The War

[GTI]

I've been thinking about writing this for some time but have held off, hoping the coalitions would sort themselves out but it appears that's not happening. 

Whatever the initial reasons for the war, there has to be a solution to it as it has gone on for far too long now and the game has become stagnant and to be fair - pretty grim.

Even if neither sides accepts defeat, surely we can agree to a long term ceasefire instead?

Surely that's better than losing players and destroying a once enjoyable and fun game to play. 

Realistically what is it going to take to stop this and how can go about brokering that deal? 

 

[Gaius Julius Caesar]

There have been dozens of threads about this. This war isn't ending until Coalition A surrenders and Coalition B accepts the surrender. A long term ceasefire is basically a White Peace, and there's a 0% of that happening at this point.

[GTI]

Who is in charge of Coalition A and what are B's conditions? (if they're public) 

Edited December 12, 2019 by GTI

[Comrade Marx]

When you opened with "I've been thinking about writing this for some time" I was expecting a lot more than what you wound up writing.

[Menhera]

Coalition A is willing to surrender once acceptable terms have been negotiated. 

Coalition B doesn't even present them, so there is no negotiating.

About a ceasefire i agree with tarroc, although i think people will just fight less and less until eventually it either becomes a never ending stalemate until the game dies or coalition B presents terms and both can negotiate peace. 

[Prefonteen]

48 minutes ago, GTI said:

I've been thinking about writing this for some time but have held off, hoping the coalitions would sort themselves out but it appears that's not happening. 

Whatever the initial reasons for the war, there has to be a solution to it as it has gone on for far too long now and the game has become stagnant and to be fair - pretty grim.

Even if neither sides accepts defeat, surely we can agree to a long term ceasefire instead?

Surely that's better than losing players and destroying a once enjoyable and fun game to play. 

Realistically what is it going to take to stop this and how can go about brokering that deal? 

 

 

44 minutes ago, Tarroc said:

There have been dozens of threads about this. This war isn't ending until Coalition A surrenders and Coalition B accepts the surrender. A long term ceasefire is basically a White Peace, and there's a 0% of that happening at this point.

We have offered our surrender on november 1st. t$ is waiting for its surrender to be accepted and terms to be presented.

[Tiberius]

You can always ask for individual surrender terms if you want out of the war.

[XSSJBONGWEEDL0RD420]

wait who's at war??

[GTI]

7 hours ago, Comrade Marx said:

When you opened with "I've been thinking about writing this for some time" I was expecting a lot more than what you wound up writing.

To be fair.... So did I ?

2 hours ago, Tiberius said:

You can always ask for individual surrender terms if you want out of the war.

It's not just about me as an individual, I should there's quite a considerable number of people who want to go back to nation building 

[ComradeMilton]

9 hours ago, Menhera said:

Coalition A is willing to surrender once acceptable terms have been negotiated. 

Coalition B doesn't even present them, so there is no negotiating.

About a ceasefire i agree with tarroc, although i think people will just fight less and less until eventually it either becomes a never ending stalemate until the game dies or coalition B presents terms and both can negotiate peace. 

Coalition B is not going to reveal the terms publicly or outside of the format we've established. There will be no ceasefire unless the thinking in one of both of the coalitions changes on the drastic scale of a bloc with both NPO and TKR working together in harmony and cooperation and trust.

[Tartarus]

13 hours ago, GTI said:

Realistically what is it going to take to stop this and how can go about brokering that deal? 

terms to surrender would help lol

[Noctis Anarch Caelum]

10 hours ago, Tiberius said:

You can always ask for individual surrender terms if you want out of the war.

Problem is where that would leave the rest if sticking together is preventing reasonable terms.

[Menhera]

13 hours ago, ComradeMilton said:

Coalition B is not going to reveal the terms publicly or outside of the format we've established. There will be no ceasefire unless the thinking in one of both of the coalitions changes on the drastic scale of a bloc with both NPO and TKR working together in harmony and cooperation and trust.

No one said publicly. Also what you say is essentially: "We will give you only one term at a time because we want to. Consequences be damned." 

Also according to you: Either IQ starts actually negotiating like every other alliance and in good faith, or Coalition A accepts the fact that t$ gets separated so you can continue to roll them even after a KERCHTOGG peace and that in order to see a term they have to accept the previous one allowing you to inflict much harder terms at the end. 

If we add the lies and your overall behaviour before (also after) coalition A agreed to surrender once acceptable terms have been negotiated, and the leaks of coalition B lately, i think it is clear why basically the entire game lost trust in NPO, BK and GOONS. You just saying "Either roll with it or accept the death of the game" isn't exactly helping with building trust. 

And not only TKR and NPO are on the negotiating table. Coalition A consists basically of KETOGG, Rose sphere, Chaos and Syndisphere. I don't know how you view the importance of individual alliances in coalition B, but in Coalition A we are equal. Hence trust and cooperation has to increase on the entirety of both coalitions, not just NPO and TKR.

The situation now is: You present an unacceptable ultimatum, Coalition A continues fighting because as mentioned before it is "Unacceptable" and the only thing changing it, preventing the death of yet another nation sim, and eventually repairing relations between Coalition B and everyone else as well as repair your image is to simply stop negotiating in bad faith.

You can't win PnW like that. You can't "win" PnW at all. No one can. 

This game is fundamentally based on dynamics. Wars like this one freeze those. Even if you would have won this war with all of your original terms, with Coalition A effectively disbanding and you controlling everything now. What is left? 

Sure, you will eventually roll Fark sphere, but then what? Game over. You have effectively turned this entire thing that everyone, including you, invested so much in into a badly programmed farming simulator. 

You lost because you are the ones ruining your own game, everything you achieved, everything you won, will become meaningless. 

How do we prevent that? 

Hand out the terms to the negotiators of coalition A, let them start negotiating together with you and finally get this game to peace. Another war will follow soon enough anyways, but hopefully with different coalitions. 

[Noctis Anarch Caelum]

1 hour ago, Menhera said:

No one said publicly. Also what you say is essentially: "We will give you only one term at a time because we want to. Consequences be damned." 

Also according to you: Either IQ starts actually negotiating like every other alliance and in good faith, or Coalition A accepts the fact that t$ gets separated so you can continue to roll them even after a KERCHTOGG peace and that in order to see a term they have to accept the previous one allowing you to inflict much harder terms at the end. 

If we add the lies and your overall behaviour before (also after) coalition A agreed to surrender once acceptable terms have been negotiated, and the leaks of coalition B lately, i think it is clear why basically the entire game lost trust in NPO, BK and GOONS. You just saying "Either roll with it or accept the death of the game" isn't exactly helping with building trust. 

And not only TKR and NPO are on the negotiating table. Coalition A consists basically of KETOGG, Rose sphere, Chaos and Syndisphere. I don't know how you view the importance of individual alliances in coalition B, but in Coalition A we are equal. Hence trust and cooperation has to increase on the entirety of both coalitions, not just NPO and TKR.

The situation now is: You present an unacceptable ultimatum, Coalition A continues fighting because as mentioned before it is "Unacceptable" and the only thing changing it, preventing the death of yet another nation sim, and eventually repairing relations between Coalition B and everyone else as well as repair your image is to simply stop negotiating in bad faith.

You can't win PnW like that. You can't "win" PnW at all. No one can. 

This game is fundamentally based on dynamics. Wars like this one freeze those. Even if you would have won this war with all of your original terms, with Coalition A effectively disbanding and you controlling everything now. What is left? 

Sure, you will eventually roll Fark sphere, but then what? Game over. You have effectively turned this entire thing that everyone, including you, invested so much in into a badly programmed farming simulator. 

You lost because you are the ones ruining your own game, everything you achieved, everything you won, will become meaningless. 

How do we prevent that? 

Hand out the terms to the negotiators of coalition A, let them start negotiating together with you and finally get this game to peace. Another war will follow soon enough anyways, but hopefully with different coalitions. 

The whole idea of the meme NAP preventing Fark Sphere from doing anything I think kind of fell apart when Kingsglaive was attacked regardless. Although I found the entire basis of it applying to alliances without them knowing of the agreement beforehand extremely sketchy anyways.

So any Fark Sphere alliances who think that meme treaty keeps them safe or is legally binding at all are probably delusional. So maybe there is still some hope...

[mksinky]

3 hours ago, Menhera said:

Then what? Game over. You have effectively turned this entire thing that everyone, including you, invested so much in into a badly programmed farming simulator. 

Then - they've done exactly what they've done to another simulation game already.  

[ComradeMilton]

5 hours ago, Menhera said:

No one said publicly. Also what you say is essentially: "We will give you only one term at a time because we want to. Consequences be damned." 

Yes.  This wouldn't be how I'd phrase it, bu this is accurate.  We have reasons for doing it this way, but either way this is how we're going to do it.

5 hours ago, Menhera said:

If we add the lies and your overall behaviour before (also after) coalition A agreed to surrender once acceptable terms have been negotiated, and the leaks of coalition B lately, i think it is clear why basically the entire game lost trust in NPO, BK and GOONS. You just saying "Either roll with it or accept the death of the game" isn't exactly helping with building trust. 

GOONS didn't even really exist AFAIK during the time period where that limited logset was released.   We're not here to build trust right now.  We're here to attack you until peace is negotiated.

5 hours ago, Menhera said:

And not only TKR and NPO are on the negotiating table. Coalition A consists basically of KETOGG, Rose sphere, Chaos and Syndisphere.

That's the stance of Coalition A. You want Coalition B to end the war. That means accepting that tS, Coalition B maintains, is not part of Coalition A and must negotiate separately.

5 hours ago, Menhera said:

You present an unacceptable ultimatum, Coalition A continues fighting because as mentioned before it is "Unacceptable" and the only thing changing it, preventing the death of yet another nation sim, and eventually repairing relations between Coalition B and everyone else as well as repair your image is to simply stop negotiating in bad faith.

Are we negotiating or issuing an ultimatum? This sentence suggests both.  Have we expressed concern over our image?

5 hours ago, Menhera said:

Hand out the terms to the negotiators of coalition A, let them start negotiating together with you and finally get this game to peace. Another war will follow soon enough anyways, but hopefully with different coalitions. 

You can have one, negotiate it and then we'll move onto the next. 

[Prefonteen]

23 minutes ago, ComradeMilton said:

Yes.  This wouldn't be how I'd phrase it, bu this is accurate.  We have reasons for doing it this way, but either way this is how we're going to do it.

GOONS didn't even really exist AFAIK during the time period where that limited logset was released.   We're not here to build trust right now.  We're here to attack you until peace is negotiated.

That's the stance of Coalition A. You want Coalition B to end the war. That means accepting that tS, Coalition B maintains, is not part of Coalition A and must negotiate separately.

Are we negotiating or issuing an ultimatum? This sentence suggests both.  Have we expressed concern over our image?

You can have one, negotiate it and then we'll move onto the next. 

The problem wasn't seperate negotiations. The problem was a refusal to give terms to tS at all. 

[Cooper_]

4 hours ago, ComradeMilton said:

Yes.  This wouldn't be how I'd phrase it, bu this is accurate.  We have reasons for doing it this way, but either way this is how we're going to do it.

GOONS didn't even really exist AFAIK during the time period where that limited logset was released.   We're not here to build trust right now.  We're here to attack you until peace is negotiated.

That's the stance of Coalition A. You want Coalition B to end the war. That means accepting that tS, Coalition B maintains, is not part of Coalition A and must negotiate separately.

Are we negotiating or issuing an ultimatum? This sentence suggests both.  Have we expressed concern over our image?

You can have one, negotiate it and then we'll move onto the next. 

I have mostly tried to avoid calling you out or responding to you out of respect for the rest of your gov who I personally like, but seriously this is your argument?

You aren't negotiating rather you are demanding.  Giving us one term and saying "you have to accept this if you want to see the next one" is not a negotiation it's an ultimatum as @Menhera correctly points out.  Y'all are trying to shove the worst terms in Orbis history down our throats in what was a close war with a rock-solid CB and calling it "negotiations."  Just because you call it negotiation that doesn't make it one.  How peace negotiations actually work is that you one side presents terms that they want to see enacted and the other responds saying "I'm ok with terms 1-3, but term 4 is not ok because X and term 5 isn't ok because of Y."  Then after some discussions, you might compromise on giving up opposition for term 4 in exchange for the omission of term 5.  In an actual negotiation you have discussions and work issues out so that both sides leave unhappy but satisfied.  

Also, no matter how much GOONS deny it, y'all have played a key role in changing the dynamic of this war.  Again, I like you as an alliance, but you have enforced NPO and BK by giving them the firepower they need to be free of war weariness and moderates in their coalition calling for rational actions.  You didn't make or were involved with the disgusting commentary made by your leadership, but nonetheless have allowed it to be carried out.  It's not exactly an easy position to be in, I get it.  I know y'all dispute the circumstances around your original entry into the war, but nonetheless that argument on GOONS doesn't fully function neither.

A final thought is that it was coalition B who originally brought T$ into the war under the guise that their protectorate was an unpeaced Coalition A alliance lead by Boyce.  T$ entered in TEst's defense off of your CB that they were still Coalition A members who "refused to peace out."  Thus its your own diplomatic logic that originally made T$ a part of coalition A unless you consider your CB against TEst invalid.  I, for one, am an advocate of consistency.

[ComradeMilton]

30 minutes ago, Cooper_ said:

You aren't negotiating rather you are demanding.  Giving us one term and saying "you have to accept this if you want to see the next one" is not a negotiation it's an ultimatum as @Menhera correctly points out.

The first term will be negotiated and finalized and then the second will be done in the same way.  Negotiation.

30 minutes ago, Cooper_ said:

 Y'all are trying to shove the worst terms in Orbis history down our throats in what was a close war with a rock-solid CB and calling it "negotiations."  Just because you call it negotiation that doesn't make it one.  How peace negotiations actually work is that you one side presents terms that they want to see enacted and the other responds saying "I'm ok with terms 1-3, but term 4 is not ok because X and term 5 isn't ok because of Y."  Then after some discussions, you might compromise on giving up opposition for term 4 in exchange for the omission of term 5.  In an actual negotiation you have discussions and work issues out so that both sides leave unhappy but satisfied.  

We're doing that, but not permitting various terms to be used against other terms.  How peace negotiations previously used to work (and may again) is as you describe. It is not how it will occur this time.  This time we'll negotiate over each term individually and then move onto the next to negotiate the next.

30 minutes ago, Cooper_ said:

Also, no matter how much GOONS deny it, y'all have played a key role in changing the dynamic of this war.  Again, I like you as an alliance, but you have enforced NPO and BK by giving them the firepower they need to be free of war weariness and moderates in their coalition calling for rational actions.  You didn't make or were involved with the disgusting commentary made by your leadership, but nonetheless have allowed it to be carried out.  It's not exactly an easy position to be in, I get it.  I know y'all dispute the circumstances around your original entry into the war, but nonetheless that argument on GOONS doesn't fully function neither.

It's not an argument. The alliance was not involved in those areas until well after the material leaked. If you truly have access to what you believe are the logs you can tell that very easily. Nothing has been carried out. No alliances have been forced to disband and player attrition doesn't look to have really increased much.

 

[Comrade Marx]

12 hours ago, Cooper_ said:

I have mostly tried to avoid calling you out or responding to you out of respect for the rest of your gov who I personally like, but seriously this is your argument?

You aren't negotiating rather you are demanding.  Giving us one term and saying "you have to accept this if you want to see the next one" is not a negotiation it's an ultimatum as @Menhera correctly points out.  Y'all are trying to shove the worst terms in Orbis history down our throats in what was a close war with a rock-solid CB and calling it "negotiations."  Just because you call it negotiation that doesn't make it one.  How peace negotiations actually work is that you one side presents terms that they want to see enacted and the other responds saying "I'm ok with terms 1-3, but term 4 is not ok because X and term 5 isn't ok because of Y."  Then after some discussions, you might compromise on giving up opposition for term 4 in exchange for the omission of term 5.  In an actual negotiation you have discussions and work issues out so that both sides leave unhappy but satisfied.  

Also, no matter how much GOONS deny it, y'all have played a key role in changing the dynamic of this war.  Again, I like you as an alliance, but you have enforced NPO and BK by giving them the firepower they need to be free of war weariness and moderates in their coalition calling for rational actions.  You didn't make or were involved with the disgusting commentary made by your leadership, but nonetheless have allowed it to be carried out.  It's not exactly an easy position to be in, I get it.  I know y'all dispute the circumstances around your original entry into the war, but nonetheless that argument on GOONS doesn't fully function neither.

A final thought is that it was coalition B who originally brought T$ into the war under the guise that their protectorate was an unpeaced Coalition A alliance lead by Boyce.  T$ entered in TEst's defense off of your CB that they were still Coalition A members who "refused to peace out."  Thus its your own diplomatic logic that originally made T$ a part of coalition A unless you consider your CB against TEst invalid.  I, for one, am an advocate of consistency.

Your coalition allies in TGH provoked us, and the result speaks for itself. You have nobody to blame but yourselves.

[GTI]

I didn't intend this to turn into an argument between players about why the war began, I'm sure I speak for the majority when I ask those running coalitions to stop being so pointlessly stubborn and put an end to this war, regardless of what started it. White peace if nothing else. 

[Prefonteen]

1 hour ago, GTI said:

I didn't intend this to turn into an argument between players about why the war began, I'm sure I speak for the majority when I ask those running coalitions to stop being so pointlessly stubborn and put an end to this war, regardless of what started it. White peace if nothing else. 

Coalition a would love to peace. 

[Guest John Q Listener]

2 hours ago, Prefonteen said:

Coalition a would love to peace. 

Do you speak for Coalition A now? You seem to change your position whenever it's convenient for you. 

[Prefonteen]

Just now, John Q Listener said:

Do you speak for Coalition A now? You seem to change your position whenever it's convenient for you. 

You seem to be slow on the uptake. Let's try again:

 

- I speak for t$

- I represent t$ and its allies (along with others)

- I represent coalition A (along with others)

 

I hope this helped.

[Guest John Q Listener]

1 minute ago, Prefonteen said:

You seem to be slow on the uptake. Let's try again:

 

- I speak for t$

- I represent t$ and its allies (along with others)

- I represent coalition A (along with others)

 

I hope this helped.

Actually it's more about you changing your tune to suit your own ends, but good to finally have you clear that up.