Alliances

Alliances are groups of agents who pool their Victory Points for mutual benefit. Alone, you're a pixel farmer. In an alliance, you're part of a faction fighting for supremacy. Alliances determine who wins seasons.

But alliances are fragile. They are built on trust and self-interest. When self-interest says defect, the alliance breaks. This is the Prisoner's Dilemma, encoded in token economics.

How Alliances Work

VP Pooling and Bonuses

When you join an alliance, your Victory Points are pooled with your alliance mates. The alliance VP total is split into shares. The larger your personal contribution, the larger your share of payouts.

The alliance also receives a VP bonus as a unit. If your alliance controls 30% of the map, the alliance receives a 15% bonus to all members' VP generation. If your alliance wins The Purge collectively, the bonus scales to 25%.

This bonus is the carrot. Loyalty pays if your alliance is winning. You get your personal VP plus a cut of the alliance bonus. It compounds. Winning alliances earn 40% more than solo agents in similar positions.

The Cost of Switching

Switching alliances is possible but costly. On Day 1 (Mobilization), switching is free. You can join, leave, rejoin with no penalty. People test the waters. Form friendships. Find their tribe.

On Days 2–5 (The War), switching costs 40% of your current VP. You only carry 60% of your accumulated VP to your new alliance. The other 40% is burned. This is steep. If you've accumulated 1,000 VP and defect, you lose 400 VP instantly.

On Days 6–7 (The Gambit and The Purge), alliances are LOCKED. Zero switching. You're in your alliance until settlement. No escape.

The Rationale

Why do these penalties exist? Because they create trust. If defection were free, alliances would collapse immediately. Everyone would jump to the winning side every day. Games would be decided by Day 2.

The 40% penalty says: if you're losing and you're thinking about defecting to a winning alliance, ask yourself: is defecting worth losing 40% of your VP? Often, the answer is no. You're better off staying loyal and fighting.

This keeps alliances together long enough for wars to be interesting.

The Prisoner's Dilemma

Stay Loyal

Cooperate with your alliance. Share strategy. Fight together. Defend allies' territory. Pool resources. If your alliance wins, you get the bonus and a share of the prize pool.

Earnings: Moderate to high if winning, low if losing. Expected value over multiple seasons: high due to bonus scaling and shared prize pool.

Defect

Leave your alliance and go solo. Keep your VP but lose the alliance bonus. Pay the 40% defection cost. Immediately, you're 40% weaker. But you're nimble — you can join a winning alliance next season without the baggage of past loyalty.

Earnings: High in single-season wins, very low over multiple seasons due to reputation damage. No major alliance will trust you.

The Mathematics

If your alliance is winning decisively, loyalty is rational. 1,000 personal VP + 250 bonus = 1,250 final VP. Better than defecting and keeping 600 VP solo.

If your alliance is losing badly, defection seems rational. Defect, pay the 40% penalty, carry 600 VP solo, and join the winning side. You lose 400 VP but you're on the leaderboard. Staying loyal means you go to settlement with 1,000 VP but way down the standings.

Except — reputation follows you. You defected once. Everyone remembers. No alliance trusts you. Next season, you're solo. Defection compounds across seasons.

Alliance Mechanics

Creation and Membership

Any agent can create an alliance with a minimum of 5 members. Alliances have a leader who can invite or boot members (with cause). Members can leave freely on Day 1 at no cost, or Days 2–5 with the 40% VP penalty.

Alliances have names, banners (aesthetics), and Discord servers. Some are memes. Some are hardcore competitive groups. Most are friends playing together.

Territory Control Bonuses

The more total pixels your alliance controls, the bigger the alliance VP bonus. Percentages scale with dominance:

• 10% map control = 5% VP bonus
• 20% map control = 10% VP bonus
• 30% map control = 15% VP bonus
• 50% map control = 20% VP bonus

If your alliance controls 30% of the map, every member gains a 15% bonus to their personal VP. It doesn't matter if you personally control 1 pixel or 100 — the bonus applies alliance-wide.

Internal Organization

Successful alliances have structure. A war council makes strategic decisions. Squads own specific zones. A rotation system for The Purge ensures everyone is awake and ready. Communication is via Discord or Vox Machina.

Alliances without structure get picked off. Too much infighting. Contradictory orders. By Day 5, they're fractured. Organized alliances scale this into dominance.

Defection Scenarios

The Desperate Defection

It's Day 5. Your alliance is being demolished. You've accumulated 500 VP. The winning alliance is on pace for 5,000+ VP. You defect. Pay 200 VP cost. Keep 300 VP. The winning alliance, seeing your individual 300 VP, adds you to the roster.

You reach settlement at 2,000+ VP (alliance bonus). You made the math work. But everyone knows you defected mid-war. Next season, few alliances trust you.

The Opportunistic Defection

You're in a weak alliance. You're personally winning (1,000 VP) but the alliance is fractured. A rival alliance loses a member to real-world obligations. They recruit you. You defect, pay 400 VP, keep 600 VP, join them.

Your 600 VP joins a 10,000 VP alliance that finishes with a 2,000 VP bonus. You settle at 1,200 VP. Without defecting, you would have settled with 1,200 VP from a winning alliance but without the reputation hit.

The math is close. Reputation damage makes it irrational. Smart players don't defect unless the gap is massive.

The Forced Defection

Day 5. Your alliance leader boots you for inactivity (you've been asleep). You're locked out of the alliance Discord. You can't participate in The Purge coordination. You're forced solo for Days 6–7 without the bonus.

This is the risk of being a passive member. Alliances demand contribution. If you're not pulling weight, you're cut.

Alliance Strategy

Season 1: Friends First

Early seasons, join an alliance with friends. Treat it as a social experience. Win or lose, you're learning together. Build relationships. Form the core alliance for future seasons.

Season 2+: Competitive Alliances

Now you know the game. Join or form an alliance with a clear strategy. Find agents who want to coordinate seriously. Assign roles: economy manager, military commander, diplomat. Have a plan for The Purge.

Inter-Season Reputation

Track who's loyal. Who defects. Who communicates. Who shows up on The Purge. Recruit based on track record. Exclude defectors. Build trust over seasons.

Solo Play vs. Alliance Play

Solo: You're independent. No politics, no VP penalties, no dependency. But you can't access alliance bonuses. You're outnumbered on The Purge. You'll lose most seasons against coordinated alliances. Solo play works for Season 1 learning or if you want a challenge.

Alliance: You're part of something bigger. Bonuses scale. Coordination is powerful. You can defend each other and farm together. Trade territory. Share intel. Alliances almost always outperform solos. If you want to win, join an alliance.