Prefonteen

I think that without arrgh, tS wouldn't have been able to recover it's midtier and buildup of relief would've been too late. War would be lost. Re: alpha- I suppose that would depend on exactly how much influence alpha had on rose's not entering. If rose had come in, we'd have lost fair and square. If rose had stayed out while alpha stayed out and very moved fronts: well, we had actually anticipated ve to move to a different front. It would been much closer to a stalemate. I think we'd have won in the end but without the margins or leverage to extract reps.

This bit is bs. I already trotted out the quotes where you began pushing for a war on upn Inot the lead up to proxy and where I dodged your probes. You wanted covenant taken out. As for using.... that too is bs and you know it. You pissed us in 168 by playing a two-faced game. And so we cancelled.

My reference was mechanically. Politically, the biggest impact alpha in particular had was probably it's influence on Rose not entering.

Hold your horses: 1. I'm not commenting on how well you performed on what targets you took. I'm referring to your refusal at the time to hit deic. You limited yourself to upn and that in turn limited your impact on the war. (I understand why, as rose shielded you from description counters iirc) 2. I'm also referring to your time of entry (you took a very long time to build up and prepare). By the time you were ready, we had - thanks to arrgh early entry - already wiped everything under 2k score as good as clean. Why I remember this? Because you literally were surprised about it at the time and complained (jokingly) about a lack of targets. 3. The above does not mean that you didn't execute well (because you did). It means that we would have been able to do it without you too, and that your particular entry mostly sped up the process and made it less painful. The undeclared route would've been a grind fest.

Interesting. We were told different things at the time. Guess we were lied to for convenience.

Your remembering somewhat correctly. Aright coming in was the relief you speak of. They were one of the first in on upn and provided a breather while we had others continue prep for a mass assault on upn at the time. That was also the reason why we contracted them. Alpha as previously said came in late and on limited targets and were inconsequential to the final outcome of the war. The uppers would eventually have been picked off by up declares. Alpha mostly sped up that process.

uhh lol? - We didnt care about public vs private. Thats something internal for y'all - You are making a lot of assumptions about what our intent was and have provide no facts to back that up. We were on your forums for months on end. We went out of our way to dodge you in 168 until you hit TKR as a reaction to SK hitting NAC (that forced our hand). - Timing in itself is a weird thing to bring up since we did not just come out of the blue and offered you a treaty. Months of rebuilding bridges preceded the offer, and it came to be gradually. Re: the rest of your post... you're just bullshitting at this point.

Yeah im not going to circlejerk here. This stems *directly* from the OP of the thread in question: Regardless of what your ultimate reasoning amongst members is: Hans openly stated that we are UPN's gravest enemies and showed every possible bit of disdain for us in that topic, while relations with your govt were on the up and while our diplomats (who had been extremely active) had been seeing no recent complaints. Now, to us, in light of that quote, the torpedoing of the treaty followed by Hans' ascension as well as his signing NPO (not to mention the impending exodus of pretty much all elements within UPN who liked tS) signaled a definite shift in UPN policy and attitude towards us. Namely: Hans acted like an enemy and with him in charge, UPN once again looked like a hostile entity. It was a direct throwback to oktoberfest times. So yes, we from there on (from the moment Hans ascended) treated UPN as an enemy. Because your newly elected leader (who thus had popular support) made it well known that he considered us as much. As for NPO: Channel died due to a combination of factors: - Jasmin stepped down - I went on a hiatus (read: Inactive) for a bit - etc. moreover, that's entirely irrelevant and does not really devalidate my point in any way? Can you rephrase and tell me what you're trying to argue?

I'm aware of what occurred within UPN. I've seen Hans' post and it was quite clear. I'm also not blind to the influence a figurehead or ex-figurehead can exert if he so chooses. The presentation of the facts in that post painted a very specific narrative. As for the first part: what log are you talking about? And what did we kill?

Please please please dont make me revisit our talks with Steve in that war. They drove Valakia to quit. Im not sure if I can handle it a second time. :'( @Roq- i'll reply later. Something to do with having stuff to do

That's primarily because that alliance has privately voiced resentment to the point where they were legitimately considering a break. Moreover, they were fairly agreed but refused to move if a certain other ally wouldn't come along. That other ally chose to stay and that was the end of that. I'm sure it increased resentment in NPO. That's not something that was or is really relevant to me. Again: By that time we had identified you as an enemy. Your silence actually made us perceive you as more dangerous as we saw your movements but had no way to measure your M.O, whereas we knew exactly what to expect from all others. You were a wild card. re: the second part: okay... good on you I guess?

- We have indeed been over this many times, and yet again you are: 1. Treating Mensa and tS as *one* political entity and our sphere as an integated being. I'm not sure if this is intentional but at the time, we were far from the big bad bully side you make us out to be. We were smaller than Paragon's sphere. We were smaller than Covenants sphere. BK and TKR were both smaller and BK was allied to both Rose and UPN. Moreover, BK only joined our side when Rose pre-empted us. 2. lamenting tS' for its passive support of Mensa without holding UPN to the exact same standard. As i've explained before: Both UPN and tS refused to hit anyone aggressively (despite being asked to). Both UPN and tS made it clear that they would defend Mensa from counters. What drove you to hit tS and Guardian is *not* tS' passive defense. If we had fought in a vacuum without Covenant interference, you would have been able to call in both Alpha and Asgard due to traditional treaty chains. You would have easily pulled the trigger and hit Mensa, and then just waited for the counter and countered that. You could not do so because of the looming threat of UPN snowballing down on you if you went directly at Mensa. So you hit tS. It's a practical decision. Your consistent spinning of this as all being tS/tS' side's fault is tiring though. Especially as we were pre-empted. Not UPN. And especially as your side then allied UPN's bloc, and UPN came at us next. But let's blame tS anyways . I already stated that the reps to UPN werent a goodwill gesture? Reread my statement please. We could have forced something. You were equally unprepared and on your ass in 168 day. Re: UPN. I don't think you are knowledgeable enough of UPN-tS relations to make an accurate assessment of that situation. It's also not that relevant: The part that is relevant is that an (official) treaty was put on the table and yanked out because of 'internal issues' a day before signing (after an initial 10 day extension of the signing date). Right around the same time we received screenshot of the culprit of these internal issues. It turned out to be the old alliance leader who had led an all out assault against us in oktoberfest and who likely still held a grudge from paying reps + the cynic leak. That was followed by his election, and the UPN-NPO treaty. Now again: Don't blame em. They have the right to do what they want. But my stance is damn well going to change based on what I see going on in the world. Can you tell me how exactly I have been risk averse? Must I remind you of the numbers in the first few wars? The only reason we got an advantage is by turning around unfavorable scenarios. And yes, there have been a few instances where we 'punished' people for coming after us. There's also been plenty of instances where we didn't. You're grasping at straws. As for last war: Peace extension was a miscommunication. This has been relayed to you. I'm just really not seeing what you're referring to here. You typically tried to dodge scenarios that could have turned out unfavorably and then you punished people for fighting you when they could.

Ofcourse I tried to strike deals when war rolled around since by that time we had already decided that your sphere had consolidated to the point where it was no longer tenable to let you continue. I know which alliance you are referring to. Let me ask you this: If you saw a chance on the eve of war to both accomplish a victory and alter the overall political dynamic of the game by pulling a major player into neutrality and permanently out of their sphere. Wouldn't you take it? That alliance moving out would have, besides ensuring victory in what was going in a fight in which we were numerically inferior, also given us an alleyway to change the politics of the game. Would've been entertaining to all. But ho hey, that doesn't fit your narrative. How dare I even try different things! Yeah. Hopped on to throw some shade. Then forgot to log into my nation for 2 weeks. Kind of like i'd been doing for a long time. Such care.

Because everyone around me knows i'm so invested in (That terrible game that is totally irrelevant and I shouldn't be bringing it up anyways)

Nah, we never reached out for a treaty. We did uphold cordial communications when NPO first started out, including gov-gov channels. We refrained from reaching out beyond that as we hoped NPO would make something outside of the present dynamic happen. They didn't.

My reference to considering reps regarded the notion that you might be made to pay reps if you took the gamble of hitting us an lost. Similar to how I made that calculation in the previous war. I'm not suggesting that the hit on NPO had no bearing on your future defensive posture. And no, in the literal sense you had done nothing to Syndisphere. That's not what this argument is about though: I've explained time and time again that you ended up in our crosshairs because you were a rising power which quietly positioned itself politically as an opposing force. By signing VE, who had historically opposed us, by signing Alpha, by signing UPN. Two of these were the lynchpins of the Paragon/Covenant Union. In the cases of UPN and VE; as mentioned before, we were wary of the initial movements following 168 (your treaties with VE/Alpha), but our own efforts to sign with UPN or VE (in order to set the first step towards something new. It was a feeler which failed in the end) got torpedoed. In VE's case, they died a gradual death. In UPN's case, they died because Hans became active again and started driving a profoundly anti-tS agenda (we received the screenshot in which he proclaimed us UPN's gravest enemies). Then Hans, following our receipt of that screenshot, won the elections in UPN and took power. Then the UPN-NPO treaty was signed. That naturally pushed me into making a move. In light of the above, NPO's treaty to UPN (which despite our relations with previous UPN govt, we were completely and utterly unaware of.) looked like a hostile consolidation. We've always been practical so there we went. So circling back to your point: You did not antagonize us in public and you did a good job keeping radio silence. You also did not make any direct moves against us (read: direct aggression). What you did do, was surround yourself with enemies of tS and firmly position yourself on that side. Increasingly so. If that was deliberate, then you knew full well the possible consequences. If it was not deliberate: You were naive. Please view the above.

Not again. Speaking for tS: Every single war: - white peace to fringe players. Proxywar (where we were pre-empted): - white peace to Rose Oktoberfest (all out assault on tS/SK/TEst): - Peace for fringe players. Reps for main culprits 168 (Rose hit on Mensa): - White peace for everyone NPO's first time (what a shit name): - Just the arrgh NAP lifted. Sphere-wise, I believe that reps for VE in proxywar, enforced by the (not guardian) sphere to help kickstart Guardian's rebuild after they got pre-empted in a war they had already been incredibly hesitant on should be added to the list. In this case, Guardian received the exact 100 mil which had been extracted from them and given to VE in the previous Guardian-VE war. All in all though, that's far, far from being 'sore winners'. Moreover, one can identify multiple points where tS went the 'goodwill' route and got spit in the face for it. Think: - We had a legitimate case for Rose reps in Proxy and could have demanded at least a small sum. Doing so would have been to our benefit as a lot of the damage we had done had been negated by the rollback (while damage taken by tS was primarily taken in the first days that werent rolled back). We didn't. Reason: Goodwill. - That was followed by being pre-empted at oktoberfest right after rebuilding. Admittedly, we take more of a 'scorched earth' approach there, and demanded a substantial sum of reps at the time. While we had our reasons, I won't count that as goodwill. - Rose who had consistently claimed to want peace since proxyfest (remember our white peace for goodwill?) had used oktoberfest to build. In 168, they came for us (we quoted this in our DoW). So far for that goodwill. We had a legitimate reason to extract heavy reps from Rose in 168. We also had all the leverage needed to enforce it. We didn't and instead opted for white peace. - This was followed by both VE and UPN (who we had been working hard on since oktoberfest to normalise relations and even look at future options. You know the details by now) slamming the door on us (thats what it looked like) and consolidating with NPO in a monsterblob. So we pre-empted (not going over the alpha debacle, since that is a story of its own). Again, white peace was given. - And now this war. I mean... not sure what you were referring to, but on a gov-gov level we have for the gross majority of the wars tried to give your side the easy out, and have tried to 'play nice' in hopes of setting up some more cordial dialogue. In most cases, it backfired.

It's good to see that we have found that our viewpoints may not be so different. I assume that you too conducted a cost-benefit/risk-reward analysis with regards to military benefits vs PR losses and risk if losing. I imagine that being an experienced player, the thought of being made to pay reps crossed your mind when you made said analysis?

I fully, fully concur. Which is why at the time I reacted to the UPN-NPO treaty (perceiving it as further consolidation of a sphere which had historically gone on the offensive against tS and its allies, at least from our POV) in a way calculated to thwart its ill effects on us. You reacted to that by decrying our actions in a variety of novel ways. Then went on to do the exact same, only less successfully. So I'll pose to you the question in a different manner: Does this current rhetoric imply that we (read: you lads and I personally. I can't speak for others on my side) have at last found common ground on the legitimacy (and necessity) of my CB in the previous war?

Hi. I haven't been mixing in much lately but: I'm very curious about the reverse. See, I'm not at all lamenting you for taking the offensive if you viewed us as a threat. Doing so would be hypocritical. That said; when I pulled the trigger on pushing for a strike on you guys in the previous war, I most certainly did so with the knowledge that if the gamble failed, we would have been torn to shreds and forced to pay large reps. We also made the calculation of military benefits vs giving up the moral high ground to an extent. And when we hit (over your consolidation), your side decried us. It paid off and so we did not have to pay. But I think you know full well what would've happened if we'd lost. Anyhow; now you made the same considerations and pulled the trigger on us. Yet... our guys are not allowed to feel the same way? You made a calculation and it didn't pan out. So now we should go out of our way to make it easier on you? Cmooooon. More importantly: does your sides rhetorical flip flop mean that I am now no longer considered evil for my actions?

Dear Auctor and Roq, I told you i'm not the evil one. Sincerely, -P

BK is a hegemonic evil that must be slain. UPN, Alpha, NPO, Rose. Unite behind my banner. I shall lead you to freedom. To a world rid of the structural oppression of your once prosperous alliances! What say you?

Dec and upn were top 2 (iirc) going into that war? At the very least larger than all their opponents individually. Come on kitty. Stick to facts lol

I love how people consistently try to take Jacob Moore (Eumir) seriously and attribute his trolling to tS/OO being 'evil'. Just lol.

No Partisan for Viceroy of Rose? Disappointed.