5/7/2012 - Official Announcement

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Alliances FAQ
5/7/2012
We know many of you have unanswered questions when it comes to our upcoming “Alliance Wars” feature due out with our Summer Update. To help clear things up for you we have put together an FAQ. We hope this will help answer some of the questions you may have.
===How do I join an Alliance?===
Once you reach level 40, you’ll be granted access to each Alliance’s capital city. There, you can view shops, quest givers, and other details to help you decide which Alliance is right for you. Once you’ve decided which Alliance to join, bring up the Alliance overview UI (there’s a button at the top of the screen) and click the ‘View Alliances’ button. Then click ‘Join’ to lock in your selection.
===What is a contest?===
Contests are the competitions between Alliances. There are three different contest lengths: Dailies (Battles), Weeklies (Campaigns), and Monthlies (Wars). At any given time, there is one contest of each length active. As your earn Alliance Points, they are added to your Alliance’s total War Effort.
===How do I earn Empire Points?===
Empire Points are awarded at the end of each contest. In order to be eligible for rewards, you must have contributed to the effort. Look for any quests that give Alliance Points (AP) as a reward – any time you complete one of these quests and earn AP, you’re helping out your Alliance.
Once the contest is over (the time remaining is visible on each), the prizes will be calculated and you’ll be awarded Empire Points.
===How does my Alliance win a contest?===
At the end of each contest, the Alliance with the most War Effort wins. Don’t worry, second and third place will get prizes too.
===How are my Empire Point rewards calculated?===
There are four steps to determining how many Empire Points you earn at the end of a contest.
#How long was the contest? If it was a daily, the rewards are going to be lower than a monthly.
#What place did your Alliance come in? First, second, and third place each provide a flat amount of Empire Points to everyone who participated.
#How much did you participate? Depending on how many Alliance Points you earned (relative to everyone else in your Alliance), you will be rewarded with Empire Points. In general, participation is worth more than what place your Alliance came in.
#Are you in an underdog Alliance? If your Alliance has lower participation, it will have an ’Empire Point Bonus’ handicap. After steps 2 and 3 are calculated, the bonus percentage is added.
All of these steps are calculated behind the scenes – you’ll receive the reward as a total amount.
===What is sabotaging and how does it work?===
When you earn Alliance Points, you can Sabotage another Alliance. Sabotaging decreases an enemy’s War Effort (instead of increasing your own). This allows two Alliances to team up against another Alliance if they want.
Under the Sabotage menu, you can set what percentage to automatically use (in increments of 5%). Once you set your Sabotage percentages, any Alliance Points earned after that point will be split appropriately (it is not retroactive). Sabotaging does not decrease your reward from Participation.
===Will there ever be more than three Alliances? Can we create our own Alliances, like clans?===
We believe the current number of Alliances works quite well. If we find that there is significant demand for another Alliance, we will consider it.
We've debated a lot about whether or not to implement an advanced clan system. We’ll spare you the details, but at this point we're not convinced that enough players would benefit from it to make it worthwhile. You'll find that much of the Alliance end-game is pretty close to what clan warfare would be like - minus the ability to create and manage your own clan.
===Do all of my civilizations have to be in the same Alliance?===
Yes. Did you really think Hannibal would allow you work with the enemy?
===Will there be any new Achievements?===
No, there are no new Achievements with Alliances.
===Can you switch Alliances? What is the cost and happens when you switch?===
Yes, you can switch Alliances whenever you want. There is no cost to switch Alliances – however, you will lose any current standing, including your Alliance Rank and any Alliance Points earned in active contests. Any Alliance gear you’ve purchased you can keep, but it will have no effect unless you rejoin.
===How does the map and flags for each contest work?===
At the moment, the map and flags are simply a visualization of which Alliance is in the lead for the contest. The flags share the same color as your Alliance. The better your Alliance is doing, the more flags will have your Alliance’s color.
We’re considering adding some depth here, but for now there are no definitive plans. One idea would be to give each flag a value and make it more of a control point style meta-game.
Join the conversation! Discuss this blog post on our forums here:
http://forums.ageofempiresonline.com/forums/thread/205292.aspx