The alliance play format is not very popular at the moment. This is mostly due to lack of players, but I can foresee a great future for it, like in many other games. The plus side of EVE is that you don't have to share a body of a two-headed giant, you just share a home region. To get more out of it than just sharing regions with your alliance partner, you will have to take a different approach to both deck building and the way you play your cards. With this article, I would like to give some hints and tips for your next (or maybe even your first) alliance match.

Your first step should be the planning of your strategy and your decks. The key is to combine the strategies of more than one deck so that they work well together; always have in mind that you want to destroy your opponents' alliance and not hinder your own. The better your synergy is (not just in your own deck, but with all the decks of your alliance members) the higher your advantage over your opponents will be. If you’re unsure of where to begin, Ian's first article can give you some great insight into synergistic decks.

As I already mentioned, all alliance members share one home region. Furthermore your starbases count as a single large one, with the combined shields of the individual towers protecting your home region. When it comes to towers, use the rule of thumb: every time it says “player” in the alternative win conditions, consider it being “alliance.” The exception would be Enthrallment Tower, because alliance members don't share their wallets. The nice thing about the Enthrallment Tower is that it hurts all your opponents’ wallets, and by claiming all friendly outer regions for just one turn, you can get the maximum out of upgrading your starbase.

Another nice multiplayer tower is the Empiric Tower, especially when all your alliance members concentrate on ships with the patrol command. You can even add a second Empiric Tower into the mix for some serious attack strength—but keep in mind that your opponents get that bonus as well.

Finding outer regions for your alliance decks might be tricky, due to the fact that no region can be played twice. So in a 3v3 you might end up stuck very fast, because all your regions are already played by other players. Try not to double up on regions in your alliance’s decks. If the need arises, you can switch the control of regions for the next turn to distribute income or use their abilities, i.e. rush ships with Lonetrek or draw a card from your scrapheap with Sansha's Nation.

While assembling your deck, keep an eye on the wording of the cards: “all opponents“ and “all friendly” are way more important during an alliance game than during a duel or other non-team formats. For example: Oneiros will grant a +4 to shields to all ships of your alliance member in the same region, which comes in quite handy.

During alliance matches you are allowed to communicate with your fellow members during the game and I very much encourage you to do so. Lost Deliveries will do your partners no good, unless he has news (Impending Doom, New Assembly Technique, etc.) or other means (Labor Quarters) to counter it while your enemies are supposed to suffer from it.

Creating team decks gives you a lot of opportunities. You can distribute all the cards across several decks: One member plays 4 Sentry Gun and the other plays 4 EMP Minefields, which will be a good defense for your combined starbases. Keep in mind, though, that the bonuses granted by starbase structures are not shared amongst each other.

You can even specialize your decks even further. One member concentrates on news/control cards, while the other plays a lot of ships and the third has a lot of structures. The possibilities are almost endless!

That is it for now. If you have any feedback on the article or alliance play in general, feel free to start a discussion. Your feedback is very much welcomed, because the alliance rules have been made by the community, for the most part, and could still need a bit of clarification and ironing out. After all, this is a community driven game, so participate in it!

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