Please keep in mind I'm just trying to help, not trying to be insulting or anything like that
Why I think we are prepared for gold league is because we dominated the sliver league map. We in both the BG that this topic was about and the one goin on right now have been dominant. Last time's BG, the other guild that won over us went to Gold League, and if the victory points hadn't been uneven, we would've too. This BG, we own a middle sector already and the two sectors between ours and the middle. Our next closest competition owns one sector and hasn't started on their second, and everyone else doesn't even have a sector yet. I'd say that we are beyond silver league level
If you're dominating silver, yeah, perhaps gold will be a better fit. Still, if you're complaining a win was taken by another guild simply because of the map layout... you may need to adjust your strategy to take into account other guilds actually competing for positions... it's one thing to roll over other guilds who aren't playing, its another to actively compete against others for first... and based on what you just said, others you're against in silver aren't even competing.
First, How many members does your guild have?
Second, we are in 6:00, not 12:00, I mentioned that earlier in the topic I believe.
Third, we did attack our competition, but it was on the last day and we didn't have time to take their sector.
Fourth, we did negotiate with another guild, but they were too inactive to make a difference. They stopped advancing after one sector.
1) I kind of said it already, but to provide more details - we had 6 members when we played in diamond league a couple rounds ago. We've grown to 11 members at the moment in the current GBG round in platinum (only 10 actually play GBG though).
2) The position you're in really doesn't matter in the long run. we started at 12:00 in diamond, 7:00 last round, and are at 3:00 this round (platinum)... and this round, the 3:00 sucks. Low victory points, low building slots. Still, we are doing fine. Negotiated with the guild next to us (and really, all other guilds to a point), and the two of us are first/second currently. Point is, even with a crappy sector, we branched to the other side of the map, and just keep sectors over there, where the points are better. And we based which sectors to go after based on responses from reaching out to other guilds (more on this on #4)... Having a poor starting sector only really matters the first day or two, when you have to break out without siege towers. Once you get rolling, it doesn't matter if you get cut off from home, just use siege towers and rotate around where the points are good.
3) Attacking the last day is not effective. Need to be attacking your competition early on. As I said before, poor strategy, and your statement here just shows it. More on this later.
4) Negotiating with one guild also is ineffective. Negotiate with them all. Reach out to all of them. We've done that most rounds. Responses vary, you may be ignored, some may say they are taking a break this round, some may want to trade sectors back and forth, etc. But if you dont reach out to everyone, you can't form an effective strategy to handle the map and other guilds. And often enough, most guilds just want to farm personal rewards. Offering to swap sectors benefits everyone, so many are inclined to agree (if they can afford the guild goods at least - and if they can't they aren't a threat anyway)
We are doing that actually, I am assigning each guildmate to getting a specific GB so that we all can level it for them and take prints, the Arc is our #1 priority. There is one problem keeping us from building buildings. We are mostly Iron Age, I have no intention of aging up either, and our most active member is Iron Age. But we have some EMA players that are making the buildings cost EMA goods. We have some Iron Age goods stocked, but no EMA goods. And they are low on goods and can't afford to donate to the treasury. Right now, all of our good go into level 2 of GE. Gold league could help solve this problem since it awards more statues of honor fragments.
I totally get that. Iron age is a great age to camp and level an Arc. And I also get having guild members who are "one-offs" at an age where you have few goods, and they don't contribute much. Can't help much here, other than if you really want to remain "competitive" at the higher leagues, you may need to either tell them to step it up, or boot them. We have a similar issue in my current guild actually... though we're going the route to help level their Arcs as fast as we can. But we have several lv80 Arcs, so can afford to do this...
Relying on SoH fragments wont help. It'll take months, or longer, to get enough to make a difference. One level of SoH is 10 guild goods... which is the same as adding a single level of Arc/Observatory/Atomium. Each level of one of those GBs gives you +2 of each guild good... so 10 altogether like a SoH level (I don't know why, but GB guild goods are shown as +x of each good, and non-GB guild good buildings are +x total guild goods... so need to multiply/divide by 5 to compare). Even if you can gain 2 full levels of SoH in gold each round (easily doable if in a good farming situation, can get even more this way actually if ou can build lots of Siege Towers), in those two weeks, I'm sure you could have leveled a GB by 2 levels as well, or even more. Of course, doing both is good too... but I'd still say leveling your Arc is more important that getting more SoH. It'll help your members more personally, and the guild as well...
In conclusion, we are a gold league ready guild because we are doing far better than most of our silver league competition. I would not agree with your bad strategy analysis, but you can think whatever you like. This BG we have the exact same large disadvantage, I am hoping it doesn't play a role in the outcome, but I was and am still very frustrated from that BG. We poured a lot of hard work into it and for a guild of Iron Age and EMA players and only a few of them active, that was a lot to give. Losing from a point difference that if our points had been the same as their would have meant a win for us was really awful.
Sure, based on what you said, you may belong in gold league, but you can't treat it like silver. Also based on what you said, you really do need to rethink your strategy. Attacking competition the last day wont have any effect. You need to be constantly keeping track of the delta between your guild and others throughout the round - know how many LPs/hr you need to be at in order to catch up to others, and for others to catch up to you (ie, basic math -> [Your total FPS - Their total FPS] divided by [number of hours left]). If you need to be 100 lps/hr higher than them, you need to capture sectors of theirs worth a total of at least 50, preferably higher, cause they will just capture them back. You need to constantly put pressure on them, and stay near their total LPs throughout the game. You can't simply hope to catch up the last day. If you're into investing (stocks/options), look into the concept of "theta". As time goes on, changing of LPS/hr will have less and less impact on the final result. Time remaining is a very important factor to keep in mind (both in stock options, and in GBG
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Just to add at the end, I'm not saying my guild is "the best/so great at GBG", I'm just trying to convey what has worked quite well for us. If we come up against a top guild in diamond, with 80 players, we will be crushed if that's what they desire. We just aren't big enough to compete at that level. But in such cases, our goal is just to offer to swap a couple sectors back and forth... we hold onto 1-2 sectors, fill with siege towers, and every 4 hours, we rotate the surrounding sectors with them. Most larger guilds are often happy to do this, as it allows them to farm more rewards than if we had just sat in our home sector and done nothing. Occasionally though, may get a guild that just wants to dominate... and in that case, it a good time to just take a break, rebuild guild good reserves, etc
