Recently I have been called a lot of names by the ignorant and idiotic because I no longer except just anyone who adds me as a friend. Here is the argument I have made.

You have a cup of water yet more than 150 people need a drink. Is anyone helped when you can only offer a few drops because your resources are stretched to far?

What if you except every stranger, then aren't you also helping the people who are possibly the "bad guys"? Those that may use your help to hurt others?

When a game is as big and massive as GL with no real way to track others, you could be just as easily helping a bad guy who lied about stealing planets and worse (it has happened with other legion members several times).

And with a cap on how much effect your legion has on your stats, how many times someone can be raided/hacked/attacked, what good does having hundreds of people in your legion do?

I get literally dozens of requests a day from people wanting to be friends, ask questions they could have found themselves but were to lazy to, begging for minerals because they are broke or whining about a fight they got into but no one knows who really did what.

Does anyone have a good argument for adding just anyone who wants to be your friend?

You want to be their friend?

i make a point to tell everyone that tries to friend add me that if they whine for minerals they will get punted from my friends and put on the kos list.

Not the question I asked, please don't threadjack.

I will rephrase to make it easier. What is the point in having a legion larger than required to max out your legion benefits?

Not a whole lot, but 2 things to consider...

The more people in your legion the less people you have to worry about attacking you

The more people in your legion (around you level) the more chances you have of getting alerts for rare and boss npcs.

LOL That's akin to poking Kaos with a stick! (There aren't hardly any players in his level range)

You forgot a point:

- The more players you have in your legion, the less good planets you may invade ...

And who actually shares good planets? I would say 90% are smallish or poor resources. People are just being inconsiderate by sharing them. So your huge legion just gets a huge amount of crappy planets.

The legion alerts to good NPCs only matters if you have high level legion members. Most of the people are low level and don't get the higher level NPCs.

Another benefit to having a large legion is more trade possibilities- like artifact trades.

On a side note, I'm kind of frustrated with my legion. As I've written elsewhere in the forum, my legion member didn't return the planet I called invasion alert on. I need a legion who is more considerate and supportive if I go through a really bad spot like I described a couple days ago. Plus be appreciative when I return the favor- artifact trades, help invade planets for them, retake their planets then abandon or disband defense structures, and let them invade it back, and so on.

I'm happy with a few of my legion members, pretty responsive and supportive, but thats a minority out of the 120'ish legion members I have. Maybe 10 - 15 good legion members out of 120. Bad odds, indeed.

I am a good legion member. the 4 planets I shared were all at least very abundant average. (one was rich large, but I had no need for mining) And also from my huge artifact intake, I share an artifact every day, usually grid consoles or calming amplifyers, but has been containment cages, shield sentries, and even nanite swarms!

Problem is, there's way too few "real" legion people like you who are helpful, supportive, and watch each other's backs when bad stuff happens.

This is a problem of many FB games that reward people for having "friends", especially where having many firends is a criticall necessity.
Without giving Legion members some sort of "forum" existance where they can get to know their new friends you will not have loyalty formed between members.

Sure some people will behave noblely and do what they can to help. But many more will see their higher ranked "friends" as a means of a leg up in the game, hence mineral/artifact requests.