Here are my 2 cents:
This world has come down to 3 tribes. In most worlds, there in a strong set of tribes in the core which fight one another and ignore the rim until the rim can get established. The core tribes balance each other out until the rim tribes are ready for a real battle. The core tribes are weakened by fighting one another which gives the inner rim tribes a chance. However in the world a single tribe came to dominate the core, R4KI. Regardless of how they fell, they fell and most went inactive! Right now, there are <10 active accounts in the core, and only 3 really playing at this point. The inner rim came to dominate the core.
Now the inner rim tribes, One, Omen, and ChoCho, have no competition in the core so they can focus entirely on the rim. I have no doubt the rim will put up a good fight, but eventually they will do not have a chance. Here is an example. I am fighting AXO, which is a rim tribe completely surrounded by ChoCho. I began brawling with them about 2 weeks ago. They have put up a good fight to be honest. My ODD and ODA have shot up since we started fighting, which has led to essentially a stale mate. But time is not on their side. Given enough time and effort they will eventually fall. It is simple, Omen, One, and ChoCHo have more than 10 times the farm space and barracks than the rim tribes.
The main wild card in this equation is inactivity. Inactivity will ALWAYS be a problem in this world till only 50 accounts remain. But back to the AXO example. If ChoCho undergoes serious inactivity, we will fall apart. However that will not benefit AXO in the long run. If inactivity serious hits ChoCho we would simply merge with One and/or Omen. They end up in the same situation. Still surrounded, still outnumbers, and it still a matter of time and effort to take them out. The same is true for One with regarding Pub and Heat, and Omen with Ash, Howl, and Blood.
P-Ctrl is the only unknown right now. They were not part of the original coalition against R4KI. They did help by taking out Fremen, an R4KI ally. However, taking in all the Fremen refugees caused some serious problems with some coalition members. Additionally, the experienced Fremen members basically quit once they joined P-Ctrl. Half their territory is controlled by inactive players. Hopefully they can repopulate those Ks quickly or Omen and ChoCho will move into their territory. If they can work things out with the original coalition members, they may be able to be in the end game negotiations. They have until Omen and ChoCho finish cleaning up their rim to get their house in order....
Now, the $64,00 question is what will happen to the One, Omen, and ChoCho? Everyone has "winning" on their mind. A .net server has never been completely conquered, meaning that a single tribe controls every K in the world. No families, no small tribes left, etc. That would mean only 50 accounts left in the world. So right now, there are 4,407 active players. However, a close look shows that there are about 300 active players left in this world. This means account that have a legitimate chance of ever surviving. TBH, if you have less than 10 villages right now you will not survive. You can turtle all you want! You will eventually fall. If any big player decided to take you out, they could and recover in a month. You are only around because easier targets have always existed and you pose no threat. The way I see it, is that turtles are simply building up my villages for me! (sorry for the aside, the turtle strategy simply does not work long term!) Between the top 3 tribes, there is currently 108 players. Out of these 108, about 20 are already inactive right now, about 20 are on the verge of inactivity, and >20 players could be dropped for not performing in the next month (you know who you are). That gets us down to 50 players who potentially merge into 1 single tribe. However, during the process of taking down the rim, I figure about 20 more players will be recruited into the ChoCho-One-Omen Alliance. Recruiting from an enemy speeds up the process and some people show potential while fighting.
All that said I see 1 of 3 potential scenarios happening:
1- Over the next 2 or 3 months, One-Omen-ChoCho will continue to eat their inactives, all will get down to about 20 members and we all merge into 1 tribe and finish off the remains. The details will iron themselves out!
2- After we clean up the rim, we have a war for fun. We try to get 3 ( or 2) relatively equal tribes and fight it out for a while, after it is clear who won, we all merge and hug it out.
3- The diplomatic relationship breaks down, either because of small issues, some big conflict, or simply out of boredom. This would probably lead to a fight till the death war lasting a very long time. Because the tribes are so tight, vacant core, the long distances, and slow speed, taking and holding territory would be very difficult.
I personally think until the end of the summer things will stay about the same. One, Omen, and ChoCho will continue to fight on the rim. However, we all know that inactivity comes in waves. There is always a massive number of people quitting around new years, at the end of the school year (start of summer), and end of the summer. We have all seen it! It was no coincidence that the R4KI war happened right at the end of the school year. We were exploiting the expected wave of inactivity. Therefore, I expect at the end of the summer there will be another wave of inactivity which will get the big tribes down to about 20 active members a piece. From there, I am sure one of the big 3 tribes will be hit harder than others and merge into another tribe. At this point, if the 2 remaining tribes are comparable in size, I think a gentlemen war would be fun. If 1 tribe is twice the size of the other, then all 3 will become 1 tribe and finish off the rest of the world. It might all happen at once, but the politics will become clear...Once we all merge up, I hope that we can all migrate to another world together, or divide up the tribe into small groups and fight it out. So far this world has been dominated by politics and not war. It would be nice to have a long sustained war between equals!
