely on - to have more than one main carer and to constantly move carers it does not have that stability and often develops problems later in life. It is the same for your tribe, if you do not have a strong core of loyal members, and you keep merging and/or recycling them, then you lose that stability and communication you could have.
ii) Leadership is probably the most important thing. A lot of people say members are, but I would disagree. A body without a head is useless. A good leader is needed for the survival of a tribe. Without a good leader, the tribe cannot function efficiently and thus is not capable of becoming a major power.
iii) Communication is another aspect that is often terrible in new tribes. If a tribe does not communicate well it is not possible to succeed. A completely active forum with every member reading it is needed, and outside communication may or may not be of benefit. Many modern tribes are using Skype as a form of external communication now, and it seems to help them a lot.
3) The Member Base:
Let's go into more detail about this, as this is often one of the hardest parts of the tribe to master.
Loyalty is the most important thing. As said, you need a good strong core of members. You cannot have an efficiently functioning tribe without a loyal member base, it simply is impossible. Loyalty must be gained; it cannot simply be ordered and given to you. Unfortunately, every human is different and you will have to work out how to gain loyalty for each individual. However, building up a personal relationship with each member is a good way to start. It does not take much effort to have conversations with members in your tribe, even if it is only casual talk. It takes very little time, but is often hugely appreciated. People who think you care for them are often more loyal than those who have no ties to you at all.
Members are humans; they are not robots that will follow your every command when you do not have their trust or respect. This leads us to our first point, earning trust and respect. Without trust or respect, a leader is nothing. He cannot command his members and the tribe is doomed to fail. You must show your members you know what you are doing and you respect their opinions. Opening discussion forums about the tribe and listening to the opinions of members is often a way to do this. Sacrificing your whole army for the benefit of the tribe is another. There are many ways to do this. Once you have the respect and trust of your members, you are on your way.
As said previously, you cannot keep recycling members and constantly merge and hope for a successful tribe. Sometimes it may happen, but you would have to be extremely lucky. Humans need stability, as members do. Constant recycling and merging destroys communication and personal ties and ultimately members drift further apart.
Although having a pure "elite" tribe made up of only "elite" members is a recipe for success, it is not the only way to be successful. There are very few elite players out there, and even less elite tribes.
Having a tribe made up of pure beginners (or lesser experienced) members is not an immediate sign of disaster. If people are willing to work with these members, help them along the way and so on you may succeed. However, it is unlikely. A tribe made up completely of beginners often also has a beginner for a leader. However, if it has an extremely experienced leader who knows what he is doing, there is a chance for success. Tribes known as “teaching tribes” have shown this – although they do tend to fall apart once the leader quits.
Therefore, your best bet is to go for members who are not elite, but not complete and utter beginners. You will ultimately only find a few of these and often will not fill the number of members you wish to fill. As such, you combine a few beginners in there too. If you have a few "veterans" and a few "beginners" then the veterans can train the beginners and you have a tribe full of decent players.
Remember though, experienced members is not everything. A tribe can succeed without having a brilliant line up.
Mass Recruiting:
As a sub-section of the "Member Base" section I decided I would delve into what is often referred to as "mass recruiting."
Firstly, we need to look at what mass-recruiting is. If you were to take it literally, it would simply mean inviting a lot of members in a short period of time. However, this is Tribal Wars, and as with everything else we have our own meanings for things. Mass-Recruiting is when someone sends out a lot of invitations to anyone and everyone without looking up their history and often they don't even send an official invite through mail. It is hard to give an exact meaning as everyone has their own personal opinions and views on this. I will give my experiences.
Secondly, we move on to what mass-recruiting does. As said, I played World 10. If I'm being perfectly honest - I mass recruited. I sent invitations to a lot of people and didn't even bother to mail them. Obviously most of them rejected and the ones that accepted were total beginners. This obviously played a major role in the tribe not being able to succeed. This is just my example, however. It is quite clear that mass recruiting does not work, it just doesn't. It fills your tribe with a bunch of beginners who have no idea what they are doing and they are often unloyal and will leave at the first sign of trouble. Think about it, if a member is willing to join you at the very drop of an invite, without any conversation or even a single mail, what makes you think they will stay when they get an invite from a bigger tribe? They won't stay, simple.
Thirdly, let's move on to the consequences of mass recruiting. Mass recruiting often results in a complete failure of communication within the tribe, a lack of trust and respect and the tribe is easily torn apart. This has been seen time and time again. Members who join a tribe who are not even mailed asking them if they wish to join, have no prior experience in this game and do not plan to put much effort in results in a huge lack of communication. This leads to the next point - lack of respect and trust. With a lack of communication, members know nothing about each other. They do not know whether they should trust each other and often don't know the fundamentals of what a tribe is and how they should behave in one. Because of this, respect is often lost. Without respect a tribe's members will not help each other and as said, the tribe is easily torn apart. It's a vicious circle.
Fourthly, let's take a look at the image of a "mass-recruiting" tribe. Let's face it, mass recruiting is frowned upon. People make jokes about tribes that mass recruit, and they very rarely have a good image. Although people may deny it, image means a lot in this game. If a tribe looks bad, it cannot get new members except through mass recruitment, which as said only brings beginners. If you only have beginners the tribe cannot advance totally successfully. Furthermore, if your tribe has a bad image it often results in members leaving. Remember, mass recruitment means members don't have any ties to you or the tribe, communication is lacking and there is no trust or respect. So, once they realise they are the laughing stock they will leave. As said previously, members are humans, and no-one likes being humiliated, especially on a game – which is supposed to be fun.
And finally, let's look at what is the fate of most mass recruiting tribes. If you look up, you will notice that I previously said there is a lack of trust, respect and communication. This leads to a lack of loyalty. A lack of loyalty means you are constantly losing members and with a bad image can only bring in bad ones. Very few “good” players will want to join a tribe that is the laughing stock of the world for mass-recruiting. This cannot and will not lead to success. There are very few tribes that mass recruited and survived, and they are often on very edge (rim) of a world. Mass recruiting tribes are often led by inexperienced leaders - that's why mass recruiting occurs time after time after time. With inexperienced leaders war is often declared over the smallest of things when a war is not necessary and therefore they often end up losing to an even slightly more experienced tribe.
Remember, quantity does not always beat quality. This does not say quality always beats quantity though. However, mass-recruiting is bad and is a recipe for failure. I would advise you stay away from it.
4) Propaganda:
One of the most overlooked aspects of leading a successful tribe is propaganda. For those of you that are unaware, propaganda is the use of media to influence others' opinions to agree with yours. In Tribal Wars, we use the PnP (Politics and Propaganda) forum as our "media." That is the name that is given to the forums you are currently on.
Propaganda is extremely important. Although often overlooked it can often cause you to win a war, it can make you to look more attractive to future members, make you some good allies and so on. However, propaganda is only good if used right. If used wrong, or badly, it can be disastrous.
A brilliant guide to use when doing propaganda is this:
Burns Guide to PnP
and
TicToc’s Guide to PnP
I feel there are things that need to be added to these guides, and may or may not create one in the future.
Please remember that they are just two views on how to use propaganda. There are plenty of different types of propaganda.
A few examples of effective propaganda are below. Just remember that a mass amount of pictures does not make good propaganda.
Effective Propaganda #1
Effective Propaganda #2
Effective Propaganda #3
Effective Propaganda #4
Effective propaganda #5
As you can see, propaganda, if used effectively, can get people to agree with you. If people agree with you, you are in the all clear. However, make sure to settle for the majority. It is not your job to prove the opponent wrong; it is to get the majority to agree with you.
5) Delegation
There are two options here. I'll look at both of them.
To Delegate:
All leaders are humans. All humans have faults. It is not correct to say every leader can be good at all aspects of leading, it is simply too hard and requires too much effort. Any weak points of one of the leaders should be given to someone else with skill in that area.
Areas of delegation could be co-ordination, PnP, diplomacy or recruitment. Delegation means that you have a variety of different people doing one job each. As such, the tribe runs more efficiently as they are focusing on one task and one task only. It also means you have a better chance of having someone experienced in each field than having one person do it all and being weak in some areas.
To Not Delegate:
Past leaders often chose not to delegate. Bloodhood, vpar2 and others often referred to as the "best" leaders took on as much work as they possibly could as they knew and still know that they are probably the best in their field of leading, and as such it is unlikely anyone in their tribe is much better, if better at all, so they are confident in their abilities and do as much as they can as they believe they are the best at it, and it is more efficient.
6) Wars
Wars are an important part of this game. It is one of the only ways to test if a tribe is good or not. However, there are some things needed to know about wars.
i) Wars should not be started before nobles come out. It is ridiculous and serves to do nothing but slow down both tribes involved. Up until nobles, you can not to any major damage to the opponent and as such, with your members focusing solely on the enemy they are not growing as fast as they would without a war.
ii) A war declared on a tribe a few continents away is pointless. Long range wars are hard to fight, and are harder to win. All it does it wear down both tribes and usually results in a very dull fight.
iii) Use propaganda to your benefit. Follow the advice given under the propaganda section. However, do not declare on a far inferior tribe on the public forums. It will damage your reputation even if you do hammer them. Make sure, however, to declare against larger tribes if you are in the belief you will win significantly. It works extremely well. An example of this is here:
Effective war propaganda.
iv) Try to keep it a fair 1v1 fight. Bringing in allies and so on, or any outside help, brings down your image. Sure, allies are there to help, however if you need them people will believe you rely on them and therefore you will lose some respect. You will not be seen as a tribe that can fight it’s own battles.
v) Never declare a war that you cannot win. There are some instances that are just unwinnable, and unless you plan for your whole tribe's failure, don't do it.
vi) Continent based wars should be done early in the game. Consolidation of your home K is important. You must have a stronghold you can call "home" from which you can expand.
vii) Make sure you prepare appropriately for any wars which you may find yourself in. This is wars you plan to start, or wars that could possibly be declared upon you.
viii) Always let your members know that everything is under control. Co-ordination is needed in a war, and your members will feel all the better if you co-ordinate. A lack of co-ordination leads to a lack of tribal efficiency. If your tribe is losing a war badly, then your members will be inclined to leave if there is nothing keeping them there.
ix) Make sure your tribe is ready for a war. There is no point declaring a war which you do not have the troops for. This means do not finish a war and go straight into another one. Give your members time to rebuild their armies, take some time to consolidate your new areas, take some time to revel in your victory.
x) Make sure all frontlines are stacked before you declare a war. This allows your members on the frontline to focus on offense and focus on nobling the enemy. They can then use their own defense to support their new villages, as your tribe is supporting their original ones.
7) Diplomacy
Although this game is about Wars, diplomacy is probably the most important thing needed to survive. One must know who to ally, when to ally, who to NAP, when to NAP, who to war, when to war.
Here are just five basic tips regarding NAPs/Allies.
Allies:
1) Never ally another tribe based solely in your home continent. This will undoubtedly lead to expansion problems and will more than likely slow down your own growth.
2) Make sure not to have too many allies. One or two allies is enough, you don't need more than that. You don't want to make too many allies as to break alliances and attack them (i.e. backstabbing) - which you will eventually have to do because of expansion - is frowned upon. You will be looked at as if you have no honour or you do not respect relations and it will be harder to get new relations then.
3) Make sure your allies are real allies. Often people make allies and when they need them, they do nothing. You want an ally who will help you when you need it, who will work with you and who will be loyal to you.
4) Make sure to keep in constant contact with your allies. This links up to point 3). If you do not keep in contact you drift apart and your ties become weaker and weaker. This will lead to problems later on, and will likely result in the alliance falling apart.
5) Make sure to think long term. Don't ally a tribe in an area where you want to expand. Ally a tribe that is in the opposite direction of where you want to expand. You do not want to get in each other's way; it ends up in slowing both of you down.
NAPs:
1) NAPs should rarely be used. They block your expansion and should only be used if you are reaching a ceasefire at the end of a war, or if you want to prevent a future war.
2) NAPs are easily broken. Remember that. Unlike with allies, it is not frowned upon to break NAPs. Therefore, you really do have very little leverage to use on PnP if a NAP is broken. NAPs really are only meant to be temporary.
3) Make sure to take necessary precautions in the case of a NAP being broken. As they are easily broken, especially if it was a ceasefire, don't let your guard down. Make sure your members on the front with the NAP are always ready for a war.
4) Do not use NAP's to constantly end wars. It does not look good. Try to finish your wars; do not end them in NAPs all the time.
5) Make sure a NAP is in your best interests. A lot of people sign NAP's because it looks like the best thing to do, but often isn't. Make sure you do your research before signing anything.
8) Inactivity
This is an aspect that is often disastrous. Many tribes fail to deal with inactivity, and it is one of the most common killers of a successful tribe in the mid-world to late-world stage of the game.
There are many ways to deal with inactivity; I'll go through 2 of the most common here.
1) You can dismiss inactive players and recruit new players. There are a few advantages and disadvantages to this:
Advantages:
i) This gets rids of inactives and brings in new blood.
ii) The new recruits will tend to put a lot of effort in as they have brought their account up themselves and have likely tried hard to succeed and get in the tribe.
iii) You can recruit them in areas you need to strengthen and just have the inactive account nobled out if it is in an area you are clear dominators of.
Disadvantages:
i) This is "recycling" members. This will undoubtedly damage tribal communication and damage the atmosphere in the tribe, especially if the player dismissed was there for a long time
ii) The new players may not be up to the standard of the player that left.
iii) The new players may not be as tribe-orientated as your previous member was.
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2) You can attempt to get the password of the quit account and give it to someone else you know.
Advantages:
i) You get a new, experienced player who keeps the account active so you don't have any tribe changes, and you don't need to dismiss the player.
ii) The new player is more than likely experienced as they are known to you.
iii) You have a fresh eagerness and thus have less pressure on sitters. With this fresh eagerness it means you have someone with the experience to put pressure onto your opponents.
Disadvantages:
i) Sometimes the new players feel they are more experienced than everyone else and have too many ideas as they feel they have more to offer than some of the less experienced members.
ii) There is a lack of loyalty sometimes as they did not bring up the account themselves and are not attached to it.
iii) It may result in a break in the balance of the tribe’s atmosphere.
9) Image
The image of a tribe is very important. I'll have a look at two aspects of image.
Profile:
There are some definite no's. Make sure never to have any "ASCII swords" on your profiles. Never have your allies/NAPs listed on your profile. Never have all these special designs on your profile.
There are also some definite do's. Make sure to have the correct people listed on your profile for whom to contact. Make sure to keep it short and simple.
Coat of Arms:
A good coat of arms works wonders. It attracts attention. Remember, a picture tells a thousand words.
Make sure it has something to do with your tribe. Keep it relevant, don't over-complicate it.
Any comments, constructive criticism or suggestions are welcome.
I understand some of this may be wrong, but leading is mainly about opinions, but I decided I’d put down, in a guide, what my opinion on leading is.
-Shlomzi
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