There is much mystery surrounding the ranking formula, however, there are some details our gracious builders have allowed us to know. ahem.

Alliances are ranked by total peasant population, not by stats.

The formula used for overall rank of a player is weighted based on the stats in the game. It is a self-balancing mechanism to prevent any one strategy from becoming all powerful.

It is calculated something like follows..

Step 1 - Get some totals:

P₁=S₁ + D₁ + N₁ + H₁

P₁= Total Game Points for all players

S₁= Total Strike for all players

D₁= Total Defense for all players

N₁= Total Ninja for all players

H₁= Total Shinobi for all players

Step 2, we assign ranking values for each stat like so:

S₂ = S₁ / P₁

D₂ = D₁ / P₁

N₂ = N₁ / P₁

H₂ = H₁ / P₁

Step 3, we now have a number between zero and one for each stat that tells us it's relative strength to the other stats, so now we multiply each individual players stats with this number.

S₃ = S_player * S₂

D₃ = D_player * D₂

N₃ = N_player * N₂

H₃ = H_player * H₂

Step 4, add these numbers up and we have the total amount of 'ranking points' for that player.

R_player = S₃+D₃+N₃+H₃

Tada!..

Now the players are ranked against each other using these ranking points. The player with the most points is number one....

...at least until we run everyone through the super secret part of the formula that changes things around just wee little bit.. but we can't tell you about that because it is all secret.

The reason we do things this way is that it uses the concept of supply and demand when ranking players. The most valuable ranking stat will always be the rarest stat. This promotes good game balance and varied tactics.