The Grämlins

The Grämlins are a peaceful, invitation only, heavily economic geared alliance in the aqua sphere who are most widely known for their aggressive trading in technology. They are currently ranked 10th in regards to score, ahead of three sanctioned alliances, and 8th in terms of nation strength, ahead of six sanctioned alliances. They are unable to become sanctioned due to not having over 200 members.



Foundations
The foundations of The Grämlins lie within the forums of the German Starcraft: Broodwar site, Broodwar.de, where, in September 2006, approximately 60% of the current The Grämlins's member-states' leaders originally met and decided to form a small, private, invite only, economically oriented Cybernations alliance.

"As we joined CN, we did this (the basic structure of The Grämlins) almost all together within some days or weeks. We wanted to create our own alliance, because we knew nobody around here and we didn't want to be 'just numbers' in one of the >500-member-alliances. Also, we knew each other, and wanted to act together as best as we could. Since we are experts in business measures, we grew amazingly fast in strength and reached the realm of nuclear powered nations with only one and a half month's work. This was achieved without any help from the outside (our top nations had efficiency ratings above 200)... We are strictly neutral when it comes to inter-alliance wars. Therefore we do not sign MDPs with any larger alliance that is organized in a great MDP-Web (LEAGUE, INITIATIVE, GUARD, etc...). We offer NAPs to everyone out there to ensure fixed rules in case one of the members of either alliance is accidentally attacked, so retaliation can be avoided and reparations payed without delay." - (DAC)Syzygy of New Syzygia, 11 March 2007 --This last quote is now outdated. Grämlins are proud to be a part of The Citadel and were former members of The Continuum.

Hardships
In an incident in January 2007, the Cybernations administrator deleted both of The Grämlins' most powerful nations (combined nation strength of over 35,000.00) due to suspicions over the contents of private in-game messages. This caused the alliance an immediate loss of approximately 100 million dollars and cut the alliance's strength in half. Even after the administrator confirmed that this was a mistake and removed the ban of the user accounts, he refused to restore the deleted nations. Rebuilding these nations cost over 6 weeks of time and hundreds of millions in finances.

Tech Selling
Until May 2007, the Grämlins funded their high rate of growth by selling large amounts of technology. By building a reputation as reliable and professional sellers, they won recurring contracts with many of the world's largest nations at that time, resulting in a guaranteed income that was invested in infrastructure.

Below is the state of the Grämlins tech trading business recorded a little after the end of selling: Currently reaching over $1,250,000,000 business cashflow in a single month and with well over 6,000 levels of technology sold during the short run of their technology selling business, The Grämlins are one of the most advanced technology dealers in Cybernations. Several member nations have been known to buy/sell over 500 tech per week. Single orders for hundreds, or even thousands of technology units at once, placed by or for leaders of the top 100 nations, are commonplace. All the customer needs is to have the cash and enough open aid slots. Ensuring means: if, for whatever reasons, a Grämlins dealer can not deliver (under attack, nuked, banned, deleted, resigned from CN...), another Grämlin will deliver for him without question or delay. This is managed internally so there is no hassle for the customer. Dealing with The Grämlins is therefore an entirely different experience to buying cheap tech from new nations - with The Grämlins, the experience is pure fun: relax and enjoy. Prices are not higher than usual for the open market - but extremely cheap when compared with the extra service and security provided.

In the end the success of the business was its downfall, and by June 2007 every Grämlin had increased to a size where selling tech was no longer profitable. The 'no recruiting' strategy meant that no new small nations were being introduced, and as individual nations grew from selling tech to buying it the remaining sellers were involved in internal deals. The tech shop was closed in early June, and is unlikely to ever reopen.

Grämlins strictly purchase technology now; no technology is sold.

Timeline
Note: This time line is incomplete and will be updated in the new future.


 * Nov. 5, 2006 - The Grämlins sign a MDoAP with their long time allies, the Mostly Harmless Alliance.
 * Sept. 28, 2007 - The Grämlins join The Citadel, a bloc of like-minded alliances to assure the mutual defense of the signatories. The Citadel presently includes The Grämlins, Fifth Column Confederation, Old Guard, The Order of the Paradox and Umbrella.
 * Dec. 8, 2007 - The Grämlins join The Continuum, the newest and most powerful bloc to ever grace the cyberverse.
 * Mar. 23, 2008 - The Grämlins sign an MDOAP with the FOK! alliance.
 * May 31, 2008 - The Grämlins moves to the Aqua team, leaving its historic home in the Green sphere.
 * Jun. 16, 2008 - The Grämlins sign the Aqua Interalliance Cooperation & Economic Treaty, confirming their commitment to aqua team unity.
 * Jun. 23, 2008 - The Grämlins sign the Syzygia Compact, an MDoAP with MCXA. The treaty is named in honor of former Grämlin and Conclave member (DAC)Syzygy, who parted with the alliance a few days before signing.
 * Oct. 23, 2008 - The Grämlins sign ToAs with both our longtime allies, NPO and IRON.
 * Nov. 5, 2008 - The Grämlins sign the Härmlin Accords with MHA. This document, unprecedented on PlanetBob, is as near a merger as possible w/o actually being a merger. Grämlins are considered to be members of MHA, and MHA are considered to be members of The Grämlins. This treaty has no cancellation clause, because it cannot BE canceled.
 * Nov. 23, 2008 - The Grämlins announce the Codex of War, an addendum to our charter, which covers how our alliance will conduct itself in war and peace
 * Dec. 10, 2008 - The Grämlins formally withdraw from the Möbius Accords and thus The Continuum BLOC.

The Grämlins Today
The Grämlins, who still do not recruit, have nonetheless opened the alliance to applicants who rank within the top 10% of nations in the game or possess a Manhattan Project wonder. Still, the Grämlins continue to focus on the economics and politics of the cyberverse - specifically the technology trade business, efficient growth, and establishing diplomatic relations with other alliances around the cyberverse.

Business
The Grämlins are now proactive buyers of technology, seeking out long term deals with reliable sellers – perhaps fueling the next generation of rapid growth in partner alliances. In the first 21 days of October, 2008 the Grämlins imported around 30000 units of Technology, with an alliance cash flow of approxiamately 3 billion cybernations dollars.

Interesting Grämlins Facts

 * The Grämlins Forum can be found here
 * The Grämlins presently have five nations in the Top 10: Nuevo Cabezon, MOTU-Maniacs, (DAC)Syzygy, Sierra Leone, and Ratshole.
 * The Grämlins now own over 2000 nuclear warheads, more than 10 of the 12 sanctioned alliances.
 * The average Grämlin owns 18.95 nukes.
 * The Grämlins have the highest average nation strength indexes in the cyberverse, higher than any of the sanctioned alliances. Our great allies at The Order Of The Paradox are a close second.
 * The Grämlins do not wish to become a sanctioned alliance but hope to remain a small, exclusive band of friends who, if necessary, will fight to the death for each other.
 * You can type the "ä" in Grämlins on Windows with Alt+132 or Alt+0228 or on Macs with on Option+U then letter a.
 * The Grämlins have there Alliance flag in-game under Custom 56.