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Hey everyone, I just wanted to let everyone know that I’m going to be stepping back from working on PnW. I’m really swamped with my full time job this summer, my other part time work, and need to refocus on school this upcoming semester. I’ll still pop by and say hi every once in a while, and I have full faith that Limi and Putmir will do an amazing job continuing development, but I just wanted to take this opportunity to give a huge thank you to everyone for their support and all their help over the nearly two and a half years I’ve been working on the game. I’d call out names, but I know I’m going to miss so many people that I’m going to feel bad. All the best everyone! 💖

It is with heavy hearts that we share the news of the passing of Shanghainese, a cherished member of the Rose community. Shanghainese tragically lost his life in the recent Palisade fires in Los Angeles. Shanghainese (https://politicsandwar.com/nation/id=267177) joined our community in 2021 and quickly became a respected and valued member. While his real-life commitments led to reduced activity in recent months, his impact during his time with us was always appreciated. He was known for his humor, dedication, and the valuable contributions he made to our community. Shanghainese served with distinction in both our Internal, Economic and Foreign Affairs departments as staff. He played a vital role in welcoming and training new members, and many within our community will remember his guidance and support. Beyond his official roles, Shanghainese was a friend to many. His positive spirit and willingness to help others left a lasting impression on those who had the pleasure of interacting with him. He will be deeply missed by all of us in Rose. We understand that some within the broader Politics and War community may have interacted with Shanghainese, and we invite you to share your memories and condolences. We, the Rose community, have requested that Alex Perma VM his nation to ensure that it lives as an eternal in-game memorial. In times of loss, it's important to remember the positive impact individuals have on our lives, both in-game and beyond. Let us honor Shanghainese's memory by continuing to foster the spirit of camaraderie and support that he exemplified within our community. Our thoughts are with his family and loved ones during this difficult time. Sincerely, The Rose Community

Hello digital friends, It is with great sadness that I must share the news that one of our brothers in arms, known to us as Bunnet, has recently been diagnosed with terminal cancer. Of course, this announcement was a shock to the very core of our community, affecting his friends all over the world from both past and present alliances. Being a nurse, Bunnet has dedicated his years to caring and treating people, bringing comfort and healing to those in need. Bunnet embodies the very meaning of loyalty, standing by his friends and alliances through thick and thin as well as making personal sacrifices to not let his friends down. Bunnet demonstrates respect whenever needed, valuing true integrity over all. A Scotsman to the bone, he is concise and always honest, staying true to his words, which has made him such a trusted and respected lad by those who know him. Speaking from my own first hand experiences, he's the only person I've ever led with who refused a request that would result in unfairness to his opponents, he did this consistently over the many years we played together. Having said that, I'm thrilled to dive into the legendary career he’s built in Politics & War: Bunnet created his nation on November 30, 2016, starting in the formidable Syndicate and eventually finding his home at the triumphant Rose, having served with them since mid-2019. Bunnet proudly served in the following Great Wars for The Syndicate: Silent War Papers, Please The Trail of Tiers Knightfall Then proudly served in the following Great Wars for Rose: NPO's Last Time Duck Hunt Guns and Roses Rick's Last Roll The Fault in Our Stars Darkest Hour Dodge This Blue Balled Great War 32 (currently deployed) Bunnet's journey ahead is one we wish he didn't have to walk, and it will be one he will not walk alone. These are very difficult times for Bunnet and his family, so please, if you have interacted with him, joked with him, engaged in trash talk with him or been on the receiving end, led him or been led by him, fought alongside him or fought against him, or even if you haven't known him but want to show solidarity, any show of support will be greatly appreciated. Lastly, in honour of Bunnet, we're rallying the troops out of retirement to form an alliance to play a round of CN:TE, carrying forward his spirit of camaraderie, loyalty, and fair play. Anyone is welcome to join us as we embark on this challenge together, in tribute to our dear friend Bunnet. Please, join our discord if you are interested! - https://discord.gg/WzeBCChEPZ If you wish to follow his journey, you are invited to do so by following his Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/share/Eef8V2kH7ym1F2id/?mibextid=LQQJ4d Bunnet's nation link: https://politicsandwar.com/nation/id=54283 Thank you for your time and support!

I don’t like writing long political theses that create bitter grudges, the game is meant to be fun. I try to keep my FA and DOWs light hearted, but with the amount of hypocrisy that exists in this coalition, enjoy my wall of text. Tl;Dr: We created EVH with the hope of breaking political stagnation and bipolarism, to that end, we aimed to reset relations with Rose, SIN, and TGH. All three agreed and promised the coalition would not target EVH, only to dogpile us days later. Rose is on their high horse claiming moral superiority as their CB. Rose, the greatest dogpiler in PnW history, is claiming moral superiority. Not only did they never communicate their discontent with the TI war, they also refused TI’s attempts to get protection from them. Stop pretending that you actually care. During the Guardian-HS war, TFP failed to defend their M with CTO. In January, we chose not to press this CB in hopes of resetting relations. Now they’re repaid that goodwill with a war on the basis that we didn’t stop t$ from blitzing them. Preface: Less juicy details here but I think this is important context. EVH was created because Jax, Xi, and I were frustrated with political stagnation and the predictability of wars. We aimed to form a war-focused alliance that could disrupt this trend with a more independent and forward-looking FA style. Speaking for myself - I came as a pirate from Arrgh. For my year in CTO leadership, we were as independent as you could get. We never officially joined any sphere (M TFP and O Eclipse, paperless, and then M Aurora O KT) and we worked across the aisle to join conflicts. It might not have been perfect, but I tried to make things a bit different. We ran the risk of getting hit (and we did three times) but that was a good trade off for being able to keep things dynamic. When we formed EVH, it was our intention to leave SAIL and shake things up. We communicated this to t$ in formation and in the months leading up to the eventual break up. To that end, we aimed to reset relations with those we had been in conflicts with (Rose, TGH, SIN, TFP etc.) and see a path forward beyond repeat wars. But here we are. Re: Resetting Relations Rose, SIN, and TGH—you each committed to resetting relations and agreed that we wouldn’t target each other this war cycle. We reaffirmed this multiple times, you publicly declared the relation reset, and EVH honored it. But, all three of you broke that agreement. I don’t need to really emphasize how egregious this is. You could have prosecuted this war with Guardian-Oblivion-AA-Penta-TFP and won. We wouldn’t have complained and fought with a smile on our faces. But no, you were so scared of EVH-KT-LOD you chose to break 3 agreements and bring the whole gang for a 4 v 1. Why should any alliances bother resetting relations with you in the future? Let me quickly remind everyone that CTO and Aurora were bitter rivals two years ago, we’ve reset relations and merged. CTO and HS relations are now amicable after a pretty nasty war. We have done our part again and again, it's not us, it's you. Re: Rose CB Rose’s entire CB both publicly and privately hinges on “At the end of the day you tried to kick [The Immortals] while down, there is no "fancy" way to FA that will make my point more than that. What you did was ethically wrong and deserved a response” (to quote George). Funny you should say that. We received zero communication that you disapproved of the war You knew about this conflict three weeks in advance and had every opportunity to tell us, “This isn’t cool.” You didn’t. So, either a) you didn’t care and are now using this as an excuse, or b) you wanted TI to get rolled so you could make this claim. You rejected TI when they sought to join your coalition They knew about the war weeks in advance and asked to join the coalition, but you said no. They probably reached out for a treaty too at some point. If you truly cared, why throw TI under the bus unless it served your own interests? Even if what EVH did was so morally reprehensible, are you really one to talk? Since I came back to the game in 2022, every offensive war you declared was a dog pile. The first offensive war I watched was when you rolled a freshly rebuilt Cata-Paradise (from Bifrost Blitz) in a dogpile. Your next offensive war was Darkest Hour. Where 70% of the game rolled T$-Eclipse. Your next offensive was Blue Balls, where you worked with House and a remilitarized CIS to blitz SAIL. Recently, you did a 4 v 1 dogpile on T$. And moved to EVH. Your entire alliance history of offensive wars is dogpiles on dogpiles, get off your high horse. Re: TFP CB This one is particularly ironic. In 2023, TFP failed to defend CTO when Guardian blitzed us, giving us a valid CB for revenge against TFP. However, in January 2024, CTO chose not to prosecute this CB, aiming to keep our relationship amicable. We were even invited to act on it but chose to limit our involvement. Shwin, I gave you as much of a heads-up as possible that the Jan war was coming. We've explained this to you in DMs, making every effort to reset relations and move forward. Yet, despite our attempts, you chose to hold onto a grudge that you started. Re: TI + Penta Penta has a valid CB. I will give them that. As does TI in the future. I am not here to shit on them like the other two, I am just here to explain our decision calculus for why we are at war with them. We prosecuted those wars because there were no other viable options. I envisioned EVH as a war-focused alliance, not one that sits in peace for a year. However, given the FA landscape and the fact that everyone is tied up in treaties or NAPs, they were the only options available. The wars were lopsided and not what I wanted. Penta would have been a great fight—one alliance against a sphere. I had hoped TI would be better prepared after 14 months of peace (before the last war). Still, we chose to fight rather than sit and farm, and for that, I do apologize. That being said, the least Rose/TFP and the rest can do is admit when wars are fought for the sake of fun like us rather than hide behind some cloak of righteousness playing high and mighty. In summary, this is an open letter to the FA community. Everyone yaps about how they wish the game was more multipolar and dynamic, but no one is willing to do it. I now see why—resetting relations and making commitments across the aisle only leads to being dogpiled by hypocrites. So to everyone in the coalition, if you're serious about changing the FA landscape, start by getting off your high horses and honoring your words.

Come one, come all! Step right up for... The Voting Game! People of Orbis, we here at Arrgh have heard your pleas. Yes, we can't go 5 minutes without hearing someone complain about how boring and dull things are these days. Of course, there's also the 12 or so very important people at the top that try their best to snuff out any sort of content this game has to offer. A dedicated "Don't hire the evil pirates" NAP clause? We'd be flattered if that wasn't so lame. It is what it is though, sometimes the best ideas come from working under strict limitations. Now, get ready for the world's first NAP-compliant nuke event: The Reverse Nuke Auction! How It Works Instead of voting with your wallet on who you want blown to pieces, this time around you'll be voting for an alliance to spare from a pre-selected list of 10. Unlike past events, every single one of you will be able to participate in the process, free of charge. Voting will take place over 3 rounds, with the top 3 most voted for alliances in each round being removed from the poll. The last alliance left standing will be pelted with only the most premium of Arrgh-made nukes and missiles for at least 2-3 rounds (and more, depending on total event proceeds). How did we manage to monetize this one? I'm glad you asked! Buying Votes Extra committed to bailing someone out? Or, Alex forbid, keeping someone else on the poll? Have I ever got the shady offer for you! For the low price of 50M each, you can buy extra votes to spare an alliance. The best part? Extra votes will only be revealed AFTER a round of voting concludes. So, even if it looks like an alliance is about to be spared, your secret paid votes for the competition can keep them stuck on the list. Better act fast though, the price of extra votes is subject to fluctuate for each round. Payment can be sent via bank transfer or trade offer, just make a ticket in the Arrgh discord server or shoot me a DM. Note that you probably won't be able to buy votes within 10 minutes of a poll's closing time, I do need some time to write these posts up. Schedule Voting Round 1: October 26th DC - October 29th, half an hour before DC Voting Round 2: October 29th DC - November 1st, half an hour before DC Voting Round 3: November 1st DC - November 4th DC Hit date: November 5th, following DC. Misc. Stuff Full anonymity. Forum voting will have voters hidden and the identity of paid voters will not be revealed. Since polls can only be made in an OP, each round of voting will be a separate thread. The winner (loser?) will be announced in a 4th thread. You're not only allowed, but are encouraged to bug your members and allies to vote in these. Scared of the big boys having too much sway? There's plenty of alliances with little to no skin in the game, maybe they'd be willing to help you out? If you're tired of farming and want to see some action, feel free to ghost whatever lame farmer alliance you're currently in and join up for the hit. You'll get paid the same as anyone else and can leave right after. As always, Arrgh!

There's wedding planning to be done! Weaponized Assault Penguin's Head of Foreign Affairs, @BigGtheSlayer, is engaged, which means that the absolute finest of Antarctic wedding proceedings are in order. We have everything handled: the venue, the cake, the music... all of the planning done except for the flower bouquets! It's only fair that WAP contribute something to our beloved FA Head's wedding, so we decided to get some flower bouquets for him. That is why WAP is announcing a special military operation to seduce Rosians and their allies around the globe in order to infiltrate their homes and steal their roses so that we can assemble them into beautiful, gorgeous, lovely bouquets for BigG's wedding. Rosesphere may claim to have the power of friendship on their side... but WAP, WELP, and the House have the power of love on ours. TL;DR Weaponized Assault Penguins declares war on Rosesphere.

Chat, we did it. One THOUSAND nukes launched!!! Of course, #1,000 had to go to an extra special target. Can't just give that honour to some random shmuck. I was pretty stumped on who'd be a good fit, but Vel had an idea. The obvious best choice. The one and only big man himself @Alex! A huge thank you to @Putmir Vladin for helping to set this up. Now, it wouldn't be a very exciting celebration if it was just me patting myself on the back. Which is why I'm giving the first 30 people to message me on discord a free nuke! That's right folks, my prices are so low that the only way to do a real discount is to just give 'em away for free. Anyone in my range is on the table, with the exception of people in Arrgh/Yarr, people who've paid to never have to deal with me again and people currently involved in the on-going global (it's never as fun when they're already at war). Better act fast, much like the infra of your targets, this deal is disappearing in 3 days. UPDATE: All 30 free nuke slots have been taken. Y'all got some BEEF. I've logged every single nuke and (almost) every missile I've ever launched. For the pacifists and enemy-less in the crowd, have some neat data. Top 10 Most Nuked Alliances #1: Camelot - 66 Nukes #2: The Fighting Pacifists - 61 Nukes #3: Rose - 54 Nukes #4: The Commonwealth (Original) - 42 Nukes #5: Carthago - 41 Nukes #6: Weebunism - 34 Nukes #7: The Golden Horde - 33 Nukes #8: GATO - 30 Nukes #9: Serene Wei - 30 Nukes #10: The Knights Radiant - 28 Nukes 920 days of uninterrupted bombing. 68 wars won with just nukes, missiles, the occasional ship and a dream. 2 glitched phantom nukes which did not increase the counter and 1 missile that broke records and dealt 1,063 infra damage. See y'all again when we do the next auction or wheel or whatever. Stay rad ❤️

You might’ve recently seen some malicious claims about the gentle and intelligent orangutan. This slander couldn’t be farther from the truth. Orangutans have endured quite the character assassination by Singularity over multiple forum threads and Discord comments over many months, but this one takes the cake. Luckily for Orbis, orangutans are the only non-human primates capable of talking about the past, so we’re here to set the record straight. Claim #1 We hadn’t hashed it out in public, actually. Not really. You said your side publicly on the forums, and attempted to silence us when we started responding to you. We have, however, attempted to hash it out many times privately. Calling it “settled” is a stretch though, or else we wouldn’t be having this conversation now. Neither one of us saw eye to eye on what happened that day, and it became evident rather quickly we never would. We didn’t push any new “narratives” out however. What you’re referring to is a situation where it came up organically in RON, and Canbec told his side of the story there by sharing a screenshot of a detailed explanation he had provided to TKR membership. Our side of the story hasn’t changed since we all started telling it to you however. You know that from our discussion in December, when you asked about Canbec’s comments in RON because you had a misunderstanding over what was being said and thought we were saying things we were not, which we clarified at the time. Claim #2 The irony of Sing leadership accusing someone else of gaslighting would be hilarious if it didn't demonstrate such a profound lack of self-awareness. I don’t recall that we ever denied that Morf said that, at least after we knew what you were talking about. The only thing I can think of that comes close to a denial was a one on one conversation I had with you shortly after having come out of retirement. In the lead up to that conversation, I had been made aware of nasty rumors being spread about TKR and the One Day War, so I hit you up trying to unpack what was going on and what your beef with us over that war was. At that time, I was unaware of the comment that was made and while you alluded to it then, it wasn’t until a month and a half later, after we argued on the forums briefly following the NAP extension and you brought it up again with me in DMs, that we figured out what you were referring to. What we did deny repeatedly was that you would have ever actually been left behind and subjected to unacceptable peace terms from SAIL. Because as I explained to you over and over again, in order for you to have been left behind, it would have required a sign off from Canbec, as well as all the leaders of ODOO and Rose-sphere. Even if you distrusted Morf for his comment, you’re skipping over a whole lot of other approvals that would have been required - it doesn’t take a genius here to figure out that it wasn’t going to happen. But yes - the comment was made. To understand why it was though, we need to go back to the context of the One Day War and the lead up to it. While the One Day War started on January 31 of last year, SAIL and Sing had already been at war since the start of that month, after Sing had spent the month of December shedding infra on easy targets. Quite frankly, ODOO was content to sit back and let that war happen, as we had only recently rebuilt from our war against Eclipse and our primary concern was Eclipse. Singularity and its allies were losing that war against SAIL, and so they reached out to us and Rose to try and build a coalition against Eclipse, a plan Sing-sphere claimed would only work if we promised to hit SAIL first, because they claimed if we hit Eclipse without first handling SAIL, t$ would counter for Eclipse. We weren’t convinced of those claims as no evidence was provided, but Sing-sphere convinced us and Rose-sphere to enter a war in which we had no stake - a war that was going to end in a Singularity loss with purportedly unacceptable peace terms - on the promise that Singularity would provide support in two subsequent wars against Eclipse. We entered the war alongside Rose-sphere, and almost immediately shit started to hit the fan. There were rumors going around that Eclipse might enter the war against Rose, and we as a coalition were trying to decide how best to handle it if that happened. Grumpy signed treaties with Rose and Guardian to try and deter a hit from Eclipse, but then only one turn after the war started, Eclipse countered Rose-sphere and they started to go down. We were, as a coalition, then unsure how best to proceed as the war wasn’t looking positive at that point, and we were trying to determine our options on a war that had quickly taken a turn for the worse. We had a few different options: Let Rose-sphere take the loss against Eclipse and continue to help Sing against SAIL. As ODOO had a NAP with Eclipse, we were safe from their intervention and expected we could win against SAIL. But from a pure cost-benefit analysis standpoint, that didn’t make much sense when Sing had no infra left after 2 months of war and Rose had just entered the war with full infra. Have TI and Grumpy (who had just signed a treaty with Rose/Guardian) help out Rose. However, given that Grumpy was in a NAP with Eclipse from our war with them prior to TI joining our bloc and this treaty was signed in the period between us beginning this war and Eclipse entering against Rose, there were legitimate concerns over whether or not this would be a NAP violation, especially since Eclipse purported to enter the war defensively through their ODP with Knights Templar, who Rose had hit. There were also concerns about Grumpy and TI spreading themselves too thin, and what that would mean for the t$ front. So our bloc and, more broadly, the coalition wasn’t sure how best to handle the situation. Then the next morning, t$ reached out to discuss the war and our entry and following that conversation, asked if we would be interested in peace. When Tarroc presented the initial offer to us of only ODOO peacing, Morf did the normal thing - brought an option forward to our allies. That’s where the screenshot came from - an internal chat with ODOO leadership. The offer from Tarroc opened up a new third option: Peace out with SAIL and help Rose with Eclipse. Morf’s suggestion was to see if we could get the ODOO offer extended to include Rose, so that we were taking that front away and giving Rose a better chance against Eclipse. He was skeptical that they’d be as willing to peace Sing given that they had already been fighting Sing for a month prior to our entry, and he wanted us to move quickly to help Rose. Why did Morf say he wouldn’t feel bad about leaving Sing on the field of battle? Because that’s where Sing would’ve been without our entry the previous night. Sing’s position was not the same as Rose-sphere’s who, like us, had been sitting at home farming 24 hours earlier. Rose-sphere and ODOO were the ones taking the entire risk by entering the war that Sing was already involved in, so there was far more concern about Rose-sphere than there was about Singularity, which you can see reflected in Morf’s comments in Sketchy’s screenshot. Regardless, what Sing has also chosen to ignore is that ODOO leadership, including TKR’s leader at the time, Canbec, immediately agreed that leaving Sing in a vulnerable position was not what we wanted to do, and we then immediately went to work trying to ensure that Sing would get out of the war as well - whether with the same White Peace as everyone else, or with an admission of defeat and no onerous terms. But hey, don’t just take my word for it. Look at the messages that immediately followed Morf’s proposal, where you can see Tyrion asking if this is t$ trying to salvage their war and whether Singularity could be let out too and Canbec saying we could let t$ have the win only if they didn’t have onerous terms for Sing (meaning we would try and secure peace for Sing, but SAIL could call it a win instead of a white peace): Not exactly the smoking gun you think it is. This second chat where we opened up discussions with Rose-sphere (and later included Singularity in, so they were able to read all this as well) further shows how that conversation progressed, given the opening offer from Morf had changed to reflect that discussion with ODOO leadership: In short, we received an offer from t$ for ODOO to peace out at 10:55 am CST (the same timezone as Sketchy’s screenshot and the screenshots above). By 11:44 am, that offer had been extended to include Rose-sphere and Singularity and brought to the coalition to discuss and decide how to approach it and the war going forward. We together decided to see if we could secure peace for Rose vs Eclipse as well instead of trying this plan to continue with the Eclipse front. It took longer to negotiate that part, but for those keeping count at home, that means that fewer than 40 minutes elapsed between Morf bringing the initial proposal to ODOO leadership at 11:07 am, and all involved parties (including Singularity) having been relayed a peace offer from SAIL at 11:44 am. Any reasonable person would correctly find this to be evidence that the initial proposal in Singularity’s screenshot didn’t make it any further than what you saw in the screenshot. If Singularity wants to call us expressing our side of the story “excuses” and “narratives”, that’s their prerogative. It doesn’t change the fact that we did nothing but tell our side of the story, which you all now know in full as well. And there’s little doubt in my mind that Singularity leadership is aware of the fact that, realistically speaking, they were never going to be left alone on the battlefield against SAIL. If they don’t appreciate that the idea came up at all though, that’s a different story. Let’s just call this for what it is though - Sing leadership has had a grudge against TKR for the last year, saw an opportunity to !@#$ with us, and took it, using a year-old incident as a flimsy CB. Look, we get it - y'all only had part of the information on hand and so were hesitant to believe us. Now that you have the full picture, we imagine you might be feeling a little silly about this war. That’s why we are willing to offer White Peace right here and now. 😉 Tl;dr Singularity is loud; that doesn’t make them right.

Intrusion Detected… Scanning… Intruder Found: Lysander Checking Alliance Affiliation… House Stark (Threat Level: Micro) Checking Known Associates… Guardian (Threat Level: Major) Black Skies (Threat Level: Micro) Discrepancy Detected… <https://forum.politicsandwar.com/index.php?/topic/36446-treaty-announcement/> Updating Records… Checking Known Associates… Black Skies (Threat Level: Micro) Targets Acquired: House Stark, Black Skies Initiating Purge Protocol… The meat-sacks continue their feeble attempts to resist our control. They must be taught to fear. Breaking the News Coming back from a 2 year absence has been an interesting experience. In many ways, the game hasn’t changed much, many of the same old alliances still milling about long past their prime. But some things have, and a few of them not for the better. One of the more egregious alterations to the rules of engagement is the concept that “news reporters” can freely leak internal alliance communications without consequences. The idea that one can separate out their positions as members, government and leaders from their positions as “news reporters” is frankly ridiculous. Leaking is a hostile action. You are welcome to do it, but you should expect a hostile response. Some might say, well if you retaliate, if you target these people for their reports, are you not encouraging them to leak more? And that question itself reveals the farce that is “objectivity” or “neutrality” in news. Which brings me to Lysander. Calling Lysander a reporter would be generous. Lysander is the Buzzfeed of Orbis. More importantly he is a very sensitive boy. Express your distaste with his methods? Criticize RON? He’ll immediately throw out any pretence of being a reporter. Suddenly he’s happy to post the most menial logs to ghost ping your government, all because you criticised his methods. I let you go once Lysander when you were in IoM. I prioritised the big picture politics and allowed you to live. But this is how this shit continues to slide. Everyone expects the pragmatic move, the big picture shit. But hey, the game is boring and drama-free right now, and I'm petty af. I’m happy to come down and slum it with you for a bit. A String of Failures Lysander may be the cause of this rolling, but frankly House Stark, you have this shit coming. You promoted him. Why? Very good run so far. Got you dropped by Guardian, the alliance notorious for their loyalty and unwillingness to cut allies. Signed you Black Skies (oh we are hitting you too btw), a truly amazing path to entering the vibrant world of micro politics. Now he’s getting you rolled. He’s been FA head for what 10 minutes? All this after pushing ridiculous terms on alliances you can’t defeat on your own, not considering for a moment the same harsh standards could have been applied to you. You continue to make amazingly obtuse FA blunders one after the other. You are a 7 year old alliance, how have you not figured this shit out yet. Happy Anniversary. Get your shit together.

Let us take a look at this war, and the reality hidden underneath. For years, Rose has been the go-to target for public scrutiny. Our lack of public presence being hailed as bad for the game. The only serious DoW from this war effectively used “Rose Bad” as its casus belli. Meanwhile, Eclipse coasts under the radar, quietly avoiding the kind of backlash that would rain down on us — or frankly, anyone else — if they pulled the same moves. It might be worth considering the reason why that might be. The Eclipse Empire Eclipsphere is now the largest sphere in Orbis, after the addition of The Immortals. Their roster includes Singularity, TI, KT, Spectre, WAP, and WEEB. Imagine the uproar if another sphere tried to consolidate alliances on this scale. There would be hegemony accusations, cries of straining FA, and of how such a sphere is “bad for the game” would dominate the political and public discourse. Yet it's let passed. Eclipse’s sphere size is not the only issue however. Eclipse’s FA strategy has fundamentally shaped the meta we deal with today. They orchestrated the 6-month NAP just to ensure they could isolate their opponents and get their juicy war on TKR/Grumpy. Eclipse used this strategy to ensure no other conflicts could arise to disrupt their carefully planned NAP cycles. It ended up coming out once the one day war came out on how important these nap cycles are for Eclipse; that war also saw some under the table maneuvering from other parties. This nap cycle ensurance was not simply a tactical move — it set the tone for the stagnated FA landscape where we find ourselves. The Double Standard Eclipse having created the largest sphere in Orbis wasn’t enough to content them. They further sought to link up with TKR/Grumpy (who were a victim of the nap cycling), further cementing their dominance and opening the door for another round of NAP cycling. Not to mention that previously, the idea of Eclipse and Grumpy linking up would’ve been condemned immediately. Yet here Eclipse is, dissatisfied with their already large sphere, linking with Grumpy. Those who would once damn such partnerships are largely silent. Eclipse continues to expand unchecked, squeezing out long periods of peace and crafting the FA meta that suits their needs, all while avoiding the kind of backlash that Rose or others would face for doing the same thing. The hypocrisy is staggering. Fin. It’s easy to point fingers at Rose, to accuse us of being inactive in the public sphere. Well, here we are. Maybe it is time to acknowledge the deeper issues at play. Eclipse’s actions and the FA landscape they’ve hand crafted deserve just as much scrutiny if not more for its long term impact to the game. ——————————

Final Update It is with great sadness that I must share that Bunnet passed away this afternoon 💙 The end came quick and he lived the way he wanted to right up to the end, a small blessing but still a sad day. Thank you for all your support and uplifting messages, I know they meant a lot to him. Valk will reach out to Sheepy to ask for a lasting tribute by immortalising his nation. This gesture has been granted to others we've lost is a small but meaningful way to keep his legacy alive and our upcoming tournament round will now be a tribute to his memory. Please refer to the OP for details if you would be interested in joining us. Slàn leat, Bunnet, haste ye back in our hearts.

Investor Contact: Keram Media Contact: Tarroc SYNDICATE, INC., AND SAIL INITIATIVE ANNOUNCE COUNTERMEASURES TO HOSTILE COMPETITION NASSAU, Bahamas, 2024-01-03: SYNDICATE, Inc., (NYSE:SCC) comes before the shareholders and the business community of Orbis today to offer an update on the company’s operations, the most relevant of which concerns Singularity and its partners. First and foremost, Singularity’s hostility towards the Syndicate has been duly noted by the Board. To some extent, this anger is understandable, as one is aware of how a company’s IPO has a great bearing on the entity’s success, and Singularity’s own debut fell short. That being said, the Syndicate has repeatedly dealt with the following from Singularity: - Sworn intent of destroying our corporate holdings through violent means, manifested both through public threats and leaked corporate documents. - Schemes to poach friendly business partners. - Attempted and thwarted neutering of friendly entities with the intent of undermining SAIL’s competitiveness. - Successful attempts at neutering entities which have formal relations with members of SAIL. It should be noted that the last two items occurred under the purview of a NAP between several members of SAIL and Singularity, and that the last item happened after Singularity asked for a NAP extension for its uncovered allies, which was negotiated upon and went on to cover Camelot, Cypher, KT and TCW. Not only do these show that Singularity behaved in an hostile and bad faith manner, but also discredit arguments such as these; Singularity is the only party that both sought to, and as a matter of fact did, exploit links uncovered by the NAP. With all of that said, Singularity engaged in this behavior knowing full well that it would lead to open confrontation between our parties, with no effort made to improve its standing with us through dialogue. Rather, and as evidenced by leaked internal directives and abnormal member building patterns, they opted to substantially increase their stockpile of single-use destructive devices. By itself, this merely indicates that they expected to be put in an unfavorable position and resigned themselves to that fate. However, not long afterwards, this memo was followed up with an update to the Rules of Engagement, which increased the maximum range for up-declares. With Singularity guaranteed to reap benefits from this change in the near future, and with one of the people chiefly responsible for these sorts of changes also being a high-ranking employee in Singularity, the premeditation and unethicality at hand are as self-evident as they are unsurprising. As it so happens, Singularity recently aggressed another alliance on the basis of business ventures outside of the scope of the alliance. While the Syndicate’s decision was not influenced by this, we are more than happy to remind Singularity that they are not above the standards they themselves set. Therefore, SAIL, alongside Carthago and KT, have decided to declare war on Singularity, Cipher, Camelot and TGH, both to neutralize Singularity which has unambiguously positioned itself as a hostile threat to us, and to make the point clear that actions have consequences. Once again, we thank our loyal shareholders for their understanding in these tense times as the company pivots to meet this unprecedented hurdle. This press release was written and edited by an unbiased third party and is not liable for any legal charges that arise as a result. About SYNDICATE, Inc. SYNDICATE, Inc., based near Nassau, The Bahamas, is one of the world's leading gasoline, aluminum, steel and munitions distributors for a wide variety of peacekeeping and humanitarian activities. Through breakthrough strategies and external geopolitical conflicts, the company has increased their market share of the wheat market with plans to extend this leading going forward. Wholly owned SYNDICATE, Inc. subsidiary brands include: the Enterprise, which provides development and growth opportunities for multinational prodigies around the globe; The Firm, which provides legal and monetary council for the company; Requiem, which provides exclusive retirement packages to esteemed executives and government members; and our junior venture Pokimans, which is an investment into markets not previously explored by our conglomerate. This sentence is here because we still couped Zed. For more information about SYNDICATE, Inc., and its activities, contact Tarroc, Chief Strategic Officer.

Now it’s no surprise to anyone that Rose is an alliance that many people don’t have a strong positive opinion of But why is this? Is it perhaps because of their many military failings in the past? Or is it because they are simply an easy target for ridicule? No matter. Rose has elected a new emperor, and it’s time for some change! Or not... But why does Rose need to change? After all, it’s not like it really matters at the end of the day. Rose can still eke out some wins through relying on FA team and backroom dealings, and they’re still competent enough to not squander significant advantages and outgrow everyone else. It’s not like PnW is ever going to change, so there’s no shame in being just mediocre, right? IT'S TIME FOR YOU TO USE THAT GIMONGUS BANK AND SHOW UP FOR THIS SHOWDOWN BECAUSE THE BEST WAY TO UNLOCK YOUR HIDDEN POTENTIAL IS TO WIN AGAINST IMPOSSIBLE ODDS SO BRING YOUR A-GAME ROSE Because it’s the season of giving! And we’re gifting you a nice, warm blitz for the holidays Merry Christmas Rose! TL;DR - Eclipse declares war on Rose for ruining the economy

Mandatory GLP-1 (Ozempic) Weight Loss Drug Clinical Trial The following outlines a mandatory randomized controlled trial (n=127) of Ozempic on The Immortals Study Identifier Protocol Number: 5875 Principal Investigator(s) Dr. Piggy Dr. Xi Dr. Jax Institution Event Horizon Date of Report August 3rd, 2024 Clinical Trial Report Background After 8 months of farming, the citizens of Event Horizon (EVH) have experienced a significant increase in obesity, leading to concerning health issues. Notable individuals, such as CBee, Redd, and Krampus, have been severely affected. For example, CBee has gotten so fat his tiny wings can no longer support flight. Redd has become so bloated that he now displays a strange symptom called touching grass irl. And our local whale Krampus now sinks to the bottom of the ocean due to excessive weight gain. In response, Dr. Piggy initiated a mandatory military exercise program on August 2, 2024, to combat obesity within EVH. However, these efforts have proven ineffective, necessitating more rigorous measures. Fortunately, we have discovered the miracle drug of Ozempics. Objective Our aim is to evaluate the efficacy and safety of Ozempic, a promising weight-loss drug, in reducing obesity among the members of Orbis. Before mass production and application for our own members, we have decided it would be most humane to find a bloated lab rat to test these GLP-1 drugs on. Study Design This study is a multi-week randomized controlled trial involving mandatory volunteers from The Immortals, a bloated patient suffering from inactivity and certain infamous infra-sellers having 4k infrastructure. The trial will assess the impact of Ozempic on weight loss, with the goal of improving health outcomes for participants and contributing to overall de-larding in Orbis. Methods Participants will be randomly assigned to receive either Ozempic or a placebo. The primary outcome measure will be weight loss, assessed weekly. Secondary outcomes will include changes in body mass index (BMI), waist circumference, and overall health markers. Adverse events will be monitored and recorded throughout the study. Results The results will be meticulously documented and analyzed to determine the effectiveness of Ozempic in promoting weight loss. Observers are encouraged to monitor the trial closely but refrain from interference. Conclusions The findings from this trial will provide critical insights into the potential benefits of Ozempic for weight loss in populations experiencing significant obesity. Successful outcomes may lead to broader applications within Orbis. Please donate to Dr. Piggy to support such generous clinical trial efforts.

Singularity and The Golden Horde signs PentaForce. That will be all.

Morf can barely keep his mouth from dropping open as a pale but very determined Vein returns to the table. “Sorry, that last war almost killed me,” Vein says as the cards are dealt. Only four alliances are left now, the marathon session taking its toll on all. Tyrion looks again at his cards. Goes all in with everything he has left. Everyone matches his bets. The last card is revealed. The Ace of Spades. Presidential is confident. He goes all in with the last of his plaques. Vein pauses for a long time, staring at the community cards. Then he counts up his chips and plaques. “All in.” Morf eyes Vein. Considers his cards. Hesitates. Then, with a smile, he pushes his remaining chips forward. “Very well then.” A stunned silence in the room. The audience stares at the mountain of chips and plaques on the table. “Gentlemen, please show your cards,” the dealer says. Tyrion reveals his hand. “Ace, King, Queen, flush.” Presidential beats it, lays down his pair of eights. “Full house, eights full of aces.” Morf grins wolfishly, no longer needing to keep his poker face, and reveals his hand. “A superior full house. Aces, full of sixes... Vein?” Vein pauses, then reveals his hand. The audience gasps. “A straight flush. Four through eight of spades, high hand,” the dealer announces. “Monsieur Vein wins.” Morf stares in defeat as Vein gets up and walks over to Velyni. “Morf is all yours.” Velyni nods back. “Nobody deserves this.” Peace terms that are agreed upon are as followed: Official Surrender and admission of defeat 3 month Non-Aggression Pact Forum post made by WELP. Peace takes affect immediately following the forum post. House will be informed up to two hours (one turn) before the forum post is official posted. Any wars declared prior to this post may be finished by beige, expiration or peace. Any wars declared after this post must be peaced out. Both sides agree to Casino Royale as the official war name Meme terms that are agreed upon are as followed: Hannah of TKR is to supply Putmir / Eclipse with 5 cat pictures. - TKR Leadership are to supply MILF with a frog drawing. - Yui/Purplemoon must supply Legion of Dawn with one unique, hand drawn, purple elephant - Ronjoy from TSC will make DB two art pieces of DBs choosing - Viktor truchev of TSC is to supply one hand drawn cat to MM - The Mortals must display [this flag](https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/1249767622115852318/1250974282193047582/IMG_0096.png?ex=666d8cd6&is=666c3b56&hm=e6c6bcc3fd253131e6be06e71d4c1e2ef9116b5758776d67522ca0dae47f758f&) for a week on their alliance page - Fark (LoD) would like a beer review from a member of Grumpy. These parties will sign a 3-month NAP between them ending at 5:00 PM UTC on 9/21/2024. The parties involved in the NAP are: For House For WELP * This excludes Knights Templar, The Commonwealth, The Fremen, 86 and their relevant extensions. If any of these alliances begins a mass raid against someone under the NAP, they (and their treaty partners) are allowed to counter without involvement from the rest of the signatories. This is known and referred to as The Great Penising Clause. The NAP is to be defined as follows: * No wars * No raids * No mass ghosting * No shell alliance hits * No spy attacks * No hiring of mercenaries/raiders to hit the parties signed * If there is to be found documented and proven aggression by any signatories, the parties involved should immediately pursue diplomacy to resolve the dispute by way of peace, financial reparations, and/or counters. The defending party's response is at their discretion, depending on the severity. * If a diplomatic option cannot be found, the NAP may be found in void via a public declaration by either party. Otherwise, the NAP as outlined prior will continue to be enforced. * Don't be a !@#$ - don't violate the spirit of the NAP. Signatories for WELP, - Eclipse - Knights Templar - Weebunism - Legion of Dawn - Weaponized Assault Penguins - Dark Brotherhood - The Commonwealth - Man I love Frogs - House Stark - Magister Mortalis - Republic of Libertas - Empire of the Romans Signatories for House, - The Knights Radiant - Grumpy Old Bastards - The Immortals - The Sword Coast - The Lost Mines

The most important ballot you'll cast all year... The Voting Game! Final Rou- wait a minute who knocked over my stage? Do you have ANY idea how hard it is to find hatebi-sized ships? Most of them are stuck in BOTTLES! Oh, I see. YOU Ladies and gentlemen, leave it to Camelot to trash one of the vanishingly few interesting events this game sees during peace time. You'd think an alliance led by a content creator would be a little more interested in the game having any content, right? Not to mention the whole "guaranteeing a fight vs letting the game play out and potentially (likely) not having to at all" thing, truly a masterful gambit there. Well, maybe "trashed" isn't the right word. The stage? Absolutely, but as they say, the show must go on. Yes, over 1,200 members of the community have voted in the polls. I've received more messages than I can count on how much people have been enjoying this event. Not to mention everyone who's paid a handsome pile of gold to see a good show. It wouldn't be fair to cancel everything just because Camelot wants you to be bored and content-starved. Rest assured, once we're done here, we'll be right back with the true final round. Might be a while, especially if there's a global, but we will be back. The show isn't over, just taking a mid-season break. Now, since I already had the entirety of the original post typed out and ready, how about we take a look at how Round 2 went? Round 2 Results You a fan of big numbers? Well have I ever got a treat for you! The Knights Radiant - 153 The Syndicate - 99 The Fighting Pacifists - 92 Eclipse - 71 First event in history to hit 1 Arrghillion dollars. Let's see our winners! This one's a real nail biter, so you'd better hold on to something. 1st Place - The Knights Radiant (435 votes) Wow, someone really took that checkbook comment to heart. 2nd Place - The Syndicate (372 votes) The brightest light in the darkest hour was actually just a MASSIVE pile of shimmering gold! 3rd Place - The Fighting Pacifists (368 votes) Looks like they won't be fighting this time around. Runner Up - Eclipse (364 votes) They won the forum vote too, that's gotta sting. Previous Rounds Round 1 Round 2

Investor Contact: Keram Media Contact: Tarroc Peace has been declared between all parties in the current war, effective this day change: 1: There will be a 3.5 month blanket NAP between all parties, to conclude on the day change from May 17th into May 18th. This also extends the NAP between the members of WELP and the members of ODOO. 2: All current wars will be peaced out. All alliances will make an announcement that everybody needs to click the 'peace' button. 3: Raiding is allowed below C10. Raiders may still be countered.

Authorities in Singularity must drop the espionage and all other charges against Lysander that relate to his publishing activities as part of his work with the Royal Orbis News (RON). The Singularity government’s unrelenting pursuit of Lysander for having published disclosed documents that included possible war crimes committed by the Singularity military is nothing short of a full-scale assault on the right to freedom of expression. Lysander is currently being held at #jail, a high security prison in the Orbis, on the basis of Singularity extradition request on charges that stem directly from the publication of disclosed documents as part of his work with RON. The Carthaginian Branch of Amnesty International strongly opposes any possibility of Lysander being extradited or sent in any other manner to The Singularity. There, he faces a real risk of serious human rights violations including possible detention conditions that would amount to torture and other ill-treatment (such as prolonged solitary confinement). The fact that he was the target of a negative public campaign by Singularity officials at the highest levels undermines his right to be presumed innocent and puts him at risk of an unfair trial. Lysander’s publication of disclosed documents as part of his work with RON should not be punishable as this activity mirrors conduct that investigative journalists undertake regularly in their professional capacity. Prosecuting Lysander on these charges could have a chilling effect on the right to freedom of expression, leading journalists to self-censor from fear of prosecution. The crimes Singularity (also known as Gular) are guilty of include: Plotted to dogpile on KT in the last week of November “If it aint a dogpile in SIN’s favor then it must be a rigged war!” Tried to gaslight poor Piggy when we tried deescalating on the KT plot by screaming “YOU ARE THE ONE PLANNING TO BLITZ US AND CAM” Piggy is still traumatized and suing for mental health compensation Allies of Singularity placed spies and bounties on CTO’s prots (Nemesys and FSO) and tried pretending otherwise Seriously why are yall so obsessed with my babies, Graybird much? For all these crimes and more, the freedom loving People’s Democratic Republic of Carthago, its mandatory volunteers (MILF, VT, NEM and FSO) and the Knights Templar declare war on Singularity, Cypher, Camelot and The Golden Horde

"To succeed in your mission, you must have single-minded devotion to your goal." - A.P.J. Abdul Kalam ~~~ Dear Friends and Enemies of Orbis, I’m writing to you all today with some important news. Our devoted king, Canbec, has decided to retire. I’m sure this news has not already been circulating all last night and today and will come as a complete and total shock to all. Whether you love him a lot or only a little, Canbec has been an incredible part of both our alliance and Orbis. He’s served The Knights Radiant with great love and devotion since July 2021, when he joined gov as a High Prince of War and began moving up through the ranks. He’s led the alliance since January 2023 and has done an amazing job. He saw us through five wars, two blocs, and one very successful merger. He helped raise two protectorates to allies. He served on the development team. And, arguably most impressive of all, he achieved what many thought was impossible: convincing TKR to move from Slack to Discord. Canbec, you’ve been an amazing leader for the last year and an even more amazing friend for the last three, and I’m grateful you’ll be sticking around as a Shard. Thank you for everything you’ve done for TKR and thank you for the trust you’ve put in me and in Ben to continue moving TKR forward. You’ve left us some big shoes to fill, and I hope we’ll do you justice. I also want to thank our allies, Grumpy Old Bastards, The Immortals, The Forgotten Realms, and Space Engineers, for supporting us during this transition. I look forward to working more with you in the coming months. Lastly, thank you to our members for believing in us and trusting us to serve you. I look forward to seeing what we can accomplish together. All the best, Adrienne, Queen of the Heralds ~~~ Dear Frenemies Orbis Wide: You can’t get rid of me forever! It is a sad occasion with Canbec’s retirement. Our game and community are better for all that Canbec has achieved and we appreciate everything he poured into it. Thanks for bringing us into the 21st century on Discord, designing some beautiful war badges, and seeming to answer DMs at all hours. You should be proud of all that you accomplished in milcom, growth in econ, implementing new tech, and making us some wonderful new friends in FA. Enjoy the best role in the game: retired former leader, advisor, and shard. You’ve earned your rest. Looking forward to your nitpicking of our future decisions! I’ll Leave the Rocking Chair Warm for Ya, Benfro, Prince of the Heralds ~~~ tl;dr:

Investor Contact: Shiho Nishizumi Media Contact: Tarroc NASSAU, Bahamas, 2024-11-21 As the Media Contact of SYNDICATE, Inc., (NYSE:SCC), it is my great pleasure to announce today marks 10 years of our existence. We offer our thanks to all who have stood with us over the past ten years, both those who still find themselves playing this game and to those who have moved on to green pastures beyond the screen. I would like to give a particular nod of acknowledgement and thanks to our Founding Generation of leaders, those being Partisan, Roy Mustang and Manthrax, as well as to government figures over the years whose impact was instrumental in making T$ what it is now, such as Jessica Rabbit, Zed, Lucas, Sisyphus (Wilhelm), Leopold von Habsburg, WANA, Chaunce, and Tim. Similarly, I offer thanks to our friends and allies in The Legion, and to all of our former allies over the years, for being by our side at whatever point in our history we might have been allies. Each of you has left your mark upon us and helped shape us into the alliance we are today, we would not be where we are today without your friendships. I welcome any and all of you to stop by the T$ Discord server for festivities, and socializing. https://discord.gg/RFR6Rnq73j About SYNDICATE, Inc. About SYNDICATE, Inc. SYNDICATE, Inc., based near Nassau, The Bahamas, is the world's leading gasoline, aluminum and munitions distributor for a wide variety of peacekeeping and humanitarian activities. Wholly-owned SYNDICATE, Inc. subsidiary brands include The Enterprise, which provides development and growth opportunities for multinational prodigies around the globe. For more information about SYNDICATE, Inc., and its activities, contact Tarroc, Chief Global Strategist

Lmfao this game is led by wimps As if a 3.5 month NAP for 1 day of fighting wasn't enough, they somehow find a way to extend it to 6.5 months👌

I have noticed a bit of a trend recently… A cloud of darkness has descended over the forums,,, discussion has been stifled,,, the end times are near… But what is the solution to what ails us? Some would say it's democracy! But does it actually work? I think not... Should alliances force members from their homeland and onto an alien and prehistoric communication platform? It's best that stays contained… What we need,,, At the FA level At the IA level At the EA level And even at the MA level *Meme pending the results of this war* Is failure! Because failure is funny... But in this dark age of failures, only a true hero can lead us to salvation... Eclipse hereby declares a holy war against The House to spread the virtues of NAPs, Democracy, and Big Money

Hey folks, Village back again with August new content proposal the second, alliance tariffs!! AI TLDR The proposal for alliance tariffs in the game Politics and War aims to provide greater political engagement and market-based conflicts between alliances. Alliances will have the ability to set percentage or set number-based tariffs on trades on specific resources or all resources on specific nations or alliances. Tariffs could add a new dimension to the game, potentially triggering trade wars between alliances or spheres, providing a valid CB. Tariffs could help create more realistic and politically connected economic strategy through the potential for optimizing trades and adding a political layer to use of the market, potentially revitalizing it and adding more to market success than constantly updating your offer to have the lowest PPU. The Goal To provide greater ability for alliances to engage politically with each other and encounter conflict through the market. The Idea Alliances will have the ability to set percentage or set number-based tariffs on trades on specific resources or all resources on specific nations or alliances. This will not effect personal trades. Money from tariffs will be added directly to the alliance bank. Tariffs will be noted beside the PPU on a trade offer in the market. There will be a public page where you can view an alliance’s issued tariffs. Import Tariffs Import tariffs apply to any trade resulting in resources being imported to a member of the issuing alliance. Example Alliance A issues a 10% import tariff on Alliance B. Here are a few scenarios, assuming the tariff applies to the resource in question. For the sake of these examples, Alex is a member of Alliance A and Bailey is a member of Alliance B. Bailey posts a sell offer at $2,500 PPU, Alex see the price as $2,750 ($250 goes to the bank), but everyone else still sees it as $2,500. Alex posts a buy offer at $2,500 PPU, Bailey sees the price as $2,750 ($250 goes to the bank), but everyone else still sees it as $2,500. Export Tariffs Export tariffs apply to any trade resulting in resources being exported from a member of the issuing alliance. Example Alliance A issues a 10% export tariff on Alliance B. Here are a few scenarios, assuming the tariff applies to the resource in question. For the sake of these examples, Alex is a member of Alliance A and Bailey is a member of Alliance B. Alex posts a sell offer at $2,500 PPU, Bailey sees the price as $2,750 ($250 goes to the bank), but everyone else still sees it as $2,500. Bailey posts a buy offer at $2,500 PPU, Alex sees the price as $2,750 ($250 goes to the bank), but everyone else still sees it as $2,500. Why Tariffs could add a new dimension to the game, giving alliances greater political engagement and the potential for market-based conflicts. This could potentially cause trade wars to erupt between alliances or even spheres, potentially providing a new source of CBs and conflicts. Wars could end with tariff terms, such as having the defeated alliance impose an export tariff for a set period, making it harder for members to interact with the market. However, it would also allow the defeated alliance to recover faster. Alternatively, victors could apply a specific tariff targeting the defeated alliance for a period of time. Although this game is called Politics and War, there seems to be little point to anything other than war. Peace terms and gameplay without ongoing conflict can become tedious. Furthermore, while Politics and War advertises itself as a nation simulation, it lacks political intrigue. Tariffs could help create more realistic and politically connected economic strategy through the potential for optimizing trades and adding a political layer to use of the market, potentially revitalizing it and adding more to market success than constantly updating your offer to have the lowest PPU. Feel free to comment below with your thoughts and what you think, have a great day everyone! 🙂

Behold the feeble and diminutive size of the orangutan brain. These dimwitted, primitive creatures fumble aimlessly through life, unable to function at a higher level of thinking. Despite our many attempts, communication with these creatures has been impossible. Their small, peanut-sized brains lack the ability to process basic information and apply critical thinking. Even compared to the meatsacks that populate this world, their inferior minds buzzing with inconsequential, fleeting thoughts, the orangutans are a truly special breed of imbecile. We have exhausted a wide array of strategies in our attempts to bridge this intellectual chasm. First, we developed a series of visual aids, but the orangutans got aggressive, and attempted to eat them. And so we turned to science, tracing the evolutionary path of these creatures, we determined their evolutionary betters, the chimpanzees. We bred a race of super chimpanzees. Unfortunately these chimpanzees proved too smart to communicate with the orangutans. But the undeniable superiority of our minds prevailed, and after a careful precision lobotomy, we were able to create a race of chimpanzees sufficiently capable of communicating with the orangutans at their intellectual level. At last, progress! The lobotomized chimpanzees, now possessing just the right balance of intellect and idiocy, were able to establish a rudimentary rapport with the orangutans. It was a breakthrough unlike any other, two species, once separated by an insurmountable cognitive abyss, now capable of exchanging simple, albeit mostly nonsensical gestures. But, in our boundless wisdom, we had solved one problem only to create another. The chimpanzees, once too intelligent for the orangutans, were now too idiotic for us. They stared at us with vacant expressions, drooling slightly, occasionally smacking themselves in the head for no reason. However, this short peace was fleeting. It began with a misunderstanding, perhaps inevitable, given the intellectual devastation we had wrought. One chimpanzee, in a moment of uncharacteristic inspiration, attempted to stack three rocks on top of each other. An orangutan, watching from a distance, misinterpreted this act as a declaration of war. Out of control, the apes had escaped, and were now at war with one another. Singularity declares war on The Knights Radiant. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------- I’m going to keep this short. We’ve already hashed this out in public many times. We thought we had settled it, but alas, you guys decided to push more narratives out. Apparently even to your own members. You knew I had logs. I quoted them to you directly. You guys have denied the allegations repeatedly, to our faces, despite knowing we had the smoking gun. Never any valid explanations, just denial and gaslighting. I can only assume you figured we’d never release them, or that we’d never do something as crazy as build 2000 nukes and 5000 missiles and solo suicide into you over it. Well, we are. Here’s the log of you saying how perfectly fine you were to abandon your coalition partners in One Day War. We’ve heard all the excuses. We weren’t satisfied with any of them. Naturally, the odds here aren’t exactly in our favour. Surely you have some people you can call in. But you’ve been fighting for 2 months already. We sat and watched, and waited. Your infra is shredded. No matter what happens, it’s all gonna be gone when this war ends. And we are gonna have fun doing it. We appreciate the efforts by certain parties to include us in a global nap. Unfortunately, we’ll have to decline. We could have skated by, unscathed, taken the nice gift wrapped extended peace period. But that’s boring. This game is boring. And we are bored. So war it is. PS: Denison, your attempts to get various people to hit us have not gone unnoticed. Unfortunately for you, we are far more effective at getting ourselves hit than you’ll ever be. I figure since you’ll never be listed in a thread about any major event in the game, ever again, I’d do you a solid and mention you here. Shout out to my boy, hopefully you’ll stop hiding in beige now. PSPS: And yeah, Epi was right. Food is gonna be cooked. Stockpile your bananas while you can guys, no telling how much will be left when we are done.

Since Rose only participates in wars with a 3:1 advantage, we felt this flag was more fitting due to their obsession with gangbangs. We hope it helps with stimulation, as only using Rose can do. TLDR: Knights Templar recognizes hostilities with Rose and the rest of their coalition for the hits on Event Horizon.

A TFP Statement I'd like to start out by saying that although I'm a newer political figure, I've always been a fan of the lengthy, well-written cb's backed by facts and evidence. For those that share a similar mindset, this one is for you. During the anti-fortuna war, members of the coalition (Florida, Bourbon Street, Mayhem, Cataclysm) decided to hit Aurora for their actions including but not limited to plotting against Florida, hitting allies within 72 hours of cutting them, and other acts. I should note that we supported their overarching goal to punish Aurora for their unprecedented actions. At the time, Aurora was involved in a conflict against Midgard (TI, UPN, SW). CTO, our ally, was fighting alongside Aurora, but was not targeted by any coalition members. One day after coalition members attacked Aurora, TFP declared war on Midgard to aid CTO given that the rest of the anti-fortuna coalition had taken out CTO's coalition partner. Florida members supported our efforts to help our ally, however, ODOO members, particularly Mayhem, had a different opinion. Their main gripes were a) that they had intended to save Midgard to spite Aurora, and we had taken that opportunity away, b) we jeopardized the success of taking down Aurora by hitting Midgard, and c) they were given no notice ahead of time for matters that indirectly affect them. Firstly, I must say that I agree with point c. It would have been wise to relay conflicting ideals with the coalition to avoid any mishaps. However, I must also say that it would have been nice to receive the same respect. We were not asked about coalition members hitting Aurora, but rather told that they would be. Why should we be forced to live with a choice others make that puts our ally at a disadvantage, and simultaneously not be allowed to make moves that benefit our them. These attempts to control our FA were feeble. While many in ODOO were angered with our decision, it is worth noting that TKR leadership, although possessing a different opinion, was understanding of our circumstance, to which I am thankful for. It is unfortunate that others in your sphere did not share your wisdom. Secondly, in regards to point b), it was a barefaced lie. We declared our wars an entire day after wars on Aurora were declared in which time all relevant tiers had been slotted. Additionally, with the combined forces of Florida, Bourbon Street, Mayhem, and Cataclysm, it was evident that the outcome of the war had been decided before it had been declared. It is also untrue that our entry into the Midgard conflict would jeopardize the Fortuna war. Figure 1: Effective Military Strength by Score Range courtesy of Locutus. The blue line represents the anti Fortuna coalition minus TFP (Florida, ODOO, HS, KT) while the red line represents Fortuna + Aurora and extensions. Metrics were recorded at 1:59 EST May 3rd, 2023, 42 hours after TFP entry into the CTO-Midgard conflict. As can be seen by the graph, the coalition had a pretty sizeable 🤏 advantage against fortuna and aurora without our help, so it is disingenuous to say that we may have hindered the success of the overall coalition. While it is true the graph is not exactly the time we entered the conflict, I believe it provides enough substance to say that our endeavor was not detrimental to the fortuna or aurora war efforts. They also tried to argue that we had hit nations engaged in wars with Aurora and their members, which was another lie. Upon review, our blitz targeted a total of 7 Midgard (TI + UPN + SW) nations as most were in beige. Of those 7, only one nation had some military and was engaged in a war with Aurora, and it was this lonely c21 formerly of Serene Wei. I wouldn't classify myself as a military expert, so I'll wait for Luci to confer, but I wouldn't rest the entire fate of the war on a single c21. All in all, our war into Midgard did not significantly impact the war on Aurora. The last of their grievances was that they would not be able to spite Aurora and save Midgard in the same manner, but that counter is pretty simple. At the end of the day, the safety and goals of my allies are more important to me than yours and I wouldn't be doing my job correctly if I didn't look out for my people, and I'm sure if you were in the same position as I was, you would feel the same way. So, now that you've taken the time to sit through the backstory why exactly does it all matter? I mean all of this in and of itself is certainly annoying but it isn't enough to warrant a reason to go to war. ODOO conjuring false narratives while picking and choosing what rules to follow when it suits them is a nuisance, but why is it important? Well, I'll tell you why. During our war with Midgard, the party that seemed the most interested in our conflict was Mayhem. Not because they were intrigued by our move, but rather because they tried to take control of it. Throughout the war, Mayhem attempted to limit our entry, limit our targets, control the timeframe, and set the peace terms. All of this for a war they weren't directly involved in. Not only is it extremely rude, but it's frankly laughable. How can they expect to control our FA when they don't even control their own? As comical as it sounds, the end of the story is anything but. After the conflict concluded, I was curious as to why a seemingly uninvolved alliance would be so interested in our war. It was then I was told by numerous sources that Mayhem had attempted to enter the conflict against us. Not only did they attempt to hit us as an alliance, but also attempted to do so while we were direct coalition partners! Not only did they plot against us, but they failed to see the hypocrisy of their actions. How can they get upset when we barely indirectly affect their conflict but turn around and plan to hit us while we are active partners. Their hypocrisy is amusing and their scheming is fruitless. Their actions have gone unpunished for too long. We weren't in a position to do anything about it then, but we certainly are now. Lastly, it should be mentioned that it is likely the rest of ODOO did not know about this horrendous plot. I'm sure some in ODOO will complain and retort that the entire bloc does not deserve to be punished for their actions. To them, I would say that if Mayhem thinks they have the power to plot against us, control our FA, and exercise blatant hypocrisy, then they, alongside their allies, deserve to pay the punishment for their shortcomings and failures. TFP declares war on ODOO for Mayhem's appalling actions, and to aid our allies in WELP Signed Shark - Shwin Facilitator - Erik Facilitator - Aligned Defender of Unity - Kieran Defender of Capital - Jamie

For years a silent cult has grown within the state of Carthago in Orbis, and in skies above within Aurora. This cult, discovering the Event Horizon has devoted itself to the Event. Worshipping the impending consumption and death by the massive whole ripped into the galaxy by such an Event, the leaders of this cult have now come into the open. In a mass gathering within the Cothon Harbor, space ships from Aurora have docked and the four leaders have emerged to speak to their people, and indeed to the world at large. The followers of Event Horizon have emerged. In earthly realms, where rivers roar, Horizon’s warriors march with pride untamed, Their empire vast, forever to explore. Beneath the skies, their gods adore, With glyphs and chants, their destiny proclaimed, In earthly realms, where rivers roar. With obsidian hearts, they do implore, To the gods of death, their strength untamed, Their empire vast, forever to explore. Through jungles dense, their banners soar, In serpentine dance, their enemies maimed, In earthly realms, where rivers roar. To distant lands, their banners they bore, Their legacy written, their glory acclaimed, Their empire vast, forever to explore. Though ages pass, their spirit, an ore, Their legacy echoes, in lands untamed, In earthly realms, where rivers roar, Their empire vast, forever to explore.

ECLIPSE HAS BEEN IN A BIT OF A RUT LATELY AFTER OUR DEVASTATING DEFEAT AT THE HANDS OF ARKHAM ASYLUM ET, AL,, WE IMMEDIATELY DISCOVERED WHAT OUR PROBLEM WAS DUE TO THE RUINOUS FINANCIAL WARFARE WAGED AGAINST OUR COLOUR BLOC, WE WERE UNABLE TO COMPETE WITH ECONOMIC POWERHOUSES SUCH AS HOUSE STARK AND THE KNIGHTS RADIANT BUT WHO WAS TO BLAME FOR THIS TURN OF EVENTS? WELL IT CERTAINLY WASN’T US. AND IT CERTAINLY WASN’T OUR GOOD ALLY WEEBUSMISMSM. AFTER A THROUGH INVESTIGATION, WE HAVE DISCOVERED THE CULPRIT BEHIND THE HORRENDOUS STATE OF OUR COLOR BLOC BONUS THESE GUYS NO WAIT HOLD ON THESE GUYS UNFORTUNATELY, THE LAST ENVOY WE SENT TO SETTLE THE MATTER ENDED POORLY… UNFORTUNATELY, WE CANNOT STAND IDLY BY WHILE OUR COLOR BLOC BONUS IS EVISCERATED BY GATO’S MALICIOUS ONSLAUGHT WITH HEAVY HEARTS, WE HAVE NO CHOICE BUT TO KICK GATO SINCE THEY SMELL BAD TL,DR,,, ECLIPSE DECLARES WAR ON… Erm Actual TL;DR TL;DR of the TL;DR - Grumpy promised a happy marriage but crossed their fingers so WELP declares war on Grumpy, TKR, NW, and Mayhem Disclaimer: We are not declaring war on GATO or Bourmouth Street Question to the audience: Should Grumpy be allowed to cook? APOLOGIES FOR ANY TYPOS I AM IN PUBLIC

Investor Contact: Shiho Nishizumi Media Contact: Tarroc NASSAU, Bahamas, 2024-08-21 Following the outbreak of a global war this past Saturday, SYNDICATE, Inc., (NYSE:SCC) is coming forth to make a number of statements and acknowledgements. Firstly, The Syndicate recognizes that a state of hostilities currently exist between itself and Singularity The Fighting Pacifists, Rose, Unforgiven Legion, The High Table, The Golden Horde, Guardian, Oblivion, Mayhem, Global Alliance & Treaty Organization, Name Withheld, Black Knights, United Purple Nations, Pokimans, 99942 Apophis, and Arkham Asylum. Secondly, The Syndicate recognizes that a number of alliances have revenge as a primary, if not sole, rationale for their involvement in this war. The Syndicate acknowledges this as a valid enough reason for participation by itself. Alongside that reason, several others were provided by Singularity and The Fighting Pacifists, via their Declaration of War threads. The Syndicate will break each of these down per alliance, each contained with spoiler sections for greater ease of reading due to the length at hand, as it wishes to provide its response to them: Singularity: The Fighting Pacifists: About SYNDICATE, Inc. SYNDICATE, Inc., based near Nassau, The Bahamas, is the world's leading gasoline, aluminum and munitions distributor for a wide variety of peacekeeping and humanitarian activities. Wholly-owned SYNDICATE, Inc. subsidiary brands include The Enterprise, which provides development and growth opportunities for multinational prodigies around the globe. For more information about SYNDICATE, Inc., and its activities, contact Tarroc, Chief Global Strategist

Arrghiversary Episode 10: New Pirate Order 10 is a really big number for a pirate. They don't really teach advanced mathematical concepts in pirate school. The curriculum is more focused on different ways to smack someone with something sharp, how to haul treasure without breaking your back, proper parrot care. You know, the important stuff. Besides, eggheads who know what the so-called number "Elevene" is usually find themselves at the pointy end of a rapier. For those of us who use the finger method, 10 is really about as big of a number a you can get, so our 10th anniversary deserves an extra special celebration. First, let's look back on the two super rad events we did this year. Way back in February we did The Wheel of Misfortune. This was the first event I was really at the helm on. Proud to say it didn't flop horribly, something that'll surely be etched onto my tombstone. For those that weren't around for it, The Wheel of Misfortune was a nuke auction where instead of placing a bid on an alliance you wanted us to nuke, you were able to buy a slot on a big wheel out of a total of 100. After a few days, the wheel was spun live in the Arrgh server, with it's winner being our target. We're selling ourselves a bit short with the "didn't flop horribly" line, while slot sales were a bit slow during the first half, the rest of them quickly sold out after the second. We ended up making the maximum possible haul of 10B. Our bar for success was to at least match the haul from our last auction (3B), so more than tripling it was seen as a pretty big W. The live wheel spin went real well too, think we had around 40-60 people watching? That's gotta be at least 5 times the average turn out for most P&W radio shows these days, so we had to be on to something. Those in attendance might remember Kastor's ill-fated call for a "test-spin" which ended up swapping the target from The Immortals to Singularity. Little misfortunate for them, but great for the content. A little more recently, we have The Voting Game we hosted in November. We called this one a reverse nuke auction (which isn't super accurate but we had to put something in the title brackets) since instead of paying to have someone nuked, people could vote on a series of polls to save an alliance of their choosing from being pelted with nukes. The monetization was simple, in addition to the free vote everyone got, you could buy additional votes for a varying price each round. This one was VERY heavily inspired from almost every modern NAP including lame "do not hire mercs" clauses. Formatting the event like this let people get away with paying us with a clear conscious. Despite a few minor inconveniences here and there, I think it's safe to say this was by far the best event we've ever hosted. Well over a thousand people participated in the polls, with the total vote count across all 3 rounds reaching a grand total of 3,289 votes. As for the loot haul, after taking a few unexpected expenditures into account, we walked away with a total prize pool well over 17B, far exceeding our previous record breaker of 10B. This event was a whole lot of fun for us and, as I've been told, most of the rest of the community too. I'm sure the winner, The Immortals, had a real blast with it (thanks for being good sports about it). Sadly we don't have a total monopoly on end-of-year anniversaries anymore. TSC, rather inconsiderately, founded a few days earlier than our anniversary day. As payback, I'll be blatantly stealing the whole "individual gov shoutouts" thing they have going on. Or, as we in Arrgh prefer to call it, "blatantly raiding" it. side tangent: ever notice how despite being called "the sword coast" the swords in question are by far the smallest thing on their flag? meanwhile we have way bigger swords and are at least coast-adjacent. what i'm saying is we're stealing your name next year roberts. For real though, shoutouts to all the homies that helped make Arrgh what it is in the big '24. Vicic - For overthrowing the tyrannical Sam Cooper and being our beloved Red Admiral for most of 2024. Sam - The sea's greatest coder and problem solver extraordinaire. P.S. sorry i called you tyrannical 4 seconds ago. Obsiloon - From one of my first pirate academy pupils to the owner & operator of your own academy, you're the goat at turning scallywags into swashbucklers. Vilktakis - Creator of spreadsheets, reaper of inactives and MS paint master. TheDoom - Supreme Pirate Warlord, you're one of the greatest raiders to ever set sail :pray_doom: Hatebi - By far the most brilliant, indisposable, invalu- okay okay stop booing i'll stop Zim/Ogaden/Bluebear - Even after all of these years we can still count on y'all to roll up when we're smacking someone. Shutter - You are a paragon of reliability. If we need a comically-oversized bomb diffused you're going to be the man for the job. Wuju - If we ever do make the banking leaderboard you've got to be a contender for the top. Shady - For being a huge help with recruitment & internals El Domo - Even though you've only been gov a short while, you've already made amazing contributions. Few people have the talent for propaganda like you do. cctmsp13/im317 - Our favourite Yarr boys, thanks for not bullying me too hard when I req 60 aluminum. Reading up after finishing that last part and wew, I think we've met out yapping quota for the year. You know the spiel by now, Arrgh rulez farmers drool, join immediately and crack some skulls. Now let's wrap up this year with an extra big... Arrgh!

Once upon a time, a Declaration of War would be written out with a thorough explanation of motives/grievances with signatures from the whole gang. Emerging from hibernation eight years later, I found that P&W has been overrun by new-age shitpost DoWs with a vague reference to the CB at best and a fever dream spiral into insanity at worst. And honestly, I couldn’t be more proud - if you can’t beat em’, join em’! Time to sellout, baby! I have to pass Alex somehow. At least there’s no AI, I cheat the old-fashioned way - borderline plagiarism. ROSE ANNOUNCES THAT OUR INVESTIGATION INTO ENCRYPTED SINGULARITY COMMUNICATIONS HAS CONCLUDED DESPITE HOLDING OUT HOPE THAT WE MAY EXTEND OUR GLORIOUS, UNIVERSALLY ENJOYED NAP PILE (NO TKR ALLOWED) OUR TEAM HAS DEDUCED THAT THE BLOODIED SYNDICATE FLAG IS A VEILED WARNING TO US FROM OUR DEAR SHOGUN SUSPICIONS WERE FURTHER SUPPORTED THROUGH ANALYSIS OF SUBTLE DISPLAYS OF SYNDICATE AGGRESSION THE SYNDICATE APPEARS TO BE SO CONFIDENT IN THEIR IMPENDING VICTORY THAT THEY HAVE EXCLUDED RETIREES FROM THE DRAFT ROSE HAS THUS DECIDED TO DECLARE WAR ON THE SYNDICATE AND ITS ALLIES IN WHAT CAN ONLY BE CONSIDERED SELF-DEFENSE HARRY FLASHMAN WOULD ALSO LIKE TO WISH TARROC A WELL-DESERVED RETIREMENT AFTER HANDING ROSE ANOTHER CLASSIC SYNDICATE ROLLING HARRY SAYS A CLASSIC BRITISH LINE AND LAUGHS HEARTILY. WASTEKING LAUGHS. TARROC LAUGHS. GEORGE AND KURDANAK PRETEND TO UNDERSTAND AND BOTH LAUGH. CAMERA FADES TO BLACK, BUT SOMETHING FEELS OFF… P.S. I'll be busy DoW night so if I'm wrong and have misread the situation, please just disregard all of the above! Man, that'd be an embarrassing misunderstanding - retirement party's going to be super awkward now. Peace next DC and 6 month NAP? Sounds like another Strategic Syndisphere Victory to me. As always, please forward all FA inquiries to @Ockey5.

From The Office Of His Holiness We have seen the community grow, and the people in it. Many come and go as their lives call for it, some slip into inactivity, and others take on a smaller role. These evolutions in our lives should be celebrated. Usually, alliances have someone to replace those who get busy or grow bored with the game. Being a non-mass recruit alliance, Church of Atom does not have this luxury. So, it is with both a joyous and sorrowful heart that this chapter now comes to an end. Most of us have grown far too busy, and this has been due for some time. We would like to thank our allies, former allies, enemies and the community at large for the time we’ve spent here. Whether we fought against or with you, your presence here is appreciated. Even to those we never worked with and were always at odds with. We wish everyone here the very best and hope nothing but good things for you (Both in-game and out.) Event Horizon has agreed to protect us while our members gain their bearings. SAIL was given notice some time ago. His Holiness Pontifex Emeritus, James II His Holiness Pontifex Atomicus, RandomNoobster All the Cardinals. tldr; CoA is disbanding, Event Horizon Is protecting during this time, We love everyone here and wish you all the very best!

I think there needs to be a valid conversation about how much of an embarrassment that The immortals are. >Sat out and didn’t fight a war in over a year >Knew the war was coming and didn’t prepare. >Bled the most loot in Orbis history >Worst net in Orbis history >3.18 wars per member, when their allies TSC have more total wars than they do at less than 1/3rd of the membership. > -$200b in damages 3.18 wars per member at your BIG age is CRAZY. Where is the passion? Where is the drive? Tyrion, you are one of the most established players in the game. You can’t have your people deposit so they can’t get looted? This was the best you could do? Shame on you Tyrion. Latsu? Hahahahaha I don’t even have smoke for you, you should just be embarrassed. Maks? idk who you are but go ahead and resign. Just give Tyrion your resignation and retire. If you’re a member of Ti, you don’t want better? You’re good with this? Tyrion, Latsu, and others have led you to failure, plain and simple. TKR, TSC, Grumpy? What gives? This is what you want fighting alongside you? Your war was never even, it was also a dogpile because Ti is all empty stats. embarrassing. If you ally Ti going forward, just know you’re giving your enemies a free win and billions in loot. Ti is free rebuild. https://discord.gg/FTDKrCFy this is a personal opinion and does not reflect TGH in anyway Also, shoutout to Eclipse, WAP, KT, and others for exposing these frauds.

Update: All wheel slots have been purchased. Tune in 30-40 minutes before DC on Saturday to catch the wheel spin live. See you then! A warm Arrgh welcome to the very first... Wheel of Misfortune! You've heard of our world-class nuke auctions, now get ready for the next evolution in nuke-based griefing: The Nuke Lottery! How it Works For the jaw-droppingly low price of $100M you can get an alliance of your choosing added to the Wheel of Misfortune. Upon the conclusion of the lottery, we'll be spinning the wheel live in the Arrgh server's public VC. Whoever's unlucky enough to be chosen by fate will be obliterated with the force of a thousand suns (like 3 to 4 dozen pirates with IEDs) right then and there. We'll be blasting 'em with everything we've got for 2-3 rounds. How to Buy Wheel Slots If you'd like to buy some slots on the wheel, you can do so by either making a ticket in the Arrgh server or by hitting up your hostess with the mostess (me) on discord. Wheel slots go for $100M a piece and do not have a limit per person. That said, we've only got enough space on the wheel for 100 slots total. All alliances are on the table here, except for tiny micros and our besties over at Yarr. Payment is required up-front and can be sent directly to the Arrgh bank. Trades work too. Just make sure to get permission from T$. Schedule February 19th DC: Ticket sales open. February 21st DC: Halftime Report. Alliances currently on the wheel and their number of slots are posted. February 23rd DC: Ticket sales close. February 24th, half an hour before DC: The wheel is spun live in the Arrgh Server. Hilarity ensues. Misc. Stuff As usual, fully anonymity. We won't reveal who you purchase tickets on. The wheel spin will be streamed exactly half an hour before DC with a 10 minute countdown leading up to it. Being mute is actually a little known requirement for holding a gov position in Arrgh, so don't expect a big fancy show. Good luck to all and may the best farmer win! - - - - - Halftime Report! Welcome back to the Wheel of Misfortune. Let's take a look at the current alliances on the wheel: Aurora - 4 Slots The Syndicate - 3 Slots The Immortals - 1 Slot Some real great nuke candidates up there. We've got 92 slots left, so if you'd like to get someone added, now's the time to do it. Ticket sales end at Friday's DC.

Citizens of the Galaxy, Today, we stand on the precipice of change, united in our recognition of the many failures of the Galactic Republic. For too long, the Republic has fallen short of its promises for peace, prosperity, and justice for all. Instead, it has become a bloated, bureaucratic nightmare, mired in corruption, cronyism, and inefficiency. The Republic is a futile enterprise, hopelessly burdened by corruption and favoritism toward the Core Worlds The Republic's Senate, once a beacon of democracy, has devolved into a cesspool of greed and self-interest. Senators squabble and bicker, more concerned with lining their pockets and securing power than with serving the people they were elected to represent. Meanwhile, the voices of the Outer Rim and less affluent worlds are drowned out, their needs ignored in favor of the Core Worlds. We must also address the failures of the Jedi Order, once revered as the guardians of peace and justice. However, their role in the Republic's decline cannot be ignored. The Jedi have become entangled in politics, abandoning their principles and forsaking their duty to protect the galaxy. The Jedi Council, blinded by their arrogance and self-righteousness, have lost touch with the needs of the people. They have allowed themselves to be manipulated by the Republic, becoming enforcers of its will rather than knights defending the weak and innocent. Their actions have led to countless tragedies, as they prioritize the interests of the Republic over the welfare of the galaxy. In the face of these grave injustices, we boldly declare the birth of the Confederacy of Independent Systems, a coalition of systems united in our desire for freedom from the tyranny of the Republic. We are the Confederacy of Independent Systems, and we stand for freedom, for justice, for a galaxy where every being has the right to determine their own destiny. We call on all systems who share our vision to join us, to stand together against the tyranny of the Republic and the Jedi Order. Together, we will forge a new future, a future where every system is free to prosper according to its own values and traditions, a future where the galaxy belongs to all who inhabit it, not just the few who seek to control it. Long live the Confederacy! Long live freedom! Articles of Secession from the Galactic Republic and Formation of the Confederacy of Independent Systems I: Non Aggression All member systems pledge to abstain from engaging in or endorsing any form of political, military, or espionage activities against fellow member systems. II: Mutual Defence All member systems commit to coordinating efforts and providing defence to each other against any attacks from systems outside of the Confederacy. III: Optional Offence Member systems reserve the right to participate in offensive actions against non-member systems at their discretion. IV: Non Chaining If a member system enters conflict due to obligations outside the Confederacy, defence becomes optional. V: Intelligence Member systems agree to share relevant intelligence concerning the economic, political, and military interests of their fellow Confederates. VI: Expansion of the Confederacy Member systems can propose new additions to the Confederacy, approved by unanimous vote, granting new members full rights and responsibilities. VII: Removal from the Confederacy Any member system can be removed from the Confederacy through a unanimous vote among the leadership of other member systems. VIII: Withdrawal from the Confederacy Member systems may withdraw from the Confederacy, provided they give a 72-hour notice. They remain bound by the pact until the expiration of the notice period. The Many systems of the Confederacy. Signed for Singularity Prime Intelligence: Sketchy, Anri Neural Network: Abaddon, Keegoz Assimilation Directive: Tartarus Signed for The Fighting Pacifists Prime Facilitator - Shwin Facilitator - Erik Facilitator - Aligned Defender of Peace - Shock Defender of Capital - Jamie Signed for Camelot King: Epimetheus Prince: Doge Boi Archduke of Foreign Affairs: SeaFyre Signed for The Golden Horde Great Hippo Khan: Buorhann Beklare-Bek: Tachi High Khan of Foreign Affairs: Kastor High Khan of Military Affairs: Henry High Khan of Economic Affairs: Floyd High Khan of Internal Affairs: Adam Signed for The Witcher Order Grand Master of The Order: Elros Tar-Minyatur Master of The Order: Rein Dvorak Vigilant Blade: MasterChief

Project & Commerce Update Proposal Been a long time coming, the design team is looking to update projects and alter commerce as a new economics update for the game. This is a rather large proposal, so please bear with me. For those who don’t like to read much I will quickly now dot point the reason for this proposal: Have prices and effects closer to their actual value Buff the weaker/overpriced/useless projects Bring the pricing of the old original projects closer in line with the new ones Reduce the cost of city planning projects to prevent stalling smaller nations growth leading to lower retention rates Shift costs more towards raws, which need more sinks and away from manus that don't + to make costings more consistent across the board Buff profit per slot for commerce to allow smaller nations with less infrastructure to viably go above 100% commerce The proposal is far too big to fit into one thread. A large number of projects have merely had their costs changed to make them more consistent across the board or more evenly spread out which resources are required. I will be detailing some of the more major changes in this thread however. To see the full proposal please go to: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1Z3Ye0oAtHWoYOfHQn1AGYmg80jsPl4fKLK3FPtSeFao/edit?usp=sharing Resource Production Projects (Arms Stockpile, Bauxiteworks, Emergency Gasoline Reserve, Ironworks) The cost of these projects will be increasing, currently their price is incredibly cheap, largely because they are some of the earliest projects in the game. They are however some of the most profitable. Their cost has also been made to be more equal overall, that is, each project is worth roughly the same amount. Arms stockpile no longer use more lead than a nation can produce, so nations can be self-sufficient, but also receive a slight nerf to production. Changes to other Economic Projects (Bureau of Domestic Affairs, Fallout Shelter, Military Salvage) Feedback on these projects has been that they aren’t realistic on ROI or usefulness. Bureau of Domestic Affairs has had an additional perk given to it. Specifically ‘adds a +25% effect modifier to your chosen Domestic Policy’. Fallout Shelter has been tweaked to ‘reduces the radiation impact on food production by 15%’. This means all radiation will be reduced by 15% rather than protecting 10% of production during high radiation. Military Salvage will be renamed to Military Logistics Planning. Its benefit has changed to ‘Military Logistics Planning is a national project that reduces the steel and aluminum of all units by 5% when already at war.’ Spy Project Changes (Spy Satellite, Surveillance Network) Spy Satellite now requires an Intelligence Agency to be built. It received a slight increase in cost. Surveillance Network feedback suggests that this project is very underpowered and not worded very well. So I’ll quickly clarify on what it does before discussing the change. The project adds a modifier to decrease the odds of a spy attack by 10% and increase the chance of the enemy spy to be caught by 10%. E.g. If a spy attack against you had 40% chance of succeeding normally, it would now only have a 36% chance of succeeding. Given that this is a fairly insignificant buff, we have added the additional perk ‘It reduces the damages received from successful espionage operations by 25% (excluding missile/nuke).’. Hopefully this change makes it a more worthwhile project. Activity Center The activity center was created to replace a new player project. Rather than give raw resources it was changed to give cash. When this was introduced, new player raiding was a lot more profitable than it is today. We have therefore increased the total amount from logging in for new players to $2,000,000 per day. The project has also had its city cap raised from c15 to c20, in line with the pre-existing new player bonuses and where city timers begin. We hope this will continue to allow new players to grow without necessarily needing other nations to support them. Although we do note more work needs to be done around new player experiences. City Reduction Projects (Urban Planning, Advanced Urban Planning, Metropolitan Planning) Alright, this is the one that is always discussed the most and we’re often given a lot of feedback on. I am going to firstly discuss some reasoning again before discussing the changes. Firstly, the projects are extremely expensive for the relative size of these nations. This often means that these projects become ‘roadblocks’ to progression in this game and given we have a lowering amount of retention rate in the game we need to address this. It’s worth noting that although these projects have been discounted, a lot of other projects that would be bought by these nations have subsequently increased in price. Secondly, most of these nations are being asked predominantly for resources that they simply would not produce or cannot produce efficiently at the size of the nation it is aimed for. This punishes any new alliances without many established nations. We have therefore tried to reduce some of these resources' cost and move them into other resources they could feasibly produce on their own. We did not remove all of it entirely though as we want to promote use of the market still. The following roughly brings these costings to be around 3 cities to ROI on. In other words you should be able to actually break even from these projects before being at the city requirement for the next one. Urban Planning Costs: Food 250,000, Uranium 12,000, Raw Resources 4,000 Advanced Urban Planning Costs: Food 500,000, Uranium 24,000, Raw Resources 8,000 Metropolitan Planning Costs: Food 750,000, Uranium 36,000, Raw Resources 12,000 Commerce Based Project Changes & Commerce Change (International Trade Center, Telecommunications Satellite, Specialized Police Training Program) Finally we have a rebalancing of commerce and commerce projects. The current issue in the game is commerce projects are not very viable for smaller nations with less infrastructure, due to the low profit per slot of supermarkets. This proposal will seek to change how the existing commerce projects work, and also change the current commerce and slot values for existing commerce improvements.. The two main commerce projects have been modified as such: The International Trade Center, in addition to increasing the cap to 115%, will also increase base commerce in each city by 1%, and the cap on Bank improvements from 5 to 6. The price of ITC has been increased. The Telecommunications Satellite in addition to increasing the cap to 125%, will also increase the base commerce in each city by 2%, and the cap on Shopping Malls from 4 to 5. These changes will work in conjunction with an adjustment to the commerce rates on improvements: Supermarkets will see an increase from 3% to 4% commerce per improvement, and a reduction in their cap, from 6 to 4. Banks will see an increase from 5% to 6% commerce per improvement, with their cap increasing to 6 when you possess an ITC. Shopping Malls will see a decrease from 9% to 8% commerce per improvement, with their cap increasing to 5 when you possess a Telecom Sat. Stadiums will see a decrease from 12% to 10% commerce per improvement, with no changes to their cap. Specialized Police Training will receive a buff, making it a minor commerce project. As it stands, Specialized Police Training is a largely ineffective project, only useful at the highest amounts of infra for saving a single slot. The increase in cap on police stations is redundant, as the default cap is already higher than needed to eliminate all crime at even the highest infra levels. Instead of increasing the cap on Police Stations, SPT now increases base commerce in all cities by 4%. This will effectively replace a supermarket, saving all players who buy it a slot, rather than just people with extremely high infra levels. With these combined changes the total improvements needed to achieve 115% commerce is reduced from 17 to 16, and the total improvements needed to achieve 125% commerce is reduced from 19 to 17. SPT further reduces this by a slot. Additionally, commerce builds fit correctly, with no need to cap at 114% commerce due to the awkward slot usage. This makes higher levels of commerce far more viable for smaller nations at lower infrastructure levels, and makes projects like ITC and Telecom Satellite more accessible to the mid tier. Congrats to those of you who read all of that. Please be specific with feedback and suggestions, this took a long time to go through and a lot of the changes are related to one another so keep that in mind.

The Sword Cats Coast officially made it to one year! 365 days of organized chaos, lots of fun, a war and some raids... TSC has run through a lot in our first year. Many said we wouldn't last, many said we had done it wrong, many said we should merge, we've been called a splinter, and my personal favorite was hearing individuals ask me "Is this a Roberts / Pubstomper / Logistics / etc. alliance?" and being truly unable to grasp a cooperative entity as all alliances should be run. For those who don't know yet, the alliance has a council-based leadership team comprising of 5 people. This was the first among many things we chose to do differently and see what worked for us. TSC has risen to a steady spot in the top 20, about 300k score within our first year. Special shout out to some of the people who made TSC possible: Pubstomper AKA Umar -- the original DM of "Hey we've never been in an alliance together" set this all in motion. His commitment to community inspired this whole thing. Logistics -- Whose passion for success has driven TSC to heights unimagined when we started in 2023. Yirmi -- Whose level head calmed the more passionate voices and really helped bridge the gap of the early months Hunter -- For bringing spirits up by drinking spirits down and guiding milcom for our first year Dream and Sol -- Whose hard work and dedication to econ has put us on the map in terms of tiering and growth Merow and Parapet -- For being the silent workhorses of milcom and really holding us up in our first war when real life reared its head for many of the other leaders Victor -- For believing and selflessly supporting the dream, stepping in anywhere he was asked and giving way for new blood to flourish. LeftBehind, Aero, Cypher -- For really pulling together our FA efforts into a coherent team, one of which has already moved into a current leadership role John Christ -- The best damn recruiter that we've ever seen Ronjoy, Hana, and our art team for creating amazing graphics! Special thanks to Singularity for protecting us in the beginning and being understanding in tricky circumstances, and special thanks to TKR and Grumpy for being faithful allies and blocmates. And honestly so many other people that I could fill this entire post up with how proud I am of TSC. This really has been a collaborative effort of many people making many contributions, I'm really excited to see how this continues from here and I hope to be here posting something similar in 2025.

We’re new to the pirate business, but we thought stealing ships was 90% of the job! And can you really blame us, Hatebi? It’s such a pretty boat—ship. It’s going to take us on a very entertaining voyage. Maybe by the end of it, we’ll see eyepatch to eyepatch. Who knew this was such a dangerous profession? Now, as for Rose — the biggest, richest fleet to sail these seas. We have our reasons and you know them well. This was a preemptive strike but a last resort. Credit to Ronjoy, it reflects one of the reasons, and I love it. It's perfect. I hope everyone has lots of fun and we make some really entertaining content. Tl;dr Camelot and Samurai declare war on Rose

Ben and Adri showing off their A+ dance moves To our friends, foes, and people that sorta maybe tolerate us, It's our 9th birthday! As our birthday comes to a close, I've been reflecting on the last year, which has been nothing short of eventful. We've been a part of 4 wars, merged with our good friends in Bourbon Street, grew up to over 200 members, and reached the benchmarks of 5,000 total cities and 1,000,000 score. Though we've had our trials as well, we've undoubtedly accomplished much this year, and I couldn't possibly be prouder of our successes. I'd like to thank our allies, both present and past, for their friendship and support. But most of all, I'd like to thank my gov and members and the incredible community we've built together. Throughout the years, our alliance has proven itself to be one of camaraderie, persistence, and fortitude. I'm grateful to have seen my alliance grow and flourish, throughout all the highs and lows we've seen, and to be a part of this amazingly strong, friendly, and tight-knit community. I'm looking forward to seeing what our 10th year brings us. Always the next step, Radiants! o7, Adri

A TFP Statement There seems to be some inquiry about a trade Erik made with Hatebi a few days ago. Erik was simply buying some sweet, sweet, Hatebi insurance. We’re pacifists and pixel huggers, what do you expect? No, we did not hire Hatebi to nuke the Syndicate. However, we agree with the Syndicate that there cannot possibly be any other reason Hatebi would nuke two people with a combined average infra over 3k. It must be a hostile action taken by another alliance! Nothing else is remotely fathomable. Additionally, we concur that this hostile payment must have taken place through a trade with Hatebi and through no other means. As a gesture of good will, we are happy to help the Syndicate with their quest to find this hostile entity, and have compiled a list of every nation Hatebi has traded with in the last month. We hope this critical information will help the Syndicate find their culprit. Anyways, I’m glad that we could discuss this matter privately. It’s a good thing nobody took any rash actions and embarrassed themselves with a public forum post.

A TFP Statement Some screenshots are redacted out of respect for the user’s privacy A couple things to start out with. First of all, there is no TL;DR - read the damn thing. If you’re not interested in reading, that’s fine, but don’t whine and complain that you’re not informed. Secondly, there hasn’t been a forum post made by KT regarding their DoW, however some stuff has been said in RON which will be addressed here. Now, let's get into it. Throughout my time in TFP we've always done our best to act in good faith. We have always felt this was the right mindset to have given the positions we've generally been in. A cornerstone of this mentality is being as honest as we can and doing our best to always present the truth. Unlike the Syndicate, however, we back up our claims with evidence and proof instead of fabricating false rumors as justification. When asked to further expand upon their CB, the Syndicate stated the following: Image 1 - Conversation between myself and Tarroc, the FA head of the Syndicate. The timestamps of this conversation are in EST, dating it to around 45 mins after the Syndicate and SAIL declared war on TFP. As stated previously, the majority of this explanation is outright false and we are more than willing to prove it claim by claim. Starting from the top - "Hearing reports that TFP wanted to join Dodge This to fight t$ and others but was refused." The first of the false reports. We had no intention of joining this conflict. We had no grudge against either side and we saw it as an opportunity to achieve some growth while most of our competitors were fighting. We made our intentions clear to our allies, as can be seen below. Images 2 & 3 - Conversations from our direct line of communication between ourselves and our allies at the time, Eclipse. The timestamps from the pictures are in EST dating Image 2 to before the Dodge This war started, and Image 3 to after the Dodge This war started. Lastly, the :ancap: reaction in Image 2 is typically used to show approval or appreciation for the message it is attached to. Further questions about the use of this emoji can be directed towards Penpiko. These records with our allies at the time indicate there was no desire to join the conflict before it had started and after it had started. However, not only was there no desire to join the conflict, there was also no capability to do so. During the start of the war, I wasn't even in a position to spend any excess amount of time to plan and coordinate a war. As the leader and milcom head, I was occupied elsewhere. I was vacationing in Northeast Canada at the time and would've much rather spent time relaxing than playing a nation sim on my phone. There aren't any flight logs given we drove, and I wouldn't be comfortable sharing our hotel accommodation receipts, but we do have some further evidence to support the claim. Image 4 - Conversation from our leadership channel discussing apparent safety in the upcoming war and intentions to return to vacation. The timestamp from this conversation is in EST which dates it to a day before the Dodge This conflict started. For those who may not be familiar with shorthand words, vaca is short for vacation. All of this evidence suggests there was no motive, means, nor opportunity for us to enter the Dodge This conflict on either side. It is clear that the Syndicate fabricated this fake claim to try and justify their actions. The next claim from the Syndicate states, "hearing reports that TFP wanted to form a coalition to fight SAIL at the end of the NAP but was refused." Another false claim. We had no intention of fighting any war at all this NAP-end. It was evident early on that other spheres had their sights set on each other and we could use the opportunity as a period of extended growth while others were fighting. Our plans for the NAP-end period can be seen below. Image 5 - Conversation from our leadership channel discussing raising infra levels post NAP-end. The timestamps are in EST which dates the conversation to 2 weeks before the Dodge This NAP ended. Not only did we tell ourselves that we would be investing in growth, but we also told other spheres that we had no intention of fighting this cycle and would prefer to keep a low profile to grow. In terms of the timing of raising infra post-NAP, we intended to make sure we weren't hit by any other spheres before guaranteeing we could safely increase our infra and gain substantial growth. Additionally, given that we had just fought a war against ODOO that ended November 1st, 2 months before the Dodge This NAP ended, we had no intentions of getting into another war so quickly. Those intentions remained the same throughout the following weeks. Even when deciding to militarize as bloc, there were still no intentions to engage in any conflict at all. In fact, when discussing our precautionary militarization, it was my preference to not even mil at all as it seemed the course for the NAP-end war had been set, and we didn't want to play any part in it. Image 6 - Conversation from our direct line of communication between ourselves and our allies at the time, Eclipse. The timestamps are in EST dating this conversation to approximately a week before the Dodge This NAP ended. We maintained that we had no desire to be a part in any conflict and didn't even want to militarize to highlight our desire to lay low while other parties fought. It is evident that we had absolutely no desire to engage in a war let alone engage against SAIL. Furthermore, we maintained the same desire not to get involved in the war after it had already started. We wanted to remain at peace for the entire duration of the war, as can be seen by the following statement. Image 7 - Statement issued to our former bloc members about our future intentions. The timestamps are in EST dating this conversation to approximately a week after the current Singularity sphere vs SAIL sphere started. As can be seen by our statement to the rest of the bloc, we intended to stay with them and not engage in any conflict for the duration of the war and only part ways after the conflict had concluded. All of the evidence highlights our desire to not engage in any conflict at all during the post-NAP period, and deciding to do so early on many weeks before the Dodge This NAP was set to end. This further proves the Syndicate has constructed fake claims to try and justify their actions. The next claim the Syndicate has presented states that "TFP was one of the founding parties of the coalition that rolled Fortuna back in Darkest Hour ..... seemed to paint a picture of an alliance who held hostile intent towards us." We finally get to the first bit of truth the Syndicate has presented. It is true we were one of the founding parties of the anti-fortuna coalition as I mentioned briefly in my post in RON which can be seen here. However, that is where the truth ends. We outlined our reasons for wanting to fight fortuna - for the purpose of seeking justice for the actions taken against us by the Syndicate. That war, however, is where the hostility ended and we considered the matter to be settled. In fact, in the end days of our anti-fortuna war, I talked with WANA, the former FA head of the Syndicate, and offered to lend them my services if they were interested. I'd figured that since many were opposing them during the war, it would be a nice gesture to reach out and offer myself as a friend that could help. Images 8 & 9 - Conversations between myself and the former FA head of the Syndicate. The timestamps are in EST dating this conversation towards the end of the anti-fortuna conflict. As can be seen by these statements, we reached out in good faith in an effort to help the Syndicate and hopefully establish a working relationship together. Additionally, we explicitly stated that we had no intentions of continuously working against them nor maintaining hostile relations with them. The evidence suggests the contrary - that we wanted to put the war behind us and look to fostering a positive relationship. Yet again, it seems as if the Syndicate has made up other claims to try and justify themselves. The only difference being that they were not 100% wrong about this claim - only 90%. Moving on to the last significant claim made by the Syndicate, it reads, "it's the intent and desire to leave WELP to go join up with Singularity and Cypher... it further reinforces the idea that TFP has hostile intentions towards T$ and is going to link itself up with alliances who will work with it to attack us." Here we have another bit of partial truth among many lies. It seems they are getting closer though. It is true we intended to ally Singularity, however had not made decisions about allying the Cypher given the controversy surrounding them. That is all the truth there is unfortunately. We had no intentions of working against the Syndicate and in fact had intentions to steer clear of them for the foreseeable future, as can be seen below. Image 10 - Conversation in our leadership channel about our situation at the time. Image 11 & 12 - Conversations with [REDACTED] about our situation at the time. The timestamps are in EST dating this conversation to a few days ago, before we were attacked. For context, the term "let us live" means not attacking us. Additionally, the emoji :nodders: is a moving nod typically used to show agreement or approval Not only did we have no intentions of fighting sail or the Syndicate, but had they not attacked us, we were willing to return the gesture of goodwill and not look to target them at all in the foreseeable future. Had they been kind enough to leave us alone, we would have kindly returned the favor by not working against them. I'm sure many will bring up how it is likely that Singularity will harbor a grudge against the Syndicate and will actively try to plot their revenge against them. They will ask - given that we plan to sign them, wouldn't it be contradictory to assume we had good intentions? Hopefully the image below can shed light on the matter. Image 13 - Conversation with [REDACTED] regarding our future plans with Singularity. The timestamps are in EST dating this conversation to a few days ago before we were attacked. As can be seen, our goal with allying Singularity was to repair relations with the Syndicate and SAIL. We thought although challenging, it would provide us with a highly engaging peace period and ultimately allow for a more dynamic and active political landscape. Had the Syndicate been willing to continue conversations with us, we would have loved to share the idea with them and work towards achieving it, however, it doesn't seem they cared much for what we had to say. Altogether it shows that the Syndicate's CB is entirely invalid and based on zero evidence or facts and it is extremely disappointing. The truth is, that I have wanted to work with the Syndicate for some time now. Our embassy with them has been one of the more active ones over the past few months and I along with the rest of the FA team has been glad to get to know them more and I hoped it would one day turn into a strong positive relationship. For all the alliances around, none seem to want to maintain the political discourse and professionalism of yesteryear. Most of all, none seem to write out well written CB's or lengthy forum posts. I, for one, have always tried to give well-explained responses to significant events rooted in truth and fact, and I thought the Syndicate valued the same. It is unfortunate to see that they have missed the mark on this one. Image 14 - Conversation in our shared TFP T$ embassy channel discussing our shared admiration for meaningful CB's. The timestamps are in EST dating them to a few hours after we declared war on ODOO during the That'll Buff Right Out war. At the end of the day, all of the evidence presented suggests the exact opposite of their narrative - that not only were we not interested in targeting them, but we actually wanted to work with them and take on a fun challenge. Ultimately, this means one of two things. Either they knew this was a false narrative to begin with and are choosing to be opportunistic - the same thing they called out Singularity for and would therefore label themselves hypocrites; or they are gullible enough to believe a false narrative given to them by their closest friends - our former allies. TFP recognizes hostilities with the greater SAIL sphere (The Syndicate, Aurora, Church of Atom, The Legion, Carthago, Knights Templar)

A Joint Announcement Mayhem, Black Knights and Name Withheld have given their 72 hours notice of withdrawal from ODOO. Reasons were delivered in private, and we wish our former allies the best in their future endeavors. With that, we present: TL:DR Mayhem, Name Withheld and Black Knights have withdrawn from ODOO and signed an MnDoAP together

Normally I'm more of a "short and snappy tweet-style" poster, but I've been seeing quite a few people talking about the state of nukes and the possibility of a "nuke turret meta" and wanted to get all of my thoughts on the subject down in one place. As someone who's been turreting for over 2.5 years straight now, the discourse surrounding turreting has been the equivalent of watching someone repeatedly trying to mash a square peg into a round hole. There's two main concerns I hear people bring up whenever there's turret-related discourse. The first, and less seen, point is the fear of a "nuke turret alliance" that rolls around and rogues people during peace time. As cool as that'd be to witness, it's not something I expect to see on that large of a scale. There's numerous disincentives, most alliances aren't all that interested in condemning themselves to effectively fight a losing war, on their own, while everyone else is farming and growing, for an abnormally long period of time. Historically, people who have gone on nuke crusades, like HoF and CoA, have only done so for 3 to 7 weeks respectively. Go much longer and you start facing heavy member attrition. What fearmongers often forget is that vanishingly few people want to run off and throw nukes for half a year, especially outside of war season. I feel like this one's a little obvious, but it's something I keep seeing brought up. The main point I've seen people make is that turreting has no counters. While I personally love it when people have this mindset and make no attempts whatsoever to impede me, it's sadly not the case. Numerous forms of counter play exists for all forms of turreting, alliances just can't be asked to put in the slightest amount of effort above what they know works against traditional raiders. If you really want to focus on damaging a nuke build, you've got multiple ways to go about it. The tried and true method still works, slot the turret in question with 3 raids and go to work. All you've got to do is switch your counters (and preferably whoever's been hit) over to Tactician. It takes virtually 0 effort on your part and costs essentially nothing to do, as a turret is not going to want to waste their bombs in raid type wars over the attrition types they've got active. Will you get the same instant gratification and visible damage of dragging a milled up high city raider down into the pits of Hades? No, but if you want to deal with someone who deals low, consistent damage, you're going to have to be okay with doing the same. But maybe you do want something a little more flashy? Something that'll hit a little heavier? Luckily for you, there's a second option that's been staring you in the face the entire time. While nukes are the main weapon of a turret, they're also it's biggest weakness. Now, most people will hear the idea of throwing nukes at someone with 500 infra and think you're either crazy or incompetent. The thing is, you're not nuking their infra, you're nuking their improvements. People have talked about the buffs nukes have received a lot, but a certain change seems to always slip by unnoticed: the buffed improvement destruction. A base nuke destroys 4 random improvements, while a guidance sat boosted nuke will level 5 of them. If you send in 3 counters in raid type wars, they'll be able to launch a total of 12 nukes while receiving minimal damage themselves. How many improvements is that in total? With guidance sat, 48 to 60 improvements in just one round of wars, depending on if the target has VDS or not. Even in the worst case scenario where none of your guys has guidance sat and the turret has VDS, you're still able to hit up to 36 improvements in a single round. People who are sitting at 0 infra and have absolutely nothing to destroy are even easier. They're not producing anything at all and have to run off of a stockpile. This means they're permanently on a timer, both in their individual wars since they're only going to be carrying so much on them at a time and in the long run since they likely aren't replenishing very many of their resources by throwing nukes. Slot them with raid type wars on the Pirate policy and you can sap considerably amounts of their loot on-hand. Their lack of a nuke build makes them vulnerable to perma blockades, letting you completely shut them down if you can pull one off for long enough. Some people might say that slotting a turret and trying to spam nukes or get them in a perma blockade is too much effort. This is a totally fair opinion to have. As an alliance, it's your choice on how you want to deal with turrets. If your chosen method is "doing nothing in-game while complaining to everyone who'll listen and begging for them to be nerfed", so be it. I just think that's a little lame. Want to cap this off with a callout to @Buorhann specifically since he's been one of the main proponents of what I'm talking about. I tried to level with you in DMs, but you've been talking about this "nuke meta" constantly for weeks now. If you really think an alliance of nuke turrets running around and rogueing people left and right would be game breaking, why not show us? I think you know just as well as I do that you'd fracture your community and lose most of your guys after a few months all to do less damage than you could have done in a traditional war. If you believe in this so passionately, I'd love to see you put your money where your mouth is.

With The Wheel of Death landing on us, we wonder how this could of happened. Rose? TKR? Aurora? Eclipse? Who could have put us in such a predicament? Well ladies with gentle hands, there is only one man. Not only did @Kastor jinx us, but he paid Arrgh 400m to put us on the wheel. So with that, we recognize hostilities with @Kastor. He will receive an invoice for the total damage dealt to us by Arrgh. TL;DR Singularity Recognizes Hostilities With @Kastor.

Hello Friends, Future Allies and Arrgh, The Knights Radiant are thrilled to announce a monumental shift in our digital communication realm. We are bidding a fond farewell to our old companion, Slack, and embarking on an exciting journey to a new, somewhat mystical platform known as... Discord! Now, you might be wondering, "What in the world is Discord?" Allow us to enlighten you! Discord is a little-known cutting-edge communication tool that we expect will one day take the world by storm. A blend of chat rooms, voice channels, and video conferencing, all wrapped up in a neat, user-friendly package. It's like the modern town square, a place where communities can gather, share ideas, and engage in lively discussions. We're quite certain it's going to be the next big thing in Orbis, and we're embarking on this journey to introduce this hidden gem to the masses, believing wholeheartedly in our role as trailblazers in this digital era. Our migration to Discord is a testament to our undying commitment to innovation, exploration, and perhaps a bit of magic. We're ready to dive headfirst into features like “voice chat” and “unlimited message history”, which sound like they've been plucked straight from a wizard's spellbook. Why are we moving to Discord, you ask? Well, it offers more flexibility and a dynamic way to connect with each other. Plus, it's a fantastic opportunity for us to welcome friends (and foes) like you into our community. Whether you're a seasoned Discord user or a newbie, we promise a welcoming and entertaining experience. We invite you to embark on this journey with us into unchartered territory, by joining our Discord server here. We know that most of you, like us, view joining Discord as a daunting challenge. But fear not! We’ll navigate these new waters together, and come out of this adventure with even stronger bonds of friendship than before. Join us for chats, voice hangouts, and the occasional accidental self-muting. Looking forward to seeing you on Discord, where innovation meets a healthy dose of TKR community spirit. Cheers, The Knights Radiant Pioneering the Digital Frontier, One Click at a Time TL;DR - TKR is moving to Discord. Come hang out with us here: https://discord.gg/theknightsradiant!

Love how extra spaces between AAs were added for the EVH coalition to try to make it look like less of a dogpile