Tips And Tricks

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Tips for Leaders

Regardless of your goals going into the event, the time may come when you have to step up as a leader in your community. Leadership is a tough skill to master, and it will take time to understand how to balance the multiple conflicting interests and personal goals of all of the people in your community. This section is not meant to guide players into any particular leadership style, this section is primarily to point out past pitfalls and mistakes of leaders in past experiments so that players can learn from these mistakes and hit the ground running faster than if they had to figure out everything themselves. We'll briefly lay out some common mistakes and challenges here, starting with the most common pitfall we've seen in the past: Larping.

Larping

Larping has been the downfall of many groups, especially in the early game. What we refer to as "larping" is the establishment of political and economic systems for aesthetics sake, or because of a real world affinity for these systems. Because players are people who live in the real world, they will bring real life conceptions about governance and economics with them, and will find it natural to set up systems in the game world that they are familiar with from real life. However, these systems are NOT designed to be implemented in Minecraft, and commonly lead to the collapse of the communities who attempt to implement them 1:1.

In order to avoid a collapse due to a "larp" system, as a leader you should ask yourself: What are the immediate problems of my community? (Are we facing a food shortage? Do we need protection from other groups? Are players getting bored in our community?). The political and economic systems you adopt should directly solve these problems.

Balancing Contradictions

There are many contradictions that you'll have to deal with and balance as a leader. The biggest contradiction will most likely be: the needs of the group vs the enjoyment of the players. There are many many more than just this contradiction, but we'll look into it and a few more here to give leaders an idea of things they'll have to pay attention to and balance.

Enjoyment vs Necessity

There are many boring jobs that are very important to the survival of the group such as: Farming, Mining, Organizing Storage, etc. Some members of your group will find these actions fun, and some will find them very dull. Its up to you as a leader to balance these needs. After all, the players in your community could very well leave your community to join another group, or just leave the game altogether if they're not having fun. Entertainment is a big need for societies in Minecraft, just as they are in the real world (however, not for the same reasons). Since Minecraft is a game, if people aren't enjoying their time in your group, they have the power to simply leave. On the other hand, if your players are taking time to do fun stuff, they're not doing the boring tasks that keep the society functioning. Its up to you as a leader to balance this contradiction and to not fall too far to one side or else your community will collapse.

Progression vs Protection

The same materials which are used to craft the special Anvils which let you unlock new tiers in material progression are the same materials which you need to forge armor and weapons to defend yourself and your community. Because of this, you need to make a choice as a leader: Do you use the ingots you have now for weapons and armor to protect yourself from other groups, or do you use those ingots to make higher tiered anvils to hopefully one day be able to forge even higher tier weapons and armor. If at any point you have the material edge over other communities around the map, it may be better to invest resources into weapons and armor to launch a preemptive strike while you have the technological advantage instead of continuing to invest in new anvils. Remember: you can be attacked at any time. The other groups do not need a good roleplay reason to attack you first. Sometimes offensive is the best defense. If you have peaceful relations with other communities, it may be best to continue progressing to increasing your productive potential. The choice is yours, but make sure you balance progression and protection, because invest too much in protection at the wrong time, and you'll fall behind other groups. Invest too much in progression at the wrong time, and you could be scattered into the wind and have to start from square one.

Beauty vs Utility

People love making beautiful builds for fun in Minecraft. This game gives players a lot of freedom in how they can create. In this event beautiful builds also serve a practical purpose. Having the nicest looking town makes it more attractive to players. There will be many times when communities collapse and groups of players will have to migrate. If you're community has beautiful builds, it gives these migrating players confidence that your town has their stuff together and could be a nice group to join. It also gives pride to the players in your own community. Humans naturally enjoy aesthetic beauty and will be more willing to stay in a town that looks good. On the other hand, spending a lot of time building will slow down production in other areas such as mining, which could possibly open up your town to the risk of being invaded if you can't keep up technologically. Communities which build with utility first will have more time to spend digging up ores and expanding farms. Its up to you as a leader to balance the beauty of your buildings with the utility of your buildings in order to avoid falling behind or losing out on new players.

Diplomacy and War

In an experiment where nations do not need admin permission to go to war an attack could come at any time, even from groups who you thought were your ally. When analyzing the threats that other groups pose to your community, always analyze the situation through the lens of power. Even if you have nominally good relations with another group, or believe that the leader of another group is a good person, always be prepared for a quick evacuation and make plans concerning what to do in an attack such as: What spot in the town do we rally to if we're under attack? If we flee, where will we group back up at? Etc. Always bear in mind the balance of power of the nations around you, and make sure that you have adequate treaties and agreements with neighbors in the case of an attack.

When to Fight and When to Flee?

Combat in this experiment is risky, especially if your community is unable to revive people. Before entering combat, its best to weigh your odds of victory. If you think there's an above average chance that you may not win a battle, DO NOT FIGHT. Only ever take battles where YOU have the advantage, if it can be helped.

How to organize your group in combat

Minecraft PVP can become very unorganized. The group which can stay together will typically win. Even if the battle is 50 players vs 50 players, this will typically divulge into multiple smaller duels ranging from 1v1s to 5v5s. By staying together in groups of 5 and targeting the same player as your teammates, you can turn those smaller 5v5s into 5v1s, which will ensure your victory. A system which has worked well is the Officer system. An army is split into multiple trusted officers. The other players in the army will then follow these trusted officers and stay as close as possible to them, while trying to hit the same players whom the officers are attacking. This leads to less confusion over who are allies and who are enemies, and leads to more advantageous smaller engagements within the over all battle.