Alliance

An alliance is a group of up to 30 players working toward common goals. Many players consider participating with one to be *the best* way to improve your chances of gaining unfarmable ascension materials. Joining an alliance opens up additional opportunities:

* Titan Hunts - Titans award loot when you fight. Killing titans contributes to the titan wanted mission chests after you have been in an alliance for 12 hours.
* Wars - War awards loot and contributes to an alliance-wide war chest. The alliance leader can opt the entire alliance out of war participation. Individuals can also choose whether or not to participate in wars.
* Alliance Chat - Once you join an alliance, you can use the chat function to communicate with other members. It moves more slowly than global chat, so it is a great place to gain advice from other players. For example, they may be able to give advice on your defense team lineup, or tell you whether a given Recruits II quest awards an epic troop token. Some alliances also use 3rd party chat apps, such as Discord or Line, in order to better communicate (such as to share screenshots of hero lineups).
* Special Offer Sharing - This is extremely rare. However for Valentine's day 2019, a Special Offer allowed the purchase of 300 gems for yourself, plus a gift of 30 gems for each alliance member.

Each alliance has its own style of play. Some are extremely active and competitive (and will "kick" individuals who fail to participate in wars or titan hunts) while others are good for casual players. There are even 'Trainer' Alliances specifically created for new players to help them grow. With several thousand alliances already in existence, there is an alliance out there that will be a good fit for any style of play.

Alliances are sometimes referred to as a 'clan' on the forums.

## Finding An Alliance

You can find an alliance to join by searching by name under Alliance -> Alliances. Clicking on 'search' when there is nothing typed in the box will bring up a random collection of alliances. In order to find the name of a good alliance to join, consider one of the following:

* Alliance Recruiting (AR) section of Global Chat - full of advertisements from people looking for new alliance members.
* Small Giant Forums - has a section devoted to recruiting alliance members. Inbox -> Social -> Forums will take you to the forums.
* Reddit Empires & Puzzles Subgroup - they have a weekly sticky thread devoted to alliance recruitment advertisements. You can access it by going to Inbox -> Social -> Reddit.

### What to Consider?

Requirements? Many alliances set minimum trophy scores, which are calculated off of how many wins you have gained in raids.

Open or Invite Only - An open alliance can be joined immediately. An invite only alliance requires you to ask if you can join. The most competitive alliances will be invite only.

Does it match your activity level? You can click on an individual in the alliance to see when they were last active. An alliance where everyone has been active within the past day or two will be different than one where half the members have not been active for a month.

How many people? An alliance that is almost full (30/30) with active players will have an easier time taking out higher level titans than one that only has a handful of people.

Experience of other people? You can look at the Trophy Points for alliance members as well as their player levels to get a general idea. Being in the top half will likely mean you will do well against the alliance's titans. However, being a less experienced member allows you to learn from more experienced members.

Style? For example: competitive/casual, chatty/quiet, experienced/mid-level/beginner(trainer). This is difficult to determine beforehand unless either the alliance leader has posted information in the alliance banner for the purpose of recruitment or you have had a chance to find out about the alliance through an alliance advertisement on the forums or reddit, etc.

### Joining/Leaving

You cannot join an alliance if you are already in one; you must leave your current alliance first. Many use forums/chat to coordinate with new alliances before switching.

If the alliance has open enrollment, clicking on the "Join" button will add you to the alliance.

If the alliance is "Invite Only", you will need to submit a request to join. You can add a short message to the request, such as how you learned about the alliance. Any Elder or Co-Leader of the alliance can accept or deny a request.

Once you are in an alliance, you can leave it by clicking on the red "Leave" button near the top.

## Alliance Score

*The Alliance Score is a combination of the Trophies of the members, the points earned from fighting Titans, and the strength and victories in Wars.
The War Score is calculated from the most powerful Heroes and Troops of each Alliance member participating in the Wars, adjusted with the past performance of the Alliance.
The Titan Score decreases over time.
Trophy Score: #####
Titan Score: #####
War Score: #####*
Pop out notes attached to each Alliance's Alliance Score.
Alliance scores are listed in on the alliance page and present the combined totals of an Alliance's Trophy Score, Titan Score and War Score. The alliance score is used to determine the alliance's spot on the ranking page.

Alliance War scores are based on the power level of the top 30 heroes for each alliance member participating in wars, then adjusted for past war participation. It is used to help match up alliances for wars.

## Appearance & Identity

An alliance's appearance can be adjusted much like a how a player can adjust their own avatar. The alliance leader can set or change the following:

Name - Alliances are found in search according to their name. Interestingly, alliance names can include all of the same special characters and even emojis that can be used in chat. However using special characters may make it harder for people to find the alliance in search.

Language Setting - This is represented as a flag on the top right. It indicates the main language used in chat for the alliance. The alliance chat will filter out profanity from the language chosen.

Banner - Shown on left. All alliances have the same toothed outline. However, each banner has an icon decorating it, which may be based on an item, weapon, character, or symbol. The background color of the banner can also be changed to a solid color or a background based on a flag.

Description - Displays under the alliance name on the alliance info page. It is often used by alliance leader/co-leader to give directions they do not want lost in chat (such as save titan hits for next one or additional warning about titan special skills). While recruiting, the description may be used to post alliance rules (warmongering mandatory, miss 3 titans and will be kicked, we accept everyone, we are chatty & competitive, etc.)

## Kicking

If you click on an alliance member's name, you may see a red 'Kick' button on their information page. Kicking an alliance member means removing them from the group. Generally, it is considered bad etiquette to kick another alliance member without warning. For example, some alliances will have a set of rules, like "Miss 3 titans and you will be kicked." What is considered acceptable will depend on the alliance and its members.

Some alliance members have more control over who can or cannot kick whom according to their promotion level.

## Promotions & Leadership

Alliance members can be promoted to different roles:

* Leader - There can only be 1 per alliance. Leaders can promote or demote any other member. They can also change the alliance name, banner, description, and language. The leader can also make a co-leader into the leader, in which case, the old leader will become a co-leader. Nobody can demote the current leader. If you are in an alliance where the current leader becomes inactive, your only option is to create a new alliance and invite everyone from the old alliance into it.
* Co-Leader - Can change the alliance name, banner, description, & language. Can promote or demote any other Co-leader, Elder, or Member.
* Elder - Can accept & kick Members. They can also promote Members to Elders.
* Member - New players in an alliance always start as members. Members can be kicked by Elders, Co-Leaders, or Leaders. They cannot accept new members into the alliance.

Many alliances choose to have new players at Member status until they have been vetted as reliable. Some alliances choose to have many Elders to make it easier to accept new Member requests if needed.

## Mercenary Members (Mercs)

Mercs join alliances temporarily to help them kill their titans.

They are best found in global chat under the Experienced chat room. Mercs will want to know the following before assisting your alliance:

* Titan Element
* Level - as measured in stars (also note if the titan is Rare)
* HP Remaining
* Time Remaining
* Number of Spots Available in Alliance

Be ready to accept new members quickly if you put out call for a merc and your alliance is not open enrollment. With new changes to war chests, chest war points reset when you join a new alliance *and* help in their war. Thus, it should be possible to have a home alliance and then merc in other alliances. However, you cannot claim a titan wanted mission point for 12 hours after changing alliances.

## Training Alliances

Trainer Alliances are specifically designed to help train and nurture new players. Training alliances are usually started by an experienced player who is committed to helping new players learn and gain experience. Often the same leader has a second, sister account that is associated with a more experienced, competitive alliance. When the competitive alliance has an opening, a more experienced member from the trainer alliance is given the chance to switch into the higher level alliance.