How long will this war go on for?

[Roquentin]

15 hours ago, Ripper said:

 

I think I wasn't even around at that time, so you are talking about something that happened... 3 years ago or so? How is that relevant with anything?
Maybe you should learn from BK and turn the page too.

If you're going to jump into the topic when there are several arguments ongoing, then realizing the context is important. Hitting BK was the only means of cooperation we had with two of the mini-spheres. Buorhann has been  bringing up Leo and Frawley on the radio saying BK and NPO wouldn't fight each other.  This furthers the narrative that we worked with BK to poison the well against KETOG within our mini-sphere and take them out to establish hegemonic control. I brought up an in-depth explanation as to why we were skeptical of the offers cooperation on the basis of hitting BK and why we didn't want to do it. It would entail a return to having to coordinate our every move around BK like three years ago  when they had been the only ones with both the desire and ability to reshape the landscape at the time. It would also mean that damage to other  major alliances would be effectively minimized especially in the upper tier and I would have a hard time justifying an action that both is not beneficial for us but is essentially a freebie for everyone else. It would become an effective economic subsidy to the people who would avoid having to deal with the mid tier issues.

Quote

1. So, that made you not want to ally t$ (since they didn't keep confidence) which resulted in you... signing t$? Or you are accusing just Pre and me specifically for leaking things?

Oh, I didn't know it was leaked it until well after or how many people were told. I could one or two people knowing. What was odd was being told that a lot of people in CoS knew about it.

Quote

2. Well, thanks for your sacrifice, Roq. I am sure you didn't want to hit TKR et al. t$/CoS/TEst made you sell your soul to the devil.
Leaving jokes aside, can you explain what's the good and what's the bad part of the deal? If the bad part is signing t$... well you still did it.

The good part is people who had avoided fighting in the upper tier and had effectively established a cartel which prior to that was untouchable had to take some damage for once. My language was probably too dramatic there, but it was a a big trade off with high potential future risk. The bad part was it was a definitive trade off in terms of the fact that it was mostly us giving up allies while some of the connections the other parties involved would be salvagable or remain in tact. It was left  up in the air whether the proposed future plans in terms of potential conflicts would come to fruition, as it would leave me without much bargaining power if too many things changed. I don't have an issue with signing tS but it's more that problems can arise when arrangements are made between specific individuals and the specific individuals disappear. With the limited leverage I would then have based on having less sway due to not having much bargaining power, I risked being easily cornered.

Quote

I don't remember something like this in our DoW. 2 of its members literally fought beside you at the previous global war. No idea what you are talking about here.

Manthrax has outright confirmed that Chaos was partially made because of his dislike of Leo, under, and TheNG's attitudes during the war and implied that their perceived sadistic streak pushed him to do the bloc. You fought in the war, but CoS and others clashed many times and Manthrax was quite open that he'd never want to work with certain alliances ever again. I just can't help but to think that a bloc created with war plans soon after would have not been born of hostility. The screenshots previously shown by Dio made it clear that Chaos was seen by TKR as a part of a wider effort to go after the other half of the prior coalition and that Sphinx was also commissioned more or less to make a nominally independent mini-sphere and given advice on which alliances he could peel off by Manthrax. "We all have to look at the big picture of taking down IQ," was said by Adrienne

Quote

Nonsese. Who is mixing up the timelones now? Whatever you have against Bezzers, he became leader during this very war, a month ago.

I'm saying it adds to it. I've gone into detail multiple times about the issue with SK having previously gunned after us because of our critical comments which we did not make publicly until after Squeegee had gone public with his issues first. It was presented as the rationale to Polar by SK that our negative comments were the reasoning for their decision to pursue the war and lie to them about what was going to happen. If we want to go into CoS, there have always been like negative exchanges with Manthrax and it was Hilmes conveyed that CoS had a few different reasons for not wanting to collaborate with the tS/NPO minisphere and doing Chaos instead and one was negative sentimen towards NPO as more than a really short-term partner.

Quote

I am lost here. Are you talking about the previous conflict between Chaos and KETOG? If yes, do explain to me this plan of "restoration".

Okay. With TKR specifically, during and after the last war, they made great efforts to repair/build relations with everyone not part of one sector of the offensive coalition. The Chaos logs dropped before showed a single-minded focus on achieving some sort of goal. I see it as doing whatever it takes to win against those they perceive as their major obstacles and be on top politically and I see having done Chaos to gain SK/CoS as allies as being part of that. It's not particularly beyond the pale but it's not my role to sit idly by.  A diplomatic offensive was notable.  One of the places they also went to was KT/TGH to better relations after having attacked them.

Quote

Oh Roq. The previous plot was not to roll NPO/BK. It was to roll IQ (for CoS at least, that was the case in case you were to not keep your word for the split). You did make the split though. Well, at least technically. From what we got from t$ during this global though, you decided to keep secret ties with them anyway. 

It doesn't really make sense for medium-term planning to revolve around it like construction of new spheres and shifting of ties unless it's more than a short-term goal.  The logs basically come off as having various colluding parts in pursuit of the goal.

Ultimately, if that's what's been conveyed to you, that's their prerogative, but it was pretty transparent early on that our goal with the split wasn't to facilitate a curbstomp of BK in the short-term. We didn't want to do anything that would be  throwing them to the wolves as they had attracted a lot of heat due to actions taken collectively. and that was made clear.  The conditions under which we'd act were known ahead of time, so I don't think it constitutes anything secretive as it was noted that throwing them under the bus to save our own skin so soon after Knightfall was a major worry.

Edited August 11, 2019 by Roquentin

[Smith]

11 minutes ago, Curufinwe said:

While I appreciate the shoutout, I don't recall TKR being nearly as supportive at the time (or in the two years that followed) of the political change that I brought with me.  Thanks for the belated affirmation though I guess?  I sure hope this isn't retconning history to try to score present day political points though.

It's not. I am talking from a completely OOC/Meta perspective. You'll noticed both of example I gave actually hurt TKR directly and I did that intentionally. The point I am trying to make is that leadership changes often result in political change even if I disagree with what that political change is and even if it hurts TKR.

But when the same leaders are bringing up the same 3 year old grudges it makes it difficult for change to happen. 

[Squeegee]

7 minutes ago, Roquentin said:

I'm saying it adds to it. I've gone into detail multiple times about the issue with SK having previously gunned after us because of our critical comments which we did not make publicly until after Squeegee had gone public with his issues first. It was presented as the rationale to Polar by SK that our negative comments were the reasoning for their decision to pursue the war and lie to them about what was going to happen. If we want to go into CoS, there have always been like negative exchanges with Manthrax and it was Hilmes conveyed that CoS had a few different reasons for not wanting to collaborate with the tS/NPO minisphere and doing Chaos instead and one was negative sentimen towards NPO as more than a really short-term partner.

You've already brought this up, and I've already addressed it many posts ago in a thread far far away but I went ahead and found the link for you ❤️ 

Using events from 1-2 years ago to explain your reasoning ESPECIALLY given you have never once reached out to me to find out where my issues with you or your alliance were founded instead going to who at the time was a mutual ally of ours. Now that you've brought it up again I'm going to go ahead and assume that you're referring to the times I've brought up my issues with NPO to Polaris in private, I might add (bad play on my part assuming it would stay between polaris and I). Certainly I had brought up your shit talk with them before but that was most definitely not what lead my decisions, it was merely the cherry on top of a multi-layered cake. I'm sorry my actions from years ago still threaten you today and I'm sorry we've never had the conversation to possibly quell your paranoia rather than receiving second hand information from mutual allies but my DM's are always open if you want to clear the air Roquentin.  

[Roquentin]

2 hours ago, Smith said:

It's not. I am talking from a completely OOC/Meta perspective. You'll noticed both of example I gave actually hurt TKR directly and I did that intentionally. The point I am trying to make is that leadership changes often result in political change even if I disagree with what that political change is and even if it hurts TKR.

But when the same leaders are bringing up the same 3 year old grudges it makes it difficult for change to happen. 

This is a really bad point for someone on your side to be making as way more old school players with prior connections exist on your side and various ties between alliances both on paper and off paper exist solely because old connections.  They are also operative on and off. If I was basing actions on grudges, then I would have never had a relationship with Partisan at all. I don't think suspicion is always unwarranted and I could list the times where other old school people have called me out or have said stuff negative about me based on their perceived reasons for indignation.

This war before we went in on TKR was a bunch old school players with long-standing ties and prior history of military cooperation slamming down a side with many newer alliances and plenty of clashes and that was an argument we presented for our entry. Basically aside from me, NG, Under, and you could theoretically count Leo, one side had the traditional political and military braintrust and one side was a lot  looser.

I never once cited the TKR issues from 3 years ago as a reason for our actions. It's just the morality police aspect of trying to play certain things against us was inappropriate.  The Rose example is particularly bad given the last major war launched by Rose was called the Abbas war.  Just as on your side the years long connections facilitate cooperation and bridge-building and skepticism as well, they can do so on our side as well. It's also laughable that you think people have to have the title of leader to exercise a controlling influence in an alliance which is why your examples sucked tbh.

 

Edited August 12, 2019 by Roquentin

[Smith]

18 minutes ago, Roquentin said:

It doesn't really make sense for medium-term planning to revolve around it like construction of new spheres and shifting of ties unless it's more than a short-term goal.  The logs basically come off as having various colluding parts in pursuit of the goal.

Ultimately, if that's what's been conveyed to you, that's their prerogative, but it was pretty transparent early on that our goal with the split wasn't to facilitate a curbstomp of BK in the short-term. We didn't want to do anything that would be  throwing them to the wolves as they had attracted a lot of heat due to actions taken collectively. and that was made clear.  The conditions under which we'd act were known ahead of time, so I don't think it constitutes anything secretive as it was noted that throwing them under the bus to save our own skin so soon after Knightfall was a major worry.

Alright so a few things here.

1. The conditions were not known. I'm not sure what kind of spin this is but after Kayer left not even your own allies knew about the agreement you had to protect BK

2. You mention BK has "attracted a lot of heat". But you didn't want to "throw them to the wolves". 

So let's think about the situation your agreement put the rest of the game in:

• Assuming BKsphere/N$O are two different spheres that means BK is by far the biggest
• BKsphere was continuing to expand the size of their sphere
• Logs were revealed that BK was planning to dogpile a much smaller sphere to "contain" them

No single sphere would be able to stand against BK on their own (except maybe N$O who refuses to fight them). This means that the rest of the game has the option to either unite against their aggression or let them pick us off one by one. Of course if we unite then you join in to help them because you don't want to "throw them to the wolves".

What is the rest of the game supposed to do?

[Roquentin]

1 minute ago, Smith said:

Alright so a few things here.

1. The conditions were not known. I'm not sure what kind of spin this is but after Kayer left not even your own allies knew about the agreement you had to protect BK

2. You mention BK has "attracted a lot of heat". But you didn't want to "throw them to the wolves". 

So let's think about the situation your agreement put the rest of the game in:

• Assuming BKsphere/N$O are two different spheres that means BK is by far the biggest
• BKsphere was continuing to expand the size of their sphere
• Logs were revealed that BK was planning to dogpile a much smaller sphere to "contain" them

No single sphere would be able to stand against BK on their own (except maybe N$O who refuses to fight them). This means that the rest of the game has the option to either unite against their aggression or let them pick us off one by one. Of course if we unite then you join in to help them because you don't want to "throw them to the wolves".

What is the rest of the game supposed to do?

1. Wrong. This has been clarified multiple times. I'm not going to plop down the specific screenshots we did to them but people who even had initially not seen it due to not being active acknowledged that the doctrine had been agreed upon once they looked up. I'd say it was unfair that we made an error of omission in not discussing the scenario with HS, but this is solely referring to tS. If it's in your interest to highlight it as us having deceived tS, then feel free. It is simply NOT the case.

2. The BKsphere is only the biggest nominally. It was decried as a paper tiger by people who disliked it in private and everyone could see there was no real way for it to come close to what it was on paper due to not only the tensions existent within it but the lack of experienced players and many of the nations being from micros. This is the perpetual situation the game has had. The nation counts and "size" are usually used as propaganda claims, but when smaller groups have more efficacy then it doesn't constitute an overwhelming advantage.

3. If they had been able to definitively beat Chaos, it would show their capacity and whether they would be able to hold up against a larger coalition and that would change things. It didn't happen. 

4.  I have not seen any indications of the level of prowess/unity/coordination you are positing here where they would effectively be able to shift from group to group. Two of the blocs constituting BKsphere have lost members and it was revealed some are at loggerheads with each other. 

It is important to note that it was about a scenario where overwhelming took place, not one in which they were merely engaged. If the worst  case scenario would be applied how would it be justifiable to stay out if we noted there was no way for anyone  to beat the KERCHTOGG coalition without intervention before it was too late?  We would be reliant on the good faith of groups we do not have traditionally friendly relations with with zero effective leverage.  Our entry was an effective hail mary in the crisis stage the war was at. 

[Adrienne]

52 minutes ago, Roquentin said:

This is a really bad point for someone on your side to be making as way more old school players with prior connections exist on your side and various ties between alliances both on paper and off paper exist solely because old connections.  They are also operative on and off. If I was basing actions on grudges, then I would have never had a relationship with Partisan at all. I don't think suspicion is always unwarranted and I could list the times where other old school people have called me out or have said stuff negative about me based on their perceived reasons for indignation.

This war before we went in on TKR was a bunch old school players with long-standing ties and prior history of military cooperation slamming down a side with many newer alliances and plenty of clashes and that was an argument we presented for our entry. Basically aside from me, NG, Under, and you could theoretically count, one side had the traditional political  and military braintrust and one side was a lot less looser.

I never once cited the TKR issues from 3 years ago as a reason for our actions. It's just the morality police aspect of trying to play certain things against us was inappropriate.  The Rose example is particularly bad given the last major war launched by Rose was called the Abbas war.  Just as on your side the years long connections facilitate cooperation and bridge-building and skepticism as well, they can do so on our side as well. It's also laughable that you think people have to have the title of leader to exercise a controlling influence in an alliance which is why your examples sucked tbh.

TIL I'm an old school player. TIL TKR's entire high gov is made up of old school players. Looks at nation ages of everyone involved. Care to try again?

I had almost no relations with virtually anyone when I started leading TKR. Funnily enough, the people I had the best relationships with - or so I thought I did - when I started were actually on your side. Phoenix, Keshav, and a few others from then IQ sphere were people I thought I got along with and had good relationships with. I didn't know any of the "old school players" you're trying to pretend I do and the vast majority of our FA during the early part of my reign ran almost exclusively through me. For better or for worse, that was the reality of our FA from basically last March/April up until Knightfall.

My relations with NPO took a sharp decline in the lead-up to Knightfall when you guys accused me of not even leading my own alliance, of a shadow gov running TKR, and used all of that and your three year old grudge against our "old school players" to justify your refusal to even consider giving me a fair shot. Even after that, I still attempted to talk to you guys and work on that relationship up until peace talks started. Since then, you've waffled back and forth as convenient on whether I actually lead TKR or not but I probably shouldn't even give you that much credit because every point you try and vilify me over is an action you probably believe old school TKR would be likely to aim for.

You don't trust me because you still don't believe I actually lead my alliance. That belief comes from your grudges against our old school players and a refusal to believe anything other than the backwards story you've concocted in regards to what happened when our treaty talks with you came to an end last February/March.

Edited August 11, 2019 by Nizam Adrienne

[Ripper]

32 minutes ago, Roquentin said:

3. If they had been able to definitively beat Chaos, it would show their capacity and whether they would be able to hold up against a larger coalition and that would change things. It didn't happen. 

4.  I have not seen any indications of the level of prowess/unity/coordination you are positing here where they would effectively be able to shift from group to group. Two of the blocs constituting BKsphere have lost members and it was revealed some are at loggerheads with each other.
...
Our entry was an effective hail mary in the crisis stage the war was at. 

3. Calling your allies incapable is pretty rude.

4. At least your side accepts that BK was losing before you intervening. Still, it's rude wounding your ally's ego.

32 minutes ago, Roquentin said:

IIf the worst  case scenario would be applied how would it be justifiable to stay out if we noted there was no way for anyone  to beat the KERCHTOGG coalition without intervention before it was too late? 

Too late of what? Of BK losing a war?

-----------------------------------------------------------

In any case, thanks for being sincere about the ties you had with BK. Although no confirmation was really needed from you, it makes me smile when I think you supposedly launched the previous war to condemn secret treaties between alliances, only for you to do the same right after the end of the war.

----------------------------------------------------------

P.S. Regarding the "logs" you mention again and again, as I said, I would love to see some that are not 6 months old and are post-IQ ones. And a kind reminder: Thrax hasn't been a leader of CoS for over a year. I couldn't care less about any personal grudges between you two. Saying or even implying that a whole bloc was formed "because Thrax doesn't like us" is plain silly and childish. I am sure you don't form your blocs based on such factors. Right?

4 minutes ago, Nizam Adrienne said:

You don't trust me because you still don't believe I actually lead my alliance. That belief comes from your grudges against our old school players and a refusal to believe anything other than the backwards story you've concocted in regards to what happened when our treaty talks with you came to an end last February/March.

Well, seeing how you behave towards Adrienne, I think you just believe that I also don't lead my own alliance and Thrax is the old school player that defines CoS's policies.
Either that or that's what you want to let others think.

@Nizam Adrienne love, come to my corner and let's cry together.

Edited August 11, 2019 by Ripper

[Roquentin]

25 minutes ago, Nizam Adrienne said:

TIL I'm an old school player. TIL TKR's entire high gov is made up of old school players. Looks at nation ages of everyone involved. Care to try again?

I had almost no relations with virtually anyone when I started leading TKR. Funnily enough, the people I had the best relationships with - or so I thought I did - when I started were actually on your side. Phoenix, Keshav, and a few others from then IQ sphere were people I thought we got along with and had good relationships with. I didn't know any of the "old school players" you're trying to pretend I do and the vast majority of our FA during the early part of my reign ran almost exclusively through me. For better or for worse, that was the reality of our FA from basically last March/April up until Knightfall.

My relations with NPO took a sharp decline in the lead-up to Knightfall when you guys accused me of not even leading my own alliance, of a shadow gov running TKR, and used all of that and your three year old grudge against our "old school players" to justify your refusal to even consider giving me a fair shot. Even after that, I still attempted to talk to you guys and work on that relationship up until peace talks started. Since then, you've waffled back and forth as convenient on whether I actually lead TKR or not but I probably shouldn't even give you that much credit because every point you try and vilify me over is an action you probably believe old school TKR would be likely to aim for.

You don't trust me because you still don't believe I actually lead my alliance. That belief comes from your grudges against our old school players and a refusal to believe anything other than the backwards story you've concocted in regards to what happened when our treaty talks with you came to an end last February/March.

Your side =/= TKR.  Smith was attacking me based on having been around for a long time when many of the leaders and influential players on the KERCHTOGG side are dinosaurs who leverage their old connections so I was counterposing it to his narrative that I stifle the meta by having been around this long.  A lot of newer people are involved at TKR, yes. 

The rest is kind of redundant since you started from a misunderstanding, but Keshav himself was specifically told last summer by another alliance involved that an old leader was brought out of retirement to take part in  the KT/TGH negotiations. I didn't concoct the story and was also told at the time by someone who had interacted with that person that they had intentionally stirred up discord internally to kill the treaty talks as well.

 

20 minutes ago, Ripper said:

3. Calling your allies incapable is pretty rude.

4. At least your side accepts that BK was losing before you intervening. Still, it's rude wounding your ally's ego.

Too late of what? Of BK losing a war?

-----------------------------------------------------------

In any case, thanks for being sincere about the ties you had with BK. Although no confirmation was really needed from you, it makes me smile when I think you supposedly launched the previous war to condemn secret treaties between alliances, only for you to do the same right after the end of the war.

----------------------------------------------------------

P.S. Regarding the "logs" you mention again and again, as I said, I would love to see some that are not 6 months old and are post-IQ ones. And a kind reminder: Thrax hasn't been a leader of CoS for over a year. I couldn't care less about any personal grudges between you two. Saying or even implying that a whole bloc was formed "because Thrax doesn't like us" is plain silly and childish. I am sure you don't form your blocs based on such factors. Right?

Well, seeing how you behave towards Adrienne, I think you just believe that I also don't lead my own alliance and Thrax is the old school player that defines CoS's policies.
Either that or that's what you want to let others think.

@Nizam Adrienne love, come to my corner and let's cry together.

3. I'm not sugarcoating it and people in the coalition would recognize they had been on the backfoot.

4. Idk how that constitutes  a secret treaty when it's just our doctrine for intervening in a particular scenario. I have never once asked BK for help outside of military coordination in this conflict and did not expect any, which is exactly the reason I didn't want to be in a position where we would be at the mercy of the KERCHTOGG coalition and even have to consider asking for outside assistance.

Too late to avoid a complete victory by KERTCHOGG yeah as we would not be able to beat KERCHTOGG on our own if continued to stay out. Given the countless and gotchas, I had no reason to trust any good will from your side.

The more recent stuff is the open hostility from various sectors of the coalition.

Do you deny Manthrax has influence in CoS or the statement he made not too long ago? Was Manthrax not in the coalition server as a government member where these clashes took place? Blocs have definitely been formed against common foes.

 

 

Edited August 11, 2019 by Roquentin
edited to avoid a doublepost

[Mack g]

Sphincter says wut?

[Ayayay]

47 minutes ago, Ripper said:

Saying or even implying that a whole bloc was formed "because Thrax doesn't like us" is plain silly and childish.

Thrax literally said that chaos bloc formed because of me and that I'm the worst. Goddamnit @Ripper you will not take this away from me like you took away the great wars definition term.

Edited August 12, 2019 by Malal

[Ripper]

42 minutes ago, Roquentin said:

Do you deny Manthrax has influence in CoS or the statement he made not too long ago? Was Manthrax not in the coalition server as a government member where these clashes took place? Blocs have definitely been formed against common foes.

1. Ok Roq. Thrax hates NPO and forms a bloc just to kill you. Explain to me this:

-> Why did CoS support you at the previous wa then? Why did Thrax specifically/personally attack TKR (where he has friends) and helped NPO (that supposedly is his greates foe ever)?

2. Also, yes, you are right. Chaos and KETOG were planning to take you down from the very beginning. Explain to me this:

-> Why did KETOG and Chaos have a war between them right before this global?

--------------------------------------------------->

Either you think we are psuchos or stupid, or you are just desperate to prove your point. Nothing about your accusations regarding past hatred/old players/ old friendships makes sense.
I made Thrax attack his very friends during Knightfall and help your alliance get the victory you couldn't get at all your previous failed attempts to get TKR down. CoS attacked SK before Knightfall. Fought together with SK and you during Knightfall against TKR. Then allied TKR. We have literally fought all of our allies (except for Soup) within 6 months before the formation of our bloc.

CoS needs to prove nothing more. Our actions speak louder than our words. We've shown we can move forward, no matter the past "history of hatred" or whatever that is.

[Roquentin]

1 minute ago, Ripper said:

1. Ok Roq. Thrax hates NPO and forms a bloc just to kill you. Explain to me this:

-> Why did CoS support you at the previous wa then? Why did Thrax specifically/personally attack TKR (where he has friends) and helped NPO (that supposedly is his greates foe ever)?

2. Also, yes, you are right. Chaos and KETOG were planning to take you down from the very beginning. Explain to me this:

-> Why did KETOG and Chaos have a war between them right before this global?

--------------------------------------------------->

Either you think we are psuchos or stupid, or you are just desperate to prove your point. Nothing about your accusations regarding past hatred/old players/ old friendships makes sense.
I made Thrax attack his very friends during Knightfall and help your alliance get the victory you couldn't get at all your previous failed attempts to get TKR down. CoS attacked SK before Knightfall. Fought together with SK and you during Knightfall against TKR. Then allied TKR. We have literally fought all of our allies (except for Soup) within 6 months before the formation of our bloc.

CoS needs to prove nothing more. Our actions speak louder than our words. We've shown we can move forward, no matter the past "history of hatred" or whatever that is.

I didn't say he formed a bloc to kill NPO. I said he didn't like NPO and partially formed the bloc because he was upset with other coalition members.  I said it was a reason we had to be suspicious of CoS motives though. 

Well I was told your motivation for the war was GOB from the get-go by Prefontaine. There were specific issues there. I wasn't aware that even you personally had been briefed on the arrangement between Partisan and I as it was made before you were brought in, so I only really figured it out when you said closing the gap wasn't your motivation behind the war. I had the nasty surprise that interest in fighting upper tier alliances had been actually limited and the war was sold to people as fracturing IQ. This is also why I've had skepticism towards everyone's positive intentions since if a good chunk of people only wanted to fight upper tier nations to break up IQ, would they ever do it again? It didn't look to be the case.

I didn't say that part either. There are limited numbers of groups they could engage. 

Well the official reason given to me was boredom but I'd say it's also partially because they didn't get sufficient buy-in for the BK war. The DoW also had a call out that implied  that they though Chaos would be up for a "fun war' and "everyone else could learn a lesson", so it was an effective call out to us for not hitting BK.

---

I understood you've been travelling and eating rodents but a lot of the stuff we're talking about has been repeated a ton though this post will have some new content introduced for the first time.

 

 

[Ripper]

21 minutes ago, Roquentin said:

Well I was told your motivation for the war was GOB from the get-go by Prefontaine. There were specific issues there. I wasn't aware that even you personally had been briefed on the arrangement between Partisan and I as it was made before you were brought in, so I only really figured it out when you said closing the gap wasn't your motivation behind the war. I had the nasty surprise that interest in fighting upper tier alliances had been actually limited and the war was sold to people as fracturing IQ. This is also why I've had skepticism towards everyone's positive intentions since if a good chunk of people only wanted to fight upper tier nations to break up IQ, would they ever do it again? It didn't look to be the case.

> CoS joins the war to help in the only front it was needed. To hit the whales.
> SRD gets mad CoS rolled him and stole his TKR-toy, so hits CoS after that war.
> It doesn't look like the upper tier nations are ever planning to fight each other again! It was all to break IQ.

Honestly Roq, you are giving your alliance too much credit. CoS didn't fight for so many months and with that many losses because it wanted NPO to do X, Y or Z. And, for the sake of our members, I won't accept such declarations from you. CoS fought for the reasons presented in our DoW.

My apologies, but NPO is not the center of the universe. It doesn't define the policies of CoS, SK, TKR or whoever else, and it is not the reason blocs like Chaos are formed.

Edited August 12, 2019 by Ripper

[Adrienne]

44 minutes ago, Roquentin said:

Your side =/= TKR.  Smith was attacking me based on having been around for a long time when many of the leaders and influential players on the KERCHTOGG side are dinosaurs who leverage their old connections so I was counterposing it to his narrative that I stifle the meta by having been around this long.  A lot of newer people are involved at TKR, yes. 

The rest is kind of redundant since you started from a misunderstanding, but Keshav himself was specifically told last summer by another alliance involved that an old leader was brought out of retirement to take part in he the KT/TGH relations. I didn't concoct the story and was also told at the time by someone who had interacted with that person that they had intentionally stirred up discord internally to kill talks as well. 

 

My bad on making that assumption. It's not like we were the alliance you chose to attack on your entry into this war or anything or you haven't tried to draw lines between us and KETOGG/Rose based on the old school player relationships before, including during this post.

You don't have to play coy with the names, I know you're referring to Lordship. The main person who thinks Lordship stirred up discord was Kayser, someone who was disgruntled because we demoted him for ignoring the concerns of the rest of high gov and acting unilaterally, which had little to do with you guys. But let me be clear - Lordship didn't kill talks. Neither did IC, who I'm including here just for good measure. You were told all this and had our reasons for ending talks reaffirmed a year ago during that conversation. You chose to ignore it in favor of that shadow gov narrative.

As for the KT/TGH thing, that's an interesting new twist. I brought Lordship out of retirement in an attempt to help me with FA because, if you recall, we were a little short in that department at the time. Lordship had contacts with KT/TGH, I'll grant you that, but the focus was on improving relationships with them? When last summer were we supposedly trying to improve KT/TGH relationships? When we declared war on them? When they were dragging us/our coalition through the mud on the OWF?

[Nokia Rokia]

I still Like to point out that TSL and TCM are not officially part of either side of the war and you all are kinda annoying in Kertchtog because you dont have a good reason to be fighting my alliance or my allies because HA has peaced out furthermore you attacked us for the stupidest reason ever 

 

Just a FYI TSL and TCM would still like to peace out before possibly more allies are forced to intervene and needless damage is had

Edited August 12, 2019 by Nokia Rokia

[Adrienne]

2 minutes ago, Ripper said:

My apologies, but NPO is not the center of the universe. It doesn't define the policies of CoS, SK, TKR or whoever else, and it is not the reason blocs like Chaos are formed.

This x 1000.

 

[Ripper]

4 minutes ago, Nokia Rokia said:

Just a FYI TSL and TCM would still like to peace out before possibly more allies are forced to intervene and needless damage is had

Ok. You are free to go back to your mines.

Get it?   

 

[Nokia Rokia]

21 minutes ago, Ripper said:

Ok. You are free to go back to your mines.

Get it?   

 

I want to be my Mines are so sweet the smell of sot is wonderful 

[Zei-Sakura Alsainn]

I'm still amazed Roquentin is calling BKSphere a paper tiger even in the hypothetical situation BKsphere tried to put itself into. 

I'll grant you that fighting against a wide coalition of older alliances with more experienced players and Milcom, especially if the enemy has first strike, downdeclare ability, and in spite of being half it's number, would shatter alot of the less experienced alliances. Which it certainly did, there was significant struggle to take full control of tiers where their superiority far superseded the coalition wide 2:1.

However now you're also saying that BKSphere, who without you btw was able to amass some 1500 nations behind it's banner, could not defeat the elements of KERCHTOG in their separate forms as the 3 tiny spheres they actually are? Mind you the largest of these at its peak was Chaos, where during Surf's Up and just before the Nova Scandal came to light, was around ~450 nations. 
You insist utterly, that even with offensive advantage, up to a 3:1 numerical advantage (at WORST), up to a vast superiority in every tier but the whaley bois in CoS/GG, that BKsphere was a paper tiger who could not have handled that? Where then lie the line they could handle? KETOG at ~250-300ish nations? What about Rose who was at best 200 nations?

At which point do you draw the line here between a paper tiger who can't catch it's prey and an indomitable steam roller? When you ask the question this way, you no longer need to wonder why Rose entered, or why this was a threat worthy of unification. The other two would get massacred in a 1v1, and had BKsphere pre empted them with their full force may yet have been massacred even together. It took all 3 of them combined with an offensive advantage AND higher tiering to create the gaps in enemy lines necessary for a heavily outnumbered, largely war-torn-already coalition that had superior coordination and member-to-member activity and fighting ability to get the result seen before NPO entered. 

 

There are underdogs, undoubtedly in this story, @Roquentin, but if you're looking for that part of the story in the coalitions as wholes, i'm afraid you won't find it. At best one could attribute this status to KERCHTOG as they struck with a significant part of their forces not yet fully recovered and were still besting 2:1 advantages. I, personally, don't count self-inflicted handicaps when assigning such a label though. 

Edited August 12, 2019 by Akuryo

[Roquentin]

1 hour ago, Ripper said:

> CoS joins the war to help in the only front it was needed. To hit the whales.
> SRD gets mad CoS rolled him and stole his TKR-toy, so hits CoS after that war.
> It doesn't look like the upper tier nations are ever planning to fight each other again! It was all to break IQ.

Honestly Roq, you are giving your alliance too much credit. CoS didn't fight for so many months and with that many losses because it wanted NPO to do X, Y or Z. And, for the sake of our members, I won't accept such declarations from you. CoS fought for the reasons presented in our DoW.

My apologies, but NPO is not the center of the universe. It doesn't define the policies of CoS, SK, TKR or whoever else, and it is not the reason blocs like Chaos are formed.

lol.

SRD got mad but he's one person in an entire group. If the other plans had gone through, it is doubtful CoS would have been attacked by GOB on its own. The Chaos war was a consolation prize.

I'm not. I'm really glad for the about face here, since I had to deal with a lot of this earlier in the year about how everyone burned bridges and hit their friends to break up IQ.  Your attempt to enforce "the deal" gave exactly the opposite impression. If you genuinely would have hit GOB in the absence of the deal and everyone would have participated otherwise, then I'll eat my hat. 

I also never said it was the reason Chaos formed.  I said the reason it was accepted as a proposal by TKR was to further a specific goal they had and they wanted the people they dropped to "focus on the big picture".

1 hour ago, Nizam Adrienne said:

My bad on making that assumption. It's not like we were the alliance you chose to attack on your entry into this war or anything or you haven't tried to draw lines between us and KETOGG/Rose based on the old school player relationships before, including during this post.

You don't have to play coy with the names, I know you're referring to Lordship. The main person who thinks Lordship stirred up discord was Kayser, someone who was disgruntled because we demoted him for ignoring the concerns of the rest of high gov and acting unilaterally, which had little to do with you guys. But let me be clear - Lordship didn't kill talks. Neither did IC, who I'm including here just for good measure. You were told all this and had our reasons for ending talks reaffirmed a year ago during that conversation. You chose to ignore it in favor of that shadow gov narrative.

As for the KT/TGH thing, that's an interesting new twist. I brought Lordship out of retirement in an attempt to help me with FA because, if you recall, we were a little short in that department at the time. Lordship had contacts with KT/TGH, I'll grant you that, but the focus was on improving relationships with them? When last summer were we supposedly trying to improve KT/TGH relationships? When we declared war on them? When they were dragging us/our coalition through the mud on the OWF?

 Oh I wasn't. He was brought up but both Kayser and abbas said IC got involved. 

It's not a new twist and isn't about Lordship. I think enough time has passed, but I'll have to consult on whether I can reveal exactly what I'm referring to without causing issues. It was about the negotiations and prosecution of the war.

49 minutes ago, Akuryo said:

I'm still amazed Roquentin is calling BKSphere a paper tiger even in the hypothetical situation BKsphere tried to put itself into. 

I'll grant you that fighting against a wide coalition of older alliances with more experienced players and Milcom, especially if the enemy has first strike, downdeclare ability, and in spite of being half it's number, would shatter alot of the less experienced alliances. Which it certainly did, there was significant struggle to take full control of tiers where their superiority far superseded the coalition wide 2:1.

However now you're also saying that BKSphere, who without you btw was able to amass some 1500 nations behind it's banner, could not defeat the elements of KERCHTOG in their separate forms as the 3 tiny spheres they actually are? Mind you the largest of these at its peak was Chaos, where during Surf's Up and just before the Nova Scandal came to light, was around ~450 nations. 
You insist utterly, that even with offensive advantage, up to a 3:1 numerical advantage (at WORST), up to a vast superiority in every tier but the whaley bois in CoS/GG, that BKsphere was a paper tiger who could not have handled that? Where then lie the line they could handle? KETOG at ~250-300ish nations? What about Rose who was at best 200 nations?

At which point do you draw the line here between a paper tiger who can't catch it's prey and an indomitable steam roller? When you ask the question this way, you no longer need to wonder why Rose entered, or why this was a threat worthy of unification. The other two would get massacred in a 1v1, and had BKsphere pre empted them with their full force may yet have been massacred even together. It took all 3 of them combined with an offensive advantage AND higher tiering to create the gaps in enemy lines necessary for a heavily outnumbered, largely war-torn-already coalition that had superior coordination and member-to-member activity and fighting ability to get the result seen before NPO entered. 

 

There are underdogs, undoubtedly in this story, @Roquentin, but if you're looking for that part of the story in the coalitions as wholes, i'm afraid you won't find it. At best one could attribute this status to KERCHTOG as they struck with a significant part of their forces not yet fully recovered and were still besting 2:1 advantages. I, personally, don't count self-inflicted handicaps when assigning such a label though. 

Sorry. I really appreciate the effort here, but it's not adding up for me. I've tried to figure out where the 900 nation count thingy comes from, but here's who I'd consider viable.

Effective alliances
BK 134
Afrika Korps 40
Camelot 47
Guardians of the Galaxy 66
Polaris 31 ( sat out last war)
OWR 28 ( sat out last war )
Solar 25 ( Unproven)
UPN 28
Acadia 29
BoC - 32 (Unproven)
Hanseatic League - 21 (Unproven)
IronFront - 13 (Unproven)
The Commonwealth 75
Yakuza 24 (Unproven)
Carthago 46 (unproven)

I didn't add Goon Squad or banking AAs, since I forgot but think this is a good list without counterproductive micros and adds up to 598. This is just off the top of my head.

 

 

Edited August 12, 2019 by Roquentin

[Ripper]

1 hour ago, Roquentin said:

lol.SRD got mad but he's one person in an entire group.

> Roq: "SRD is one person. He doesn't define the policy of an entire alliance or a bloc."
> Roq: "Manthrax hates me. He is the secret leader of CoS and defines the policy of CoS and the Chaos bloc."

Try to be consistent with your spins, else it gets pointless.

1 hour ago, Roquentin said:

I'm not. I'm really glad for the about face here, since I had to deal with a lot of this earlier in the year about how everyone burned bridges and hit their friends to break up IQ.  Your attempt to enforce "the deal" gave exactly the opposite impression. If you genuinely would have hit GOB in the absence of the deal and everyone would have participated otherwise, then I'll eat my hat.

You are yet again mixing up two different things. The "deal" Roq was for TEst/CoS to protect you and t$ post-war to form your thing. The actual war was not part of the deal. The deal existed independently of the war, as far as CoS goes. If you want to blame someone for "making" you "drop" people/sign new people based on you joining the war, blame t$. Actually, the only alliance that had linked this deal with its participation to the war was t$. Partisan didn't want t$ to join the war unless NPO was to split from IQ. I am not Partisan. Pre is not Partisan. So, you are barking at the wrong tree.

Keep in mind that TEst and CoS were the first alliances to plan this war. You were called in this war and accepted to participate from the very beginning because you wanted to roll TKR. Regardless of "the deal" with t$. NPO joined the war effort first (right away) and t$ joined the coalition later, after Partisan getting assurance from you that you would leave IQ, etc. So, the same war would have happened, regardless of what you did with IQ. The only difference would be whether t$ would have joined or not. 

And while we are at it, I remind you that you were one of those that were afraid of actually getting GOB in the war and Pre and I were the ones that insisted in adding them to the targets.

Edited August 12, 2019 by Ripper

[Zei-Sakura Alsainn]

Around 800-850 nations was the peak strength of KERCHTOGG iirc, while for BKsphere it topped out at 1500. 

I'll try this myself for our side to get an accurate picture of what we both see.

Rose - 72
TKR - 105
KT - 65
TGH - 40
CoS/Val - 49
SK - 28
Soup - 51 (Unproven) No offense Soup bois, but Fark ain't the same as a global
Total:410

I left out the micros on our side plus Empy et Ming. Not they're all useless or get in the way, but, rightly not much was expected given their tier being solidly BKsphere controlled. Empy has fought in prior wars before but they're not really the old Roz Wei, and i know there's plenty on both sides who question their actual ability. For that bit of grey area, add 39 or don't to the total. Ming is less of a grey area, their government has the 'spark' if you will but it hasn't connected to their membership fully, and this i feel leads to combat performance below what should be expected.
I also left out Guardian and Grumpy, this because a significant portion of both alliances were not particularly combat relevant after the initial blitz knocked out enemy upper tier.

Painted this way, the numbers definitely don't look nearly as bad. There's a horrendously blatant skill and experience gap, as well as that aside from Soup, all those alliances average around the 20 city mark, while a large number of Coal B alliances are at around 16. 

However i still don't characterize this as entirely fair for many reasons. This war has proven some alliance to be more useless than expected but also proved the opposite. TSL was an absolute nobody micro, and yet, learned basic discipline very rapidly while under fire. NP entered 3 days after being couped and needing help to fuel it's WC, but then managed to both neutralize an enemy alliance and survive multiple counter attacks it had no business at all surviving against.

I use these two examples for a reason. One, obviously, it makes me feel better about myself.

But the second is that ineffective micros are, frankly, a result of their protectors. NPO became the protector of TSL mid war and the effects of that were rapid, significant, and very obvious. Rose also took a very keen eye to heavily aiding gov training in NP, particularly before it was couped, training that may have been focused on members from SCP, but that absolutely benefitted those who remained to go to NP after the coup.

The conduct of these two protectors resulted in micros who, despite the lack of any expectations for them, proved absolutely capable of holding their own, even if they needed material support to fund it. So while our charts do help add another dimension of thought to the picture, it's still inaccurate to not include everyone. If one side has alot of crap micros who can't, won't, or haven't learned; that's the fault of their protectors. If one pays for the mistakes they make, then these protectors paid for theirs when these micros became a severe hindrance to their war effort. OFA comes to mind with its protectors UPN and Acadia, though Amon is certainly a... special sort of case. If they refuse to learn, though, they should have been dropped, and that in itself too, is a mistake by the protector.

 

So yes, KERCHTOGG had the advantage in tiering and experience, both coalition wise, and in a side-by-side with the capable alliances of Coal B. However, it is the alliances of Coal B's own fault if 2/3 of their number were little better than meatshields, and stayed that way. I think it's been proven that meaningful growth and change can be achieved even while under fire, if a protector is unwilling or unable to provide this, it should be questioned if they are ready to protect others just yet.

Edited August 12, 2019 by Akuryo

[Roquentin]

20 minutes ago, Ripper said:

> Roq: "SRD is one person. He doesn't define the policy of an entire alliance or a bloc."
> Roq: "Manthrax hates me. He is the secret leader of CoS and defines the policy of CoS and the Chaos bloc."

SRD joined a bloc after its course had already been plotted.  If you're saying all of KETOG rolled out against Chaos so SRD could get revenge on you, then I'm impressed SRD got that out of Keegoz.

I'm going off what he said. It's weird to disavow his statement all of a sudden when it's gone exactly that way and people backed his statement up at the time.

20 minutes ago, Ripper said:

 

You are yet again mixing up two different things. The "deal" Roq was for TEst/CoS to protect you and t$ post-war to form your thing. The actual war was not part of the deal. The deal existed independently of the war, as far as CoS goes. If you want to blame someone for "making" you "drop" people/sign new people based on you joining the war, blame t$. Actually, the only alliance that had linked this deal with its participation to the war was t$. Partisan didn't want t$ to join the war unless NPO was to split from IQ. I am not Partisan. Pre is not Partisan. So, you are barking at the wrong tree.

Nope. It wasn't just him and it's not hating. It's more that it was something you were willing to do conditionally so you felt entitled. I really hate that I had to do this but that's not what I got here.

20 minutes ago, Ripper said:

Keep in mind that TEst and CoS were the first alliances to plan this war. You were called in this war and accepted to participate from the very beginning because you wanted to roll TKR. Regardless of "the deal" with t$. NPO joined the war effort first (right away) and t$ joined the coalition later, after Partisan getting assurance from you that you would leave IQ, etc. So, the same war would have happened, regardless of what you did with IQ. The only difference would be whether t$ would have joined or not. 

And while we are at it, I remind you that you were one of those that were afraid of actually getting GOB in the war and Pre and I were the ones that insisted in adding them to the targets.

Okay, that part is new to me, as I didn't get the impression. Pre is the one who framed it as rolling TKR and pitched it to me that way. The only part of TKR we couldn't get on our own was the upper tier so they appeared to be untouchable there and any war situation would just be ToT especially with Guardian and co on their side. I didn't know the war was still happening without tS . I'm not resenting Partisan at all since he was upfront but the fact that other people felt they were entitled to things and weren't involved in the discussions between him and I but feeling we had an obligation imposed was something else. Pre was also there and he told me way later on that if we didn't split, he'd ally Guardian but then he also acknowledged the deal was dead when Partisan quit.

Um, we didn't hit GOB initially and I was worried about people being in range of them through high score and that ruining the other fronts. I don't think i ever said we shouldn't hit GOB at all if it was viable. I'm trying to find where I was scared of getting GOB into the war, but I don't think I'd have been worried aside from people fighting Guardian getting wiped in  the process.

[Kastor]

On 8/10/2019 at 10:23 PM, Kastor said:

I think it’s really weird how you have reasons for not trusting literally every single alliance in the game. So quick question:

 

What major alliance that you’re fighting against, do you actually trust? 

 

Stipulation: You must have had lengthy or semi-lengthy discussions with them. Not just someone you’re fighting against.

@Roquentin you might’ve missed this