Ogaden

Arrgh!

The thing about the UPN peace was that it came on the heels of a gigantic nerf of our fighting ability from Alex, and Arrgh honestly needed a bit of time to figure out what we were going to do. That combined with the fact that the war had been based on incorrect intelligence led me to make peace rather than fight a prolonged conflict. I also had a good relationship with the UPN leadership at the time, a leadership that would ironically be kicked to the curb later on. The terms of the NAP were overly severe and I had counter-offered instead that Arrgh would assist UPN in the next war as a compensation, which was refused. Ironically the next war UPN really needed our help, but instead we joined the other side who offered to remove the terms imposed upon us. The terms of our NAP ironically allowed us to do this, as they had left war as a valid reason, only raids were forbidden. Generally speaking you should abide by your agreements, otherwise people won't respect your word, and as a leader your word is all you really have. Your power and ability to lead and command your followers depends on your integrity, as they depend on you and rely on you.

I admire the bloody minded individual who insists on a positive damage ratio before peace

The truth of the matter is that there are more and less effective political philosophies. Not more fun or more interesting, but merely more effective in accumulating and maintaining power. Often, and is this case, the more boring and more calcified, the more effective. Simply accumulating more people than everyone else has been a winning strategy forever, and if those people are unambitious, them being chained together into an immobile blob doesn't even bother them. This isn't even fun for those controlling the gigantic blob however, as the fruits of victory are as ashes in your mouth. The same unambitious blob that allows you to sit atop your golden throne also are those who prefer maintaining the status quo and aren't interested in embarking on things that might be fun. At the core of power, is an immense brain drain, as the bored and ambitious split away to do something for once. On the other side of the equation people with extremely risky, bold and ambitious alliance projects inevitably succeed in eventually toppling any hegemony, no matter how enormous, as hegemonies rot from the inside out. The problem is once toppled, these alliances either have to entirely reinvent themselves or die from the disease that brought them low. Learning no lessons, those who had toppled them from their golden thrones often will immediately jettison those too ambitious to be their vassal meat shields and will accumulate the same sort of hangers-on that the previous hegemony had, and the cycle repeats itself.

The world has gone soft, full of ennui and fearful of bold action.

I was spied several times a day for several years back when that was the only way anyone could effectively fight Arrgh. I remember well the tragedy of the zero spy lifestyle.

The thing about war is it's all about the victory conditions. You might think you've beaten somebody, but until they agree with you, you haven't. Some people are plain crazy and will never admit defeat.

Is there still the UCR around or did they die

You have 2 mutual defence pacts, you no longer have a foreign policy, you are an auxiliary force

Asynchronous doesn't always mean good

My biggest issue with GOONS at the moment is they appear to be mostly Chapo reddit rather than Chapo twitter, and as such must be purged

This is the fifth war system this game has had. They had to get rid of the other four due to Arrgh

This must be what passes for a witty rejoinder in GOONS.

Well in that case we shouldn't be any trouble to deal with, after all how many threads do alliances start about a trash mob? A mere 2, 3, 10 threads? Mister Goonso, you will learn the true meaning of fear.

This too is something I have heard many times from mightier foes. We outlasted them all, and they were all much better than you. Your mere existence here puts you yourself as a nerd of the lowest order, along with everyone else here

Your nations are weak and umworthy, though your words are amusing. I have heard this speech a hundred times from a hundred alliances, alliances full of great warriors rather than the pathetic toadies and cowardly prostitutes who sell themselves for so little. Your pride will become desperation as your bowels turn to water and your allies prove to be useless. No one and nothing can save you from us.

I refuse to accept this as a genuine snek communique as it is not in the form of a Taylor Swift music video

Pantheon exploited their relationship with ts for years to grow to enormous size without ever being capable of defending themselves. Pantheon would not exist without ts.

The entire concept of sides in a large war is deliberately binary in order to preclude sovereign decision making and to render treasonous self interest

The bait dangled lacks finesse and the cynicism of this move is somewhat obvious, however this will sow deep hatreds and those are always interesting

Who could have guessed being a syndicate protectorate would make you a target rather than safe, or that treaties with both sides would not protect you? If only someone had written about the folly of treaties

People have tried but you can't just decide to have an elite warrior alliance, also without indiscriminate raiding you would have to rely on peacetime economy for 90% of your time and would become yourself an attractive raid target. Also you would be surprised how personally people take being attacked in a mercenary deal

Arrgh never defined any such differentiation, we've always considered our raids as wars and wars as raids. Leave the quibbling for the e-lawyers, and leave the e-lawyers on the bottom of the ocean. As for GOONS, like every youngun' who considers themselves to be hot stuff they seek to prove themselves against our captains. Let's see if you're any tougher than all the other ones. Also those familiar with Arrgh history will know we never gave a damn about the rules or announcing wars either.

As an aside, there is an incredible amount of revisionist history being written in here. Syndicate did not 'bail out' Arrgh, it was part of the compensation package offered to us to participate on the side of Syndisphere. Ironically the DNR terms specifically allowed for alliance wars, assuming this clause would only benefit UPN. The intervention on behalf of Syndicate was entirely due to the hubris of UPN and DEIC in the Purple Spy War. This led to a glorious working partnership with Syndisphere which sadly ended with the rise of TKR to prominence who sought to end our reign of terror on the high seas.

Honestly though slowing the game down more won't solve the problem, the problem is this kind of game is only interesting to a very specific kind of nerd. Most inactive people are permanently inactive, on that they tried the game, didn't like it and never logged back in. The remaining inactive population are people who are no longer interested but have fallen victim to the sunk cost fallacy, so they keep their nations around on life support until they are forced to choose abandonment or obliteration via war, at which time they finally quit