How to choose and lead an alliance
An alliance is the thing I put off longest when I was starting out in Goodgame Empire – and to this day I consider it my biggest beginner mistake. You can play solo, but it's a grind: on your own you can't hold off a wave of attacks, and you spend years climbing while people in a good alliance move up like they're on a conveyor belt. An alliance gives you protection, donations, research, war buddies and trade you'd never crawl your way to otherwise. I've written down here what I wish I'd known back then – how to pick the right crew, and if you're leading your own, how not to run it into the ground within three days.
Why not to play solo (speaking from my own experience)
On your own, you're just easy prey for every bigger player. Robber Barons plunder your resources, your neighbours squeeze you dry before every event, and you have nobody to message to come help you with your defence. I know it well – for the first few weeks I told myself I'd build my castle up quietly on my own, and it ended up with one more active neighbour helping himself to my storehouse like it was his own pantry. There was absolutely nothing I could do about it. Sound familiar?
Once you get into a decent alliance, you breathe completely differently. There's a tag glowing above your name and people think twice about attacking, because they know retaliation will come flying in from another twenty players.
Concretely, an alliance gives you straight away: alliance bonuses (more resources, faster construction, better production – the exact values depend on the alliance level), shared research that you and everyone else profit from, and above all support troops. When someone sends an army at your castle, you send out a call for support and your allies cram defensive units into your castle. That's the difference between a gate that holds and a courtyard that gets looted.
Just don't treat it as a club where you'll only warm yourself by the fire. An alliance is an exchange – you take something, you give something. A dead member who only leeches bonuses and never sends support or a donation is the first one out the door. Be the one they want to keep: donations, support, communication, and your spot in the alliance is secure.
How to tell a living alliance from a dead shell
Most newbies jump into the first alliance that invites them. I did it too and it was a mistake – half the alliances in the rankings are empty husks where the leader hasn't been online for weeks. Before you say yes, check a few things: when the members were last online (ideally ask them to show you the list – if half of them are “last seen a week ago”, run), whether anyone is writing in the alliance chat, and whether they have alliance research going and the officer positions filled.
Another litmus test is member count versus ranking. An alliance filled to the last slot that sits low in the rankings usually means a lot of passive players. On the other hand, a smaller alliance that holds a high position runs on an active core – and that's where you'll learn more. Ask directly: “How many of you are on daily? Do you do joint attacks during events?” How quickly and how specifically they answer tells you whether the leadership is alive. What worked for me was judging mainly by the speed – if you're waiting two days for an answer to a simple question, you've got your answer without an answer.
And don't be swayed by a big name. Plenty of top alliances in the rankings don't run on skill but on bought rubies – they have huge castles because they poured money into them, and they overlook you as a newbie. Personally I'd always take a smaller ambitious crew that teaches you the mechanics, sends you support and takes you along on joint actions. You'll grow ten times faster there than as the last cog in a “prestigious” alliance.
Which kingdom are you actually looking in?
GGE has several kingdoms – Everwinter Glacier, Burning Sands, Fire Peaks and others – and activity varies from kingdom to kingdom. An alliance that's buzzing on the main map can have a dead presence in a side kingdom where nobody will send you support. Choose based on where you actually play. It's a simple half-minute check and it will save you a lot of nerves.
Member roles – who does what and what's expected of you
An alliance isn't just a pile of people, it runs on roles and permissions. At the top is the leader (the founder or whoever took over the sceptre), below them the deputies with the rights to invite, kick and declare wars, and then the regular members. When you join, find out what rights you have – new members usually have almost none, and that's fine, trust is built over time.
The leader and deputies divide up who's in charge of what – someone handles relations with other alliances, someone organises support during attacks, someone does recruiting. If you want to grow within the alliance, ask for a job. An active player who organises defence or welcomes newcomers on their own initiative gets to a higher rank quickly.
As a regular member you have three simple duties that will make you valued: send donations, respond to calls for support (even if it's just a few units) and write in the chat. Sounds trivial, but most members don't do it – and it's precisely the remaining ones who do that define an alliance.
Donations, research and bonuses – this is where it pays off
Donations are the simplest way to contribute. You donate straight from the alliance menu and each day you have a limit on how much you can send, so you can't catch up with one big batch at the end of the month. Better to send regularly every day – a small daily donation is worth more in the long run than one big one every now and then. What works for me is sending the donation right after logging in, before I start dealing with anything else, otherwise I reliably forget.
Different resources have different point values. I'm not 100 % sure exactly how that weighting is calculated, but the rule is that if you want to push the alliance level, send what carries more weight, not just your surplus wood.
Alliance research is a tree of upgrades paid for from alliance resources that raises production, construction speed, unit strength and defence for the whole alliance. If you have a say, push for the economic and defensive research to be taken first – everyone benefits from those immediately. Attack bonuses in my opinion only make sense once the alliance has a core of people who actually go to war.
Bonuses unlock progressively with the alliance level, so the logic is simple: the more active and generous the crew, the higher the level, the fatter the bonuses, the better the game is for everyone. That's why it's so important not to be in a dead alliance – there the bonuses freeze at zero and you're playing as if you had none at all.
Diplomacy and wars – when to fight and when to keep your mouth shut
Wars in Goodgame Empire aren't about who has the bigger ego, they're about resources and control. Before you declare or accept a war, look at it coldly: does the opponent have active defenders? Do they send each other support? A war with an alliance that knows how to defend and coordinate will bleed you dry of units faster than you manage to loot anything. On the other hand, a big passive alliance full of sleepers is an ideal target – there you'll get your units back in loot.
Diplomacy is half the success. A good alliance has non-aggression pacts agreed with strong neighbours and focuses on weaker targets. If you're in charge of relations or you lead, keep in touch with other alliances via messages – an agreed truce protects you from a second front. Nothing destroys an alliance faster than a war on three sides at once. I watched it from the outside with one neighbouring alliance and it was like watching a house of cards: first the most active ones left, then gradually everyone else.
And the basic rule for regular members: never start a war on your own behalf. One angry attack on the wrong player can bring retaliation down on the whole alliance. Before you attack someone outside an official war, ask in the chat. Discipline in attacks separates respected alliances from the ones wading every week through wars they bought for themselves.
When you're the one leading – how not to run the alliance into the ground
Leading an alliance is extra work, not a trophy. The most common way to kill one is a passive leader – as soon as you stop showing up in the chat, organising and giving people a reason to be there, your crew scatters to more active alliances. Be online as often as you can, and when you can't, delegate rights to a reliable deputy so the alliance doesn't freeze.
Set clear rules and communicate them: minimum activity (say, logging in every two days), the duty to send donations and respond to calls for support, and what happens if they're broken. Don't kick passive members without warning – write to them first, give them a chance. But when a member doesn't send even a donation for a week and ignores defence, free up the spot for someone active. Dead souls dilute the bonuses and ruin morale.
Look after newcomers better than anyone else around – send them support during attacks, explain the mechanics, take them along on joint actions. Loyalty is bought with attention, not orders. And keep up the diplomacy: a few good pacts protect you more than a double-sized army. You can tell an alliance that people don't want to leave by the fact that there's a queue for spots in it, not a recruitment drive of desperate invitations into the void.
A question I get asked a lot
“Should I leave an alliance where I have friends, but nobody plays there anymore?” This lands in my inbox probably more often than anything else. My answer: write to the leader, give it a few days, and if nothing moves, go. Bonuses in a dead alliance sit at zero, nobody will send you support, and nobody's taking your friends away from you – you can keep messaging them and by all means take them with you. Sentiment is nice, but it won't defend your castle.
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