Shadowthrone

Eh you seem to have a particular problem with the NPO, that seems to have nothing to do with Orbis. Care to make comparable assertions or you know stop dragging other realm stuff down here?

Great Sock War II: Silent Redux shall happen enough.

Fair enough. Like I pointed out on discord the other day though, Rose was the only real clean break. The rest of the sphere more or less remained intact for months after that.

Not much irony. EMC is a coalition made up around the spine TKR-tS-Guardian. Up until what this summer (2months ago or maybe a little before) EMC still existed with paperless agreements and backroom agreements. TCLs announcement was made what December/Jan? It took 8-9 months before any changes happened. The core remained, tS moved onto Syndisphere and the rest are still intact, so EMC is still quite applicable here, and thats further understated by the couple of pick ups you've had from the IQ side of folks wanting a more "EMC" approach to functioning.

That would be true enough, if the fact was IQ was undefeated, or mid-tier consolidation cannot be competed against. Outside of IQ, the numbers add up for mistier are more or less even and IQ's losses in previous wars and even a stalemate in AC was made up of different groupings and such. To discuss the potential of an IQ hegemony before the previous has been effectively dismantled is more on the extreme side of things. The history of IQ, from ToT/TJest and Ayyslamic Crusade shows how even if we're combined very well, theres enough that can balance us. Where the game always seemed to lie was around the upper tiers and that aura of EMC being the safe bet that really added more to the hegemony than one could to IQ. While mid-tier consolidation is not ideal, its hardly as terrible as upper tier consolidation seeing how almost every major alliance in this game have some solid mid tier numbers and have competed vs IQ over and over again and so far as most people like to remind us, always beaten us. I find the premise faulty in and off itself, because everyone has a mid-tier, but a few have an upper tier. Us reaching #1 if it happens will be a temporary blip and not long term. I'm quite certain Pantheon's growth and other alliances with larger nations will easily overtake us ASAP and really should not play into any objective considerations outside of fear mongering imho. Also I like how you bring up "another game" as if that is supposed to matter.

Also BK at one point did?

The evils of tier consolidation simply put is the idea of tiers that are unscathed, and allowed to keep growing. Like Prefontaine points out in the post above, you signed up with everyone else to protect your own, leaving almost no competition in those tiers within the rest of the game. Furthermore, you (royal) doubled down on that consolidation and start warring random blocs that had any semblance of folks within the 18-22 range in separate wars, leaving EMC as a consolidated, easy mode coalition that has never been faced a difficult situation up until now, or had to play catch up from multiple rollings like most of the other folks here. That allowed for an untouched, well endowed upper tier, consolidated amongst a few, leaving few options other than doubling down on mid-tiers with the goal of eventually handling up declares and the like. We aren't sitting on a pedestal here as much as pointing out the dangers of that kind of consolidation to the health of FA as whole, especially when none of the EMC parties seemed interested to do anything but continue protecting its upper tier and growing that, with the EMC aura, which leads to further stagnation.

IQ Civil War it is Great Sock War!

All your socks belong to us.

Working with BK is the first step to being absorbed. The Syndi Knights will soon rise!

Acadia's the ginger in the group? Neat.

Stay away from VG/Polar ❤️ Don't really want to go yandere defending them if I don't have to

First TKR after 20 means TKR has less conspiracy theorists or that TKR is not smart enough? Somethings are best left unsaid?

Welcome to the war SK. Have fun! I hear theres a lecture on dog piling going on?

Nope sorry! But first from TKR? Does that count?

More like the 20th person to warn me. Ah well, wouldn't you like that!

Probably the safest investment in the game thanks to well 100/100.

Eh I would not know Just used to TKR dog piling us or something.

Thats not true lol. TKR's done quite a few one-sided curb stomps. Papers, Please comes to mind amongst other wars lel.

o/ Folks choosing to do what they believe is right is something rare to see in the game. Enjoy neutrality buds, I'll be around to annoy Kriegs/WsX soon enough.

Great Sock War kthxbai.

Tis' the season to be jolly falla lala lalala

Have fun whale hunting!

The Great Sock War it is.

Four legs good, two legs bad.