Small is beautiful

I made this post on EVE's infamous Corporation, Alliance and Organisation (CAOD) forums about a week ago and thought I would share it here. It is slightly out of date now, primarily because things can change very rapidly - especially for smaller organisations - in the EVE universe.

Was looking at the Alliance Ranking thingy - http://www.eve-maps.com/outpostalert/alliancerank.asp?SortType=Number - and as I have seen some debates recently about how 'big' an alliance has to be to claim some 0.0 decided to investigate the lower reaches of the table.

This is what I have found:

Smallest Sov Holding Alliances
1) Coded Arms Alliance - 1 sov system - 28 members
2) Crimson Dawn Alliance - 2 sov systems - 44 members
3) Blind Aces - 7 sov systems - 47 members
4) Gay4Life - 1 sov system - 55 members
5) Slammers Republic - 1 sov system - 57 members
6) Felony 13 - 2 sov systems - 59 members
7) Sparta - 2 sov systems - 64 members
8) Uni****- 1 sov system - 66 members
9) Immortalis Inc. Alliance - 2 sov systems - 69 members
10) Sex Drugs And Rock'N'Roll - 2 sov systems - 81 members

Smallest Outpost Holders
1) Event Horizon - 11 sov systems - 1 Outpost - 135 members
2) Soviet Mercenary - 12 sov systems - 1 Outpost - 172 members
3) BeachBoys - 5 sov systems - 1 Outpost - 207 members
4) INTERDICTION - 1 sov system - 1 Outpost - 262 members
5) RED.Overlord - 68 sov systems - 13 Outposts - 373 members
6) Cold Steel Alliance - 6 sov systems - 3 Outposts - 406 members
7) Stain Empire - 18 sov systems - 5 Outposts - 444 members
8) Aegis Militia - 6 sov systems - 2 Outposts - 446 members
9) Kraftwerk - 22 sov systems - 4 Outposts - 485 members
10) Legion of xXDEATHXx - 82 sov systems - 14 Outposts - 528 members

Smallest Constellation (Sov Lvl 4) Holders

1) Cold Steel Alliance - 1 Const - 406 members
2) Kraftwerk - 1 Const - 485 members
3) Legion of xXDEATHXx - 1 Const -528 members
4) C0VEN - 1 Const - 549 members
5) Paxton Federation - 1 Const - 632 members
6) SOLAR FLEET - 1 Const - 721 members
7) KIA Alliance - 2 Const - 788 members
8) Sylph Alliance - 1 Const - 813 members
9) The Initiative. - 1 Const - 918 members
10) Sev3rance - 1 Const - 1047 members

And finally... a largest list...

Largest alliances with no sov claims whatsoever
1) Ivy league - 1079 members
2) Dead Mans Hand - 685 members
3) Veritas Immortalis - 655 members
4) Minor Threat. - 641 members
5) Axiom Empire - 598 members
6) OWN Alliance - 550 members
7) New Eden Research - 525 members
8) Alternative Realities - 511 members
9) Eradictation Alliance - 475 members
10) The Council. - 471 members

I think this clearly demonstrates that the ability to obtain and hold sov is just as dependent on the ability of an alliance's leadership to work politically/diplomatically with other organisations as it is to simply have large numbers or military capability.

Of course large numbers and military capability does provide negotiating leverage - but that is not always necessary!