What is it with you, subs, and spam? You seem to be operating on the assumption that all subs do is spam. Needless to say, this is not the case. And I think you probably know that.

Just to clarify on spamming. It is not against the rules to spam. It is against the rules to ask another player to/personally create a colony specifically to spam. It is acceptable to spam for other, more general purposes (acquiring ops to raze, interrupting enemy outpost systems, etc)

As said many times before, subs are autonomous. They act on their free will, but they chose to obey the main, presumely a more powerful alliance. Yet, subs can turn on their main. Its not like theyre chained to their main, and more often than not you see subs and mains fighting each other sometime during the era. So I consider having subs part of your diplomatic skills, because it takes a lot of these skills to have powerful subs that actually obey your orders and follow your lead, specially by the fact you dont have direct power over them (except if youre military stronger).

Usually, having subs close 2 you means less ground to conquer from, and possible friction with them. Having them away means theyre more likely to betray you at some point, or to just fall inactive by lack of a phisical presence by the main. In conclusion, having subs is a diplomatic gamble.

A goal to build subs is the deterrance value of having many, powerful subs, that would scare other big alliances enough so they dont attack them. Another goal is sometimes the most seen: a friend of the main, but when theres no space on it he just does a sub so they stay in touch. Yet another goal is to have subs as meatshields. And even another one is to have many subs spread across the world, so the main has safe areas in its sub hives.

Tom I know they do alot more than spam so do half the colonies that get banned for farming due to spamming. The whole point of this thread was to point out a sub is like a friend. And thus the whole alliance should be susceptible to banning because of being a farm. Spamming is just an example an easy example. I could have pointed to killing armies if i had wanted to. Or crowd control (taking care of those close to home so the main can fight elsewhere). Every arguement is posted on a if I pull up from an individual level and bring it to an alliance.

A sub is no different than say me asking someone to come in and help. They can come in and help then turn around hinder. Thus Subs should be susceptible to the same farming rules as individual players. But alas I may not have put my point out there very well.

But almost every counter argument you guys have made has seen people get banned for on a personal level. Why should you being in an alliance calling themselves a sub stop that from happening? I have yet to see a sub banned for in example spamming. Or say attacking with someone from there main alliance with explosive armor only so the main alliance avoided any loses or severely reduce loses. This if done on a personal level would lead to a ban but if say a sub did it wouldn't lead to a ban because the sub could easily argue that "our strategy is to build straight explosive armor we will win. and we we wanted to kill two sets of units at the same time." But in reality the whole alliance would be a farm. And yes this example has happened.