Now I know what you're thinking, but do read before responding 
What's a major problem with the game at present? A lack of targets, a lack of alliances and competition, and a general stagnation of ranks and play. The top alliance wins, and is forced to just sit there for the entire round, unless they want to abandon their friends and all they've worked so hard for, and ranks 2-4 are forced to batten down the hatches and play very defensively, unless they want to quit/restart and give up on what they've put so much effort into, and abandon their friends.
The result is alot of the game's most active and committed players are tied up being able to interact very little with the game.
Just from personal experience, it happens almost every round to me that I usually end up in a high-end, but non-winning alliance, and soon end up getting pretty bored of the day to day fending off rank 1 attacks, attacking players in smaller alliances with the same units week in week out, and even interacting with the same small group of players for months at a time.
The number of times I've thought I would really like to try some different/silly routes, go join some different groups, and piss around at the lower ranks, but I really don't want to abandon the people who I've worked hard with, and give up all the effort I've put into my current ID, it really makes the current system look inadequate.
But why does it have to be this way?
Because you're only allowed one ID.
And why is that the case?
Because there would be no efficient way to check for cheating (land farming, troop trading etc) if multying were allowed.
And why..... wait, hold your eggs, don't count your conclusions or jump to horses! We've just made a massive assumption here. There's no way to stop land farming and troop trading between two IDs controlled by the same account???
I have a little bit more faith in Azzer's programming skills than to say there's no way he can stop 2 IDs controlled by the same account from interacting in an illegal way.
Simply make it so 2 IDs controlled by the same account can't attack or defend each other, and can't attack or defend another ID simultaneously.
And if you really want to, make it so they can't be in the same alliance.
Suddenly, multying doesn't seem like such a crime does it? Then allow each account to have 2-3 IDs in world 1 simultaneously, et voila.
By allowing multying under these conditions, we could instantly double or treble the active player base, multiply interest in the game and the number of available targets by several factors, increase the acres floating around the game, even multiply revenue from people buying multiple PUnits, and thus multiplying possible spending on advertising.
I'm struggling to think of downsides, and the only one that I can come up with is that a well organised alliance could effectively become two or three organised alliances, which could change the shape of battles at the top quite a bit. Firstly, "if the enemy can do it, so can you" is quite a good argument in this situation. Secondly, there are a number of checks that could be put in place to prevent this. You could prevent the creation of extra IDs until ~4 weeks into the round. You could say that you are only allowed a single ID in the same alliance as someone else's account ie. if I had an ID in the same alliance as Ogluk, I wouldn't be allowed to have a different ID in a different alliance that Ogluk was also in. You could.... well you get the picture, there are plenty of ways of preventing TBA size alliances controlled by 20 people.
If anyone else can think of any flaws, I'd be interested to hear them. The number of times I've heard people say "Azzer really needs to allow multis ti revamp the game, the way the current playerbase is dwindling" is suprising. People are usually joking, because they can think of all the possible cheating that would arise if multying by itself were just allowed, with no checks and balances. But why can't it be checked and balanced, and still gain the benefits of a larger playerbase?
Benefits: many
Downsides: none, with proper balances
What's a major problem with the game at present? A lack of targets, a lack of alliances and competition, and a general stagnation of ranks and play. The top alliance wins, and is forced to just sit there for the entire round, unless they want to abandon their friends and all they've worked so hard for, and ranks 2-4 are forced to batten down the hatches and play very defensively, unless they want to quit/restart and give up on what they've put so much effort into, and abandon their friends.
The result is alot of the game's most active and committed players are tied up being able to interact very little with the game.
Just from personal experience, it happens almost every round to me that I usually end up in a high-end, but non-winning alliance, and soon end up getting pretty bored of the day to day fending off rank 1 attacks, attacking players in smaller alliances with the same units week in week out, and even interacting with the same small group of players for months at a time.
The number of times I've thought I would really like to try some different/silly routes, go join some different groups, and piss around at the lower ranks, but I really don't want to abandon the people who I've worked hard with, and give up all the effort I've put into my current ID, it really makes the current system look inadequate.
But why does it have to be this way?
Because you're only allowed one ID.
And why is that the case?
Because there would be no efficient way to check for cheating (land farming, troop trading etc) if multying were allowed.
And why..... wait, hold your eggs, don't count your conclusions or jump to horses! We've just made a massive assumption here. There's no way to stop land farming and troop trading between two IDs controlled by the same account???
I have a little bit more faith in Azzer's programming skills than to say there's no way he can stop 2 IDs controlled by the same account from interacting in an illegal way.
Simply make it so 2 IDs controlled by the same account can't attack or defend each other, and can't attack or defend another ID simultaneously.
And if you really want to, make it so they can't be in the same alliance.
Suddenly, multying doesn't seem like such a crime does it? Then allow each account to have 2-3 IDs in world 1 simultaneously, et voila.
By allowing multying under these conditions, we could instantly double or treble the active player base, multiply interest in the game and the number of available targets by several factors, increase the acres floating around the game, even multiply revenue from people buying multiple PUnits, and thus multiplying possible spending on advertising.
I'm struggling to think of downsides, and the only one that I can come up with is that a well organised alliance could effectively become two or three organised alliances, which could change the shape of battles at the top quite a bit. Firstly, "if the enemy can do it, so can you" is quite a good argument in this situation. Secondly, there are a number of checks that could be put in place to prevent this. You could prevent the creation of extra IDs until ~4 weeks into the round. You could say that you are only allowed a single ID in the same alliance as someone else's account ie. if I had an ID in the same alliance as Ogluk, I wouldn't be allowed to have a different ID in a different alliance that Ogluk was also in. You could.... well you get the picture, there are plenty of ways of preventing TBA size alliances controlled by 20 people.
If anyone else can think of any flaws, I'd be interested to hear them. The number of times I've heard people say "Azzer really needs to allow multis ti revamp the game, the way the current playerbase is dwindling" is suprising. People are usually joking, because they can think of all the possible cheating that would arise if multying by itself were just allowed, with no checks and balances. But why can't it be checked and balanced, and still gain the benefits of a larger playerbase?
Benefits: many
Downsides: none, with proper balances
