Charles Bolivar

This made me chuckle.

Welcome back friend 😀

Can the real @Vanek26 please stand up?

Inb4 "dance" becomes referenced in numerous polls about what to call this war.

One of my many titles 🤣

Or amount of variations we have had on Germanic themed AAs which always end up being labelled with a certain term. Could add to that commie and star wars themed AAs too I suppose.

I actually didn't realise rose was only a few weeks older than tS. All of tS's early founders were technically members of Rose for a week or so before tS officially founded as Rose gave us an umbrella to shelter under whilst we formed etc. But yeah, for some reason I just assumed rose was a good bit older than tS. I'm pretty sure I've still got a couple logs with keegoz and pub on a long forgotten IRC account giving me a history lesson on this game up until November 2015 now that I think on it. I seem to remember most of the chat revolved around Abbas being being blitzed every war via missiles back in the day when 1k infra was a substantial amount of infra 🤣

Biggest guinea pigs I've ever seen.

I'd say we have 4/5 groups. But the level of actual separation or distinctiveness between them is minimal at best. Nearly every war since NPOLT has developed into a bipolar state of affairs between two opposing globalist coalitions anyway due to secret treaties, private arrangements or just convergent interests etc between the various groupings. This war being a good indicator of where things can go in the future, but again, it's hard to tell about the impact and influence posed by the NAP on the current war and if there hadn't been an NAP, would this war have assumed the traditional dualistic nature where the main 4-5 spheres coalesce together anyway into two opposing sides. Basically, I don't think we have minispheres yet at all. Proto-minispheres perhaps where we have the beginnings of regionalisation within the treaty web , but we still have a fair bit to go. Truth be told I think there is a proclivity amongst most alliances to utilise "minispheres" as a disguise for the pursuing of hegemonic goals and the lessening of potential strategic threats which affect their own dominance. In that sense it kind of echoes the rise of the Delian league under Athens' stewardship in a manner of thinking. In order to have true minispheres, we need to have at the very least a distinct number of groups who are at least on comparable strength terms to one another, and who will not take part in global wars which don't affect their own interests . We simply aren't there yet. Getting there but still a fair way to go as can be witnessed by the current war in which mystery and oasis are simply being slaughtered for lack of a better term across the board due to differences in membership composition etc. There is no actual incentive right now for oasis and mystery to remain at their current sphere strength because to do so simply opens them up to the risk of future defeats. They clearly need access to stronger allies if they wish to stand a chance in future conflicts, but attempting to do so will likely lead them back to their current situation. So in that sense I still think the game has a fair bit to go before we can truly say we have reached a new 'meta' of in-game balance in regards to minispheres. Personally I think we need to see an in-game mechanic which actively encourages the treaty web to fragment further. Utilising geographical placement on the in-game map or even team colour so as to act as an incentive for conflicts to evolve away from globalist tendencies might be the better option. Of course that would require significant work to the code so I have no idea if it's feasible. But I don't believe relying on alliance leaderships to achieve a true minisphere state of being is viable as the alliances with weaker member compositions are naturally going to band together to seek some form of security against the stronger alliances, with this banding together to be in turn viewed as a threat to the dominance of stronger AAs and spheres. It's human nature at the end of the day and relying on leaders, whose authority rests on providing security to their members, to take actions which lessen their own relative security is always going to be unreliable at best. We have seen this on numerous occasions (infact every occasion I think) from NPOLT and even this war itself is much the same if we take into account the treaty which allegedly kicked off the war itself. In short, lots of work to do yet before we get where we want to be.

It was pretty hilarious in hindsight. Most of us had been annoyed at partisan for trusting cynic and allowing such a situation occur at all, with a few of us calling for partisan to step down entirely. I think partisan even offered his resignation at one point too. Next minute impero strolls into the embassy making not so subtle demands from VE that we must replace partisan. Impero pretty much saved partisan's rear since there was no way we were gonna allow anyone else to make that sort of demand with impunity. tS got riled up, threw their support behind partisan, and the rest was history.

We really shouldn't have been able to manage a victory.

Precisely. When you have upper tiers costing multiple tens of billions to rebuild on top of the time spent waiting for that rebuilding investment to pay itself off, alliances will naturally gravitate towards measures which can grant some measure of security. Add onto it the game's FA and leadership meta and a few other factors, you basically have a state of affairs which naturally leads to bipolar webs and hegemony. It's pretty much inevitable Can it be changed? Of course, but it's going to take structural change at at a foundational level and not just the well intentioned wishes of a few leaders from across the web. Personally, I can't blame oasis and mystery for forming whatever treaty it was they created as a form of security. What I do disagree with, however, is imbuing this newly FA created entity with a defensive and reactionary mindset from its inception. I think it would have been a better move to instead adopt a more proactive approach solely to keep some semblance of initiative and control over the subsequent events. The end result would have probably been the same, simply due to membership compositions, but reactionary politics is never a good base position to start from imo simply because it implies a loss of control. But yeah, can minispheres work? Yes. Should it be the meta? Yes. Can it work within the current FA political landscape though? I'm sceptical 🤷‍♂️

How punny of you dear sir. Punny indeed.

The horde rises? 🤔

It would be everyone's worst nightmare I think. 500 plus nations c25 downwards engaging in mass raiding and looting in an organised and coordinated manner would cripple the long term economic policies and capabilities of every single alliance without question. Some AAs would fare better than others naturally, but I think every alliance would eventually reach a breaking point where the damage and lost tax revenue would simply be too much to sustain. It actually sounds quite fun, for both the raider and the raided. A good challenge I think 😀

The only coalition I'd like to see at all is one made up of raiders who just blanket the game in piracy and leave nothing in their wake.

What I'd personally prefer are no blocs at all, but instead have a web made up of numerous smaller treaties and ties between countless alliances. In layman's terms it would be essentially 20 microspheres with these microspheres not cooperating at all with other spheres in large global style conflicts. Idealistic yes? But that's what minispheres as a concept essentially is. An idealistic pipe dream in which you are hoping alliances and blocs willingly maintain their strength in roughly relative comparison to their opponents, and hope their opponents do the same. It simply cannot work. Only a fool for an alliance leader would willingly adopt a strategy which places their alliance at a level of risk by deliberately weakening their own strength just to be comparable to their opponents. I've said before but if we truly want minispheres, we need an in-game mechanic which actively encourages regionalisation. Perhaps have the in-game nation map assume larger importance in dictating control of a continent and associated bonuses with map placement in turn limiting military capabilities ( north American soldiers for instance being unable to attack African nations on a whim without steep associated penalties due to distance etc). Or something similar with team colours which acts an incentive for a more regionalised treaty web and more regionalised conflict. My point is, if we want minispheres, we need something better than the good intentions of alliance leaders since experience has shown us for half a decade it simply does not work. Countless conflicts , countless blocs and wars, along with the regular appearance of secret treaties. If the point hasn't been established by now then I don't know what will.

Does this finally mean we can stop arguing about minispheres now, and just relegate it to the dustbin of idealistic dreams? It's been a discussion point now for half a decade after all. If this move doesn't indicate why minispheres will never be a reality then I don't know what else will 🤣

Same. I refer to wars pretty much as being 'the time we attacked so and so because someone did something'. There are only a few wars whose names I actually remember.

Wtf is a brawlywood? 🤔

It's actually not that strange at all when you think on it 👍

Man...they really showed you 🤣

I miss forums

Ah, the idealistic multi-sphere post finally makes an appearance. As much as I would genuinely like to see a multi-sphere world, it's likelihood is pretty much close to nil right now as much as it ever has been in previous years. I've been vocal about it in the past so it really shouldn't come as a surprise. How can we realistically push for a new FA meta when we have largely the same groups of people in charge of the same alliances pushing for the same agenda as they have done so for the last few years? If we want change , we first have to enact change closer to home in how we operate internally as alliances. Move away from the same cliques dictating decisions for whole communities and we might start getting somewhere. The FA meta largely reflects the internal nature of our own alliances after all. Tired , stagnant government lineups using the same tired stagnant CBs every war building coalitions in the same tired and stagnant manner.

What are you on about 🤣 by that same logic tS's top tier is slacking right now with barely a war in sight doing much the same. This has nothing to do with slacking but is due to them being mostly out of range due to war mechanics regarding score ranges, but don't try to make out that grumpy is somehow a bunch of war dodgers when the truth is they are simply unable to do so due to game mechanics. It's a lazy argument lacking any reference to logic or reason