Avruch

Responding to this in detail would be a waste of time, as would continuing this topic in this thread.

One way of looking at it. It's like if an American biker gang murdered three people in Mexico, and Mexico marshaled its armies and attacked Washington D.C. in retaliation.

You must have him confused with someone else. The Pfeiffer I know is always polite, humble and jovial - jolly, even. He's so unfailingly courteous that if you have found otherwise, you must have been dealing with an impostor :-P

What is stopping them? Well I couldn't say for sure. I'd imagine that it has something to do with the fact that Mensa is ranked fairly high, even if below some of the very highest. It also could be concern that we might have a relationship with one or more other alliances that might help us defend ourselves. If they wish to avoid a war, then they might choose to pay reps if someone in Mensa chose to request them. But those factors aren't strongly at play between Mensa and SI. We have no particular reason to go out of our way to avoid a war with a tiny competitor. You would think that Hereno would have a much stronger incentive in that direction - "Gee I better not attack the alliance leader, or the whole alliance might retaliate." It's strange that he didn't, and speaks to what seems like an odd culture around war (at least as can be seen from these threads). And you haven't convinced me that this culture makes sense, but its certainly educational. I'm a newbie, so its interesting to learn how things are done here even if it seems alien compared to other web-based war games. Someone upthread called it a nation sim, and maybe that spin is where the different approach comes from.

I don't know that we're all here trying to "defend our honor." Many of us honestly think the approach and reaction to war here is strange. You can see, and probably already know, that most of the Mensa HQ members started playing in the last couple of months. We all came from another game where war is the raison d'etre, so its strange to see people get actually offended at being attacked and honestly expect to be repaid. As for Wladimirsky, if you think "I demand repayment from you sir, on your honor, for your manifold transgressions" "Of course my dear sir, please specify the account" is an accurate reflection of Politics and War, please allow me to introduce you to the modern concepts of realpolitik and total war.

Yes, I'm just not sure why people are playing it like its called Hugs & Kisses XOXO.

Why in a war game is it common courtesy to pay people back for doing exactly what the game mechanics encourage? If the alliances were of equal size or had diplomatic ties or there was a risk to the aggressor, then sure pay reps for strategic reasons, but I don't see why making a nation whole out of pure altruistic generosity is considered common courtesy.

No one is paying reps now, brah. There's a war on.

I think he was asking how much the alliance bank lost by completed wars. I guess he just figured anyone reading it would understand that immediately. But he overestimated this forum.

You wound us, so, so deeply.

I don't know herm, that just sounds like basic game theory. You could also say that a little alliance risking war with a much larger alliance over raiding a couple of inactives is not great strategic thinking. I don't know how many people would be pissed at Mensa in that scenario, especially since Pfeiffer was actually willing to pay reps to any nation that asked - not an ungenerous policy, considering SI isn't exactly a world power. Edited to reply to Estelle... If you notice, reps were offered. They were refused.

Even I can see the reason for this - Hereno is claiming they aren't inactive. By having them ask for reps, its proving that they are in fact not inactive. If they can't do that... then they are legit inactive raiding targets after all.

This is the part I find odd. I'm new to this game, but there doesn't seem to be any reason in the game mechanics that this would be the custom. The name of the game is politics and war, why is war activity taboo?