Zed

Got to hard disagree here, amigo. Those other haters just need to git gud and catch up to Wampus.

We would, buy Roy ran off with the database and we never got it back. It would be nice if we still had them. TKR uses forums still. They might be one of the few left, and really the only ones I can think of. This is probably a part of why I personally like TKR.

This work is original to this forum, but I can attempt to cite some sources if you really want. And yes, my old question about the history of the Papacy is still legendary to this day, among others. It is too bad I do not make the Juniors in The Enterprise answer some of them; maybe I ought to start that up again.

Well since you asked... The short answer is that the United States as a nation is chiefly founded more on English or German (bear with me here, yes Ostrichreich is not “Germany”) heritage, and not of Romance heritage. The House of Savoy, as more of an Italian set of rulers, has the weakest of these claims that you list. It is worth pointing out that Jacobite succession did pass through them in the 19th century, but that claim now resides under the House of Wittelsbach, who themselves as good Bavarian Catholics are probably a better American choice as opposed to the more Italian Savoy. That said, Bourbons have a few decent claims to a Catholic American throne. If it were not for the French (and Spanish who also have Bourbons and Dutch), the USA would likely not have had the resources and power to defeat the British in the American Revolution. The United States through territorial expansion, whether actually done or imagined, often went through French/Spanish colonial possessions. The USA had a provision in the Articles of Confederation for Canada to freely join the compact, but in reality they meant Quebec as a branch to the French-Canadians now under British rule who might want to get out. The USA also probably should have annexed the entirety of Mexico under the treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, but there were fears among Northern WASPs that such an annexation would break the balance of the USA as a land for White Anglo-Saxon Protestants, and also give too much territory south of the Missouri Compromise line for slave states to expand their holdings (even if much of Northern Mexico is not really suitable for plantation-style chattel slavery and Mexico had banned slavery). But those territories won in the Mexican Cession, and in the Louisiana and Florida acquisitions, were very much in line with historical Bourbon lands, and a displaced Bourbon could rule over a monarchy in the USA as a nod to their help in the American Revolution. Speaking of Mexico, it is not hard to see how Hapsburgs fit into a North American context there. They are probably the most prominent Catholic monarchs of the period who ruled over a multiethnic and multicultural land, which would be a benefit to governing the USA. It is also worth noting that German has been put up before as a national language, and the only American President to not speak English as a first language spoke a language formerly ruled by them (Martin Van Buren’s Dutch). There were many waves of German-speaking migrations to the USA as well. It is not the dominant British and Irish cultural heritage, but it is an intriguing one in the American context. If you are choosing a royal house based purely off of commitment to the Catholic faith against the scourges of Protestantism, you would not do much better. Perhaps if Mary I had lived longer, or had a child, then the Stuarts would be mostly irrelevant. England was reverting the Protestant reforms undertaken by Henry VIII under her reign, and they were actually making a lot of progress at restoring the Catholic faith to the first nation founded with the blessing of a Pope. The Province of Maryland was founded during some efforts at Catholic restoration in Britain about 80 years later as a haven for English Catholics, and it might be entirely possible that the English would have restored Catholicism as a major faith prior to the Glorious Revolution. Of course, Maryland was settled by other groups which drowned out its Catholicism a bit, and in the years following the downfall of the Stuarts Anti-Catholic sentiments became very baked into the English-speaking world. Yes, for example J.R.R. Tolkien was bitterly disappointed that his friend C.S. Lewis became a Christian in the Church of England as opposed to his Roman Catholic faith, but for the most part Catholics were quite alienated in the British Isles (also no doubt harmed by the British Monarch being the Head of the Church of England and expressly forbidden from being Catholic, and the nonconformism that such a status against that). My own personal sympathies are that this is the most likely path for an American Catholic Monarchy, although perhaps by that time the foundation of the USA as a land of religious freedom (but not always tolerance, and not always freedom in specific colonies) the ship would be a bit far gone unless some major changes occurred; indeed only a pitiful few signers and representatives to important early American documents were Catholic, and they were almost all from Maryland. The USA is really the first, and perhaps greatest, experiment of what a Western nation looks like without having a Catholic heritage or infrastructure. It may have assimilated many formerly Catholic lands in its territorial expansion, but Catholics in general feel a sense that they do not belong in the USA; although this has perhaps lessened after Vatican II as changes to liturgical and doctrinal practice have led Catholics to look more like Protestants in the USA (perhaps aided by other cultural changes such as the racist heritage of abortion becoming an issue that Protestants starting caring about in the aftermath of Roe v Wade, but this is a different story). But as the largest single religious entity in the US (sure if you add all the Protestants up they are larger, good luck getting them to agree), there certainly is something to say about such a possibility if Americans ever installed a proper Monarch.

We on some vertical integration stuff with our suppliers, obviously.

The used vehicle market is crazy right now, and nobody has any inventory. Still working on it, but we will get there soon.

There may be multiple people in t$ with this view. By may be multiple people, I mean there are probably are multiple people. Pic unrelated.

Clearly, the wrong founder of t$ returned to lead in this crucial time. Come back home Chuck. Return to t$. We need your leadership more than ever, and I need someone to talk about bogan things with which is absolutely not at all the reason I am asking for you to return.

Disclaimers: This is a shitpost. This is not an endorsement of Sans, but it is an endorsement of Zed. This is a proper example of a t$ post format for official notices, for certain people like W and darkblade who need a lesson in how to Git Gud. The key line here is the Company Profile, which states the following. SYNDICATE, Inc., based near Nassau, The Bahamas, is the world's leading gasoline, aluminum and munitions distributor for a wide variety of peacekeeping and humanitarian activities. Wholly-owned SYNDICATE, Inc. subsidiary brands include the Coalition, a patent and intellectual property office most famous for protecting their abbreviation tC, and Charming Friends, which provides “labor relations services” for companies and people across the world. For more information about SYNDICATE, Inc., and its activities, contact Hilmes, Director of Strategic Planning. Now I could not be bothered that much to find the post where Charming Friends became a part of t$, but I can show you this. Charming Friends working with t$? How is such a union possible? Now sure, this is just another example of a movement becoming a business which becomes a grift/racket (run by like, I dunno, a Syndicate?), but t$ has some very friendly and ethical policies towards labor and workers, and is not at all cold heartless evil neoliberal beings*. [spoiler]Except Pablo, who likes Hillary Clinton for some reason.[/spoiler] EDIT: I must apologize. I have been too unkind to some of our government, because we do unironically have some Reagan/Thatcher supporters in government too. The record must be corrected to show this, and not be totally unfair to my dear amigo Pablito.

@Agent W, @darkblade ... do you see what you people have done? When you forget to put the media and investor contacts at the top, and the About The Company statement at the bottom of a forum post, you bring shame and dishonor to all of us. It really looks out of character. Git gud.

You have not earned it playboi.

Excellent timing, inshallah.

This war between the PnW servers looks like it will be one of the most epic in Orbis history. Good luck to all parties involved.

Snek On Moon

If this came out, any alliance that did not actually find a way to do some technology around this even if they might never actually use it... well they are not worth much as an alliance.

I hope both of you disband.

Fine. I will make the Grand United Soviet Socialist Nation Commune Republic. We will be a macro in no time.

This post is about it.

It amuses me greatly that the meta of the game has moved towards reporting things on Discord "news servers" as being perhaps more important than posting on the official game forums. As for the announcement at hand, congratulations, what a surprise, two weeks, I am so mad, I am sorry that happened to you, I am so happy for you, o7, etc..

Is it absolutely necessary? No. Is it going to be the best thing for almost all people? Yes. Should you (and most people)? Yes. The attrition rate for new players in this game is very high. It is a game that moves slowly in some respects, and requires some investment of weeks to get a handle on things. It is hard to do things very immediately. That attrition rate is higher for those who make some small random micro-alliance, but it is still high for those who join more established alliances. Many people do not stick around long enough to really get into the culture and lore of the game. A lot of alliances recognize that having good members is important, and you are going to need to recruit them if you want to turn over new leadership and have enough fresh blood. There are alliances that can do without this, but they are for elites, not new players. So if you want to recruit new players, how do you get them into your community? You give them stuff. You offer them guides to figure out optimal mechanics, community to be involved in, finances to build their nation, and some protection from randoms attacking them. Some alliances do this better than others, but there is the gist. And obviously if you offer more, the deal looks better. That is great! The problem is that such a thing costs time and effort and resources. And as I have said before, attrition of new players is a real thing. Why waste resources on people who will not stick around? A lot of alliances trying to recruit in this way are, flatly, overextending with what they can reasonably offer. So there is a lot of waste… but if you want the benefits of new players, you have to do do something with recruiting. But look! There is a lot of waste out there. If you are small, there is a lot for you to scavenge. The reason the meta has turned to raiding at the small levels is because of all that waste from the corpses of nations that did not stick around, but received benefits from those alliances trying to recruit new players with generous benefits in an effort to find the best talent in a blind dating scenario. Does 100/100 taxes work? Probably would work great, yes. Do most alliances that do it turn out to be successful with it? Not as they could be. Does 0/0 taxes work? Can work awesome, yes. Can most alliances actually pull that off? Not in the current meta. The same thing goes for any tax rate in between. But again, giving grants does have a cost, and you usually have to pay for it somehow. Tax revenue is usually the way people do that. Speaking for myself, as the last Executive to finally relent on allowing new nation recruitment in The $yndicate, because essentially I was holding it back before we launched The Enterprise, I can tell you that t$ is better off today as an alliance because I dropped my objections to the investment in recruiting random brand-new players. Without that investment, t$ would probably be dead, or very stagnant and inactive. Sometimes it would be nice to play in an elite-only alliance, sure. But it not the only way to find success. The closest thing you will get to success going solo is to join one of the pirating alliances. It is a different way to play from how most alliances do, but it is a thing. It seems in this case, you have decided to do this. As far as your specific earlier quote about a “game doing politics and moving your nation forward”, then you will probably be able to do the latter but not the former, all that much. Having your own say in independent diplomacy is unlikely to be something you, or 99% of this game, will be able to accomplish.

Obviously a fake screenshot there, as there is no mention of Alliance Taxes anywhere.

It has been an honor to have Shiho lead our MilCom. Probably one of our best ever. I look forward to Gray joining that group soon enough.

I, for one, will support a name change to Politics, War, and Vibing. 😎

Congrats!

How competitive should a player be? Actually a good question. I could not imagine doing something other than joining a competitive major alliance and being part of the global politics. If you want to be competitive, your best bet is to join one of them. I like to assume that most people here do want to be competitive in some way, and they should make a choice that allows them to justify that. But there are places built around an external community, or a theme, or something like that, and that appeals to some people. I personally would not join an alliance where the big perk was that we were all avid manwha readers or something like that, but there are people who will. It can be difficult to "play this game" sometimes, as another commenter has noted, and honestly if you are as active as you are now, I would hate to see you decide to just walk off. This is a game where some alliances and people can count in years; some of the oldest are 6-7 years old. There is a lot there that gets built up. The game needs more people, but it takes a little bit of time (measured in weeks/months, not days) to actually reach some big heights. Most people will be on Beige for awhile, which is best for them and they should not change. Then they will join the color of their alliance. Taxes are not tied to color blocs, but members (quantity and score) are. Most of the higher revenue colors are policed by alliances, so in general you will not stay on them long without permission.