The Total War Community: tools laid out for use by your clan

Noble Total Warriors,

How do you all do? Some of you may know me, others may not, I am LoneSoldier of Arcani. Arcani and I, and more recently GrailKnights as well, have been pursuing a new arrangement of the clans in Total War. I will be as brief and to the point here as possible so everyone can be clear on what’s going on without reading a huge essay.

What we seek is simple: to bring together the clans of M2 that are of like-mind and character. When I say of like-mind and character, I mean those clans that share a similar membership and similar ideas about what the Total War experience should be. There have been many groups around that have tried to bring together the community, and all have failed, and all will continue to fail...for one simple reason: they do not offer what the people want, and their goals are too grand and convoluted. What we are pursuing is simple, and more importantly, it is effective. The thing that sets this endeavour apart from others is very simple. We do not wish to create something new. We endeavour to give tools and a more efficient and effective infrastructure to a community that has already existed for a long time. We do not want any other goals apart from creating a more enjoyable communal experience to cloud our efforts. Everything we do is done simply to provide the community with options in how they choose to pursue their TW experience. Want to get a game of med2 in? Not sure who’s on? Load up X-fire and you will have every member of every clan you PREFER to play with summed up at a glance. Or maybe you like msn messenger to organize your gametime? Is it Sunday already? Well if it is there will be an ongoing casual tournament all-day Sunday with games every 2 hours. The teams will be mixed so if you don’t have any clanmates on it doesn’t matter you will still find some bloody epic fun. And everybody will be on the shared vent server so that just adds to the fun of those Sunday casual tournaments. Rules will be new every week and will be totally flexible as they are simply a guideline. These are simple examples of what we offer. We do not want politics, we do not want Alliances, we do not want to modeate nonsensical make-believe wars, we do not want anything but to HAVE MORE FUN and bring the people together. Our methodology is simple, and it is passive and easy to maintain. It is there to give you more options with things YOU DO ANYWAYS and it will bridge the gaps between like-minded clans and make for a community with a stronger infrastructure. Once it is in place, the people looking for quality games and good friends will have actual tools at their disposal that are easy and simple to take advantage of.
(quick side note) In RTW this was not as urgent as it is now (as in RTW the lobbies were always filled to the brim) In M2 the community element has shrunk considerably and without concrete steps taken to inspire the good fun that was once abundant and is now a bit harder to find at times, we will lose out to some extent.

And more on the mission statement is this: You played TW before joining a clan. You joined a clan. Your TW experience increased in enjoyment after having joined a clan. Why? Because it brought you and others of like-mind and character together, and bridged gaps of communication between you and other players you would enjoy sharing your gaming experience with. Now we are all in clans. But just as we were all once disjointed as individuals, so too are we now disjointed as clans. There is minimal communication through the CCS and through embassies/forums etc (I say minimal because it is never more than 20% of a clan’s membership that pursues communication through those venues). And lobby discussion is good, but also minimal in many ways. So, we have come up with an arrangement that will bridge the gaps between the clans that want to have the gaps between then bridged. More importantly, the gaps will be bridged in a way that will take minimal effort on the part of the membership of each clan, and the rewards will be great.

There are countless things the people in clans do daily, and it is there that our methodology finds it’s foundation. Other groups have you work to reap the rewards of a stronger community. We work (and it honestly does not take a huge volume of work as compared with some other groups) so that you do not have to. The venues of communication are: msn messenger lists of members by clan; an x-fire guild that makes x-fire communication simple and easy; a ventrilo server that is free for all member clans; and a forum for group discussion for those topics that need to be kept in forum format. The primary methods of linking the people will be the x-fire guild, the msn messenger lists, and the ventrilo server. The rewards enjoyed by those that choose to take advantage of this arrangement will be: special tournaments arranged so as to maximize fun and inter-clan friendship (all members, not just the most senior 10%); great friendships that have always had the potential to grow, but never had the infrastructure there to allow it; and countless other things.

So there you have it. As for the following steps should you choose to take them: we have a ventrilo server up and running, a forum also up and running, msn lists in the process of being compiled, and an x-fire guild that has been set up. We will need your membership’s x-fire list so we can add them to the x-fire guild we have going. We will provide you with the ventrilo information, forum address, and with the msn contact list we will be compiling. Any and all important communications will be brought to your forum so you do not need to worry about staying up to date on anything. By next Sunday the membership will be strong enough to support the first casual tournament, so let us act quickly here and now.

I will make a post immediately following this one with the posts I have made in the GrailKnights forum that will give those that want to read it a chance to see the evolution of the concept. But it is more or less summed up here all of the things that are essential tot he concept so you do not need to read through that whole bit (most of which was posted in the Arcani embassy here anyway).

Good day all... I look forward to getting in more games with you all, and getting to know more of you. I say that on behalf of the other Arcani, and the noble clan of the GrailKnights as well.

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*clears throat*ahem*



Fellow combattants of Total War, I am honoured to introduce myself to such a distinguished group of men/women.

My name is LoneSoldier of Arcani.

I am the diplomat of Arcani and am tremendously pleased to have the opportunity to get to know each and every one of you. Let me first say, hats off to Beli to acknowledge his fine performance as the Arcani diplomat. Filling his shoes will be tough indeed (in spite of the fact that my feet are rather large).

The possibilites this arrangement offers are not lost on me. We are people from across the world, joined together by a common bond. We are the noble combattants in a quite unique saga. We do what needs to be done, in order to lay claim to titles of honour and respect. On the road to these titles, and on the way to earning the trust, friendship, and respect of our fellow fighters, we create something truly spectacular: an online community. Between us exists little else but walls and distances. We are geographically separated, and culturally divided. Yet in spite of all this, we feel the prescence of one another and welcome each other with such warmth as to deny the existince of those distances and differences. Together we bridge those gaps, and form a phenomenon like no other. The online community we have so unwittingly created with our inherent lack of prejudice in this rare yet priceless medium of TW presents us with endless possibilities and bottomless rewards. Together, with the simple continuation and natural extension of what we are already doing, we can explore some very intriguing possibilities. Here lies the potential of our arrangement. And I am fortunate to have the opportunity to meet all of you. I can't wait to open lines of discourse with each and every one of you, and to take Total War multiplayer into the next era of its existence.


Glory be to Arcani, Glory be to us all.


I am terribly sorry for not having been here in a little while. My schedule has been absolutely nasty to be perfectly frank.

I come today with a long overdue message. I have spoken with you all in regards to creating stronger ties between two clans so blatantly compatible. Arcani and the GrailKnights are strong, and they are honourable. This is not rhetoric, it is the truth. Our men are skilled and they are good sports in all regards.

So a situation exists in which there is great potential. In the same way GrailKnights deal with fellow GrailKnights and further their enjoyment of Total War further than individual play would have gained them, so too can inter-clan dealings further that enjoyment still.

So, I will now come to a point which I have alluded to many a time. I have droned on about taking concrete steps to strengthen the ties that bind us, yet have not come with any of those ideas and suggestions, until now. The reason for this delay is I have been coordinating efforts with several clans to try and time the initial relation building so that the same point was reached with several different clans. That time has finally arrived and I am prepared to unveil the next phase of my efforts.

Whenever two great and noble clans become great friends, the word 'Alliance' is always nearby. But such things, in the opinion of the Arcani are not to be taken lightly. Too often Alliances become mere rhetorical catch-phrases and are left to the wayside. An Alliance is only worthwhile if there are to be tangible benefits gained from it.

Now, things such as war and aggression are tiresome and childish. So what then could some tangible benefits of an Alliance be? Those benefits are as follows: good fun, comradery, and exploiting a situation which is beneficial to all. What this means is that an Alliance would mean working to create an inter-clan link so strong that the same enjoyment as GrailKnights feel when playing with fellow GrailKnights is extended when GrailKnights play Arcani. Shared public vent servers, regular games, hotseat campaigns, private tournaments, the list goes on and on. Include to the GrailKnights and Arcani, clans such as the Dragons, the WoC, etc. and you begin to see what I endeavor to create. A sort of Grand Alliance of the Honourable which exists only to further the enjoyment of those worthy of participating in games where honour and sportsmanship are paramount. Many men coming together that can be relied upon to further the enjoyment of all. Creative methods of making the Total War experience more enjoyable would be possible and very effective. It strikes me as a worthy goal and one we should work towards.

When I said in my first post something to the effect of 'the potential of this arrangement is tremendous' I had concrete goals in mind. Unfortunately my schedule had not allowed me to really work towards those goals in as timely a manner as I would have liked. Now I am devoting more of my time to further this pursuit and taking less time elsewhere in my Total War time.

So, I will leave you now with an offer. Before we can create so grand a plan as I have laid out there (briefly), we need to lay the foundations. The basics are there as the GrailKnights and Arcani know each other quite well. Now let us move to tightening those bonds before we proceed any further down the road.

Arcani will be organizing a private arrangement between a small handful of clans. This arrangement will manifest itself in several ways, each with the express purpose of maximizing communication between clans and strengthening the ties that already bind us. Let us pave the inroads. What say you, gallant GrailKnights?


Good men of GrailKnights! How do you all do?

I come to you today to clarify the intentions of Arcani in regards to the pursuit of Alliance. We have seen war, and we have seen peace. We have seen Alliances, we have seen bitter rivals. So, when we speak of our beliefs, they are firmly founded in experience. Wartime Alliances serve a purpose other than what we are pursuing at the moment. Too often ‘Alliances’ become mere words, used to increase the grandiosity of various posts in times of war and to enlist support in lobbies in a hostile fashion against another clan or group of clans. When the hostilities cease to exist, the Alliances invariably cease to serve a purpose. During periods of peace, much the same thing happens. There is a very intense beginning and eventually these grand ideals of ‘Alliance’ fall to the wayside and casual friendships take their place. The very same friendships that would continue to exist all the same should the Alliance be removed.

Our intent behind pursuing a long-term peacetime Alliance is careful thought out. We do not seek to become embroiled in wars, although our support against any dishonourable action against our Allies will be eternally firm. We wish this Alliance to serve a concrete peacetime purpose, and the tools with which the Alliance will hopefully operate will be effective and efficient in achieving its desired purpose. The desired purpose I speak of is, quite simply, to create a steady line of communication between the various honourable clans of Total War and to utilize that and other tools to increase the enjoyment the members take from their Total War experience.

Just as the enjoyment of the individual is increased when he shares his Total War experience with those he calls clanmates, so too shall the enjoyment of the clans themselves be increased when they share their Total War experience with other clans. So, the end goal, as it should now be plain to see, is a sort of consortium of clans which will utilize a central hub to coordinate their Total War experience and come up with creative and well thought-out plans to have more fun. Shared ventrilo servers, hotseat campaigns, special private tournaments, and a huge amount of other possibilities become very practical, and can be put in place efficiently and effectively.

Now, you have all been very supportive of the notions of ‘Alliance’ so let us speak of laying down the foundations to that bright future I have alluded to many times. So grand are the ideals, and so large is the scope, that to begin in haste would jeapordize the end-product. I have deliberately moved very slowly in taking the steps that have brought us here. Friendships take time to develop as it is. Links as deep as those I endeavor to create will take not only time, but actual work.

So, with each of us acutely aware of our destination, namely a Grand Alliance of the various honourable clans of Total War, let us begin on this path together. GrailKnights and Arcani have now been united, so let us continue onwards and upwards. I will speak to you next of my suggestions on appropriate first steps. The purpose of these first steps will be to increase and sustain communication between not only the senior officers of our respective clans, but our entire membership as well. So shall the dark night give way to the cool dawn, and so shall the dawn give way to a bright new day of glorious warmth and sunshine.

For glory brave GrailKnights!

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Allllllllllrighty then!!
How has everyone been doing? Hope you didn’t think I forgot about you all. To sum up whats been going on, I’ve been ridiculously busy in my personal life and haven’t had any time for one of my more enjoyable past-times, namely gaming and all that it entails. But my schedule has loosened a wee bit so I have come to finalize some things I definitely did not want to leave unfinished. I want this to be the final message I post before we put into place all I had been speaking of for ages now. So that if I become tied up again, the majority of the work will be done and laid out. I will be available for thenext few weeks definitely, but after that I’m not so sure.

Now, I believe in perfect transparency, so I will go through what I’ve done and what I would like to do, and why and how. I speak in regards to this whole inter-clan community thing I’ve been droning on about for ages.

My intention at first, when I had 20 free hours a day (year or 2 ago now) was to create a pillar for the community to rally around. Something similar to the totalwar.com or .org, but something specifically dedicated to multiplayer. Hopefully something that would have grown to become something as universally shared as the .com or the .org are for singleplayers, only for the multiplayers. I had great plans and ideas to make it work where others had failed. It would have taken a great deal of time. But the issue at that point in time was that I am also part of a very determined clan, Arcani. We have, every single day, a tremendous amount that happens beneath the surface in our internal affairs. This ranges from training, to planning, to setting up streaming video for tournaments, to developing new ground for future stability. Arcani is a large part of why I am still part of Total War. I played the feces out of M1, RTW and M2, and were it not for the great passion the clan experience arouses in me, I would have long since jumped ship to another game (Company of Heroes for one ). So, my plan for laying the foundation for this central-hub-website for the multiplayer scene was put on hold until we at Arcani had firmly laid down roots in M2. Once that was done, I would be able to focus on the whole central-hub idea.

That’s where the problems began. I very quickly began to see just how much time and dedication it would take to do it alone. So it got brushed aside until I could find help or come up with a better idea. Months later, I was approached by Mojo and the others for that whole medievalMPmayhem.com thing. I saw that as a great opportunity. Their vision was the same, they had the site already half done, and the team was good it seemed. So I threw my lot in with them and tried to rally the other admins and get everybody organized. Then Mojo died. But he was soon resurrected and everybody went looking for eggs some bunny had mischievously hidden in the area. Well, needless to say, that really took the fire out of an already waning site. And again, my plans were dashed.

And so, I became discouraged. I had been told by many people how a whole bunch of times this had all been attempted before and how it had failed time and time again and I was starting to see exactly why it had failed all those times. The plans were too grand, the goals and methodology too complicated, and the people behind it were not willing to do what was necessary. But I had some things going for me the others did not. Dogged determination, the ability to adapt my vision to what would work, and the ability to put into place a common sense approach to overcome obstacles in light of lessons learned through experience.

And this brings me to my most recent endeavour. I decided that the only foundation that would work was one that had already been laid and reinforced countless times. Trying to emulate it elsewhere was futile. So I thought about it and figured out a way to make that foundation work for me. The foundation I speak of is the inter-personal arrangement the multiplayer community already has. We have clans, but beyond that, there have been for many years channels of communication that link these clans to one another. The community already exists, so it would be futile to try to create another one. Like-minded clans already know one another, and already have systems in place to share their gaming experience. We just need to use those more effectively.

So you may wonder why go through this whole bother in the first place? The answer is very simple and I would very much appreciate it if you would read this and truly try to understand why. A game in and of itself is enjoyable. Total War is fun, otherwise we wouldn’t be playing it. But why are we in clans? Quite simply it is because it takes the fun we would have otherwise, and heightens it through a bit of organization to something that becomes a VERY different experience than playing solo in the lobbies could ever be (so, many of us stick around for the clan experience, not just the game itself). Now the way in which the clan experience does this is it brings together like-minded individuals who have similar preferences when it comes to how they choose to spend their Total War hours. These people come together and work as a unit. When they work as a unit it allows a great many things to become possible: long-term friendships; competitive tournament teamplay on a scale and intensity that would be IMPOSSIBLE without the clan element; and just simply having an infrastructure in place to support what we heavy-duty gamers want and desire.
But that is already in place. What I seek is to take all of things that heighten the solo MP experience to the clan experience, and extend them to the clan experience, so that it can be heightened to a level which has, quite frankly, never been realized. The potential has always been there, it was one of the first things I experienced when I first joined Arcani. Everybody seemed to know everybody else, but everyone was so fragmented. Every clan had fun within itself with say 5-20 active on the fields and 10-40 active on the forums. To bridge the gaps between the like-minded clans would create a network of hundreds of like-minded individuals. A great glorious day was within reach, but nobody was really pushing for it. I thought, how glorious would it be to realize what was so easy to do. The reason I say it would be easy is because TW has a way of bringing from out the shadows a superior class of gamer (in regards to maturity and dedication). So, with so fine a breed of gamer hounding the vicinity, all we would need to do would be to build something that would work WITH the nature of the beast and all would sort itself out. The project would take on a life all of its own and we would just need to keep pace.

So this brings me to the details. I say work WITH the nature of the beast because, one thing I have found is you cannot expect people to work too hard when it comes to telling them how to have their fun. You have to lay it at their feet in a place they would go regardless of whether or not you laid it there to begin with. You need to make it as simple and easy as possible. If you don’t, it will fail, as every other endeavour has and will continue to do.

So I chose to make it happen without creating a single thing that did not already exist. Also, I did not want to bring together everybody, only those that shared the mind-set the other Arcani and I have: mature, laid-back, and fun. We seek nothing more than good friends, good games, comradery, and good-humoured competition. So, those that should take part in this communal element should be those that share our ideals. My idea had morphed over time and was no longer meant to be a grand all-encompassing community hub, but rather, a nice lounge in the corner, where like-minded individuals could come and share their TW experience.
So I took the first steps. I decided to use a small control group and make it happen with them before taking the whole thing mainstream. If the system would work with the control group, it would work with the whole kit-and-kabootle (or whatever the spelling is there ). I would take the whole, and shrink it as far as possible while still maintaining all the properties of the whole. Once it was working and running, it would just be a matter of adding others to it, as the system would already be in place. I decided to pick 2-5 clans that were of like-mind to Arcani and make it happen with them first. Those clans are: the Warriors of Crom, the GrailKnights, the Dragons, the 4Horsemen, and the Brethren (BRO). As soon as the system was in place we could move to add other clans and just sit back and watch it grow.
So I maintained embassies with those clans as a priority in my diplomatic pursuits and made sure everyone was after the same thing in their clan experience and that I hadn’t chosen the wrong group of guys. I hadn’t.
So, this brings me to the heart of the matter. Where to from here? I said at the start of this whole piece I want to get this into its final form a bit so that if I leave again for a month or two that the steam won’t die with my going. I’m here for a little while, so let’s hammer this thing out and get it on its feet.

Things that won’t work:
1) Politics – We do not join clans to manage ourselves as individual units within the clan. We do not need clans for that. We join clans because we want to share, and bring down barriers. So this whole pursuit here should continue with that. Just as clans bridge the individuals, so too should this pursuit bridge those clans. As such, we must be sure not to call this an Alliance, or bring inter-clan politics of any nature into it. Rivalries and disputes are to be tended to by the individual clans themselves. This pursuit is as a lounge, where we come to have fun, not to break into groups and discuss terms over rivalries.
2) An Agenda – There can be no agenda. We need this to be as simple as possible. We are not out to reshape the TW multiplayer circuit. We just want to lay down things that people can use in their day-to-day gaming in the same spirit that the clan experience gives them options with their individual gameplay.
3) Complexity – People are lazy. And in their leisure time, the lazy-factor increases exponentially. Everything we put down in regards to tools and options given to the clans and the clan’s membership must be easy and straightforward. It must be as simple a thing as adding people on msn from a pre-typed list; an extra ventrilo login address saved into ventrilo; having game-names in the lobbies start with special characters that denote they are on of “our’s”, etc etc.
4) Centralization – This is the pursuit of no one clan, and no one man. This will only work if it is given as tools and options to people universally (within the clans that are members). All are equals, and as there should, ideally, never be any decisions to make as it is all a big passive arrangement, the whole governance thing shouldn’t become an issue.
5) Active content - This must be something that exists passively in the background, to be used when people want to, and not have it thrust at them.
6) A COMPLETE lack of governance – While the arrangement of the goals and methodology should minimize the need for governance, man is by nature a wild and crazy guy. So there will be some need for stability. If there is no stability, the whole thing will go to hell and be a big waste of time. But this must be as minimal as possible, and it needs to be as decentralized as possible to avoid useless issues.

One thing I do want to say before I leave. Initially this was meant as something to supplement a glorious clan experience in and of itself. Arcani is still going as strong as ever. But the MP scene is not what it once was with RTW. So, in view of that, let us see the need for urgency to spice things up a bit. With this we can really add some spice to what we do anyway. And when we add more and more clans to it (like-minded of course), it will really become rather vibrant.

So, let’s discuss some first steps:
These are all general blueprints I have to get the ball rolling. If for whatever reason you disagree or have a better or different idea, DO NOT HESITATE to propose it. As I said before, this is to be decentralized. What the people want, the people shall receive.
1) Common ventrilo server – this has long been a central item. Communication is central to everything. What would your clan experience be if you had no voice-comm, or if you had no msn contact?
2) Central forum – embassies will work for the time being. But we very quickly need a way to bridge the gap for forum discussion between the member clans. I was thinking either approach the CCS guys and try to get a subforum made with a password on it, or use the Arcani site and make a subforum there with a password on it. And keep that until we get a huge membership big enough to justify having it’s own site, Or another idea, which may be outstanding....start a thread in the totalwar.com forums MP section and ask for it to be stickied? That could be great.
3) Msn/X-fire lists – As I mentioned countless times before, communication is key. The point of this is not to bridge the officers and leaders and diplomats of each clan, but every single member within it.
4) Publicity – This can only come after we’ve got the groundwork laid out. Once we have a good, simple, and COMPLETE system in place, we can add others to it, within the walls we create.

So that is a good place to start. The msn/xfire lists we can compile now, so it would be good if someone would volunteer to put one together for each clan, I can do it for Arcani and can put it all together for the whole group once each is submitted. The vent server will need discussion. The forum will also.