Hodor

Disband.

I don't think it's personal to you, I think a number of people in t$ gov would put this at the top of their P&W wish lists. What isn't addressed here is my point that, no matter where Grumpy goes, they'll transform their new home into an upper tier powerhouse. So really they either go paperless or go to The Johnsons. Imagine, t$ protecting a lone Grumpy. And finally, both you and Ronny have attacked me together, so you both should just kiss, make up, and start trying to make me happy to make up for it.

I don't see what the big deal is? I've yet to see a comparison shot of BW, MHC, and Ro$e, but at least from what I can tell they've not expanded their reach, but chosen to focus it more on an area they've consistently felt they were outgunned in: the upper tier. My main concern is, and always has been, t$' approach to Grumpy. I think that Etat sums it up here: If we look at this tiering: HW has 49 nations in the C35+ tier, 30 of those are in Grumpy (10 in Guardian). Remove Grumpy from HW and they (HW) are no longer an upper tier threat, but adding Grumpy to either of the other sphere's then creates the same "consolidation." The only solution is that Grumpy take enormous risk in order to assuage these fears with little promise that undertaking this risk would do anything to remove the spotlight from them. Lastly, at what ratio do we measure the downdeclare threat? I see a lot of talk about the 40+ tier being a critical arena. An 18 nation advantage in that tier (comparing HW and Ro$e) seems large, but a 19, 13, and 12 nation disadvantage in the 3 tiers below it seems to really negate that... It's really hard to get a grasp on what the actual impact of X number of X tier nations means, it seems to be largely personal intuition at the moment. I think the last war could've really shown this, but t$' decisions made it so that tier was uncontested after 1 day.

TKR BESTKR

It would be incredible to have the option to select which cities you'd like to bulk import a template to. Many nations do not use the same template for all of their cities to take advantage of resource bonuses and whatnot. Being able to bulk import to select cities using some check box mechanism would be incredible.

Did I miss the definition of the meta? Haven't we been arguing for forever about what the optimal environment for the game is? Unless I've been living under a rock, the "meta" is far from settled or agreed upon. Tell me what the current "meta" or "rules" are.

[OOC] Spot on. A large part of my name change was driven by this. I realized that I myself have played a character far too close to my real life personality and that's been hard for me to separate IC and OOC, something I'm sure isn't uncommon. By criticizing t$ for doing something somewhat similar, I was being somewhat hypocritical. I wanted to make sure that I also strive to improve the way I interact the game as a result of the great discussions being had. I do think this will be a hard line to walk. I am hoping to make all OWF posts, unless denoted otherwise, IC, but Discord will prove more challenging and, I'm sure, at times feel very schizophrenic, but that may prove to be very fun in reality. I'm hopeful that others will embrace what you've said here and examine their own in-game character and decide to make some changes, however small, for the better of the greater game. [/OOC]

I just learned this war that bots can almost immediately identify improvement swaps and notify of militarization before anyone even purchases units. That struck me as incredible and stupid. Bots of that type make a lot of this game into the equivalent of playing a game on easy mode with cheats on. There are other bots, as others have said, that make running an alliance so much easier, but that don't dumb down the game to enormous degree. Those should be used and encouraged as they lower the barrier to entry for the game initially and help foster healthy communities. Also are we not going to talk about how Thalmor used a criticism of bots to segue into an anti-porn rant?

Who are you?

There has been a coup. For over 2,574 days, the people of Hodor have known peace and stability. No more. The first signs of trouble were subtle. Hodor, cherished Monarch, began to appear less and less in public. A mysterious, but noble figure began to attend state functions in his stead. The smell of rawhide and the muffled squeaks began to emanate from the presidential palace. Tennis balls were made a necessary part of the military's ceremonial garb. All of this was accepted as signs that perhaps our leader, the great Hodor, had finally succumbed to his old ways and the eloquence and charm that had mysteriously been bestowed upon him years ago as a simple minded stable boy had run their course. Life went on as usual in Hodor, until last night. Light sleeping citizens awoke in the night to strange sounds and even stranger sights. Canine companions everywhere were absent from their beds and cages and, through the dark, if one squinted, four legged shapes could be seen raising black and white flags and urinating on fire hydrants. When the rest of the country awoke, postings on the street announced that Hodor had decided to take a back seat to politics and all state affairs would now be handled by his trusted hound - OttoVonBisbark, the newly named Duke of Hauendburg. Otto's role as Hodor's most beloved boy was one that all were too familiar with. A large, looming mastiff, quick to anger, but equally able to enamor. While Hodor was disinclined towards war, OttoVonBisbark's Dukedom was composed of innumerable dog parks and backyards seized through ruthless diplomacy and, when necessary, even more ruthless war. Otto is not cruel, but nor is he timid. His focus is singular and he will achieve his goals through any means necessary. Too long have the dogs of the world been sundered. Through his leadership, a new empire will rise, an Empire of Dog. Unleash yourselves, my friends and retrieve what is yours! AWOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!! tl;dr Hodor is no more. All hail OttoVonBisbark. Any and all promises made and/or relationships built by Hodor will be honored on a case by case basis.

Up vote, but it bears further reiterating: this is exactly the takeaway I'd say is the important part and you've summarized, at least my grievance, perfectly.

Name them so that we may shame them.

You misunderstand me. I don't prefer OOC outrage. What I am saying is that IC outrage shouldn't be able to be confused with OOC outrage, and I think it often is. IC outrage can be really entertaining and enriching to the game if done well, but I think too often the veil between IC and OOC is very thin if not non-existent.

Thanks for the write up WANA, I think this touches on some interesting points. I think for one, in the post NPO era there's been a conscious effort to reduce the toxicity and excess in IC RP. This has been more or less adapted by all alliances, but something critical happened to t$ that didn't allow for it to make the shift as well. I wonder if the tension and borderline animosity surrounding people labeling t$ a hegemony in the period after NPOLT isolated you all and has been informing your mindset since. At that time, I was taken aback at how vociferous t$ was, but maybe this is chalked up to your isolation? or people like me misread it because we still had a bad taste in our mouths from your actions and silence in the first half of NPOLT? Regardless, the more I think about it, the more I think I've always taken an issue with the way t$ is playing the politics of outrage right now, but it was the norm in the game for so long that it would have been useless to rage against it. Now, t$ alone is still playing that old game and it's much more stark of a contrast to the game the rest of the world is playing. It's always my belief that IC outrage shouldn't be able to be confused with OOC outrage and that a healthy separation should exist between the two and in this style of play the line is very thin.

You've completely missed the point and have focused your post entirely on something HC never said. I think you need to go back and re-read what he said, he drew a line between his preference and the preferences of others and does not actually argue against political drama: Well written, HC. Interested to hear t$' response.

It's not as you now see, we've been very open with our disagreements. Great, then let's talk after we punch you guys a few times this war

Let's switch positions then. Say Grumpy considers it settled after this and we spend a couple months re-asserting that in our private channels. You'll consider it done?

I'd like to formally announce all ill will towards t$ is forgotten. There are clearly worse evils in this game.

I think parts of this are the closest to being true, but I actually think we have an incredibly candid relationship. We've made it very clear to t$ over the past 8 months or so that we do not consider the ledger cleared or the sheet balanced and that we take issue with the wars you've waged against us. I think we focus on different things, at least I do. The damage isn't the issue here, it's the targeting. You all justify multiple wars because we come out supposedly unscathed in some of them, but an aggressive war is an aggressive war. If you swing at us and miss, you still swung. As for the efforts to move past this, I think SRD said it best, you punched us in the nose and then immediately were like, "okay, NOW we are good", but we've made it clear that we are not good with that. You'll find no bullshit in Grumpy, we've been straight about this from the get go.

We're accepting applications. Disagree with this one. Say it's an even match and the combatants can't agree on a name, especially if it's contentious, the greater community's impression of the conflict should have an influence. If NPO won NPOLT it would have been named something like "The Righteous Crusade of Roquentin Against the P&W Gatekeepers" or some lame shit like that. I think it's fine that a war can be referred to as multiple different names if an alliance wants to maintain an alternate history RP or whatever, but the common "wiki" name should be one that reflects the whole of Orbis. Kind of like how in the south the Civil War is the War of Northern Aggression, or in Russia they call WW2 the Great Patriotic War, or how in Australia they call it the Great Patriotic War but everyone else knows it as the Emu War.

IRON has such a long and storied history across nation sims, so why are you posting like a micro?

Steve: Also Steve: Are we sure there aren't multiple people running Steve's nation?

Rain makes corn, corn makes whiskey...

Upgrade the game server.