[The Cataclysmic Failure of Swamp]

14 minutes ago, Mutedfaith said:

Because we have to take your unspoken word on it being just two alliances based on early militarization numbers.

It's okay, friend. I would also panic if I thought Cata and HoF were coming for me.

[Mysterious Clockwater in the Oasis Propaganda Thread]

[Hurry up.]

Okay, I'll start a war now.

[[Treaty] Daylight in the Oasis]

These spine-stretching political maneuvers to avoid conflict at all costs are embarrassing, and are indicative of a pixel-hugging mentality that should've been burned away long ago.

Oh well! Let's see if you guys can, at the very minimum, honor treaties I guess.

[An Updated Treaty Web]

Pentagrams forming out of treaty web lines isn't anything new.

But when the number of pentagrams become incalculable, you know there's some evil Satanic bullshit afoot. 

[[Treaty] Mystery in the Oasis]

12 hours ago, Arln said:

We had reason to believe an attack was coming our way. There was three options put before us. We had reason to believe an attack was coming our way. We sit and do nothing, we sign a secret agreement, we make a public agreement. You'd be an idiot to standby and just get coomed on... Either you please non-involved parties and the enemy or yourself... But in the end this was better than option two. 

The implication here is that the idea of going on the offense is so far outside the mind of Mystery decision makers that it wasn't even considered an option. 

Poor Mystery. Not confident enough to take the coom directly, not confident enough to bring the coom to their 'enemy' (whoever that is) even with a friend. 

To be in Mystery is to suffer, it seems.

Epi was right after all?????!!?

[A joint announcement from Hollywood, Rosesphere, Oasis, and Clockbloc]

3 minutes ago, MinesomeMC said:

As far as i've heard it was Rose that pushed the blanket NAP. If true, its weird they signed this. 

Rose is probably the best at politics right now. As the meta is now shifting towards anti-NAP sentiments, it is only natural that they would jump on that train. 

[A joint announcement from Hollywood, Rosesphere, Oasis, and Clockbloc]

I thought this was to announce the Hollywood-Rose-Oasis-Clock MDoAP treaty? Does that come next week?

[Arrgh first ever MASS RAID AUCTION!!!]

20 minutes ago, Vice said:

150M to start. Hit anyone of your choice who isn’t under the NAP and hasn’t been in a conflict since the last Great War. 

I second this. 100M. 

[Easternn tries to ally with weebunism]

1 hour ago, Origin said:

I'm sure you'll do great kid -- now please get off the internet and go back to your crib kthx

40 minutes ago, Easternn said:

Yeah whatever

He did it! He went back to his crib! Be careful what you wish for.

rip my homie gone 2 soon #never4get

All he wanted was that good Weebussy

 

[Which tier(s) matter and which don't]

During a war between two parties, the tier that matters are the one bigger ones. Whale tier, upper tier, whatever you want to call it. If you have a war between C1-C15 on both sides, for example, then it's that C10+ range that matters. 

Holding the upper tier is important because the bigger nations bring more to the table economically. Being able to keep cash and resources being made/produced to replenish losses is important. A safe upper tier can also punch down below them. If they can do so from relatively safety, then their alliance/side is golden. Doing damage while making bank? Literally no better thing in this game.

Middle tier is good for punching up at your enemy's upper tier, but they're not really the most important.

Lower tier are least important. If they can skirmish, raid, and do damage, then good. I would argue that the lower tier is best for trying to sit on an enemy's own lower tier. If you can make those newer players quit, leave their alliance, or just be less active, then you're doing some real damage that way. 

[U.S. Debt in depth look.]

US monetary policy is completely f.u.c.k.e.d. and there's no fix to it. The government only has 3 levers to pull in trying to balance the budget. It can either cut spending, raise taxes, or print money. 

Cutting spending in any meaningful way will never happen. Everybody in Congress has some special interest group lobbying for some pork somewhere. The military and corporate subsidies are good places to look for cuts, but the American Empire needs their mercenaries to kill brown people - and scare everyone else - with. I would go as far as to suggest that the only reason why the USD is the reserve currency of the world is because our military can just kill anybody else who seriously becomes competitive. Then, you have the zombie corporations which will never make a profit, but receive public funds anyways because somebody somewhere is getting paid to keep that gravy train going.

Raising taxes is weird. If you raise taxes are normal people, then you lose points in polls and might not get reelected. However, raising taxes on the 'wealthy' (most of whom are, like, doctors and IT people and shit but nevermind that LOOK AT ELON MUSK AND JEFF BEZOS) is hella popular because 40% of the population blames their own personal problems on them anyways. So, politicians beat the drum on raising taxes on the 'wealthy' while usually not doing anything. Although you do have the Democrats proposing that we start taxing unrealized capital gains. I don't know how you tax money that doesn't exist, but that's about where the discourse among our 'leaders' are so that's cool. 

Last option is to print money, but the Fed is currently printing 120 billion a month or something now. I guess you can make printer go brrr even more if you want but we're already seeing big inflation, and I don't see the mechanism for how it gets better.

There is no solution to the US debt problem. At best, our 'leaders' are grossly incompetent and at worst, they're evil and are intentionally managing us poorly (which is what I personally believe). Congressmen, on a personal and individual basis, have no incentive to actually do anything to fix it. Raise taxes to pay for things? Nah, I'd lose my seat. Cut spending? Nah, my bank account would shrink. All the incentives here are to act perverse. The leadership of both political parties have set themselves and other major institutions up to maintain this monopoly on political power. So, you can't just 'vote them out' for whatever. Most of the real decision makers in the nation exist either in the corporate or banking world anyways.

Even if you did get a Congress and Executive Branch full of moral, just people, then the solutions to the debt crisis remain the same; which is to cut the majority of spending while increasing taxes dramatically. You'd probably have to maintain this condition for, like, a decade at least. Probably longer. In doing so, you can say goodbye to most social programs (sorry, grandma, no more triple bypass for you!). The glorified jobs program of the regime - the United States Armed Forces - would lose a lot of its manpower and capability. Which means it loses much of its international influence, which means it loses out of economic opportunities even more. 

This all being said, I do agree that there's a problem and that it can't go on forever. This house built on monopoly money will crash and burn eventually. It'll probably look something like how the collapse of the USSR did- except worse in every way. The only thing a person can do is just live your life and find ways to mitigate the coming storm. You need a way to live without the local stores having all the Funko Pops and TV dinners that you're use to. So, I want to be able to feed myself while maintaining a way to trade with people because Dollars will only be good for toilet paper and starting fires. I plan on spending next year learning how to grow things and hunt/skin/dress animals. I also am working on building the wealth and resources to go heavy into crypto (precious metals - specifically silver coins - work well for this). Also, learning a marketable skill is good. Learning how to use heavy equipment, a trade, how to program, or knowing medicine (IE, become a nurse) are all good too.

This is a downer post, but it's not meant to be hopeless. Yes, you should lose hope if you think there's a political solution to our current problems. But, if you just want to live a normal life where all that matters is your day-to-day experiences, then this is just something to think about and plan for (like knowing a bad storm is coming and that you might be without power for a few days). Besides, even if we didn't live under these circumstances, then learning certain skills is a good idea just for the virtue of it anyways.

The American Empire may (well, WILL) collapse, but that doesn't mean you're gonna die or something. It might not even mean that your quality of life will get worse. You just need to be aware of it and take steps so that you can live a life you're happy with- which is something you should be doing anyways in the pursuit of living life to the fullest anyways.

[HOW DOI FIND NATIONS TO RAID]

As someone who raided with over 30 cities, I do ever want to hear a C6 complain about not being able to find raid targets.

[Thalmor Radio - 10/29/2021 Halloween Episode]

                                               

---

Join us tonight at 9 PM EST for an extra spooky episode of Thalmor Radio!

On top of our usual cold takes and schizo content, we'll be covering the winners of our P&W alliance Halloween flag contest. I will also be inviting listeners on to share their own paranormal encounters. You WILL shit your pants! We also have a guest for tonight; I invited the local skinwalker to come on, but he never got back with me, so instead Church will be coming on to cover the recent Exposé on what appears to be GOONs' attempt to infiltrate the game.

Come on out and let's all have an episode of mass hysteria!

Thalmor Radio is P&W's longest-running radio show. Broadcasting since December 2019, we go live every Friday at 9 PM EST. Hosted by myself and cohosted by Zig, we give our thoughts on things, go over the news of the game, and mull over real life events. 

Server Invite: https://discord.gg/Kma5nEQFTj

Recording Archive: Thalmor Radio - YouTube

[[Peace] Moving Forward]

On 10/25/2021 at 9:48 PM, Cherise said:

I honestly am quite disappointed Keshav wouldn't come back, though. With his skills, I'm sure the war could have lasted another 90 days.

This is easily the most progressive peace deal in the history of the game. Never in Politics and War has the losing side lost so hard and yet get so many terms beneficial to it. There was nothing else to be gained by dragging the war out longer. All that would've done is hamper Camelot's economic recovery and development.

[Food in PnW: Is it realistic?]

26 minutes ago, Novax25 said:

What about soldiers using 1 unit per 500 during war?

U.S. soldiers in Iraq face battle of the bulge | The Seattle Times

"Most MREs, or meals ready to eat, contain about 1,300 calories; three a day are recommended. Supplemented with energy bars and drinks, they give soldiers the 4,500 to 5,000 calories they need for an active day of patrols or on the front line."

So, during wartime in P&W, soldiers are eating 4,000 calories in food. This is true in real life as well.

[Food in PnW: Is it realistic?]

I love these kinds of dives into P&W lore, lmao.

20 minutes ago, Justinian the Great said:

So if we consider a PnW unit of food a tonne of food, this makes much more sense. 

I want to say that there are text somewhere in the game where resources are spoken of as tonnes, but I don't remember where and I'm to lazy to go looking. 

[bloc history]

I don't have such images, but the game's wiki has a list of all the blocs, and pretty much all of them have their own wiki page. If you want to learn more about the blocs, look there. 

[Beige Rework attempt 69]

It's already hard enough for the 'losing' side of a war to bounce back. Wars seem to be won before they begin, and punishing the losing side for being in that position. The design philosophy being applied here is backwards.

The ideal situation would be to develop the mechanics so that it's possible for the losing side to develop a strategy to fight back effectively and make a comeback somehow. I'm not sure how you would do that, but that's what players try to do now when they nuke and missile their enemies alongside attacking with soldiers and few ships- and it can be fairly effective. 

Don't make it harder for the losing side. Make it so that the losing side can fight better despite losing the upper hand (if they are capable of doing so through good planning, skill, and tactics). 

[Thalmor's Nuclear Strike Service]

This was a fun project, but due to changing political circumstances, I am no longer accepting new clients.

[Post-War Mechanics ideas.]

50 minutes ago, Lord Tyrion said:

City defenses as build options.  (AA guns, etc)

This is an interesting idea. On top of the lost improvement slot, make them decently expensive to build and maintain (like a drydock, subway, or nuke plant). 

Opens up the playstyle of being heavily fortified, but at the cost of producing less cash and resources. 

[The Rise of Lucianus]

This is a fraud! Vice won! I saw the vote counts as they happened live! A bunch of votes came in for Lucianus right before they called the alliance! This election was stolen from Vice! 

[Dunked On]

2 hours ago, Adrienne said:

Bollywood asked for it.

58 minutes ago, Sweeeeet Ronny D said:

That assumption would be incorrect, it was offered by our opponents,  and it wasn't a hill I was willing to die on in order to get peace.

Thanks for the clarification! 

The NAP is silly, then. 

[Thalmor's Nuclear Strike Service]

9/17/2021 Report:

I have currently serviced 3 clients, nuking 3 targets in the process.

$70,542,235.60 in infra has been destroyed. 

526,367 people have been turned into shadows and ghosts.

Improvements vaporized includes a farm, a subway, 2 supermarkets, a factory, and an oil well.

[Dunked On]

I imagine the NAP was something Hollywood wanted, right? Normally I would say a 3 month NAP was silly but, assuming it was Hollywood that demanded it, then that would be reasonable and it makes sense coming from them.