Tiberius Posted December 13, 2019 Share Posted December 13, 2019 A question for Coalition A leadership. With minispheres a big part of your future outlook and something you were wanting to push, why did you decide that combining 2 spheres against 1 was the best way forward for minispheres? For me it goes against everything minispheres stand for and opposed the principle of them. Remember I'm asking this in light of the policy of minispheres rather than what was best for your alliance(s) in a war. From a general member point of view, it looks to me that combining spheres for this war gave you the advantages necessary to take down BK sphere or at least give you a good shot of doing so. 1 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Buorhann Posted December 13, 2019 Share Posted December 13, 2019 We didn’t decide on that as you think it went down. We literally only partnered up due to your leads plot to hit both of our spheres and other issues that supported it. Again, had there been no interference or leaks, you would’ve seen us continue our own conflict. 2 Quote Warrior of Dio https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mfPCFQfOnLg Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Epi Posted December 13, 2019 Share Posted December 13, 2019 (edited) 1 Edited February 18, 2021 by Epi Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Noctis Anarch Caelum Posted December 13, 2019 Share Posted December 13, 2019 14 hours ago, AppealDenied said: Thank you for this amazing compliment. You aren't a part of either coalition and will not be present in any form during any peace talks. Don’t want to be part of fake peace talks meant to stall anyways. Although I still believe in white peace and don’t think my war should complicate things if Coalition B has a change of heart toward that direction and it’s not to late for that. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hodor Posted December 13, 2019 Share Posted December 13, 2019 (edited) 3 hours ago, Tiberius said: A question for Coalition A leadership. With minispheres a big part of your future outlook and something you were wanting to push, why did you decide that combining 2 spheres against 1 was the best way forward for minispheres? For me it goes against everything minispheres stand for and opposed the principle of them. Remember I'm asking this in light of the policy of minispheres rather than what was best for your alliance(s) in a war. From a general member point of view, it looks to me that combining spheres for this war gave you the advantages necessary to take down BK sphere or at least give you a good shot of doing so. I think we've addressed this earlier, but given the length of responses and in keeping with the cordial tone of this thread I can offer our rationale. The fact of the matter is, in a minisphere environment 2v1s are not to be forbidden. In fact, it's a component of this game that sheer numbers lends a significant advantage in many cases, so it might even be common in a minisphere environment. What we were hoping for would be that the opponents would be an ever shifting landscape. So the fact that Surfs Up happened would not preclude the chance for KETOG and CHAOS to work together in the future. Similarly, if N$O and KETOG worked together, hypothetically, it would not preclude the chance of them being adversaries down the line. It creates a more dynamic environment, almost king of the hill, where you can have a myriad of wars and a myriad of coalition combinations. That being said, we felt that we were signaling with Surfs Up our commitment to the above future. When we received actionable intel that BK and perhaps NPO were going to revert us to the status quo, we united in defense of our shared vision. I understand and do sympathize with the fact that this action taken in a vacuum would be fine by everyone (I should hope), but NPO read it in light of their entire history on Orbis, a terrible practice that too many of us continue to adhere to. So, in that sense I think it is all a difference in perspective and how we allowed our histories inform our interpretations. I will state emphatically, CHAOS and KETOG still had many an axe to grind and had no intention whatsoever of allying after this war at the outset. Edited December 13, 2019 by Hodor 6 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Noctis Anarch Caelum Posted December 13, 2019 Share Posted December 13, 2019 The declaring part by NPO to try balancing the war I never saw a problem with, although if the intention is balancing things; don’t need to kill everyone on the other side. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Horsecock Posted December 13, 2019 Share Posted December 13, 2019 Philosophical question: Is it actually a 2v1 when the "1" has twice the numbers of the "2"? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Vali Posted December 13, 2019 Share Posted December 13, 2019 3 minutes ago, Horsecock said: Philosophical question: Is it actually a 2v1 when the "1" has twice the numbers of the "2"? It was actually a 3v2, Citadel, Covenant, Bk sphere vs. Ketog Chaos Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Noctis Anarch Caelum Posted December 13, 2019 Share Posted December 13, 2019 13 minutes ago, Di Vali said: It was actually a 3v2, Citadel, Covenant, Bk sphere vs. Ketog Chaos If we count Citadel separate from BK Sphere maybe, although all that is besides the point. If KETOG had actually tried making the other side disband, would expect them to lose a lot support trying it if unprecedented. So best thing for Coalition B to do would be just treat that as war banter & not sink down to that level. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Astryl Posted December 13, 2019 Share Posted December 13, 2019 14 hours ago, Prefonteen said: It was a an observation, genuinely no negative connotation intended. To clarify this; I didn't take it negatively at all. 3 hours ago, Noctis Anarch Caelum said: Don’t want to be part of fake peace talks meant to stall anyways. Although I still believe in white peace and don’t think my war should complicate things if Coalition B has a change of heart toward that direction and it’s not to late for that. White peace will not be happening, lol. 1 Quote Queen of Chaos Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Noctis Anarch Caelum Posted December 13, 2019 Share Posted December 13, 2019 42 minutes ago, AppealDenied said: To clarify this; I didn't take it negatively at all. White peace will not be happening, lol. Probably true, good reason for me not to have any interest in those talks if attempted. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Popular Post Shadowthrone Posted December 13, 2019 Popular Post Share Posted December 13, 2019 To add to what Roq and Edward says (also hi @Hodor thanks for the love), there is something I believe folks refuse to accept, or agree to and that will be that Roq or myself owed any of you anything. There is this entitlement that you have a right to decide how the game should play and the place of the NPO within that system, and that's something that adds a huge role into this present scenario. The NPO for the longest time has always had to exist in a system that was constructed first by tS/OO/MENSA, followed by the completion of EMC with Rose. The remnants of that system was always a cool boys club of folks who drift in and out and there was never any means to disrupt that as the NPO since we were the easiest bogeyman to fall back onto. Folks forget, that the vast majority of KERTCHOGG leadership have been similar faces that ran the NPOFT and Silent right after. The changes in alliances/names still brought out leadership looking to fight us during AC. At the end of the day, there was no means by which the NPO would not always be a target, and forced into this entitled straitjacket of a meta not set by ourselves for the game. We spent years with people calling our tax system horrible, that we had to git gud, oh and to crown it all off, that we're nothing but robots and have no real community that defines us. These are jokes, but these narratives made it clear, especially when fully supported by many in Coalition A's leadership that the NPO's role in this game would never be defined by ourselves. We always had to play in your meta. For all the claims of wanting to have a fun game, all I see is a narrow mini-sphere answer, and that this is the only right way to play, and I fundamentally disagree with that. Both Roq and I saw this war, at the beginning a means to further enshrine that stranglehold over the meta and FA over the game and that to me at least played a part in concurring to use the TKR CB now, and not later. I am glad someone pointed out that we're all plotting continuously. It's the nature of the game and its bread and butter. So the moralistic hill is just funny to see, when we have logs of TKR plotting a war over IQ, gift wrapped as some anti-hegemony narrative, when at its basic level was nothing other than using the old NPO/BK bad man trope that a lot of folks have spent years and attempted various means to push. That itself to us was problematic. For all the belief in "fairness" and "trust", and in this "two-way" street of foreign affairs, NPO was most often an outlier and benign because we were forced to out of necessity. The conditions leading up to this war changed. I think Buor mentioned that we flip flopped a lot on our positions early on? Well that's what happens in a fluid war time scenario. Unlike common belief, war doesn't happen in a vacuum. Things keep changing, tiers keep moving at least in the early days and one gets a feel. Was there a war planned vs KETOGG yes, but did that have anything to do with BK or anything else, not really. It was meant to be 1v1 to see how this mini-sphere could work, and if there was any real buy-in to let this kind of war happen. That did not happen because of Surfs Up and our views regarding that, multi-varied as they are, has been stated. But for any mini-sphere idea to truly work, especially if history is any pointer within the environment of the game (that being the precedent set by EMC), to the victor goes the spoils. There are a large number of alliances who do absolutely nothing, but bandwagon on and build into those victorious spheres, for the fact that they don't have to do much and have an easy victory. That is inherently problematic when mini-spheres combine, because to us looking in from the outside, it seemed a threat. The lack of any FA to assuage our concerns and an information blackhole was further problematic because what we saw especially as the early rounds saw quite a lot of Citadel fold, and Cov/BK on shaky ground was simply put, a threat. A threat not born out of paranoia, but out of working within the meta I explained earlier on in this post and reinforced by the creation of EMC. As @Edward I rightly pointed out in one of his posts, this meta and lack of trust was further eroded in the past due to paperless agreements. That fundamentally shaped the way we see the game. You can claim it paranoia, but the conversations we've had with folks and the nature of discussions over the years, poisoned the well when it came to believing that the "fracture" points within KETOGG/Chaos/Rose would remain wide enough that a meta based around paperless would not arise again. It's easy to be everyone's secret partner if everyone's in on it, and all the NPO would have is tS/HS. This brings me to tS/HS. HS are an absolute gem of an alliance with by far some of the most mature/pragmatic folk I know in the game. That being said, with regards to tS, our faith in their word changed when their government changed just before the war. The actions of Sisyphus/Leopold and Utmos later on, left us wondering where is the path forward. They may be disappointed with how the war shaped early on, but unlike HS who were willing to wrinkle out the issues and attempt to work out a common point, tS and its triumvirate believed more in the face-loss, than the real material nature of war itself. That led to us wondering how is it going to work further down the road. But tS was still at least communicating some of their treaties (Sanreizan/TEst), which to us was a sign that required to be reciprocated. That changed the moment the CTO/OWR treaty was signed, since to us, it seemed simply put a middle finger to the NPO/ and its war efforts, and once again changed the landscape within with we had to operate. Whatever those logs showcase, my reasoning for being involved in those discussions stemmed from what I saw was a move designed to build a base for tS that did not include us. So how does all of this lead to the term "zero-sum" that I have used quite a bit? An entitled belief that one set of players have the right to decide our meta and how we play, along with the history of actions, especially that of paperless that poisoned the well, and the actions/narratives portrayed when one side was winning the early rounds of this war, pointed to a bunch things. Namely: 1) Given the opportunity, old allies will always find common targets, and or have secret agreements as in the past that we have no knowledge off, and the reason was NPO/BK man bad, 2) That no action that the NPO did, would we ever control our own fate, because the peanut gallery would never be satisfied, 3) The early narratives from KERTCHOGG lit a fire they really could not pull back from and that for whatever reason you wish to speculate upon, was used by us to ensure we come out of this with a win. The fact is, I do believe the NPO has been blamed for a lot of things, that we did not do over the years. That a lot of folks refuse to work with us solely because of what Roq did in a game that should not be mentioned and that these actions are justified to be weary of his motivations doesn't work one sided. I don't know any of the present leadership except a few, but nevertheless if that is the framework in which you wish to operate, then that is the one we should also be allowed to operate within. If we're looking at actions, there are a plethora of actions taken against the NPO over the last three years and this war seemed to be a final culmination to permanently damage us. Given that we either follow or be killed, we chose a different option and that was to work with Coalition B, to disrupt the prevailing meta, and set up our own meta, without necessarily having to face an existential war. To do that, we had to jump in and do what Coalition A was doing, and I see our actions as simply ensuring our safety and security because our job is to make this game fun for our members, regardless of those from your side who believe they have the right to pontificate to us about how to play the game. tl;dr A history of Roq's action is fair game for everyone, but if we look at the same with regards to you folk, we're paranoid, power hungry game killers. We're tired of that nonsense and decided to flip the script. Here we are. 4 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Noctis Anarch Caelum Posted December 13, 2019 Share Posted December 13, 2019 (edited) 10 minutes ago, Shadowthrone said: tl;dr A history of Roq's action is fair game for everyone, but if we look at the same with regards to you folk, we're paranoid, power hungry game killers. We're tired of that nonsense and decided to flip the script. Here we are. If you guys want to play that role, kind of creates an obligation for others to at least try stopping you if they don’t favor game death. It’s no longer paranoia if you decide to make it true. Edited December 13, 2019 by Noctis Anarch Caelum Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hodor Posted December 13, 2019 Share Posted December 13, 2019 25 minutes ago, Shadowthrone said: snip First off, ? Second, I think you fleshed out in large part what I said in short form, so we see eye to eye. Our respective histories heavily color the way we interpret the actions of our adversaries. That being said, do you want to change this? I do. I don't think this silly grudge match system is fun in the long term. Additionally, are we at a point where we can now agree on the above points and discuss peace in a manner that isn't tainted by our worst parts? 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ComradeMilton Posted December 13, 2019 Share Posted December 13, 2019 17 hours ago, Charles the Tyrant said: Can you take this sort of post elsewhere please? Thank you. No. 17 hours ago, Prefonteen said: Go away. How about you go away? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Prefonteen Posted December 13, 2019 Share Posted December 13, 2019 39 minutes ago, ComradeMilton said: No. How about you go away? I would but you people keep hitting my people. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Noctis Anarch Caelum Posted December 13, 2019 Share Posted December 13, 2019 Anyways, not like I was surprised by anything from the leaks or peace not working. I don’t really think goons had much of a choice on entering the global either and had a purpose in mind when brought here. My thoughts are either people can rise to the challenge or deserve the cost of failure in doing so. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tiberius Posted December 13, 2019 Share Posted December 13, 2019 12 hours ago, Buorhann said: We didn’t decide on that as you think it went down. We literally only partnered up due to your leads plot to hit both of our spheres and other issues that supported it. Again, had there been no interference or leaks, you would’ve seen us continue our own conflict. Yet had BK sphere hit Chaos and N$O hit KETOG that truly would have been minispheres at work. Why not let that play out? Or st the minimum Chaos could have gone in on BK without Ketog and Ketog could have hit N$O without Chaos? To me the way you acted by combining makes sense on an alliance survival level, as in it was better to team up to get better odds of victory against BK sphere. However on the level of minisphere principles which was sold as everyone has their own sphere which they will operate within, it does not make sense. There was 2 options that fit in with minispheres in my personal view and one that didn't. To me you took the route that didn't The reason you gave for not hitting N$O is that you trusted their assurances they weren't going to hit you. Having been given those assurances why did KETOG then decide to hit BK who via the leaks only planned to hit Chaos? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Popular Post Edward I Posted December 13, 2019 Popular Post Share Posted December 13, 2019 1 hour ago, Hodor said: First off, ? Second, I think you fleshed out in large part what I said in short form, so we see eye to eye. Our respective histories heavily color the way we interpret the actions of our adversaries. That being said, do you want to change this? I do. I don't think this silly grudge match system is fun in the long term. New game mechanics and metagame rules. New game mechanics because there's not much to stimulate or sustain competition in the first place. We farm infra to build warchests to fight wars to gain a relative advantage in farming infra. Anyone who doesn't focus on this will either eventually be out-competed by people who do, or already has such large warchests and nations that they effectively force others to follow that formula just to catch up. (The ability to accumulate money and resources far in excess of what's needed to wage wars is another instance of bad mechanics.) Metagame rules are what make these types of games into giant, in-character dramas, which is always what they are when they're at their best. Without a common language and common tools to collectively tell a story ("valid" CBs, treaty chess, norms on raiding, trading and so on) they tend to devolve into a glorified multiplayer sparring match in which the only things that matter are, fundamentally, out-of-character. When that happens, it takes the focus away from a collective story and its characters (us) and instead puts it on isolated episodes that have little relation to one another. The ostensibly multiplayer game becomes a less robust version of a single-player game when the inter-player interactions are impoverished or diminished as a part of gameplay. If you want some anecdotal evidence of this, think about your favorite memories from any of these games. More likely than not, their defining features are the stories behind them (how people acted, what they said, whether they stabbed each other in the back, whether they made you feel as if the silly game you played as a hobby had some kind of deeper, social meaning) rather than the mechanics behind them (how evenly matched the sides were, etc.). In practice, a successful implementation of what I outlined would tend to put power in the hands of groups that have the highest "aggregate activity." By that, I mean a combination of the absolute number of players a group has plus however much they collectively go above and beyond the daily floor on effective activity. In PW, that floor is probably around several logins per week in peace and one login per day in war. Higher in-game activity (baseball, trading, spending MAPs as they accrue) obviously helps you; so does higher out-of-game activity (smoky backrooms, etc.). Having lots of cities or large stockpiles doesn't count for much in my formula (those are dividends from past activity rather than present activity), and neither does having old friends who you know won't fight against you (again, dividends from past activity rather than present interests). Large strength disparities between nations/players also tend to be detrimental to this because they shift the focus and incentives away from activity and towards control of the largest, most powerful, most productive nations. Basically, whoever is best at telling and driving the story in the here and now deserves to be in the driver's seat, and very few other considerations matter. These suggestions probably won't be very popular. They'd require significant mechanical updates to the game; would very likely force incumbents (older, well-connected players and players with larger nations) to cede some of their de facto power to newer, more numerous players; and would likely necessitate liberal usage of threats and military force to maintain (I'm now waiting for someone to cry "hegemony"). On that darker note, I'll end the wall of text. 8 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ComradeMilton Posted December 13, 2019 Share Posted December 13, 2019 1 hour ago, Prefonteen said: I would but you people keep hitting my people. Open the peace server on Discord and begin. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Prefonteen Posted December 13, 2019 Share Posted December 13, 2019 Just now, ComradeMilton said: Open the peace server on Discord and begin. Haven't been allowed to. 6 minutes ago, Edward I said: New game mechanics and metagame rules. New game mechanics because there's not much to stimulate or sustain competition in the first place. We farm infra to build warchests to fight wars to gain a relative advantage in farming infra. Anyone who doesn't focus on this will either eventually be out-competed by people who do, or already has such large warchests and nations that they effectively force others to follow that formula just to catch up. (The ability to accumulate money and resources far in excess of what's needed to wage wars is another instance of bad mechanics.) Metagame rules are what make these types of games into giant, in-character dramas, which is always what they are when they're at their best. Without a common language and common tools to collectively tell a story ("valid" CBs, treaty chess, norms on raiding, trading and so on) they tend to devolve into a glorified multiplayer sparring match in which the only things that matter are, fundamentally, out-of-character. When that happens, it takes the focus away from a collective story and its characters (us) and instead puts it on isolated episodes that have little relation to one another. The ostensibly multiplayer game becomes a less robust version of a single-player game when the inter-player interactions are impoverished or diminished as a part of gameplay. If you want some anecdotal evidence of this, think about your favorite memories from any of these games. More likely than not, their defining features are the stories behind them (how people acted, what they said, whether they stabbed each other in the back, whether they made you feel as if the silly game you played as a hobby had some kind of deeper, social meaning) rather than the mechanics behind them (how evenly matched the sides were, etc.). In practice, a successful implementation of what I outlined would tend to put power in the hands of groups that have the highest "aggregate activity." By that, I mean a combination of the absolute number of players a group has plus however much they collectively go above and beyond the daily floor on effective activity. In PW, that floor is probably around several logins per week in peace and one login per day in war. Higher in-game activity (baseball, trading, spending MAPs as they accrue) obviously helps you; so does higher out-of-game activity (smoky backrooms, etc.). Having lots of cities or large stockpiles doesn't count for much in my formula (those are dividends from past activity rather than present activity), and neither does having old friends who you know won't fight against you (again, dividends from past activity rather than present interests). Large strength disparities between nations/players also tend to be detrimental to this because they shift the focus and incentives away from activity and towards control of the largest, most powerful, most productive nations. Basically, whoever is best at telling and driving the story in the here and now deserves to be in the driver's seat, and very few other considerations matter. These suggestions probably won't be very popular. They'd require significant mechanical updates to the game; would very likely force incumbents (older, well-connected players and players with larger nations) to cede some of their de facto power to newer, more numerous players; and would likely necessitate liberal usage of threats and military force to maintain (I'm now waiting for someone to cry "hegemony"). On that darker note, I'll end the wall of text. This post is going to be underrated. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Edward I Posted December 13, 2019 Share Posted December 13, 2019 2 minutes ago, Prefonteen said: This post is going to be underrated. It's not like people can downvote me anymore, so what do I care. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ayayay Posted December 13, 2019 Share Posted December 13, 2019 We're still at war because TS refused to enter peace talks and because ketog/chaos/rose walked out of negotiations on the 13th of last month for some reason. I'm more than willing to send another invite to the peace server to ts to begin negotiations, or even to their allies if the snek's ego isn't a good enough reason for them to keep fighting. 1 Quote Orbis Wars | CSI: UPN | B I G O O F | PW Expert Has Nerve To Tell You How To Run Your Own Goddamn Alliance | Occupy Wall Street | Sheepy Sings TheNG - My favorite part is when Steve suggests DEIC might have done something remotely successful, then gets massively shit on for proposing such a stupid idea. On 1/4/2016 at 6:37 PM, Sheepy said: This was !@#$ing gold. 10/10 possibly my favorite post on these forums yet. Sheepy said: I'm retarded, you win Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ayayay Posted December 13, 2019 Share Posted December 13, 2019 (edited) On 12/12/2019 at 12:12 AM, Zed said: In Coalition B, I've noticed an ethos of taking every possible small advantage and rolling them in together to try and elevate beyond their normal limits. From the massive influx of referral bonuses and out-of-game allied help via GPWC and other communities, to providing tools and resources for the game and thus likely being granted some additional access to mechanical features, to well-organized baseball leagues to get cash; the major alliances on the side of Coalition B have found tiny bits of the fluff mechanics and used them to find an extra gear to the normal mechanics that they operate from. lolwut? Your alliance organized the objectively worst exploit in the games history where you bought all the treasures you could and invited nearly your entire sphere to join the aa to rake in massive amounts of cash. It wasn't a novel idea, but Paragon and the Covenant never saw borderline abuse as valid strategies and figured no one would ever attempt something like that. And now people are shocked over a few baseball games and referral bonuses complaining it's an unfair advantage, lmfao. The most abusive and "borderline exploit" practices that are currently in the game are a reflection of how EMC acted when they had a hegemony. Get down off your cross, build a bridge, and get over it. Edited December 13, 2019 by Malal 1 Quote Orbis Wars | CSI: UPN | B I G O O F | PW Expert Has Nerve To Tell You How To Run Your Own Goddamn Alliance | Occupy Wall Street | Sheepy Sings TheNG - My favorite part is when Steve suggests DEIC might have done something remotely successful, then gets massively shit on for proposing such a stupid idea. On 1/4/2016 at 6:37 PM, Sheepy said: This was !@#$ing gold. 10/10 possibly my favorite post on these forums yet. Sheepy said: I'm retarded, you win Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Noctis Anarch Caelum Posted December 14, 2019 Share Posted December 14, 2019 26 minutes ago, Malal said: lolwut? Your alliance organized the objectively worst exploit in the games history where you bought all the treasures you could and invited nearly your entire sphere to join the aa to rake in massive amounts of cash. It wasn't a novel idea, but Paragon and the Covenant never saw borderline abuse as valid strategies and figured no one would ever attempt something like that. And now people are shocked over a few baseball games and referral bonuses complaining it's an unfair advantage, lmfao. The most abusive and "borderline exploit" practices that are currently in the game are a reflection of how EMC acted when they had a hegemony. Get down off your cross, build a bridge, and get over it. Maybe them complaining over people making small amounts off that is reflective of how long it’s dragged out beyond the reasonable. While complaining isn’t cool & people should just fight until better peace can be achieved; at some point they need to bring attention to it when the goal has shifted to killing off most of the active war alliances & it’s completely lopsided against them. After the logs about different ways to drag it out, have a hard time thinking you guys are serious about peace without terms you can make public for them at least. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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