Lord Tyrion

I've had the same concern during all wars regarding how much resistance the nukes/missiles take off. It doesn't seem you should be able to win a war solely on nukes. Because the game mechanics don't encourage people to win wars, rather, sit on an opponent for five days - the cost to do that may be eating 4 nukes, even though you have an opponent completely zeroed - and then you could lose a war that you're trying to have expire. That seems wrong - so if we're going to have to eat nukes to sit on somebody, at least don't let them win the war. Separately though, I think if you have an opponent on GC, AS and Blockade your opponent should be considered occupied and not be able to build/launch nukes or missiles against you (and maybe the trade off would be a smaller percentage of success if they do build them and launch them). Understandably the risk of not allowing nukes/missiles to be built if occupied is that there wouldn't be much cost for people winning wars to just sit indefinitely on an opponent, so that would need to be factored in somehow.

Don't frame it like we've been talking a lot. You wrote to me for the very first time yesterday trying to get info and literally all I responded with was: "Peace talks will only occur when all blocs are ready to come to the table, it won't be brokered separately or by one party. I think we're still a little bit away from those talks occurring based on what I'm seeing, but we'll get there at some point." I didn't write you any further than that, so don't suggest otherwise. You also minutes after my response to you going and posting to the forums about it, so not really somebody people will want to share info with when you do that. I don't know why you're trying to play mediator for the parties. I've stated our position on what happened here and privately in DMs to the Quack leadership. Peace will happen when all parties (beyond Swamp/Quack) are ready to work on it.

I thought we established over a week ago we had a defensive agreement in place with Rose for Quack aggression? And for your second point, not sure what you're referring to there either. They assessed a similar risk as we did and determined it was in their best interest to do what they did.

I may have missed it. What "new information that directly contradicts your previous statements about there not being coordination between the spheres." are you referring to?

As I said "We've already gone back and forth with you saying you thought we were coming on the offensive and us saying we weren't, so it's dumb to keep arguing over that unless new facts come out. "

You mention Swamp-Rose as if there was an actual MDP in place, there was/is not. If Hedge had hit Rose or Swamp, the other would have stayed out. Similarly, if Rose had hit Hedge or Swamp, the other would have stayed out. These were not general MDP agreements. The agreement in place was for a single purpose and that was to defend against Quack if Quack got aggressive. Quack was literally about to dogpile HM and TCW, probably 3.6M score vs 1.5M score or whatever it was, so those fears weren't completely unfounded. We've already gone back and forth with you saying you thought we were coming on the offensive and us saying we weren't, so it's dumb to keep arguing over that unless new facts come out. But the point being, the only reason those agreements were in place was to defend against the exact scenario that played out. There is not some overarching configuration that exists beyond the parties working together to defend against one deemed mutual threat.

If you're referring to Arrgh, we didn't declare war. Nobody actually seeks going to war with Arrgh. Arrgh started that conflict by mass raiding our folks and there were RoH and it's never gone beyond that. Not sure what your point is here.

Batavia, you are one of the best FA people in the game and one of the reasons I've held T$ in high regard, I appreciate you a lot. I have zero way to prove a conversation didn't happen though. If there were those discussions it was without my knowledge or direction, nor through a middleman or anything else. Did someone from Swamp, maybe gov, maybe Sphinx, maybe just a member, etc, say something to someone in HM? Sure, it's possible. Just as it's possible people in Quack could have been doing the same towards us. I would own it if it happened - you can believe that or not, but I would. I'm just as interested as you to know who those supposed plotters were against Quack. I'd invite you into my DMs whenever and I could walk you through everything that happened from our mindset since Swamp inception towards Quack. I've shared above how we had some concerns about Quack in the long-term future potentially coming for us and made defensive arrangements to mitigate those risks from becoming a reality. But our preference would have been to avoid this conflict, although in hindsight it's looking like it was likely unavoidable given the trajectories of our spheres. And although your side may feel we were similar sized in adding TCW, when we looked at our sheets at the time, Quack was like 3.2M score and Swamp was like 1.7M and adding TCW we were still like 1M score less roughly. (That's not to say we weren't getting too large ourselves with their inclusion) And although we knew Sphinx was concerned about Quack (as were we as I just mentioned), he had no influence in our FA policies and direction, so he wasn't going to be building any coalition without our support. When Swamp leadership discussed how to mitigate this risk with Quack, it was overwhelmingly decided defensive-only, nothing offensive in regards to Quack, and that remained until right before the war.

Yes, there is an opportunity for TCW to become full-fledged members, that's not incorrect. But it would be as part of a reorganization overall within Swamp if that's the desired outcome. But this also was positioned to me from Sphinx as an opportunity to reorganize internally and re-evaluate their treaties and their place in the treaty web, per what he wrote to me: TCW has an opportunity to become full members and our intention by adding them the way we did was to give them the opportunity to reorganize themselves and figure out how they wish to move forward while building that relationship. They are one of the better AAs in the game and hopefully they'd feel comfortable leading a sphere again at some point. But if not, we'll find a way to incorporate them further into Swamp if that's what everyone agrees to be the best path forward. We are still committed to smaller spheres when the dust settles, one way or another though.

As they say, the truth will set you free. I'm been completely honest in my responses here. If I'm out of the loop with my sphere then show me the logs and I'll eat humble pie (and ream whoever was going behind our backs).

For Sisyphus' comment - it seems SRD was under the impression there was a push to form a coalition. And as SRD confirmed since, he heard this secondhand, so maybe we eventually uncover who the parties were - I just know who they aren't. I am aware Sphinx felt that way about Quack before we fought TCW because he came to us when our war with them started and said why are you coming for us when there's another sphere that's going to dominate the game? So I would imagine the intel SRD got is likely from/through Sphinx - but we had zero politics strategy discussions with Sphinx, we purposely kept him at arms length for a trial period to see if the relationship could be built. After addition to Swamp, we didn't hear of Sphinx having any such conversations around the game and certainly didn't with Swamp FA leaders. Sphinx left prior to this current war, yet TCW was still on the hook for his actions and that CB, yet Boyce shared the same thoughts in the DM leaks with Sphinx but was trusted into Quack sphere. The intel being used for that portion of the CB was faulty (again, not faulting Quack for running with it) and if we had a chance to discuss prior to entire game militarization, I suspect this whole thing would have been avoided. As per Tarroc's comments, Sphinx came to me shortly after our war with TCW ended, indicating he didn't think their sphere was viable and wanted to know if Swamp was an option. So yes, our intention was to help them get back on their feet and didn't spell that out in the greater group DM that Tarroc would have been a part of when it came to actually implementing the inclusion. But at the same time we cautioned them that the addition to TCW would make Swamp start to look the size of Quack and that was a concern in how we'd be viewed going forward. While our sheets still showed Quack about 1M score larger after TCW, we were cognizant of the optics and so we stated to all the other spheres that our size is short-term (and honestly were worried they'd go to Quack if we told him no, since he had few options). As I mentioned in one of my other comments, we will look to right-size post-war. What that'll look like, I don't know just yet. It could mean any of the current Swamp AA's, including TCW or others, move elsewhere. We are still committed to a 5-6 sphere world to the extent that's possible.

Okay, well if people want to address the issues then we'll let that unfold in due time. I'll just state one last time, I can't truly comment on something I didn't know about. There were no schemes that I was aware of to go on the offensive against Quack. People want to believe that narrative because they were told it by others. Find the logs that show Swamp leadership organizing a coalition to blitz Quack. There won't be any, because they don't exist. Both sides seemingly got paranoid of the other and acted accordingly. But I'll bow out of the forums for now, it seems people only want to keep ignoring what I say are the facts because somebody else told them something different. If people want to share actual evidence rather than he said, she said, then we can discuss further.

That's fine, believe what you want. We weren't pretending to be friendly. Ronny did not confirm we approached him, he said he heard stuff secondhand. We did not discuss taking out Quack offensively. If it was Sphinx, we had no knowledge of that - we didn't talk greater game politics with him when bringing him in. You wanted a dogpile against HM and TCW and hoped we'd stand back and let it happen. BUT yes, if we did have to fight Quack, why wouldn't we want as many allies as possible? It's like the US Military - they aren't looking for an even fight, they want to be overwhelming when they fight. And look, I'm not saying you didn't have a CB you felt was valid. You acted on the intel you got and made a decision you felt was right. We can both be right though. Swamp leadership only discussed defensive agreements with the other spheres. You can choose to not believe me, that's fine. But at the end of the day, the actual war that occurred is a result of Quack building up and blitzing HM/TCW. Those are the only facts that are unquestioned by all. Again, I understand the intel you gathered and why you acted on that the way you did. There was just some bad intel included in there.

A little bit - maybe not in the short term, but there was some concern that if Quack eventually saw us as the #2 sphere in terms of size that they might get threatened and want to take us out. Might not have been this year, but perhaps next. Even now you see them point to our member count and how big we supposedly are, so that concern isn't completely unfounded. We do still prefer a 5-6 balanced sphere game and we will look to "right size" in a post-war world. We were hoping Quack wouldn't get aggressive though, so it was purely precautionary and defensive from Swamp's standpoint. (On a personal note, TKR/T$ have been two of my favorite AAs to deal with so this wasn't an easy move - just felt it was necessary to protect ourselves from this scenario playing out). If they didn't come for anyone, we wouldn't need to force the issue. Probably would have gone the route of political pressure to have Quack shrink before anything militarily. But when we looked at our own numbers, Swamp couldn't beat Quack 1 v 1 and really I don't think any two spheres felt comfortable they'd be able to win over Quack. Quack wanted a Hedge/Swamp war it seemed, because they felt it was winnable for them (and I wouldn't dispute that), which furthers the point that they are as big as they are in that it does take all three spheres to beat them. Heck, even now there are plenty of tiers where wars are tightly contested. It's a testament to how strong Quack is. But if one sphere like Hedge fell, there'd be nothing to stop them from deciding anyone else was a threat that needed to be dealt with. I think the entire game felt the weight and risk of that threat and everyone did what they felt was necessary to protect themselves from that scenario playing out. Be mad at it or call BS, it was our assessment of the situation and frankly I'm glad we did the FA work, because if we hadn't, I'm sure most people watching believe that we'd be the ones getting rolled right now. Anyway, as stated above, no reason for people to get angry/toxic over any of this. Let's let the war play out and all move on. War is part of the game and will be costly for all parties and hopefully we can get through this phase and continue to build a fun dynamic game going forward. My DMs are open if people want to discuss more.

No - I clarified we did discuss mutual defense against Quack aggression. We did not have any conversations about going on the offensive against them.

Again, name calling isn't necessary. As Ronny clarifies below, he heard it all second hand and wasn't involved in any discussions either. So I'll say it again, those discussions didn't happen. If you pull up a log that says otherwise, I'll be happy to have it thrown in my face, because they don't exist.

I don't know where Ronnie got his info. Not accusing him of anything - if he heard or talked to somebody, it wasn't at the knowledge/direction of our leadership. And who's doing name calling? There is nothing going back to old ways. No reason to not be civil here. Yes our intention with TCW was/is to help them get back on their feet. Their sphere wasn't viable and they needed time to recover. But at the same time, they did have an M-level treaty with us, so they were protected while they do so. We are obligated to defend them.

Again, no idea who he talked to, to get that impression from that we wanted to go on the offensive. Somebody may have well talked to him about it - it would have been without the knowledge or direction of swamp leadership though. I can't comment on something I have no idea about, outside of saying I have no idea about it. That conversation never happened. The server w/ them that we used for our war against TCW was inactive and dead. We weren't collaborating with them - simply, if Quack comes for one of us, we got each other's back.

I don't know who he talked to or got that from, seems to be some miscommunication. I know swamp FA folks were not in a chat with him about it. Was it Sphinx? I have no idea - but certainly wasn't anybody with authority to speak for Swamp. We internally were not in favor of any offensive action, even with everyone else on board.

Swamp and Hedge never discussed any offensive actions against Quack. If it was somebody like Sphinx doing it on his own, that we have no knowledge of. But we literally never discussed offensive action against Quack with Hedge or Rose, nor would that have been approved by Swamp leadership. Defensive arrangements, yes, those were obviously discussed. Discussing going on the offensive literally only happened within the 24 hours before the war started. My DM's are open if you'd like to discuss further.

It would be really nice if the changes could be announced along with an implementation date a week or more in the future so that people can coordinate timing and plan appropriately, especially as it pertains to resource demands. (When is the targeted release?) Secondly, I know you said treasure transfers won't roll out this update, but if that continues to be explored, you have to mitigate the opportunity for the wealthiest players in the alliance holding all the treasures to max the benefits to the AA, which would be what naturally occurs probably.

What an epic waste of time your post is. Immortal's raiding policy is nobody in the top 40 or allied to top 40. The recent war pushed the Wei to like #42 or something so our milcom approved the raid when they shouldn't have since Wei was involved in an alliance war. The members were asked to peace immediately from FA work, hence why the attacks are not ongoing and peace requests sent out. It's not a deliberate slot filling attempt. While we have nothing against Wei, we have zero interest in helping them slot fill for this war.

Good fight to all, I appreciated the demeanor on all sides. Best of luck in rebuild!

I pledge my sword to the banner of the King in the North, Zygon StarkBy the old gods and the newdown with the tyranny of the Squeegeewith honor, loyalty, and direwolves for all (The Lannisters send their regards)

But would the winning side have any beige time banked up to use if they've been winning?