The Worst Week in Army History

This time of year has always been one of the most difficult for Club Penguin Armies. November becomes busy for school assignments, a trend that continues through to Winter Break in December. Armies are left to deal with greater levels of inactivity than at any other point in the year.

This week, however, has been indisputably the worst week we have ever had. Can we blame it on the time of year or is this a result of a larger problem we need to address?

I’ve made some rather bold claims in my introduction. Just how bad was this week? Let’s compare it to the worst week from last year – November 3rd, 2013.

In that week in 2013, the Doritos took 1st with a score of 74.01. Their size average was 25, which was weighed down by an Ausia event of 11. Their US average was actually 35. Compare this to the best army this week, the Dark Warriors, who scored 68.00 with a US size average of 28.5. Granted, this is a good size average, but they had very few events, and as a result they were not able to beat their own score in last year’s worst Top Ten. The Dark Warriors, this week’s best army, would only have managed 3rd in last year’s worst.

ACP is one of the few armies in the list to have fared better this week than they did last November (last November was still pre-Triumvirate). All else equal (without the inclusion of DW’s score from this year), ACP would have been 3rd in last year’s Top Ten, matching their placement that week. The Ice Warriors, for comparison, scored 6th last year with almost the same score that got them 4th this year.

While it’s clear that achieving the Top 3 in last year’s worst Top Ten would have been difficult for armies from this week, the truly historic numbers are coming from the bottom half of the Top Ten. These were some of the worst scores we had ever seen before we had even run the math. Just how bad was it?

Here are a couple facts for you. The bottom 4 armies in this week’s Top Ten would have been in SMAP’s Top Ten in last year’s worst Top Ten. The bottom 3 armies from this week would not have even made the Top 5 in SMAP’s Top Ten last year. The Rebel Penguin Federation, who achieved 8th this week, even with the help of a new UK curve, had an average size that was worse than all 15 armies evaluated in the worst week of last year (10 CPAC, 5 SMAP). Even the Water Ninjas, 5th in SMAP last year, would have placed 8th in CPAC’s Top Ten this week. For an exceedingly comical comparison, in last year’s best week, March 17th, NOT A SINGLE ARMY FROM THIS WEEK’S TOP TEN WOULD HAVE BEEN IN THE TOP TEN. THAT is how bad this week was.

November 3, 2013 was determined to be the worst week of last year by averaging together the total points received by each of the Top Ten armies. I did the same to determine the best week, March 17, 2013. The average for March 17, 2013 was 88.82. The average for November 3, 2013 was 59.00. The average for this week was 50.83.

Here is a graph I used last year to show the progression of armies throughout the year, amended to show this week’s average.

Now the big question is, how concerning is this? Should we be concerned, or is this a fluke week that is unlikely to happen again? Since the end of the summer, I have seen one major issue. You probably noticed that most of the large armies are not all that much worse off than they were (at their worst) last year. But why are the smaller armies suffering so tremendously? To me the answer is as follows: There are too many armies.

Most people naturally gravitate toward the major armies, which we will refer to as the Big Four – DW, ACP, LT, and IW. Smaller armies tend to come and go, often being created during the summer only to die off when school starts up again. By modern standards, this summer was pretty successful, with a lot of older armies being brought back and a lot of newer ones being created. At the end of the summer however, most of these did not die off, in fact many new ones are still being created. SMAP has announced in this week’s Top Ten that “half a dozen” new armies were created this week, and that they had to analyze 25 armies in total. All of these armies are still struggling to make ends meet while in many cases averaging less than 10 per event. And while I commend them for their efforts, there is a reality that they and the rest of the community needs to understand.

The Club Penguin Army community only has so many members, and this number is declining whether we want to admit it or not. We do not have enough people to sustain this many armies. Our ranks are spread too thin. The longer we try to maintain this structure, the harder it makes it for any single army to succeed, and the more it hurts us in the long run. We may need to purge some of them in order to survive.

In 2008, a radical plan was enacted by the Nachos’ Legendary Leader Shadow2446. Known as Order 67, it encouraged the major armies of the time to declare war on all smaller armies. The theory discussed only in secret was that there had become too many armies, and widespread war against them would force them to unite, causing merges that enabled the larger ones, like the Club Penguin Rangers and Red Raiders, to not only survive but to thrive, while also killing off many of those who stood little chance of being successful. While I am not advocating for a cleansing of the small army community, in a consensual scenario this could be practical, even fun. For their own sake and for the sake of the community, small armies should consider merging together with one or two others. Merges like these are the reason anyone knows armies like the Golden Troops (Golden Warriors and Club Penguin Sun Troops) and the Roman Fire Warriors (Fire Warriors, Gugu Pengu Romans, Military of Club Penguin, and Warriors of Club Penguin).

The results of this week’s Top Ten do not need to be as grave as they appear. They are not a death sentence – perhaps more of a warning that you have developed a heart problem as a result of your obesity and you better get in shape before the Grim Reaper/CPNext comes to take you out. I think it would be great to see more competition by other armies in the top half of the Top Ten, and to see some small armies merge into something new and unique that might someday become legendary. We should not sit back and make excuses. This is a wake-up call. The era of selfish thinking must come to an end eventually, or the likelihood of CPNext will wipe us out. Think about problems from a community perspective and solve them together. The great leaders of the past were always willing to extend a helping hand to better the community. Now it is your turn. Are you up for the challenge?

~Boomer