[Castle Camelot and Castle stealing money from new nation]

On 12/10/2023 at 6:49 AM, mrbread said:

In regards to you not having discord, it's basically impossible to organise an alliance of anymore than 5 people with no discord, as gov basically shuts down cause of the impossible communication between gov without discord. Secondly it's impossible for members without discord to access a guide or even ask basic questions.

The alliance announcement system, can be made into a fairly strong discord alternative in small alliances.
Members can comment, and ask question through it, guides can also easily be made available through the announcement system. And members can be given permission to create their own posts. 
Arrgh still have sudden tradition around it's use. Many people don't know that discord first started popping up here in 2016, two years after P&W first got startet.

And why many of the oldest alliances got some abouned forum site tucked away somewhere, heck NPO is still using theirs https://npowned.net/

The main issue with the ingame annoucement is that everyone in the alliance can read them. If alex made it selective who should read what post, then you got solid discord alternative even for bigger alliances. 

[How to make average yearly salary for my citizens to increase?]

On 8/25/2023 at 8:12 PM, Winston Gray said:

No it does impact gameplay because the more your citizens make, the more taxes they pay, which means there is more revenue for you to collect.

It has no effect on gameplay. Read the wiki. Believe me, when i say we got the mid maxing of this game down to it's teeths. 
https://politicsandwar.fandom.com/wiki/National_Tax_Rate

 

[How to make average yearly salary for my citizens to increase?]

7 hours ago, Politcsandwar123 said:

I seen my nation fact book And I saw the average citizen in my country make only around $500 pounds per year😂

Not to bad, well it is more a roleplay element then anything. But you can increase it either by buillding some commerce building, supermarket, banks, shopping malls, stadiums in your citiies.
Creating some service jobs, can't expect sweatshop workers and coal miners to have the greatest income.
Else you need to change some of your answers to the question sheet that determind your nation economic politics, 
https://politicsandwar.com/nation/policy/

But is just roleplay flavour, it dosen't have any effect on the gameplay. 

[End of capitalism]

To be frank, i do see capitalism being fairly self destructive, in more then one way.

As a economic system i see it in automation. Technology inovation that lead to freeing up workers from food production, was what made capitalism into the world dominating economic system.
Capitalism is still a fairly young system, with it not being to many decades since the majority of the world population was employed in agriculture.
With rise of Industry, we started taking steps towards automation, to reduce the amount of workers, and time a task required before it done. 
Which is a process we have never stopped doing.
And now we at a point where we have data, a limitless source of value, that can make machines without human imput, that perform task faster and better then humans.
Capitalism will keep pushing for automation, to save on cost and increase efficiency. Now what happens, when a large part of the labour force is no longer needed to work, like when we start hitting 10-20% unemployment rate. 
Not because of fault of their own, you can of try to reeducate them of course for new jobs. But how long before does jobs get turned over to the machines.
And now, we have a large and increasing part of the population unable to find work, that means they don't get a salery, which means they have no money to spend. Eroding profit from business.

That is when universal bacis income start to look real good, together with reducing the maximum amount of work hours people can work. You don't want people starving, you don't want crime out of control, or mass riots in the streets, or companies declaring bankruptcy over losing their enitre customer base.
You saw how a positiv impact stimulus payments had on the economy doing covid. A new check each months, and the economy would soon be boombing like never before. As people would have money to buy stuff from the economy. 

But with universal bacis income you also starting to reach the death scream of capitalism, because now people don't need to work to live anymore. Giving an enormous amount of power to the workers. With companies having to increase their benefits to keep people employed, atleast the few jobs that can't be automated. 
While Space minning, can possible push us towards a post-scarcity society. And than you start eliminating the point of money at all. 

Of course Capitalism having been taking this lying down either. We see it in the creation of bull----jobs. Where the job themselves generate no value, but that they have money to use in economy is what is importent, entire companies, who don't produce anything but is instead focused on gambling on debt and stocks. And when they make a lossing bet, the goverment will bail them out with tax money. 

The inflated importances put into the stocksmarket, it's deregulation in the 70's and 80's, that still !@#$ the global economy. So it keep going up, even when the rest of economcy seems to be collapsing. And payouts to investors is put before a companies long term growth. When bonds that kept produtives saleries connected was ripped apart, globalization moving jobs abroad in gambles of short term cost servings, to be abused by China in the long term. While serving the connection a company used to have with their local communities. 
Continuously reducting of workhours, was put on hold, with slaries stagnating, with every oppitunity used to squeeze as much short term profit as possible.

Capitalism is a great system, when it's regulated. if not, then business dosen't mind sacrificing the health and lives of it own workers for profit, buying ressources that use child labour, or posion the local drinking water with polution, or the air you breath, or using literally slaves, or selling weapons and equipement that countries are activilily using it to commit genocide.
It wasen't with their good wild that we started having days free from work, the weekend was something workers had to fight for, or workdays that didn't last 12-14 hours. 
Similar if you want to use capitialism to raise the living standard of the many you need it to be regulated, or atleast allow the workers to form unions to strenghten their position. 
Else buisness will be looking to squeeze out as much value from your work as possible, capitalism will never in good faith pay someone the full value that their labour is worth. Else there wouldn't be any profit. 

Regulated capitalism is the best system we tried so far, but when automation take over i do really hope we start switching over to universal basic income, because the other alternatives are worse.
But on the other hand, i don't believe pure socialisme is a good system for us right now. the tech for it to work dosen't excist yet. Of course that shouldn't stop countries from pushing towards a model similar to the nordic countries, that does seems to have found the best ways to regulate capitaslime.

[Hello Trying out the Game]

9 hours ago, Vega said:

Hello everyone, I am playing this game for last few days and really enjoying this.

Welcome to the trap.

[Game Development Discussion: New Players: Inactive Loot Modifier]

43 minutes ago, Village said:

 

Oh thank god Village, sorry about freaking out so much. Emotional time at the moment, and well us pirates have normally have to deal with fairly consitent raiding nerf since the Purple Spy War, with just a few updates that benefits us, which is often just lessening of a prior nerf. And then when it started to look up, with some good updates for us over the last year, i just read the line:

" this will reduce raiding income as the nation's regular income increases, making them less reliant on this feature and better adjusted to the main game as a whole."

And well without the prior context it dosen't come of doing us any favours. 

[Game Development Discussion: New Players: Inactive Loot Modifier]

10 hours ago, Village said:

 

In essence, this boils down to the nation gaining the amount of loot corresponding to someone with maxed units at `mod` city count. I.e. a C10 has a modifier of 2.21, so when the C10 has max military they will gain the amount of loot of an equivalent C2.21.

The idea here, is that loot at all levels is equalized down to a lower level (the C2-3 loot range), meaning loot will not dry up on a nation much, if at all, faster than normal. This also provides an incentive to raid less as city counts go up, since the modifier gets smaller and smaller the closer you get to C15 (and the associated upkeep costs will increase), this will reduce raiding income as the nation's regular income increases, making them less reliant on this feature and better adjusted to the main game as a whole.

 

Any reason in particularly, for why you pushing your playstyle as the only acceptable way to play the game? Because that what it sounds like, that your group is activilty trying to kill high tier raiding, because you don't play it, and would be more convient for you to not have it around, so you can build up to 3000 infra with the most worry, being a insulted guy on the market, that you undercut. 

Raiding income is already crippled compared to farming in the higher tiers. The problem should be to make raiding more comparable, not less. To encourge different playstyles, so you can maitain a larger playerbase, and a higher player engagement, and inovation. Discouraging the most active part of casual player base, aren't going to be a benefit to the game. 

[Shhh, keep it down Ripper is sleeping.]

5 hours ago, Indger said:

Hard to read ngl

Happy now? Are you on light mode? 

[Shhh, keep it down Ripper is sleeping.]

See the full story here:
Part 1: Piracy against Journalism [link]
Part 2: 6 out of 7 captives released [link]

Not-so-breaking news:
The last Arrgh captive has been released,and Arrgh's war to protect journalistic integrity has now come to a close!
You can now all feel safer, Orbis.
You're welcome.

Here you can see the safe return of Euron Greyjoy to the Borg Collective,
Just mere moments before Arrgh captured... the rest of the Collective!

A moment later.

Our brutally clever plan of sneaking our swords past the metal detectors by making them out of plastic, made it possible to capture the Borg fanclub too, in in the middle of the ransom crisis. Euron was of course set free, but was not allowed to play with waterguns anymore. 

The rest of Borgs Assisted Loot Liberation Service was now up for ransom. That Borg got around to paying for their freedom some days later.

Here is Admiral Ripper napping, surrounded by the things he loves most in this world.
 

We have to thank Borg and the fine people employed at The Observer, for making it possible for Ripper to sleep-in, as he can only get a good night rest when he is weighed down by other people's money.
Arrgh!

[What would I need to do to start a mercenary alliance.]

2 hours ago, Juan Ponce De Leon said:

So I am interested in possibly making a mercenary alliance. How do I start one that isn't just a steaming pile of dog... Also, how do I even make it profitable? 

By not making it your main focus, wars are expensive, many doesn't really realize how expensive. One of the main problems with merc services was that they where extremely underpriced, often even on purpose to try and pull in customers, but even when they try to raise prices they normally don't earn enough to cover for what they would have earned doing other stuff. 
So in general merc services don't last to long with the exception of Arrgh, that can use it's reputation to pull in customers, instead of offering low prices, and has a better understanding of actually cost.
Merc contract isen't always going be a daily thing, and when it is, it often new players trying to hire a merc, while not being able to afford one. 

So do other stuff, that give you money while you wait between contracts. 
Second thing is that people have to trust you, which is something Arrgh build heavily on, Arrgh normally demand payment upfront, but if they where to fail the contract or something unexpected happened that prevent the contract being carried out, the client get their money back, while being offered an alternative solution if possible.

Arrgh has a rep for being expensive, but trustworty and getting the job done. 
That is around the 3 point you need to work with, price, trust, and war experience. So i would suggest trying to join a raider alliance, and get some war experience in, try to get some insight into how they run merc services, and not just the direct cost of war, but what you might have earned declaring on another guy, or farmed doing that time. 

[[Peace Agreement] “The Way the Cookie Crumbles” war end.]

On 10/13/2022 at 8:01 PM, Sweeeeet Ronny D said:

That would be up to the winning side, if that term continues.  They can do it however they want.

And you think that will get you some better war names? oh honey, no. 

[[Peace Agreement] “The Way the Cookie Crumbles” war end.]

5 hours ago, alyster said:

Most wars have ended with a clear victor who has not used harsh terms. Or admition of defeat without other terms. Getting to name a war is a decent candy for winning. Hell beats what the idiots in polls come up with. Five pages of shittie movie titles or something. 

My comment was more a reference to all alliance wars in general, not you know just the globals. That is not to say that white peace has never happened in globals, they have, and even more where it is as close as can be to it. 
 What would be your suggested solution here?
And even when there is a victor, it isn't exactly much motivation for keeping people in the ring, with gains being so minimalistic. 

If we should get some harsher demands we might actually start to get some more interesting globals, and once lasting longer than a month. We should really require a minimum length for a global.

A "global" that lasts for barely a week, isen't a war, it is a skirmish. 

If a promise of bragging rights can help achieve longer and more fun globals, be my guest. We haven't even had a global break the 1 trillion mark since Dial-up, even though Dial-up wasen't the first one to do so. 
And that is despite the fact the Orbis wealth has more than doubled since then. 

Another issue is thought if we let the winning side decide the name. Who will actually decide the name? the members of the winning alliances? or just the governments? 
Will it only be the "big alliances" in the bloc that get to vote? 
Will it be with Byzantine elections? where the higher-ups decide what names can vote for in the first place, how would names get nominated? 
What if the allied can't agree on a name? or what if the names chosen a still terrible? 

We really should plan out the replacement system in more detail before we start to dismantle the old system. 
Frankly, for most people the issue, seems to be mainly about their preferred name not being chosen. 
Else most hiccups with the systems should be simply solved by getting more people involved in the nominations and voting, if only something was around to motivate and inform players, oh right it called alliances. 

[[Peace Agreement] “The Way the Cookie Crumbles” war end.]

On 10/9/2022 at 12:24 AM, alyster said:

After some morons voting for The Fault in Our Stars for last global, can we make this one standard for all following wars?

Dosen't most wars end in a white peace? or "white peace" with secret terms. 

[Who would win?]

17 hours ago, Honored said:

Wouldn't the person with the most ships win because each time there is a naval attack it reduces 14 points compared to the 12 points of airplanes

No the person with the most ships is going to run out of ships before the one with most planes run out of resistance to be beiged.
The plane guy have the advance, simply because planes are better at killing ships, then ships are at killing ships. 

But the deciding factor is likely going be ground, how of much of distraction it going to be. And if causing the most damage, or beiging is the goal of the war? 

[Ukraine and Russia]

On 4/12/2022 at 4:24 PM, Jacob Knox said:

You say that like it's not a delicate matter that involves the potential of literal nuclear holocaust. We're talking Russia. The country that owns about half of the world's entire nuclear warhead arsenal (about 6,000 out of 12,700) while the United States has 4,000. And at this point, it's hard to tell what Putin would and would not be willing to do.

We don't know how many of Russia's nuclear weapons actually work, or if the amount is accurate. I say it extreme overestimation to believe Russia has that amount of working warheads.
Nuclear weapons and their delivery system require expensive and near constant maintenance, with the most importent part, the core of fissile material needs to be replaced every 15 years at least, due to nuclear decay. 
Now consider the fact that China with 300-350 nuclear weapons has a bigger budget for its nuclear arsenal than Russia, with its close to 6000 nukes, which should raise some eyebrows. 
The US is spending over 44 billion dollars a year to maintain it stockpile of some 5000 nuclear weapons, and Russia has recently gotten past 8.5 billion. In comparison, the UK is spending 6.8 billion to maintain 225 nuclear weapons. 
You can well see the issue here, now factor in Russia's extreme corruption issue:

"He who doesn't steal, is stealing from his family." 

One gotta starts to wonder how much of the nuclear budget actually reaches the nuclear weapons, especially as these are weapons that are never meant to be fired, in comparison to more urgent stuff like fuel, ammunition, and entire tanks, that have seemingly gone missing due to corruption.

Another issue can be seen in Russia's tanks, Russia liked to brag about having the most tanks in the world, you likely heard the claim of above 20.000 tanks at some point.
12.000 is more frequent these days, but here lies an issue, because that number is still too big. By most generous satellite estimates,  Russia's true tank numbers hit closer to 6000. 
With 3000-4000 in storage.
With over 1000 tanks destroyed or captured in Ukraine, it dosen't leave to much left. This makes more sense because it would better explain why Russia has started to deploy units with t-62 in Ukraine, not their puppet states, does they arm with WW2 era weapons, but actually Russian troops. 
The t-62 were outdated in the 1970s, which Russia has said have fully retired from service in 2008.
So what ups with that? beside Russia not wanting to take part in turrent toss competitions anymore? 

The t-72 is up, Russia has claimed they have 8000 t-72 in storage, with 2000 of them in active service, this was before the war. 
Now we know Russia has lost atleast 1200 tanks according to Oryx, adding 30% and we reach somewhere around 1600. Russia tank losses still need to be 5 times as big as that, for it to make sense that they pulling t-62 out of storage, if we take Russia words on their own numbers. 
So we got to the conclusion that Russia has been lying about its tank numbers. The same is hopefully the case for nuclear weapons, else it might be a miracle we hadn't seen any accidental explosions.

[The problem with Blitzkrieg]

I have noticed that a lot of new players tend to pull towards Blitzkrieg,  not seemingly realizing that the buff it provides only last for 24 hours.


I think a possible change to the description to make it more clear, would help remedy the situation.
An example would be to take part from the wiki description:
"For the first 12 turns (24 hours) after changing to this War Policy, your nation does 10% more infrastructure damage and casualties in Ground Battles, Airstrikes (casualties only apply to enemy aircraft, not units targeted), and Naval Battles."

Adding "After switching to this War Policy," at the end of the current description would be a help, at least to the people who don't have English as their first language. And might assume it means the first 12 hours of any war started. 

Otherwise changing the name would probably be the biggest help, as blitzkrieg does tend to catch the eye because of the familiarity, and cool factor to the edgy teens. 

Translating it into mobile warfare, or lighting warfare might be a good solution, else 'Fire brigades' might be a better fit for the actual use of the policy. As i haven't really seen any successful uses of it in the start of blitz. 
I mean why would you? The downside of counters getting an extra MAP bonus for 5 days before one can change the policy is too much for opening up a war with it. 

The more likely use of it is as an emergency extra boost when your counter slot is already filled out, or fighting someone of nearly equal strength. 

Where In IRL: the doctrine of 'Fire brigades' means the scrambling of different forces merged together to react to an enemy breakthroughs.

[Journalists held captive by Somali Pirates say [redacted]]

1 hour ago, Ripper said:

 

Love you Ripper ❤️
 

[The Buck Crusade]

3 minutes ago, Swedge said:

Arrgh! But Zim... formatting dammit...

fixed, christ issue with copypasting and being on darkmode. 

[The Buck Crusade]

@Vilktakis, in his great fear of the mighty Johnson has done the gone rogue and attempted to merge the glories Arrgh with TFP of all people. *Spit*.

@Buck Turgidson, who is amazing in every way, and who has saved this alliance from itself many times before, has returned and called for a mutiny against the disgraceful pro-TFP traitor Vilktakis; see pictures below for proof of his disgraceful attempt at merging Arrgh with TFP to create an even bigger Johnson.



Our dear founder Buck has won an absolute majority vote, do not fact check that, shut up!

Our new Grand Admiral is now ready to lead Arrgh into a bright future of scaring every whale for miles with his big beefy nuclear arsenal. Ready to make Fraggle proud by nuking his way down the scoreboards.
Buck misses working with Fraggle on his atomic tan. And in an act of solidarity with our new, better leader Arrgh is going to start by nuking the Admin Alliance, because they have no place in the #1 spot.

[Proposed Beige Change]

On 3/15/2022 at 1:59 PM, Prefontaine said:

 

1. All wars end in beige. If the war would expire, the nation with the most resistance win. If the resistance is tied, the win goes to the defending nation.
2. If no attacks happen by either party in 20 turns, the war ends.
3. Beige timers do not begin reducing until all defensive wars have ended.
4. If a nation leaves beige early, their units are 10% less effective in offensive wars for 12 turns.
5. If a nation wins a war, that nation can produce an additional 25% units for the remainder of that day. This number stacks but is always calculated off of the base 100% unit production levels.

Sorry for the bit late involement, but honestly these changes don't look to bad from a raiders perspective, atleast without counting 4. 
Being punished for leaving beige early will always be a no for me. Wars need to give the advance to the one who attacks first, so to encourage people to fight and declare wars first. 

Point 2. will be annoying, and encourge suicide attacks(will fortify be counted as an attack?), it make it more annoying to attack inactives while also fighting wars with active people, or just been flatten by counters. 
But we can live with it. 

Point 5. would work, even if 25% is a bit much, and it stacks... it frankly sounds extremely broken. 

The rest i agree with, as being an improvement. 

 

[Nukes and Missiles hidden like spies]

8 hours ago, Brother Jauffre said:

I think that your nukes and missiles should be hidden like spies and someone has to spy on you to see them

That is not an entirety bad idea, would make a bit of logical sense aswell. And might cause a bit more stockpiling then currently. But it does raise some issues, like nukes and misslis, unlike spies has an impact on score, it wouldn't take a whole lot of effort to program a bot to figure it out. We already have seen some bots that has shown some disturbing ability to figure out how many spies a nation had by simply loking at the procenties of different spy actions against said nation. 

It's why alex changed the procenty shown to be greater or lesser then 50%, even thought i am doubtfull that it worked completly. 

[[ROH] Here we go again]

23 hours ago, Lastonia said:

I Homelander  have to with a heavy heart apologize for my actions and lack of  oversight in recent events. 

I am sorry Arrgh for those actions taken under my leadership.
I am sorry Sanctuary for dragging you into a pointless war. 

I will accept any and all consequences for my actions.

 

[House of Fraud by waffle House]

On 2/5/2022 at 2:08 PM, Lovin_boi said:

 

Okay as an outsiders, let me see if i got this right. The Future planned to merge into the Waffle House, as part of this they transfered their bank to the Waffle House, bit of a  strange choice to start with to be honest. Personally i wouldn't have tranfered the bank before i had gotten two of my guys in the door with bank access, or one depending on the alliance size. 
But i am guessing The Future have either an crappy offshore or no offshore at all so it would make atleast some amount of sense to depend on Waffle House expertise.

After this tranfer a war broke out, and somehow your two alliances ended up on different sides? This seems like an extreme failure for the foreign departments in both alliances. Agreeing on a common FA policy should be kinda the first step to a merger as i see it. 
This really should be something Waffle house should have insisted on. 

But alright let say neither alliance expected a war to break out. 
But then it does, and the merger get put on hold for the war i take it? Probably also a stupid move if your bank was already transfered. 

But then we come at a bit of controvisal part, Waffle House refugees to hand back The Future bank so they handicapped in the war. Did the Future's member hit Waffle House before or after this block of the money flow?

If it was before, i can understand why the Future would be pissed, as Waffle House would have essential stolen their bank, while weakning their own future members? 
But if the Waffle House got hit by members of The Future first, then it more understandable that Waffle House stand on freezing the bank. While The Future milcome would then be at fault. 
And might hint at not everyone in the future was behind the merger. But dialog should probably have been oppended here to sort stuff out. Like a NAP for the rest of the war. 

I wouldn't fault Waffle House if they planned to end the merger here, but they really should have handed back the bank to not harm their own repuation if that was the case. 
I am guessing what the Future as a mirco has in the bank isen't really worth the reputation cost.  

But alright war ends, the plans for a merger get given the go ahead to continue, but Waffle House is unwilling to pay for the rebuild of the future, while still holding their bank.
That is a shit move to be honest, Waffle House should really have been willing to use the Future own funds to rebuild them, if they where planning on a full merger, not doing so would only cause trouble in the long run and cut down their own income. 

[City Score Changes and Attack Ranges]

On 1/24/2022 at 3:48 PM, Prefontaine said:

Thank you everyone for the feedback. Discussing with Alex we will be implementing changes to the score formula only, reducing city impact on score from 100 -> 75. No caps on down declares will be implemented. We will be keeping an eye on extreme down declares in the coming months. In the event feelings switch to this change causing for too big of down declares we will revisit the conversation about city score and possible caps then. 

I believe the poll is set to close on Thursday, but I'm going with the information at this time. 63% in favor to change score, 71% against caps on down declares. 

EDIT: This change will be implemented after the current sphere war. 

We don't often see eye to eye on changes, Prefontaine. But that shouldn't stop me from voicing my support when i see steps taken in the right direction. 
This will be a huge positiv change to raiding, that hopefully should help make the playstyle more viable for a higher tier of players. 

Even if it is less of score change then what Arrgh lobbied for, a compromised solution should hopefully be the best benefit for the most amount of players. 
I am hopefully that this might be sign for more postive updates for raiding in the future.  

Thank you Prefontaine. 

[Arrgh, piracy and whatnot..]

4 hours ago, Borg said:

 

Bots:
I suppose it does make sense why you focus on this one, but what Sam means isen't that bot can't be an usefull tool. Heck Arrgh have built and is building several raiding bots of our own. 
The problem is that without prior knowledge of what a good target is, a bot becomes useless, the most extreme case of this i saw doing NPO last time, a TKR member had hit the same inactive nation four times in a row. 
I looked at the target and a quick glance i realised that he won't get anything from that, but still he had hit four time so i messaged him and asked what was up. 
He hadn't even realized he had hit the same nation over and over again, he just blindly followed what a bot had told him to do. 

An over reliance on tech isen't a great way to go for a raider, or any alliance for that matter. Specially when they don't have control over said tech and don't really know what make it ticks. One should first get to know how do it without the tech and then start using the bot for tedius work. But if needed be an alliance should be able to go back to previous method, both to check against the bot, but also in case where it goes down, or if Alex change the Api system like what happened with Raidmotron. 
If you alliance can't oberate without bots, then that is a problem. 

Of course the longer same bot operate without change in an alliance the harder said alliance will have with working without, something that can somewhat we combatted with more sophisticated bots(or more hand holding) 

Profit:
I honestly think you misunderstanding this one completly, Sam is saying that in lower tier raiding profitable is extremely easy thing to do, ones you get sorted through the overwhelming number of bad targets. 
The main expense at the low city tier opportunity cost, every action taken is contradicted with every action not taken. Basely picked not as profitable targets as you should have.
That why you have people that won 1000 wars at city 3, but only raided like 3 billion. It is clear compared to the top end of raiders that is extremely bad numbers. But everyone can do it at that tier, not just the top end of raiders. If you willing to stay at city 3 raiding will always be profitable, because you don't have the same expenses as the higher tiers. 

But they have no political impact on the game, who cares that it's a nation with 2 cities declare more wars then entire alliances doing a war. They can only ever bully new players, or haunt the occasional offshore. They won't have the political inpact on the game, like Arrgh or KT have. 

Sam isen't saying that Arrgh isen't turning a profit, it is. Which should be clear with Arrgh still being around, even thought it pulling on different things then just money, because it have to, to hold members in the higher tier. Because raiding can't compete with farming when you start to reach city 20, atleast outside of short period or globals. 
You simply be better off, putting you feat up and farmining for the rest of your game life, then activilty raiding at that tier. For most people atleast. 

So Arrgh have to appeal to other areas then just profit, and it does offering a more rewarding and fun experience when playing the game, instead of just watching numbers go up. Fighting salted players, or people who really get offended, or hitting some high infrared nation talking smack is always some of my greatest joys. 
Or simply still winning wars while fighting horrible outnumbered. 

Normal alliances hit grey inactive, Arrgh does the same most of the time, mainly because of counters. But Arrgh is still willing to throw with active out of the gate, and we still do it when it worth it, either for profit, or satisfaction.
And in the higher tier try going after inactive in alliance borg, try and get what profit Arrgh is able to horde as you say

High tier raiding is dead:
Is there any high tier raiding alliance beside Arrgh, that is still active raiding? 

Getting money to substain yourself isen't a problem, specially when you can cut down cost alot, but it dosen't compete with farming. 
Farming and raiding at the same time is pratice Arrgh is using, we call it "farming on a diet", problem is score inflation, and decay of improvement over time. I am currently running it, and i will likely keep running it for a good while. 
Until my military improvement have dissapered to such a degree that it affect my ability to wage war, where i either need to rebuild or get rid of many improvements to fit military on more affordable infra. 
Another problem is that commerce improvement are blocked for us, it simply require to high and infra level for raiders to really maintain it. And production cause to much polution that it reduce population, unless we use even more improvement slot to combat it, in either case it require one to maintain infra at a higher level.

Lastly there is raws, which is what Arrgh is encourged to produce, and we do. But by picking raiding you basely limit what you can invest in from the economy trees. 

Organization:
Arrgh do coordinate, even thought that might come as surpise to you, but it is often on a volenteer bacis, on the daily you won't see to much of it, because of speed and mix of priorities. 
And Arrgh high tier is extremely effective at coordiantion, seen recently with BS, where it took one day to drag down their high tier. People who know each for months and sometimes years, are unsuprisingly good at working together.  
Members are encourged to seek others to help them, if they put in the ground work themselves they will often find extremely compentent people willing to help. 
But it is an issues in the lower tiers, that Arrgh have tried different method to do fixs, we switch over to a new method here midwar, and we currently testing it if can work as a future model. 
Atleast until we get stroke by the next idea on how it should be done. 

Training/Mentoring:
Arrgh training program are again based on the idea of asking for help, it won't happen automatically. We don't hold grants over people head to force them to join tranning alliances or programs. 
We have all the means out in open available, form raidings guides, to many of the top 20 best raiders in the games history they can ask for help. Arrgh's retirement program keep many old timers involved aswell. 
Of course you also get players who prefer to hit their face throught stone wall over and over again, until they get thought on the other side, Arrgh dosen't want to discourge this, as that how many inovation to Arrgh have been made. 

But it does also mean that people unable to be indepence dosen't have good time in Arrgh, but if you active on discord, and willing to ask there is nothing that stop you from becomming one of the greatest raiders in the game history. 
Which again if you look at Arrgh track record, with most of the leaderboards filled by former Arrgh members, does show that Arrgh know how to train excellent people. 
Just that some people will end up on the roadside. 
End of the day, this is a cookie clicker game, what keep people invested is the community and creativity they can make here.  
 Arrgh dosen't want drones, it want people.
People who take part and want to be here, not drones who lock in out of habbit like they would with a Tamagotchi. 

Funding Wars:
Arrgh have abselut no issue with this, we literally fight alliance wars through attrition warfare, most of the time. Outlasting our enemies, that how Arrgh have fought top 10 alliances to a standstill or basely beaten an alliance bloc on it's own. 

Sailing low and avoiding conflict:
Arrgh rarely have problems with member participation, even when working out of a model of volenteers. Thought our blitz game have been weakned a bit since, Alex made it possible to have different dayturns. I am honestly not sure where you comming from here? your raiding style is based around not fighting against active people or multiple people at ones. 
What you criticising is what you doing? 

The point 
In the end this is just all frustration over the direction the game have taken in recent years, and the annoying comentary from people, most of which didn't even see the so called "heyday of Arrgh". 

Arrgh dosen't get noticed when it in the top of the scoreboard, get higher raiding stats then other alliances, fight wars other alliances wouldn't even dream of getting into, or follow an FA policy other alliances would consider suicidal, it just expected... it only get commented on when Arrgh isen't at the top. It's annoying as hell to listen to, when Arrgh is still the messuring stick used by other raiding alliances.