Everyone Expects This

[Buorhann]

[Prefonteen]

21 minutes ago, TheNG said:

Hey, speak for yourself man. I used to feel that way. Used to....

Then the first defeat came. "Don't worry", the government said. "It's only a temporary setback, we'll be back soon enough, and victorious too!"

Then we went to war again, and again. Some small victories were won, but at great costs which only hastened defeat. So many nations lost, reduced to rubble, deleted, banned forever. Their names became too many to remember, flowing like ink through my hands and onto the pages of surrender documents.

Alliances disbanded, and new ones rose around me. "Don't worry", they said, "this time shall be different. Just do your part, and we'll win." Every time, those words inspired new nations to throw their infra away in the millions, but I knew better. Unending defeat was all I knew, but that had long ago ceased to move me. The ruined nations carpeting the fields of battle no longer suffer in this world, but I suffer the cruelest fate of all, for I am still here.

Now I walk the world numb and alone, no longer knowing why we fight, or who I fight with. New nations, new coalitions, new leaders with bold promises and plans. They do not know defeat, but soon they will. Perhaps then they will understand, realize what they have done, see losses stretch before them and then they will be like me.

Success? Perhaps someday I will escape this torment for good. But peace will not come so easily.

 

Join Synderkut

[TheNG]

1 minute ago, Partisan said:

Join Synderkut

No

[Guest Epi]

210

Edited December 18, 2020 by Epi

[Roquentin]

On 12/26/2017 at 4:59 PM, Micchan said:

Sure there's friendship, in many cases with paper, in some other without paper, but nothing stronger than IQ

There's a lot of "I would fight you if only...", "I would like to split if only...", "I would like to form a new bloc if only...", and that "if only" is IQ, so you are the cause of your problem

In this thread you said that you will never stop expanding IQ until you win, wainting to win is good an everything but having fun is more important, if you continue with this strategy you will certainly not be sympathetic while many others showed the intent to do something

So the day of the great gangbang on IQ the get rid of the "problem" is very distant, but we are getting close every day, how many days do you thing we can stay without a world war or a big war who isn't a dogpile? 3 months? 6 months? 1 year? Sooner or later something will happen, you have that amount of time to try to get that long-awaited victory

IQ vs the rest of Orbis? No way

At best it ends like the Trail of Tiers with a war of attrition until no resources for IQ and white peace, and only if IQ can keep a very high activity to create a safe range between 1000 and 2000 score, Orbis is pretty big

Sorry missed this before. It doesn't have to be as firm as IQ for people to fight together.

That's always been an excuse and most of the people could easily do their own thing anyway. There are plenty of people who could be fighting who IQ can't impact too much. They're choosing not to. It's hard to believe everyone's motives are benign. A lot of the complaints seem to boil down to the fact that people can't execute 100% easier smaller curbstomps on constitutent alliances because of the treaty web.  I'm not really sympathetic to that.

I didn't say we'd always keep expanding until we win and we don't actively try to expand. Both alliances that joined post-founding asked about it. The chances of us expanding further aren't too high.We don't have anything that a lot of  alliances want. There aren't a whole lot of benefits materially aside from having people who are willing to fight even if it's difficult and a relative advantage in a tier a lot of people see as disposable.We can't offer absolute security to whale up. We can't offer likely victories. We can't say "oh we have a string of victories".  We can't say "we're the most elite". The scenario you pose is a risk anyway even if we were to start a war now. At the same time, simply the fact that we're the largest formal(key word) grouping atm doesn't mean much and certainly doesn't make people inclined to think IQ is overpowering and we should break up because it isn't. The issue is, little has really changed except for  the fact a lot of the same people who disliked IQ before are upset it hasn't broken up but now instead of simply disliking some of the alliances and/or thinking they're incompetent, they're using the pretense that IQ has achieved some sort of dominance when it hasn't even won a single war.

I agree that we can't beat everyone else and when there are ties between the various poles, it's already a dangerous scenario.

 

 

Edited December 29, 2017 by Roquentin

[greatkitteh]

17 hours ago, TheNG said:

Hey, speak for yourself man. I used to feel that way. Used to....

Then the first defeat came. "Don't worry", the government said. "It's only a temporary setback, we'll be back soon enough, and victorious too!"

Then we went to war again, and again. Some small victories were won, but at great costs which only hastened defeat. So many nations lost, reduced to rubble, deleted, banned forever. Their names became too many to remember, flowing like ink through my hands and onto the pages of surrender documents.

Alliances disbanded, and new ones rose around me. "Don't worry", they said, "this time shall be different. Just do your part, and we'll win." Every time, those words inspired new nations to throw their infra away in the millions, but I knew better. Unending defeat was all I knew, but that had long ago ceased to move me. The ruined nations carpeting the fields of battle no longer suffer in this world, but I suffer the cruelest fate of all, for I am still here.

Now I walk the world numb and alone, no longer knowing why we fight, or who I fight with. New nations, new coalitions, new leaders with bold promises and plans. They do not know defeat, but soon they will. Perhaps then they will understand, realize what they have done, see losses stretch before them and then they will be like me.

Success? Perhaps someday I will escape this torment for good. But peace will not come so easily.

 

That wasn't Clarke who told you all that. That was simply his deceitful sister.

[Clarke]

Giving out to many alliances that have seen defeat more often than not and that they're ruining the game is illogical. 

[Shadowthrone]

Bunch of crap coming from the same folks who just want to see us keep losing lmao. That being said,

 

Welcome to IQ, Lord <3 

[The Internationalist]

Everybody expects this...

But nobody expect's the [Spanish] Inquisition!

[Kastor]

12 hours ago, Lightning said:

Giving out to many alliances that have seen defeat more often than not and that they're ruining the game is illogical. 

Don’t think they’ve realized this. 

[Micchan]

56 minutes ago, Shadowthrone said:

Bunch of crap coming from the same folks who just want to see us keep losing lmao.

If you sign TKR then I want to see you win

You have the power to change my wishes!

[Guest Epi]

215

Edited December 18, 2020 by Epi

[Shadowthrone]

1 hour ago, Micchan said:

If you sign TKR then I want to see you win

You have the power to change my wishes!

 

Yeah, more like you folks want to complain all day long about how its no longer easy to roll IQ in the name of "dynamism!" Hey at least we rolled NPO two times in one year! The game is interesting! Meh.Bunch of salty crap lol. 

[Keegoz]

1 hour ago, Shadowthrone said:

 

Yeah, more like you folks want to complain all day long about how its no longer easy to roll IQ in the name of "dynamism!" Hey at least we rolled NPO two times in one year! The game is interesting! Meh.Bunch of salty crap lol. 

I mean it was no longer easy to roll you because their sphere dismantled itself...

You're basically forcing them to 1) Get back together and roll you or 2) Slowly wait for the game to die or 3) Hope IQ does something other than sign more treaties

[Shadowthrone]

12 minutes ago, Keegoz said:

I mean it was no longer easy to roll you because their sphere dismantled itself...

You're basically forcing them to 1) Get back together and roll you or 2) Slowly wait for the game to die or 3) Hope IQ does something other than sign more treaties

I don't buy that narrative. I don't see the cancellation of a couple of treaties as some larger break of EMC. To me, it seems as a PR spin rather than an actually breaking a part of the larger group of folks. Simply put, I don't see the cancelling of treaties as the dismantling of a sphere that has been developed over a couple of years. Maybe over time, there would be actions that can prove that, but none has existed so far and I would never take it for granted that natural ties and relationships can somehow overnight be removed in the name of "dynamism." 

The folks complaining that IQ has too many treaties forget that we really haven't added anyone new and pretty much solidified longstanding relationships and those who were interested in joining went through the processes required and got accepted as such. We haven't really gone about expanding our sphere and if we were the sole hegemoney in the game, then most other folks would have been rolled to the point where unipolarity exists, which is untrue heh. There exists a multi-polar world, with different spheres, alliances signing each other and moving in varied parts through the game. The only stumbling block to this narrative is that it isn't easy to roll NPO anymore, and that we haven't initiated a war and you folks are too lazy to do something other than complain that IQ is somehow leading to the death of this game or something. 

Also none of those three options are valid in essence because 1) IQsphere which consists of more or less the same grouping from the last war, lost the war against multi-arrayed forces. These forces across different tiers can always hit each other if they want but choose not to, in essence IQ is the sole enemy for a large-variety of alliances and thats the truth under your given options. We have to be the bad guys and no one else wants to do much because its always easy to label us the natural enemy to get together, rather than you know fighting against each other or w/e, which sort of is another reason why I don't take the break up of EMC narrative seriously. 

2) The game isn't really dying if folks go about with goals and do something. NPO had a goal, to grow, to use the peace time given to us to finally start rebuilding our alliance after three wars and we've gone about doing it while maintaining and improving our relationships across the board. If folks had goals, and worked on them, I find it hard to believe that the game is dying. The difference really lies in the fact that one side worked on some sort of a plan for a year and it has led to some sort of outcome. The other prefers to lay the narrative under this option at the feet of those 3-4 alliances rather than actively trying to do something themselves. 

3) Once again, you have your third sphere, you have EMC and IQ. There are things to be done without needing the 6 alliances of IQ to somehow always be the ones creating situations for the other two spheres to have fun. You folks can go out and go about doing something with your own treaties. If you folks are scared of losing pixels, its your fault, but you can't really blame us for not helping your IQ bogeyman narrative. 

Edited December 29, 2017 by Shadowthrone

[Sketchy]

1 hour ago, Shadowthrone said:

 

Yeah, more like you folks want to complain all day long about how its no longer easy to roll IQ in the name of "dynamism!" Hey at least we rolled NPO two times in one year! The game is interesting! Meh.Bunch of salty crap lol. 

NPO was rolled twice in a year with only one global war? That's a neat trick.

Also it was IQ who coined "dynamism" and pushed for it in the first place,using it to chastise EMC for not splitting up.

@Roquentin you better fill this one in on the latest narratives before anyone notices.

19 minutes ago, Shadowthrone said:

I don't buy that narrative. I don't see the cancellation of a couple of treaties as some larger break of EMC. To me, it seems as a PR spin rather than an actually breaking a part of the larger group of folks. Simply put, I don't see the cancelling of treaties as the dismantling of a sphere that has been developed over a couple of years. Maybe over time, there would be actions that can prove that, but none has existed so far and I would never take it for granted that natural ties and relationships can somehow overnight be removed in the name of "dynamism." 

This was the exact argument t$-oo used to use in order to defend not splitting up "Why would we break up when we like eachother". Apparently this was not a sufficient excuse. 

It is hilarious watching Roquentin do a full 180 in a year.

Edited December 29, 2017 by Sketchy

[Sketchy]

29 minutes ago, Shadowthrone said:

There are things to be done without needing the 6 alliances of IQ

Lol. 

IQ has 13 alliances, with ties to another 7 alliances.

You are conflating the bloc with the sphere. 

[Roquentin]

58 minutes ago, Sketchy said:

NPO was rolled twice in a year with only one global war? That's a neat trick.

Also it was IQ who coined "dynamism" and pushed for it in the first place,using it to chastise EMC for not splitting up.

@Roquentin you better fill this one in on the latest narratives before anyone notices.

This was the exact argument t$-oo used to use in order to defend not splitting up "Why would we break up when we like eachother". Apparently this was not a sufficient excuse. 

It is hilarious watching Roquentin do a full 180 in a year.

In that sentence, he's talking about last year. 

I didn't coin it. People for a long time made pretenses to avoiding hegemonies and this being a more dynamic setting. It was usually people within EMC who advertised themselves that way. Not all of them. People claiming they'd be more dynamic and avoid hegemonies goes back to even Oktoberfest.

Here's a big difference: tS-OO won every war they fought as a group and ended up staying together despite that. They stayed together despite Paracov breaking up despite hinting they were staying together because of Paracov and using Paracov signing treaties as a reason to war.  Also I never ever counted on them to break up without tension. I always said it wouldn't be a real split unless there was tension. Eventually, there was when some of the alliances got restless. Like Lightning said, many of the constituent alliances in the sphere have lost most of the wars they've been involved in and the others won while being in tS-OO. So, no it's totally different. We never hinted we would break up if there was an amicable split. You keep discounting the cultural and psychological impact the same group of alliances winning every war has had on the game. The only time where a previously dominant group of winning alliances actually lost was when SK/Guardian/Mensa did in the Great VE war. In essence, we've had 2.5 years without such an event occurring.

Right now, and as well as before basically people want IQ to split up so they can take out the constituent parts they dislike the most without much resistance.  Next like in Keegoz's post, there's even the threat mentioned of a world vs IQ war where a new dominant power(well not so new, but with some new alliances, let's call it EMC++) will take hold and the coalitions who don't ever lose wars can keep winning, alliances at the top can retain their top ranking and people who are big can avoid fighting each other because they don't want to fight anyone in the upper tier. Those are both pretty bad options, but I'd rather have a chance to put up resistance than not. Maybe they get their wish at some point, but blaming us for not wanting to get stomped easily is totally myopic.

 

Edited December 29, 2017 by Roquentin

[Sketchy]

51 minutes ago, Roquentin said:

In that sentence, he's talking about last year. 

I didn't coin it. People for a long time made pretenses to avoiding hegemonies and this being a more dynamic setting. It was usually people within EMC who advertised themselves that way. Not all of them. People claiming they'd be more dynamic and avoid hegemonies goes back to even Oktoberfest.

Here's a big difference: tS-OO won every war they fought as a group and ended up staying together despite that. They stayed together despite Paracov breaking up despite hinting they were staying together because of Paracov and using Paracov signing treaties as a reason to war.  Also I never ever counted on them to break up without tension. I always said it wouldn't be a real split unless there. Like Lightning said, many of the constituent alliances in the sphere have lost most of the wars they've been involved in and the others won while being in tS-OO. So, no it's totally different. We never hinted we would break up if there was an amicable split.

Right now, and in the past basically people want IQ to split up so they can take out the constituent parts they dislike the most without much resistance.  Next like in Keegoz's post, there's even the threat mentioned of a world vs IQ war where a new dominant power(well not so new, but with some new alliances, let's call it EMC++) will take hold and the coalitions who don't ever lose wars can keep winning, alliances at the top can retain their top ranking and people who are big can avoid fighting each other because they don't want to fight anyone in the upper tier. Those are both pretty bad options, but I'd rather have a chance to put up resistance than not. Maybe they get their wish at some point, but blaming us for not wanting to get stomped easily is totally myopic.

 

I mean I don't think you are obligated or even should split up.  My position on that could change in the future depending on what happens, but that is not how I see it rn. Expecting as much is just unrealistic.

Further consolidation on the other hand, only proves to make you as bad as the people you've criticized in the past, and for all the same reasons. We can debate whether this constitutes consolidation or not, but it would be rather pointless, as neither of us are going to concede.

IQ as a sphere, hasn't really done much yet, besides sign treaties and consolidate. You can't both argue that you are the primary driving force of action, and use the previous war you started as a credential for this, whilst simultaneously claiming you only started it as pre-emptive reaction to an EMC strike. Either you concede the logs were illegitimate or you concede that if they are legitimate as you claim, then EMC was the driving force behind that war. You also can't use past NPO wars from bloody 2016, prior to IQ's formation, as a basis either, as the primary alliance you are claiming is behind a "fake split" was literally right beside you fighting those same wars.

The main point of contention is your desire to claim the EMC split is fake, based on no valid evidence other than your own paranoia. It would be one thing to claim the split isn't feasible because there is no evidence of deterioration of relations between both sides of the split, that you are aware of. But you and others in IQ have gone so far as to claim it is simply a PR spin, an intentionally fake split, with 0 evidence.

You then add to this by publicly stating you no longer see any reason nor have any desire to be "dynamic", despite spending the last year pushing for others to do so. And are essentially outright ignoring stats and still trying to push a narrative that you are the weaker side, which wasn't true before the split happened and certainly isn't true now.

In summary, all your actions point to a rather obvious ulterior motive:

• You claim the split is fake with no evidence, but fall back on it being "not feasible due to existing positive relations" when your lack of evidence is actually challenged.
• You are now claiming credit for initiating wars that you previously tried to pin the instigation of on EMC. In an obvious effort to claim some sort of "dynamic" behavior. Otherwise you'd have to concede IQ as a sphere, has done nothing but sit, grow, and ironically, consolidate.
• You are consistently caught fudging obvious mathematical facts for your own political benefit. When I point this out you bury your head in the sand and throw out words like "power projection" and other garbage which doesn't dispute the realistic fact that on paper you are the dominant side, and were PRIOR to the split, and that this gap has now widened considerably due to the split.
• You've made the assertion in the recent past that you are still, even now, incapable of initiating a winning war, that the odds are still not in your favor. Since this is clearly not true on paper, as I have proven multiple times over, the only rational argument you have is you have low expectations of you and your allies performance. The issue with this argument is you've gone on record stating you want to keep your current allies because they are "stable". Either your allies are stable and you can feasibly claim a victory, or your allies are trash.
• You have simultaneously argued that a major reason you lost the previous war, was because of the update that broke the game and skipped a turn, whilst also trying to argue that you would not feasibly win a war this time around, with considerably improved odds.
• And finally, you have used some of the former things I mentioned, in a rather transparent attempt to shove the burden of "doing things" on anyone but IQ. The overall attempt being, to justify not just your own decision to stay together, one I don't have an immediate issue with, but your current and probable future consolidation, and the lack of conflict or "dynamic" actions in the game, particularly done by IQ, whilst undermining your opponents attempts to do something to justify your lack of doing something.

 

Edited December 29, 2017 by Sketchy

[James XVI]

In conclusion you're all the same/as bad as each other, and should go paperless.

 

Now kiss.

[Roquentin]

1 hour ago, Sketchy said:

I mean I don't think you are obligated or even should split up.  My position on that could change in the future depending on what happens, but that is not how I see it rn. Expecting as much is just unrealistic.

Further consolidation on the other hand, only proves to make you as bad as the people you've criticized in the past, and for all the same reasons. We can debate whether this constitutes consolidation or not, but it would be rather pointless, as neither of us are going to concede.

IQ as a sphere, hasn't really done much yet, besides sign treaties and consolidate. You can't both argue that you are the primary driving force of action, and use the previous war you started as a credential for this, whilst simultaneously claiming you only started it as pre-emptive reaction to an EMC strike. Either you concede the logs were illegitimate or you concede that if they are legitimate as you claim, then EMC was the driving force behind that war. You also can't use past wars NPO from bloody 2016, prior to IQ's formation, as a basis either, as the primary alliance you are claiming is behind a "fake split" was literally right beside you fighting those same wars.

I don't see how. If we were adding after winning, then you'd have a point. I don't see some alliances cancelling treaties as some sort of weird victory by default scenario, since no one actually lost anything.

IQ's formation drove the previous war regardless of the intent and IQ still initiated it despite it being preemptive. By itself, it changed things from a unipolar world with power in every tier concentrated in one sphere to a bipolar world. Trying to make it into a trivial signing of treaties doesn't really make sense.  You'd have a point if there were no ramifications to signing the treaties, but IQ's formation definitely did cause reactions. The reason the builds-up started was because people were worried about IQ hitting and the VE situation was partially caused because of what people suspected we were doing. I wouldn't say Rose is the same as it was last year, so not sure how that applies. The current leader of Rose wasn't even in Rose.

Quote

The main point of contention is your desire to claim the EMC split is fake, based on no valid evidence other than your own paranoia. It would be one thing to claim the split isn't feasible because there is no evidence of deterioration of relations between both sides of the split, that you are aware of. But you and others in IQ have gone so far as to claim it is simply a PR spin, an intentionally fake split, with 0 evidence.

I mean, I'm not really sure who's insisting on ruling out the possibility. We don't think the split is feasible and more likely fake since there isn't much of  a deterioration of relations and that's why we think it's fake. It's fake to us as long as we appear to be the focus since for months the idea was proposed of them splitting to make us split up and it was advertised by us ahead of time that we didn't see the splits as being realistic without real changes in the paradigm. The motives are questionable for that reason. We don't have anyway of confirming that. The private activity has shown that there's a movement for some alliances to use it as a means to pick up additional alliances in areas that would be their weak points.

Quote

You then add to this by publicly stating you no longer see any reason nor have any desire to be "dynamic", despite spending the last year pushing for others to do so. And are essentially outright ignoring stats and still trying to push a narrative that you are the weaker side, which wasn't true before the split happen and certainly isn't true now.

In summary, all your actions point to a rather obvious ulterior motive:

• You claim the split is fake with no evidence, but fall back on it being "not feasible due to existing positive relations" when your lack of evidence is actually challenged.
• You are now claiming credit for initiating wars that you previously tried to pin the instigation of on EMC. In an obvious effort to claim some sort of "dynamic" behavior. Otherwise you'd have to concede IQ as a sphere, has done nothing but sit, grow, and ironically, consolidate.
• You are consistently caught fudging obvious mathematical facts for your own political benefit. When I point this out you bury your head in the sand and throw out words like "power projection" and other garbage which doesn't dispute the realistic fact that on paper you are the dominant side, and were PRIOR to the split, and that this gap has now widened considerably due to the split.
• You've made the assertion in the recent past that you are still even now, incapable of initiating a winning war, that the odds are still not in your favor. Since this is clearly not true on paper, as I have proven multiple times over, the only rational argument you have is you have low expectations of you and your allies performance. The issue with this argument is you've gone on record stating you want to keep your current allies because they are "stable". Either your allies are stable and you can feasibly claim a victory, or your allies are trash.
• You have simultaneously argued that a major reason you lost the previous war, was because of the update that broke the game and skipped a turn, whilst also trying to argue that you would not feasibly win a war this time around, with considerably improved odds.
• And finally, you have used some of the former things I mentioned, in a rather transparent attempt to shove the burden of "doing things" on anyone but IQ. The overall attempt, to justify not just your own decision to stay together, one I don't have an immediate issue with, but your current and probable future consolidation, and the lack of conflict or "dynamic" actions in the game, whilst undermining your opponents attempts to do something to justify your lack of doing something.

 

I didn't say that. I said I didn't have any reason to change anything right now since nothing had changed. If the idea behind being dynamic is to set up easy curbstomps for other people, then count me out. When there's actual room to do stuff and people have moved onto other things, I'm sure you'd see something happen.  I'm not really sure how we weren't the weaker side. You basically discounted in any scenario the fact that a lot of the alliances not listed under the EMC column would join in. Simply having more on paper doesn't mean it's a victory, and we can't really contest a lot of the nations in the alliances on the other side and those nations can subsidize the rest. Both now and before, people who are "neutral" have been engaging in anti-IQ rhetoric. Why would we not feel threatened?

• It's not a court trial. If we're not confident it's real and nothing has come of it, we're not going to act as if it is until we get some confirmation. There's no reason we have to give others the benefit of the doubt in this case. Given we know of paperless arrangements alliances on that side have made more before, it's not something we can rule out. I'm totally open to being wrong, but the indications from how certain parties have approached it have made it come to be an attempt to weaken IQ.
• We still initiated. If we got hit, first we'd be told we instigated because of discussing some scenarios. Keep in mind how the situation originally erupted through the VE issue. I already mentioned how IQ by forming and the ex-Syndi endangered themselves and shifted the political dynamic, which was a change. You're trying to boil it down to signing when it was a huge gamble for the alliances that reached out to pariah alliances. The on paper stuff you cited constantly discounted alliances that leaned to EMC and still do. On paper has never been the determining factor due to the game mechanics meaning you can make up on an paper disadvantage if you take out enough alliance's military with coordinated hits especially if one side is more active than the other . An alliance can effectively be sidelined within a night.
•  Again, you're bringing up the on paper thing and twisting my words. It's really no secret that one side has more casual players than the other. The fact that this is the case doesn't make it that an ally is unstable or anything. When I talked about stability, I mean they don't cut and run when they lose like many alliances do. It's not an easy quality to find in alliances that they're willing to fight losing wars and stick to their allies despite losing. I have no expectations of everyone being as active as traditionally elite alliances. Elite groups typically don't fight each other, so there's always going to be the issue of one side not having as much per person fighting ability. That doesn't mean the alliances/individuals that aren't as effective are bad people. I can't think of a single time where the alliances people thought were the best fighters at any given time fought.
• I argued that it played a role, but the above also played a role as well which I said  when the war was going. The fact that it happened bogged things down quite a bit. We also lost a lot of the bigger nations our side had back then, so the statistical picture on a nation size basis was different. Now it's  even more divided high city counts and low city counts than it was back then, so the limits of who we can reach are more clearly lined out.

I don't know where I shoved the burden on anyone to do something else. It's more if they want action when they want it, then if they feel IQ to needs break up to be able to initiate the action, then I'm obviously not going to be onboard since the implication is pretty heavy there that their intentions are not so good.  If their idea of doing something else, is to cancel treaties and then demand IQ do the same and/or try to get people to leave IQ and join their spheres, that's not really on me.  I'm not really sure why the lack of conflict would be solely our fault since people have had the opportunity to do other scenarios. In fact, there was an alliance that sanctioned hitting people in alliances for being in vacation mode in the last war and most of the counters usually fizzled out. Or how about that time people decided not to fight because people moved to another alliance that made it inconvenient? How about the thing that preceded and led to that stand-off? I don't think anyone in IQ said it'd be perpetual peace and people get bored of no war just as much as anywhere else. We're just not in an immediate rush to walk into a potential ambush especially given all the implications people are making that they see us as the problem. I'm not as confident as you that it's just scolding in every case.  

Edited December 29, 2017 by Roquentin

[Micchan]

1 hour ago, Roquentin said:

Here's a big difference: tS-OO won every war they fought as a group and ended up staying together despite that.

[Roquentin]

9 minutes ago, Micchan said:

I mean I get it's a shitpost but I was using that to show they made the decision to do something different because they were tired of being uncontested and a took risk when they didn't have to. They were unique in repositioning in contrast to people who were sticking with it. I mean you guys took the name EMC to troll but everyone else called it Syndisphere or TKRsphere, so I don't think the meaning is lost there.

[Sketchy]

1 hour ago, Roquentin said:

I don't see how. If we were adding after winning, then you'd have a point. I don't see some alliances cancelling treaties as some sort of weird victory by default scenario, since no one actually lost anything.

IQ's formation drove the previous war regardless of the intent and IQ still initiated it despite it being preemptive. By itself, it changed things from a unipolar world with power in every tier concentrated in one sphere to a bipolar world. Trying to make it into a trivial signing of treaties doesn't really make sense.  You'd have a point if there were no ramifications to signing the treaties, but IQ's formation definitely did cause reactions. The reason the builds-up started was because people were worried about IQ hitting and the VE situation was partially caused because of what people suspected we were doing. I wouldn't say Rose is the same as it was last year, so not sure how that applies. The current leader of Rose wasn't even in Rose.

So now consolidation is only an issue if its after winning a war? Is that really the argument you are relying on? That is a ridiculous defense and you know it. If IQ signs 95% of the alliances in the game, you are gonna say "hurr durr but we haz not wonz a war", whilst not declaring any wars.

I didn't claim IQ's formation in itself had no effect on politics or was not a change, you are straw-manning my argument.. Basically any relevant alliance signing a treaty has some degree of an effect on the game. I contested that SINCE the formation, you've done nothing with that formation.

Arguing that the formation of your sphere forced others to react in a certain way, therefore you are the arbiters of said situation is ridiculous. Best case scenario, if I was being generous it would be an even split of credit. BUT, It also completely undermines your point still, as that is an admission that you with intention provoked a specific reaction with the goal of triggering a war. You still can't both be responsible and not be responsible for that war, and you know it. Pick a lane.

Just to clarify, Redarmy (roses current leader) was in Rose during that time. He left Rose after Silent War, and came back before Git Gud Friday, he was the head of FA in Rose under Keegoz for a time. Either way, that is a deflection. You have tried to draw lines between t$-oo and EMC in the past, so that you could then draw lines between t$-oo and Rose, so you could use the history of a t$-oo and their hegemoney as a narrative cudgel with which to beat Rose over the head. Ever if we concede Rose is a different alliance, you can't argue they are culpable for anything they weren't involved in due to you know, being your ally at the time. Your arguments about t$-oo don't apply to Rose and therefore your entire argument is undermined, period.

 

1 hour ago, Roquentin said:

I mean, I'm not really sure who's insisting on ruling out the possibility. We don't think the split is feasible and more likely fake since there isn't much of  a deterioration of relations and that's why we think it's fake. It's fake to us as long as we appear to be the focus since for months the idea was proposed of them splitting to make us split up and it was advertised by us ahead of time that we didn't see the splits as being realistic without real changes in the paradigm. The motives are questionable for that reason. We don't have anyway of confirming that. The private activity has shown that there's a movement for some alliances to use it as a means to pick up additional alliances in areas that would be their weak points.

No, you don't think the split is fake because if you concede even the smallest possibility it might, at the very least be a genuine attempt at a split, regardless of success or not, than you can't use that as a defense when justifying your own consolidation and general politically stagnant behavior. To argue its not likely to be successful is very different from arguing its fake. The former is a debatable but potentially genuine concern, the latter is a political narrative designed to undermine the split, pure and simple. Speculating things loudly with no evidence is just a sly way of building a narrative and you aren't nearly stupid enough to claim otherwise.

 

1 hour ago, Roquentin said:

I didn't say that. I said I didn't have any reason to change anything right now since nothing had changed. If the idea behind being dynamic is to set up easy curbstomps for other people, then count me out. When there's actual room to do stuff and people have moved onto other things, I'm sure you'd see something happen.  I'm not really sure how we weren't the weaker side. You basically discounted in any scenario the fact that a lot of the alliances not listed under the EMC column would join in. Simply having more on paper doesn't mean it's a victory, and we can't really contest a lot of the nations in the alliances on the other side and those nations can subsidize the rest. Both now and before, people who are "neutral" have been engaging in anti-IQ rhetoric. Why would we not feel threatened?

You said it. Adding a caveat excuse is not the same as not saying it.

Alliances not under the EMC column are not in EMC and are therefore not certain to join. You can't use convoluted "what if" situations as a defense for your strength. If we played that game, I could reference a whole host of non IQ column alliances that might enter on your behalf, including the 7 outside the sphere you are tied to, and the ones your peripheral alliances are tied to. Its not a valid argument.

As for the last part, neutral alliances have been engaging in anti-EMC rhetoric just as much. Different people in many cases,but you'd be a liar to pretend there hasn't been a significant sum of people pushing for an EMC split (I know firsthand having debated a bunch of them on the subject) amongst neutrals or saying negative things about EMC alliances or EMC. This is just a victim narrative, it has no grounds in reality. If people saying mean things about alliances was enough to make them enter wars against them all the time, we'd have had more than one global war this year.

1 hour ago, Roquentin said:

It's not a court trial. If we're not confident it's real and nothing has come of it, we're not going to act as if it is until we get some confirmation. There's no reason we have to give others the benefit of the doubt in this case. Given we know of paperless arrangements alliances on that side have made more before, it's not something we can rule out. I'm totally open to being wrong, but the indications from how certain parties have approached it have made it come to be an attempt to weaken IQ.

Being skeptical and vocally denouncing the split are two entirely different things. You've not been quiet about your rather unfounded skepticism. Both TKR and Rose have undergone leadership changes. Neither of the current leaders have done anything to provoke IQ since they've taken over (feel free to correct me if I'm wrong on this point), and your mostly just creating your own self-fulfilling prophecy by treating any moves made by them with disdain.

1 hour ago, Roquentin said:

We still initiated. If we got hit, first we'd be told we instigated because of discussing some scenarios. Keep in mind how the situation originally erupted through the VE issue. I already mentioned how IQ by forming and the ex-Syndi endangered themselves and shifted the political dynamic, which was a change. You're trying to boil it down to signing when it was a huge gamble for the alliances that reached out to pariah alliances. The on paper stuff you cited constantly discounted alliances that leaned to EMC and still do. On paper has never been the determining factor due to the game mechanics meaning you can make up on an paper disadvantage if you take out enough alliance's military with coordinated hits especially if one side is more active than the other . An alliance can effectively be sidelined within a night.

As I referenced above, your narratives are still conflicting. You've actually further hurt your point by conceding the initial point of origin was indeed, as many said, the VE situation, which had absolutely nothing to do with IQ at all.

On paper is an indicator of potential. It gives you a guideline of relative strength, and then actual performance dictates how close to your on paper potential you achieve. I contested that last war, the hiccup with the server, was not very impactful on the war, and that you still were able to hold to a range of 12 cities, whilst staying competitive in the 13-14 city range. The "death zone" as we called it.

I've shown clear evidence that you've made massive strides towards tiering cohesion and pushed upwards, strides that make you considerably more competitive. What this means, is that, even if all the same conditions from last war were repeated, you could very easily take 15-17 cities, with a strong competition or "dead zone" up to 20. This is of course, not even considering the claim you made, that the server mess up was a larger factor in your loss last war. If this is true than the argument you can't win becomes even more ludicrous than it already was, unless you are assuming it'll happen again.

1 hour ago, Roquentin said:

 Again, you're bringing up the on paper thing and twisting my words. It's really no secret that one side has more casual players than the other. The fact that this is the case doesn't make it that an ally is unstable or anything. When I talked about stability, I mean they don't cut and run when they lose like many alliances do. It's not an easy quality to find in alliances that they're willing to fight losing wars and stick to their allies despite losing. I have no expectations of everyone being as active as traditionally elite alliances. Elite groups typically don't fight each other, so there's always going to be the issue of one side not having as much per person fighting ability. That doesn't mean the alliances that aren't as effective are bad people. I can't think of a single time where the alliances people thought were the best fighters at any given time fought.

I mean. Casual players is another word for shit players. If a player is casual enough that they can't effectively fight, then yes that is exactly what I would call shit. So I don't think I'm really misconstruing anything. I guess we have just vastly different standards. This doesn't change anything. Those same casual players were present last war, their performance last war, can be easily be modeled into the probably outcome of a new war. 

1 hour ago, Roquentin said:

I argued that it played a role, but the above also played a role as well which I said  when the war was going. The fact that it happened bogged things down quite a bit. We also lost a lot of the bigger nations our side had back then, so the statistical picture on a nation size basis was different. Now it's  even more divided high city counts and low city counts than it was back then, so the limits of who we can reach are more clearly lined out.

You argued it played a significant enough role to potentially change the outcome, and as I stated above, that is simply supporting my argument. As for the argument that its more clearly divided between high and low city counts. This is blatantly false. Last war there was very little overlap, IQ held a vast majority over the 1-10 range, a decent advantage over the 11-13 range, and a slight advantage in the 14-15 range. The advantage flipped in the favour of EMC at 16-17, was solidified in the 18+ range.

This time around though, you have a VAST majority from the 1-16, and have even odds from 17-20. Not having anyone in the 20+ range actually acts as an advantage for you, as all the larger whales in EMC can't feasibly fight without downdeclaring at a large disadvantage to their safety, and the reality of likely taking more damage. Add to this that once dispatching up to 20+ which is much easier then you have a larger concentrated majority of a huge portion of EMC you can with much more ease, updeclare on those whales and drag them down.

1 hour ago, Roquentin said:

I don't know where I shoved the burden on anyone to do something else. It's more if they want action when they want it, then if they feel IQ to needs break up to be able to initiate the action, then I'm obviously not going to be onboard since the implication is pretty heavy there that their intentions are not so good.  If their idea of doing something else, is to cancel treaties and then demand IQ do the same and/or try to get people to leave IQ and join their spheres, that's not really on me.  I'm not really sure why the lack of conflict would be solely our fault since people have had the opportunity to do other scenarios. In fact, there was an alliance that sanctioned hitting people in alliances for being in vacation mode in the last war and most of the counters usually fizzled out. Or how about that time people decided not to fight because people moved to another alliance that made it inconvenient? How about the thing that preceded and led to that stand-off? I don't think anyone in IQ said it'd be perpetual peace and people get bored of no war just as much as anywhere else. We're just not in an immediate rush to walk into a potential ambush especially given all the implications people are making that they see us as the problem. I'm not as confident as you that it's just scolding in every case.

No point responding to this since I opened with the point of not expecting a split, and clearly arguing against the things you are doing I disagree with. If the only thing you were doing is arguing against a split this entire discussion wouldn't be happening. Keep your strawman arguments and argue with the people who are actually saying these things.

Edited December 29, 2017 by Sketchy

[Shadowthrone]

3 hours ago, Sketchy said:

NPO was rolled twice in a year with only one global war? That's a neat trick.

Also it was IQ who coined "dynamism" and pushed for it in the first place,using it to chastise EMC for not splitting up.

@Roquentin you better fill this one in on the latest narratives before anyone notices.

This was the exact argument t$-oo used to use in order to defend not splitting up "Why would we break up when we like eachother". Apparently this was not a sufficient excuse. 

It is hilarious watching Roquentin do a full 180 in a year.

With all due respect, Roq doesn't need to fill me on the latest narratives heh, I've spent enough time around here and been a part of NPO through three wars and different scenarios to make up my own opinions, thanks  

Now going back to the other points you've stated, the dynamism™ attributed to IQ or Roq on these boards is an easy spin by most folks. IQ pushed for a change in the geo-political arena, by splitting from a coalition that just won two world-wars in succeeding fashion and took out TEst and other paperless folks in the space of six months. UPN, VE, NPO just lost a conflict, Rose had moved FA directions and found new allies in Mensa and the other constituents of the Silent coalition were trying to form a third bloc if I remember right (SK, Valyria and co?). With Papers Please, tS-OO had pretty much taken out all the opposition in the space of three months and left themselves as a coalition with no real equals and creating a scenario in PnW where any war would be against the same folks, instituting the same rollings and there wasn't any real change in play. Zodiac/BK/CS took a chance to change it with IQ and it created a more equal grouping in terms of adding another opposition instead of the normal folks. We lost the last war yes, but the dynamism™ that any folks refer to, and Roq too I guess is the change in the scenario within the politics of the game. It gave a new, different side that could be created and were more solid then previous multi-spheres coming together at the last minute trying to fight a war versus Syndisphere. 

Thats where the differences lies between the necessity and arguments for the breaking apart of tS-OO and IQ currently lies in my opinion. IQ pushed for a change within the game from an all-consuming victory coalition into a more balanced side because CS/Zodiac/BK took the chance of trying to build another side and incorporating former foes with quite a rivalry and created IQ as an opposition point to tS-OO. Thats where the difference lies within the current cancellation of treaties within EMC and IQ also lies, simply put, I call the cancellation of treaties a PR spin because I don't see the sides really split apart except on paper. It's become an almost pet peeve of folks in TKR on these boards to take pot-shots at IQ for existing because well now they can't hit NPO every six months into the ground thanks to IQ existing. Rather than working to be dynamic™ and taking opportunities where they arose, they said no thanks and then continued taking pot-shots on these boards that we're somehow killing the game. I mean Partisan called them out and pretty much gave them a CB on a silver plate and they decided against using it for their own reasons. Other folks as Roq mentioned pretty much hit few Panth folks and then continued on their merry way. There have been instances where EMC could have done something, but did not and then still lays the blame at IQ for somehow killing the game, when we've used this time to rebuild and regroup ourselves. I mean tS/OO was in a very different political scenario than IQ is at this point and any equivalence between the two is essentially false and stems from a misunderstanding of the two scenarios or rather its easier to blame us than trying to objectively view the same. If IQ won a bunch of wars and have no real organised alternative spheres that exist within the game, its fair to claim Roq did a 180, but thats just not true. 

To extend another line of argument I mentioned above but did not really get into, is the idea that the cancellations carry weight. I haven't seen any public actions except for cancellations of treaties, while folks remaining on good terms with one-another. I seriously doubt, tomorrow if NPO hits TKR, folks wouldn't go into defend them regardless of treaty ties, and that belief stems from previous wars, previous interactions and the lack of overall shifting of sides within those folks trying to claim EMC is over. All of the changes in cancellations have essentially led to those folks trying to split apart the parts of IQ they like to leave other folks alone and easy for a dog pile and would love to claim that shows how dynamic™ they are. If there are real changes and frictions as Roq points out between spheres and a real danger for themselves to be a part, then I'd have heard folks reaching out to IQ to try and figure out common goals/enemies in a coalition if we matter that much. No outreach from the mini-spheres to tie themselves with the supposed hegemon, any and all outreach is to weaken IQ rather than build their own organised alternative and the lack of any real friction or outreach for change leaves me with the impression that nothing much has changed. The burden of proof is with them to show that they really are changing track and breaking away from EMC or something, rather than us believing them at face value lol. Even then, I'd be hard-pressed to find any specific reason for IQ to break apart at this moment, other than to please the peanut gallery here lol.